Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Obey.

Mr. Young.

MILITARY END STRENGTH

Mr. YOUNG. Well, Mr. Secretary, I don't think there is any question that the members agree enthusiastically and will support the legislation, at least as it relates to the issue of our own troops. We are going to give our troops what they need. We are going to protect them the best we can while they carry out the mission that they are assigned to.

But I think it is time for a real serious discussion on the end strength of our forces. We are, in fact, wearing out troops. We are, in fact, wearing out equipment. If we were required to go to the second MRC, which I don't recall whether it is an MRC any more or not, a major regional conflict, we would be hard-pressed right

now.

During Desert Storm we had 18 Army divisions. Today we have 10, and we deployed a lot of those. More than half of the Marine Corps was deployed during Iraqi Freedom.

I am not suggesting that we should not have available the Guard and Reserve when it is necessary, but we might want to start a discussion on the issue of what the end strength really ought to be in the world that we face today.

Mr. Lewis said that if the American people could see the type of tyranny that Saddam had foisted upon his own people that they would be first in line to do something about it. The fact of the matter is, they were first in line, and they are still first in line to do something about it. But the rest of the world I think could use an education on what Saddam is, what he was, and what he was about.

DONOR CONFERENCE

Now, having said that, I want to go back to the subject of the donor conference. I know the question has been asked several times, how much do you expect-how much do you think other countries will be willing to come forward with, recognizing the threat that Saddam presented to the world?

So I am not going to ask that question again about how much money you expect to get, but let me ask this question: How many countries have agreed to attend the donor conference so that we at least have an opportunity to persuade them that this is in their best interest to solve the issue of Iraq?

Mr. ZAKHEIM. I know the answer is in excess of 50. We had a conference in New York that was a precursor to that, and we had about 50 countries. I think it will be at least 50, probably over 60. Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I am through with my questions, but I would like to say that you have tremendous troops serving in our uniform today. I did not get a chance while Mr. Frelinghuysen and I were in the region as far as Afghanistan and our headquarters with General Franks and General Abizaid, we were not able to get into Baghdad, because maybe we were a little too early, because other Members are making that visit now. We were not able to get into the region. So we

don't know firsthand from being in Iraq. Rodney just came back, so he does.

But I had an opportunity, along with my wife, to visit almost every soldier and Marine that has been wounded and came through Walter Reed Army hospital and the Navy hospital in Bethesda. I can tell you these kids have different degrees of serious injury, but their morale is tremendous. They believe in what they were doing. They believe the Iraqi people are very honest and genuine in their appreciation for what America has done, despite some of the news media that the rest of the world and even here at home we are seeing.

It is very impressive to see a young man lying there with one or both legs blown off, or the loss of an eye. You know what the cases are because you visit them, too. These kids, they are a tremendous representation of young America. Their morale is high, and they do believe in this mission. They do believe that what they were doing and are continuing to do is right. I believe this Congress will back that up strongly when we put this bill on the floor to guarantee the success of the mission and the support of our troops.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Mr. Chairman, thank you. You are right on the mark. I know you and particularly Mrs. Young have spent a great deal of time with those troops, and it certainly is deeply appreciated.

With respect to the stress on the force, you suggested that we need to address it. We are addressing it. We have worked through a series of about 25 or 30 things that we think can help in reducing stress on the force. We have to. And we have had several meetings of our senior level group, military-civilian together, on this. The most recent was late last week, as I recall. We are making good progress, and we would be happy to come up and walk through some of these tasks that have been assigned so that we can do exactly what you are interested in seeing done.

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Young. I had expected that we would get the Secretary and his staff out of here considerably sooner than this. I understand you all spent 6 hours across in the other body. Secretary RUMSFELD. Six hours and 50 minutes.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Visclosky is going to pass.

Mr. Moran.

ESTIMATING REQUIREMENTS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Obviously, we want to win this war, and nobody questions the benefits of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but basically there are five areas, to summarize, that we are going to still scrutinize. It is the taking care of the troops, it is the top-down approach to budgeting, it is the real cost of occupation, including the foreign support, it is the intelligence issue and the go-it-alone strategy.

