READINESS

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Secretary and General, normally, I don't ask questions at the beginning of the hearing but rather pass it on. But on this very special occasion

General Shinseki, you have outlined the training and the fact that we are the best. Let me, if you will, first say to you that I can't tell you how proud I am to have this responsibility at this moment in our history to chair the Subcommittee of Appropriations that does the spending of money for our national security. But, having said that, when you are challenged, you need to be ready. But we also want to have confidence we can be successful.

So, General Shinseki, while all of us have been hoping over time for a peaceful option, it is my personal view that when some of our friends in Europe decide to walk away, they close the door that was that door. So, because of that, I ask you the question: If the President, the Commander in Chief, were to make a call tomorrow, are we ready and will we succeed swiftly?

General SHINSEKI. Mr. Chairman, you have asked a question about readiness to do the most difficult of missions that we think about, plan for and prepare for. And normally in our deliberations we talk about the word readiness in a variety of categories. We talk about training. We talk about new equipment. We talk about spare parts and maintenance of our systems. We talk about ammunition. We talk about the kinds of things that affect the morale of our people. It is only when we come to a major operation like this we roll it up into the one word about readiness.

So I will tell you that in September of 2001, when the President addressed the Houses of Congress, and those of us of the Joint Chiefs who were present, and indicated that there was a war being declared on terrorism and that there were other concerns with other actors who were not behaving in accordance with the best interests of our country and our friends and allies, the Secretary and I immediately, after that speech, put the Army in a wartime footing.

We directed the Army to increase its tempo of training, we increased the requirement to train with their weapons, increased the rate at which they would fire, increased the requirements for chem/ bio training, continued the development of young leaders who would continue to fill leadership positions. It is as a result of the last 18 months' focused and dedicated effort that I answer your question about will the Army be able to meet the call if the President succeeds unequivocally as a yes.

The Army is ready. There are lots of unknowns out there. Chem/ bio is probably the toughest aspect of what we have to do to prepare. But in all of these things, the Army, over the last several years has invested to deal with those unknowns, whether it is new equipment in the chemical and biological environment that results in new suits, new masks, increased training.

But the answer to your question is, the Army is ready. If it is ordered to conduct this operation, it will do so decisively. Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Chief.

Mr. Young.

MORALE OF THE TROOPS

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much and thank the Secretary and the General. Thank you for being here.

I have had just very recently an opportunity to spend a lot of time with both of them and have talked about a lot of issues.

But I just wanted to make one comment for the record; and you have a good attendance here today, Mr. Chairman, so I am not going to use up a lot of time.

As you know, my wife and I spend a lot of time at the hospital at Walter Reed; and we try to establish a relationship with all of the soldiers that are wounded in Afghanistan or anywhere in the region and stay with them until they either go home or go back to their unit. And one thing that runs-a thread that goes through all of them is their enthusiasm for their training, for their leadership, for their equipment, and for the motivation of where they were and why they were there. I would tell you, to see these young kids with-missing an arm or missing a foot or a leg or in a brace of some kind saying, Congressman, how soon can you get me back to the fight-I mean, the morale is outstanding.

That is just a tremendous, tremendous accolade to you and all of your leadership, for those who lead these young kids into these areas of hostility. You have done a really good job.

I, for one, appreciate, General, very much your role not only in the recent activities but in that 37-year period.

Secretary White, I will tell you, he is tough. He tells it like it is, which is, you know, something that I appreciate very much. Because I am not very diplomatic. I just want to get right to the core of the thing.

But you have done such a really good job, and I am happy that you feel that this Committee has been very supportive. Because that is our direction, that is our intent, to make sure that our soldiers have the best training, that they have the best equipment, that they have the best planning and that they aren't sent off on wild goose chases to do something and risk their lives for something unimportant. They are doing something extremely important, which is crucial to the survival of our Nation as we know it.

So I just wanted to take those few words to compliment both of you and your leadership team that have provided this tremendous education and leadership for these young kids that serve in our uniform. I appreciate it very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LEWIS. Gentlemen, you both mentioned the fact that this Committee operates very much in a nonpartisan fashion. That is in no small part-that is due to the work I have the privilege of doing with my colleague from Pennsylvania, Jack Murtha. Jack.

FISCAL YEAR 2003 SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING

Mr. MURTHA. There is only one concern I have, and that is pay. I understand that the Army is going to be in bad shape if you don't get a supplemental by May.

Now tell me the technical-you know, the services say this, and then they seem to find a way to get by. Technically speaking, when

are we talking about a deadline here? What is the answer to this pay problem, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary WHITE. Well, on the actually, the OMA appropriation, the operation and maintenance appropriation, is really a shorter fuse than the personnel accounts. On the OMA appropriation, we are looking at the end of April where we are going to need a supplemental help beyond our share of the omnibus appropriation. The military personnel side is roughly June. So in both cases, as opposed to last year where it went later in the year, because of the scale of mobilization and the scale of the activities, we are on fairly short fuses on both accounts.

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Secretary, every year we hear this, and then somebody gives you orders that you have to find a way to pay it. When is the deadline? Tell us when we have to have a supplemental so that you would run out of money and you couldn't pay the troops.

Secretary WHITE. I think that, well, in terms of paying people, June. In terms of operations and maintenance, before that.

Mr. MURTHA. So we would have to have a supplemental passed in May in order to pay the troops and O&M. You can't use the Feed and Forage authorities to get by.

Secretary WHITE. Well, you could. But I think the most preferable solution and assuming that the supplemental will be here shortly, as you can imagine, there is intense work going on on this. But we would like to see it pass before the Easter recess.

Mr. MURTHA. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Murtha.

