Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), a very distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), who has great expertise in the area of defense.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman who just spoke for his hard work on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a bill that was put together with the bipartisan work of all members of the House Committee on Armed Services, the defense bill for the United States. It was engaged in with a great deal of detail by Republicans and Democrats to try to do the very best we could for the people that wear the uniform of the United States. Beyond that, Mr. Chairman, we have had enormous publicity the last number of days about the mess at Abu Ghraib. I estimated we have probably devoted as much media attention to that mess involving now, as identified, some seven personnel, as we did to the Normandy invasion, and that is an imbalance. It is time to refocus. The subjects of the refocus should be the 135,000 great personnel doing their job in Iraq and the tens of thousands doing their job in Afghanistan and around the world in this war against terrorism. So I just thought I might start out, Mr. Chairman, by reminding my colleagues that while that much-publicized mess was taking place with just a few people at Abu Ghraib Prison, Master Sergeant Tony Prior was taking on an enemy position in Afghanistan and was single-handedly taking out four insurgents, the last one in hand-to-hand combat to win the Silver Star. Jeffrey Bohr, Gunnery Sergeant Jeffrey Bohr was over in Iraq laying down a field of fire to protect his wounded Marines who otherwise would have been killed, and he laid down that field of fire until he himself was killed. I have dozens of such citations, Mr. Chairman, on the leadership desk, and I would hope that Members walk down. And if their heads are filled with all of the publicity about a few bad apples at Abu Ghraib Prison, I want them to pick up those citations and read about the good apples, the great Americans who fill out this 2.5-million-person force that wear the uniform of the United States, active, Guard and Reserve. This bill is a big bill, and my great partner, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member, have worked on it along with all of the members of the committee. Almost all of our members have gone to Iraq now. A lot of them have also gone to Afghanistan, some of them multiple times. We have visited troops, held extensive hearings, and we put together a bill that we think supplies the wherewithal, the equipment for our troops to get the job done. Let me go over a couple of those things, and then I want to listen to my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle who have been such great partners in this endeavor. First, we have tried to focus on this theater in Iraq because our people need equipment, they need to have the very best equipment. They are over there in the heat and in enemy fire with oppressive living conditions. We have devoted and focused our dollars on that theater, so we pulled some money out of some areas that are not right now relevant, closely relevant, to that warfighting theater, more long-range things, things that are peripheral. We focused that money on things like force protection, up-armored Humvees, steel for the trucks, the 5-ton trucks for the Army, 7-ton trucks for the Marine Corps, replenishment of ammunition, surveillance capability so we can see the bad guys and engage them before they can get in tight to our troops. All of the leverage we can give them with high technology, we give them in this bill. We also look to their families. We have this 3.5 percent pay raise across the board, we have an expansion of the amount of money that our troops now get for hazardous duty and for separation from their family. We have also put in a survivor benefit for the widows of our military people and for the widowers of our military people so they will not have this offset against Social Security. We have tried to do a lot of things on the people's side. We have a great bill with our military housing, our MILCON projects. We have privatization, the cap removed from 2006 on, and we are going to work to make sure there is no seam between 2005 and 2006. Beyond that, the ranking member and I and a number of other folks have been working and looking at force levels. We now have 10 Army divisions; we used to have 18 in 1991. We have a relatively small Marine Corps, roughly 177,000. We realize we are going to need more people. And for families who say, How come Joe is not here again for Christmas, whether he is Guard, Reserve, or active, one answer is, we have such a small force that the people have to go more often. And so we have increased in strength by some 10,000 this year, 10,000 next year and 10,000 the next year, and that coincides with Chief of Staff of the Army Schumacher's plan to increase the fighting strength of the U.S. Army by three brigades this year, three brigades next year, and four brigades the year after to add 10 new fighting brigades to the Army for a total of 43. We have also increased the U.S. Marines Corps by 3,000 personnel per year for the next 3 years. To do that and to do a lot of the other things that we are flowing to the troops, we have also bolted onto this package a supplemental for $25 billion. That supplemental will handle the closing months of this year to make sure that our troops do not run thin on supplies or replenishment or new capabilities in the last few months of this year. It also helps General Schumacher to stand up this new modular force that he is putting into effect and reshaping the Army. So we have that $25 billion bolted on, and that has lots of good stuff for the troops. It helps to sustain us through any tough things that we may see in the last several months of this year. Now, we are going to need a new supplemental. We all know that. The chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) talked about that and put a $50 billion wedge in the budget, acknowledging that fact; and we are going to have to come around at some point and have a new supplemental to get through 