In terms of taking care of the troops, you know of the situation with the Active and Reserve forces. Their families are beside themselves. They have no idea what is coming. But the Army by most accounts cannot sustain their troop levels much beyond the spring of next year. We are concerned that we are not going to be able to recruit adequately in the future once the job market recovers.

I understand that you are planning to move from 40 percent nonenlisted to 60 percent non-enlisted in terms of the presence of troops in Iraq. That would be one area of concern. You did not answer the issue that I think needs to be answered, whether the uniformed services, their request for reconstituting the force was adequately included within this supplemental request. If it wasn't, how much more are we going to need to reconstitute the force to be prepared for North Korea and other dangers around the world? We understand there is only $2 billion out of $16 billion needed here.

You and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz publicly chastised Army Chief of Staff Shinseki for suggesting that the U.S. troop presence in Iraq would be more than 100,000 during the post-war period. Today it is 130,000. We expect it will remain at at least 120,000. That is a legitimate area of inquiry. What is our real commitment? Now, in terms of foreign support, you are going to give $1.4 billion of the supplemental to foreign countries, and you have got a total of $1.5 billion pledged. I would like to know if there is a chance you could hold off on giving those other nations that $1.4 billion to see if we actually get that $1.5 billion in pledges.

Then, lastly, this strategy of relying upon people that really didn't give us very accurate information in terms of intelligence, and I reference Mr. Chalabi for one, and I would like to know whether he is still on the Pentagon payroll, since he, we read, contributed in great part to our failed post-war expectations.

Does that give you enough to start with, Mr. Secretary? Secretary RUMSFELD. It does. Thank you, Congressman Moran. First, I don't have the text in front of me, but this Shinseki issue has become quite prominent in the press. My recollection is-and if I am wrong, someone calibrate me. But my recollection is that he was testifying before I think a Senate Committee, and he was asked how many forces he thought it would take at the end of the war to occupy the country of Iraq, and he said something to the effect that he thought it would take several hundred thousand. Now where I come from in Chicago, several hundred thousand is 300,000 or more; and he said he thought several hundred thousand, or about what it took-what it should take to win the war. Now, Tom Franks, as General Myers has just testified, used something-100,000 to 130,000 troops to win the war, not several hundred thousand. We currently have, I believe, 133,000 troops in the country, not several hundred thousand. So I can't quite imagine why one would bring that subject up and suggest that he was correct.

Now I happen to have a lot of respect for him, and he was pressed, and he just said what he believed, and that is fair enough. It took 500,000, I believe, in the Gulf War, so a guess of 300,000, which he was guessing, you know, wasn't

Mr. MORAN. He may have high-balled, but you low-balled, I think it is fair to say.

Secretary RUMSFELD. That is not correct. It is absolutely not correct, Congressman. I never gave an estimate as to how many troops it would take. I know what I don't know, and I didn't. So your suggestion that I did is inaccurate.

Now, second, with respect to the $1.4 billion for foreign country's troops, it is a lot cheaper, a lot cheaper, for the taxpayers of the United States to use dollars to assist countries that want to help us in Iraq, want their forces to participate, are willing to put them at risk but don't have the resources to pay for all of their expenses. So we have provided some lift

Mr. MORAN. I am just being told General Shinseki was specific, 200,000 before this subcommittee. He might have said something different before another subcommittee. Excuse me for the interruption.

Secretary RUMSFELD. Now if you need a certain level of forces in a country, and we have choices between three types-ours, international contributions, coalition forces and Iraqis-it seems to me that it is a lot more expensive to have our forces in Iraq than it is to have international forces. To the extent we can pick up some of their expenses, not their salaries, but in fact lift and airlift and that type of thing and some logistics support, that that is a very good deal for us and for the American people, and we are grateful for that.

So I think it would be unwise to suggest that we should in any way reduce funds for the participation of other coalition countries. With respect to the Chalabi issue, I am afraid I am just not knowledgeable enough. He is a member, he is an appointed member of the Iraqi Governing Council, and he has been acting president of it, and I certainly am not knowledgeable enough to know what kind of intelligence he gave. You seem to have the opinion he gave bad intelligence. I just don't know that.

Mr. MORAN. It has been reported by so many people so many times that he was giving a lot of the information through the Pentagon Special Operations team that heavily influenced the thinking in terms of how the Iraqi people would respond. You know that as well as I do.

