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February 29, 2000, Tuesday

TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

LENGTH: 16699 words

HEADLINE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HERBERT BATEMAN (R-VA) HOLDS HEARING ON ADEQUACY OF FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET REQUEST TO MEET MILITARY READINESS NEEDS; MILITARY READINESS SUBCOMMITTEE, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HERBERT BATEMAN (R-VA), CHAIRMAN

BODY:
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY

READINESS HOLDS HEARING ON ADEQUACY OF THE FY '01 BUDGET

REQUEST TO MEET READINESS NEEDS

FEBRUARY 29, 2000

SPEAKERS: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HERBERT H. BATEMAN (R-VA),

CHAIRMAN

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WALTER B. JONES, JR. (R-NC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB RILEY (R-AL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES V. HANSEN (R-UT)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TILLIE K. FOWLER (R-FL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES M. TALENT (R-MO)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TERRY EVERETT (R-AL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM GIBBONS (R-NV)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DON SHERWOOD (R-PA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON P. ORTIZ (D-TX),

RANKING MEMBER

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE NORMAN SISISKY (D-VA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. SPRATT, JR. (D-SC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE OWEN B. PICKETT (D-VA)

U.S. DELEGATE ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD (DEL-GU)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROD BLAGOJEVICH (D-IL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SMITH (D-WA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES H. MALONEY (D-CT)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ (D-TX)

GENERAL JOHN M. KEANE, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF,

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

ADMIRAL DONALD L. PILLING, VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL

OPERATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

GENERAL LESTER L. LYLES, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF,

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

GENERAL TERRENCE DAKE, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT,

HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS

*

BATEMAN: If the subcommittee would come to order. This afternoon the Subcommittee on Military Readiness is meeting to get a better understanding of current readiness of the military services and to get an assessment of the current and next year's budget request to adequately sustain acceptable levels of readiness.

We have asked the vice chiefs of staff from each of the four military services to give us their views on these issues. The vice chief of staff of each of the military departments is charged with overseeing the day-to-day operations of their respective services.

For the past five years, the Subcommittee on Military Readiness has taken issue with the shortages in the administration's budget proposal in several areas that the subcommittee believes are critical to maintaining readiness in the military services. These areas include base operations support, real property maintenance, depot maintenance, ship repairs and overhauls, operational tempo, quality of life improvements, and mobility enhancement funds.

Between 1994 and 2000, this committee recommended over $10 billion in additional funding to the administration's requests in just these areas. However, this significant additional attention has not corrected the continual shortfalls in these accounts.

One of the reasons for these shortfalls has been continued unscheduled and unbudgeted deployments which have caused severe strain on personnel and equipment. I'm glad to see that, at last this year, funding for all of our current contingency operations has been included.

However, I see on the horizon some contingencies that may just pop up and which aren't included and which, again, can have a very, very detrimental effect on your planning and execution of the budget that we authorize and for which funds are appropriated.

Another reason is the high cost to maintain equipment that is well past its designed usage with little relief in sight. After an initial look at the budget proposal for fiscal year 2001, it would appear that, for the first time in many years, there is growth in the readiness accounts. This is good news, but this growth is primarily a reflection of a significant increase in the price of fuel and for normal inflation.

Setting aside these growth factors, there is very little new money to arrest and turn around the declining readiness problems that are plaguing our military. In addition, the budget before us projects that readiness funding levels will decrease by nearly $2 billion in fiscal year 2002.

BATEMAN: As they have done in previous years, the chiefs of the military services provided the committee with their lists of unfunded priorities for fiscal year 2001 that total $15.5 billion and estimated that the unfunded shortfall in the next five years would be at $84.2 billion.

Even after this committee's addition to the budget request of $3.2 billion last year to reduce the readiness unfunded priorities of the military services, the list continues to grow.

Although the fiscal year 2001 budget request does contain increases in other important areas, such as procurement and military personnel, the allusion that the level of funding for readiness meets all of the services' requirements is overstated. It is beyond my understanding how improvements to military readiness can be met with only inflationary increases, decreases in funding in the coming years, and ever-increasing unfunded requirements that are many billions short in several critical areas.

Another area that has concerned me and many members of the subcommittee, is what the services do with the funds Congress authorizes and appropriates. A recent General Accounting Office report notes that, over a five year period from 1994 to 1998, the Department of Defense changed funding in various O&M accounts by almost $43 billion compared with the amount of money Congress originally designated for those accounts.

Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution requires that Congress provide for the military. I, and the members of the committee, take this responsibility very seriously. I understand that operational needs of the military require the movement of funds during the year of execution, but movements of this magnitude outside of the normal legislative process are clearly not acceptable.

Also unacceptable is the continued -- continual underexecution of funds provided by Congress. As an example, during this same five-year period, the Navy, it is said, underexecuted its ship depot maintenance account by over $1.2 billion. The Air Force underexecuted its primary combat forces account by $988 million. And the Army, in only two years, 1997 and 1998, underexecuted its combat divisions account by $580 million.

These three specific service accounts are considered by DOD to be the most directly related to readiness and have been designated by Congress as high-priority readiness-related accounts. It is my intention to find out why these critical readiness accounts are consistently underspent.

What we would like to hear from our witnesses today is: what has been done with the significant amounts of additional funding provided by Congress to fix readiness, what are the reasons why we are not there yet, and what it will take to not only arrest the decline in readiness, but to provide a permanent, sustainable course of action to return readiness to acceptable levels.

We would also like to hear from our witnesses on their assessment of current readiness and the risks involved in maintaining readiness in the current and projected budget levels.

Because we owe it to the American taxpayer and our military men and women to ensure that there is sound stewardship over the resources that are entrusted to the Department of Defense, the hearing today is especially important. The issues we will discuss today have the potential of affecting military readiness now and into the future.

Our witness today will be -- and we're very pleased and honored to have them with us -- General John M. Keane, Vice Chief of Staff, United States Army; Admiral Donald L. Pilling, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy; General Lester L. Lyles, Vice Chief of Staff, United States Air Force; and General Terrence Dake, Assistant Commandant, United States Marine Corps.

Prior to hearing from our witnesses, I will now yield to the ranking Democratic member of the committee, Mr. Ortiz, for any comments he may choose to make.

ORTIZ: Thank you, Mr.Chairman. I join you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses -- the assorted vice chiefs of staff and the assistant commandant of the United States Marine Corps -- for this hearing today. I thank them for their service to this great nation, and I look forward to their assessments of the readiness posture and funding issues.

As we start the second session of the 106th Congress, I also want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your dedicated and important leadership of the Readiness Subcommittee. I am certain that I speak for my colleagues in saying how much we appreciate your sincere interest in improving the readiness, Mr. Chairman, of our military forces and the impartial manner you have been leading the activities of the subcommittee.

It is very instructive for me to reflect back on my tenure on the Readiness Subcommittee, and I feel compelled at this, our first Readiness Subcommittee hearing of the century, to take a little time to share some of my thoughts and concerns.

First, I remain impressed with the outstanding performance of our uniformed personnel and dedicated civilian personnel. They have performed diligently under some very trying circumstances. Even under the stress of high OPTEMPO and the uncertainty of outsourcing and privatization initiative, they have continued to perform more with less. They deserve all the accolades that we give them, and I am disappointed, though, that we must continue in this century to fight for the overall readiness posture of the force.

Making real and sustainable progress in getting rid of the repair and the spare parts problem or making a dent in the real property maintenance backlog appears to be impossible. Like you, Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about where did it -- did all of this money go. Does the department really consider the readiness account a slush fund? What has been the result of enduring all of these so-called DOD opinionacy initiatives and the congressional axe -- or axe to the budget request.

Notwithstanding all of the new and unnovative -- innovative maintenance concepts and the outsourcing initiative, we are still struggling with the same issues: a poorly maintained infrastructure and a marginally acceptable level of force readiness. To make matters worse, the margin of the acceptable equipment readiness comes on the backs of already overworked personnel.

As we try to understand the adequacy of this budget submission, I hope each of you will address on budget assumptions and considerations that continue to puzzle me, that is how do you incorporate savings on future outsourcing initiatives in the current budget and what would be the impact of that -- of not achieving the savings identified. I also think it would be helpful to share with the subcommittee your experience with achieving the savings that have been projected so far.

I would like to know how the service budget for the conduct of the various outsourcing studies -- have any of you conducted any studies on the impact of the outsourcing initiatives, on the retention and productivity of the civilian work force? Have the initiatives made a difference in attracting the quality and quantity of new workers needed to take care of our aging work force concerns.

Mr. Chairman, the answer to those questions are critical for our understanding of the administration budget request. I am not convinced the department -- that the department has a thorough understanding of the cost consequences associated with some of these reform initiatives. I ask these questions today because the hearing schedule does not permit a separate outsourcing hearing, the session before we mark up the bill. I do believe that any answers they provide us today would be very instructive.

Again, I welcome our distinguished witnesses here today, and I look forward to their testimony and response to the questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BATEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Ortiz.

And now, General Keane and our other witnesses, we have your written statements. They will be made a part of the record in their entirety. And, General Keane, if you would like to proceed, followed by Admiral Pilling and by General Lyles and then General Dake, we'll be happy to hear from you.

