J. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, our men and women are doing a fantastic job in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we're really concentrating hard on the global war on terror right now.
But while doing that, it seems to me that we're concentrating so much of our efforts on that that perhaps we're making relatively short-term budget concessions, such as cutting ships, cutting aircraft at the risk of sacrificing our long-term national security.
One, I'd like to know what your assessment is of that, if you think we are putting our men and women and our national security at risk by some of these short-term decisions?
And, two, the recent PBD release and budget proposal appear to signal a shift in the underlying assumptions of our strategic defense structure.
If the QDR hasn't started and won't start until March of this year, was the decision to cut the FA-22s and to cut shipbuilding, our carrier fleet, from 12 to 11 -- why was that decision made? And it was made before the analysis even began, let alone before it's completed.
So my question to you is: Is it not fair to say that our budgetary decisions are driving and taking precedence over our strategic preferences, and are we not putting our future at risk?
RUMSFELD: That is always the $64 question year after year. Resources are finite. We always know that. It's not unlimited. Choices have to be made. Priorities have to be established, and they are.
In this budget, the Department of Defense got a sizable increase of something like $19 billion -- what is it 4.8 percent increase? -- unlike other departments and agencies.
In direct answer to your question, the war is not doing that. The war is being funded separately.
And so it is not squeezing out the future. It's simply a matter of having to make the kinds of choices that have been made for decades in this country.
With respect to the FA-22, the answer is that the review is going to take place in the quadrennial defense review.
The buy is continuing through '08, and it's up to, I think, 176, 179 aircraft. And the question is: Do we need two wings or one wing or 1 1/2 wings? And it's going to be reviewed, and it's a serious matter.
It's an excellent airplane from everything I've been told.
And that thought and analysis that needs to be done about what will be the air circumstance of our country in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years is a serious question.
And these are enormously expensive aircraft. What are they, $250 million a piece?
$257 a piece, so it's not like they're cheap.
J. DAVIS: But before the time runs out, I'm really interested, very much so, in the carrier fleet.
And I understand that the Defense budget has gone up considerably, but for the last several years shipbuilding is continuing to go down in steady decline.
I understand we always talk about capabilities, but with all due respect, you can have ships with all the capabilities in the world, but they can only be in one place at one time.
RUMSFELD: Well, let's talk a little about that. I've been enormously impressed with what the Navy had done, Vern Clark and Gordon England.
Previously, three or four years ago, our capability was to have -- we had 12 carriers, battle groups. We could have three of them at any one time out, plus a surge of two.
So that's five out of 12, not impressive; expensive, but not impressive. The way they've rearranged things, with crew swaps and reducing transit time and increasing the spares and reducing overhaul and repair time, now they're at five or six, plus one or two with the same size fleet.
Now, that's an enormous change. The capability that's there is just enormous difference.
Next, we talk about the size of the Navy, and the size of the Navy's important. What's really important, however, is what portion of the Navy's deployable at any given moment.
When we had 485 ships, we routinely deployed 102, about a fifth of it. With 290 ships, we routinely deploy 95, which is a third.
So we're able to deploy not a fifth, but a third of the fleet because of management improvements. That's the second important fact.
RUMSFELD: The third important fact is lethality. I mean, the capability of these ships is so much greater.
I think we showed a chart up there to show the -- let's back up. I can't find it here, but it's somewhere.
J. DAVIS: My time is almost up, Mr. Secretary, but I think we used 70 percent of our ships in the Operation Enduring Freedom, if I'm not mistaken. Is that not correct?
RUMSFELD: I don't know. I could find out.
HUNTER: The gentlelady's time...
(CROSSTALK)
J. DAVIS: I'd like to discuss it later.
HUNTER: The gentlelady's time has expired. We're going to go now to my neighbor from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews.
ANDREWS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to thank the secretary, General Myers, all the witnesses for their participation.
I must say I do want to take a moment and reflect on the achievement of the men and women that you lead and your colleagues in other federal departments. If someone would have told us five years ago we'd be sitting here in a world where Afghanistan had free elections involving women fully and Iraq had a very successful election under very difficult circumstances and offers the very real prospect of the evolution of a law abiding, human rights respecting government, I would not have believed it.
