But consider the challenges our country faces, not only to reorganize the Army, which is a major project, but to better organize all of the military services, plus transform the enormous defense bureaucracy, fight two wars and, if that were not enough, to be fighting a war for the first time in history in an era with so many new realities.
Think of it: 24-hour worldwide satellite news coverage, including terrorist attacks, disasters and combat operations; cell phones, digital cameras, global Internet, e-mails, embedded reporters; an increasingly casual regard for the protection of classified documents and information; and a U.S. government that's basically still organized for the last century, not the information age. And all of this, not in a conventional conflict for which the U.S. military had spent decades training and equipping, but in an unconventional war against asymmetric threats from enemies totally unburdened by bureaucracies and legal constraints. The task is daunting.
I'm reminded of a story by Ronald Reagan -- used to tell. It seemed a young G.I. in Germany once asked a U.S. ambassador if he ever got to see President Reagan. The ambassador replied that he sometimes did get to see the president.
The soldier said, “Well, you tell the president we're proud to be here and we ain't afraid of anybody. “
RUMSFELD: Not long after that, the G.I. heard President Reagan speak on Armed Forces Radio. And as it happened, the president told the same story on the air, even repeating the soldier's words. And the soldier ran out of his barracks and shouted, “The system works, the system works. “
Well, I believe that. I think that, despite the daunting tasks we have to tackle, we can and will get the job done. Our country always seems to find a way.
The system does work, and it's because the American people have such rooted, good common sense. And that, more than anything, is why America has the finest fighting force on the face of the Earth, and we need to keep it that way.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for a very thorough statement.
And, Ms. Jonas, we welcome you also to the dais.
General Myers, do you have a statement?
MYERS: Mr. Chairman, I do.
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to report on the state of the United States armed forces.
And I request, like the secretary did, to include my written statement in the record, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank you for your unwavering support of our armed forces and our service men and women as we continue this struggle against extremism.
Building democracy and hope in areas long ruled by terror and oppression is a long and hard task, as we all know. Our significant progress in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places around the world is a tribute to the hard work and sacrifice of our dedicated American servicemembers and of our coalition partners.
U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and U.S. government civilians who have been killed or wounded sacrificed to make the world safer and provide home to millions.
We grieve with their families and their friends and with the families of all the coalition forces and civilians who made the ultimate sacrifice in these noble endeavors.
Our armed forces remain committed to winning the global war on terrorism and combating the spread of weapons of mass destruction while at the same time enhancing our war-fighting capabilities and transforming to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
We are capable of executing our national military strategy despite these considerable challenges.
Today, over 2.2 million servicemembers serve in the total force. Many are deployed in countries around the world or at sea.
Throughout the world, U.S. forces provide stability, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and hope, ultimately aiding in the global war on terrorism.
We and our partners have captured and killed many of Al Qaida's senior leaders and hurt their ability to conduct operations. But they are still a very real and global threat.
MYERS: They continue to murder innocent men and children. And terrorist leaders, such as bin Laden, Zawahiri and al Zarqawi, openly encourage Muslims to kill Americans and our allies. We will continue to hunt them down.
Though our accomplishments are considerable, the U.S. military cannot win this war alone. Success requires cooperating with multi- national partners, as the secretary said, and integrating military capabilities across the U.S. interagency to harness all elements of national power.
While I believe the various agencies of our government have learned to work together in new and better ways, we need to become still more efficient and effective in integrating the efforts of various government agencies.
In Iraq, the U.S. is committed to helping Iraqis build a secure and peaceful future with a representative government based upon the rule of law.
The key to success is to help the Iraqis be more self-reliant. A timetable for leaving Iraq would be counterproductive, leaving the terrorists to think they can wait us out. The Iraqi people are assuming greater and greater roles in providing for their own security.
The recent Iraqi election showed their courage and determination to support a free and democratic country, and represented a moral defeat for the insurgents. Iraqis have a renewed pride of ownership in their government and in their future.
The list of accomplishments in Iraq in every sector is impressive and continually growing. The plan is on track. Less than two years ago, coalition forces defeated a brutal dictator and his regime, established a provisional authority to get Iraq, along with its dilapidated infrastructure, back on its feet. And last summer we transferred sovereignty to an interim government.
On January 30th, as we all know, Iraqi elected a transitional national assembly. This assembly will appoint a presidency council to select the prime minister who will select a cabinet.
