Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland Holds Hearing on Army Transformation

Mar. 12, 2003
Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland Holds Hearing on Army Transformation

INHOFE:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, let me echo what both you said about our troops and about the spirit that's out there. I spend some time at Landstuhl and talked to a lot of these people who are coming back. In fact, the downed CH-47 helicopter crew was there. And I remember, although it was not your service, it was the Navy, I remember it so well because this young lady's name Stennis and she was on the USS Stennis, the accident you're all aware of where she, during a refueling operation, she got tangled up in the hose and it took her down freefalling, crushing her lungs and all of that and I talked to her in the hospital. Her only concern was getting back to the unit and making a career out of the Navy. I got the same response from everyone we talked to there. So, clearly that's it.

But, I feel guilty because I don't think we're giving them the best support that they need. Now, Senator Lieberman was talking about close air support and the deficiencies in Anaconda. I think General Keane, it seems to me that in one of our hearings I asked you the question that if we had had a competitive, more sophisticated artillery system, such as the Crusader, which is canceled, could you have used it at that time. I think you said yes, even though it's heavy and hard to get up. It had the range and the rapid fire to give you better support. Was that my memory serving me right?

KEANE:
That's correct. That's my own opinion, obviously. And I'm not the combatant commander.

INHOFE:
Yes, I understand that.

KEANE:
And I'm not the ground commander.

INHOFE:
But, you know, when that was canceled, and I can understand what we all went through in trying to get to the FCS, trying to get it to a lighter, more efficient system, we have come up, of course, with the ENLOS cannon and that's one that could have been taken up there in terms of the size and the maneuverability and how it can be transported.

I am a little concerned, last year when we had the ENLOS cannon in as a part of the FCS, Secretary Brownlee, it was on two different PE's. This year it's coming back on one. Now, my question would be this. If there's a slippage in the FCS, my concern is that that portion of the FCS stay with its deployment date of 2008. What are your feelings about that?

BROWNLEE:
Sir, our intent is to field the FCS cannon in the year we've indicated, '08. That is our intent. That's what the Army intends to do. That's what we're funded to do. Hopefully, the rest of FCS will come along with that. Our intent with the FCS cannon, because of the urgent need for it, is to field it during that time period.

INHOFE:
Although I disagreed with the decision of termination at that time, and everyone is aware of that, I will say something good has come from that because it's an awareness, you guys were aware of it, but a lot of us on this side were not, as to the deficiency we have in our artillery capability, the pallid on, I won't mention names, but when I talked to some of our own Senators that are on this committee and said are you aware that you have the swab the breach after shot, almost reminiscent of the civil war? And, of course this is 1950s technology and they weren't aware of it. And, now, that awareness has come up. And that's the reason that I feel that even though, yes, I want it to be compatible with as far as the chassis concerns, as far as the weight and the characteristics with FCS. In the event that there is slippage, I want to do everything I can to be sure that that part of it doesn't slip, because I believe that is a deficiency that we have that we need to correct? Any comments on that?

BROWNLEE:
Just that clearly, Senator, as you indicate, there is a clear advantage to having the common chassis for this whole family. But, the need to have the improvements in those kinds of artillery firepower pieces that we need on the battlefield has caused us to commit to the fielding of the FCS cannon, ENLOS, as you referred to it by '08. And that is certainly our intent. I just really...

INHOFE:
No, I understand.
(CROSSTALK)

BROWNLEE:
... comes along on times. And that's our intent to do...

INHOFE:
Do you generally agree with that, General Keane?

KEANE:
I do.

INHOFE:
OK.

KEANE:
The ENLOS cannon, I mean obviously we have a problem with overmatch of artillery by our adversaries. There's a number of countries that clearly outrange us and outgun us. That's been our concern from the beginning. That concern is still resident today. The ENLOS cannon will solve that overmatch problem. So, '08 and certainly while that schedule's ambitious, we clearly want that to happen. And what we'll do, what we will do in the Army leadership, is make sure that we don't—we're not going to let any of those funds drift away on us to other priorities because it enjoys such a high priority within the...