And I think that the men and women you lead are, in a great way, responsible for that and I hope you will express our appreciation to them for that achievement.
I'm very concerned though that the achievement won't take hold unless we see some dramatic improvements in the situation in Iraq.
Mr. Secretary, I apologize though for not being present when you said it, but my understanding is that when Mr. Skelton asked the question about your best estimate of the number of resistance fighters that your comment was that you're not in the business of intelligence and that it's not a number that you know. Is that a fair statement of your answer?
RUMSFELD: What I said was that I have in my hot little hand differing views from DIA and CIA. He cited an Iraqi view that was totally inconsistent with it.
My job in the government is not to be the principal intelligence officer and try to rationalize differences...
ANDREWS: I understand.
RUMSFELD: ... between Iraqis, the CIA and the DIA.
I see these reports. Frankly, I don't have a lot of confidence in any of them.
ANDREWS: Yes. It is your job and...
RUMSFELD: On that number.
ANDREWS: Yes. I understand. It is your job, and it's our job with you, to determine whether we have the forces that are sufficient to suppress the resistance, to transition to an Iraqi force, and to build a civil society that's needed there. And clearly, it is your conclusion that we adequate forces. Is that right?
RUMSFELD: Absolutely or we'd have some other number.
If General Myers and General Casey and Abizaid and the president concluded that the number was wrong we'd change it. We said that.
ANDREWS: Is the size of the force then predicated upon the worst case set of intelligence numbers for the size of the resistance or something else?
RUMSFELD: As I've indicated, I don't think -- I think you have to look at the political progress, the economic progress and the nature of the insurgency and then balance the security forces against that.
Second, there's another tension, and the tension is this. The bigger the force, the heavier the footprint, the more intrusive foreigners are, and the greater the feeling of occupation and heavy footprint. The lighter the force, the more the Iraqis are out front, the less intrusive and the less offensive it is, and maybe the earlier you will find the Iraqi people taking hold of their own country.
So that is the dilemma. That's the tension.
ANDREWS: I understand. I understand that quantity and efficacy are not the same thing. I do understand that.
I have a question that leads to a few years down the road. It is no one's desire, I am sure, that we would be engaged in a full-scale conflict in another hot spot in the world -- Iran, North Korea -- no one desires that. No one plans for it. I don't think anybody wants it.
If, however, we were to find ourselves in such a situation and if we still had the force deployment we do in Iraq, two three years from now, if you take into account the modularity gains which you are anticipating -- 43 active duty brigades in the active service by the end of fiscal '07 -- is that enough? Would that be enough for us to have the force size that we presently have in Iraq and have a force scaled to do the job that might need to be done in an Iran or North Korea, or is it insufficient?
MYERS: We evaluate that periodically. And as I said in my opening statement, we can handle the tasks that are outlined in the national defense strategy that this country expects its military to handle.
So, in short, yes. If there is another situation, let's say on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. forces can respond and deal with that situation.
ANDREWS: But is that assuming that the modularity process works, the modernization works and that's what fees up the skill sets that you need, or is that assuming greater use of Guard and Reserve or a greater end strength? What is that assumption based on?
MYERS: Well, there are several assumptions that would go into that. One is that we would shift some of the strategic lift to move forces to the Pacific. And we'd have to potentially mobilize some Reserve components that have been mobilized once in the last several years, of course.
But if we had two conflicts like that, that's what the Reserves would want to do themselves. That would be a very serious situation.
But we are tasked, as a military, to be able to do basically two -- and we called it in the QDR two “swiftly defeat the efforts of, “ which are two conflicts, taking one conflict to a more enduring outcome, which is what we find ourselves involved in in Iraq today. We can still do that today.
Now, the timeliness of our response might not be totally consistent with what the combatant commander wants and so forth. But we can...
(CROSSTALK)
ANDREWS: We can make the case that it would be three, because we have two that are ongoing.
Mr. Chairman, my time is up. But I did want to ask if the chairman would consider: The secretary made reference to the DIA and CIA estimates that he sees with respect to size of the resistance force.
If the chairman would ask the department and the relevant agencies to arrange for a classified briefing for this committee so that we can hear those estimates as well, in due course.
