Lawmakers call for readiness investigations - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Lawmakers call for readiness investigations

Two key lawmakers are seeking independent investigations of military readiness after service officials said extended operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have left shortages of war stocks that could limit the military’s ability to respond to a crisis.

After Army and Marine Corps officials talked about exhausting pre-positioned stocks of weapons and supplies to keep deployed forces fully ready, two House Armed Services Committee leaders asked the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office — both nonpartisan congressional agencies — to take a closer look.

Reps. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the committee, and Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, chairman of the committee’s readiness panel, are asking for reports about the state of readiness, the cause of any declines and how long it might take to fix any shortfalls.

Ortiz said he is worried about whether the military is prepared for another conflict.

“After five-and-a-half years of sustained operations in two theaters of war, I am greatly concerned about the declining readiness of the services in terms of personnel, equipment and training,” Ortiz said. “I believe that we, as a nation, are at risk of mission failure.”

“When readiness levels fall, our level of strategic risk goes up,” added Skelton. Potential U.S. foes, he added, “are unlikely to warn us in advance” of an attack.

Ortiz said readiness problems are “most evident in the ground forces of the Army and Marines, but we also see it in the effects on the Air Force and the Navy.”

The Army and Marine Corps have been diverting equipment and supplies from nondeployed units so deployed units have all they need — the biggest reason for readiness concerns.

Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, acknowledged that “readiness continues to decline [in] our ‘next-to-deploy’ forces. We must aggressively ‘buy back’ equipment shortages to restore the strategic depth of the Army.”

Cody said there are shortages in light, medium and heavy tactical vehicles, as well as spot shortages in weapons, radios and night-vision devices.

“Extended combat operations have severely tested our materiel,” said Gen. Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps. “While a vast majority of our equipment has passed the test of combat operations, it has been subjected to a sustained usage rate far exceeding planning factors.”

Like the Army, the Marine Corps has been equipping deploying units with gear from nondeployed units and pre-positioned stocks, which Magnus said is helping sustain readiness rates of deployed units — at the expense of the nondeployed units.

The nondeployed units left struggling include amphibious, jungle, mountain and combined-arms units, he said.

The Navy wants to cut its number of steaming days per quarter next fiscal year from 24 to 22 for nondeployed units so that steaming days can be increased to 45 per quarter for deploying units, up from 36 days per quarter in the current fiscal year, said Adm. Robert Willard, vice chief of naval operations.

Because of higher use, the Air Force reports aircraft readiness has dropped by 17 percent below the level prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “Some of our C-130Es can no longer deploy to combat because we have literally flown the wings off them,” said Gen. John D.W. Corley, Air Force vice chief of staff, referring to center wing boxes that are cracked.