[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM: TRAINING AND EQUIPPING RESERVE COMPONENT FORCES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 11, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-211
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2004
96-409 PDF
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
DAN BURTON, Indiana DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio TOM LANTOS, California
RON LEWIS, Kentucky BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Maryland
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
DIANE E. WATSON, California
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
R. Nicholas Palarino, Senior Policy Analyst
Robert A. Briggs, Clerk
Andrew Su, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 11, 2004..................................... 1
Statement of:
Hanlon, Lieutenant General Edward, Commandant, Marine Corps
Combat Development Command; Lieutenant General Roger C.
Schultz, Director, Army National Guard; Lieutenant General
James R. Helmly, Chief, Army Reserve; and Brigadier General
Louis W. Weber, Director of training, U.S. Army............ 83
Neill, First Sergeant Gerald G., 323 Military Intelligence
Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve, Maryland; Staff Sergeant Juan
SanchezLopez, 2nd Battalion 23rd Marines, Reserves;
Specialist Michael Tanguay, 143rd Military Police Co.,
National Guard, Connecticut; Lieutenant Colonel Steve J.
Novotny, 530th Military Police Battalion, U.S. Army
Reserve, Nebraska; Andrew F. Krepinevich, executive
director, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments;
and Major General (ret.) Richard C. Alexander, president,
National Guard Association of the United States, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments........................ 6
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Alexander, Major General (ret.) Richard C., president,
National Guard Association of the United States, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, prepared statement of. 57
Hanlon, Lieutenant General Edward, Commandant, Marine Corps
Combat Development Command, prepared statement of.......... 85
Helmly, Lieutenant General James R., Chief, Army Reserve:
Information concerning processing days................... 156
Prepared statement of.................................... 106
Krepinevich, Andrew F., executive director, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, prepared statement of. 41
Neill, First Sergeant Gerald, 323 Military Intelligence
Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve, Maryland, prepared statement
of......................................................... 9
Novotny, Lieutenant Colonel Steve J., 530th Military Police
Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve, Nebraska, prepared statement
of......................................................... 31
SanchezLopez, Staff Sergeant Juan, 2nd Battalion 23rd
Marines, Reserves, prepared statement of................... 16
Schultz, Lieutenant General Roger C., Director, Army National
Guard, prepared statement of............................... 98
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 4
Tanguay, Specialist Michael, 143rd Military Police Co.,
National Guard, Connecticut, prepared statement of......... 22
Weber, Brigadier General Louis W., Director of training, U.S.
Army, prepared statement of................................ 120
COMBATING TERRORISM: TRAINING AND EQUIPPING RESERVE COMPONENT FORCES
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TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Schrock
(acting chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Schrock, Shays and Watson.
Staff present:: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and
counsel; R. Nicholas Palarino, senior policy analyst; Robert A.
Briggs, clerk; Richard Lundberg, detailee; Kristin Amerling and
Andrew Su, minority professional staff members; Jeff Baran,
minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority clerk.
Mr. Schrock. This hearing will come to order.
A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations hearing
entitled, ``Combating Terrorism: Training and Equipping Reserve
Component Forces'' is called to order.
Let me first thank all the witnesses for their time today
in helping us address and improve a program that is vital to
the men and women who put themselves in harms way for our
country. As one of just a handful of military retirees serving
in Congress, I believe I have a unique perspective and
sensitivity to this issue.
This war in Iraq and against terrorism has been personal to
me since the beginning and has hit home in a very real way in
the past few weeks with the deaths of military members from the
district I am privileged to represent. I am sure I do not need
to tell any of today's witnesses that it makes no difference to
the enemy whether or not you are active duty or a Guard or
Reservist. All of these men and women are placed in harms way
without prejudice. Clearly it is our duty to ensure each and
every soldier, airman, sailor, Marine and Coast Guardsman,
regardless of active or reserve status is adequately equipped,
trained and prepared to the highest degree possible to enter
any war zone be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere we find our
folks in harms way. Anything else is simply unacceptable.
I recognize that utilization of the Guard and the Reserve
military is at a pace we have not experienced in over 50 years.
This has put tremendous pressure on the Pentagon to make
everything come together. I also recognize we have had major
obstacles in meeting these requirements, that many have been
overcome, but that still more remain.
I look forward to hearing from these witnesses today on
what remains to be accomplished, and what recommendations they
have to better help us meet these needs. I certainly expect
they will address whatever inadequacies remain and explain what
has been done or is being done to rectify such issues.
I would like to recognize the chairman of this
subcommittee, Mr. Shays, for any opening comments he might
have.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
National Guard and reserve units collectively called
``Reserve Component forces'' constitute an indispensable
element of our national military power. No longer a rarely
called upon supplement to the active force, they bring skills
and specialties integral to modern warfare fighting, post-
conflict stabilization and peacekeeping.
It appears many RC units, still find themselves at the
short end of the supply chain unable to train as they fight for
new and evolving missions in challenging environments.
Shortages of first-quality body armor, too few shielded
Humvees, and limited pre-mobilization access to mission-
specific training facilities have challenged Guard and Reserve
unit effectiveness and put men and women at risk.
We asked RC veterans of recent deployments and their
Pentagon leadership to describe how the hard-won lessons from
today's dynamic conflicts are applied to the equipment and
training needs of the total force, particularly the Guard and
Reserves. We asked how doctrine tactics and material are being
adapted so deploying forces will be protected and will prevail
against improvised explosive devices and other emerging
threats.
Ironically, the military occupational specialties like
civil affairs, once regulated by cold war planners to Reserve
component units, are proving essential on the front lines
today. The policing skills many civilians bring to their
military duties are in high demand on city streets from here to
Baghdad. These units no longer are an extra element of the
force package, but highly valuable and perishable assets that
should be as well supported and judiciously deployed as their
active duty components.
Rick helped teach us that lesson. Army Reserve Staff
Sergeant Richard S. Eaton, Jr., from Guilford, CT, voluntarily
deployed to the Iraqi theater with the 323rd Military
Intelligence Battalion. Before he died from apparent heat-
related causes last August, he wrote to ask why members of his
unit were activated twice in 2 years without required time at
home? Why were RC personnel deemed ``mission essential,''
rushed to Kuwait only to find there was no mission? Meanwhile,
was homeland security needlessly put at risk by their departure
from the police departments, law enforcement units and
intelligence agencies they left behind? His service, his
dedication, his sacrifice compel us to pursue his questions
about the preparation and tasking of the many thousands of men
and women like Rick who put their Nation first and have every
right to expect their national military leadership to
reciprocate.
This hearing is part of a sustained examination of National
Guard and Reserve readiness issues by the Government Reform
Committee. Past reports and testimony brought needed attention
to mobilization pay errors, medical screening and structural
strains caused by growing tensions between RC units' global
combat and homeland security missions.
As is our practice, we will hear first from veterans
service members whose personal experiences and insights always
prove invaluable to our oversight. We deeply appreciate that
our distinguished second panel of Pentagon witnesses agreed to
waive their customary right to open the hearing. Thanks to
their forbearance, our subsequent discussion will be better
grounded and more meaningful.
Thank you all for being here. We look forward to hearing
your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is customary that we swear our witnesses if you will
please rise.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Schrock. Our first panel members this afternoon are:
First Sergeant Gerald Neill, 323 Military Intelligence
Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve, Maryland; Staff Sergeant Juan
SanchezLopez, 2nd Battalion 23rd Marines, Reserves; Specialist
Michael Tanguay, 143rd Military Police Co., National Guard from
the chairman's home State of Connecticut; Lieutenant Colonel
Steve J. Novotny, 530th Military Police Battalion, U.S. Army
Reserve, Nebraska; our good friend Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich,
Executive Director, Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments; and Major General (Ret.) Richard C. Alexander,
president, National Guard Association of the United States,
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. We are
delighted to have all of you here.
First Sergeant Neill, the floor is yours.
STATEMENTS OF FIRST SERGEANT GERALD G. NEILL, 323 MILITARY
INTELLIGENCE BATTALION, U.S. ARMY RESERVE, MARYLAND; STAFF
SERGEANT JUAN SANCHEZLOPEZ, 2ND BATTALION 23RD MARINES,
RESERVES; SPECIALIST MICHAEL TANGUAY, 143RD MILITARY POLICE
CO., NATIONAL GUARD, CONNECTICUT; LIEUTENANT COLONEL STEVE J.
NOVOTNY, 530TH MILITARY POLICE BATTALION, U.S. ARMY RESERVE,
NEBRASKA; ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR
STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS; AND MAJOR GENERAL (RET.)
RICHARD C. ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL GUARD ASSOCIATION OF
THE UNITED STATES, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY
ASSESSMENTS
Sergeant Neill. I would like to begin my testimony with a
silent moment recognizing the loss of life of our service
members in Iraq. I want to particularly recognize Staff
Sergeant Richard S. Eaton, Jr., from Bravo Co. 323 Military
Intelligence Battalion, U.S. Army Reserves. He was a soldier
and my friend, and he died in Iraq.
[Moment of silence.]
Sergeant Neill. Thank you for this opportunity to testify
before you here today. You have my written testimony and I have
to limit my time so I can only give you the highlights.
I am a First Sergeant from Bravo Co. 323 Military
Intelligence Battalion. I have 30 years of service. I have
experience in team building, unit building and training. I have
spent many years of working and developing sources and
information in the Metropolitan Police Department in
Washington, DC.
MI units work as teams. Solid teams contain a mix of young
soldiers fresh from school and older soldiers, some with
previous job skills with infantry training, motor training,
supply, drill sergeants, communications, civilian street police
experience are excellent pluses to any team. In the field in
intense situations, they are the ones who stand above and carry
the team to safety. We have a shortage of sworn officers who
are their officer team leaders and they are the officer team
builders.
I believe soldiers fight as they train and that every Army
trains for the next war based upon lessons learned from the
last. If we accept this, we must look at training in two ways,
premobilization which is basic training, military occupation
skills, leadership training and unit training and second,
mobilization. Pre-mobilization training is adequate except at
the unit training level. Unit training and annual training time
is too often used up with administrative functions or other
distractions. Here is where team building takes place. Six
soldiers make a team and these teams may deploy in either
tactical or non-tactical situations.
A major problem for us was vehicle care and use
requirements that take up one quarter of a drill weekend. The
stated time allotment would more than double if the driver
requirements were followed to the letter. Our unit avoided this
requirement by turning our vehicles into sites and since we
didn't have our vehicles, we did not have our radios and they
were not mounted. Radio communication was a major problem for
us in Iraq. While active duty units came to the theater with
satellite phones and can use them for communications, we had
none. Many years ago motor sections, com sections were all
moved from military intelligence companies and sent to
battalion levels. Their staffing was reduced and they became
ineffective. Maybe it is time to look at bringing them back to
the company level.
Weapons training from our reserve unit was completely
inadequate due to ammo shortage for the past 3 years. Weapons
training at the mobilizationsite was only marginal and only
marginally prepared soldiers to be effective and use their
weapons. Equipment shortages were extremely problematic. Short
call-up and mobilization times further impacted supply
problems. Consequently, soldiers deployed without insect
protection measures, bug juice, insect netting needed to endure
the harsh environment. At one point in Iraq while we were
waiting for a mission to start, heat stroke and illness
exhausted the ability of a local aid station to support us and
I had to send half of my unit to the hospital for treatment and
recovery. Many soldiers fell ill when preventive measures were
known but not provided.
Mobilization, we were the prisoners of Fort Dix. Army
Reservists could not leave post and this was a bitter pill to
swallow for many Reservists and they still speak ill of it now.
Unit sponsorship was nonexistent. Stepchildren receive better
care from their sponsors than we did.
The best training we received in-theater was action on
contact where soldiers went through simulated combat drills,
conducting our vehicles in desert conditions. We set up our
vehicles, mounted our M-60 machine guns on improvised plywood
platforms and aligning the bottom of our vehicles with sand
bags. These teams were prepared to move to the field in two
vehicle convoys.
In August, some 8 months after our activation we assumed
our original mission. We replaced the Marines. They left us
with much needed equipment not available to our organic MI
chain of command but the Marines proved it was needed to be
successful in our operations. They left us non-tactical
vehicles which allowed us quicker traveling speeds in the 55 to
60 miles a hour tactical vehicles move at. They did not alert
the Iraqi citizens that they were coming as the motor sound of
the Humvee truly earned its name. You can hear it a long ways
off. We varied our speeds on highways, change of lanes as we
approached bridges and not let anyone pass us once we were on
the highway.
Our job is to know the enemy. It is their job to know us.
We presented the appearance of a battle ready element. Every
team had a heavy machine gun as well as automatic rifles,
handguns and grenades. We looked at everyone who looked at us.
We considered everyone a potential threat until we knew
otherwise. What I learned as a policeman is to watch people as
you drive into bad neighborhoods. If they start running or
start moving quickly when they see you, that is not a good
sign. It is a good sign that something is amiss. I passed this
to my soldiers.
Soldiers purchased much of their own equipment. They paid
for vehicle repairs, purchased maintenance parts for which they
were not reimbursed and stated as an aside, we left an Iraqi
mechanic holding an $1,100 bill for vehicle repairs and I am
not sure the bill was ever paid.
In terms of intelligence operations, intelligence
contingency funds were not available to us until just prior to
redeployment to the States. Sources did provide information for
a variety of reasons but money was not available as an
incentive. We all had issues with doctrine that would not allow
us to task sources for information. We could suggest but not
task. Sources do not need suggestions, they need direction. You
ask them a question and tell them to come back with the answer.
One final point deals with sources and I will be brief.
Sources provide information expecting to see action. If they do
not see action, they lose faith in us and quit providing
information. In a country where explosive devices litter the
landscape, the best way to stop roadside bombings is to act on
information provided by sources as to the old who, what, where,
when and how can I catch them questions.
In closing, we arrived as a unit and returned as a unit. We
fought for just about every living and working space we had in
Iraq and we left our replacements in improved living and
working conditions. Let me say that I took what I consider the
best trained, best qualified soldiers any Nation can offer to
war. They did an outstanding job and I am proud of them.
Additionally, I know they are proud of themselves and their
service to our great Nation.
Thank you and I will answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant Neill follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Sergeant, thank you for your testimony and
thank you for saying the nice things you say about your men and
women. We know that to be true and I think the whole country
does.
Staff Sergeant SanchezLopez, thank you for being here and
the floor is yours.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. My name is Staff Sergeant
SanchezLopez, a member of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, U.S.
Marine Corps Reserve located in Encino, CA.
I was mobilized in support of Operation Enduring Freedom
and reported to Camp Pendleton, CA where I served for 13
months. My unit was deployed with Regimental Combat Team I, 1st
Marine Division in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on
February 2003 for an additional 4 months and returned to the
United States in May 2003. I served on active duty for a total
of 24 months. Prior to serving in the Reserves, I served on
active duty for 8 years and I have been in the Reserves for 4
years. My military occupation specialty is Motor Transportation
Chief.
My unit was not involved in fighting the insurgents but we
did change our fighting tactics based on how the enemy was
fighting us. Our roadblock procedure was one of the biggest
changes, based on the intelligence reports we conducted our
roadblocks. The change was based on information from Marine
regiments, from RCT2. Marines changed their tactics once they
entered Baghdad. These changes involved convoy procedures. At
the time we stopped allowing Iraqis civilian vehicles from
passing and mixing in our convoys. This was due to reports of
attacks on convoys from passing vehicles.
Our battalion recently completed a battalion field exercise
in which we incorporated the lessons we learned from the war in
our training. Some of these lessons were convoy procedures and
local security. My unit participated in the same training as
our active duty counterparts at Camp Pendleton. Prior to
deploying from the United States to Kuwait, we served on active
duty 13 months prior to departing the United States in support
of Enduring Freedom. One of our equipment difficulties was we
did not know prior to crossing from Kuwait to Iraq where we
would be equipped with amtracks or trucks. We didn't find out
until a week prior to the ground offensive which we changed our
tactics to how we were going to employ that.