MYERS: Mr. Chairman, this whole issue of numbers of insurgents is an important question.
But as we look at insurgencies, if you look at -- in China, males insurgents at their low point were greatly outnumbered by the Chinese forces, I mean, greatly outnumbered and yet they persevered to win. So it's not about numbers.
What we do know about these insurgents is that overall they are not very effective. They can spike in capability, as we saw before elections. But it goes back down to a steady state.
We know that they are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. We saw it on election day. And I think that gave the Iraqi people a lot more confidence as they went out and saw a lot more Iraqis going to the polls.
And the insurgents were certainly set back by that phenomenon, as they were in Afghanistan and as we see now, the Taliban and Afghanistan wanting to come and rejoin the political process.
ANDREWS: I think we understand that. We just want to see them lose a lot faster.
HUNTER: We're going to have to move on. The gentleman's time is...
MYERS: But it's an important issue. And I'd say the insurgent's future is absolutely bleak.
So precise numbers in an insurgency where some people come and go is always going to be hard to estimate. And that's what we're trying to say.
HUNTER: Thank you, General.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes?
FORBES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for your patience and answering our questions, as we strive to set the priorities in our budget that I know the administration had to set in theirs.
And as we look at this budget or any budget, we realize that many of the platforms we are talking about are not going to happen tomorrow. They are five years out, maybe seven years out.
And the temptation is certainly to look at Iraq and perhaps even Iran.
But I've got a big concern too, as we just got back from visiting China. And I see what's going on over there with their Navy.
I believe very strongly, if they are not moving toward a policy of denial with their Navy, certainly they are moving toward -- or a policy of control, they are certainly trying a policy of denial in the creation and build-up of their Navy.
And the question that I'd have is, as we met with them, it seems clear to us that they have an overall policy for ship building that includes where their manpower is going to be, where their resources are going to be.
We looked at their steel mills. They're throwing out steel as fast as you can watch it; running it 24 hours a day.
FORBES: In addition to that, they're building -- at least on their commercial ships -- they're turning them around in six months from start to finish. And they didn't give us the luxury of looking at their military ship construction, of course.
But my question is just two-fold. One, do we have anywhere written an overall shipbuilding plan for the United States which takes into account not just the number of ships that we need but where our workforce needs are going to be and how they're going to be met five years down the road as we're creating them, our resources for putting them together?
And if so, could you just let us know where that is so I could study that and look at it?
And the second thing is, I notice that we have, it looks like a $1.26 billion cut in shipbuilding from what the administration proposed in the '05 budget and what we have proposed this year.
And my question there is: Why that cut? Because I recognize that we have technology concerns, but that didn't take place over 12 months. The threat certainly has not decreased over that period of time. And if you look at all of the adjustments we've made in the Navy, they haven't taken place just over the 12-month period of time.
And maybe you could indicate to us why we had that kind of decrease in our shipbuilding budget over that 12-month window?
RUMSFELD: First of all, your point on the People's Republic of China is, of course, correct. They are investing -- they're growing rapidly and they're making significant investments in defense capabilities, military capabilities.
They're buying a great deal of equipment from Russia. They're making an increasing amount of equipment. It's more advanced technologically. They're actively trying to get access to European technology by getting the arms embargo ban lifted from the European Union, which it looks like the European Union is along the track to do at some point.
They're increasingly moving their navy further distances from their shores in various types of exercises and activities. And that's a reality.
You had so many questions in there, let me see if I can pull out another one.
The question of the budget. The Navy budget has been increased. It is lower than the number -- and the request we're making is higher than the authorization last year. Is that not correct?
JONAS: That is correct, sir.
RUMSFELD: Second, the...
FORBES: Mr. Secretary?
RUMSFELD: It is below the number that was in the budget for '07 last year.
Yes, you started to?
FORBES: Just -- maybe I have wrong figures. I was given figures of $9.96 billion for '05. And then we had $8.7 billion in the '06 budget. And maybe I have wrong figures on that. So maybe I'll look at whatever figures that you have. And that's for shipbuilding that I'm looking at specifically.
