Mr. President, the Senator from West Virginia has touched on a subject that many of us believe should be explored. I think in order to look at it, we have to look at a little bit of history. That history, as far as the Department of…
Mr. President, the Senator from West Virginia has touched on a subject that many of us believe should be explored. I think in order to look at it, we have to look at a little bit of history. That history, as far as the Department of Defense is concerned, is not too pleasant.
In the Clinton administration, I remember distinctly being down at the White House when the President showed us his plan for defense expenditures. He showed us a chart that showed a constant decline in defense expenditures. At the end of 6 or 7 years, it started to go back up. He was going to use that money to reorder priorities of the country. That was his plan, and that is what he executed.
As a consequence, the military people of this country had to figure out how to defend the country. Many of us who worked in matters relating to defense here in the Congress worked with them. The concept that was developed by the Defense Department and approved by Congress was the total force concept. The total force is those who are regularly in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. And it was augmented by the National Guard and by the Reserve.
When we deploy forces now overseas, almost every unit of the regular military has, along with it, portions of its personnel who come from the Guard or Reserve. They are already identified before deployments take place. This is the total force going out into these operations. This happened during the Clinton administration in Bosnia, and it happened in Kosovo. There were National Guard as well as Reserves deployed with the regular units. The concept of deployment is one that people in the services understand.
The problem the Senator from West Virginia has correctly identified is the repeated deployments that have taken place. When we think about it, starting in Haiti, starting in Bosnia and in Kosovo, we had a series of deployments, and then in this administration in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those have all taken place in a continuum of a lifetime of the current force. It is an evolving force. People enter and others leave. But we are still dealing with a total force. You are not dealing with the kind of forces that were in place when I first came to the Senate or when we served in in World War II. There were massive divisions called up. They had a cadre of permanent people in the U.S. Army. Back then, we were in the Army of the United States. That was the draftee portion that was added to the Army. Each section of the military had that in days gone by. But they were temporary people. They were drafted. They were not involved in a citizen-soldier-citizen military concept.
When we evolved into this picture that we are in right now, we developed recruiting techniques to recruit people.
The Senator from West Virginia mentions the police of West Virginia. I am sure the same thing happens in almost every State in the Union. The police are encouraged to join the National Guard and the Reserve so they can be part of the military police forces as they are deployed. They may even have expertise that they got in the military services before they became policemen. And they agreed to come back and fulfill that same expertise as a member of the service when their unit was deployed. The Reserve and Guard units are called up because they have expertise in particular areas. They are part of a function that is included in the total force.
The problem isn't the duration of the deployment; it is the frequency of the deployments, as far as I am concerned.
The Senator from Hawaii will recall that he and I went to Prince Sultan several years ago and talked to the pilots who were not reenlisting. This was occurring during the Clinton administration. They were not reenlisting because they had been deployed to Italy; they had been deployed to Bosnia; they had been deployed to fly what we call the ``continuous air patrol''--the cap over Iraq. Once they finished the cap over Iraq, they were back in Bosnia again or they were deployed to do some special activities in the Korean area.
Several times when forces were built up as tensions increased, we deployed some forces. They were brought back later. But it wasn't the duration of any one of the deployments, in my judgment; it was the frequency of several deployments.
I remember talking to one pilot who was not going to reenlist because he had been away from his family I think 10 months out of the year.
This was something that was just not contemplated by the total force, whether they were Regular or Guard or Reserve. It is not just the Guard and Reserve. It is the total force in terms of the number of deployments and the length and duration of the rotations that are taking place. Those I think have to be studied, and they have to be studied very carefully to determine where we are going.
Unfortunately, I must disagree with my friend from West Virginia. If we followed his suggestion, we would put down just a blanket rule concerning the time of the deployment period or the number of deployments in any 360-day period. And this would be not more than one.
President Clinton could not have fought in Bosnia and Kosovo and maintained the blockade of Iraq, as he did as Commander in Chief, under this kind of a law. In fact, I do not think any Commander in Chief could command our total force with that kind of a law. But what we have to look at is the number of times that you are deployed in any one period of your service. There are people who still enlist for a period of time. If they enlist in the Guard or the Reserve or the regular forces, I think we ought to assure them, if they are in each category, there ought to be a different standard. In the regular services, those are 365-day-a-year deployments, period.
This concept of applying this policy only to the Reserve component, I think--and I assume by that the Senator includes the National Guard--is not proper, in my judgment. We have to look at the total force and say, if you are a part of that force, this is what will apply to you.
I think there should be some distinctions between the regular services and the Guard and the Reserve so that a person could make a choice based on his or her circumstance as to how often and for what duration deployments might take place.