This assembly will also draft a new constitution for referendum in October: a really amazing accomplishment for people oppressed for over a generation.
And as they face the challenges that remain, the coalition will stand firmly beside the Iraqi people to sustain momentum and progress in helping Iraqi security forces defeat the insurgents.
Again, this must be an international and interagency effort. We must avoid making the coalition military presence a unifying element for the insurgents. The objective must be to shift from providing security through coalition counterinsurgency operations to building Iraqi capability to operate independently.
The plan for Afghanistan is on track as well.
MYERS: The October 2004 presidential election in Afghanistan was a historic moment, conducted under the protection of their own national army and police forces with the assistance of coalition and international security assistance force.
These elections represented a real and moral defeat to the insurgency and provided new momentum for reform efforts. National assembly elections are currently scheduled for this summer.
Congress' firm commitment is leading the intentional effort to fund and equip reconstruction in Afghanistan. Now numbering approximately 19,000 personnel, the Afghan national army is a multi- ethnic, visible symbol of national pride, unity and strength.
The coalition and NATO will continue to help build the commands and institutions the Afghans need to sustain and manage their military.
At the same time we must stay focused on the enormous global threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly North Korea and Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons related activities.
Most troubling is the terrorist state of desire and intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We will continue to work with the international community to expand counter-proliferation activities.
And despite the current operational demands on our forces, we are fully prepared to support our strategy to assure our allies while we dissuade, deter and, if required, defeat any adversary.
Our forces are the world's most capable, in large part because they're the best equipped and best trained. But our nation's number one military asset has always been and remains the brave men and women serving in our armed forces.
The administration, Congress and the Department of Defense have made raising our servicemembers' standards of living a top priority. And I thank Congress for your tremendous support to our troops and to our families.
As the secretary said, current stresses on the force are significant and will remain so in the near future. I am particularly concerned with the wear and tear on our equipment, especially our vehicles. The current operational tempo and harsh environmental conditions are accelerating the wear on our equipment, placing a huge demand on maintenance, supply, depot repair and production.
In the face of continuing demands on our forces, we are analyzing all our policies and making changes to mitigate readiness challenges. Congressional support, both in the annual budget and supplemental funding, has been essential for continued operations for Army modularization and for recapitalization.
As you know, we continue to rely heavily on our Reserve and Guard personnel. Our reserve components are serving critical roles around the world. And as part of the total force, the reserves also serve as an important link to the American people.
The morale in both the active and reserve component remains high and the support of the American people has never been better. However, we must continue to review and update our mobilization processes. I look forward to working with the new congressional commission on Guard and Reserve matters to chart the future course for our very important reserve component.
MYERS: I anticipate that fiscal year '05 will be a very challenging year for both active and reserve component recruiting, particularly for the Army reserve components. We are increasing the numbers of recruiters and restructuring enlistment bonuses to help mitigate these challenges.
As the secretary said, protecting our troops remains a top priority. We have an aggressive project to focus on rapidly developing systems to detect and counter improvised explosive devices, and the rapid production and distribution of Interceptor body armor to our forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan was a tremendous success.
And clearly as essential as providing body armor for our troops is providing armored vehicles to transport them. And we're making good progress, ensuring that no soldier -- with a few exceptions -- leaves an Iraqi forward operating base in vehicles without protection.
We have also doubled the number of direct air delivery hubs in Iraq and expanded intra-theater airlift to reduce the number of convoys in high-risk zones.
I'm really proud of all our transformational efforts and successes. And we must continue to invest heavily in transformation, both intellectually and materially, to meet the challenges facing our country today and in the future.
This year we will work through three major processes that will have a far-reaching impact on our future force posture.
The first is the 2005 quadrennial defense review, which will provide a comprehensive strategic plan for transforming the armed forces.
The next is the base realignment and closure process, which provides an excellent opportunity to further transform our war- fighting capability and eliminate excess capacity.
And third, our global basing strategy transforms the Cold War footprint into one focused on capabilities, combining CONUS-based rotational forces that are lean and agile with strategically placed overseas-based forces.
The transformational decisions that we make today will have a lasting impact on our nation's defense capabilities and those of our allies and our partners. We must make thoughtful, informed choices about systems and programs that may be new and improved but not sufficient for our dynamic security environment.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff fully understand this and are leading our armed forces to transform.