KEANE: Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Chairman Bateman, Congressman Ortiz, distinguished members of the Readiness Committee, I'm honored to be here today with my fellow vice chiefs and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and discuss the president's '01 budget request and its -- it's impact on Army readiness.

I also will submit this brief opening statement and then, as -- as we indicated, the much longer version for the record.

I just want to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the committee for your support for Army readiness. During the past five years, you've contributed $741 million to Army readiness over the budget -- over the president's budget request. What that's translated to us is improved readiness that has bolstered our depot maintenance, our training and OPTEMPO, and also our ammunition management programs which support the entire Army.

As Chairman Bateman indicated, the last 10 years have -- have really been very busy years for us since the end of the Cold War. It's simply been one of the busiest times in the last 20th century, and throughout this period, our Army has focused on its primary mission -- that is to train and win its nation's wars -- and our number one priority has been and will continue to be maintaining a trained and ready Army.

By trained and ready, in Army language, we mean C-1 and, traditionally, we've been a C-1 Army, but, frankly, we are not a C-1 Army today. That is not to say that we cannot accomplish all that the nation expects us, but the farther we move away form the C-1 standard, the greater the risk involved and the greater the price we pay in the long term.

You began the reversal of our readiness decline last year. We thank you for that support, and we need your support to continue that momentum. The president's budget request provides the required resources to be -- to meet our most compelling readiness requirements. The budget allows us to fund our ground OPTEMPO accounts at a hundred percent of validated requirements for the active component of the National Guard and the Reserves, and our air OPTEMPO at nearly 100 percent as well.

It is, however, a budget with little flexibility. We've had to make some tough choices with this budget, and there are some areas specifically in real property maintenance and depot maintenance accounts where we are not able to be as proactive as we would like.

Real property maintenance remains underfunded for all three of our components in '01. The budget funds 69 percent of the requirements for the active component, 63 percent for the National Guard, and 75 percent for the Army Reserve. These RPM shortfalls will likely increase the risk of higher future costs due to deferred maintenance and renovation of older facilities.

Depot maintenance support receives a slight boost in '01, but overall depot operations are still only funded at 80 percent of the requirements for the active component and 77 percent for the Reserve component. The shortfall could force us to defer maintenance and upgrades for some of our major combat systems, thereby increasing the likelihood of reduced operational readiness rates and affecting certainly the availability of our equipment for training.

Let me say that, last October, General Shinseki and Secretary Caldera announced the Army's vision for the future, a vision inv -- which involves no less than the complete transformation of our Army into a force that is more strategically responsive and dominant across the full spectrum of our operations. That force will have stressed goals to deploy a combat brigade in 96 hours, a division in 120 hours, and five divisions within 30 days. This budget request allows us to begin the movement towards that transformation.

We have embarked on a journey to make the most dramatic changes to our Army since World War II, to make the Army more responsive today, and to shape our capabilities for tomorrow.

With your help, we intend to do three primary things with this budget. To protect the readiness of the Army, number one. Number two, to provide a quality of life experience for our soldiers and their families. And, number three, to begin the transformation of our Army.

To accomplish all of that, we have submitted our portion of the president's budget and we have also identified $5.4 billion in unfunded requirements that would detract from those three goals.

We appreciate your continued support and your consideration.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to appear today, and I look forward to your questions.

BATEMAN: Thank you, General Keane.

Admiral Pilling.

PILLING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Navy's operations and maintenance budget with you today. Today's Navy is the most capable and ready in the world. Over 45 percent of the fleet is underway today, either deployed or engaged in training for deployment. The men and women of three carrier battle groups and three amphibious- ready groups are in route to or on station in the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Gulf. Another battle group and amphibious group are operating in the Western Pacific.

These Naval forces are maintaining our forward presence and are ready for combat operations if the nation needs them. This is the core of what our O&M budget buys, and with your permission, I'd like to talk about three specific items -- personnel, current readiness, and then recapitalization.

Our readiness depends on our ability to attract and retain high- quality, motivated, and trained sailors, even as the nation's strong economy poses significant challenges in recruiting and retention. Last year's focus on recruiting with the assistance of this committee resulted in the Navy meeting its Fiscal Year '99 recruiting goal. It will take at least this much effort and money to sustain success in recruiting this year.

Retention of sailors, once we recruit them, continues to be a problem. Although we are seeing some improvement as a result of the recent pay and bonus improvements, retention rates in all categories remain below our steady state targets.

Those gains that we have been able to make in recruiting and retention have improved readiness.

The number of gapped at-sea billets has declined from a high of over 18,000 in 1998 to roughly 9,200 today.

Today, the readiness of our deployed forces continues to be satisfactory. This is validated by the impressive performance of our fleet units in Operations Allied Force and Southern Watch. Our non- deployed readiness has always, by design, been lower than that of our deployed forces, because the Navy operates on a cycle of readiness that peaks as a ship or a squadron departs for deployment. The strain of high OPTEMPO, frequent deployments, and aging ships and aircraft is seen in the progressive decline of our force's readiness in between their deployments. O&M funding shortfalls today when they occur have a greater and more rapid impact on non-deployed forces than in the past.

PILLING: In the area of aviation, we have repriced the flying hour program within operations and maintenance to better reflect the increasing costs associated with sustaining our aging aircraft. Aircraft depot maintenance funding is sufficient to ensure that deployed squadrons have 100 percent of the necessary aircraft, while non-deployers have at least 90 percent. Also, as a result of lessons learned in Kosovo, Fiscal Year 2001 includes $23 million in funding for spare parts and equipment necessary to establish one additional EA-6B squadron.

In the area of ship operations, our operations and maintenance funds are adequate to achieve our ship OPTEMPO goals of 50.5 underway days per quarter for deployed ships and 28 underway days per quarter for non-deployed ships. We are concerned with funding for ship depot maintenance, as our fleet commanders are telling us that we have underestimated what it will take to properly support planned availabilities.

The reductions that we had to take in our O&M appropriations as a result of the FY '00 rescission of .52 percent were targeted at real property maintenance to protect the critical fleet flying hour and maintenance accounts. This $120-million reduction will have a serious impact on the readiness of our shore facilities.

Looking to the future, increasing our investment to support the recapitalization and modernization of our Navy is essential to maintaining operational readiness. Adequate readiness can only be sustained in the future with a modernization and recapitalization program that delivers sufficient numbers of technologically superior platforms and systems to the fleet. I remain concerned that we are falling behind in this effort. We need to invest now with a focused and expanded program to maintain superiority through the first half of the 21st century.

Balancing the fiscal and operational needs of today with the defense requirements of tomorrow is a challenging task. We cannot accomplish this alone. We need your continued support.

Mr. Chairman, again, I would like to thank you and this committee for all you have done for the Navy, and I look forward to working with you in the future, and I'll be happy to answer any questions the committee might have.

BATEMAN: Thank you very much, Admiral Pilling.

And now we're pleased to hear from General Lyles.

LYLES: Mr. Chairman, good afternoon. Let me also thank you and Mr. Ortiz and the rest of the members of the committee for your very strong support to all of the services and particularly to the United States Air Force.

I'd like to just make a few comments relative to the readiness posture for the United States Air Force and the many challenges that we face today and certainly into the future.

Nineteen ninety-nine was another banner year for the Air Force. Our forces were deployed throughout the world in various contingencies, starting at the beginning of the year in Desert Fox over the skies of Iraq to Allied Force to the continued operations of Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch and humanitarian operations both here and abroad.

We showed in Kosovo, as an example, that your Air Force, our Air Force was ready when the nation called, as it is today, literally across the world. Today, we have some 9,000 airmen who are stationed throughout the United -- throughout the world and the United States. We have some 250 aircraft that are permanently stationed across the world in various contingencies, and we've been successful in all the different missions that the country has called upon for the United States Air Force.

Yet, in spite of those -- those successes, we still have faced many, many challenges, and those challenges, in some respects, Mr. Chairman, reflect the balanced budget that we tried to put together and reflect in the president's budget. The challenges are in the area of people, readiness, infrastructure, and modernization, and if you don't mind, I'll just briefly make a comment about the first three -- people, readiness, and infrastructure.

We have increased the funding for our readiness posture, particularly for spare support for all of our various programs and all of our supporting activities. We increased the funding in 1999 -- beginning in 1999 to address the shortfalls that we had over the past years. We continued that increase in funding in the Year 2000, and the president's budget for '01 reflects a continuation of that particular posture.

I am optimistic that the sustained funding for readiness will allow us to turn around the readiness decline that we've experienced over the last several years, but we've not yet reached that particular goal. All the indicators -- the leading indicators are very, very positive, but they've not yet reflected in the -- what's happening out in the field and what's happening in the troops that are deployed.

Overall readiness of our major operational units are down 26 percent since 1996 and 11 percent in the last year alone. Today, only 68 percent of our combat units are reporting readiness in the top two categories, C-1 and C-2. That's far short of our goal of 92 percent. Overall, for the United States Air Force, both combat forces and support forces, 82 percent of our forces are at the C-1 and C-2 level. But, again, it doesn't reach the goal of 92 percent.

We're taking a number of steps, Mr. Chairman, to try to reverse this readiness decline.