We developed, in World War II, a concept of points. Again, my friend from Hawaii and I probably are of the few people in the Senate who can remember that. But you got points for the number of months you were deployed overseas. You might have been deployed to France or Italy or England but you built up points. As you reached the zenith on points, you were eligible then to be rotated back home, back to the continental
It reads:
. . . there are three principal objectives that I want to
achieve. They are:
Structure active and reserve forces to reduce the need for
involuntary mobilization of the Guard and Reserves. Eliminate
the need for involuntary mobilization during the first 15
days of a rapid response operation (or for any alerts to
mobilize prior to the operation). Structure forces in order
to limit involuntary mobilization to not more than one every
6 years.
Establish a more rigorous process for reviewing joint
requirements.
I am just picking portions of this statement. It will be in the Record.
Make the mobilization and demobilization process more
efficient.
We agree with that. We ought to agree that there should be a review of that. I hope, however, the Secretary also would undertake some review of the impact of what he is talking about in terms of looking at what it will do to our enlistment rates, our retention rates and, in particular, into the viewpoints of the individual Governors who, after all, have a basic responsibility for the National Guard itself.
I would like to introduce the amendment. I don't have it ready.
Does Senator Inouye have any comment on this? I need to get the draft of the amendment. Would the Senator wish me to yield the floor?
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, this is a very complex issue.
I wish to remind the Senate that in this bill, we have added $2 million for employer support for Guard and Reserve to help address problems with recent deployments. I was just informed there was a Rand study of deployments. The authors looked at the issue in the wake of the high rate of military deployments through the nineties, and the prospect that deployment will rise even more.
The authors found, paraphrasing part of this report, that reenlistment was higher among members who deployed compared with those who did not, and sizable increases in deployment all appeared unlikely to reduce reenlistment rates. Research suggested past deployment influences current reenlistment behavior because it enables members to learn about their preferences of deployment and about its frequency and duration, which may revise members' previously held, more naive expectations.
I have had some letters similar to what Senator Byrd has just read. I do think there are individual problems, and that is our job as Members of the Congress, this body in particular, to look into those and try to remedy them and see they do not happen again. I again commend the Senator for addressing the problem.
There are existing provisions of the United States Code, specifically sections 12301, 12302, and 12304, that detail the varying levels of mobilization, the number of forces the President can call up and the amount of time those forces can be activated and actions required with respect to Congress.
There is no question there is already a law concerning this situation, and by law the President of the United States has the authority to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve overseas as appropriate and within the context of the laws I just mentioned.
This amendment would obviously change those laws, and if nothing else, before we change those laws, we should give the legislative committees, the Armed Services Committee, the opportunity to look at the subject. I think their review should be based upon a review of people with competence who have had experience in the problem of assisting the Commander in Chief to deal with the Reserve components of our military.
I am told the standard rotation is a deployment of 180 days. Those deployment days do not include preparation or recovery time, and typically the units may be mobilized for 230 days in order to complete the 180-day deployment. This would put a restriction on that past policy as it has been carried out.
We should have some in-depth review of the relationships of these policies of rotation, deployment, and mobilization days, as well as the impact on families and upon their employers, as the Senator has mentioned.
Without question, employers are affected and without question small cities and towns, such as exist in my State and I know exist in West Virginia, are impaired if these durations are for too long.
Clearly, we have come through a period which now I think we ought to review a little bit, and I will speak later today about the reliance of the Department of Defense on supplemental appropriations for contingency and peacekeeping operations in the past two decades. That is something that has to be addressed, and the Senator from Nevada addressed it earlier today, and I will discuss those.
For now, though, again coming back to this basic problem of this amendment, do you think we can say the Secretary of Defense has already issued a statement of intent to devise a plan to deal with a portion of these problems? There is no question we have a difficult future to deal with because we still have forces in Kosovo; we still have forces in Haiti; we still have forces in Bosnia; we still have forces in Korea; we still have forces in Okinawa; we still have forces in Diego Garcia; we have forces at King Sultan Airfield in Saudi Arabia.
The Senator from Hawaii and I represent two areas that have what they call forward-deployed forces. I say to the Senator from West Virginia, often when we have forces deployed from Alaska and Hawaii to go overseas, we then get replacements who are really people who have been called up, Guard and Reserve units, to come to our forward-deployed areas to fill in those spots. They are not considered deployed overseas. If they were from West Virginia, they would be away from West Virginia for a substantial period of time. The Senator's amendment would not cover those people.
In terms of review, I hope, if we are successful in establishing a commission to bring this about, that there will be a basic review of the overall concept of deployment, whether it is overseas or otherwise, when it takes members of the armed services away from their home duty station and their families and particularly those who have multiple family members of the military who could be affected by deployment at the same time.
One of the difficulties I have is now looking at Africa and what is going to happen in Africa. We have had repeated demands for the President to deploy forces there, increased demand to look at more than one nation that is going through a period of rebellion and riotous conduct. I think that may be one of the worst deployment problems we will have in the future, is to find forces to undertake those objectives, fulfill the objectives of the Commander in Chief's orders if we are at the same time still in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Korea, Kosovo, and Iraq.