RUMSFELD: Oh. Just for shipbuilding. I don't have that number. I was talking about the United States Navy.
JONAS: Sir, we are down a bit in the shipbuilding account, and primarily with the change in plan. From the '05 enacted level, we're down two ships. Primarily the Congress asked for a gap ship and the LCS, littoral combat ship. So that was slipped a year. And the TAKE slipped a year.
FORBES: And, Mr. Chairman, my question -- and again, if you don't have the information now, if you could just get it back to me.
But it's my understanding that from the administration budget -- not what we authorized, but the administration budget -- a year ago was $9.96 billion for shipbuilding. And this year it's $8.7 billion. And if those figures are wrong, you know, I stand to be corrected.
But my question was: What happened in the 12-month period of time? Because we're looking at five-year projections and seven-year projections. What happened in 12 months to lead us to want to reduce the shipbuilding budget by approximately $1.26 billion?
JONAS: Sir, you may recall that one of the -- we got congressional direction to slip one of the ships, a so-called gap year for design. So that would have counted for one of the ships.
RUMSFELD: The other thing that happened -- while the Navy budget, I believe, is up from year to year, last year to this year's request, the projection from last year for this year was higher than we're coming in requesting.
And the reason for that, obviously, is because the president looked at the total budget and the deficit and made a judgment and decided to increase the Defense Department's budget only $19 billion instead of some larger number that had been projected.
RUMSFELD: As a result, the services and the department went down and took a look at their circumstances, came back up and said, given the figure that we're now planning on, we still have an increase -- all the services have an increase.
But it's a smaller increase than they had hoped, and therefore, they had to make some adjustments in their budget, and that may have been a factor, as well.
FORBES: Mr. Chairman, my time's up, but if you could also, on shipbuilding plan, at some point in time, just submit that answer to the record for us. And I know I'm out of time.
RUMSFELD: Sure.
ACTING CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Forbes.
I know that we're all anxious to ask these questions, but just keep in mind that the secretary's time is limited. And also, the chairman left me strict instructions about this five-minute rule, so...
RUMSFELD: We also have to be at the Senate at a fixed time, and that means that we're going to have to get out and get lunch and get over there.
So 1 o'clock's about a hard stop for us.
ACTING CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
Mrs. Davis?
S. DAVIS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much to Mr. Secretary and General Myers for being here.
I want to assure you that there's great interest in the long-term plan for shipbuilding on both sides of the aisle. At the Navy-Marine Caucus yesterday, we spoke about this, and we also talked about the capitalization and how we find more sensible ways to do that.
And I think we're going to be searching for better ways that the Congress can work with the administration to do that, and certainly with our leaders and the Joint Chiefs.
I wanted to just pick up for one moment on the comment that my colleague, Mr. Jones, made because I did have an opportunity to...
RUMSFELD: You've given us a red light even before you've even asked your question. How can that be?
(LAUGHTER)
S. DAVIS: How can that be, Mr. Chairman? Do I have a red light already?
ACTING CHAIRMAN: No, ma'am, you're fine.
(LAUGHTER)
S. DAVIS: OK.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for bringing that to my attention. Appreciate it.
(LAUGHTER)
RUMSFELD: Now it's green. All right.
S. DAVIS: I wanted to comment just very briefly on the comment that my colleague, Mr. Jones, made earlier in response to the article in The Wall Street Journal in which Dr. Chu was quoted.
And I did have a chance to ask Dr. Chu in a hearing about that comment, and he had an opportunity to clarify it.
S. DAVIS: But I just wanted to suggest that there's a fire storm out there on that. And it would be very helpful, I think, to further clarify for the American people and also for our veterans.
They are concerned and it might be -- and Mr. Chairman, I know I had suggested this earlier -- that at some point perhaps bringing the Veterans Committee and the Armed Services Committee together to work together so that we don't make the kind of calculations or statements that pit one against the other.
We have veterans' benefits, very, very important. We also have great needs in our national security. And I think that we need to address those in a reasonable fashion that don't put people in a position of being very concerned that we're putting one above the other.
We also wanted, if you might, to just go to the strategic objectives that you spoke about earlier. And I understand that perhaps there is a wall where we have all those objectives listed.