2005. It all depends on how far we can reasonably project. We think this $25 billion bolt-on that we are doing will do the right things for the troops. We have gone right down through the unfunded requirements list, things that our Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and our Air Force sent to us, things that they said we need, Congress, we do not have the money for them. And we went in and paid for those things so we can pull them out and deliver them to the troops in this supplemental we have bolted on. So this is a great bill. I want to commend the ranking member and all of the great members of the Armed Services Committee. We have great subcommittee chairmen who have worked some very tough issues; their ranking members have worked them hard, and we have brought this bill, in what is a contentious political season, we brought this bill out on a 60-0 vote. It was a 60-0 vote because we have common ground, and that common ground is the Armed Forces of the United States and their well-being. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness, the subcommittee which oversees the biggest increment of the defense budget, all operations, maintenance and military construction.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett), the chairman of our Subcommittee on Strategic Forces which oversees our nuclear component, space assets, and many critical aspects of national security. (Mr. EVERETT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado and the gentleman from Texas for their great work. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), who chairs the Subcommittee on Terrorism which oversees all of our special operators and who has spent a ton of his time this last year going to some very inconvenient places to make sure that our troops get what they need.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his hard work and his urging that we try to retrieve an additional 10 B-1 bombers. We now have 67. The Air Force was going to cut that down to 60. We moved it back up where we retrieved seven of the bombers that were going basically into the bone yard, and the gentleman worked hard with myself and other members of the committee to make sure we retrieved an additional 10 bombers. So we are taking the B-1 up to 77 bombers. That B-1 has been a great asset for the projection of power for the United States. It has got great speed, it can hold a tremendous payload, and it can literally put a precision munition right through a goalpost. In fact, we went after Saddam Hussein early on in the war in Iraq with the B-1 bomber. So the gentleman has been a champion of the B-1. I want to thank him for that, and I hope he is here with me when we roll out those additional 10 that we are bringing back from retirement.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. The gentleman concurs, as I think our common ground here is that we have permanently lifted this cap, with the lift starting in 2006. However, the housing program can continue under the current cap for the time being. And it is not a certain thing that we are definitely going to run out of money. I would just say to the gentleman that I would be happy to work with the gentleman and the Committee on the Budget to attempt to accommodate 2005 and make sure there is not a seam between 2005 and 2006.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. I want to talk about this bill that was put together in the Committee on Armed Services, which was voted out with a 60 to zero vote, put together and shaped by Democrats and Republicans. I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my partner on the committee, for all the great work that he has put into it, as well as the subcommittee chairmen, ranking members and all the folks who fill those seats in the Committee on Armed Services who really care about our troops. In keeping with that, this is the Year of the Troops. We have endeavored to focus on those troops, and in doing that, we have got this 3.5 percent pay raise across the board. We have not increased money for hazardous duty pay. We have increased money for separation pay for folks that are away from their families. And beyond that we try to give our troops the tools that they need to get the job done. The gentlewoman has mentioned armor, up-armoring of Humvees and trucks, and munitions and surveillance, in all the things that those folks need, those 135,000-plus folks in Iraq and thousands in the Afghanistan theater who are out there fighting right now, braving enemy fire, increasingly oppressive heat, difficult living conditions. And they are doing that for us. They are doing that all as volunteers, and it is our job to give them what they need to get the job done. That is what we do in this bill. And appended to all of the great things that we have done, and I really applaud the gentleman who just spoke on this rapid acquisition initiative for a battlefield commander. When he is taking casualties, he can say, I want a system and I want it now. And you either have a system within contract of 15 days or you explain to the people in the field or to the Congress why that is not possible. That is very important. Troops are important. And right now we have put into this bill an additional 10,000 Army troops each year for 3 years for a total of 30,000 troops. We have also put in an additional 3,000 Marines each year for a total of 9,000 additional Marines. And for everybody that hears from their Guard and Reserve and active forces, from the members of their family who say, you know, it looks like it is another Christmas that I will not be home, having more troops helps to alleviate that pressure because the more people you have, the less time an individual has to spend in theater, on duty, in rotation. So that takes a little bit of pressure off these troops. Additionally, I think we looked at this thing as a committee and said, having additional forces available that are not obligated in the field, that are available for deployment, are insurance for our country. And we decided as a matter of policy that we wanted to have more insurance. So we have those additional forces. Now, additional