It is mind-boggling, to say the least, to deal with the concept of deployment at the present time, the requirements overseas to maintain the policies of the United States.
Yes.
Under the total force concept, there could be National Guardsmen and Reserve in any of the units deployed overseas.
I do not know the current component, Mr. President, but we did see some reservists and Guard people in Kosovo when we were there. We visited Fort Bonnsteel. We saw them in Bosnia, and we saw them in Afghanistan. I am specifically told the National Guard currently has a mission in Bosnia.
Currently, I believe there is a 6-month deployment limit, but they do not charge against that deployment period the time necessary to get them ready to go over, or the time they use in demobilization when they get back.
That is my understanding.
They are. I just read that law. They are subject to the same law. I am told the standard rotation period is 180 days. Those days do not include any preparation or recovery time. The units are typically mobilized for 230 days or more to complete the 180-day requirement, but it applies to all forces. It does apply to our forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo--they are all subject to coming back after 180 days.
The Senator used the word ``redeployment,'' which is another matter. Deployment is limited to 180 days. There is currently no limit on the number of deployments, as I understand it. The problem that I and the Senator from Hawaii discussed with various members of the armed services Regular Guard and Reserve has been the problem of successive deployments. Active duty tours are limited to 180 days under most circumstances when they are not considered to be a home station, such as Korea and Okinawa.
For the deployment into these areas, as I understand it, like the Balkans, Afghanistan, or Iraq, the limitation on the deployment is 180 days, but there is no limitation on the number of rotations that one could take to another place overseas when they are brought back.
There may be some misunderstanding in the minds of those who have been called up, or the dependents of those who have been called up, concerning existing law. The existing law does limit the deployment for overseas to 180 days. They must be rotated in that period of time. As I have said, it takes 230 days to complete that because of the time to call them up. They have to give them notice. They report. They then are put into units and then they are sent overseas.
When they come back, they come into the units where they are going to be really demobilized and it takes some time then, too. I do not think we have a disagreement with the Senator from West Virginia about the need to ease the pressure on these continuing forces caused by the concept of total force, but there seems to be one misunderstanding. It is the unit that is deployed for the 180 days--in some instances members are deployed individually to fill in units. They would be subject to the same limitation, but the basic concept of the law deals with being able to deploy members of the Guard and Reserve as appropriate within the context of the law I have mentioned.
Amendment No. 1255 to Amendment No. 1244
Mr. President, I have my amendment, which I send to the desk, and I will give a copy to my friend from West Virginia. I submit this amendment on behalf of myself and the Senator from Hawaii as a bipartisan approach to deal with the issues and try to bring them together.
The Secretary of Defense has a group going ahead on this. We obviously believe the Congress should be involved in some way. I ask that that amendment be in order to be called up at this time.
I apologize. I am offering this amendment in the second degree to the Byrd amendment.
That is correct, as an amendment to the Byrd amendment.
That is my intention.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
If I could explain this proposal, it would create a commission on overseas deployments to have 11 members: 3 appointed by the President, 2 appointed by the Speaker, 2 appointed by the minority leader of the House, 2 appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, and 2 by the minority leader of the Senate. They would be appointed the term of the commission. We ask for the commission to hold its first meeting not later than 30 days after they have been appointed. They have the duty to give us a report within 120 days after enactment of the act--obviously, that would be a period of 90 days for their basic work--and they would recommend ways to reduce the burden of overseas deployments while maintaining readiness, overseas presence, and support of the national military strategy.
The report and recommendations shall address the overall side, structure, and sufficiency of the Armed Forces in relation to current requirements for overseas deployment and presence, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of Active and Reserve component forces, and the adequacy of the current balance and mix of critical, high-demand low-density units the rotation and assignment of members of the Armed Forces married to each other, limitations on the periods for overseas tours and unaccompanied tours and hardship locations.
I believe this commission would have a duty to give us some basic information to address the problem raised by the Senator from West Virginia.
Incidentally, I now have the numbers the Senator from West Virginia asked. There were Reserve and Guard organizations deployed. They were in Operation Noble Eagle, which was Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraqi crisis, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, and Iraq. We have had a sizable deployment of Guard and Reserve personnel--the Reserve component is what they refer to--in all of those instances. I do have the numbers and the duration.
As I indicated, the rotation schedule was that which I mentioned, which is 180 days for deployment overseas. I urge the Senator from West Virginia to consider supporting the amendment we have offered to his amendment to assure we have the right mix of Active-Duty and Reserve components and that
we devise means to reduce our forces with the least disruption on the lives of the service members involved.
Yes.
That is the current law.
Not quite. We do not interpret it that way. It goes further than existing law.
Existing law says the units can be deployed for no more than 180 days but under the current law, the time and preparing for that deployment and the time after that deployment to be redeployed, say, another place such as england or somewhere, to be put together so they can be brought home, those times don't count against the 180 days.