The first, as I indicated before, is to remedy -- remedy the issue relative to parts shortage. We have funded spares at 100 percent in FY '00, and we reflect that again in the president's budget for '01. We've taken process initiatives and contract initiatives to reduce vendor lead time to make sure we can get the new components that we're procuring out to the field and out to our depots as rapidly as we possibly can. We're making upgrades and improvements in reliability to literally all of our platforms. We have some 279 initiatives totalling $2.8 billion across the FYDP, MPAC, and the F-15 and F-16 engines particularly, the C-5 program, the C-130 program, KC- 135 program, and many, many others.

We're also taking steps to make sure we are addressing the concerns for our people and particularly the expeditionary nature that the Air Force finds itself involved in. Expeditionary Air Force concept that we initiated formally beginning this past fall is proceeding very, very well. We're in the initial steps of our EAF concept, but the CINCs are very, very supportive and so far very, very pleased with everything we're trying to do to support them while giving a better definition to the expeditionary nature of the United States Air Force.

We think, Mr. Chairman, that we have the right fixes and that we're going to turn the mission capability rates around, but we have not reached that yet, and our indicators, though positive, have not shown the results out into the field, and we will continue the emphasis in this particular area.

In the area of people, because of the pace of our operations around the world, we're now today 40 percent fewer than we were 10 years ago, but yet 40-percent increase in OPTEMPO for our people. Our airmen are working harder than ever before, and the strain is beginning to show.

And, Mr. Chairman, thanks to you, this particular committee, and the rest of the Congress, we're beginning to take the positive steps to help our people and particularly those in the field. You've improved the pay and benefit for our airmen last year and for their families, and we thank you graciously for all the things that you've done to help them in that particular area. The compensation package will be a very, very strong benefit toward us being able to support our people with the quality of life that they deserve. And, as I mentioned before, our Expeditionary Air Force is providing both the predictability and the stability to our airmen that they need to accomplish their mission.

Mr. Chairman, another factor in readiness -- it's a very, very complex readiness equation -- is the use of recruiting and retaining good people. In retention and recruitment for the United States Air Force, we're facing the toughest environment that we've had in decades. Our robust civilian economy and the low propensity to enlist for all of our people around the United States have made this a major, major challenge for us, something we've never faced before in the United States Air Force.

In spite of an increase of 600 people last year above what we've normally recruited, we still missed our recruiting goals by about 1,700 people last year, even with the higher goal that we established for ourself. We are already this year so far some 1,700 still short for the numbers we need in FY '00. We are taking actions to try to remedy that particular situation, but enlistment and retention go hand in hand.

Our enlistment retention remains the major concern for us. We're missing our goals in categories -- in all of our categories for first- term enlistments, second-term enlistments, and career enlistments. We've taken a number of steps to encourage our young people to enlist and to stay in the United States Air Force and to make it a career. We've added re-enlistment bonuses. Some 73 percent of the Air Force skills now receive a re-enlistment bonus. That's up from 34 percent in FY '97.

We have a full court press to improve our re -- improve our recruiting skills and recruiting manpower. We are the lowest service in terms of the numbers of recruiters out there in the field, and we're trying to change that for the United States Air Force for now and the future. We are going to be increasing the -- increasing the number of recruiters by some 850 by the -- April of '01 to bring our numbers of recruiters up to about 2,000. Today, we're about 900 or so.

We've also increased TV advertising for the first time for the United States Air Force. Our numbers in FY '99 were up to about $70 million, and for '00 and '01, we're going to be at about the $65- million level to begin advertising and telling the story for the United States Air Force and, again, enticing people to want to recruit and come into the United States Air Force.

And, finally, we've expanded incentives -- incentives so that initial enlisted bonuses are offered now for 100 skills in the United States Air Force. That's up from a low of only four skills just a couple of years ago.

Finally, in the area of infrastructure, though we're making strides to try to stay balanced in terms of our infrastructure funding, we're nowhere near the numbers we need to keep the infrastructure where it should be and to make improvements in the areas that need to be addressed.

The infrastructure is sort of the Peter that ends up being the one we rob to pay for Paul and all the other different areas that we have in our affordability equation for the United States Air Force. As a result of this, our RPM backload -- backlog is growing to about the tune of $4.3 billion. We're at the level now where all we can do is to maintain RPM at literally 1 percent. That's enough to prevent it -- for preventive maintenance only, and it limits us to emergency repairs only as we address our shortfalls.

MILCON levels are steady from where they were last year, but they're one-third of what our validated needs are, and in the area of military family housing, we're taking steps to address the military family housing plan that we presented to Congress last year. This plan was supported by Congress, but we need to make sure we have the funds in the out years to address all the different things we need to make that plan a reality.

The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that readiness is very, very fragile for the United States Air Force. While, like the other services, we will never ever stop short of accomplishing the mission, we will be doing it at higher risk if we can't address some of these issues that I just outlined to you, and we are trying to make sure in our balanced budget that we're trying to address each one of those areas.

Let me close, Mr. Chairman, by just making a comment. I know you just recently returned from a trip to Europe with some of the members of this committee and other members of Congress, and you had an opportunity to address and see and talk to really the secret, if you will, for the success of the United States Air Force, indeed for the other services, and that's our troops out in the field. They're dedicated. They're proud. They're doing everything they can to support the mission and to support this country. Their morale is very high in spite of the challenges that are ahead of us, and they fully appreciate everything that the Congress has been trying to do for them.

What we owe to them is literally the very best in quality of life and equivalent in support and modernized weapons systems that is possible given all of our budget constraints.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you, and I look forward to answering any of your questions. Thank you.

BATEMAN: Thank you, General Lyles.

General Dake.

DAKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ortiz. Thank you for letting me come before this great committee and speak to you about your Marine Corps.

The help which this committee and the Congress gave the Marine Corps this past year was very much appreciated. It represented a turn in what had been a long decline in the funding for the Marine Corps in many ways. There's more to be done, and we look forward to working with this committee and members of the Congress to take on that future load.

The Marine Corps is ready. We're a force in readiness as you've directed us to be. We've balanced our readiness across four pillars, and it is a balancing act, as we do that.

DAKE: The first pillar is our people, the Marines and their families. Today, the commanding general of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command told me that we would make our recruiting goals for the 56th month in a row, and we would do it by the end of this day. This is a leap year, and I have to say we're glad we have an additional day in February in which to make those goals because recruiting continues to be a very tough business and one in which we are engaged heavily throughout the Corps from top to bottom.

We believe also that the things which this committee was instrumental in doing, such as retirement, fixing -- the pay table reforms, the pay raises -- I travel around the Corps -- it means a great deal to Marines and their families. If there is something that may be done in that area, they would tell you that TRICARE or the medical care is of a concern to them, and I'm sure you've heard those same things in your travels.

The second pillar of our readiness is our legacy equipment. You spoke about it earlier, Mr. Ortiz, when you spoke out older equipment that is aging and taking longer to repair, and we do so, in maintaining the readiness, on the backs of our Marines. It takes us longer, but it also costs us more to repair that same equipment. In many cases, the parts which we need to repair it is no longer made by any contractor, and it takes them to retool and them time for all of those parts then to appear to improve our readiness.

But having said that, our readiness has improved. We are at 92 percent on the ground for Marine ground equipment readiness, and we have arrested the decline in the aviation side, particularly on our helicopter aviation. So we remain a force in readiness on those accounts.

We look for ways in which we can find an economy of force, as you will, to take care of the legacy equipments. One, the Rock Island ALC, is remanufacturing. We are remanufacturing our AAVs. We are remanufacturing our -- some of our trucks. We're buying new trucks as well as the second version of the Humvees. We're looking for ways in which we can make it easier to maintain and yet find a cost-effective way to bridge the gap to modernization in those accounts.

The third pillar is infrastructure. This, too, is where we have taken money and put it into our readiness accounts so that we can meet the mandate of the Congress to be a force in readiness.

We have some good news. Each year, we have put more than $50 million into our BEQs, and by 2004, there will be no Marines that will live either in a squad bay type of barracks nor use a gang head. Those are good news items.

We have arrested the decline and backlog of maintenance of real property, which was headed to be a billion dollars by 2003. That is now arresting steadily. However, it still remains at $685 million of backlog in maintenance and -- and repair, which we have insufficient funds to work off in that period.

We also look at our family housing. We will have -- all of the family housing that needs to be refurbished and repaired will be completed by 2010, and that's one of the things that we are looking to increase as we work our infrastructure over the next years.

There is one infrastructure item which we would like to take on with the Congress this year, and that is the funding for the procurement of the Blount Island Command. Blount Island is a port off of the East Coast -- it's in Florida -- that, in fact, is used to refurbish and repair our equipments and support our maritime prepositioning. This is the equipment that gives us the sustainability in near real time as we put Marines wherever they are around the world into combat or operations that will use the equipments aboard those ships.

In the larger context, for the nation, that item represents the busiest port during Desert Shield and Desert Storm that loaded more ships out than any other East Coast port. We believe it's not only a Marine Corps asset but a national asset, and we enjoin you to work with us and take on the procurement of that particular command.

Our final pillar is modernization. Modernization is really long- term readiness. It is really the final answer to the legacy systems on how you combat the -- the readiness degradation that they represent.

We're looking at long-term readiness. Our premier programs on the ground side is our AAAV. On the air side, it's MV-22 and Joint Strike Fighter, and those continue.