We are now in our fourth year of sustained combat operations and we are still a nation at war. Our service men and women continue to perform superbly under conditions of significant stress and in the face of a myriad of challenges.
They stand ready to protect the United States, to prevent conflict and surprise attack, and prevail against adversaries. I am, as I know you are, tremendously proud of them.
MYERS: This is a pivotal moment in our nation's history and in world history. We must stay committed if we are to win the global war on terrorism and extremism. We can't be defeated militarily, but the terrorists can win if we lose our resolve, and they know it.
Our military is unwavering in our focus, in our resolve and our dedication to peace and freedom. But we can't do it alone. We need your continued leadership to reinforce America's resolve.
In my view, our way of life is, indeed, at stake and we're entering a crucial stage of this long struggle. The price for complacency would be catastrophic. The reward for our perseverance will be freedom.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
HUNTER: Thank you, General. And thank you for your service to our nation.
And the chair will reserve time until the end of the hearing, and we'll move to Mr. Skelton. The gentleman's recognized.
SKELTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General, you're absolutely right: This is a pivotal moment in history. We have to get it right.
By a briefing I had yesterday, things are well on the right track, especially with NATO help in Afghanistan. And I think people should know that.
The system works. Mr. Secretary, we in Congress are part of that system under the Constitution of the laws setting forth our duties and responsibilities.
And a recent law requires that a document known as the National Military Strategy be prepared by General Myers and delivered to your office. That was to have been delivered to us on February 15th of last year.
It might be outdated by today. I don't know.
And I refer, Mr. Secretary, to your comment -- and it's correct -- this struggle cannot be won by military means alone. But in absence of the strategic document, I must ask you what is our strategy for ensuring that the Iraqi government can provide for its own security, that we consolidate our political gains, that economic reconstruction steps be brought together?
And what are the metrics for success? In other words, what is the strategy to win? We must win there. What is our strategy? Would you tell us, Mr. Secretary?
RUMSFELD: Congressman Skelton, first let me say that the documents you're referring to, I believe, should be sent up very soon. I think next month.
Isn't that correct?
MYERS: Yes, sir.
RUMSFELD: With respect to the Iraq situation, the answer to your question is that it will be the Iraqi people that defeat that insurgency. It will be the Iraqi people that provide for their country -- reconstruction.
They've got great wealth with water and oil. They have intelligent people, well-educated people. And they have every opportunity to make a success of it. And it will be their task to do that.
Our circumstance and our requirement is to try to -- first of all, the coalition forces liberated those people and freed them from a vicious dictatorship.
You mentioned the success of the election. Of course that's true. I must say, there were an awful lot of people who wanted to put off the election and delay it. And, thanks to the steely perseverance of President Bush, it went forward and it was successful.
The work that's being done, and has been done since March or April or May of 2003 with respect to training up the Iraqi security forces -- I don't know if we have a chart on that or not, but, as I said in my remarks, we've gone from zero to 136,000.
RUMSFELD: We're scheduled to have 200,000 in September or October of this year, when the elections take place with respect to the constitution.
And between December and January, we should have 230,000 for the second elections, which are the elections of the people under the new constitution. And the program takes it 270,000 by June of '06.
I expect to see the coalition countries begin paring down their forces as they complete their contributions. And depending on the nature of the insurgency, the Iraqi forces, obviously, will become increasingly capable of managing the security for the Iraqi people.
I think that you will see, over the coming weeks and months, a modest refocusing of U.S. efforts towards increasing the mentoring and training and assisting of the Iraqi forces as the Iraqi forces take over more and more responsibility for the security in the country.
As you know, the president said from the outset, we have no desire to be in Iraq, we have no desire to maintain forces there any longer than is absolutely necessary. And the goal is to get that country on a path to democracy, and certainly this election was a wonderful first step.
I must say one other thing about it. People were worried that the Shia, after the election, would get even, if you will. The Sunnis ran the country for 35 years with a 20 percent population.
And everything I've seen is just to the contrary. The Shia, who got the most votes, are reaching out to the Sunnis, they're including them, they recognize the importance of having all elements of the country participate in drafting the constitution. And I think that's an encouraging thing.
SKELTON: Mr. Secretary...
MYERS: Congressman Skelton, may I add one thing?
SKELTON: You bet.