Could you, though for a moment, give me something that's kind of ballparkish in terms of these areas? Where are we?
Is it possible -- you're aware of the objectives and all the issues that go into that, the metrics, if you will, but can you be more specific with us today in this hearing about where we are? Zero to five, where are we in neutralizing the insurgents, ensuring legitimate elections, et cetera? Would you be able to go through that and be a little more specific about where we are?
And perhaps if you could also be where we are a year ago? Were we further along in some areas? Were we better in establishing a foundation for a strong economy a year ago before we had a number of insurgent attacks? How are we, and I guess, what are your hopes, and in the next year, where would you like to be, reasonably?
MYERS: I don't think we have the time here to go into the kind of detail you just asked, but we can drill down on most of those categories. I'll just remind people that not all of this is a Department of Defense responsibility. We have responsibility certainly for most of the security area, but not entirely.
And security is not just forces. It's a lot more of the economic and governance piece and so forth and just judicial systems, the ability to prosecute those that attack Iraqis and attack the coalition, to get them through a system and show people that there's a price to pay for their behavior, for their terrorist actions.
We can go down in some of those categories. In general, we're certainly better off than we were a year ago, in terms of almost all those categories. We're now nowhere near where we need to be in most of those categories either.
And part of it is because, as the chart said, it says, assisting Iraqis to achieve those objectives. They're not U.S. objectives to achieve. We have to strengthen Iraqi capacity and confidence and self-reliance.
And so it's complex. I mean, it's a very complex thing we're doing.
And one of the things that General Luck came back, after his assessment, and said that he was surprised at the level of devastation -- and not devastation physical, but the moral and spiritual devastation of the Iraqi people -- they were taught through decades to be helpless and to not raise their hand and ask to show initiative because they would get swatted down.
So that all plays in that and we just don't have time go into each of those categories. I did not bring all the books that that would require.
S. DAVIS: I appreciate that, General Myers.
If you will, could you just take one area then, the border patrol, and the number of troops that are at the border of our troops. We have about 10,000 here in the U.S., roughly, many more connected to other immigration issues. And I'm wondering if you could just cite how adequate we feel the border agents -- the numbers are at the border...
MYERS: I can look that up in just a minute. I think it's 20,000-some. I do know this. That it's not just the number of troops. It's again their capabilities.
So what General Petraeus has been focusing on is their training, their equipping, also they need infrastructure at these border crossing points and they need systems. They need the information technology to compare the kind of passports they're getting and so forth, so they know who's passing and who's legal and who is illegal.
And there's the border -- are those border forces there? They are not. They'd be in the other forces, other MOI forces, I think the 21,000. That's when I said 20,000, but I'll look it up here in just a minute.
But I don't have it at the tip of my tongue.
S. DAVIS: Well, I do see that my time is up. I wanted you, perhaps as another question, just -- you had mentioned earlier that we were not embedding the police, and yet we know how critical they are to our success strategy and we all believe fervently that we must have and that we're very supportive of that success strategy.
What is happening then with the police corps if in fact we're not getting...
MYERS: I think what the secretary was referring to that -- and anything we do in Iraq has to be worked with the Iraqi government. And it's their choice how we -- they play in this equation on how we assist them. And it was their preference, at least the local police level, we do not assist.
Now, we understand that the police will play a very important role. Some think, and I happen to agree with them, that the European model of a gendarme or something like that would be very appropriate.
MYERS: As you know there are several countries, France being one of them, that is looking at that kind of training for Iraqi police forces and we think that will be important. That's not settled yet, but it's being discussed.
So the police will play a very important role, and they already have eight battalions of paramilitary in their police that can confront the insurgency and prevail and they do daily. That goes to an earlier question I think, Congresswoman Tauscher, that you asked.
There are -- somebody else -- but there are eight battalions that actually do that work in the ministry of interior that are police forces and so it's terribly important.
S. DAVIS: Thank you.
HUNTER: I thank the gentlelady.
Let me apologize to my colleagues, because we have a kind of an unusual situation. We've got the supplemental that's moving out and the secretary has to, as I understand, today do a big piece of the supplemental testimony and then do another piece of it tomorrow before everybody's gone, so we can get it out and get the supplemental moving and for markup.