The Senator's amendment adds a dimension not included in existing law, not more than one deployment in any 360-day period.
One hundred and twenty days from enactment of the basic appropriations bills, yes, sir.
The Senator is correct in many ways. The difficulty is the current practice is 180 days but none of these people, to my knowledge, have been over there 180 days yet. This operation has not been ongoing for 180 days. There may, however, be people deployed previously in this current timeframe who were deployed to one place, brought home, and then deployed again in the same year. That is true. That is what the Secretary of Defense has said he is trying to address. That is what this commission is trying to address, some way to provide some guidelines so members of the Active-Duty and Reserve components can determine how long they will be deployed away from their homes in any period.
Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
I would like to tell the Senate about the way the last administration treated this Senate.
Mr. President, I think the Senator from West Virginia is well aware of what the last administration did. They just spent money. They didn't even tell us where they were taking it from. Twice in 1999, we had to have supplementals. They didn't even tell us in the supplementals what funds they used. They deployed forces, and they took money from the accounts we had already appropriated for other purposes. Every time President Clinton deployed forces, that is what he did.
This time, this President came and asked for a supplemental. He has money he is spending, but he cannot tell us precisely day by day what they are spending. They asked for money in advance. They got money in advance.
He did not disturb the individual accounts of the various services. He did not cause the chaos in terms of defense that the last administration did.
I will defend my friend, this Secretary of Defense. If the Senator wants to defend the last Secretary of Defense, I will let him do it. But I know what happened. In 1998, 1999, and 2000--we had 2 supplementals in 1999. That represented money that was used under the food and farm act concept of ancient law of the United States. The President took money from other accounts and just spent it. He didn't ask us for it. He didn't tell us what he was using it for. He never would account for it. Even when he asked for a supplemental, he didn't tell us what unit he took it from. We had to look for the unit and put the money back where it belonged.
This administration is doing it right. When they ask for money in advance, they are spending money and accounting for it as they account for their bills normally in their normal reports. But they did not take money from the individual units.
They took money from the Air Force and Army and spent it somewhere else without telling anybody.
You want to get me excited about something, I will get excited about the way the last administration handled the Department of Defense. They decreased funding and used the money in a manner totally unheard of in the history of the United States. It would have ruined the military had it not been for the concept of the consolidated force structure. The military saved itself by using Reserve and Guard units in the proper way.
But their funding came from moneys that were for entirely different purposes. I believe they took money from the procurement account from time to time. Normally, they took the operation and maintenance money. That is the steaming money. That is money for flying hours. That is money for drilling. That is money for equipment. That is money for munitions. They just depleted money, and deployed forces to Bosnia and Kosovo without asking at all. There was no advance request. There was no notice given.
If the Senator wants to get excited about the way funding is being used now, they are using the funds which they asked Congress for. I was the one who presented the bill. Congress approved it. The President signed the law. And the Secretary of Defense has the right to use that money according to laws that we pass. And he is following those laws, to the best of my knowledge.
Mr. President, I do agree to a great extent with the Senator from West Virginia, except that I reiterate I am proud to defend this administration. This administration asked for the money, told us what it was for. As a matter of fact, in one instance, the President asked for $10 billion for the global war on terrorism as a contingency fund and, together with the Senator from West Virginia, I helped deny that request. The Congress asked that the administration define the costs and contingencies, and they did. And that money was included in the big supplemental we passed for defense. We asked for it and received the statement of what the money was to be spent for.
We asked them to tell us what they were going to spend the money on in Iraq. It was detailed. It was in the fund that was given to them.
Again, I defend this administration because, to their credit, they agreed we have rescinded in this bill $3.1 billion of that supplemental we gave to the Department and took the money back and put it for other functions in the Department. Now, the last administration would have taken that money and put it there, anyway. They agreed we should take it back, and now we are going through the process of reappropriating the same money in this bill for 2004 because it is not going to be used according to what they told us they were going to use it for in terms of the Iraq supplemental.
But, Mr. President, a friend in the House, watching this event, has sent to me a statement that was made in the House Armed Services Committee on April 3 of this year by Sergeant First Class Steven Davis of the U.S. Army Reserve. I think it is significant to have this comment at this time, and I am pleased that my friends are listening. I am going to read the statement word for word.
Sergeant First Class Steven Davis said:
Mr. Chairman, members of this distinguished subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to be here today and for
allowing me to be a participant in this panel.
My name is Sergeant First Class Steven Davis and I am a
Military Policeman in the Army Reserve. I have been serving
in the United States Army for 15 years, seven of which have
been in the Army Reserve. I am assigned to the Military
Police Port Security Detachment in Pocahontas, Iowa. I have
been mobilized once since I have been in the Army Reserve. I
was mobilized on September 23, 2001, for Operation Noble
Eagle, and I served one year state side in North Carolina.