MYERS: I think we have a chart on the strategic task and objectives for Iraq that comes out of our national strategy -- if you could put that up.
But, in fact, the strategy is very well developed. As you know, the State Department just conducted an assessment in Iraq to determine if that strategy was -- any adjustments were need.
Those are the peak (ph) objectives that we track.
We have metrics for many of those lines of operation, we have goals, and we continue to update those and refine those as time goes on.
And, in fact, we have a room in the Pentagon where we track the metrics for the strategic task to be achieved and would be happy to show it to members if you're so inclined to come over to the Pentagon and see how we track progress.
SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, an additional question regarding, as we all know, of course, American troops are still paying a deadly price. I hate to turn the radio on in the morning and listen to those reports.
So may I ask, what is our current estimate of the size of the insurgent force? And how much uncertainty is connected with that estimate, Mr. Secretary?
RUMSFELD: The intelligence community looks at that. The CIA does, DIA does, others do. And they have differing assessments over, at different times.
And, as you know, they're made up of former regime elements, Baathists, and they're made up of Zarqawi-type jihadists and terrorists, and they're also include a varying number of criminals who are paid to do these things. And it's that aggregation that constitutes the insurgents.
I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligence work.
Maybe, Dick, you want to comment on it.
MYERS: Well, I think your description is right. The primary insurgents that we need to be concerned with, there are two types.
One is the al Qaida-associated Zarqawi folks in-country and the foreign fighters. We think that is a fairly small percentage of the total number of insurgents.
And then we have the former regime elements and Sunni extremists that are hard core. The hard core, the ones that need to be captured or dealt with on the battlefield, is a smaller percentage of the overall total, which includes folks like common criminals and it includes folks that are opportunistic and perhaps because they don't have a job are willing to take money to attack the coalition or dissatisfied because they don't see a political future for themselves or their families or their tribes. So the number is, like all insurgencies, very hard to measure.
These are generally small cells. They don't keep very good records as we capture individuals you can't simply go into their paraphernalia and say, “Ah-ha, here's their organizational diagram, “ because they don't have one. So the estimates are hard to come by.
If you look at capabilities -- and Congressman Skelton used the chart to show the attacks over time -- we think we have a pretty good idea of what their capabilities are and outside of Fallujah they have not used conventional military tactics to attack either Iraqis or ourselves.
They use terrorism. They use extremism. They use beheadings. And that's probably the level of their capability, despite what the numbers might be.
MYERS: And the way you defeat that, as in all insurgencies, is not with numbers. Numbers aren't as important as good governance in Iraq, good economic conditions and infrastructure in Iraq, a good communications policy in Iraq that communicates internally to the Iraqi people.
SKELTON: Let me point out very quickly that the intelligence service director of the Iraqi intelligence says that there are 40,000 hard-core fighters and more than 200,000 part-time fighters. That's the only number that I have in front of me.
Do you agree or disagree with his assessment?
RUMSFELD: Who is that?
SKELTON: His name is General Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani.
RUMSFELD: Oh, I've seen that.
I've got two in front of me that are different, one from CIA and one from DIA.
SKELTON: Could you share those with us?
RUMSFELD: I'd be happy to. They're classified.
SKELTON: Well, all right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MYERS: But they're considerably different in that number and considerably lower.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.
And it was the chairman's prerogative to give more time to the ranking member, but we are going to adhere to this five-minute rule, I say to questioners and questionees.
So let me go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon.
WELDON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank each of you for coming and for your service to the country.
Mr. Secretary, I couldn't be prouder of our troops and the leadership or the job that they have done. And I applaud you for the effort.
And, General, having visited the region and seen our troops and talked to them, their morale is high. And we're here to support and continue to support the kinds of resources that you need in this year's defense authorization markup. We'll give you that support.
I'm not going to talk about Iraq. We have a members' briefing this afternoon where I'll be asking some Iraqi questions. But I do want to bring two specific congressional initiatives to your attention.
Mr. Secretary, I'd ask for your support for each of them.
The first is an effort -- and you both mentioned the control of proliferation as a major priority, and I agree with that, especially with weapons of mass destruction coming out of the former Soviet Union.
And the first gets at the heart of cooperation with the Russians in two areas. One is to move forward with a new effort in joint missile defense cooperation.
As you know, General Kadish canceled the only cooperative program we had with the Russians called RAMOS. There is no follow-on program.