I would like to thank all the members of this committee for
allowing me to speak. I hope my testimony will assist in
answering any questions you may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant SanchezLopez follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. It does and it will and we thank you for
serving.
Specialist Tanguay, welcome.
Specialist Tanguay. Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee, thank you and good afternoon.
My name is Specialist Michael Tanguay, a member of the
143rd Military Police Co., a National Guard Unit out of
Hartford, CT which was mobilized February 7, 2003 in support of
Operation Iraqi Freedom. I have been invited here today to
testify before you in regard to my experience with pre-
deployment and deployment to Iraq as it pertains to the
training and equipment we received. I thank you for this
opportunity. It is the intent of my testimony today to provide
you with the curriculum of training we received prior to and
during our deployment, equipment issues we faced and most
importantly, lessons we have learned. The goals I have set for
myself and present to this committee in testifying here before
you will aid in rectifying known problems and potential trouble
spots coupled with insight to the lessons we have learned.
In preparation for deployment, my unit moved to Fort Drum,
NY for a train-up mission. It is here where we received 2
months of theater-specific training ranging from Arabic
language lessons to convey security operations. As a military
police combat support unit, we have a wide range of missions we
can perform. Facing the uncertainty of war, we did not know our
specific mission, so we took the time to review all standard
operating procedures for each mission or task that we could
face.
We performed several live fire exercises that sharpened our
marksmanship skills and refamiliarized ourselves with each
weapons system. Mine awareness and unexploded ordinance classes
were conducted. However, improvised explosive devices did not
surface until we were once in theater. Medical aid, urban
warfare tactics, patrol techniques, prisoner of war detainee
doctrine, area security operations and convoy security
procedures were key classes conducted that ultimately benefited
us during our deployment.
The 2-month train-up phase of the deployment provided ample
time to train and become a unified fighting machine. However,
poor time management skills, severe logistical issues and
improper equipment prevented us from training the way we ended
up fighting. This motto of train the way we fight highly
adopted by my unit is a foundational building block of a
training curriculum. Nonetheless, without the proper equipment
at our training site, in preparing for a desert climate while
bundled in three layers of winter clothing, and mismanagement
of precious training time turned into a last minute dash to get
up to speed in preparing for war.
The deficiency of the highly sought after unarmored Humvee
and interceptor vests, lack of training and time at the mock
urban warfare town, and unintentional misguided operational
procedures for various mission tasks proved to be key lessons
learned and areas to improve. More time spent at the mock urban
warfare town would have proved extremely beneficial in building
clearing techniques, possible ambush situations and civilian
considerations on the battlefield. Our unit spent 2 days out of
the 2-months at this training site. Time is extremely precious
in preparing for war but a 2-week minimum at the site would
have proved extremely beneficial.
Unintentional misguided operational procedures placed us at
a temporary setback during the early going while we were in
theater. Situational dictations coupled with an under manning
strength hindered us in the way we trained and the way we ended
up combating. For example, a traditional MP line company as
myself is broken up into a 10 person squad with three vehicles,
an ideal and perfect situation for any MP task. However, while
on the ground in Iraq our squad consisted of six personnel and
only two trucks, a severe setback in security concern when
conducting such operations as area and convoy security. The
operational tempo as high as it was along with a high demand
for MP type missions dictated changes that took place.
Arriving in Kuwait on April 15, 2003 proved to be our last
ditch effort to improve upon our training and ready our gear
for the bush toward Baghdad. In our 3-week stay in Kuwait, we
learned of our vague mission task. It was an encompassing task
to patrol sectors of Baghdad, a very indistinguishable and non-
definitive mission task at best. We readied our unarmored
vintage aged Humvees and dawned our Vietnam era non-protective
flak vests for the ride north.
Severe logistical issues regarding equipment surfaced here
again. No ammunition for our brand new MK-19 weapon system, no
up armored Humvees to patrol in, and still no interceptor
ceramic plated vests to protect us. We adapted and overcame the
best we could, sandbagging the floor boards of our 1985
Humvees, creating weapons mounts for our other weapon system
the M-249 SAW, and retrofitting a couple Humvees with diamond
plating on the side doors of the trucks.
Once in Baghdad things didn't improve much. We finally
received our interceptor vests after a month in Baghdad
complete with ceramic plates but still had problems with
ammunition and non-armored vehicles. We were quickly improving
and overcoming great obstacles with what we had to work with.
Training was a continuous process. Overcoming enemy tactics
such as IEDs in the roadways forced us to vary our routes,
continually improve base and area security, and maintain a high
level of situational awareness.
The U.S. military is a highly trained, skilled, adaptive
and intelligent force. The Guard and Reserve component forces
have a lot to bring to the table as far as civilian background
and how it is incorporated into use on the battlefield. For
example as a Military Police unit, we have a large number of
civilian law enforcement officers whose expertise and knowledge
of policing provided firsthand knowledge of patrol tactics,
weapons proficiency, an urban backdrop and general policing
duties to those of us less experienced. That factor alone made
a true impact on our success during this deployment.
The 143rd Military Police Co. and myself completed a 1-year
tour of duty in Baghdad, Iraq honorably while facing extreme
odds and extenuating circumstances not in our favor. Several
lessons have been learned, some unfortunately due to casualties
sustained and fellow brothers and sisters in arms lost.
First and foremost, let us equip our troops with the best
possible gear to all units whether active duty, National Guard
or Reserve component. Up armored Humvees, interceptor vests and
IED jamming systems are great initiatives but need to be
dispersed to all troops deploying overseas. Next, let us phase
in a training doctrine that relates more to theater specific
training regiment. There are several training sites in
California, Nevada and Louisiana that provide the type of
climate troops will soon see before they deploy. The mock urban
warfare training ranges and sites are great tools that need to
be taken advantage of. Language classes are also great tools
that prove beneficial.
Finally, it is imperative that the lessons learned from
veterans be heard and the suggestions set forth to integrate
the training doctrine to all deploying units. Let us continue
to be the most intelligent, best equipped, fighting force out
there.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Specialist Tanguay follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Thank you very much. Very impressive.
Colonel Novotny, welcome. You have come a long way today
and we are anxious to hear what you have to say. Welcome.
Colonel Novotny. Chairman Shays and distinguished members
of the subcommittee, I am Lieutenant Colonel Steven Novotny,
Battalion Commander of the 530th Military Police Battalion from
Omaha, NE. I am honored to have the opportunity to speak before
your committee today.
In January 2003, my battalion headquarters was mobilized in
support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. After receiving orders for
active duty, my unit was certified for deployment at Fort
Riley, KS, deployed overseas and established operations at two
separate camps in Iraq. While our primary mission was providing
force protection at Camp Bucca, we also managed several other
important missions.
Several days a week, we coordinated visitation with 100
prisoners and over 500 family members that were being held at
our camp. Our property team, responsible for annotating and
inventory of prisoner personal effects, successfully returned
many personal items to hundreds of prisoners upon departure of
our camp. In addition, we entered into an agreement with
British MPS to serve as a Quick Reaction Force if they needed
assistance.
Health care was coordinated with the Czech and British
hospitals in Basra to treat our soldiers and prisoners on an
emergency basis. The British also provided a dedicated Air
Medical Evacuation Team that supported our camp. My unit, the
530th MP Battalion attached 20 soldiers to the 101st Airborne,
supporting prisoner constriction. These soldiers also provided
instruction on law enforcement and correction tasks to Iraqi
nationals who would assume control over these facilities.
While the 530th was in control of operations of our entire
camp, we placed tremendous effort on improving the quality of
life for our soldiers. We constructed a landing pad for
helicopters, improved food variety, started an exchange program
for medical personnel from the British hospital and established
an MWR, a morale, welfare and recreation center. We also
constructed a fixed shower facility. While this may not sound
like much, our troops truly looked forward to one creature
comfort, improving significantly our quality of life. Other
things we did to improve morale was establish a local PX and
having a 2-day bazaar.
In November, the 530th MP Battalion moved to a new location
approximately 45 northeast of Baghdad where we secured a group
of 3,800 detainees. In approximately 10 days our processing
team entered all 3,800 detainees into an identification data
bank with the assistance of a civilian assistance review team.
Our processors were recognized for maintaining a high degree of
dedication and professionalism while achieving an extremely
high first-time acceptance rate for data input. Many soldiers
supported other units to include traffic control points and
convoy security, while conducting combat operations in our area
of operation throughout our stay at Camp Ashraf.
Upon assuming command of my battalion, I conducted a review
of my unit training program to ensure that our training program
supported the essential tasks that were required of my unit if
we were mobilized. I directed that a staff exercise be
organized to exercise my unit staff, non-commissioned officers
and individual soldiers from the unit. This training was
focused on our primary wartime mission. I directed that all
officers within my battalion participate in a staff training
exercise where we prepared estimates for conducting convoys.
All soldiers were trained on individual defensive tactics
and while using the SINGARS communications equipment, we
trained on our communications skills. Additionally, we worked
on our critical task skills, on prisoner handling and
management as well as specific areas within the Geneva
Convention that applied to prisoners.
Before and after mobilization, our active component
liaisons from the 75th Training Division were instrumental in
providing our staff with current doctrine and guidance that we
used to plan future training sessions. While at our
mobilization station, we conducted training on convoy
operations, conducted nearly 2 weeks of training on military
operations and warfare in an urban environment. This training
was organized as a direct result of lessons learned from the
incident of the maintenance unit that became disoriented in the
city during convoy movements and was required to fight its way
out of an urban environment.
Early in our mobilization, I was invited to view exercises
of possible wartime maneuver scenarios at Fort Hood along with
my higher headquarters. These training sessions were invaluable
in providing me the focus of potential missions of my
battalion. Prior to leaving for Iraq, the 530th Military Police
Battalion dispatched liaison noncommissioned officers to meet
with subordinate companies that were located at Fort Lewis,
Fort McCoy and Fort Bragg. These NCOs assured a coordinated,
clear standard operating procedure was distributed to all units
and that lines of communication along with clear and understood
chain of command was established.
The primary wheeled vehicle we had in our headquarters
company was the Humvee. These were configured as two and four
seat vehicles. Several were used as utility vehicles and could
haul a limited amount of supplies and personnel. None of these
vehicles were equipped or configured with protective armor or
machine gun mounts. Companies assigned under my control brought
a variety of Humvee vehicles. These varied from vehicles with
no armor to those with up-armored Humvees.
Immediately upon our arrival at our first location, I
ordered that all vehicles be sandbagged with protective
measures against mines. Units were outfitted with the armored
Humvees were heavily tasked to provide convoy escorts for VIPs,
prisoner transport, medical movement, logistic escort and force
protection missions. All assigned line companies were equipped
with 2\1/2\ ton trucks as our primary logistics vehicle. While
most of these trucks were over 30 years of age, the battalion
was able to maintain an acceptable operational readiness rate.
While in Iraq, our battalion received new medium trucks at
our home station in Omaha. Unfortunately, those vehicles were
provided to other units who were scheduled to mobilize after
us. Prior to moving to Camp Ashraf, all soldiers received the
most current body armor to include front and rear plates. The
530th MP Battalion left all vehicles and most equipment to
include the light engineer equipment in-country for follow-on
forces to utilize after our departure.
One lesson learned that would have improved our mission
capability would have been an increase in allocation of medium
machine guns and additional ammunition to allow for more
soldiers to qualify on these weapons. While communications
equipment was adequate, we needed additional backup equipment
such as cables and microphones. We found that while we deployed
with all of our soldiers we were supposed to have with our
manning roster, our communications soldier was not enough. This
was one person to support an entire battalion.
I would also recommend that some elements within the
command structure be equipped with armored security vehicles,
ASVs. These would provide MPS with increased fire power and
survivability. Our war fighting doctrine was based on an MP
battalion being placed approximately 80 miles behind the front
lines. This doctrine did not account for an MP battalion to
establish detainee camps while on the move and following lead
combat forces.
Prior to mobilizing, all staff officers reviewed the After
Action Review from our unit from Operation Desert Shield/Desert
Storm. The staff would take information from actual events and
modify our training accordingly. The battalion would send
advance and quartering parties to identify critical issues at
future locations that we would anticipate moving to.
The battalion conducted after action reviews after primary
training events or actual situations in order to capture
critical issues and provide updated guidance to our soldiers.
We utilized IED employment templates which identified patterns
of employment in our area and along routes that our convoys
would move. Prior to convoys leaving our base, the S2 would
request an IED update from our supporting brigade. If
necessary, we could postpone convoy movements or take alternate
routes.
We encouraged postponing convoy departures due to heavy fog
in the morning. The battalion conducted detailed mission briefs
utilizing sand tables which are a military method of
visualization of the battlefield prior to all missions. My
staff and I used the Combined Arms Lessons Learned [CALL], Web
site from Fort Leavenworth. This is a storehouse of all Army
lessons learned. We depended heavily on the operations and
intel update for current information from the 2nd Combat
Brigade of the 4th ID.
The 530th Executive Office was tasked with forwarding
current situational updates with our lessons learned to the
89th Regional Reserve Command in Wichita, KS so they can
incorporate our lessons learned into training plans for other
Reserve forces. The 89th was able to emphasize to following
units issues such as bringing as much PLL, prescribed load list
items as possible with them. In addition, the convoy portion of
the mobilization train-up was modified to incorporate lessons
learned from units in-theater and pass on information to
improve safety. Another result was a subordinate unit bringing
in a Humvee with increased protection instead of what had been
authorized previously.
During the 530th's mobilization, we commanded nine
companies from active duty, Army Reserve and National Guard. My
battalion did the best to forge all companies into one team
while providing them with the best leadership, guidance and
resources they would require. I am extremely proud of all of
our soldiers I have served with from California, South
Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Kentucky and
Puerto Rico.
Thank you again for your time and I will answer any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Novotny follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Colonel, and thank you for being
here.
Dr. Krepinevich, thank you. It is nice to have you here
again and the floor is yours.
Dr. Krepinevich. Thank you and thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today and share my views on
this important issue.
As you know, my expertise on the details of training and
preparing our troops for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq is
far from comprehensive. Consequently, I will focus my comments
in placing the training issue within the larger context of our
operations in these two countries.
For people my age and those of us who have served in the
military, there is a sense that we have been to this movie
before. Indeed, 42 years ago almost to the day, President
Kennedy in addressing the graduating class at West Point said
the following, ``This is another type of war, new in its
intensity, ancient in its origins, war by guerillas,
subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by
combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory
by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It
requires in those situations where we must counter it a whole
new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and
therefore, a wholly different kind of military training.'' When
he spoke those words, he was referring to places like Vietnam
and Colombia but I think they are quite apt for the kind of
combat that these people find themselves confronting today in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
First, we are victims of our success. Our military so
dominates that the conventional form of warfare that we have
essentially driven people out of that business. Those who want
to confront us are now like North Korea and Iran, looking for
nuclear weapons. Those that can't do that such as the
opposition in Afghanistan and Iraq, seek the route of
insurgency and practice the tactics the President spoke of some
42 years ago.
Second, as they have gotten into this business, we find
that we have been out of this business. We got out of this
business after the Vietnam War. ``No more Vietnams'' was voiced
not only by the American public and the political leadership
but quite frankly also by our military as well. The 1980's saw
the Weinberg and Powell doctrines, go in with everything you
have, overwhelming force and leave quickly. The 1990's when we
had situations where we did deploy overseas, we can think of
Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia, there was all discussion about exit
strategies. Let us not stay there too long. That seemed to
work. Unfortunately, September 11 changed everything. Now we
don't have the luxury of leaving a Haiti or Somalia, especially
when they are named Afghanistan and Iraq just because we got
tired or we don't feel we are as successful as we should be.
Nevertheless, this approach, this no more Vietnams, Weinberg-
Powell Doctrine and exit strategy concept practiced by all of
us, Republicans, Democrats and military alike, led to the
atrophy of the kinds of skills, the kind of doctrinal
development, the kind of thinking about what it takes to
prevail in this kind of war.