We're also looking to do things at the mandate of the commandant which is fix artillery. We're looking for the Lightweight 155 as a program that would be our modernization in artillery and others as we vamp our plans.

In the war fighting areas, the commandant has brought back the Marine Expeditionary Brigade. In conversations and meetings with the CNA and the commandant sponsoring Navy-Marine Corps leadership meetings, we have come away with the Marine Expeditionary Brigade. It is what I call the middleweight fighter that bridges the gap between our MEUSOC, which is a battalion-level force, and our MEU OPS, which are a division-level force. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which comes with its own ground, its air, and a sustainability for 30 days, is a potent force that the commandant is bringing back.

We have many good things that we are working on in this year, much to the credit of this committee and the Congress that we have had funding beyond that which we have seen in the past. However, there is more to go. I look forward to working with the Congress on that, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

BATEMAN: Thank you very much, General Dake.

Thank you, all.

The last quarterly readiness report that the committee has received is for the period ending September 30th of last year. We've now had another quarter ending December the 31st. Has that quarterly readiness report been completed and in your hands?

KEANE: Yes, sir. It's been completed, and I was told it was leaving the building either yesterday or today. I think -- and, clearly, we can do better at -- at providing that report to you. We truly understand that.

BATEMAN: I've been anxiously awaiting it, and I don't understand why we would have to wait that long, and I'm almost embarrassed to have to ask when we're going to receive it. So, please, expedite that.

KEANE: Well, the Army -- just to be up front with you, we're -- our portion of that -- we've been late seven out of the last 10 quarters, and we're going to fix it. That's the conversation I had with you in your office. We intend to do something about it.

BATEMAN: All right. Thank you, General.

Your statements and the written versions that I reviewed last evening are all replete with shortfalls in many accounts, none perhaps as significant as your real property maintenance accounts. Did I hear for the Air Force that there is a $4-billion backlog of real property maintenance?

LYLES: When you look in the aggregate, Mr. Chairman, that's -- that's the true money. That reflects a decline or lack of funding for real property maintenance, RPM, over the last four or five years, and what we project for the future.

The funding we had last year, the funding we have in the budget this year keeps us at or gets us to a 1-percent real property maintenance level, if you will. It allows us to do emergency repairs, to sustain things, but it doesn't allow us to make the kind of major changes you need to literally turn that situation around.

We will not allow people to sit in leaky buildings, as an example, but we won't be able to fix the roof completely or to replace the roof, and those -- those are the kind of things that we're going to be facing with that kind of funding level.

BATEMAN: Well, I -- I have difficulty understanding why people aren't yelling and screaming and banging their fist on the table if you've got those kinds of problems and they continue to be unfunded year after year after year. It appalls me to have senior military leaders leave my office with almost a tone of "Gee, whiz, this is getting so much better. I'm going to get 69 percent of requirements in this budget."

I don't think 69 percent of identified requirements is acceptable, and I hope you're going to help the committee with the administration and with the American people to understand that you're -- you have vital needs which are being unfunded, and we cannot do this for you unless you help us, and the way you can help us is being very forthcoming and high profile in asserting that the need is there.

I'm going to suspend and -- before I get more frustrated and recognize Mr. Ortiz.

ORTIZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of questions for General Keane. Maybe he can help me.

You know, for the Army to recapitalize its air and ground fleet, it would appear logical that the Army also would need to recapitalize its repair and maintenance depots where recapitalization work will take place. What are the Army's plans to recapitalize the infrastructure, equipment, and facilities at Corpus Christi Army Depot in order to recapitalize the Army aviation fleet? Maybe you can give me a little...

KEANE: Mr. Congressman, you know that we -- we do have a recapitalization effort taking place with development of our Longbow Apache helicopter and some improvements we'll be making to the CH-47. And, quite frankly, we're looking very hard at an elimination of the AH-1 Cobra and the UH-1 because they're Vietnam-era aircraft as well.

In reference to your question about depots and specifically Corpus Christi, those -- the depots are funded out of the Army working capital fund, and the -- their RPM, if you will, or recapitalization effort comes from the rates that they are charging in terms of the repair and maintenance that they're conducting at those facilities, and those are competitively established, as you know. So that -- that is where the monies come from to do repair and maintenance in those facilities.

Let me just be up front with you. We have no absolutely no intention of letting that depot decay so that the infrastructure falls down around it and then the Army says, "This is too tough. We've got to walk away from it." That's not our intent. Our intent is to make certain that that facility continues to function and that the -- the facility is adequate to meet the needs of those great people that work in -- work in that facility.

ORTIZ: You know -- and I think if I am -- if I am -- correct me if I'm wrong, it would take about $400 million to repair all those Apaches that would have to be repaired. Is that cost now -- is that going to be included in your supplemental to make up the cost that it took, because I don't think that the money was spent was in the budget.

KEANE: That's correct. The money is not in the budget. The money is in the -- is in the supplemental, and it's also identified as unfunding -- unfunded requirements, part of the $5.4 billion that we have as an unfunded requirement.

ORTIZ: Very good.

I have some other questions, but let me also pass to some of the other members, and I'll come back around for an extra...

BATEMAN: Next, Mr. Hansen.

HANSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I hope you realize that General Lyles will be the commander of Air Materiel Command in a short time. He used to be the commanding officer of and congratulations to General Lyles because I don't know a more capable fellow that could do it -- or officer.

You know, General Lyles, if I may ask you, or any of the other folks who are there, you know some of the extreme environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit that would prohibit any overflights under 2000 feet, and they have wisely done it in Washington, D.C., because of a certain judge that goes along with them on about everything, if I may so, and tell me what effect if they are granted that until a NEPA or EIS statement is done -- and the length of time of those -- and I'm sensitive to this as chairman of the committee on public lands -- it would take a whale of a long time and cost big, big bucks. What effect would that have on readiness if they are successful? What if the judge grants them that?

LYLES: Well, Congressman Hansen, as you well know, the -- one of the major elements to readiness is training -- proper training for our people, particularly to prepare them to go in harm's way situations, as an example. We depend on the ranges that we have -- all the ranges -- test ranges, development ranges, training ranges -- to be the element that allows us to train our forces to go to any sort of scenario they may have to face.

If we're faced with a situation where we can't provide adequate flying at the right kind of levels, elevations to do the proper training, that would tremendously, tremendously impact our ability to support readiness factors for our -- for our forces.

The ranges are getting fewer and fewer as it is, and the numbers and the encroachment sort of threats are becoming more and more of a viable concern to all of us, and we are trying to do everything we can to protect and make sure we keep them at least where they are today if not the ability to expand them in the future.

HANSEN: Would the admiral -- I guess you would have some of those same concerns the Navy Air?

PILLING: Yes, sir. I mean, we have requirements for our pilots to be able to do low-level flights as part of the training syllabus.

HANSEN: And I'm sure the Marines -- you're dragging your wheels through the grass all the time, aren't you? Isn't that part of your work?

DAKE: Very much an important part of what we do.

HANSEN: You'll support us if this committee sees fit to do something to remedy that problem, I would hope.

DAKE: That's correct. Yes, sir.

HANSEN: General Lyles, let me ask you one more if I could.

As you know, Secretary Peters has issued a waiver to the 50-50 legislation which may be necessary to support the transition of workloads from the closing of Kelly McClellan ALCs. I discussed this with the secretary. I -- I agreed with the decision.

However, on closer investigation, I am somewhat concerned that some of the folks in the Air Force don't see it the same way the secretary sees it and that any problem with the Air Force may have in complying with the 50-50 is not with the transition workload but rather part of a much deeper problem.

In fact, in -- an Air Force Materiel Command letter signed only two weeks ago states that, quote, "These bridge contracts merely represent a symptom of a much larger problem and should not be the only justification to support the Air Force waiver of the 50-50 -- 50- percent limitation." It goes on to say the problem is much larger and the extend is beyond FY '00. The letter identifies the much greater problem as, quote, "the general trend to move logistics support to the private support and increasing cost of contracting interim logistic support."

HANSEN: Now I know you're not the commander there yet, General, and this is -- this doesn't fall under your watch, but I'm just kind of curious -- can you kind of tell the committee whether the Air Force problem complying with the 50-50 law is, indeed, much deeper and long term than is -- than is indicated by this recent waiver request?

LYLES: Congressman Hansen, I think the answer and the comments that you heard from Secretary Peters are really the corporate right strategy for the United States Air Force. That is we believe in 50- 50. We're going to do everything we can to make sure we don't violate the law.

I just became aware of that letter that you referred to just -- just today, and we need to go back to make sure that all of our people understand that this is something that we are serious about, and we are going to -- already have initiated the sort of processes to make sure you look at any sort of activity that could potentially move workload and give us a situation where we knowingly -- or even unknowingly -- violate the law.

The bridge contracts were a situation, I think, everybody understands. We were somewhat forced into that situation because of the readiness posture in part. We literally -- literally underestimated what it would take to move the workload from -- from Kelly and also from Sacramento. The bridge contracts allowed us to remedy that situation and help our readiness.

We cannot allow any systemic sort of processes out there to take the workload away from us and violate the 50-50. So we will be watching that very, very closely. I know who signed that letter, and I will be talking to that individual very soon.