At his suggestion, last May, I took General Obering over to Moscow because we were not able to get a proper meeting with General Balievski (ph).
We had that meeting, and the Missile Defense Agency was ready to sign a contract to move forward with missile defense cooperation both for targeting and for the use of their radars.
The policy shop weighed in and wanted to review the team that was being dealt with, and General Balievski (ph) had been then elevated to the chief of the general staff.
Right now, on Doug Feith's desk -- and he's been very cooperative in this effort -- there's an assessment being done of working with a new group that reports directly to Putin on cooperation in both missile defense and in getting access to 39 of the most sensitive biological sites in Russia to do joint research and applications work.
Some of these sites have never been made available to us before.
So I would just ask you to get a briefing from Undersecretary Feith. Let him know that, as I briefed you and Secretary Wolfowitz a year ago, this is an effort that we should pursue aggressively because the end result is to get better access from the Russians on their biological sites as well as cooperation with them on missile defense.
The group that the Russians have organized is called the International Exchange Group, and they will be coming over here in the next two months. And they report directly to Putin.
The second issue deals with nuclear policy and the posture review. As I've talked to you, Mr. Secretary, repeatedly, members and the public don't fully understand all the time the implications of the use of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
WELDON: And the best evidence of that lack of understanding was the rejection by the Congress of various aspects of your request last year, specifically for the RNEP.
I can tell you, having led a delegation in North Korea one month ago with three of my Democrat colleagues from this committee and two Republican from this committee, the North Koreans were very intrigued by the notion that we were looking to pursue a deep earth penetrator to get at their underground complexes.
We told them that lost by one vote. And I would suggest to you, Mr. Secretary, that we ought to pursue the creation that we recommended last year of a nuclear posture commission -- it's now a non-profit organization -- that could provide consultation to the Congress and to the American people about the role of nuclear weapons as a part of our nuclear posture in the 21st century.
If that commission were, in fact, in place, perhaps we wouldn't have had the kind of actions that led to the defeat of the RNEP by one vote in the last session of Congress.
And so I'd ask you to relook at that whole commission and the current activities of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, which is being co- chaired by Johnny Foster and Keith Payne.
These tools are designed to help you in your effort at dealing with the use of nuclear weapons in the 21st century and the understanding of them by the Congress and by the people. And, in the area of proliferation, to help you get at the sources of those weapons of mass destruction technology that largely lie in the former Soviet states.
So I would just make those two comments.
I do have a more detailed question about the posture review. And with the chairman's indulgence, I will add that into the record and ask you to respond to the actually specifics of the question in more detail.
Thank you.
RUMSFELD: Congressman, I'd be happy to get the briefing you suggested.
As you know, we've spent -- we have about $450 million in the budget for cooperative threat reduction, and we've spent up to $25 million or $30 million for RAMOS in 2004.
And we have gone back in the budget for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study.
And, if you think about it, the new technology enables anyone in the world to buy dual-use technology and dig underground in rock twice the height of a basketball net and the full length of a basketball court every day. In rock. And it's available to anybody.
And countries all across the globe are putting things underground. And we have no capability, conventional or nuclear, to deal with the issue of deep penetrator.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz?
ORTIZ: Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, welcome to our committee today.
I was looking at the chart that you have there: neutralize insurgents, ensure legitimate elections and so on down the line.
To do that, how long will it take us to get there?
RUMSFELD: I'd be happy to start and maybe General Myers wants to comment.
There has never been a war that was predictable as to length, casualty or cost in the history of mankind. Anyone who attempts to do it is, within a relatively short order, proven to be not quite as wise as they thought they were.
You say, “How long will it take? “ The goal is to have the Iraqis have the security capability to manage their own insurgency.
We can predict how long it will take to train up and equip various types of forces.
RUMSFELD: And we have materials we send up to the committee weekly that explain all of that and show all the types of forces and the numbers and what the projection is.
The question is: How does that capability match with the actual problem of the insurgency? Is the insurgency going to grow or decline?
General Myers pointed out that the nature of the insurgency is dependent not simply upon the security forces to deal with it but also on the political progress and the economic progress. And both of those are making headway. So that ought to be encouraging.
But I regret -- I'd dearly love to be able to give you a specific date. I can't.