Mr. Hobson.

REMARKS OF MR. HOBSON

Mr. HOBSON. Thank you. I won't be quite as quick. I haven't written a book like Jack has. First of all, Mr. Secretary, General Shinseki, I want to thank you for your service. You have persevered under some difficult times, both of you; and all of us are appreciative of what you have done.

just have and I have a number of questions I will do for the record. But I have four things I would like to talk about.

When we were in Kuwait, one the most serious-we always ask everybody, what do you need? What do you need to get this done? The number one critical thing that we heard was bandwidth. I don't have enough. And they are buying-and there are some other things in that theater we could talk about. But I want to go into three other things real quick.

I am concerned-I have another hat I am now wearing that relates to civil work in the Corps of Engineers. I am concerned about what is going to happen to the Corps. Actually, if you look at the money, you don't get a new pocket of money if you get rid of the Corps.

Thirdly-I can't give this up, guys, even though I am not the chairman anymore of military construction. MILCON is close to me. As you know, the housing and things of that sort. I am not the chairman now, but I am concerned that MILCON has been put on hold, and I am wondering where that money is going or going to go or not go.

Lastly is a thing that I think they need over there. There are some things called hemo coolers which are-we can't kick out the combat medical support-which is a system for taking blood and keeping it at a temperature. And we have tried. And you are going to call all of a sudden and want all of these things, and they are not going to be ready because we can't kick the money out of the combat support medical procurement staff at Fort Detrick. So those are real quick things.

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Secretary WHITE. Let me talk about a couple and let me defer the bandwidth discussion to the Chief on the operational side.

As far as the Corps of Engineers is concerned, I think they do a magnificent job, in my opinion. If you were to look-you have just been in Kuwait-at all of the construction that has gone on there to properly bed down and build up this force, that is the Corps of Engineers. If you were to look at the Port of Beaumont and Corpus Christi where I was a week ago and look at the relationship between the Corps and the port authorities to deploy major units through those two ports, in my opinion and in times like this, the Corps is worth its weight in gold. The fact that we can have that capability there largely funded by the civil works appropriation is, for me, a great deal.

Mr. HOBSON. And it doesn't cost you any money.

Secretary WHITE. Right. I think it is a great deal. They have done a wonderful job.

MILITARY CONSTRUCTION (MILCON)

On the MILCON fund front, we have funded it at $1.7 billion, a little over that. You plussed it up last year, which we deeply appreciate. We are focusing on barracks and the bills necessary for Transformation, and that is what we could afford, looking at the total budget. We have worked a whole series of things in getting the force ready to be in position should the President so order it in the Persian Gulf, not only on the medical side, but radios and all sorts of other things. I am sure you saw that when you were there.

HEMACOOLERS

I will have to get back to you on the specific issue that you brought up about the hema cooler.

[The information follows:]

The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick is actively moving ahead with this important technology. The Command received $250,000 in research and development money in April 2001 for development of a low-power blood cooling and storage device. That money was provided to Energy Storage Technologies, Inc., of Dayton, Ohio, in the form of a cooperative research and development agreement. Energy Storage Technologies completed development of the device and provided a briefing to the Army on a prototype device on March 4, 2003. Testing is required on the device before a full production contract can be awarded.

BANDWIDTH

Mr. HOBSON. Chief, do you want to talk about bandwidth?
General SHINSEKI. I will.

Congressman, bandwidth really has been an issue for as long as I have been in the Army. Even with radios. We had to manage frequencies because of the demands for bandwidth and in place. What we had to do was you discipline the force on the available spectrum that you had, and you allocated it, and we managed inside that limitation. What has happened to us was the demand.

Mr. MURTHA. Excuse me. If the gentleman would yield, don't you have to buy that, though, from the commercial side?

General SHINSEKI. No, it was allocated to us, and we operate it. Mr. MURTHA. But aren't you also buying commercial? Yes, sure

you are.

General SHINSEKI. Yes, we are today.

Mr. MURTHA. Big cost out of O&M.

General SHINSEKI. Yes, we are today. But the appetite for bandwidth, because it is less specified in terms of frequencies, is significant. What we need to do is take a good hard look and understand what it is we need and prioritize that for what are the most important military functions we have and then declare what additional bandwidth is going to be required to do what, and some of that is work we have to do.

Mr. HOBSON. They tell us we need another satellite positioned better. That is something we need to work on. I don't know if we can fix it short term here, but it is something we all need to think about. Because this is becoming a major part of your operation, the seamless communication between everybody, and if we need it we need-I think what we are trying to point out is these people feel long term they need additional capability that you don't have to buy, sir.

General SHINSEKI. Yes, sir.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Hobson.

The Committee has long had the support of our Chairman and the Ranking Member of the full Committee. Without their help, it would be hard to get it done as we try to do, so it is my privilege to call on David Obey, Ranking Member of the full Committee and in service here.

POST-CONFLICT REQUIREMENTS IN IRAQ

Mr. OBEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, General, let me simply say I fully agree with the statements made by the Chairman about your service. You are a first-rate professional, and I think Members of Congress respect the fact that you are a straight shooter and will give straight information. That is pretty rare on either side of the table in this institution.

Let me ask and I don't want to get into the question at all of whether we should or shouldn't deal with Iraq. That is not where I am going at all. I just want to look at some questions in terms of the adequacy, the size of our forces over the long haul; and let me ask three questions, roughly.

First of all, in Iraq, if things go less well than we would like, if we don't have large-scale surrender of Iraqi troops, we don't see a lot of white flags, if we wind up having to kill a lot of Iraqi soldiers and if we have got a lot of ethnic fighting going on at the same