HANSEN: Mr. Chairman, could I have another question?

BATEMAN: Certainly.

HANSEN: Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral, a great concern in my mind -- and I guess it's because of my visits to Puerto Rico as the chairman of the Public Land and Park Committee -- is this problem in -- of Vieques. Do you have another place, you or the General, where you train with live fire in cordoned areas on the East Coast.

PILLING: Well, we can do all of the combined training...

HANSEN: The whole combined...

PILLING: Yes, sir. There is no place else that we know of on the East Coast. We have commissioned a study by the Center for Naval Analysis to look at alternatives, if we have to leave Vieques as a result of the referendum which takes place next year.

HANSEN: Is that a -- is it a true statement then that you're sending out people that really haven't passed the final test, so to speak, in your carrier battle groups and your marine people. Would that be a correct statement?

PILLING: They are -- we have three destroyers that have just deployed in the battle group that's on it way into the Mediterranean. They're on their way up to Cape Braithe (ph) -- Cape Brath (ph) in Scotland to try and finish up the Naval surface fire support that they couldn't do at Vieques. They're up there now, there are 15-foot seas, and it doesn't look like it's going to be a very easy task for them to get qualified up there. So we are not getting the training we need.

HANSEN: No disrespect to the kind of agreement that you folks were working with out the folks from Puerto Rico, but there's 48 states that we do live firing in right now, and I would feel it would be a terrible precedence if we have to now take a vote on live firing on where you can and cannot do it, as if the -- we follow along with the suggestion that has been put forth. I was down there at one time as chairman of Pubic Lands and Parks, and a large developer said, "I can't see a place in the Caribbean that would be greater than this," to put in beautiful beaches and all that type of thing. I hope those folks down there don't get the idea that they're headed that way.

I personally feel this is a grave mistake on the part of the administration and it should be put back just as it was prior to that time, and I further think the Justice Department is making a terrible mistake when you've got people that are trespassing in an area that they don't go out there and tell them they can't obey the law. I mean, that would happen any other place.

As General Lyles knows, just west of the Ogden Air Logistics Center, we have an area called the Youth Contest (ph) and Training Range. It's huge. It's one of the biggest ones around. Clear airspace to 58,000 feet. Now, recently, some of the environmental people are saying, "Well, we ought to go out there and camp there. They won't throw us off." If they did that, we'd just about close down Hill Air Force Base because what could we do.

I -- I can't believe, Mr. Chairman -- I say it respectfully -- that this administration is not going down there and making people obey the law, and I further can't believe that they're going to the point that they're going to say, "Fine. You can vote on it, and if you vote to let us bomb you, we'll give you $40 million." Well, my goodness, the island itself is probably worth $200 million or $300 million, and, frankly, I think this committee or the -- or the committee ought to do something that is more dynamic to put this situation back as it was prior to this political fiasco we've got into.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Is that clear enough?

BATEMAN: I would take issue with the gentleman in one respect. You said you would respectfully disagree. I'm not even...

HANSEN: If that's not respectful enough, I apologize.

BATEMAN: I'm not even going to...

HANSEN: I apologize.

BATEMAN: I am not respect in my disagreement with the ridiculous position that this administration has taken and the incredible mess that we've gotten ourselves into vis-a-vis Vieques, and it's as bad as, I believe, we're giving them $40 million. If they vote to let us bomb, they will then give them $50 million more. There is no other place that's under the sovereignty of the United States of America where our national security needs require a local referendum of voters before our national security interests can be pursued and protected. I think it's outrageous, just as the gentleman from Utah did.

But we'll pass on now to Mr. Pickett.

PICKETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome. Good to have you here today.

The quality of life issue for our people is very important because it has a lot to do with retention and recruiting, and we talk a lot about particular things of housing and health care and the -- the resale system, commissary system, and things of that sort.

One thing that hasn't gotten much attention in recent years, I think, is the DODDS School system for the military families that are stationed overseas, and -- how do you all believe that this is working, and what kind of feedback are you getting from the military people whose children are attending these schools?

KEANE: Sir, I'll lead off, if -- if you'd like. We've had feedback on the DODDS School system. It -- it runs a spectrum. Our soldiers in -- and families in Korea feel the school system is adequate. Our soldiers and families in Europe have challenges with the school system.

The staffing, they indicate, is not what it should be. They also indicate that some of the facilities that -- that they're having to send their children in are decaying and are not the kind of adequate facilities that you would want to send American children to school in.

The CINC in the European command -- I don't want to speak for him, but I will tell you that he -- that he came forward as part of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and solicited support from the -- from the services for the DODDS School system and identified to the services some of the problems that I just enumerated to you, sir.

LYLES: Mr. Pickett, I -- let me speak for the Air Force respective. I think the schools and the quality of the schools is a very, very important dimension for quality of life for our people overseas, and it's an area that our commanders over there are trying to address and address in a very aggressive manner.

We are very, very pleased that our two commanders -- primary commanders overseas, former General Johnny Jumper who used to be the commander in U.S. Air Forces in Europe, and General Pat Gamble in the Pacific, both have taken strong initiatives to try to define a school improvement program. That's not the formal title, but that's essentially what it's all about.

And it contains essentially four dimensions. Making sure we have the right kind of technologies in our schools so that they can be up to date and get the right kind of information and teaching quality to our students. To make sure that the teacher ratio -- teacher-to- student ratio is appropriate. We want it be no worse than 18 to 1 which is sort of a national standard. It has been a lot worse than that in the past. To make sure we have proper accountability for the -- for the teachers, that they are properly certified. And to make sure that we are watching this and watching it literally almost on a daily basis.

They've made great strides as a result of this sort of school improvement program, and we now are going to make sure that we continue to support it and start monitoring and matching funds to support that every year, and it's part of our program.

PILLING: Sir, as you know, the Navy presence overseas -- the permanent presence overseas isn't very great, but our -- in referring to the JROC review that General Keane mentioned, the staff sort of used several metrics to look at the schools, particularly in Europe because that was where the CINC was -- the CINC over there was complaining about it.

And on the metrics of scores on tests and cost per student, the DODDS Schools overseas were better than the average in the United States. They were not as good as Fairfax County, and so that was where the rub is. The CINC clearly would like them to be as good as you'd find in a relatively well-off part of this country.

PICKETT: OK. Thank you very much. I don't know if you want to add anything.

DAKE: I would only add, in Okinawa where the preponderance of the Marines are forward deployed, the DODDS Schools are very important to us. My children went to those. I have a boy and a girl. They graduated from those schools. So it's important and high quality at least in the Pacific. We don't have any experience with the...

PICKETT: I know that there's been some comments about the backlog in the maintenance of real property, and there appears to be a continuation of a backlog in having available enough spare parts, and there is -- also appears to be a backlog in the depot maintenance in all the services.

But I'd like to ask each of you if you were to be able to get more funding for your respective services, where -- what would be your first priority for funding in the Year 2001, and I say that -- in looking at this three-year comparison I see here, it looks like it's been pretty nearly at flat level funding over the past three years.

I don't see how you're making it when you take into account the inflation, even though inflation is perceived to be modest. I don't know how you all can make it from year to year on the same dollar amount. But could you tell me what your first priority would be if you get more funds?

KEANE: Yes, sir. Well, our first priority overall would be in the readiness account to buy back -- one to bring our BASOPs to -- up to a hundred percent, although it's funded higher this year than it has been in the past, our RPM, and also our depot maintenance account.

We're losing in the RPM business, frankly. The industry standard, I -- I think as everyone knows, is about 3 percent to recapitalize, and for the Army, it's somewhere around 1 percent, and we can't keep up with it, is frankly the issue.

And I know Congressman Bateman mentioned a 60 -- the 69 percent. That's the Army number. Believe me, we -- we would like to make that number higher, but given the other things that we must do as well and try to balance an Army budget with the -- with the programs that we have to fund, it's -- it's a tough choice. So our only answer, to be quite frank about it, is you have to increase our top line to get there. We can't get there within this budget.

PICKETT: Admiral Pilling.

PILLING: Probably our first priority would be increasing resources for recruiting and retention, but, of the three categories that you mentioned, I think spares, in particular aviation spares, would be at the top of the list. Second would be depot maintenance. And the third priority for us would be real property maintenance. The first two are much more closely tied to deployed readiness, which, as you know, is where we put our emphasis on readiness.

LYLES: Congressman Pickett, I guess our -- our response would be very much in line with our unfunded priority list. The number one thing on that list is retention and recruiting initiatives, about $60 million that we're asking for on the UPL, primarily because that's such a major dimension of readiness and a part of readiness that we don't usually think about.

The other major items that are part of the UPL are base operating support, which is the day-to-day operations of our installations and facilities, and then RPM, which is another major dimension for, again, readiness and certainly the infrastructure backlog that you talked about earlier.

What's not reflected in our top 10 for our unfunded priority list are spares, and the reason why is because, with the help of Congress, we put about a billion dollars over the last year or so in getting our spares numbers back up, both in terms of Kosovo supplemental, additional money that the Air Force and the Congress put to -- towards spares, and we're not waiting for the turnaround and the results of the spares increase that we funded over the last two years. We've put a premium -- higher premium on RPM, base operating support, and recruiting and retention because of that previous funding of the spares account.

