Army secretary: Wars restrict time to train
By Roxana Tiron
Posted: 02/26/08 06:30 PM [ET]
The secretary of the Army voiced concern Tuesday that soldiers have little to no time to train for other potential conflicts away from Iraq and Afghanistan. Top Army officials have been sounding alarm in recent days that the Army is seriously strained and must reduce deployments to Iraq as soon as possible.
“The demand to get [soldiers] prepared for what we are asking them to do now understandably limits their ability to prepare for other missions,” Secretary Pete Geren told the Senate Armed Services panel during a hearing.
Geren was responding to concerns raised by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) about the Army’s ability to respond to other crises around the world.
Geren’s comments support claims by both Senate and House members who say the military has been so overstretched by the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that it would not have the necessary resources, equipment and troops to tackle an unforeseen conflict. Army officials have already acknowledged to lawmakers in past months that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have put such a strain on their forces.
“Our goal is full-spectrum readiness: have our soldiers ready for the full range of threats that are out there,” Geren explained. “With the length of time that we have at home today, 12 months between deployments, we do not have time to train for full-spectrum readiness in that period of time.”
Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff and former top commander in Iraq, said that some conventional warfare training is still taking place on bases in Japan and Korea, for example.
“There’s a perception that conventional training is not happening in the Army, and it’s not happening much […] but it’s not nonexistent,” Casey told the panel.
Currently, soldiers are deployed to war for 15 months and get 12 months at home. The 12 months at home are enough to refocus the soldiers on the conflicts at hand and repair and reset the war-torn equipment.
“We have funding that is allowing us to reset the equipment so that that equipment is ready for when soldiers redeploy,” Geren said.
Both Geren and Casey said that the Army is under serious strain and has to reduce the length of combat tours as soon as possible.
“The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future,” Casey said.
Without adequate time at home for its soldiers, the Army would “fall short” of its goal to have soldiers ready for any kind of warfare, Geren said.
Casey anticipated that the Army could cut the combat tours to 12 months this year if President Bush sticks to a plan to reduce the number of active-duty brigades from 20 to 15 by July. Casey said the Army’s plan relies on 13 active-duty Army brigades in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. The other two brigades are Marine Corps units.
However, with demand for more boots on the ground in Afghanistan — which could amount to two more brigade combat teams — the Army may not be able to keep deployments to 12 months. Casey said he has not looked into the concept with 17 deployed brigades (13 in Iraq, two in Afghanistan and potentially another two in Afghanistan).
But both Army leaders said that despite the reduction in forces in Iraq, the service will not be able to cut a controversial practice of stop-loss under which the Army can keep soldiers in a war zone beyond their original enlistment commitments or their retirement dates.
Currently, the Army is keeping just under 8,000 soldiers under stop-loss, and would still keep about 7,000 by the end of the fiscal year if combat forces are reduced to 15 deployed brigades this summer, Geren said.
With an eye toward the future, in which the Army will have to grow its force and repair war-torn equipment, the service also had to defend the purpose for its largest acquisition: the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program — a network of lighter ground vehicles, aircraft and robots connected by an impenetrable communications network.
Congress has consistently cut funding from the $160 billion program over the past several years, expressing criticism over the development of the technology. So far the program — contracted out to Boeing and SAIC — has been restructured several times.
Casey told lawmakers on Tuesday that the concept of FCS would be a lot easier to grasp once the technology moves from paper designs to reality. The Army is expected to display the first manned ground vehicle, or MGV, this June.
“You’ll be able to see them and see the power of what we’re trying to create,” Casey said.
Akaka expressed concerns about the scope of the new technology handling all matters of modern warfare.
“Much has been said of the limited value of mechanized warfare and the impact technology can have in conducting counterinsurgency and stability operations, which tend to rely much more on cultural awareness and interpersonal relationships to be effective,” Akaka said.
“In essence, the enemy is not a willing participant in an information network, and detection in urban environments may be beyond the capabilities of any known technology.”
But Casey said the FCS would be suited for both irregular warfare, such as Iraq, and conventional warfare through its projected precision intelligence collection as well as precision attack capabilities.
Meanwhile, the Army will need approximately $260 billion by fiscal 2011 to grow its force, repair equipment damaged in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and buy new technologies, such as the ones that are part of FCS.
Casey and Geren also urged lawmakers to approve the remaining $100 billion from the 2008 supplemental by Memorial Day, contending that the Army would run out of money by July. Their urging came as the Senate once again voted to debate a measure to withdraw troops from Iraq in 120 days.
http://thehill.com/business--lobby/army-secretary-wars-restrict-time-to-train-2008-02-26.html