CommunityEditor
04-10-2008, 08:26 PM
Senior leaders from the Army and Marine Corps said Wednesday that they are not comfortable with their services’ ability to respond to unexpected contingencies.
The testimony on Capitol Hill in front of the House Armed Services Committee came almost immediately after Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, faced the same body to talk about progress in that country and the need to halt the drawdown of U.S. forces.
The Army’s mission set has expanded, and today’s 10-division Army is trying to accomplish a 14-division mission, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said.
“We must be self critical if we are to ensure our soldiers are always ready to face a dangerous … and very adaptive enemy,” Cody said, adding that the Army is “unprepared for the full-spectrum fight” and lacks strategic depth.
However, Cody insisted that the Army is not broken and dismissed questions about whether a draft might be necessary.
“We are a stressed force but … this Army is not broken,” he said. “I was in the draft Army. I’m now in an Army that’s an all-volunteer force. We do not need to go back to a draft.”
Cody and Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, were testifying on the readiness of American ground forces.
Like the Army, the Marines have a high operations tempo, Magnus said.
“Although we are currently meeting our operating requirements … the net effects of sustained combat and high operations tempo are taking a toll on our Marines and their families,” he said.
Both generals asked for full and immediate funding through the fiscal 2008 supplemental, citing detrimental effects on the services if the money is late.
“We start running out of military pay for our force in June, we start running out of operational dollars that we can flow to the force in early July,” Cody said. “It’s all about time now. Those will be the consequences of not getting the supplemental. Any break in BRAC funding [and military construction] funding just causes us more problems and puts more strain on military families. When I talk about timely and full funding, that is critical to get back to full readiness.”
The ability to build capacity and reset the force is “strictly dependent” on finances, Magnus said.
“If we don’t get the supplemental in a timely manner it will simply mean we will delay procurement of war-fighting equipment,” he said. “The Army and Marine Corps, in that order, will run out of the necessary personnel funding and operations and maintenance funding.”
To meet the growing demand for troops, the Army is growing to an end-strength of 547,000 by 2010, while the Marines want to grow to 202,000 before 2011.
In the meantime, the Army has struggled to meet the demand for soldiers overseas.
At the beginning of the war the Army had an end-strength of about 482,000, Cody said, and some soldiers had to be retrained to conduct missions outside their specialties, such as convoy security.
“We did not have enough depth across the total Army to meet the 360-degree fight we’re in,” he said. “That’s what we mean when we say the Army is unbalanced. We should have artillerymen today preparing for a different fight, in many cases, than doing convoy security.”
However, Cody and Magnus both said they support the surge of troops in Iraq.
“I do not advocate the discussions of coming down so quickly until the job is done, because we have invested the blood, sweat and tears of our soldiers and their families,” Cody said.
However, if there was an attack similar to those on Sept. 11, 2001, Cody said the Army would have to “take the next-to-deploy forces, the other forces would probably have to stay where they are, or, depending on where they are, they might be redirected by the combatant commander.”
There already are requests for troops that can not be met, both generals said.
For example, the Army has not been able to provide a brigade’s worth of trainers to Afghanistan, and a Marine unit had to be extended and the deployment of another accelerated because a third unit was redirected to Afghanistan.
“I don’t advocate leaving that dangerous part of the world,” Cody said. “Iraq and Afghanistan are what they are, but that region is vitally important to our interests. We have other combatant commanders who aren’t requesting for forces because we can’t give it to them.”
Magnus said he believes the U.S. military is focused on the right countries.
“We had to go where the enemy was and we are where the enemy is,” he said. “We’re at the top of the seventh inning of a very long game. These two campaigns are a war against a ruthless enemy and we should not leave until we’re sure the host nations have the capability to provide their own internal security.”
Despite the challenges, Cody said he has seen high reenlistment rates among the troops.
“One of the things that has made me most proud of this generation is the fact that they have great resiliency, but we should not take that for granted,” he said. “When we surged we also added three months of combat time to every brigade downrange, and when we were doing that we also surged every training base, so we’re in unchartered waters here. We asked our soldiers to sprint, and they did. We’ve asked our soldiers to run a marathon, and they have.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/army_readiness_040908/
Skelton: Falling readiness puts U.S. at risk: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/military_skelton_petraeus_040908w/
Petraeus' charts: http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/040808petraeus.pdf
The testimony on Capitol Hill in front of the House Armed Services Committee came almost immediately after Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, faced the same body to talk about progress in that country and the need to halt the drawdown of U.S. forces.