PICKETT: General.

DAKE: Sir, we have a -- an unfunded priority list of $1.4 billion in '01. It's spread across those four areas which I spoke about, our personnel accounts, and in there I'm talking everything from recruiting through the -- those accounts, our infrastructure, which has been a (INAUDIBLE) for our readiness. In many cases, it's possible it's O&M that has been a problem. We've taken it from accounts and moved it into our readiness accounts to keep our readiness high. Modernization is our long-term readiness. We do believe in, of course, our legacy system. So $1.4 billion is spread across those four pillars.

PICKETT: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BATEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Pickett.

Mr. Riley.

RILEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I -- gentlemen, it's good to see you again. I've got one question for General Keane.

General Keane, we're about to make this transformation to a medium-armored vehicle that you and I talked about in my office a few weeks ago. But with the level of procurement the way it is today, the shortfall that we have across the board in all the services today, how do you plan on funding that, or do you essentially plan to take some of the existing equipment that we have out there now and modify it and make it into that medium category?

KEANE: We recognized the need we had to change and get a more responsive source so we could move strategically. And the issue is how do you fund it.

We had to take a look at our own equipment infrastructure and make some touch choices in our modernization program, and we recommended to the Congress the kill of seven systems. They were the palm years. So they'd give us some of the funding to start this program up and also the restructuring of two programs, most notable the crusader program and our forward scout combat system. That was part of the strategy.

The other part of the strategy was to obtain from Department of Defense and the administration at least half the dollars to help get us started, and that contract was established. So that gets us going in the early years.

Our challenges will still continue to be there because while there are savings from those programs that we're recommending termination for, most of the savings in those programs does not come to the later years where the acquisition of those pieces of equipment lie. Right now, a lot of those programs still are in R&D so there's not as much money there.

In the later years, it starts to pay for itself with the termination of those systems.

So we're in a struggle, to be quite frank about it, to transform this Army with the kind of budget numbers that we have and we're willing -- we had to do some of that, obviously, out of our own hide to be able to do it, to be quite frank about it. And every single one of those was a touch choice, because obviously we had a requirement for those programs, and we never would have submitted that request to the Congress to begin with.

RILEY: Do we have equipment out there that's available today? And it seems like it just makes sense if you could take some of the equipment we have today, modify it, bring it back on line. You could do it not only cheaper, you could also do it faster. I don't know that we have the time to make that deployment or that change in our Armies.

KEANE: That's a good question. We clearly are looking to design an objective force for the future, and we're putting that objective force in research and development right now and providing some monies to do that, and also with the help of DOPPER (ph), we hope to get some technology answers in the '03 time frame, and then produce the objective force in 2012.

What we're doing now is trying to acquire some of the characteristics of that force in the near-term with off-the-shelf technology. But we made a decision ourselves is what we wanted was a fair and open competition. And we did not want to predispose ourselves to any of the technologies that exist out there, to include some of those that we have been using ourselves, like 113 armored personnel carriers that have been in the Army ever since I've been a part of it.

So the companies that have owned those legacy systems, if you will, are part of this competition that we intend to take place in May and June, and also others who are providing other types of capabilities; for example, real capability solutions to achieve this overall capability that we're looking for.

We wanted fair and open competition in an attempt to get the best available that's out there. That was our thought process. By doing that, it's taken us a little longer to get to that May-June competition, but we think in the long run it will better serve our soldiers and the American people if we have that fair and open competition.

RILEY: One area that I -- Mr. Chairman, if I can -- that I hope you will look at is we open this up to open and fair competition, I hope that the depots will be included in that competition. One of the things that I particularly hope you will do is look at the pardoning arrangements we have, like the Aim 21 program in Addison, where you would combine the best of both worlds, and I think it is very, very effective.

So I would encourage you as you go through this process to tell everyone that is going to be participating in this competition to look at the options of partnering, the way we did in Addison on Aim 21. I think it's a wonderful program.

KEANE: Sir, we agree with you. Something that does not receive much notoriety with the transformation strategy, because inside the Army, to a larger degree and maybe even outside it, we're a platform- centric organization At times we can't help ourselves. We just have a tendency to look at these platforms that we have and which new ones we're trying to acquire.

But an important part of the transformation is recapitalization of our legacy force, and principally I'm talking about increased lethality for our light forces and recapitalization of our heavy armored force.

We have made what we think is a critical decision, and that is to take the Abrams tank back to zero hours and zero miles. In other words, we're going to redo that tank except for its hull, and obviously it'll be digitized as well. We see that tank being around for the next 20 years, to be quite frank about it, as well as the supporting systems that are around it, in support of the Abrams tank.

So we intend to recapitalize a portion of our heavy armored force to make certain that we still continue to have that kind of overmatch if we have to go toe-to-toe with an adversary who has that kind of capability. We want to make certain that America has an Army that can defeat anybody else's Army with that kind of capability.

RILEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BATEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Riley.

Admiral Pilling, as recently as Sunday I was on one of the PC3s, land-based PC3s that you make reference to in your written statement. I want you to look into something for me.

PILLING: Sure.

BATEMAN: On at least that one, and I don't know whether it's characteristic of all of them, the toilet in the plane doesn't function, and there's some work-around substitute for it, and some of the most enormously skilled and talented people you have fly on that plane for up to 12-hour flights during their mission, and some of them are women. And this is a preposterous result

Even if it ends up with a scandal of an $800 toilet seat, something needs to be fixed. Would you look into that for me?

PILLING: Absolutely, sir.

BATEMAN: Mr. Ortiz.

ORTIZ: Thank you. I have a question that maybe Admiral Pilling and General Dake can assist me.

I've been monitoring the tragic accident that occurred in Vieques and as we look to what the proposal has been, and you know when you have a lemon all you can do is make lemonade, and this is where we're at right now.

But what about the $40 million that is going to be used for Vieques now? Is that coming out of OMB account, your overhaul maintenance account, or is that a supplemental? How are you going to work those $40 million?

PILLING: As I understand it, none of those dollars are in the Defense budget, they're all in the budgets of the other agencies such as commerce and transportation. They're all focused and targeted on infrastructure on the Island of Vieques.

ORTIZ: That answers my question, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any.

BATEMAN: Mr. Hansen.

HANSEN: I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Keane, maybe you could help me on an issue. Yesterday I was out in the west and was talking to an officer of one of the reserve units. He got into this question of retention and the recruitment, and he said, I really can't understand this. He said, they have lowered the test of mental agility, or whatever you call that. But he said on physical, he said, I have these guys, and he said I'm always pulling out forms because they can't do -- and he listed, and I can't remember what it was, what they had to do in a six-month period. And they had two shots at it, and if they didn't make it they were out the door. So many pushups, had to run two miles in such an area. I can't remember all of that.

And so we talked about it for a while, and he said, what if they had 10 shots at it? He said, I think some of them could have made it. But he should we just have those two, and he said so they can't do three more pushups or sit ups in that length of time so why do we cut them out? He said, if I gave them more tries they could probably make it.

I'm sitting there wondering. I'm sure there's got to be lines drawn somewhere, and you don't want to throw -- you've got to make some things. I remember when I was in boot camp when I was 18 years old, they were pretty strong on some of those things, and we all had to pass. That was fine. It was kind of enjoyable when you're in the peak of your capacity. But some of these guys don't do those things, especially in the Reserve units.

I just wondered why you lower one but you keep another one high like that with some folks that can't quite make it.

Now speaking out of the other side of my mouth -- I know I sound like a politician here -- but I was also talking to an instructor pilot for helicopters in the Army, and he said he'd been instructed to lower the grades he would normally give so he didn't flunk as many guys out.

Now you've got to help me here. Am I wrong on both those counts?

KEANE: Well, Mr. Congressman, I don't know for sure, I'll tell you the truth. What I can tell you is is certainly mental agility standards are not being lowered.

Secondly, physical training standards are very important to an Army, as you can well imagine. We have to have certain levels of physical strength and stamina to meet the requisites of the battlefield.

We clearly administer to our people on a periodic basis a physical training test to ensure that they're meeting those standards, and if they fail it, we give them a reasonable period of time so they can pass this test, and also we give them some counseling to ensure they understand what's at stake here.

I'll be more than happy to take a look at what's taken place with this organization, and maybe we could speak privately about who the organization is so I could focus in on it a little bit better.

HANSEN: Excuse me, General. But he says he's losing five percent of his group every year. Five percent, because they can't do three more pushups or something. You don't agree with that?

KEANE: I can't speak to that. I have no specific knowledge of it.

I will tell you this. I'm not going to hide this from you. We have more challenges with American youth today than what we used to have in terms of their physical strength when they come to us. A lot of them are overweight and a lot of them do not meet acceptable physical standards, and that's what basic training is all about. And then we have to maintain and sustain those standards over time.

Now for the most part, we're being very, very successful in doing that. I'd have to take a look at this thing and focus in on it to give you a much better answer than what I can here today, sir.

HANSEN: Are you lowering the standards at all on people who are flying aircraft or helicopters, these expense airplanes we're buying?

KEANE: I have no knowledge of that. The only thing that we -- we did do this: the last couple years we did cut back on the number of flight hours, flying hours, that it was taking to graduate as a pilot in the Army. We are correcting that. And we have discovered that what we wound up doing for ourselves is burdening the receiving unit, and they had to compensate by doing some additional individual pilot training that we reduced in flight school -- initial entry flight school in the Army.

