CHAIRMAN THORNBERRY'S OPENING REMARKS

Mar 22, 2016
Press Release

WASHINGTON - Today, the Committee hears from the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer on the budget request for the Department of Defense.  Chairman Thornberry made the following opening remarks on today's hearing.  For hearing testimony and to watch the hearing click here.  

"The Committee meets today to receive testimony from Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the National Defense Authorization budget request from the Administration.  
 
Like last year, the Committee has spent a number of weeks hearing from our military leaders, the Intelligence Community, and outside witnesses before asking the Secretary to testify on the current budget request.  
 
What we have heard over these weeks reaffirmed the fact that the United States faces a wider range of serious threats than at any time in our history.  The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told our committee that, 'The world is far more complicated, it is far more destabilized, it is far more complex than at any time I have seen it.'
 
Currently serving senior commanders have described the ability of the military we rely on to face those threats as 'minimally adequate.'  Aviation units in the Marine Corps cannot meet training and mission requirements. With 'less than one-third of Army forces at acceptable levels of readiness,' the Army is 'not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people would expect to defend them.'  'Less than half [of the Air Force] combat forces are ready for... a high-end fight.' It is the “smallest, oldest, and least ready [force] across the full-spectrum of operations in our history.'   

This testimony across the Services is remarkably consistent, candid, and disturbing.   Indeed, my own visits with service members recently leads me to suspect that even these assessments do not tell the whole story.  

We often discuss readiness, but that is a vague term without concrete meaning for many people.  Recently, I have heard firsthand from service members who have looked me in the eye and told of:

    - trying to cannibalize parts from a museum aircraft in order to get current aircraft ready to fly the overseas mission assigned;

    - getting aircraft that were sent to the boneyard in Arizona back and ready to fly missions;

    - pilots flying well below the minimum number of hours required for minimal proficiency and flying fewer training hours than the adversaries they are being sent to meet;

    - not having enough senior enlisted people to train and supervise younger ones and those who remain working very long hours day after day;

    - service members buying basic supplies, like pens and cleaning supplies and paper towels out of their own pocket, because otherwise it would take three to four months to get them if they could get them at all.
 
I expressed concern last week that the rise in Class A mishaps is another indicator of a force in a readiness crisis.
 
Last year, General Dempsey testified that the FY16 funding request was at the 'lower ragged edge' necessary to execute the defense strategy and that 'we have no slack, no margin left for error or strategic surprise.' Yet the budget request the Administration put forward is $18 billion lower on meeting those minimum base requirements than that level and less than the budget agreement of last December.  It seems clear that the same strategy that assumed we would be out of Iraq and Afghanistan, that Russia was a friend thanks to 'reset,' and that terrorism was confined to JV teams and was used to justify cuts to troops, equipment, training, and bases cannot remain 'valid' when the world is otherwise.   
 
Both Congress and the Administration are responsible for this state of affairs.  Over the past five years, the President and Congress have cut over half a trillion dollars from defense.  These cuts come at a cost: it is increased risk that our troops will be killed or captured, that a mission will fail, or that we will lose a fight.  What our hearings have shown is that this risk is real and there is growing evidence to prove it.  The military is strained to the breaking point.  Our witnesses today are in a unique position to help our political leadership and the American people understand this situation.  We would all be derelict in our duties to simply sweep it under the rug.  
 
On a final note, this morning we learned of more terrorist attacks in Europe.  The Administration’s budget request asks for more money to use to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  That is understandable.  What is not understandable is that the law required the Administration to provide a written document laying out its strategy to fight ISIS by February 15, 2016.  We have received nothing and there is no indication that any such strategy is on its way.

The world is growing more dangerous; we have cut our military too much; and it is up to the political leadership in this country to take the action necessary to enable our service men and women to defend American lives and interests.  The men and women who serve and the nation deserve better."