ORTIZ: The reason I'm asking is also I think you had breakfast Saturday with General Casey, and he mentioned about the idea of embedding 200,000 to 300,000 soldiers to train the Iraqis.
Is this safe to do that since we see every day where they attack national guardsmen, where they attack police officers? How safe would that move be?
RUMSFELD: I don't believe it will happen with respect to police forces. And you're quite right, that would be an issue.
Second, I would say that we're already doing it in a number of parts of the country, and it's proven to be, you know, what it has been.
The reason I mention that is because we tend to think of Iraq as a single homogeneous circumstance, and it isn't. It's quite different.
Of the 18 provinces, 14 have a relatively low number of incidents a day. Of the remaining four, one of which is Baghdad -- and of the four they constitute something like 40 percent of the population, so it's a higher percentage of the population than it is the provinces. But that is where the bulk of the violence is.
So General Casey and the commanders on the ground will be the ones that will have to make those judgments about safety.
ORTIZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
HUNTER: I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hefley?
HEFLEY: Mr. Secretary I continue to be concerned about what seems to be a cultural phenomenon that's grown up in the last few years of putting repeated expenses in the supplemental. And I understand what you -- you spoke to this, and I understand what you're saying about the need to change to quickly and so forth.
HEFLEY: But there are certain aspects of the war effort that we pretty much know what it is, what it's going to be.
We spend $4.1 billion a month on O&M in Iraq and we can predict that almost every month that that's what it's going to be. I mean. it's amazingly consistent. We spend $0.8 billion a month in Afghanistan and again, amazingly consistent.
Now, this doesn't include the cost of personnel, but that's fairly consistent I would think. So I wonder why these aspects can't be put in the normal budget.
We still need the flexibility of the supplemental for certain things that we don't anticipate, but the thing that disturbs me, Mr. Secretary, is that we will tell you, “Oh, we're going to scrub that supplemental. We're going to really look at that supplemental, “ but when the supplemental comes to us, the reaction is pretty much, “Well, the troops need it. We've got to do it. “
And so we don't really scrub it very well. And it goes through and I wonder if that's the purpose of doing it in supplemental, so it doesn't get scrubbed so thoroughly. We spend endless hours and many, many hearings looking at your normal budget request and the supplemental $81 billion goes through.
So can you respond to this? Couldn't we put most of what we're talking about in war costs, because they are repeating now, into the normal budget requests?
RUMSFELD: Congressman, I am no expert on this subject and I've asked the same kinds of questions and, as you understand, it's basically a decision that's made between Congress and the Office of Management and Budget and the executive branch, not the department.
I'm told that the congressional budget resolution of 2005, emergency spending is allowed for supplemental when the spending is designated an emergency by the president or the Congress, when spending is necessary, essential or vital, urgent, pressing, compelling, unforeseen, unpredictable or unanticipated, not permanent and temporary in nature.
Now, you're right, you do have a monthly figure that's been fairly steady in Afghanistan. Our hope, obviously, is to be able to pare those troops down. We don't know -- after they have the parliamentary elections this summer and if President Karzai continues to have success our hope is to be able to make some modest changes in the coalition.
The same thing in Iraq. We can't predict how long it will go on.
So even though the number's been steady, it's hard and if you go back to that chart we had that shows that the regular budget cycle's 33, 34, 35 months. That is a long time.
Let me give you an example of the dilemma I had. I told our military, I said, “When you come back to reset the force after you've been in Afghanistan and Iraq, do not come back and reset the force the way it was. Reset the force the way it ought to be. “
So if you go over to a war and you end up using dumb bombs up, you don't want to come back and buy more dumb bombs and replenish your supply of antiquated weaponry. You want to buy smart bombs.
RUMSFELD: And the question is, is that a replenishment and a reset that goes in a supplemental, or is it something else? Is it an improvement? Well, it's both.
And the same thing on Army modularity.
We do have the same dilemma you do and I don't know the answer. But we've sure tried to do the best we could. And I think it's much better to have our forces reset for the future rather than the past.
So trying to disaggregate which portion of that -- there's no way we would have put it into a regular budget. We would have had to start 32 months ago.
HEFLEY: Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary.
It is frustrating I think to all of us and I can see that it is to you as well. Maybe we have some responsibility to give you guidance in what you will accept and what we won't accept in a supplemental.
And, Mr. Chairman, maybe we ought to do more talk about that at the committee level and see.
But thank you very much.