That's the only standard that I'm aware of that we moved away from, and we're putting that back where it was. In our judgment, it was a mistake.

The other I'm not familiar with at all. I'm not suggesting it may not have happened, but I just don't know the facts of it.

HANSEN: Thank you.

LYLES: Congressman Hansen, we have not lowered any standards either for the Air Force, obviously, especially for our pilots and the kind of training that they have to go through.

But even though we're strapped for recruiting, we have also taken a stand that we're not going to reduce the standards for our enlisted folks coming into the United States Air Force. We've been challenged as to why our rate for acceptance of graduate GEDs are lower than the other services, but we have made a conscious decision that we want 98 percent of our people coming in, our enlisted force, to have high school diplomas, not GEDs, only two percent GEDs. And we decided to stick to that, even though it would give us some marginal increase to our recruiting numbers if we were to lower it down to 95 percent, as an example.

We think it's the right thing to do, given the technical complexity of all the things we're trying to do in the United States Air Force, and we're going to stick by that, at least for the time being.

HANSEN: General Dake?

DAKE: Yes, sir. I'd like to address a bit what we call the first-term enlisted plan. People come in for a four-year enlistment, we are concerned about the number of them which actually complete at that full four years.

We have reduced those. We had about 58 percent of the Marine Corps is in our first term. We're a very young force. Eight thousand a year, 8,000 people, not each year but 8,000 in our first term failed to complete it for various reasons. It could be physical fitness, it could be humanitarian, it could be a lot of other reasons why people do not make it through that first term of enlistment.

We think that's very important that we increase that. We've actually reduced that attrition by 22 percent. We think that's a combination of things that we have strengthened rather than reduced standards, and we've strengthened things like the Crucible in our recruit training, that we have looked to the commanders to be more involved, so that if there's a problem of a Marine in their command that they personally get involved to make sure that everything is in fact done not just by regulation but also by that which makes sense to the readiness of their command.

So we believe that 22 percent reduction equates to 1,800 Marines, which in our recruiters is about two battalions worth of Marines that we keep now, that over the past five years we would have been losing by those same rates. So it's important thing to have this first-term enlistment, that they complete that, and we believe if you work hard at it and give command attention you can make a difference. And we've done that without lowering any standards.

PILLING: If I could just comment on the Navy. The only thing we have changed on entry standards in the last couple of years was during the draw down as we were getting smaller, we required 95 percent of our recruits to have high school degrees. When we finished the draw down, we went back to the DOD standard, which we had maintained all through the '80s, of 90 percent high school degree graduates.

On PRT, physical readiness standards, we are changing our program. Right now, you take your test every six months, and if you have three failures in four years, last year we would have thrown you out. That's three failures in four years. It's a year-and a half process. We're going to change that this year to three failures in four years means you can't re-enlist but you stay until the end of your enlistment.

HANSEN: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BATEMAN: General Keane, during the course of the weekend, I met with a warrant officer in the Army, and if my recollection of the facts is correct, he was in Kosovo detached from his unit during the course of a three-year tour in Germany, but six months of that tour he will spend in Kosovo. He expressed a concern and a negative factor in whether or not he would be willing to stay in the service, that he would expect to go to another short tour, i.e., probably Korea, because he had a long tour in Germany.

Now if that is anything like accurate, the Army needs to be refining the way it's looking at its personnel for purposes of reassignments, because a three-year tour in Germany, six months of which is in the worst of circumstances in Kosovo, is not exactly the kind of thing that you then want to send a guy off onto another hardship tour.

So I hope the Army would be looking at that kind of reassignment of policy and not perhaps just assuming that everybody who got a tour in Germany is equal to everyone else who had a tour that was supposed to have been in Germany but ended up with part of it being somewhere else.

KEANE: Yes, sir. I thank you for that question.

And, by the way, just many thanks for the time you spent with our troops in Bosnia. I know that you probably don't want any personal acknowledgment of this, but we truly appreciate the fact that you went on a patrol with our soldiers and truly found out what it's like for them day in and day out.

For our soldiers who are deployed to Germany for a routine three- year assignment, it is almost a certainly that they'll do six months at least and possibly longer in Bosnia or Kosovo. It's also probable that they will do another six months in that three-year assignment as well.

What we are doing in our personnel management is to ensure that those soldiers, whether it's six months or two six-month tours, we have a safeguard in place to prevent them from going to short-tour overseas assignments.

I'll be up front with you. About a year and a half ago we had some of these problems. I mean, I was a commander of some people that that was happening to, and we had to put these safeguards in place to ensure that that would not happen. So we think we've got that fixed, and it's been fixed for some time now. So that youngster can be assured he's not going to go on a short-term assignment, but he could possibly face another six-month assignment -- I don't know how long he's been in Germany -- as well. That's the demands that are there.

BATEMAN: Thank you, General.

Let me advise the subcommittee and the panel that I have to go and make a phone call, and so I am going to ask Mr. Riley if he would preside. I also want the panel to be aware that I will have some questions I'll want to submit to you for the record, and that Ms. Fowler, who had to go to a leadership meeting, and if she doesn't get back, she has some questions which she will be submitting for the record.

Mr. Riley, if you would.

RILEY: Gentlemen, I've just got one question, and this might be an oversimplification.

First, let me say that I'm glad we don't have this mental agility and physical agility tests for Congressmen. If they did, I don't know how well we would survive.

But when you look today at the reduced level of training like we have talked about in Vieques, our chiefs come in and tell us there we're $84 billion short over the next five years, our OPTEMPO levels are probably the highest they've ever been in peacetime, we have almost a critical manpower shortage in just about all of the branches.

This is a readiness committee. On a scale of 1 to 10, where is our readiness level today?

KEANE: Well, on a scale of 1 to 10 for the Army, we're somewhere around a 7 -- 7 or 8, I would probably put it at, when you consider all of what we're talking about in terms of readiness.

We measure readiness in a readiness report, and we're essentially looking at the numbers of people we have, the equipment that's there, and the training. But in the Army we like to argue the readiness is clearly more than that. It's some of the other things that we have discussed here, it's our base ops capability, it's our RPM strategy, our depot maintenance strategy as well. It's the amount of ammunition that we have, it's what we have in war reserves to deal with all of those issues.

The quality of life experience for our people is a factor in human readiness that's important to all of us, all the services.

So to be quite frank about it, we're challenged in those other areas, and that's how I would categorize it for the Army.

PILLING: For the same reason General Keane points out how difficult it is to put a single number on it, because the Navy deliberately under-resources non-deployed units so that all of our forward deployed units at the pointy end of the spear are C-1/C-2 units, on any given day we might have 40 to 50 percent of our ships and squadrons not ready to go. So I would say we're somewhere around a 5 or 6 on a scale to 10.

An easier way to describe it is in terms of risk, I think. The risk you have with a non-deployed force, the force that's in the deployment training cycle, if you have a second contingency, that's a high risk contingency to get finished in the timelines that are laid out in the war plans.

LYLES: I have to agree with Admiral Pilling. I think you need to look at this very, very complex equation in a lot of different ways. The number that we sort of attest to is about 6.5 to seven, and that reflects primarily our combat units and those that are at the C-1 or C-2 level.

But when you look at the definition of C-1 and C-2 it doesn't mean that we won't accomplish the mission, it means that the risk will be a little bit higher in accomplishing the mission, and we might make some trades and things like that to make sure that those units that are at the pointy end of the spear can get everything accomplished and do it very, very successfully.

But the best number that we'd have to say would be 6.5 to seven and it reflects just those at C-1 and C-2.

DAKE: Sir, the Marine Corps' force readiness, we've sacrificed a lot to try to keep that high so that our deploying forces are well trained and equipped when they go. We have chosen to take risk in the reserve equipments that they do not have at their home stations.

That is where, if you were to look at our ground equipments, which the readiness is high, over 92 percent, of those that's in their position on the acu side, if we were to go to the reserve side that which they have on their stations would be above 90 percent as well. That which is in the depots and waiting for call is where we have chosen to take some risk. So that is where we would find, if there were more funding to bring readiness up, it won't go to areas such as that.

But I would also say that we have balanced in the C-1/C-2 category, we're holding constant. In fact, you will see an improvement from the one quarterly report that was referenced, that ended I think at end of September or the beginning of September, and the one in December. We've actually had some units that will, in greater number, go to C-1 and C-2.

So I don't know how to quite put a number on it for you, sir, but our sacrifices go toward readiness.

RILEY: General, if you can't put a number on it, I don't know how we ever will up here. And I guess that's what I'm trying -- for the last 2.5 years we have constantly talked about all the problems but until we get it to a point that we can realize on this committee where we are, because the next question is if we're at fives and sixes and sevens now, where will we be five years from now without a major, major infusion of capital?

DAKE: Point well taken, sir, about my not putting a number on it so how can you. I think the answer that I would propose to that is as we look at our infrastructure where we took the bill payers and that, that is where we would look for the funding, in this case in '01 of $1.4 billion, to restore us to that which we believe is what is needed in this year.