Thus, the tactics we talk about the insurgents practice in
places like Afghanistan and Iraq, while they seem perhaps new
to us, they are hardly new at all. Suicide bombers are not new.
Neither are car and truck bombs. We saw those as far back as
1983 in Beirut and Lebanon. Certainly attacks on convoys aren't
new. As for improvised explosive devices, we have seen them
before as well. In 1966 in Vietnam, over 1,000 Americans were
killed in combat because of improvised booby traps and what we
would call today IEDs. If it seems new, if these challenges
seem new and the training requirements seem new, it is because
just as they have gotten into this business, we find that we
have been out of it for too long.
The third point I would like to make is that insurgencies
are typically protracted conflicts. Since they are protracted
conflicts, we need not only the kinds of adaptive fixes that
these men have been talking about but we also need to move
beyond this hastily organized fix for training. We need a
coherent, focused, long-term approach to bring the U.S.
military's training infrastructure for irregular warfare as
counter insurgency is up to the standards we have established
for conventional warfare training facilities such as at the
Army's National Training Center and other facilities.
Fourth, the issue of a training gap. Insurgencies are, as I
said, protracted conflicts. What we have is a force that will
continue to rotate over time. We have already gone through the
first rotation. Insurgents don't rotate. They continue to
receive the best possible training, contact with American
forces. If this occurs as it does over time, if this is a
protracted conflict as most insurgencies are, a training gap
will likely emerge between our forces and theirs, making it all
the more important to make sure that our training standards are
up to the highest level possible.
Indeed, as troops rotate out of the theater of operations,
their skills begin to atrophy. Not only that, but since they
don't participate directly in the conflict, the fact the
insurgents are adapting may make these skills not only atrophy
but also less relevant over time. This means is that we need to
find ways to mitigate the training gap, not only through the
training infrastructure but also by prompt, accurate feedback
that can be used in training forces in that infrastructure at
the relevant kind of tactics and operations at the relevant
scale.
We need a stable rotation base that can insure high
retention rates. If in fact over time we are going to be
deploying forces again and again to Iraq and Afghanistan and
other places where we are confronted by insurgents, we are
going to need people who have had that experience before.
Finally, the Army's concept of unit manning might even
prove more productive in that it would not only rotate people
back, people who have better experience but finally, people who
are operating as a cohesive unit. Failure to retain people will
lead to an even greater burden on our training infrastructure.
My final point as First Sergeant O'Neill said, our troops
and units train the way they fight. They train the way they
fight and they fight as a function of the doctrine and the way
they are organized, the force structure. Again, just as
training has atrophied over the last 25 years, so has doctrine.
The NTC may be fine for conducting training on sweeps to detect
guerilla forces in open desert but it is far less relevant if
our doctrine emphasizes securing and holding towns and urban
areas for protracted periods. In this vein, it is critical to
have a clear sense of the strategy that we are pursuing in
Afghanistan and Iraq because the fact is that no matter how
tactically proficient we are, that is not going to be a
substitute for good strategy or effective doctrine.
Let me sum up. Again, let me compliment the committee for
raising the awareness of this important issue. Again, I think
the fact we are engaged in dealing with insurgency today is a
function of our military dominance. Nevertheless, although
insurgency may be a form of warfare of the weak and not the
strong, it still presents us, as Secretary Rumsfeld has said,
with a long, hard slog to victory. This means we must move
beyond the service's immediate training fixes, helpful though
they may be, to undertake reform and restructure of our
training programs to address a form of warfare that has
received all too little attention these past two decades.
Finally, it is critical to note that improved training at
the tactical level of warfare cannot make up for deficiencies
in strategy and military doctrine.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Krepinevich follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Thank you. It is an incredibly important
subject. We appreciate your thoughtful comments and hope
everyone was listening because it is very important.
General Alexander, we are glad to have you here. You
represent a magnificent organization. It is my privilege to
yield the floor to you.
General Alexander. Thank you very much for inviting me to
testify on behalf of the National Guard Association of the
United States.
As you know, the mission of the National Guard has changed
drastically since September 11. Today's Guardsmen and
Guardswomen are not only supporting missions to defend and
protect our homeland but they are also deployed abroad in our
ongoing war against terrorism.
The state of the National Guard is good. However, as the
Guard participates in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations
throughout the world, challenges continue and they will
continue for some time. I believe the Guard has demonstrated
they are up to these challenges. The current military
leadership understands the hardship the Guard is enduring. The
families and employers of these brave men and women understand
and support the commitment that their loved ones, co-workers
and friends have elected to make. An Arkansas spokesman says,
``Guard families are doing OK. Though they have anxiety, they
still support the Guard.'' These comments were in light of the
Arkansas Guard sustaining five combat related deaths just a few
weekends ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In preparing my testimony, I solicited comments from
members of the National Guard Association and received feedback
from the Adjutants General of the States and communications
from Special Forces soldiers and those soldiers returning from
areas of operation in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will report to
you those in the field are thankful for the forward thinking
preparation that has been demonstrated by our Nation's
Adjutants General. In several instances, training from lessons
learned has been instituted from the ground up, that is State
level rather than top down from the Federal level. As such,
many States have taken the lessons learned from their returning
or deployed units and incorporated new training regimes to
prepare soldiers for their deployment in theater.
Several States have initiated their own programs to prepare
their soldiers for combat operations such as additional combat
arms training to enhance basic soldier skills outside of the
MOS skill set and years of additional funding to enhance
communication and coordination training for units preparing for
deployment.
In preparation for my testimony, I reviewed questions that
you posed to us. As such in my capacity as president of the
National Guard Association, I would like to focus on two
aspects of the questions you presented to us, training and
resourcing. With regard to training, some units are reporting
that redundancy in training has extended their stay at
mobilization stations. Other feedback indicates that some of
the existing training at home station does not fit the
scenarios that our personnel are encountering. This also is
increasing time at mobilization stations. This is requiring our
soldiers to be gone for 18 months or more. There should be a
review of our current policies and procedures to maximize
training and certification at home station.
There exists instances where we are using training doctrine
as stated earlier that is more than 3 years old. We should make
every effort to reduce time at mobilization stations by
addressing this training gap. In addition, there should be a
review of training for the Air National Guard transportation
units. Some Air National Guard units are being deployed without
training and as a result are required to train up in theater.
This is the transportation piece. A greater attempt should be
made to train these units prior to deployment.
Allow me to read comments from a Special Forces unit that
has returned from operations in Afghanistan. Transition that
occurred in Afghanistan between National Guard Special Forces
groups and active duty Special Forces groups did not allow for
an effective passage of information or situational awareness
for two reasons. Active component intelligence and command
personnel who had been deployed in the region for less than 8
months did not have confidence in the National Guard to further
develop a valuable situational awareness or understanding. The
transition schedule also did not allow for sufficient overlap.
After returning to home station for deployment, most units
did not see value in their receiving lessons learned or heads-
up information from us, that is the Guard Special Forces group.
They viewed such as an ad hoc means of relating information to
be a training distractor. These unit commands believe that
their power projection platforms and higher headquarters would
be able to provide them the information they needed to succeed.
Some units have accepted offered briefings and work groups only
to limit attendance and to assure that these meetings were kept
short. Attempts at providing information failed because unit
commands were not reachable or did not return attempted
contacts.
With regard to the issue of resourcing our Guard forces,
the following comments were made from the field. Adequate
training with sappy plates and body armor should be done
stateside. Soldiers need to be comfortable and familiar with
all the equipment they will be using before deploying to their
theater of operations. We should be training and resourcing our
forces at C-1 level rather than taking extended time to train
at C-3 level. We must ensure that our personnel have the
materials and equipment they will be using in the area of
operation.
Also allow me to read excerpts from one of several e-mails
I received from soldiers serving abroad when we posed your
questions to them. The current military table of organizations
do not provide the necessary equipment for units operating in
this environment. For example, our truck company is not
authorized radios in each vehicle to maintain communications
between drivers. The unit purchased secure handheld radios
prior to deployment which have been essential to that unit.
The M-16 A2 is not the best weapon for transportation
soldiers to quickly engage the enemy and they should be
replaced with M-4s. A hatch cut in the top of a het would offer
better field of fire observations. Up-armored Humvees must be
standardized. As you may have heard, a number of our soldiers
are being inundated and all kinds of ways are being used to
protect themselves in Humvees.
The standard military weapons training must be enhanced to
include close quarter battle and enhanced weapons training for
all soldiers. This is very true for our transportation company
personnel who during an ambush transitioning to modern infantry
is a must. At present, the individual States are purchasing
equipment and providing training required. MOS training schools
must spend more time focusing on critical combat skills and
eliminate nonsurvival skills such as drill and ceremony. Every
minute of training time on skills that will keep a soldier
alive in combat is what we should be about.
In the fog of war and in light of logistics and resourcing
challenges facing our Guard units, they are producing
innovations in the field as relates to the individual equipment
and vehicles. For the record, I would ask that an article from
the Topeka Capital Journal be entered into the record for the
committee's review. I believe that has already been submitted.
Mr. Schrock. Without objection.
General Alexander. As you can see, there have been
challenges that need to be addressed. I believe the Guard units
and their leadership are responding. I believe that our Guard
units and Adjutants General are focusing on training and
preparing their personnel in order to protect the lives of our
citizens.
Again, our Guard personnel are rising to the new challenges
each and every day. We must continue to evaluate our mission
and how we train and equipment for such missions.
I applaud you and this committee for focusing on this
important issue in order to serve our military men and women.
They are our greatest asset. Without them, we cannot fight and
defend our country. We must honor the sacrifices they make each
day.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Alexander follows:]
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Mr. Schrock. Thank you, General.
Let me start the questioning by asking our first three
witnesses, if you had the opportunity to ask questions of your
senior leadership, what questions would you ask?
Sergeant Neill. We did ask questions of our senior
leadership. We asked them what was wrong with their supply
system and who was responsible. They fingerpointed and would
not accept responsibility. Anything that happened in my
company, as the First Sergeant I am responsible for it, good or
bad. So the senior leadership has to provide an answer for us.
They didn't always have an answer.
We asked about training, we asked about plus up of ammo. We
didn't have our basic load. We were able to get ammunition from
other people, ask them and they gave it to us. Our own
battalion wouldn't support us for many months. We didn't have,
like other soldiers said, the basic material we should have had
to go to war.
Mr. Schrock. Staff Sergeant.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. Well, sir, for us, we did have the
opportunity to speak to General Maddis who was in charge of us,
the 4th Marine Division Commander came up and took questions
from the individual Marine and Lance Corporal. Whatever he
didn't have an answer to, he took it down, went back and came
back with an answer.
Mr. Schrock. Specialist Tanguay.
Specialist Tanguay. We did ask quite a few questions during
our training mission and once we were overseas. Several
questions were raised at the training site in regards to
seminition training which is a realistic training exercise
involving the M-9 pistol, the barrel is interchangeable with a
seminition barrel and it fires a projectile most commonly
referred to as a paintball. That training we have ample
opportunity, we have the equipment in our possession but we
didn't train with it. Why didn't we train with it? It provides
a realistic opportunity for soldiers to train with it. Why
didn't we train with it? We asked that question.
Mr. Schrock. What was the answer?
Specialist Tanguay. The answer was none of your business
was a command directive. It was a commander's responsibility
for providing the training at our training site. We did not
receive that training.
The next question that was raised by subordinates along
with NCOs was the truck issue, the Humvee, the up-armored
Humvee once we got overseas. Several questions were raised why
aren't we getting the up-armored and so forth. The up-armored
were in such high demand and in short supply. Basically every
other week we were getting an answer but they came out with
these retrofitted survivability kits they call them for the
Humvees. Primary answer to that question was funding. They
didn't have the money to purchase these kits. That was the
answer we received from our command staff in regards to that
issue.
We did ask questions. We were provided the opportunity to
ask questions. Some of the answers we received were not
adequate.
Mr. Schrock. Colonel, would you want to comment on that?
Colonel Novotny. Reference funding for the add-on kits, we
were able to obtain funding which allowed us to have add-on
armor to our vehicles that were not armored at all. While it
didn't give us the same protection as an up-armored vehicle, it
provided some protection against fragmentation and small arms
fire.
Questions after we were deployed on the logistics side, we
contacted the CFLC G-4 and they sent a rep to our camp to
ensure that my battalion and all subordinate companies were
tied in the best we possibly could to ensure we received the
PLL, all parts and items that we were authorized and to ensure
the system was streamlined. Back at Fort Riley, I understand
the criticality of ammunition. The STRAC Manual only allows so
much ammunition for qualification for primary machine gunners
and other machine gunners.
When we deployed, my HHC and the headquarters immediately
realized that was not adequate for our needs because we were
now providing security on a 24-hour basis and we had to train-
up our own soldiers in order for them to handle machine guns.
One thing I would say is that we need to look at how units
are authorized and how they are aligned in a peacetime
environment. I mean by that when I was mobilized, the companies
that fell under me, I had not had any contact with those
commanders before and that is the primary reason why I sent
that liaison to those company commanders to ensure we were tied
in the best we possibly could to command control and structure
so they knew the 530th MP Battalion and knew our standards.
Mr. Schrock. Let me do a follow on. To your knowledge, have
your replacements over there experienced the same deficiencies
or have some of these problems been adequately addressed, to
your knowledge? First Sergeant.
Sergeant Neill. Our replacement company, the company that
came in behind us, actually had a much better supply system
than we had. We left them with all our vehicles, we left them
with extra weapons, we left them with all our body armor and we
left them with non-tactical vehicles and equipment we acquired
that actually Marines left us. It made it much easier to do
their mission. They didn't have enough non-tactical vehicles
but they surely had a better supply system in place than we
had.
Mr. Schrock. Only because you left in-country what you took
in country?
Sergeant Neill. We left a lot, they had better support
coming in. We are a unit that has teams that deploy in cities
away from our company. We are a company that was detached from
our battalion and our battalion didn't support us. The other
battalion we came to, some of them took better care of us than
our battalion did but we stretched our asses also. So our teams
were pretty much operating every day in two vehicle convoys in
the communities by themselves.
We carried supplies to them once a week and in our time in
Iraq put some 30,000 miles in two vehicle convoys between the
five southern cities of Iraq, Desaqut, Desja, Dewina, Karbala
and Hella. They were better off than we got there.
Mr. Schrock. Staff Sergeant.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. The follow-on units, we were slated
to stay back if they didn't have enough equipment. What
happened is they had enough equipment and we got to rotate back
out of Iraq. In Kuwait, we did an asset inventory of what we
had and the question was what can you do without back in the
States to sustain your training when you get back that you
could give up to other units. So we hashed out, gave them
hardback hummers which was the Humvees they are describing,
gave several of those, tow vehicles, anything anyone needed, we
gave them.
Mr. Schrock. Specialist Tanguay.
Specialist Tanguay. I also agree that the unit that
replaced us was far better equipped than we were when we first
got there. We also left our up-armored vehicles that we did
receive after being in theater for 12 months. We left those
behind. We left behind crew serve weapons, excess ammunition,
parts and service and logistical issues that we experienced
were hashed out for the unit that replaced us. So they were far
better equipped when we left than when we first got there.
Mr. Schrock. Colonel.
Colonel Novotny. I would agree. The battalion that replaced
us was much better off than we were going in. My staff had
organized many lessons learned as far as the train-up. We had a
good crossover between the two battalion staffs. One issue that
should be raised is that while we were both MP battalion staff
and headquarters, we were organized differently. My battalion
headquarters had a R&U section which was capable of performing
light engineer tasks, building small items. One thing that was
key for us was showers for ourselves. A lot of times you could
not depend on a shower unit being at our facility and it was a
tremendous asset for us. Also, their primary focus is to
support the prisoner population in the compounds for light
engineer resources and tasks. Our guys did a tremendous effort
for our battalion. The follow-on unit did not have that and it
was a shortfall they probably had, but overall, they were
better.