In my experience, with both the regular Army and the Army
Reserve, I believe that the two are very much integrated. I
had positive contacts with reserve soldiers when I was on
active duty, and I have also had positive contact with the
active Army since I have been a reserve soldier. Most
recently during our deployment to Sunny Point, North
Carolina, we were directly assigned to the 597th
Transportation Group. From the moment we arrived, I felt as
though we belonged there. I remember during a welcome
meeting, COL Heiter, the Commander of the 597th, made it very
clear to everyone in the room that the members of my unit
would be treated as any other soldier at Sunny Point. The
Command emphasis set the tone for our one-year star. Our
forces integrated flawlessly with the existing Department of
Defense forces, which is what we were trained to do. We were
able to work together as a cohesive team, and everyone's
moral was high.
As for the question, did the recent deployment change or
affect the reservist's intention to continue to serve. I
believe the deployment made our unit stronger and more
willing. From month to month we go ask ourselves, are we
really needed?? Why are we doing this? Then September 11th
came and all our questions were answered. Yes, we were
needed, and yes, we were important. On September 12, 2001, we
had 24 soldiers, myself included, volunteer to go on a
security mission to an unknown place. The 24 volunteers left
for Beaumont, Texas, on September 13th, 2001. Ten days later,
on September 23rd, the remainder of our unit was mobilized
and sent to North Carolina, where we spent our tour of duty.
When our year was up, and we all got the word that we were
going home, we were told the New York unit was going to take
our place, but that they did not have
enough people. Twenty-two soldiers from my unit volunteered
to stay with them, not for 3 or 6 months, but for another
year. Some of the soldiers were married and some were college
students. Why did they stay when they did not have to? I
would say it was because they knew they had a job to do, and
they weren't going to leave until it was finished.
The one problem that we encountered during our deployment
was medical benefits. The Army did a great job of providing
the coverage, and teaching the soldiers how to use the
coverage. However, our family members did not have the
advantage of having a representative available to inform
them. This created many headaches for the soldiers, who would
try to trouble shoot the problems long distance. I believe a
local representative, available for family members would have
been very helpful and would have saved the soldiers a lot of
time on the telephone.
I read that because it is indicative of the feeling of our young people. We talked at one of our hearings to the Guard and Reserve members, and we found that as the deployments increased, enlistments increased; and as deployments increased, reenlistments increased.
We are having complaints from some people who believe they should have come home sooner, but none have been over there a year yet. None of them have been over there 6 months yet. Even under the current, existing law, the Senator's amendment will not affect them. Well, I am told some in Kuwait have been there 6 months by now, and they should be rotating home. But, as a practical matter, the existing law provides for the deployment limitation, the existing regulations and practice for rotation in deployment every 180 days.
However, again, I come back and ask my friend from West Virginia to support us in this effort to have this reviewed. I hope the Senator has read the composition of the commission we would like to create: people appointed by the President, people appointed by the leaders of the two bodies. I do believe an 11-member commission is sufficient. I envision that they would call on former Secretaries of Defense and their assistants, former commanding officers, generals, and members of the Guard and Reserve from the enlisted area. So we would have a representative group to give us their advice.
Respectfully, I think we need their advice on how to deal with the complex problems of dealing with rotation and deployment limitations in this day of a very complex total force that our military defense units face today.
I urge my friend to reflect and let us adopt our amendment and create this commission, and we will be back here in 5 months. That, I think, would be sufficient to deal with this problem. And it will give us a forward-looking concept as far as deployment strategy, rotation strategy, and benefit strategy for members of our Armed Forces.
Will the Senator yield right there?
The money to pay the salaries for everyone in Iraq is in
this bill. The money to pay for operations is in this bill. The problem
is the special money for the deployment costs were in the supplemental
which we already passed. There was more than was necessary. We have
already taken $3 billion out of that. They are operating on what is
left. We appropriated $60-plus billion before.
Let me assure the Senator that there is money in this bill for Iraq.
There is money to pay the salaries and support for the military
personnel. Some 60 percent of the money in this bill is support for
them. It is there. No matter where they are in the world, they are paid
from money in this bill.
No.
Madam President, this has been an interesting debate,
but in the course of the debate we found that we have agreement that we
have to do something about the basic subject of rotation and deployment
as it applies to the Guard and Reserve as well as the active portions
of our total force.
I think, in the interest of all concerned, it would be best to put
aside both Senator Byrd's amendment and the one that Senator Inouye and
I have offered and see if we cannot get further information from the
Department and try to work with the Department in terms of this new
policy that is projected.
So on that basis and the debate that has taken place so far, I move
to table Senator Byrd's amendment, which would take with it my second-
degree amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. President, I have three amendments which have been
cleared. Senator Inouye has similar ones for his side. Right after
that, we will have a consent agreement that we will present, and if we
are successful in getting that consent agreement, we would not have any
further votes tonight but we will have to wait until we present that
agreement.
