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Gear shortage could last years after Iraq war

The military is so short of equipment that it will take years after the war in Iraq ends to bring it up to authorized levels, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs told a House subcommittee Thursday.

“It will take end of war plus two years to work off the backlog,” Gen. Peter Pace told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “Without being able to give you a definite end of war [date], I can’t tell you exactly how long.”

He defined the end of war in Iraq as the “end of major combat operations.”

Pace said that 40 percent of Army and Marine Corps equipment is deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan or being repaired in depots, with the remainder spread out among the other forces.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the subcommittee, added that nearly all the prepositioned military equipment stored at locations around the world has been spent, save for one location.

“The vast majority of our Army units here at home are critically short of equipment and personnel,” Murtha said, adding this was leaving some stateside units “at the lowest readiness level.”

Pace acknowledged that figure and noted that the problem has been years in the making. For instance, the Army, he said, was $56 billion short of being fully equipped back in fiscal 2001, before the war began. “Then, you had four-plus years of war,” Pace said.

To remedy that, the Defense Department has asked for $46.4 billion for the Army’s “reset and reconstitution” needs this fiscal year and next, along with $10.2 billion for the Marine Corps during that same period, and $20 billion over fiscal years 2008-2013 to refit the National Guard and reserves.

Beyond equipment shortfalls, Murtha expressed concern about the overall state of the military in his opening statement. “I’m deeply concerned about the readiness of our forces to decisively defeat future threats,” he said. “While our Navy and Air Force can be used to project power, there’s no substitute for boots on the ground.”

The equipment shortage, Murtha said, “not only impacts our ability to respond to disasters at home, but also our ability to train our troops on equipment they’ll be using in combat. ... Our strategic reserve is severely depleted, and this is an alarming situation and one that needs urgent rectification.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the reset money — part of which includes funding for the initial phase of a boost in Army and Marine Corps end strength — along with a new policy that deploys reserve component forces as full units instead of as individuals, an end to the use of “stop-loss” policies, and the department’s planning objective of locking in time at home following deployments will help reverse the trend.

“I think that the proposals that you have in front of you and decisions that we have made make a good start at addressing the readiness,” Gates said.