DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2002

TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2001

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

U.S. SENATE,

Washington, DC.

SECRETARIES AND CHIEFS OF THE MILITARY SERVICES

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:36 a.m. in room SH216, Hart Senate Office Building, Senator Carl Levin (chairman) presiding.

Committee members present: Senators Levin, Lieberman, Cleland, Reed, Akaka, E. Benjamin Nelson, Carnahan, Warner, Inhofe, Roberts, Allard, Collins, and Bunning.

Committee staff members present: David S. Lyles, staff director; Madelyn R. Creedon, counsel; Gerald J. Leeling, counsel; Peter K. Levine, general counsel; and Christine E. Cowart, chief clerk.

Professional staff members present: Daniel J. Cox, Jr., Creighton Greene, Maren Leed, Michael J. McCord, and Arun A. Seraphin. Minority staff members present: Romie L. Brownlee, Republican staff director; Judith A. Ansley, deputy staff director for the minority; Charles W. Alsup, professional staff member; Brian R. Green, professional staff member; William C. Greenwalt, professional staff member; Gary M. Hall, professional staff member; Carolyn M. Hanna, professional staff member; Mary Alice A. Hayward, professional staff member; Ambrose R. Hock, professional staff member; Patricia L. Lewis, professional staff member; Thomas L. MacKenzie, professional staff member; Ann M. Mittermeyer, minority counsel; Suzanne K. L. Ross, research assistant; Cord A. Sterling, professional staff member; Scott W. Stucky, minority counsel; and Richard F. Walsh, minority counsel.

Staff assistants present: Gabriella Eisen, Thomas C. Moore, and Michele A. Traficante.

Committee members' assistants present: Menda S. Fife, assistant to Senator Kennedy; Barry Gene (B.G.) Wright, assistant to Senator Byrd; Frederick M. Downey, assistant to Senator Lieberman; Andrew Vanlandingham, assistant to Senator Cleland; Elizabeth King, assistant to Senator Reed; Davelyn Noelani Kalipi, assistant to Senator Akaka; Eric Pierce, assistant to Senator Ben Nelson; Neal Orringer, assistant to Senator Carnahan; Brady King and Jason Van Wey, assistants to Senator Dayton; John A. Bonsell, assistant to Senator Inhofe; Robert Alan McCurry and James

Beauchamp, assistants to Senator Roberts; James P. Dohoney, Jr., assistant to Senator Hutchinson; Arch Galloway II, assistant to Senator Sessions; Kristine Fauser, assistant to Senator Collins; and Derek Maurer, assistant to Senator Bunning.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARL LEVIN, CHAIRMAN Chairman LEVIN. Good morning, everybody. The committee meets this morning to receive testimony on the proposed fiscal year 2002 amended budget from the secretaries and the chiefs of the military services. I want to welcome Secretary of the Army, Tom White; Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki; Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England; Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Vernon Clark; the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Jim Jones; Secretary of the Air Force, Jim Roche; and Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Mike Ryan.

Before we begin, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that last night in North Carolina a CH-46 helicopter carrying five marines crashed during a routine training exercise. Three of the marines were killed, the remaining two crew members are hospitalized. Our thoughts and our prayers are with them and their families. General Jones, I just want to express our condolences to you personally while you are here and hope that you will extend all of our condolences to the family and friends of the victims and to the entire Corps.

These tragedies remind us of the risks that men and women in our armed services take every day on our behalf. We are grateful to them and we hope that you will pass along our condolences to the families and the victims.

General JONES. Thank you, sir.

Senator WARNER. May I join our chairman in that, General.

I think one other thing should be pointed out. Regrettably, these types of accidents point out the aging of our equipment. We first started buying that type of helicopter in the sixties is my recollection. How old would you anticipate that air ship to be?

General JONES. About 35 years old, sir.

Senator WARNER. Thirty-five years old. So it is near the very end of its extended life.

Chairman LEVIN. Is the cause of the accident known?

General JONES. It is under investigation, sir. The pilot and the copilot survived and they are in stable condition in the hospital as we speak.

Chairman LEVIN. This is an unusually large panel of witnesses, but we are in an unusual situation. The delay in submitting the fiscal year 2002 amended budget to Congress has left us with just 7 weeks of session to accomplish what typically takes 5 months. We still need the detailed justification books that are essential to our review of the budget request. We just will remind our secretaries here that it is absolutely critical that we get those detailed justification books as soon as possible.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the additional $18.4 billion in defense spending that the President is requesting for fiscal year 2002, along with any increases in defense spending in future years, cannot be initiated or sustained without using the surpluses in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds or without returning to

budget deficits or without cutting important domestic programs, such as education, health care, and law enforcement.

None of those are acceptable alternatives. The only alternative that I see is to revisit the upper income tax cuts which were recently enacted. But once we address the issue of how we are going to pay for the budget increases that are proposed, we then have to ask whether or not the administration's proposed budget reflects the proper balance between the quality of life and readiness of our military men and women that they need today and the investments that are needed to modernize and transform our Armed Forces to meet the threats of tomorrow.

We will be asking each of our witnesses this morning whether this budget request addresses what they consider to be the priorities of their respective services, both for the near term and the long term. In order for us to evaluate the programs and priorities included in this budget, we also need a clear understanding of what was not included. In recent years each of the service chiefs has provided Congress lists of the key programs that were not included in the annual defense budget request. We will be asking each of the chiefs to provide to this committee the unfunded priorities lists that you provided in past years, similar to those lists at least, so that we can get some understanding, not just of what is requested, but again what has not been able to be funded.

