Hell No, We Won't Grow

s Congress reviews the proposed $401.7 billion fiscal 2005 Defense budget, an unusual debate over military priorities is taking shape. Lawmakers are suggesting that the 1.4-million member military may be too small, while the Defense Department is arguing against adding to its ranks.

Republicans and Democrats alike say force size will dominate this year's Defense spending. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a West Point graduate, and Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have teamed up to propose adding 30,000 Army soldiers. Reed, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says that the increase is needed because the Bush administration's aggressive preemptive strike strategy will speed up operations, straining the services if their ranks don't grow. The Army has borne the brunt of the impact of preemptive warfare so far, providing the majority of troops in Iraq.

Reed says the Army's shift over the past decades toward moving entire units rather than individuals into and out of war zones also creates pressure to add troops. Now, whole units must be fully staffed and ready to move all at once, and large numbers of troops must deploy and return home simultaneously. The largest unit rotation ever undertaken by the Army is occurring this spring with nearly 250,000 troops moving into and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reed also contends that the Army should add active-duty troops to reduce its reliance on reserve forces. Support personnel, such as military police and civil affairs troops, increasingly are in demand for peacekeeping missions and reconstruction operations. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve hold most such positions. For example, by this spring, four of every 10 soldiers in Iraq will be reservists.

In the House, Armed Services Committee member Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., introduced legislation in December to boost the size of each of the military services by 8 percent, adding nearly 84,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines during the next five years. The bill has won 22 co-sponsors. Tauscher also is threatening to hold up the Pentagon's plan to designate as many as one in four military bases in 2005 for closure. With the military stretched thin and needing more troops, base closings should be delayed until the war on terrorism and war with Iraq have concluded, Tauscher says.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld contends his department doesn't need more troops; it needs to better manage and realign those it has. "The real problem is not the size of the force, per se, but rather the way the force has been managed, and the mix of capabilities at our disposal," Rumsfeld told the Senate in January, when he presented the fiscal 2005 Defense budget.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker warned the House Armed Services Committee in January that new troops will cost $1.2 billion per 10,000-soldier division. Divisions take two years to create, he said, and adding one would sap energy from the Army's ongoing reorganization into smaller, more lethal units. The Army favors the Defense Department's stopgap approach that would temporarily inflate the ranks by up to 30,000 soldiers during the next four years. The Army currently is about 15,000 soldiers above its authorized active-duty total of 482,400. The Army would grow in part through "stop-loss" orders preventing soldiers in short-staffed career fields from leaving the service 90 days before or after deployments. Also in the mix: adding new recruits and offering reenlistment bonuses.

The Army National Guard and Army Reserve plan to reshuffle combat units such as field artillery into support operations, including civil affairs, transportation and policing. More than 100,000 soldiers could be reassigned. Additionally, the Pentagon plans to move uniformed personnel from all the services out of as many as 300,000 administrative jobs and into occupations that are now understaffed. Support positions, such as accounting slots, would be turned over to civilian federal employees, contracted out or simply eliminated. Defense will convert approximately 10,000 jobs annually for several years starting in 2004.