I send to the desk three amendments en bloc, one from Senator
Voinovich to make available from amounts available for research,
development, test, and evaluation, defensewide, $3 million for the
long-range biometric target identification system; an amendment on
behalf of myself and Senator Inouye for Senator Roberts which earmarks
$2,500,000 for the study of geospatial visualization technologies; and
a third amendment by Senator Allen to make available from amounts
available for research, development, test, and evaluation, Navy, $4
million for the high speed antiradiation demonstration airframe/
propulsion section.
I send those to the desk and ask that they be considered en bloc.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendments be dispensed with.
Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri has a statement
I would like to respond to, and I ask unanimous consent that I be
allowed to yield to him for his portion of the statement.
Mr. President, I appreciate the advocacy of our
colleague from Missouri on the issue of hypersonics, and I know, as a
member of the Armed Services Committee, he has been a champion of this
issue and raised it several times.
I agree with the Senator on hypersonics technology. It is very
important for the future of the aerospace industry. Over the next 10
years or more, the U.S. will develop and test a series of ground and
flight demonstrators that will be powered by air-breathing rocket or
turbine-based engines or ram/scramjets. It is a very interesting
technology. I agree with Senator Talent that this technology has the
potential to revolutionize our commercial transport industry, space
travel, as well as the military capabilities.
I look forward to working with the Senator from Missouri on this
important issue as the chairman of the Defense Subcommittee and
generally. I think it is a very interesting subject.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Dorgan be
recognized to offer an amendment on budget costs. I further ask consent
that when the Senate resumes consideration of the amendment on
Wednesday, there be an additional 30 minutes equally divided in
relation to the Dorgan amendment; provided further that at the
expiration of that time Senator Bingaman be recognized to offer an
amendment regarding detainees; provided further that there then be a
40-minute period equally divided in the usual form; further, that
following that time the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the
Dorgan amendment to be followed by a vote in relation to the Bingaman
amendment with no amendments in order to the amendments prior to the
votes, and with 2 minutes for debate equally divided prior to each
vote.
I have a further consent agreement. Does the
distinguished leader wish to have that set forth before he agrees for
the first unanimous consent?
I reoffer the first request.
Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, I ask unanimous
consent that at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, the Senate proceed to the
immediate consideration of House bill 2330, the Burma sanctions bill,
under the following conditions: One hour of debate equally divided in
the usual form; Then upon the use or yielding back of time, the bill be
read the third time and the Senate proceed to a vote with no amendments
in order to the bill, at a time to be determined by the majority leader
after consultation with the Democratic leader, with particular
reference to the prior agreement we have already entered into.
Mr. President, I am now authorized by the majority
leader to say there will be no more record votes tonight.
Mr. President, no one regrets the deaths that are
occurring in Iraq any more than I, or anyone else here, particularly
those of us who served in the uniform of our country. We know the
seriousness of being involved in Iraq.
The offensive operations in Iraq started in March. I believe it was
March 19. This budget was presented to us long before that. It did not
have money for Iraq. As a matter of fact, we have handled this concept
of the war in Iraq on the same basis as Bosnia, Kosovo, et cetera--with
one exception. The President came to us and asked for a supplemental
for Iraq, and we passed it. The money is there. He asked for the money;
we gave it to him. I don't understand this demand, now, for another
supplemental. We do not need any more money right now. We are
continuing to spend the money Congress provided, over $60 billion.
I have a little sense of politics in this. I don't quite understand.
Politics are never raised on the floor of the Senate, obviously. But
clearly the political implication is, somehow or other, the deaths are
related to the fact that the President has not asked for any money. We
have plenty of money right now to run this war. The costs of the war
are coming down. As I pointed out previously here this afternoon, all
of the costs of the manpower for fighting in Iraq are in this bill. The
costs that are not in this bill, that are being paid from the
supplemental, are the incremental costs of moving forces to Iraq,
moving materiel to Iraq, moving people back from Iraq, taking care of
our global expenses, and conducting the war in Iraq.
The President came in and asked for a $10 billion contingency fund. I
joined in saying no, you can't have a contingency fund. We gave him the
money he requested, the money whose use they detailed. But we didn't
put up $10 billion as a contingency fund because we didn't think it was
necessary, and I still don't think it is necessary. But we do
understand if the cost of the war in Iraq will somehow exceed what we
have already provided, the President will come for a supplemental in
time. He has done that.
We are funding the war in Iraq on an incremental basis from a
supplemental fund we gave the President. Again, we gave him so much
money, we rescinded $3 billion in this bill. Three billion dollars of
the previous supplemental have been rescinded and spread around in
other areas of the Department of Defense.
I think we ought to get back into some historical context here. We
have had a series of peacekeeping operations, so-called peacekeeping
operations. There were people killed in Bosnia. There was a war in
Bosnia. There is a war in Kosovo. There is a war in Afghanistan. This
administration has asked for the money, and we have given it to them.