Mr. Schrock. I want to address the POW issue in a minute
but let me ask one question of everybody. Have Guard and
Reserve units properly addressed or are they addressing and
improving in-CONUS administrative procedures to foster better
real training for the war fighters?
Sergeant Neill. I can't answer that question. I am too new
back to this country. I have only been back 30 days. I can't
answer.
General Alexander. I would like to comment on that
question. There are several instances where that is in fact
happening. The heads training area located in the State of
Louisiana has been very innovative to embrace convoy operations
that provide for the exercise of modern infantry skill set. The
State of New Mexico has also been leaning forward to ensure
that the present tactics that are utilized are regimented into
their original training institute. There are lessons learned
that are being exercised that are taking advantage of our acts
of war.
Mr. Schrock. Staff Sergeant.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. We are applying what we learned
specifically to our unit. We do have a lot of new personnel. We
have a lot of experienced Staff NCOs and we are sharing that
knowledge to everyone so everybody will be on board. It doesn't
matter if they are a cook, admin, transportation, everybody
will be on the same level.
Mr. Schrock. Did you want to comment?
Specialist Tanguay. I have also only been back 3 weeks, so
I really can't comment on the situation of administrative
functions and the reality of training.
Mr. Schrock. That big smile on your face tells me you are
glad to be home.
Colonel.
Colonel Novotny. I can state that follow-on forces from
within my own group back home, they have modified the training
at Fort Riley for convoy operations where they conduct live
fire exercises as part of that convoy process.
Mr. Schrock. The prisoner abuse cases that are certainly
dominating the news have cast tremendous doubt on how effective
military police and military intelligence training is
inculcating in military personnel the humane treatment of
prisoners of war and detainees. Three of you are connected with
military police and military intelligence. Were you ever
provided training focusing on the care, handling and management
of prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention rules?
First Sergeant.
Sergeant Neill. Yes, sir. Every time we deployed, and this
was my second deployment, we were provided with Geneva
Convention training and an initial training in MOS training,
you are provided with that same training which says you will
treat any prisoner the same way you treat your own soldiers,
that they have protective equipment during an attack, they will
be allowed to wear that equipment. To see soldiers violate that
Geneva Convention hurts all of us. It hurts us as soldiers, it
hurts us as Americans. That is not what this country is about.
If I could, I found the Iraqi citizens to be hard working
and they want the same things we want. They want employment,
protection for their families and they want to earn an honest
living. To see that happen, hurts every citizen in America.
Mr. Schrock. It hurts us too.
Specialist Tanguay, do you want to comment on that?
Specialist Tanguay. Yes, sir. During our 16 weeks of
military police school, MOS specialty school, you learn a great
deal about how to handle prisoners, detainees and prisoners of
war, so it is absolutely certain that we did receive the
training, both at the 16 weeks of our specialty school along
with our pre-deployment mobilization phase, the necessary
training in the Geneva Convention process and detainee and
prisoner of war operations.
Mr. Schrock. Colonel.
Colonel Novotny. I agree with the comments of the other
panel members. We have also received that instruction as part
of mandatory training, it was part of the process at Fort
Riley, it was part of the process that I directed my people go
through and shortly after I took over my unit, we completed for
our certification at Fort Riley a very similar exercise that we
move individuals from one location to another from compound to
compound as far as receiving these individuals who were
prisoners. They were actually citizens or soldiers dressed up
in uniforms.
Prior to the mobilization, I read every word of the Geneva
Convention that applies to taking care of prisoners to
establish my basis. I also was in the same unit during Desert
Shield/Desert Storm where we took care of 18,000 prisoners. I
was assistant operations officer and also an enclosure
commander and came in contact with nearly every prisoner that
came in our facility. I was charged with ensuring that they
were properly cared for, bringing them, accounting for them,
making sure they had their ID card and they were in our system
for accountability.
After the prisoner situation was stabilized, I was tasked
to lead another element to conduct an identification process
for 12,000 refugees who fled Iraq and were in the process of
confirming the identification process for them in the neutral
zone.
Mr. Schrock. Hindsight is always 20-20 but had any of you
observed such abuse, what do the relative training modules and/
or the regulations say you as an observer should do because
obviously there were people who were observers who did nothing.
By regulation, what were you to do?
Colonel Novotny. I would say report immediately to your
chain of command if that were to happen. I had minor situations
where a guard had pushed a prisoner. My NCOs reported it
immediately through the chain of command to me. I took what I
considered appropriate actions against those individuals. Their
chain of command was present. To my NCO who was specifically
tasked to run the facility where that happened, I ensured that
every case would be reported up the chain of command and that
would not be tolerated in the future.
Mr. Schrock. First Sergeant.
Sergeant Neill. That action would have stopped immediately,
sir. I agree with the Commander, ensuring that the soldier was
adequately counseled, disciplined if required and efforts
redirected.
Mr. Schrock. Specialist.
Specialist Tanguay. Absolutely report it up the chain of
command, without a doubt.
Mr. Schrock. Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I have now learned what happens when you allow someone to
chair the committee and get 15 minutes. [Laughter.]
Mr. Schrock. Make hay while the sun shines.
Mr. Shays. This committee allows for extensive questioning
by a Member instead of just doing 5 minutes. When we do that, I
think we learn so much. I learned so much from your questions
and I thank you.
I want to say this is a wonderful example of how a process
works because I had a community meeting in Oxford, CT and I had
two fairly young moms who had sons in Iraq complain to me about
the fact that their sons were in Humvees that didn't have
shielded proper equipment. So I task the gentleman on my right
to be in touch with your mom. I thought one of the things, Mr.
Tanguay, that I would not want is to have had to go back to
your mom and express my sorrow for your death, for your not
having the proper equipment since I sent you there. Whether I
sent you there or not, I would never want that to happen.
It has been a real surprise to me when Mr. Murtha had gone
to Iraq and found our soldiers did not have the fully armored
vests, it was a surprise to me to learn from your mom that our
Humvees were not properly shielded and that is the way the
process sometimes works. When we find out, we start to see some
incredible action. When I was in Iraq for my fifth visit with
the professional staff to my right, we were in Haniken and we
had three Humvees so we just kind of knocked on the door of the
257th Armored Brigade and they had three Humvees, one that had
no armament, one that was makeshift and one with the kit, and I
understand the kit was a little better because if a shell hit,
it would maintain its integrity a little better.
The question I want to ask each of you, it is hard for me
to imagine that we would have sent you there without the proper
equipment. Is this an example of where we just didn't think we
needed the equipment? If it is not, I want to know. I want to
ask each of you. You all must have thought about this. Why
would you have been sent there without the proper equipment?
Let us start with you, Mr. Neill.
Sergeant Neill. I couldn't answer that question. We were
surprised to see that. We had Internet access home, we saw the
papers and people back home were saying we would have the vests
in a certain month. We were already in country 6 or 8 months
before we had them. It was 3 or 4 more months after that before
we finally received the vests. When we left, our vehicles were
not plus-up armored and our job was to go into community every
day. We didn't have ammo, we had to acquire extra weapons from
other companies in our battalion. We mounted our weapons
ourselves.
The important thing for us was to go out battle ready and
be prepared for whatever came and giving the appearance that we
were ready. I think that deterred it.
Mr. Shays. Do you think that was because you weren't part
of the active force or do you make the same claim as active
force did not have the same quality equipment?
Sergeant Neill. The active force that we saw, MI, did not
have the same quality vehicles that we had. Some of them had
plus-ups, some of them did not. They had the same exact things
we had but they were doing the same mission we were. The
countryside is littered with ammo, artillery rounds everywhere.
What brought us back safely was we used NTVs.
Mr. Shays. Non-tactical vehicles.
Sergeant Neill. And we could travel faster. We became a
difficult target for them to hit. We could travel at 120 miles
a hour. An Humvee can only do 55 miles a hour and you can hear
it coming from about a quarter of a mile away. We would see the
citizens in the field look up from their work when they heard
the Humvee coming.
Mr. Shays. What was the speed of the other vehicle?
Sergeant Neill. We could go 120 miles a hour, sir. We used
Trailblazers, seized vehicles that the Marines purchases.
Mr. Shays. You are saying the SUVs?
Sergeant Neill. Yes, sir, the SUVs. The Humvee could do a
maximum of 55 to 60 miles a hour.
Mr. Shays. You would rather have been in an SUV than the
Humvee?
Sergeant Neill. For where we were, yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. The irony is the SUV got better mileage.
Staff Sergeant.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. It was our understanding about those
vests that went into our flak jacket, they were just beginning
that process of fielding to the Marines when we were getting to
go, so as we got our desert camis issued, we got our ballistic
shields issued. When we got in theater in Kuwait, we didn't
bring our stuff because the ship arrived 2 days prior for us
crossing the line of departure. So we stuffed our Humvees, our
trucks, our ammo and took off. They said we are crossing at
this time.
The only shortfalls we had was didn't find out we were
going to have trucks until the week before. We were waiting for
the gear that was on the ships and they said, oh, no, we're
going to give you some other stuff coming in from other ships.
Mr. Shays. I think there are always reasons for everything,
obviously, and what I am trying to understand is the reasons
why you didn't have the ammunition, the reason why you didn't
have the plus-up Humvees, the reason why you didn't have the
vests, reasons other than just they weren't available. The
question I raise is did they think you didn't need them, that
in other words the war was over. Were you being sent before
engagement or before the removal of Saddam or after?
Sergeant SanchezLopez. We were part of the OIF-1.
Mr. Shays. So they knew you would be in combat.
Sergeant SanchezLopez. We needed everything that we were
provided.
Mr. Shays. Specialist Tanguay.
Specialist Tanguay. We knew we needed everything we could
get. Unfortunately there were severe logistical issues that
prevented us from receiving what we needed. We knew we needed
better protective vests, we knew we needed better vehicles, we
knew we needed more ammunition than what we received. It was
not a question of did we need this or not. It was a question of
we knew we needed it, but we didn't receive it.
Mr. Shays. Tell me why you think you didn't receive it?
Specialist Tanguay. I am not sure. There were logistical
issues beyond the control of myself or our command staff at
levels far above our control that prevented us from getting
what we needed. We needed to be prepared for any MP type
mission we were going to be assigned. MP type missions
encompass a wide range of tasks.
Mr. Shays. It seems very clear that you would need the
protective gear and you would want to be in a Humvee that is
shielded.
Specialist Tanguay. Correct.
Mr. Shays. Colonel.
General Alexander. I would say that----
Mr. Shays. Is that the prerogative of the General? I said
Colonel and I heard from the General.
General Alexander. I am sorry.
Mr. Shays. General, I am going to let you be the closer in
this line of questioning. Colonel.
Colonel Novotny. I felt that the reason why we went with
the vehicles we did, as I stated earlier, was the doctrine was
that my kind of unit would be organized and would be set up
behind the lines. If we were in an environment where there was
a low threat, I would have no problem with soft skin hummers,
excellent vehicle, go anyplace, do anything but it did cause
some concern when we crossed the border a few days after the
ground forces and we weren't sure what kind of environment we
were going into.
After we deployed forward, I believe we were on the same
basis as the active component units in our area. There was no
difference between AC, Guard or Reserves there, same vehicles,
we helped them and they helped us.
Mr. Shays. What do you do when you are in a command
position and you know you are sending your men into battle
without proper equipment? What do you do? Do you complain about
it? Do you tell your men you are sorry? Do you just say, stiff
upper lip? What do you say? What do you do? What do you think?
Colonel Novotny. We had to do some negotiations to get the
correct body armor along with the plates. We coordinated. One
of my units was redeploying back home and at a redeployment
point they dropped off their armor, they accounted for it, we
picked it up, within a couple of days we moved north to our
second location.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. Dr. Krepinevich, do you want to make
a comment or should we go to the General?
Dr. Krepinevich. I would just echo what the Colonel said
about the issue of doctrine. We are talking about not only an
enemy that is presenting us with a kind of problem that we
haven't really focused on for several decades now, but in the
case of the Army, the Army is transforming. If you look at the
difference between the first and second Gulf wars, the first
Gulf war was a 1-year advance, there was a clear front and a
clear rear and you could operate in the rear in a Humvee
without much protection and you would be just fine.
Mr. Shays. That sounds very logical.
Dr. Krepinevich. But in the second Gulf war, the Army and
quite frankly the Marine Corps is shifting to something they
call non-linear warfare which there isn't a long front line,
there isn't a forward area that is clearly delineated and a
rear area. Even in the portion of major combat operations, you
had splotches of U.S. troops all over Iraq. In those
circumstances where there is a non-linear battlefield, where
you don't have that clarity even in conventional operations,
you are going to have to think differently about how you do a
lot of things, including resupplying units, providing rear area
security, all sorts of things. We saw that as early as the
initial operations with the Fedayeen who are operating in the
rear area, what traditionally would have been the rear area.
This is part of the larger issue, what is our strategy, what is
our doctrine for dealing with these kinds of situations.
Obviously going back to what President Kennedy said, it is the
new environment, a new strategy, a new doctrine and that leads
to different kinds of forces and different kinds of equipment
and different kinds of training.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. General.
General Alexander. There have been several instances where
we had deployed Guard units to theater to perform Mission A in
Kuwait and out of necessity, they were required to perform
Mission B in Baghdad. The classic example is the infantry
battalions from Florida. As a result of these rapidly changing
mission sets, these units chose to do their job with a lot of
creativity, thus the steel plates that are put on vehicles, the
sandbagging and the like, but I believe that initially the idea
was to rebuild Iraq in a peaceful setting and the insurgency
tactic came on so fast that the OIF-1 units were not quite able
to recover.
Today, every effort is being made to ensure that those
mistakes don't occur. I think the equipping strategy will in
fact, if the resourcing continues, catch up. It is the training
doctrine, the ability to do urban warfare at home station is
what the challenge is going to be.
Mr. Shays. Do you mind if I go another round or do you want
to go now and I will come back? Let me just make a comment.
The comment is this. The administration has wanted more
authority, and I believe there has to be more legislative
oversight when there is more authority but one of the things I
am actually convinced of is, and this hearing just adds
confirmation to it, when the story of Iraq is told one of the
biggest criticisms will be that Congress didn't do proper
oversight. For Mr. Murtha to go and discover that our troops
didn't have proper vests, thank God he went there but we didn't
know it before. Had we gone into Iraq last year and gone to the
prisons, I am absolutely convinced we would have been told
things. Had I not had a community meeting, I wouldn't have
learned about the failure to provide the kind of protection on
our Humvees given the mission we were asking you and others to
do.
My job as a Member of Congress is to make sure it is never
a fair fight. I think I was deprived of the knowledge that
would have been helpful. In other words, I want it never to be
a fair fight. We are going to know that literally hundreds of
Americans were killed, in my judgment, because we didn't give
them in some cases the proper training, the proper equipment
and so on. I never thought I would be saying that. I didn't
think in this day and age that would be the case.
I would like to ask more questions but we have time. Thank
you.
Mr. Schrock. We are glad to be joined by the gentlelady
from California who I would like to recognize for any questions
and comments she has, Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to say to all of you thank you so much for
the service to your country. We love you and we care about you.
That is the reason why we are here, to be sure you have what
you need to do your jobs on command. So what might come up in
the form of a question is only because we care about you and we
appreciate you.
I too have been following exactly what you have been
following. I do know someone who was in Iraq. He was a
Reservist and he was at a community college and was called up.
He was a Marine and he went over unprepared. He said they
didn't have the Kevlar inside the clothing, they didn't have
proper equipment. I have been hearing that families have had to
purchase and outfit and in some cases send money for equipment.
Let me ask Sergeant Neill, is that the case? Do you know if
that is the case?
Sergeant Neill. I can tell you, we bought our own vests
before we left. We bought the level vests that police officers
wear on the street. We knew we would be in a civilian
environment, pretty much our teams would be by themselves, six
or eight person teams. They bought their own vests and then
additionally purchased the panels that go in the vests for
additional coverage. We were prepared to do our job. Even if
the military wasn't going to provide it, we knew what was out
there and we got it.