to the base bill this year, this $422 billion bill, we have got another thing, and that is this $25 billion authorization for a supplemental that we have bolted onto our bill. And we put that money in because we want to make sure we have plenty of money for operations in the closing months of this year, plenty of money for surveillance. We have lots of surveillance platforms in here. We want to be able to see the bad guys when they are putting out those IEDs or putting up ambushes or other things. And we want to leverage our technology to do that so we have that additional surveillance money. We have additional munitions money to put in so the troops have everything from the large rounds right down to M-16 ammunition, and we put in a lot of money for that. Additionally, we have given the money to the Chief of Staff of the Army, to General Schumacher, to reshape his forces. And I would commend any Member of the House, and all of our members of the Committee on Armed Services have seen this, to have a sit-down with General Schumacher and listen to his blueprint for reshaping our force. He feels, under his blueprint, he can increase the Army from 33 active brigades to an additional three this year, three more next year and four more the next year. And we are helping him do that by putting in this supplemental for equipment for this reset. I notice the ranking member had stood up to speak, and I just want to recognize him if he had anything to say. Then I know also the gentleman from South Carolina also had a position.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to just correct my friend because he may have missed it, but we did lift the housing cap for privatization of housing. That was done pursuant to the Miller amendment in the committee. So we did two things, both the survivor benefits and the housing cap.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is not a certain thing. So telling all the families that they absolutely will not have housing is not a certain thing at this point. I think the gentleman and I and others can work to make sure there is not a seam between 2005 and 2006.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I will tell the gentlewoman the entire world was told by this news release.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume just to reiterate the same thing that I have been stating, and that is that 2 days after the soldier in January reported to his superiors that abuses were taking place, the United States announced to the world in their press release that we were undertaking an investigation. And a few days after that, 4 days after the facts came forward, we announced to the combined audiences of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, millions of people, that the investigations were taking place. The investigations proceeded. We now have three individuals who are being recommended to the Court-Martial Convening Authority for court- martial for prisoner abuse, assault, dereliction of duty, and a large number of people in the chain of command have had their career ended, not because we found any connection between them and the acts, but because it was on their watch that these things took place. I want to say just one thing about Mr. Rumsfeld before I recognize another speaker, Mr. Speaker. We have 135,000 good, hard-working, courageous uniformed men and women in theater. They are in contact in firefights on a daily basis. The job of the Secretary of Defense is to see to it that we win this war. He assigned to the legitimate, appropriate departments this investigation and told them to go forward, which they did, resulting in the criminal prosecution machine being set in motion under our court-martial authority, and he went back to trying to win this war. That is the appropriate action for the Secretary of Defense. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), a great member of the 173rd Airborne in the Vietnam War.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield our remaining time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a former member of the Committee on Armed Services, who is a colonel in the Army Reserve and was in fact a JAG officer at our POW camps in Gulf War I.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. To address the distinguished majority whip, the distinguished majority whip, like the previous speaker, is wrong. The statement was put out by the Army on January 15 that this investigation was taking place, 2 days after the soldier came forward. And 3 days after the soldier came forward, it was given in General Kimmitt's address to the combined audiences of Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. That is not turning a blind eye. I will give the gentleman the notice. It was put out on January 14. He can look at it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my colleague that we have three of the people involved in this who have been bound over to the court-martial convening authority for general courts martial, that is, for criminal prosecutorial activity, and to say to my colleague again, who has told me many times about how much he respects our people in uniform, that our people in uniform themselves, starting with the private who reported this, have six investigations ongoing. And I think part of our job is not just to have oversight, but also to trust to the honor and integrity of the people who wear the uniform, and we now have six investigations going forward. So let us have this hearing tomorrow and see where we go from there, but my feeling is we have good, competent, honorable people undertaking these investigations. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), who cares so much about America's men and women in uniform.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend, you say some knew about this. The combined audiences of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN heard this in the daily briefing in January. So your statement that the administration turned a blind eye to it is not true. They initiated an investigation, once again initiated by General Sanchez, 3 days after the soldier came forward.