I will also be asking our witnesses their views about some of the choices that were made in this year's budget. For example, this budget request would decrease funding for procurement and for science and technology programs below the current year's level while increasing funding for missile defense programs by $3 billion or 57 percent over the current year.

The budget request would also reduce Army flying hours and tank training miles in fiscal year 2002 compared to the current year. In the latter case, Secretary Rumsfeld told the committee that "the Army made those kind of choices." The committee looks forward to the testimony of all of the service secretaries and chiefs on the thinking behind these and other difficult choices.

All of us share a responsibility to do our best to ensure that Defense Department programs and activities are conducted effectively and efficiently. In his recent testimony to this committee, Secretary Rumsfeld said: “I have never seen an organization that could not operate at something like 5 percent more efficiency if it had the freedom to do so." He went on to say that: "The taxpayers have a right to demand that we spend their money wisely. Today," he said, "we cannot tell the American people we are doing that. I know I cannot."

That is a very significant and serious statement. If the American taxpayers cannot be assured that the Defense Department is spending their money wisely, we will not be able to sustain public support for the kind of increases in defense spending that are contained in this budget request.

Each of our service secretaries has had extensive experience managing large private sector companies. Secretary Rumsfeld has set up a new senior executive committee and a business initiative council to draw on this experience and to help him manage the Defense Department. I hope each of you this morning will give us rec

ommendations to improve the management of your respective departments, both those requiring legislation and those that can be implemented without legislation.

Senator Warner.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN WARNER

Senator WARNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join you in recognizing our service secretaries and service chiefs, and particularly you, General Ryan. In all likelihood this could be your last appearance before the Senate as you wind up a most distinguished career, preceded by your father, who was also Chief of Staff of the Air Force when I was privileged to be Secretary of the Navy. I remember him well.

What a proud family tradition. It exemplifies here in the United States of America how families, generations of families, have proudly worn the uniform of our country in different services. That is the very bedrock of our professional military force, officer as well as enlisted.

I commend you and your wife and your family for this service. Chairman LEVIN. General Ryan, let me just join Senator Warner in congratulating you for your distinguished service. I am a little more cautious in saying this is probably your last visit before the committee, but just on that chance, I surely want to join, and I know on behalf of all the members of the committee, in congratulating you and thanking you for an extraordinary career.

General RYAN. Thank you, sir.

Senator WARNER. Across our country we detect a growing consensus, and indeed here in Congress. The American people want to improve the quality of life for those who serve in uniform. They want to obtain modern equipment for those who constantly take the risks, whether here at home, as we saw last night, or abroad.

I can think of no more important building block in the budget process than the testimony that is provided by those who proudly serve as the service chiefs in our military departments. I just go back over the past few years, because we look to you for the complete professional opinions that each of you are able to give. With due respect to the Commander in Chief, whoever that may be, this committee time and time again has called upon you to give us your personal views with regard to the budget levels and the issues.

Indisputably, our Armed Forces are the best and the most powerful in the world today. This well-deserved reputation was not earned without cost. While our service men and women perform their military missions with great dedication and professionalism, our people, our equipment, and our infrastructure are increasingly stressed by the effects of an unprecedented number of military deployments over the past decade, combined with years of decline in defense spending.

At the same time our force structure was declining in size by almost 40 percent, our overseas deployments for peacekeeping and other military operations increased by over 300 percent. As the service chiefs have told us repeatedly, future readiness and the upkeep of military facilities has been deferred to pay for current operations and maintenance, and service personnel are being asked to do more with less-less people, less resources.

In the past week I have visited seven military installations in my State and, General Jones, I spoke with you about Quantico. Am I not correct that it has been 60 years since we put a new housing unit for either an enlisted or an officer on that base?

General JONES. That is correct.

Senator WARNER. Those things simply have to be corrected, and I am hopeful that we can make progress in this budget.

We have tried here in Congress in the past several years, together with my distinguished colleague here Mr. Levin. We have worked together as a team to increase defense spending. In fiscal year 2000, we reversed a 14-year decline in defense spending by authorizing a real increase in spending that year. Last year we continued that momentum by providing an even larger real increase for defense for fiscal year 2001. Over the past years we have increased military pay by over 8 percent, restored retirement and health care benefits to keep faith with those who serve or have served, raised procurement levels to begin recapitalization and modernization of aging equipment, and I think significantly increased investment in research and development.

We have to keep that momentum going forward, and we must rely on you for your opinions as to whether the budget now before us is adequate to keep that momentum.

Again, while much has been done, much remains. The President is to be commended. I just looked at this fiscal 2002 defense request and our calculations are that $38.2 billion in increases have been recognized and requested by President Bush. These increases proposed in 2002 represent an almost 11 percent increase in defense spending above the amount available in 2001.

While this increase begins to address the shortfalls, it may not be enough, and we look to you for those answers.

I talked with my distinguished chairman this morning about the $18.4 billion increase. We still have a battle on our own home front here with our Budget Committees. They have an across-the-board responsibility for the entire budget and we will do our best. I will join our chairman in trying to support in every way the President's request before those committees.

So this is a very, very important hearing today. I think it is wonderful to go back to the old style of having the service secretaries appear side-by-side with the service chiefs, because it is a partnership between the civilian oversight and the military chief as you work your way for your respective departments. Let us do our best. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LEVIN. Thank you, Senator Warner.

In the interest of time and in order to give the members chances to get into specific issues in their questions, I am going to ask our witnesses now to limit their opening remarks to 7 minutes. Secretary White, we will begin with you.

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS E. WHITE, SECRETARY OF THE ARMY

Secretary WHITE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Warner, distinguished members of the committee. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the state of America's Army. Consistent with your