Ms. Watson. I feel that we let you down. Money was
appropriated, why did it not get out to you.
The other concern I have is that it should have been known
beforehand that this battle would be fought in an urban
environment. We watched shock and awe. The military in Iraq
could not compete with that but I think they must have said we
will catch you in the streets, we will catch you in the
doorways because I was told by returning personnel that they
never knew where the bullets were coming from and they never
knew how to fight back. They just hit. So urban warfare is what
you are experiencing at the current time.
What kind of training was there prior to your detachment
going into Iraq on how to be prepared for urban warfare?
Colonel Novotny. I would like to address that. We designed
a pretty extensive training plan for urban warfare. When my
unit initially was going to be a quick deploying unit and we
realized we had time to train, we coordinated for the facility
at Fort Riley, it was blocked out for us. My NCOs led our
soldiers through a training program from ground up, they
covered everything from issuing and order in a mock environment
to movement as an individual, movement as a team, movement as a
platoon, how to clear buildings, how to defend. I was fortunate
that we had 2 weeks of training in that facility and the reason
for that is I felt there was a good possibility somewhere along
the line that my unit may be engaged in a contact like that and
we might have to perform the exact mission just as you
described.
Ms. Watson. I am wondering if your units are representative
across the system. I am hearing a different system from those
who have returned, that they certainly weren't prepared,
particularly in a desert environment. I have had contact with
some of the POWs and the story of how they got lost out in the
desert and every sand dune looks like every other one and so
they were ambushed and some were killed.
My concern is have we done extensive planning and counter
insurgency training because it looks like that is the way war
is to come if we are going to be in the Middle East or other
places, the Far East, would have to be fought. Are we planning
ahead, are we giving adequate training, are we prepared? Anyone
who would like to address that?
Sergeant Neill. I don't think it was planned for when we
first deployed but as we deployed and recognized the situation
was changing and the people were adapting to our vehicle
convoys, we changed what we were doing also. We instructed our
soldiers in vehicle contact, how to take contact right, contact
left, how to shoot at people they see firing at them, where
they see fire coming from, the actual flashes, where they see
smoke coming from, the actual smoke coming from weapons, where
they see dust coming from the ground. Since we're in an
environment where everything that moved caused dust to fly and
move, if you couldn't see the people shooting at you, you could
surely see one of those other things. Our job was to put down
fire and move out of there unless we were disabled.
Ms. Watson. Dr. Krepinevich, maybe you can add to that?
Dr. Krepinevich. Yes, ma'am. As I mentioned in my
testimony, the U.S. military has the world's best training
infrastructure. However, it is a training infrastructure that
is optimized principally for conventional warfare not counter
insurgency. We, the U.S. military, for the last quarter of a
century has essentially convinced itself we are not getting
back into those kinds of conflicts. The military has had a lot
of encouragement from the American people and the American
political leadership. Right after Vietnam, the slogan was ``No
More Vietnams,'' the 1990's was the decade of exit strategies
and the 1980's, the Powell and Weinberger doctrines. So in a
sense for a combination of reasons, we have a marvelous
training infrastructure but it is not a training infrastructure
that really is designed for a counter insurgency environment.
As I mentioned earlier, it is not just the training
facilities, it is a matter of doctrine having languished as
well, a doctrine that as Sergeant O'Neill said, we train the
way we expect to fight. If you don't expect to fight that way,
you are not going to train that way. So it is also are we
structured. Do we have the requisite skills not only at the
individual level but at the unit level, the company level, the
battalion level, the brigade level.
Right now, of course, General Schoomaker is engaged in the
process of restructuring the Army, including rerolling units,
converting artillery men to military police and so on. This is
going on in the active force and the Reserve force. It is
laudable but it is also a reflection of the fact that in some
respects we found ourselves behind the curve here playing catch
up. As I mentioned, because insurgencies do tend to be
protracted, I think if we are looking at accomplishing the
kinds of goals the administration has set for us in Afghanistan
and Iraq, we are looking at a long term conflict and probably
in other parts of the world as well. Because of the enormous
power of our military, we have driven enemies to insurgency, to
terrorism and these forms of warfare.
If we are going to be involved in this and we are in it for
the long haul, the long hard slog that Secretary Rumsfeld talks
about, then it is not just a matter of the kind of innovative
approaches and quick fixes to training that these men are
talking about, we also need to look more fundamentally at the
doctrine we have for conducting these kinds of operations and
what kind of training infrastructure we need to create to make
sure that our soldiers and Marines get the right kind of
training.
Ms. Watson. Thank you so much for your comment.
My questions, Mr. Chairman, should probably be addressed to
the second panel but again, I want to let you know how much we
appreciate your service.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Ms. Watson.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. I know we need to get to the second panel but
let me ask this because I am actually convinced we have the
best trained and best equipped military in the world and the
best experienced. In fact, because of our engagements, I am
told there is nothing that gives you better training than the
reality of live ammunition coming at you and the fear of death.
I want to be clear on this. It strikes me that if you are a
Reservist or National Guard, you have less time to train, and
so you specialize in a particular mission but when you are sent
off to battle, you may end up doing something different than
your MOS. Is that a fair way to describe it or does someone
need to qualify my view or would you agree with it?
General Alexander. Based upon the comments from the field,
that is in fact a reality. That is happening. Units are being
deployed for a mission. In theater they are being rerolled to
accomplish different missions.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask, is it more likely that if you are
active duty, that transition is not as big a challenge because
you are training every day?
General Alexander. I would say that perhaps it is a greater
challenge for the Reserve components even though they are
adjusting to it.
Mr. Shays. Colonel, did you want to make a comment?
Colonel. Novotny. Yes, sir. My primary mission in my
battalion is to handle prisoners of war, civilian internees and
detainees. When we actually hit ground in Iraq, our primary
mission switched to force protection for the camp. While it is
different, we were trained for that. Force protection was one
of the critical subtasks that we identified well in advance of
our mobilization that we needed to train on. We also had
individuals who were trained on force protection before, we had
sent people to school for force protection, we had people who
had combat arms background and we were very fortunate to have
engineers at our location to help with berming and entering
protective environment force.
Mr. Shays. Part of the purpose of this hearing was lessons
learned and the capability of the military to adjust and learn
and grow from experiences. So, for instance, you would have the
Center for Army's lessons learned, I think that deals primarily
with the training, it is a short term focus; you would have
training and doctrine command which is more long term; you
would have the rapid field initiative which would be short term
dealing with equipment.
Do any of the Reservists have an opportunity, or the
National Guard, to interface in this process of being able to
forward lessons learned? One of the complaints is that the
Reservists and National Guard don't feel as much a part of this
role, even though they have opinions.
Sergeant Neill. Sir, we lesson learned the unit that came
to replace us. We haven't lesson learned anybody else. We
lesson learned the teams that replaced us. Lessons learned to
everyone else hasn't happened yet but our training begins with
individual team member selection. We select people to be on
teams to do any job. We did a tactical job, they were prepared
for it. What they weren't prepared for was the equipment
shortage we faced and we didn't have the equipment the active
duty had and we saw them with it.
Mr. Shays. Let me go to lessons learned. Colonel, you are
looking at me like I may be walking off a cliff here.
Colonel Novotny. No, sir. Lessons learned were a two-way
street. The information we provide up the chain, I felt went up
and went through our active brigade, the Reserve Brigade that
was above us and the information also came back down to us so
that we could take the information that other people learned
and apply it to our own tactics and doctrine we were currently
employing in the field.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Chairman, we could keep this panel here for
a long time. Our next panel has waited a long time and I think
we need to interact with them, but I want to thank you as well
for being here today and thank your mom for doing her part as
an American citizen and loving her son so much that she would
have strangled her Congressman if he didn't take action.
Mr. Schrock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me too thank you all for being here. Your testimony was
very helpful. Your answers to the questions were very helpful.
We thank you very much for what you have done for our country.
Let me mention one more thing before we go to the next
panel. We are all familiar with General Taguba's report that he
did on Abu Ghraib prison and some of the problems and hopefully
how we can solve some of those problems, but in that report, he
mentions one battalion commander who did his job very well in
the detention business, better than anybody else I would
imagine and that one person was Lieutenant Colonel Steve
Novotny who is with us today. I think we ought to thank him for
that.
[Applause.]
Colonel Novotny. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Schrock. May be they need you back--no, I don't want to
say they need you back over there, your family won't like that
very well but they need to take the lessons learned from you
and apply them there. Thank you again.
Thank you all very much.
We will take a 3 or 4 minute break before the next panel.
[Recess.]
Mr. Schrock. Let me welcome the second panel. As you saw
with the first panel, it is traditional that we swear folks, so
if you will stand with me.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays [assuming Chair]. I would note for the record
that the witnesses all responded in the affirmative.
We are glad to have you all here today. As I told
Lieutenant General Hanlon a minute ago, I think legally if he
comes up here one more time, I will have to claim him as a
dependent. I see all of you all the time and that is a good
thing.
We are happy to have today Lieutenant General Edward
Hanlon, Commandant, Marine Corps Combat Development Command;
Lieutenant General Roger C. Schultz, Director, Army National
Guard; Lieutenant General James R. Helmly, Chief, Army Reserve;
and Brigadier General Louis W. Weber, Director of Training,
U.S. Army. We are glad to have you here and thank you very
much.
With that, I will turn the floor over to General Hanlon.
STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL EDWARD HANLON, COMMANDANT,
MARINE CORPS COMBAT DEVELOPMENT COMMAND; LIEUTENANT GENERAL
ROGER C. SCHULTZ, DIRECTOR, ARMY NATIONAL GUARD; LIEUTENANT
GENERAL JAMES R. HELMLY, CHIEF, ARMY RESERVE; AND BRIGADIER
GENERAL LOUIS W. WEBER, DIRECTOR OF TRAINING, U.S. ARMY
General Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much for the invitation to be here today.
It is good to be back to the committee because I was here a
few years ago when I had the opportunity to testify before one
of the subcommittees here on some of the training encroachment
hearings we had back in those days. I thank you for the help
you gave us because as was said on the first panel, train the
way we will fight, had it not been for the foresight of some of
this committee, I am not so sure we would have made the gains
we did in the last couple of years in that regard, so I want to
thank you.
I have some written notes here but I think what I am going
to do with your permission is in the interest of time and to
allow for more questions and answers, let me make a few
comments off the cuff and I will turn it over to the other
panel members.
Staff Sergeant SanchezLopez I think basically said it all
when he talked about his Reserve battalion that was called up
and went off to I believe he said Afghanistan and later into
Operation Iraqi Freedom. He made the comment that his battalion
was trained and equipped very much like his active duty
counterparts. I think it is very important you all understand
that from the Marine Corps perspective because that is exactly
how we treat our Reserve units. We don't make any distinction
between how our Reserve units, whether they be ground,
aviation, combat element or combat service support, how they
are trained and equipped from their regular counterparts.
All of you as Congressmen I am sure have Reserve units in
your districts. I would invite you when you have a chance, if
you haven't had a chance yet, to go down to your local Marine
Reserve center some weekend when you are back in the district
and go in and see what goes on in one of those Reserve units
because you will find that embedded in each Reserve unit is an
organization we call an I&I, instructor inspector who is an
active duty cadre and their job is to make sure that Reserve
unit is trained and equipped and ready to go to war when they
are called up. The idea is that they are trained already, they
simply get mobilized and they join their regular counterparts
and off they go. That is the way we have been doing business in
the Marine Corps going back 50 or 60 years.
I think the proof is in the pudding because we take a look
at the way the Reserve units performed in Operation Iraqi
Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, you will see no
distinction between them and their regular counterparts. In
Desert Storm and Desert Shield, you saw the same thing. I
always like to point out in the Korean War in defense of the
Pusan perimeter, the first Marines that went in there, the
first brigade that held the line when North Koreans were almost
pushing us off peninsula were Marine Reservists who came in
there and held the line. Many of the Marines that went across
the seawall at Inchon just a few months later, were for the
most part Reservists. So since 1950 to 2004, we really don't
make a distinction between how we train and equip our Reserves
and our regular Marines. Staff Sergeant SanchezLopez is a
Reservist but he is no different from me in that regard in that
we are both Marines.
I also wanted to point out with you that one of the things
that is very important to us are the lessons learned. We can
talk about that in the Q&A, if you have any questions on how we
do that.
Sitting behind me is Colonel Phil Exner. Phil is my
Director of Studies Analysis at Quantico. He will soon be
leaving to take an appointment, a cushy appointment over in
Brussels at NATO but for the last 3 years I have had him as the
Director of our Lessons Learned Team where he was running our
efforts in Afghanistan, a year ago in Iraq and currently the
operations we have in Iraq in which his responsibility is to
capture real time the lessons learned we are gathering from the
Marines who fought the last 3 years and turn that very rapidly
into tactics, techniques and procedures for the Marines today,
whether Reserve or active duty. I wanted to bring Phil with me
today so you could see him and if you have any particular
questions, he is certainly available to answer any of those
questions.
I would simply say it is a pleasure to be here. I thank you
for the chance to be here and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Hanlon follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you, General.
General Schultz.
General Schultz. Thank you.
It is an honor for me to appear before you again here
today. I want to express my appreciation for the support of our
soldiers and the families to this committee personally. Simply
said, your support is critical to our mission success. Today,
the Guard has over 93,000 soldiers deployed in missions around
the world and we take preparing these soldiers for their
assigned duty very seriously. You have my pledge to always keep
their well being in mind as we proceed with missions assigned
to Army National Guard units.
Our soldiers ask for so little, yet they carry the burden
of our priorities and proudly serve this Nation. They are
selfless to the person. I am proud of every one of them. Now to
the focus of this hearing on combating terrorism. I share your
interest and your concerns.
In perspective, we have made progress. You know well that
many of our soldiers were called to active duty on very short
notice. Many were placed on duty in less than 2 weeks. Although
the mobilization process was accomplished well ahead of
anything outlined in our plans, we can still do better. To the
credit of our soldiers and their leaders, our units assembled,
deployed and performed their missions. To date, almost 60,000
soldiers from the Army National Guard have been demobilized
since the September 11 attacks but work remains.
We are concentrating in two principal areas, equipping our
units and training our soldiers. While progress is being made
with our rapid fielding initiatives, you will not find us
satisfied until our equipment shortages have been fully
accomplished. While it took longer than we had planned,
individual body armor has now been provided to all of our
soldiers in the Afghanistan and Iraqi theaters. We continue to
distribute up-armored and add-on armor systems to our wheeled
vehicle fleet. So I end where I started. The real credit for
our current condition goes to our soldiers. They are truly
outstanding indeed. Our Nation's call, they have answered and
we too owe them our very best.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of General Schultz follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you, General.
General Helmly.
General Helmly. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity and the privilege
to testify on behalf of the 211,000 soldiers, civilian
employees and families of the U.S. Army Reserve, an integral
component of the world's greatest army, an army at war for a
Nation at war.
I am Ron Helmly, Chief of Army Reserve and an American
soldier in your Army and exceptionally proud of it. I have a
brief statement that I would ask be entered into the record.
This is my first opportunity to address this subcommittee.
As the Chief, Army Reserve, I am profoundly humbled and sobered
by my responsibility for the readiness, training and welfare of
our soldiers and families. Today as we speak nearly 60,000 Army
Reserve soldiers are on active duty in Iraq, Kuwait,
Afghanistan and the continental United States and elsewhere
around the world as part of America's global war on terrorism.
Since September 11, 2001, more than 100,000 Army Reserve
soldiers have served on active duty as part of this global war
on terrorism. Tragically, 38 Army Reserve soldiers have made
the ultimate sacrifice in service to our Nation. We are deeply
in their debt and honor their memories by our actions here
today.
Your invitation to testify comes at a time of profound and
unprecedented change in challenge in the dynamics of our
Nation's security environment. From the start, we have
understood that this will be no brief campaign or a short war.