Secretary RUMSFELD. I know there are articles to that effect. I don't know that that makes it correct.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Frelinghuysen.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I want the record to actually reflect what I said. I didn't invoke General Zinni's comment, other than I object to the notion that our involvement in the war, in this particular war in Iraq, doesn't count for something. I think it does count for something. I wasn't suggesting for a minute that it was Members of Congress who suggested we might be bogged down for 2 years on the road to Baghdad. I suggested that many retired general officers were giving commentary that suggested that, mostly on TV. I was not suggesting that Members of Congress who serve on this Committee would suggest-had suggested such a thing.

Just for the record. Thank you.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much.

Gentleman, we very much appreciate your being present with us. I might mention to my colleagues that remain that one of our colleagues on the trip, Congressman Rick Larson, reflected the way I believe the House could very well be moving. That particular Member of Congress voted against going to war in the first place. After observing the results of Saddam Hussein and otherwise, Congress

man Larson said it is going to be tough back home, but I think it is time for us to get out in front of this. It is time for us to lead. We are going to move forward on this supplemental.

Mr. Secretary, General Myers, Dr. Zakheim, it was a pleasure to be with you.

The Committee is adjourned.

[CLERK'S NOTE.-Questions submitted by Mr. Hobson and the answers thereto follow:]

NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE FORCES

Question. Do we currently have sufficient forces in the active components or are we to expect continuing mobilizations of reserve components?

Answer. The Department of Defense currently has sufficient forces to execute assigned missions. We are executing a "win decisive" operation in Iraq while continuing to prosecute the War and Terrorism and meet other on-going global commitments. At this time, some of our Active and Reserve forces are exceeding peacetime deployment levels in support of these efforts, but we see this as a temporary spike that mainly affects our ground forces. In the long term, we see operational tempo returning to lower, less stressful levels.

The senior leadership of the Department is carefully considering the matter of stress on our Active and Reserve forces. We are reviewing some 25-plus separate initiatives to better manage the forces that are currently available. The unified view of the senior civilian and military leadership, at this time, is that it would be prudent to fully evaluate these avenues of reducing stress on the force prior to requesting any additional military end strength.

For example, we are carefully studying what functions within our military structure could be performed by civilians or contractors. Studies done during the previous administration concluded that there are approximately 320,000 positions filled by military personnel that are performing duties in specialties or situations that could be performed by civilians or contractors. Even if only 20,000 of these positions could be converted, we would significantly improve our long-term military availability and reduce the stress on the Active and Reserve forces without relying on military end strength increases.

Additionally, the Secretary has already directed that the Department develop a plan to rebalance our total force mix. His goals are to reduce the need to mobilize Reserves involuntarily, eliminate the need to mobilize Reserves early in conflicts, and limit the mobilization of individual Reserve units, when required, to no more than once every six years. Work is underway to achieve these goals.

Overall, multiple efforts are in progress that should reduce our reliance on the Reserve forces without costly military end strength increases, while continuing to provide our nation with a strong defense.

Question. Will future reserve component mobilizations be of 12 month total duration or will they be 12 months "on the ground" and 18 months (or longer) total deployment?

Answer. Future reserve component mobilizations will be based on operational requirements or other needs. The Department's preferred duration for initial orders remains no more than 12 months. When it is determined necessary to issue initial orders to Reserve component units or members for more than 12 months, Service Secretaries shall advise the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness of the actions they are taking.

Question. The ground commander in theater is authorized to release units he has determined are no longer needed; if both active and reserve units are affected, which will have priority to be returned home? What is the rationale?

Answer. Department of Defense Instruction 1235.10 paragraph 4.4.1. establishes the framework for redeployment priorities: "Members of the Ready Reserve ordered to active duty without their consent shall be retained on active duty no longer than absolutely necessary. They shall receive priority for redeployment from the area of operations over Active component units, and be released from active duty as expeditiously as possible, consistent with operational requirements." The intent of the policy to prioritize Reserve units for redeployment first is to return our part-time personnel to their employers and families as soon as possible and reinforces the Department's policy on judicious and prudent use of the Reserve component forces.

Question. Is DOD meeting is prescribed timetable for notification of units selected for mobilization?