For our members that haven't -- that didn't get a chance to ask a question, first, Mr. Secretary, we want to have the ability to move any questions in writing that they would like to ask.
But also is there a chance we could also perhaps have our members who didn't get a chance to ask a question have a chance to meet with you, maybe do a breakfast, lunch, something maybe in the building at the Pentagon in which we could...
RUMSFELD: Absolutely. I took down the names of everyone who is left and we'll get them down for breakfast sometime in the next two or three weeks.
HUNTER: OK. Let's do that.
UNKNOWN: Mr. Chairman, I have a question.
HUNTER: Yes, the gentlelady is recognized.
UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Would that breakfast with the secretary be open to the public?
HUNTER: Well, if you want to bring all the omelets it might be but...
UNKNOWN: Well, Mr. Chairman, the problem is -- and I appreciate your adherence to the five-minute rule -- however there are many of us who have important questions and my question in particular is about the four war games that were taking place on September 11th and how they may have impaired our ability to respond to the attacks on September 11th...
HUNTER: Let me say to the gentlelady...
UNKNOWN: I would like that question to be answered in public, Mr. Chairman.
HUNTER: OK. Let me say to the gentlelady, we're going to have other opportunities to have the secretary in front of us and what we will do, beyond having questions if you want a question for the record, be able to put that to the record and have the answer on the record, but additionally at the next event in which the secretary testifies -- and we'll try to make sure that happens -- we will start with the folks that did not get their questions so that you will have an opportunity to provide your question.
UNKNOWN: Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I hope the record is still open so that if even that portion of my comment would be included in this record.
HUNTER: It will be ordered.
UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SKELTON: Mr. Chairman?
HUNTER: Yes, ranking gentleman's recognized.
SKELTON: Ten seconds. Mr. Secretary, at some point in the near future, would you, either on a classified or unclassified basis, share with this committee the recommendations of General Luck?
RUMSFELD: The recommendations of General Luck and his team were oral. They were made to us and to General Casey and General Abizaid.
General Casey and General Abizaid are taking those thoughts and making a recommendation to me, which they have not yet made, and to the chairman which we then will present to the president if it's appropriate or if it's of that level.
We'd be happy to have you down and talk about it, the thoughts that General Luck had.
SKELTON: That's fine. Thank you very much.
RUMSFELD: Sure.
HUNTER: Why don't we make that one of the subjects of our discussion with the secretary when we go over to the building here. We'll make sure everybody gets a chance to go over.
So, Mr. Secretary, I'm sorry this had to be an abbreviated session, but thanks and we appreciate your service and appreciate the fact you're going to work on the supplemental. And we'll try to get our oar in the water as well on that document.
ABERCROMBIE: Mr. Chairman?
HUNTER: The gentleman from Hawaii.
ABERCROMBIE: Not to stop the secretary, but just for a moment -- on the issue here, Mr. Chairman, for our point of view, there are some legislative proposals that we couldn't go into today anyway but, Mr. Chairman, I just want to go on record with this thing.
I think the legislative proposals that are part of this package are totally out of line and bypass the ordinary review that we would give them. There are some very, very serious legislative proposals that go way beyond the supplemental that actually go into the permanent condition.
And I would just appreciate very much if you would take note of my concern -- which I expect is probably your concern, too -- and perhaps so we can have an appropriate set of hearings or consideration for these legislative proposals, way beyond just the transfer of money and all the rest.
HUNTER: OK. I understand the gentleman's concerns and we will like to share in that. We're going to look this thing over carefully and address that policy proposals that are manifest in that supplemental.
ABERCROMBIE: You understand my point is is I think they're not appropriate for a supplemental budget request, but rather are fundamental to the overall authorization bill because of the permanent nature of many of them.
HUNTER: I understand the gentleman's concern. I share some of those.
So thank you and the hearing -- yes, General Myers?
MYERS: Chairman Hunter, just to answer Congressman Davis' comment on the number of border patrol people, it's 24,000 is the current number of trained and equipped for Iraqi border patrol.
HUNTER: OK. Thank you. And the hearing is adjourned.
END