It will be an enduring global war, a protracted war, a long
struggle that lacks clear, well defined borders. Have no doubt,
however, our soldiers understand and our fellow soldiers,
airmen and Marines all understand it is in fact a war. It
challenges our national will and our perseverance, it tries our
patience and indeed our moral fiber.
As we engage these enemies, we recognize that carrying out
current missions is not in and of itself sufficient. The very
forces that cause this war to be different have propelled the
world into a period of unprecedented change and volatility. We
live in a much changed world and we must change to confront it.
We must simultaneously confront today's challenges while
preparing for tomorrow's. The Army will maintain its
nonnegotiable contract to right and win our Nation's wars as we
change to become more strategically responsive and maintain our
dominance at every point across the spectrum of military
operations. The confluence of these dual challenges
transforming while fighting and winning and preparing for
future wars is the crux of our challenge today, transforming
while at war.
The Army Reserve is part of a public institution founded in
law. Our mission and our responsibility comes from this law. I
would note that the law does not say for big wars, for little
wars, short or medium wars. It says whenever our Nation, our
Army and our Armed Services require us, we are to provide
trained units and qualified soldiers. We must change to
continue fulfilling the mandate of that law while
simultaneously perfecting and strengthening the quality force
we have today.
The Army Reserve is fully engaged in the global war on
terrorism. Every day we are dealing with challenges to ensure
our soldiers are properly trained, adequately equipped and
competently led. We are making every effort to incorporate
lessons learned from the soldiers facing threats every day to
better prepare mobilizing and deploying soldiers to survive and
win on a lethal, complex battlefield. Your attention to this
issue should help us design and resource the Army Reserve for
success.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of General Helmly follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
General Weber.
General Weber. Thank you for having me today. I appreciate
the opportunity to appear before you to discuss how the
Department of the Army is incorporating lessons learned from
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into the training and
equipping of our Reserve and National Guard units prior to
deployment.
The Army appreciates your continued support of the men and
women who make up our great Army as we conduct operations
around the globe. Thank you so much.
As you know, the Reserve and National Guard components are
integral to the Army and indispensable to a quality force. We
cannot perform effectively without employing National Guard and
Reserve forces. Accordingly, the Army is committed to serving
all components by providing common doctrine, standard
organizations, fielding and supporting equipment and shared
opportunities for training and leader development.
We can expect the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan to
continue to challenge the persistence and perseverance of our
soldiers deployed there. Our forces face an adaptive threat
that will continue to fight from the shadows without regard for
conventional norms of warfare and will seek ways to undermine
our resolve and support. The continuing readiness and
effectiveness of our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan depends in
no small part upon our ability to analyze and quickly address
lessons we learn there on a rapidly changing basis.
We have expanded our available assets to identify, gather,
categorize and analyze operational lessons learned and then to
rapidly develop and disseminate products associated with those
lessons learned. The Center for Army Lessons Learned [CALL],
established at Fort Leavenworth, KS, plays the most central
role in this process and is used as the central repository for
lessons learned, observations and associated tactics techniques
and procedures [TTP].
Operational lessons learned are routinely disseminated
immediately to units already employed in theater and to those
preparing to deploy. Lessons learned are also disseminated
appropriately throughout the institutional Army as you heard
from the previous panel, and aggressively applied the
institutional processes. A top priority for the U.S. Army's
doctrine development resources is generating TTPs for forces
based on lessons learned from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Our training base schools, both active and Reserve, do a
remarkable job of providing individual leaders but the
foundation, knowledge and skills need to be adapted
asymmetrically in today's complex, contemporary operating
environment, an environment as we know where leaders at all
levels from sergeant through the general officer ranks are
faced with decisions that have significant impacts on the
enemy, their units, mission success and the indigenous
population.
The competencies that our soldiers and leaders, the main
benefactors of lessons learned, need to execute operations
across the entire spectrum or develop further at the Army
combat training centers. We work hard at incorporating TTPs in
what we are learning into the scenarios and training at the
CTCs as well as our home station and mobilization training
sites. Further, the information age has also enhanced the
ability for direct communications between personnel and have
completed an operational rotation or are currently deployed and
those who are preparing to deploy. Currently, soldiers are
using direct e-mail and Web sites both official and unofficial
sites to share information about recent experiences and
informal lessons learned. Commanders and leaders at all levels
have invested an interest in using every tool available to
better prepare their units and soldiers.
In terms of resources, I would like to briefly describe how
the Army decides to provide resources to the force. The Army
Strategic Planning Board is the principal vehicle we use to
prioritize requirements and resources. It functions as an
iterative and adaptive planning body to provide an integrating
framework to organize and synchronize support for a global
campaign. In order to support the regional combatant
commanders, the ASPB recommends solutions to immediate
requirements, anticipates intermediate needs and puts sound
thought into future requirements to win this war but also to
posture the Army for other future contingencies. Since its
establishment, the ASPB has developed recommendations for and
has tracked over 500 discreet tasks in support of combatant
commanders. It has obligated over $5.5 billion to support the
war on terrorism and has synchronized the Department of the
Army's planning and execution. The ASPB is the vehicle that we
use to synchronize the priorities and the requirements that
come into the building and then determine the prioritization
for resourcing those requirements.
The IED Task Force led by Colonel Joe Votel I think
provides and excellent example of how the Army quickly adapts
to changing circumstances. This task force was chartered to
adopt a holistic approach focused on intelligence, tactics,
techniques and procedures in information ops in order to turn
around the lessons learned associated with IEDs back into the
field.
This particular task force has made numerous
recommendations for doctrinal changes, training and
organization adaptations to assist in the response to the IED
threat.
In conclusion, I would like to say the Army process for
capturing lessons learned and providing solutions to deployed
and deploying forces is generally a great success story. As you
heard, it is a daunting task but adaptive leaders at every
level are identifying the solutions and making recommendations
for improving training, doctrine and material solutions. We are
committed to providing the best resources available to every
component and the best training we can develop to properly
prepare our force.
Thank you and I look forward to responding to any questions
you may have.
[The prepared statement of General Weber follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you.
I wanted to hear all of your testimony. I am going to be
gone for about 5 minutes and give Ms. Watson the chair. I will
be back shortly.
Ms. Watson [assuming Chair]. I want to thank all of you for
your testimony and your brevity. We will carry on in the
absence of the Chair but we don't want to take you through a
long ordeal. Our purpose here today is to find out how we can
help and what it is that we need to pay attention to.
I have heard, as many of you have heard, that the people
involved in the atrocities at the prison were untrained. They
had not had the experience, most of them were young, and
therefore their decisionmaking ability was not quite shaped.
Any one of you can answer but maybe we ought to start with
General Helmly and find out what kind of training would have
taken place, did it take place in this instance, or were the
military police of the 372nd Co. of the 800th Brigade just
thrown into this situation and told to act as guards when their
training was to be prepared to fight a more conventional and
traditional way? General Helmly.
General Helmly. First of all, the 372nd Military Police Co.
is in fact organized as what we call a combat support military
police company. That means that its primary organization,
training and equipping is for general purpose missions,
principally route reconnaissance, armored reconnaissance,
convoy escort, rear area protection. Its parent battalion at
Abu Ghraib and the 800th MPW Brigade were organized, trained,
equipped specifically for IR operations. As you heard on the
last panel, Lieutenant Colonel Novotny commanded a sister
battalion to the 320th which was a specialty prisoner of war,
detainee internment unit, specifically organized, trained and
equipped for that purpose. So the 372nd was not specifically
organized, trained and equipped. However, as you heard the
young military police soldier from the Connecticut National
Guard describe, his unit was a combat support, military police
company. He described the training that he received which for
military police soldiers of any specialization is extensive
regarding the handling, the treatment, the security of
detainees and prisoners of war.
I have reviewed the training of all three of those units
involved. Prior to their mobilization, they did in fact receive
training on the law of land warfare and Geneva Convention. At
their mobilization stations as was described by Colonel Novotny
they received additional training regarding Geneva Convention
and I will tell you my view is that what we have witnessed is
an abject failure of leadership and personal conduct. It is
true there is an old Army axiom that a soldier never receives
enough training and thus shortly after the report was briefed
to me in February, I initiated a special inspection by our Army
Reserve Command Inspector General of the training we received
with emphasis on military police and military intelligence
units across our force with emphasis on interrogation, detainee
handling and security, leadership and ethical decisionmaking
because I felt strongly and I feel strongly today that there
was a fundamental lapse of leadership and ethical
decisionmaking that went on in leadership channels and that
lacked courage to stop these abuses.
I accept that training needs to be improved, it should be
improved. We will never get enough. We will emphasize more
strongly in the days, weeks and months ahead across our Army,
not just Army Reserve, training in the law of land warfare and
handling of detainees, and so forth but I reject any notion
that a lack of training led to abuses that are this horrendous
and this devastating.
Ms. Watson. Do you feel that this particular group of
military police were adequately trained? Do you feel prior to
even going this group had the kind of character that would be
able on the spot to make the kind of decisions that we would
hope our well trained personnel would make? We have heard this
particular outrageous event described as an aberration. I have
tried, I had to go home this weekend, I couldn't hardly get out
of the airport because when they see us coming through with our
little badges, that is why I took mine off, I didn't want to be
identified. They stop us in security, they stopped us on the
streets, what are you doing about this. So I am saying we are
looking into it. We are finding the truth.
Personally, I don't feel that the people who were involved
did it on their own because what strikes me is how do they have
the trained dogs right onsite if this was a flash reaction?
They seemed to have all of the resources necessary, these ropes
and duct tape and so on. Who supplied that for that kind of
spontaneous, negligent reaction? So I am thinking did someone
look the other way? I am going to repeat as I monitored the
news what I heard and all of you have heard it is that those
involved said they were directed by the contract interrogators
and the military interrogators. So can you respond to how the
resources got in their hands to do the atrocities that were
committed and that we saw on film?
General Helmly. The kinds of resources that you cited are
commonplace. I think you understand we use those for a variety
of purposes.
Ms. Watson. The trained dogs too?
General Helmly. We use trained military police working
dogs, yes. Those are not used for prisoner abuse, they are
there to detect mines, explosives, to walk with military
police, the walking perimeter guards around the prisons at
night. They are an excellent tool used by all the armed forces
for security purposes. In this case, the dogs were misused
rather like using a simple broom instead of its intended
purpose to hit or to abuse someone. So the kinds of things you
cited were misutilization of common resources.
With regard to the word character, that in my judgment is
the fundamental flaw. The Uniform Code of Military Justice
provides an authorization for a soldier when they believe an
order they have been given is illegal in nature to question
that order. We had one simple specialist who had the courage to
question an order and to report what he felt were abuses. That
then led to this investigation with regard to the six or seven
soldiers currently charged. There could be other charges
brought for either administrative disciplinary action or
further action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I
would note that the investigations are not complete. General
Taguba's investigation is complete, it has spawned others and
further inquires are ongoing as a result of General Taguba's
investigation. We will be relentless in determining how to
prevent recurrences of this nature.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much, General.
I am glad you mentioned General Taguba's report because in
that report he found that the military police were never
trained in interment operations and his conclusion is
inconsistent with what you have just said to us.
General Helmly. Yes, I think in that case he is referring
to the 372nd Military Police Co. and I acknowledge that was a
combat support military police unit, not specifically
organized, trained and equipped for interment operations.
Ms. Watson. I see. Are you saying that they were misused or
misplaced, they should not have been there?
General Helmly. No, I am not saying that at all. They were
assigned there because there was a shortage of the specialty
units, so they were assigned there. They are capable of
fulfilling that role. We had other combat support military
police units pressed into security duties for interment and
detainee security and none of those units felt obliged, that we
know of, to commit such atrocities.
Ms. Watson. Apparently they were just substitute units that
were put in there and they said they never had the interment
operations training. I would think any person whose conscience
was functioning would not commit the kind of acts they did. I
don't know what is going on here.
In terms of the dogs that are used and very well used and a
necessary component as you survey and secure, can anyone go in
and check out one of those dogs or do they have to go with the
person who trained them, can people who are brought in at the
last minute use those dogs efficiently and effectively, can
they give the signals that would have the dogs sicced on a
prisoner? How does that work?
General Helmly. We call those military working dog teams
because there is a human handler with the animal. They are
trained by the Air Force at the same time at the same school
and each of the Armed Services employs them as teams. I could
not go out or you could not go out or another soldier not
trained with that particular animal and cause the animal to
perform its trained task.
Ms. Watson. Then how did these military police have custody
and access to those dogs and get those dogs to act the way they
did? If they have to go out with somebody who has trained with
them, then how did they get into the hands of the people who
you saw in the pictures?
General Helmly. We have military police working dog teams.
These are military police soldiers trained as dog handlers with
the dogs.
Ms. Watson. So they knew exactly what they were doing?
General Helmly. That could be attached to such a military
police unit. As I noted, they are frequently used for external
security, walking perimeter guard to detect people who would be
trying to infiltrate or to sabotage these operations.
Ms. Watson. Would you explain to the committee what the
relationship is between the contract interrogators, the
military interrogators and the military police, the 372nd?
General Helmly. Candidly, I am not qualified to answer that
question. I was not in command on the ground and in my
position, I provide forces to the combatant commanders.
Ms. Watson. I understand. Is there anyone on the panel who
could respond? What we are trying to do here is to look at this
and get to the truth so we can reorganize if we need to and we
can correct the tremendous mistakes that were made. I want to
know if anyone can respond, and maybe you can't, why the person
who was in charge of the prison was told that she could not be
around when interrogations were taking place and why someone
did not go in and monitor what was going on? I also want to
know why there were photographs taken of these violations? Can
anyone hazard a response?
Mr. Shays [resuming Chair]. Since the gentlelady is on her
third 5 minutes, we will defer that question and allow that
question to be answered, but I want to get back to the focus of
this hearing and I want to be real clear about not losing what
was said in the first panel.
I found it pretty difficult to think that I sent men and
women into battle who did not feel they were properly trained,
who did not feel they had the proper equipment and I want to
know how you reacted when you had someone say basically, we
didn't even have enough ammunition. Walk me through that and
have me understand how you reacted when you listened to the
first panel. If we could start with you, General Helmly?
General Hanlon. I think in listening to Staff Sergeant
SanchezLopez's comments, I would like to think that those
comments did not apply to any of the Marine units that were
involved. Let me give you an example. All the Marine units that
came back from Operation Iraqi Freedom from last year, and had
returned by August 2003. We then found out this past November
that we were going to have to go back into Iraq with a force of
about 25,000 Marines, of which there would be a mix of regular
and Reserve Marines. We made sure that all of those Marines,
whether Reserve or regular, were properly equipped and properly
trained for the mission they were going to.
Ms. Watson, I know you are from the district right outside
of Los Angeles. Not far down the road from you at Riverside,
CA, there is the former air base called March Air Force Base.
We went there and with the help of the base, took over what
used to be the old housing area there and put together a
special training facility so that every single battalion that
was going to go back into Iraq, Reserve and regular, went
through a special urban training environment to walk them
through scenarios and vignettes that they could experience when
they were in Iraq. This is where the efforts of Colonel Exner
who I introduced earlier was so important because his team
which was embedded and had gone forward into Iraq, were sending
back to us the kinds of things we needed because we were
relieving the 82nd Airborne Division. So we were pulling down
from our Army colleagues the things they were learning, we were
transferring that very rapidly to the training our Marines were
getting. That group of Marines will be returning sometime in
the August/September timeframe.
Mr. Shays. General, let me say this to you. We have not had
testimony that I am aware of, that Marines have said they were
short on ammunition. This is, I think, frankly more a National
Guard problem than maybe even a Reservist issue, so let us cut
to the chase and maybe we can have that addressed. The Marines
has its challenges but I guess that wasn't one of them.
General Schultz. I am responsible for the Army National
Guard, as you know. I was surprised to find out that we didn't
have ammunition in theater. We have had spot shortages of
ammunition here in the continental United States and General
Weber can obviously get inside the detail, talk about the
numbers and types of ammunition and so on. We have said as a
priority units going to combat will have the preference for
ammunition. So we have moved ammunition around the Guard,
around some of our supply points so we can at a minimum prepare
soldiers for their combat duty they are about to deploy to.