The money we gave them, by the way, the $60 billion-plus, was for the
whole area that was commanded by General Franks. It was the war zone.
That included Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
We have had, unfortunately, in the past--and I also mentioned this
today--we had in connection with Bosnia and Kosovo a policy of the
administration, the previous administration, to not ask for money at
all. They took the money from the O&M accounts of the Departments, the
various forces--Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines--and spent it. They
never told us where they were spending it. When they came up and asked
for a supplemental to replace it, they asked us for the money to
replace the accounts. We never really got detailed descriptions of how
much money was spent per day in Bosnia or Kosovo. I don't know where
this is coming from.
As a matter of fact, Senator Inouye and I have been involved in
managing this bill, now, since 1981. We can tell the Senate the way we
are handling the bill now is the way we should handle a bill for
defense. We pay the money for the regular costs, and the Department
asks us for the extraordinary costs. The last administration had the
money for the personnel and regular costs in the bill, but they took
some of that money and fought the war in Bosnia and fought the war in
Kosovo and then came up for a supplemental. This administration came
for the supplemental first.
They have the money. It is in the bank. They are spending it. And
somehow they are being criticized for not asking for a supplemental.
I oppose this amendment. I intend to oppose it. I intend, as a matter
of fact, to make a motion to table it in the future.
There is an agreement for debate. We are in a situation where, as far
as I am concerned, we should not ask the Department to come and ask for
moneys on a contingency basis. That is really what the Senator is
suggesting--ask for money, what you might spend in the future, beyond
what we have already given you. There is a bank over there. They have
the money.
To ask for a budget amendment for the fiscal year 2004, to be
submitted this year, I don't understand at all. It wasn't required by
the congressional budget resolution, by the way. If this was so
important, why didn't someone raise it in connection with the
congressional budget resolution that passed after we went to war? And
we are at war.
I really believe it is time we understand what is going on. I do not
want to see us get another supplemental request this year. We have 13
appropriations bills to pass. They have plenty of money. Why tie us up
in another supplemental? Everyone knows a supplemental this time of
year would become a Christmas tree. Everyone is going to offer
amendments to do things they didn't get in the other bills, and every
one would be a demand for an emergency.
As long as I am chairman, we are going to try to have some discipline
with regard to dealing with money. The discipline is, we follow the
budget. I have committed to follow the budget. We are following the
congressional budget. In order to do so, we had to ask the President's
permission. Chairman Young, chairman of the House Appropriations
Committee, and I asked for
permission to take $3 billion off the President's request that is in
this bill for defense. We admit we took $3.1 billion from what the
President asked for in his budget request and put it in other
subcommittees. Because of the fact the congressional budget resolution
was $2.6 billion below the President's budget, we needed to find money
to fund operations of those other departments that would not fit within
that bill.
We are proceeding on a basis that I think makes sense. I hope we will
have bipartisan support for it. But one thing we don't need is another
supplemental at this time dealing with Defense when Defense has money
to continue to operate in Iraq. When they run out of money or come
close to it, I assume they will come and ask for more. I presume the
cost per week is going to go down. It has been fairly high. The
incremental cost was over $34 billion last month, as I understand it.
Under the circumstances, if it continues to wind down, I believe the
monthly cost will decline and the Department will be able to get
through this fiscal year with the money they have. If they need more
money in the calendar year 2004, they can come in and ask for it. But I
predict--I hope I am right--they are not going to need any more money
in calendar year 2003 for either fiscal year 2003 or the first quarter
of 2004. If they do, and that could happen--God forbid this thing could
blow up over there and we would have to send more forces back in. I
don't know. No one can predict what happens in a situation like we have
now. We want to as rapidly as possible cease being an occupation force.
This reminds me of some of harassment that took place during World
War II when we had operating forces in areas where part of the enemy
was not subdued and there were sniper attacks. There were bombing
attacks. It was a disaster for people in uniform, who suffered even
after the war was over. There were some deaths in World War II. I think
this is a sad thing.
I hear a call to bring the troops home. One of the reasons the troops
are there is to protect one another and protect the people we just
freed. I thought the price of freedom was in fact doing what our people
are doing; that is, following the commands of the Commander in Chief.
It is a very tough thing to say, but once we undertake action such as
this, our national image would be absolutely tarred if we brought these
people home before there was security for the people who have been
liberated from that regime, the Baath party of Saddam Hussein. We can't
leave them exposed, nor can we leave exposed our people who are trying
to bring about reconstruction. I think we have to use common sense.