INHOFE:
I know it does. And that's the point I'm trying to make is that while FCS is very significant and we want to get to the objective force, there are some deficiencies we have today that can be met by the early deployment of parts of that which should have priorities. I hear over and over again that we have the best Army in the world and all this.
I know we do. And, you know, the fact that yes, we're ready. Unfortunately, a lot of people misinterpret that as to everything can go as it's been going an everything's going to stay as ready as it is today. And I don't believe that. Now, when you look at, since the 1990s, we've had 34 percent cut while undergoing a 300 percent increase in mission rates. Now, this is a real serious problem. And while, yes, we're ready today, these Senators over here and I spend a lot of time talking to our guard and reserves, the reserve component, of all services, but mostly the Army.

Many of the critical MOS's are disappearing. We're not able to do this. And, so, I don't know how long we can continue down this road. And, so, I would just like to have you talk in terms of what we're going to have to do in the future. I mean let's look at the number of divisions. We went from 18 down to 10. Some people are saying now, well, the Army's not important or the ground effort's not important, we can get by with six divisions. Right now, in your professional judgments, faced with the type of challenges we have, what would you think would be ideal if you could have it today, as opposed to what we have today, numbers of divisions, let's start there.

BROWNLEE:
Senator, first of all, let me just say how much I share your high regard for our reserve component forces. They're serving with great distinction all over the world and everywhere you go and talk to them and the sacrifices them and their family are making, I just have to take a minute to mention we all know Tom Brokaw wrote a book called The Greatest Generation. There's another great generation out there now...

INHOFE:
Yes, I understand that.

BROWNLEE:
... that deserves another book. And, some of them, many of them are these reserve component soldiers.
But, to directly address your question, sir, clearly the Army we have today, as Jack indicated, is deployed all over the world. Because sometimes I think every single soldier we have in the Army is on the move somewhere right now today. And, so these commitments that we are meeting today are taking most of the, not just the combat power of the Army, but the combat support and service support parts of the Army to support these missions. We are able to do what we're doing now today, but how long we can do it is a question.

INHOFE:
Yes, and I think we need to talk about that because if we had a 1989 deployment at that time of 261,000 of whatever it was, that used, as I recall, about 53 percent of deployable end strength. That same thing today would be 86 percent. Then you get into the reserve and the guard component. And I would just—I think every time we talk about how yes we are ready today. Yes, we have the best Army in the world, we should be very honest and say that we can't sustain this state of readiness without some changes.

BROWNLEE:
It's pretty obvious, Senator, that the forces we have deployed now, we do not have, without going far more deeply into the reserve components, we do not have a rotation base to rotate those forces.

INHOFE:
Yes.

BROWNLEE:
We would have to go much—now, if we make a decision to do that, we still have reserve component units that we haven't touched. But, we would have to go much deeply—much more deeply into those reserve components to do that.

INHOFE:
Yes. And, Mr. Chairman, while there's not time to get into it, just so they could answer of the record, I've been concerned about the increase in the aviation accidents in all services. There's some articles that I think—I don't know where it was, but a couple days ago we read and they talked about the reason in the Marines and the Navy talking about the fact that high op tempo, and I've been over there and you've been over there. We've all been and seen this. And perhaps it's a deficiency in maintenance. And I'd like to have your analysis of this maybe for the record insofar as the Army's concerned. Because, you know, Fort Drum reminded us a couple days ago that that's—or yesterday that that's a very serious problem now.

BROWNLEE:
Yes, we're very concerned about it ourselves.

INHOFE:
I know you are.

BROWNLEE:
This year from last year we've got almost a 29 percent increase in our accident rate. And we compare it to a three-year average. It's up by 50 percent. So, we're very, very concerned about it.

INHOFE:
Thank you. You can do that for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, sorry...