In terms of training, I listened carefully to the first
panel and take significance interest in the tone of the
messages and the themes that were mentioned by the panel
members. Every unit is certified by a team outside the Guard as
we prepare to deploy units into combat. When Guard units don't
satisfy minimum deployment standards, they don't deploy. We
have changed out unit leadership, we have changed out unit
commanders, held up the latest arrival dates to be certain that
our units satisfy minimum deployment, meaning combat readiness
standards. When they don't satisfy the standards, they don't
deploy on the schedules. So I take very seriously the issue
that our units were in theater and felt they weren't prepared
because in my mind we had processes in place, systems in place,
second opinion by a team outside the Guard channels to certify
our units for deployment. What I learned from the first panel
is we have some more work.
Mr. Shays. Any other comments?
General Helmly. Sometimes old bad habits die very hard.
Training didn't start yesterday obviously, it started a long
time ago, in the past, the first panel explained that the
nature of the war we are fighting at the tactical level has
changed, there is no secure rear area, we are fighting an enemy
that is very adaptive and lethal and we found ourselves
disorganized for it, soft skinned vehicles and not the right
kind of weaponry, as cited in the first panel we did not have
communications for individual truck drivers, and so forth, we
were short night vision goggles. When we entered this war, our
strategic guidance was that we were in a period of strategic
pause, that we could take risks with near term readiness and
invest in research and development for the farther out
requirements.
I am exceptionally proud of the fact that the Army
leadership has grabbed hold of this. Our current chief has been
nothing less than a bull dog in terms of rectifying, as General
Schultz noted, the shortages of individual body armor,
shortages of ammunition. General Weber can speak to the details
but almost $1 billion in the past 6 months was put into
ammunition production and shortages of up-armored Humvees.
I will note though that it also requires an immense change
in the way we think about things. Only in the last 2 years has
Army Reserve Command training guidance focused our soldiers on
the performance of warrior tasks in conjunction with their
technical support tasks. In the past, the training guidance
focused on technical training and no one really worried. I can
go back in time where I have had soldiers tell me I didn't have
training ammunition. I look at the allocation and the command
didn't shoot its full allocation of training ammunition. That
is because our leaders were not doing their job and training
soldiers for war. So we have corrected that.
I must tell you we have an immensely strong effort to train
our soldiers and prepare them for close combat, all soldiers so
that we do not repeat stories of 507th maintenance company
again. That was a training failure of the first order. We do
not intend to repeat those mistakes.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. General Weber, if you would respond?
General Weber. Last year I had the privilege of being
Assistant Division Commander for Support for the 3rd Infantry
Division during its fight up to Baghdad. I can tell you that
you are never well enough equipped to do what you think you are
going to have to do in the next war. In spite of our best
efforts, in spite of what we would like to do, the fact of the
matter is when it comes down to correct resourcing and applying
the money to buy those resources and ensuring that your troops
have those resources, those are very complex issues as you
know.
The 3rd Infantry Division in this case, all of our troops
were not fully equipped with SAPI plates for example. With the
limited amount of resources that were available to the
division, we positioned those resources where we thought the
threat was the greatest. We didn't have everything we needed.
The truth of the matter is you go to war with what you have,
you don't go to war with what you would like to have because
sometimes it is not completely available. Up-armored Humvees,
for example, we have a huge requirement for up-armored Humvees.
It has grown over time. The current validated requirement in
the theater is 4,454 up-armored Humvees. Currently we have
3,139 that have been produced and positioned toward the
theater.
Part of our problem is the industrial base capabilities of
our country to produce what we need. Because you apply
resources in terms of money and funding to buy what you need
does not imply that it is immediately available. This month
alone, the production for up-armored Humvees will hit 220
vehicles. We have been at war over a year. Some would argue
that perhaps we need to take another look at our industrial
base capabilities. That production rate will rise to 300 per
month starting in July and with the current requirements, we
plan on producing 300 vehicles a month through March 2005.
The fact of the matter though is we don't have enough up-
armored Humvees today in the inventory to do what is required
in the theater. As you heard earlier, SAPI plates and body
armor has been taken care of but again, that took us time. The
production capability was not there to get it to us when we
needed it. One could argue we did not forecast well enough what
we might have needed, but the current assumptions about how the
war was going to be conducted and the assumptions we were using
a year ago based on after operations have proven to be invalid
to a certain extent we could argue and we have responded to
that as best we could I think.
Mr. Shays. I appreciate your honest answer. I knew they
would be honest but candid answers. It will be very interesting
when the story is told in the years to come what are the things
that had unintended consequences. For instance, when we
disbanded the government, the army and the police, in my five
visits to Iraq, four of them with the military and outside the
umbrella of the military, I had countless Iraqis tell us they
would love to have guarded the hospitals and other sites. They
also said there are bad people in the military and the police
and in the government but most are very decent people. They
would say to me, how would you have survived in Saddam's
government, how would you have fed your family? That forced us
to do things with our military.
When I came from Algute in a taxi and we were late getting
to the green zone, I saw three Humvees in front of us and I
said to the taxi driver, follow them, they are clearing the
path. The taxi driver said, I don't know how he said it but it
was in his language, like are you crazy. I am haunted by it
now, thinking were they patrolling with no armament in their
Humvee and you could see the tension in their necks. The driver
had his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand with
this rifle across his lap with it on the trigger. I am thinking
it shouldn't be like that, it shouldn't have turned out this
way. It makes me want to know if the so-called best practices,
lessons learned and so on, all the lessons we are going to
learn I hope we have a real good analysis of this.
I will say again, I think one of the analyses should be you
should be having more congressional oversight. There should
have been Members of Congress walking that prison in September
of last year. When I was in other places this time someone from
Bremer's organization in the Babylon area said, Congressman, we
only have seven people. I am supposed to have 100 and the
Marines are leaving and the Poles are taking their place or
someone else coming up to me and saying we don't have enough
money, in September last year. These are things I could come
back and raise questions. I am certain if you had members
walking that prison, we would have seen maybe human waste being
thrown at our troops and we would have raised questions about
that but we would have someone come up and say, I am a cook, I
don't know what I am doing here. I don't have the training that
I need. That would have forced a dialog a lot sooner and we
would have been able to break through the chain of command or
somehow as you have all said, a failure of leadership. It is
also a failure of Congress to not do its job.
Ms. Watson, you have 10 minutes for any questions you want
to go through. She had a question on the table.
Ms. Watson. I want to get some ideas back from you. I don't
understand the chain of command and what authority do the
contract interrogators have. What is their relationship to the
military personnel there and the military intelligence, those
interrogators, what is their relationship to the Guard, to the
MPs? Can someone respond?
General Helmly. I don't know, as I was about to say
earlier, what instructions were provided.
Ms. Watson. I just want to know how does the chain of
command work in that scenario?
General Helmly. That is what I am explaining. I don't know
what guidance was provided to the chain of command. I will tell
you that I think all of us at this table are quite accustomed
to working with contractors.
Ms. Watson. Let me clarify my question because I am not
being clear. I would like to know does a private interrogator,
contractee interrogator have a relationship to the MPs and if
so, what is that? Who would tell the general who was in charge
of determent and the prisons what to do and what not to do in
terms of the interrogation? Where in the chain of command does
this take place?
General Helmly. I don't feel qualified to answer that. I
think General Taguba's investigation went into that. I will
simply say that had I been in charge of that, I feel if I am in
command, I am in full command and if you are a contractor or
civilian employee, you work for me.
Ms. Watson. That helps. If you were in charge of prisons,
then you would be in full command. Could you and do you and can
you go through at any time and inspect and monitor what is
going on?
General Helmly. I would have insisted upon that access and
had I been denied that access by anyone, short of physical
actions, I would have informed my superiors that they could no
longer hold me accountable because if I am in command, I will
go anyplace in the organization I wish to go.
Ms. Watson. Thank you. Maybe Lieutenant General Hanlon can
address that same question too. Can the civilian contractor
order the MPs to do something?
General Hanlon. I will answer that question by saying that
I am deferring to my colleagues in the Army who probably have a
bit more familiarity with that situation than I. I don't have
any at all but I will tell you, and I think the General gave an
excellent answer a second ago when he said I think it is safe
to assume that any commander any place, any time, anywhere
where you have civilian contractors working for you, in the
mess hall much less interrogators, ultimately are responsible
to you as the commander for the good order, discipline and the
functioning of whatever their job is. So I thought his answer
was very good but I can't give any more definition than that
because I am really not familiar.
Ms. Watson. That is acceptable to me. We are just trying to
get some things clarified. I was interested in the chain of
command.
What obligations does the civilian-private contractor have
when they come into say a prison to interrogate? Is there an
obligation to report to whoever is in charge? Do they have to
go through the personnel that is already there, the MPs? How
does that work?
General Helmly. Contractors are not independent operators.
I think General Hanlon addressed that part. They sign a
contract to perform tasks for the U.S. Government. We have
contracting officers, technical representatives and contracting
officers representatives. The COTRs, I have been one of those
myself and within the terms of that contract, I always gave
them guidance, direction and instruction and insisted upon
reports from them, visited their workplace and I think all of
us have done that, not in my case with interrogators but again,
with the exception of the function being performed, I would not
try to administer such a contract any differently than I do
with contract employees who do staff work for us here in the
Pentagon.
Ms. Watson. Is it a usual thing for the intelligence
interrogators, the contract or military, to say to the prison
guards, the MPs, whoever, soften them up. Is this something
that is said when they are preparing to go into a situation,
soften them up, and who would say that, and would the military
police have to respond accordingly?
General Hanlon. I am not in any way shape or form trying to
dodge your question but I am not an intel officer, I am not a
military police officer, I run the Marine Corps Combat
Development Command and there is no way I can begin to answer
that question because I have no idea what the authorities were
or any guidance given in that particular case.
Ms. Watson. All right.
General Schultz.
General Schultz. Ms. Watson, I have been in the Army over
41 years. I have not heard the term, never been associated with
the use of that term. I also must clarify I am not a military
police officer.
General Helmly. I don't think any of us are trying to dodge
your question but I believe the question is with any degree of
clarity and accuracy, it is probably impossible for any of us
to answer given the fact that none of us were there, none of us
are military police and today do not run military police or
military intelligence operations. I will simply say if someone
instructed----
Ms. Watson. Sir, I know you weren't there. What I am trying
to find out and maybe somebody would come forward and let me
know what the chain of command is in a prison setting. Who
oversees, who orders people to do things?
Mr. Shays. Could the gentlelady suspend just a second, so
we understand? I want the gentlelady to be able to ask these
questions but I want to understand the expertise of the
witnesses we have to make sure we are not tasking them beyond
their expertise.
Ms. Watson. Chain of command.
Mr. Shays. Chain of command is, I want to say, a very
logical question that anyone should be able to ask. I just want
to know in terms of prison guarding and so on, what expertise
do you gentlemen bring to this issue just so we understand.
Have you had those tasks during your time in the military? Who
has so we know who to ask if any? Do any of you have that
responsibility?
General Weber. Sir, speaking for myself, no. I am an
armored cavalryman by trade. I have very little to do with MPs
and military intelligence.
General Helmly. Sir, as Commander, I am responsible for the
training of the U.S. Army Reserve but I have no direct
expertise in detainee operations or interrogations.
Mr. Shays. But in terms of making sure you have people
trained, that would be the closest we have gotten so far.
General Schultz and then I will let you get back to our
questioning, just so we know.
General Schultz. In our units, we have military police
capabilities and we have soldiers in our subordinate chains of
command that prepare them for their duty in theater including
prison related work. I am not personally involved in the
question you asked, however.
Mr. Shays. General Hanlon.
General Hanlon. In my past, I have been a base commanding
general. As a base commanding general, I have had military
police work for me for the good order and discipline of
protecting the military base and we had a brig aboard the base
which did normal functions for what brigs are designed for, but
I have not had any experience at all in any kind of facility
dealing with detainees or prisoners of war.
Mr. Shays. I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful
to Ms. Watson who is asking questions that all of us in
Congress would like answers to. We are just trying to break the
surface here and begin to understand. I am sorry, Ms. Watson.
We will keep the clock running for you.
Ms. Watson. I just have one or two more things. General
Schultz, were there any Marine Reservists accused of shall I
say violations within that prison setting?
General Hanlon. You said General Schultz, did you mean
General Hanlon?
Ms. Watson. Lieutenant General Schultz.
General Schultz. I am not familiar with any.
Ms. Watson. General Hanlon.
General Hanlon. Would you repeat that question?
Ms. Watson. I understand that Marine Reservists have been
accused of abuses of Iraqi prisoners. Are you aware that there
have been some accused?
General Hanlon. There were allegation from a year ago
involving some Marines. My understanding is that all the cases
are being adjudicated. In fact, I think in a couple of cases
there are pending courts martial. Many of the charges were
dismissed and I know each and every one of those cases has been
under investigation. That is about all I know about it because
it involved commands other than my own. My understanding is
they have all been investigated and they are all being properly
adjudicated.
Ms. Watson. In this kind of situation, in a detention
facility, who can command a Marine Reservist to treat prisoners
one way or the other? Who is in direct charge of them?
General Hanlon. You have a Marine, a rifleman, say he is a
Lance Corporal and say this Lance Corporal is in a platoon in a
company in a battalion in a regiment, so he has a chain of
command. If he is a Lance Corporal, he will have a squad
leader, a squad leader will have a platoon leader, a platoon
leader will have a platoon commander, a platoon commander will
have a company commander, a company commander will have a
battalion commander, a battalion commander will have a
regimental commander, so there is a set chain of command that
Marine is responsible to every single day. If he is a Lance
Corporal, he is probably reporting to a Corporal or to a
Sergeant.
Ms. Watson. In a detention facility?
General Hanlon. In any facility. No matter where a Marine
is located, he will have a boss.
Ms. Watson. I want to focus on a detention facility, just
say detention facility.
General Hanlon. I don't know what that means, a detention
facility. Are we talking like what?
Ms. Watson. I am talking about the detention facility in
question, a prison, interment wherever. Who can direct a Marine
Reservist?
General Hanlon. First of all, I would like to go back to
something I said earlier.
Ms. Watson. Let me ask you, can a contractor do that?
General Hanlon. No, ma'am.
Ms. Watson. Thank you. You have answered my question.
General Hanlon. My understanding is that a Marine will
always take his instructions from another Marine. I just want
to say one thing, something I said in my opening comments. We
don't make distinctions between Reservists and active duty
Marine. A Marine is a Marine.
Ms. Watson. OK. Very good. I appreciate your response and I
will try to figure it out.
General Hanlon. Thank you.
Ms. Watson. That is it.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask a question I have been very curious
about. When I hear that mothers and fathers are buying
protective vests for their children in Iraq, is it the same
quality vest that you would see our own military have when they
have their vest? Is it the same or is it something less than
what the military could buy?
General Schultz. Mr. Chairman, the cases I am familiar
with, they will meet a police standard for police operations
here in the continental United States but will not satisfy a
U.S. military criteria. It is slightly different.
Mr. Shays. Really what starts to happen is that if they
have nothing, something is better than nothing but it doesn't
in most cases meet the standard of the military?
General Schultz. That is correct.
Mr. Shays. First Sergeant Neill made four points. I would
like to go through those points with you and get a response. He
said, ``We have a shortage of warrant officers who are the
officer team leaders. It is my belief that this shortage could
be filled directly from the senior NCO ranks where soldiers are
forced out of the Army because of age, time and grade and time
and service.'' Do you have any response to that comment?
General Schultz. Mr. Chairman, we have a shortage of 1,500
warrant officers in the Army National Guard today. The First
Sergeant's recommendation is the very issue we are working
right now. That would be to take from our senior non-
commissioned officer ranks those soldiers that satisfy the
skills to become warrant officers and they clearly could begin
to fill those shortages that we have outlined here that come
time of war, no doubt have to all be filled. So the point he
raises, although he is an Army Reservist, applies to the Guard
no doubt.