To say the President shall submit a budget amendment--by the way, I
don't know of any requirement anywhere in the law that the President
has to submit a budget resolution before. I don't know that Congress
has ever said the President shall present a budget amendment for a
specific amendment of money or a specific item. I have been here 35
years. I can't remember such a requirement before in my life. For no
other reason, I would oppose that because he is the President. The
Constitution gives him some powers. It gives us powers. One of the
powers is to exercise the power of the purse. But we are not the ones
who can command the President to ask for the money. He is the
President. If he wants the money, he should ask for it. If he doesn't
need it, we should not compel him to ask for it. I am sure if he needs
it, he will be the first one to ask for it.
As a matter of fact, I have heard comments about our President on
this floor lately that are sort of derogatory. I think he is a fine
man. He is a great President. He is doing a good job. He is honest. He
is forthcoming. He admits if he makes mistakes, and then he gets highly
criticized for having made the mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes from
time to time. It takes a real man to say he has made one.
That is why I came to the floor yesterday and congratulated George
Tenet for having taken the step of admitting he bore the responsibility
for the error in handling the reference in the President's State of the
Union message.
But this President is doing a good job. This Secretary of Defense is
doing a good job. I think the American people should be proud of them.
In my home State, they are certainly proud of them. And they are proud
of the young men and women in uniform representing our country over
there.
I think the very thought that somehow something is going wrong here
and because something is going wrong here people are dying in Iraq is
just a terrible thing. People are dying in Iraq, unfortunately, because
there are snipers. There are terrorists loose in Iraq. I thought we
were conducting a global war against terrorism. What is going on in
Iraq is terrorism. There has been a regime change. There are people
opposed to that change, and they are trying to kill our people over
there. They are trying to protect their own brothers and sisters in
their own country.
I hope the Senate settles down a little bit. In the past, we have
handled this bill very expeditiously because of our respect for men and
women in uniform. This is the money to pay those people who represent
our country throughout the world. They are deployed in many countries.
They read about what goes on here. They listen to it. They have it on
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
I thank the Senator for bringing this matter to my
attention. He has my assurance that we will consider this matter in
conference.
I agree. The war in Iraq demonstrated the important of
having the highly-mobile maintenance capability that the digitization
of DoD manuals enabled our forces to employ. For many years, the
Senator and I have shared a concern about the high unemployment rates
in Native communities. This program serves as one effective means of
addressing those high unemployment rates while also providing the
Defense Department with new sources of supply for digitization
services.
It is my understanding that the contract with the
jointly-owned firm was to have been awarded on June 2 of this year, but
that DoD officials are now expressing some reluctance to allow the
jointly-owned firm to pass the digitization work through to the Native
firms because the customary practice is to have the prime contractor
perform the majority of the work. I am also told, however, that there
is an exception to this practice provided for in regulation,
particularly when the Government had directed or identified a specific
source for the provision of services, as we did in the fiscal year 2003
Department of Defense Appropriations Act.
This is the intent. This new program is already proving
to be a highly-efficient means of addressing the Department's needs for
the digitization of DoD manuals, and we would expect the Defense
Department to employ every legal authority at its disposal to implement
the program as Congress intended it to be implemented
air force advanced power transformation office
If the Senator from Georgia would yield for a question,
I have learned that the Energy Policy Act authorizes the APTO to enter
into public-private collaborative agreements to encourage the
development and deployment of alternative fuel vehicles and alternative
hydrogen fueling infrastructures. Does the Senator know whether the
transformation office in Georgia has taken advantage of this
opportunity?
The committee also notes the importance and value of the
efforts of the Advanced Power Transformation Office and encourages the
Air Force to continue funding and support for this important
initiative.
In an effort to ensure full compliance with Congress's
intent to fully fund the non-line of sight cannon program, the Senate
Appropriations Committee has designated the program as a congressional
special interest and appropriated funding in a separate program element
devoted to the advanced development of artillery systems.
I would yield to the Senator from Indiana for a
question.
I was aware of the reliance on MREs, yes.
I was not. But I certainly believe the committee should
look into it.
We would be willing to look at that possibility.
I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.
We are going to take a close look at this problem and
see what is or isn't being done to address it and take corrective
action if necessary.
cost-sharing of defense medical research
Yes, the Senator from Vermont is correct. The committee
is seeking to determine alternative ways to fund increases in these
kinds of projects, but not undermine the effectiveness of ongoing
programs. The committee has received numerous requests to start up new
medical research programs. In many cases these requests cannot be met
when trying to meet other valid military requirements with limited
resources. The language is certainly not specifically designed to
undermine the integrity of the existing DOD BCRP, and the committee
recognizes it as innovative, extremely accountable and transparent in
its approach to medical research.
Yes, that is right. The language clearly foresees that
the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs will work closely
with the service Surgeons General and the Institute of Medicine to
develop and conduct a sensible, objective, and fair analysis of cost-
sharing options for future medical research programs.
I thank the Senator for his interest in this issue. I
recognize the importance of laser peening technology, and I promise the
Senator that I will be certain to give his request careful
consideration as we proceed with action on the Department of Defense
Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004.