The Army’s mission set has expanded, and today’s 10-division Army is trying to accomplish a 14-division mission, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody said.
“We must be self critical if we are to ensure our soldiers are always ready to face a dangerous … and very adaptive enemy,” Cody said, adding that the Army is “unprepared for the full-spectrum fight” and lacks strategic depth.
However, Cody insisted that the Army is not broken and dismissed questions about whether a draft might be necessary.
“We are a stressed force but … this Army is not broken,” he said. “I was in the draft Army. I’m now in an Army that’s an all-volunteer force. We do not need to go back to a draft.”
Cody and Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, were testifying on the readiness of American ground forces.
Like the Army, the Marines have a high operations tempo, Magnus said.
“Although we are currently meeting our operating requirements … the net effects of sustained combat and high operations tempo are taking a toll on our Marines and their families,” he said.
Both generals asked for full and immediate funding through the fiscal 2008 supplemental, citing detrimental effects on the services if the money is late.
“We start running out of military pay for our force in June, we start running out of operational dollars that we can flow to the force in early July,” Cody said. “It’s all about time now. Those will be the consequences of not getting the supplemental. Any break in BRAC funding [and military construction] funding just causes us more problems and puts more strain on military families. When I talk about timely and full funding, that is critical to get back to full readiness.”
The ability to build capacity and reset the force is “strictly dependent” on finances, Magnus said.
“If we don’t get the supplemental in a timely manner it will simply mean we will delay procurement of war-fighting equipment,” he said. “The Army and Marine Corps, in that order, will run out of the necessary personnel funding and operations and maintenance funding.”
To meet the growing demand for troops, the Army is growing to an end-strength of 547,000 by 2010, while the Marines want to grow to 202,000 before 2011.
In the meantime, the Army has struggled to meet the demand for soldiers overseas.
At the beginning of the war the Army had an end-strength of about 482,000, Cody said, and some soldiers had to be retrained to conduct missions outside their specialties, such as convoy security.
“We did not have enough depth across the total Army to meet the 360-degree fight we’re in,” he said. “That’s what we mean when we say the Army is unbalanced. We should have artillerymen today preparing for a different fight, in many cases, than doing convoy security.”
However, Cody and Magnus both said they support the surge of troops in Iraq.
“I do not advocate the discussions of coming down so quickly until the job is done, because we have invested the blood, sweat and tears of our soldiers and their families,” Cody said.
However, if there was an attack similar to those on Sept. 11, 2001, Cody said the Army would have to “take the next-to-deploy forces, the other forces would probably have to stay where they are, or, depending on where they are, they might be redirected by the combatant commander.”
There already are requests for troops that can not be met, both generals said.
For example, the Army has not been able to provide a brigade’s worth of trainers to Afghanistan, and a Marine unit had to be extended and the deployment of another accelerated because a third unit was redirected to Afghanistan.
“I don’t advocate leaving that dangerous part of the world,” Cody said. “Iraq and Afghanistan are what they are, but that region is vitally important to our interests. We have other combatant commanders who aren’t requesting for forces because we can’t give it to them.”
Magnus said he believes the U.S. military is focused on the right countries.
“We had to go where the enemy was and we are where the enemy is,” he said. “We’re at the top of the seventh inning of a very long game. These two campaigns are a war against a ruthless enemy and we should not leave until we’re sure the host nations have the capability to provide their own internal security.”
Despite the challenges, Cody said he has seen high reenlistment rates among the troops.
“One of the things that has made me most proud of this generation is the fact that they have great resiliency, but we should not take that for granted,” he said. “When we surged we also added three months of combat time to every brigade downrange, and when we were doing that we also surged every training base, so we’re in unchartered waters here. We asked our soldiers to sprint, and they did. We’ve asked our soldiers to run a marathon, and they have.”
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/army_readiness_040908/
Skelton: Falling readiness puts U.S. at risk: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/military_skelton_petraeus_040908w/
Petraeus' charts: http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/040808petraeus.pdf