Mr. Shays. This is his second point. ``Many years ago,
motor sections, supply sections and communications sections
were all moved from intelligence companies and sent to
battalion level organization where their staffing was reduced
and became ineffective. Maybe it is time to look at bringing
them back to individual companies.'' What is your response to
that?
General Helmly. Mr. Chairman, that is a part of the
modified table of organization and equipment, the
organizational structure laid down by the Department of the
Army. I would tell you that we are relooking every kind of
organization in the Army under an action called modularizing
our units. I have every confidence that will be relooked.
Whether the Army will change that, I don't know but we are
relooking the organizational structure of virtually all of our
units.
Mr. Shays. Under the heading of mobilization, he said, ``We
were the prisoners at Fort Dix.'' What was he driving at?
General Helmly. He was pointing out that the installation
Commander stated soldiers mobilizing there would be restricted
to the installation. That was done principally for safety and
security. We found that some soldiers were attempting to take a
day or an afternoon drive too far after 16-18 hours of training
and we were incurring accidents. So many of the installation
commanders said, you have to stay on the installation.
Mr. Shays. How long a time before they were deployed were
they at Fort Dix?
General Helmly. I don't know for that particular unit. I
will take that for the record and tell you how long they were
at Fort Dix.
[The information referred to follows:]
The unit's processing at Fort Dix lasted 63 days.
Mr. Shays. I have no comprehension. Are we talking a month
or two or potentially many, many months?
General Helmly. We had some units that were in OIF-1 that
were stagnated in the flow of forces to the theater and spent 3
to 4 months at a mobilization station. I will tell you in those
instances most Mob Commanders then tried to take action to
provide for passes and that kind of thing in a measured manner.
Mr. Shays. I want to say I don't know your reaction but I
thought the panel we had was a thoughtful group of individuals.
I felt they care about their job, they care about the military
and want it to work better. They just want people to listen and
that is one of the reasons I appreciated that we had all four
of you taking the time to listen. It means a lot to them and it
means a lot to this committee that you did that.
His fourth point was, ``We also had issues with doctrine
which would not allow us to task sources of information.'' In
other words, if an Iraqi told him something that was
informative, he could gain passive information but he could not
say, why don't you go back and see if you find this. It strikes
me that it would have been potentially helpful to do that. What
are the pros and cons of doing that and why didn't we allow it?
Do you want to take a stab at it, General Hanlon?
General Hanlon. I guess I did not hear that particular
comment but I would only say to you that I would like to think
since I am responsible for the doctrine in the Marine Corps and
how we train Marines, I would like to think that under no
circumstances would we ever have doctrine that would in any
way, shape or form stifle the initiative of a Marine when it
comes to getting a piece of information and acting on it. In
fact, we encourage them to do just that.
Mr. Shays. He was basically saying sources did provide
information for a variety of reasons but money was not
available as an incentive. ``We also had an issue with doctrine
which would not allow us to task sources of information. We
would suggest but not task. Sources do not need suggestions,
they need directions. You ask them a question and tell them to
come back with an answer.'' Does someone from the military want
to take a shot?
General Helmly. Sir, I think General Hanlon made an
excellent point. We write doctrine to provide us guidance.
Sometimes one finds that it is interpreted more as dogma by
some and I would like to echo your remarks and agree with you.
All of these service members we saw, Staff Sergeant
SanchezLopez and the three Army soldiers, all the officers and
non-commissioned officers and the enlisted soldier, all remind
us of the immensely strong, capable, competent, professional
force we all have and are very proud of. In this case, I took
the First Sergeant's remarks to mean that he felt he probably
had a shortage of money to pay informants from which he could
get information. I believe we are tackling that. We understand,
as our Chief has said, that in fact, we find ourselves fighting
a network when we are organized as a hierarchy and we have
found several times we have to go too far up in that hierarchy
to get permissions. As we find those cases, we are rapidly
trying to change those in order to adapt ourselves to this kind
of battlefield.
Mr. Shays. To give some credit to the Army, General
Patrayus, when we met with him, he didn't wait for the CPA, he
just started. He started to interact with Iraqis, he started to
meet with them, he tried to understand their culture, he did a
lot of things that I think Marines would probably take pride in
as well, showing that kind of initiative and not being held
back by the doctrine, probably taking a risk or two but I think
made a very important contribution.
General Weber. If I could comment, please?
Mr. Shays. Yes, thank you.
General Weber. What General Patrayus was doing was not any
different than what any other unit was doing in Iraq
immediately after the war. All of us in the 3rd Infantry
Division were doing the same thing and if you go over today,
battalion, brigade and even company commanders are doing
exactly what you described. They are meeting with the people
who are involved, they are trying to develop the intelligence
community and information they need to fight the fight at their
own levels and that is going on. That is what we do, that is
how we adapt to the environment and that is what our unit
commanders are responsible to do. I would like to highlight
that is what our Army is all about, we take the current threat
conditions, take the environment we are operating in and adjust
to try to get in front of the enemies and the threat.
Mr. Shays. Let me say this with all due respect, General
Weber. Having been there five times, there are some people that
did it better than others and he pushed the envelope a little
further. I will tell you that I know our troops were during the
day fixing up the schools and painting and cleaning them up and
at night looking for the bad guys. I know that happened, so I
want to agree with your general point, but what happened with
General Patrayus is instantly there were people waiting for CPA
to do some of what we said CPA should do. He just couldn't wait
and I think he started the ball rolling a little sooner. I just
want to say that to you because I met with a number of Army
personnel and I was struck with the fact that he was pushing it
a little bit more than others, but your point is
extraordinarily valid.
One more point of our first testifier. He said, ``Soldiers
purchased much of their own equipment. They purchased cell
phones that we used for communications, clothing, bug spray,
CPS systems, handheld radios for in between vehicle
communication, office supplies, tranformers, refrigerators and
coolers. Additionally, they paid for NTB vehicle repairs and
purchased parts for maintenance for which they were not
reimbursed.'' It strikes me, I don't want to say it is
embarrassing, but it is good there was this ingenuity, but it
strikes me I am looking at myself and Congress and saying where
did I drop the ball or where did other Members of Congress drop
the ball that this happened? Is it that things simply got out
of hand?
I will tell you what I am wrestling with. I was chairing a
Budget Committee hearing and we had one of the commanding
officers accompany Mr. Wolfowitz or Mr. Wolfowitz was
responding. I have great respect for Mr. Wolfowitz. It was
mentioned that we might need 200,000 plus troops and it was
immediately argued that we didn't need as many, but I am struck
by the fact that we overworked our folks. They got very little
sleep, they worked morning, noon and night and I am just struck
by the fact that it seems to me things got out of hand.
General Weber. If I could comment? You are familiar with
the rapid fielding initiative and that was the result of the
lessons learned early on from the OIF piece but also from the
OEF lessons learned. What struck me about the previous panel
was a lot of those comments were associated with the OIF-1
units that granted had some shortages, had some problems, etc.
What I find interesting today is with the OIF-2 rotation, every
unit that was sent, in theory but we try to make it happen, was
fielded with a basic set of equipment under the rapid fielding
initiative for soldiers to take care of some of those problems
you just identified.
I would try to explain it to you that the Army has noticed
a shortfall and a shortcoming and we have taken corrective
action to try to field the soldier with the right equipment
that he needs.
Mr. Shays. I will just make a point to you. It would
sometimes be good to learn this from the command rather than
from the field. We were learning things from what soldiers were
telling their loved ones back home and so on. I think we need
to have a lot of respect for each other and our capability to
deal with this. We were learning in some cases indirectly and I
think that is what is so unsettling about this whole issue with
the prisons.
Let me close by asking you what is the point of the first
panel that you agreed with most and what is the point you
agreed with least? This isn't a quiz, I know you must react and
say, I don't agree with that. If there wasn't anything said in
the first panel you don't agree with, then I would like to know
that or if you want to qualify it. I realize we have three Army
personnel and one Marine, but is there anything you would like
to comment about the first panel?
General Schultz. The first panel outlined for me the
urgency of the equipping issues. You know we have been working
this for some months, years now and it has just come a little
too slow to satisfy anyone, so I am reminded we just have to
keep some issues on our list of priorities because we still
have soldiers in harms way that are not as equipped as we would
want them. This is after months of combat.
Mr. Shays. Let me respond to that and have you react. Once
of the challenges we know exists, because this committee has
done work in this area, is that we have an inventory challenge.
We can't do what K-Mart can do, we can't tell you where
supplies are and so we sometimes have an overabundance of
supplies, sometimes an under abundance. Was that part of the
issue or was it we simply didn't have these supplies anywhere
and was it in fact a money issue or just a backlog in orders,
if you could respond to that?
General Schultz. Initially, a little of both actually, a
resourcing item initially and then we had a distribution
problem with the body armor, probably had enough total armor
systems in certain theaters and then we had sizing issues with
some, so it was really resourcing. Then we had the industrial
base that General Weber already talked about, so a combination
of about three things.
As I listened to that first panel, the one thing they left
me with was they all departed their areas of operations leaving
the units to follow on in better shape which makes me feel
pretty good even though we have a lot of work yet.
Mr. Shays. General Helmly.
General Helmly. I would first of all highlight the remarks
that Dr. Krepinevich made. I am mindful sometimes that it is
difficult to appreciate the accuracy of the content of a
problem if one does not appreciate the larger context within
which it occurred. I thought Dr. Krepinevich gave an excellent
outline of the immense change that the strategic context within
which our armed forces operate has occurred. Beyond that, I
found virtually everything that Colonel Novotny and the three
enlisted and non-commissioned officers and the soldier spoke
about to be compelling evidence of why we must be mindful this
is the first extended duration conflict our Nation has fought
with an all volunteer force because the immense quality of the
Marine and the soldiers showed this committee today is proof
positive that we must be careful as we operate and fight this
war to maintain that force.
General Weber. I think the comments about the equipping and
the lessons learned were very positive. I think the Army is
headed in the right direction. We have tried to identify some
problems and problems were identified to us. In that sense, I
think the previous panel was accurately reflecting the
conditions that existed at the time they were deployed. I would
hope if we went back with the OIF-2 units, some of those
conditions would be different and our reactions to the OIF-1
problems have been ameliorated if not resolved in some cases. I
hope we are on the right track there.
The only disagreement I would have is some of the comments
previously about the combat training centers. The combat
training centers have responded very quickly to the conditions
and the environments that our troops are operating in both at
JRTC at Fort Polk, NTC at Fort Irwin and CMTC at Hohenfels,
Germany. If you went out and looked at those training centers,
the operations groups and those responsible for training there
are doing great things. They are working hard with the unit
commanders who are deploying into these conditions to set the
right training conditions and scenarios and environments for
them to get the most out of the CTC event.
Mr. Shays. Let me just ask you, because you brought up that
issue and it is very related, the active and the Reserve
components, do they interface in training? They interface on
the battlefield but I am hearing that is one of the questions,
that the Guard is rarely invited to participate in simulations
in training opportunities with the active force.
General Weber. I will defer to my colleagues but from my
perspective, we try to do as much of that as time allows and as
the timing of the events permit as well. In some conditions, we
work very well. The civil affairs community is always embedded
in our rotations normally if they are available but we try to
do as best we can with that.
General Schultz. We have an opportunity to train thousands
of soldiers at both Fort Irwin and Fort Polk. Last year the
schedule was simply so busy we couldn't send soldiers, we had
them committed elsewhere, so there is an opportunity to train
that we are not able to take advantage of right now.
Mr. Shays. But you would say there is value clearly in
having the Reservists in there?
General Schultz. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. General Schultz, this is kind of a curiosity but
I would like to it on the record. When the National Guard units
leave their equipment behind, what do they go home to?
General Schultz. In some cases, they don't have a whole lot
when they get back to their local motor pools. What we are
doing in the Army is moving equipment around, literally around
the Army from the Reserve, from the Guard, from other places so
that we reequip units with a minimum level of equipment
initially. We have to redistribute equipment back into those
motor pools where there is none.
Mr. Shays. Why do you say between the Reserve and the
Guard? If they are doing the same role, wouldn't you also do it
from the active?
General Schultz. Oh, yes. In fact, that is exactly our
plan.
Mr. Shays. General.
General Hanlon. Going back to your original question. I
think it was Dr. Krepinevich who talked a little bit about some
of the lessons learned we have had over the last decade from
the way the military used to train with the lessons we have
picked up as a result of Iraq and the whole issue of urban
environment. We have been concerned in the Marine Corps about
fighting in cities for a long time. In fact, back in the 1996-
1997 timeframe, our warfighting lab started doing a number of
experiments looking specifically at combat in the built up
area. In fact, the training I mentioned to Ms. Watson that we
do out of March Air Force Base is really a result of what we
learned back in the late 1990's and how we need to train
Marines to fight in the built up area.
Fighting in a built up area is something you don't want to
do if you have a choice but keeping in mind the latest
statistic I think I heard is like 70 percent of the population
in the world lives in built up areas, one can assume somewhere,
someplace if you are going to get into a fight you could well
be in an urban built up area. In fact, you remember probably
our former Commandant, General Krulak used the famous line of
the three block war in which we used to talk about the
difficulties of training and fighting in an urban environment.
So this is something we have been focusing on for a long time,
it is something we continue to focus on, our warfighting lab
down at Quantico, and one of the things I have talked to my
Army counterparts about. There is an Army General by the name
of General Burns who has the Army equivalent to my command
which is TRADOC command, is the need for looking in the future
at building joint MOC facilities that both soldiers and Marines
can use that will give a state-of-the-art, large training area
we can put our battalions through and both take advantage of
that. We are looking at how we might build something like that,
say a 29 Palms or Fort Irwin so that both organizations can
take advantage of that.
I will tell you something we focus on all the time and it
drives a lot of the work we are doing on technology and special
equipment to not only protect Marines fighting in an urban
environment but to give them the fighting edge. I think you
said in your comments earlier that you want to set it up so we
always win.
Mr. Shays. I said it should never be a fair fight.
General Hanlon. It should never be a fair fight, a great
line, and that is precisely what we are trying to do not only
through our tactics and techniques and procedures but also with
our technology. We are doing as much as we possibly can and
that is why the lessons learned that we are garnering from the
experiences over in Iraq right now, I think will pay huge
dividends for us in the future.
Mr. Shays. I will add that I think we owe it to our
soldiers and our Marines, all our military, to help make sure
they have some cultural sensitivity. Maybe I am speaking now as
a Peace Corps volunteer, but it is hugely advantageous to
understand the actions you take and how people react to them,
just knowing their culture and so on. If in fact the
battlefield will be in urban areas, there are a lot of women
and children and others but it is nice to know their culture
and how they react to things.
General Hanlon. Absolutely right. That is part of the
culturization and the training you try to give the Marines.
When we were showing the House Armed Services Committee about a
month ago how some of the new devices, the phrasalators that
the Marines can carry, actually a little gadget where you can
say something in English, hit a button and it will come back in
the local dialect, things of that sort so you make sure you can
communicate which is always the first step. Sir, your points
are right on.
Mr. Shays. Any last comments before we adjourn?
[No response.]
Mr. Shays. Let me just conclude by thanking all four of you
and your staff and say this is really an effort of the
subcommittee as well as the full committee. We are working
together on this. Sometimes the full committee has a hearing
and sometimes it is the subcommittee, but we are all working
for the same basic cause. We would like our National Guard and
Reservists to be paid on time and the salaries they are owed.
We would like them to be better equipped. We would like the
training to keep improving. We would like them not to be
overworked. My big fear is that you are going to start to see
spouses who are simply say, honey, I don't want you, and it may
be a man to his wife who is in the military. We lost one young
lady and we lost one young man in my district and I am
concerned the spouses are going to say, don't sign up, don't
reenlist. I hope we are thinking that one through too.
Thank you all very much.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]