RILEY: And I think that's what the chairman was trying to get to a little earlier. If we're at a six or a seven now, without a major infusion of money within the next four to five years where would you say that the Army will be five years from now if we're at a seven now?

KEANE: We'll decline.

RILEY: How much?

KEANE: Probably one or two, I would imagine.

RILEY: It would be down to fives?

KEANE: And that's in the context of the total readiness complexity that I was talking about. It goes beyond just a report. And that's what your struggle is. There is no readiness report that will satisfy that question that you've asked because it's much more complex than that report.

RILEY: It is. And I think it's complexity that keeps us from doing our job on this committee. There are so many things out there that we need to simplify this to a term that we can go out and we can sell it, you can sell it. If we don't, I think we will continue to go around trying to arbitrate various provisions and not look at what is really required for the overall force.

A few weeks ago we heard a report in the full committee about the train wreck that's coming. I took the little pamphlet they gave us and took it home and read it. I'll be honest with you, it frightened me. I guess that's my point. If we were starting at 10 today -- a nine or a 10, four or five years from now maybe we'd be down to a seven. But if you're telling me we're at fives and sixes now, and we've got this train wreck coming, especially with procurement or the inability to have those procurement levels, it seems to me like unless we do something very drastic within the next year or two, you guys are going to have a problem that you almost cannot control.

LYLES: Congressman Riley, I think you're sensing a bit of frustration from all of us, in some respects, in how do we define this and how do we define a good, quantifiable number? If you look as an example at I think all of the services are reflecting today, we're addressing people issues. We're trying to make sure we're addressing recruiting and retention, that helps readiness in the future.

We are addressing things like modernization, which is future readiness.

We are addressing readiness itself in terms of spares and things of that nature, and if we can keep that up that will help us.

The one area that I think we all are suffering from and that we're all concerned about is infrastructure. And I'll be honest with you. I'm not quite sure if you're addressing three of the four and not addressing the fourth whether that means you'll continue to go down or you'll level off or slightly come up a little bit. We're not quite sure of the exact science in this, and I can't give you a good quantifiable number but I think positive that at least three of the areas are being addressed positively.

RILEY: Let me give you one option just to consider.

We all know the level of deployments we have all over the world now with every one of your branches. At what time do we step up and say that we can't continue to have all of these deployments all over the world use up our men and our equipment? At what point do we go out and ask our allies to take a larger role?

If this administration is not committed to adequately funding the troop strength that we have now, when do we and how do we talk to our allies about increasing their share of the burden?

KEANE: I'll take a stab at it, sir.

First of all, in terms of the major deployment that we're conducting in Bosnia and in Kosovo, I think you're aware that our allies have participated in both of those deployments as well, and certainly in Kosovo, for example, the latest deployment that the Army is involved with our 6,000 soldiers, clearly the sum of the ally involvement clearly exceeds the Army's participation.

I think our CINCs and the chairman and our civilian leaders work toward that end to get greater participation in these operational deployments that we have around the world, and I think they've had some success with it. But I wouldn't hide from you that these deployments clearly take a toll on us.

I would say this, though, when our soldiers are on these deployments that you visited, and Congressman Bateman and his colleagues just returned from, our retention rates during those deployments go off the charts. And the Army actually exceeded its retention objectives last year by 6,100 soldiers and we're doing good this year.

We attribute a portion of that to the satisfaction and general sense of self-worth and self-esteem that comes from doing something that's important and makes a difference in other people's lives.

So those deployments, while they take a toll on family readiness, there is also something special there that is happening to the individual soldier that is participating on it. What we have to do is make certain we're treating those deployments equitably for our soldiers and we're not overburdening them as well.

The other point I'll make to you is, I wouldn't hide this from you. We are looking at the Army in terms of its size. Do we have the right size Army?

Number one, we have to be able to recruit for the Army we do have, and we're being challenged by that. Last year we came up 6,300 short. This year we had made our recruiting objective in every single month, to include this month, but we know we're going to be challenged in the next three months.

We believe we have to recruit for the size of the Army we have. We're going to bring all of our war-fighting divisions up to 100 percent strength by doing some things internal to the Army that we have been unwilling to do in the past, and those are going to be tough calls for us.

But we're going to take this readiness issue from a people perspective off the table and solve that problem for ourselves. And we do have a study ongoing in terms of what the size of this Army is based on the foreseeable future and the operational deployments that we're facing. When we've got that answer we're going to come back and present it to you as well as obviously to the administration.

Thank you, sir.

LYLES: Congressman Rile, Kosovo is a major lessons learned again for air power. When I say air power, I'm not just talking about the United States Air Force, I'm talking about Navy air power, Marine Corps air power.

The United States did the bulk of the missions, obviously, from air, and we've proved once again that our modernized capabilities across the board for the three services are very, very important for prosecuting successfully and efficiently that kind of contingency warfare.

We are starting, and have started for some time, a dialogue with our allies to urge them to get precision-guided munitions, to urge them to get more standoff munitions, to urge them to get the intelligence, surveillance, recognizance kind of platforms, even to urge them to get more airlift capabilities so we don't have to depend just on the United States to provide those and those kind of contingencies like we saw during Kosovo.

It's an uphill situation for them, obviously, and major investments that they will have to commit to but we want to make sure that we're opening this dialogue and urging them to be prepared to take on some of these missions in the future.

RILEY: Have you met with any success?

LYLES: At least they're listening and they're talking within their budgets. To date, obviously nothing that I can pinpoint, but at least they're talking about it, and I think to some extent some of our allies realize that they were in somewhat of a, I won't call it embarrassing situation, but they wanted to contribute more and did not have the sort of platforms and those I've talked to, particularly the senior airmen in some of those countries, they realize they're nations need to stand up and be accounted for in some of these areas.

KEANE: Sir, if I can go back to your issue on the single number characterization of where we're going.

I think the chiefs have told you that if the OPTEMPO remains the same with the current force structure and the current environment for people as far as recruiting and attention, the number is going to be $84 billion.

RILEY: That's right.

KEANE: If you're going to try and balance near-term and far-term readiness, it's $84 billion.

RILEY: And I guess that's my point. There doesn't seem to be a consensus to try to fund that $84 billion. Without the $84 billion, where will we be four or five years from now?

And that's what I'm saying. When I read this report and looked at our OPTEMPO level the way it is today, if we don't drastically reduce that, if we don't make some of these procurements, if we don't get at least part of that $84 billion, it seems to me like three or four years from now our soldiers and our sailors and our airmen are going to be in extreme risk, that I don't believe we should put them in.

It is going to be up to you, gentlemen, to sell this. And that's what I'm saying. I think sometimes we make it so complicated and so complex in these hearings when we talk about each individual thing that's going on, that it's hard to understand how dramatic this change is going to be unless we do something relatively soon, and I see no sentiment in the administration to make that happen.

Like I said it is beginning to frighten me. When I talk to people on an AWACS last year who had already done back-to-back six month tours, and he said, I'm getting out of this. He said, I've got two kids at home, and I will not do it. I joined the Air Force to fly and I love it, but I will not be gone from my children a year and a half at a time.

We've got to make some very critical decisions. We either fund it, we either cut back our deployments, or we put back these young men and women at an unacceptable level of risk as far as I'm concerned.

DAKE: Sir, could I talk about deployments a bit? It's somewhat different on the part of the Marine Corps, in so much that we are forward deployed. It's a cyclic thing that we do. We base our deps tempo on a MEU SOC off of each coast. With 58 percent of the Marine Corps being in that first term, they really join to do something. They join for some bit of adventure.

Where we see the stresses of constant deployments is in our professional force, the ones who are beyond our first term. Now they're called to go again, and now they're families are growing. That's where I think we must find balance.

There's two types of deployments. The types you do on a national basis where you sail off to do the business of the nation, and the other is that we generate ourselves to go to 29 Palms, for example, to train up. Either way, that Marine is away from his or her family.

We try very hard to try to control the training deployments. We don't believe that the operational deployments that we have been given, as long as they stay in a cycle that we are manned and equipped to do, we can handle that on a sustained basis. We have got to control our own deployments for training and those types of things which our we ourselves generated.

Now deployments outside of those scheduled ones are the ones that will become increasingly difficult to do.

RILEY: Gentlemen, you have a tremendous task ahead of you. You really do. The only thing that I would like to leave you with is just that each one of the branches, each one of you individually are going to have to become strong advocates, strong proponents for additional funding or a reduction in deployments because, if not, I think this country faces some perilous times ahead.

I want to thank you for your candid opinions, thank you for the service you give to this country, and thank you for appearing before this committee. Thank you very much.

END

NOTES:
Unknown - Indicates speaker unknown.
Inaudible - Could not make out what was being said.
off mike - Indicates could not make out what was being said.

PERSON: HERBERT H BATEMAN (94%); WALTER B JONES (57%); SAXBY CHAMBLISS (57%); JAMES V HANSEN (56%); DUNCAN L HUNTER (56%); CURT WELDON (55%); LEE TERRY (54%); DON SHERWOOD (53%); NORMAN SISISKY (53%); SOLOMON P ORTIZ (53%); CHRIS JOHN (52%); ROD BLAGOJEVICH (51%); ADAM SMITH (51%); MIKE MCINTYRE (50%); JAMES H MALONEY (50%);

LOAD-DATE: March 5, 2000

Document 12 of 21.


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