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OPENING
REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN DUNCAN HUNTER
Department of the Army FY 2005 Posture Hearing |
This morning
the committee will continue its review of the
Fiscal Year 2005 defense budget request, with
a look at the Department of the Army.
This year's
defense budget requests $98.5 billion for the
Department of the Army, $5.2 billion more than
the fiscal year 2004 peacetime budget.
Unlike similar
hearings in the past, today we don't have to
theorize about how the Army is doing or will
do in the field of battle. Today's Army has
been and continues to be on the front lines in
the war on terror.
As we speak,
Army forces are hunting down terrorists in
Afghanistan and Iraq, rebuilding these nations
from the devastating effects of decades of
tyrannical rule, while at the same undertaking
fundamental reforms in order to better defend
our interests well into this century.
While our
troops are deployed around the world, it's our
responsibility back home to give them all of
our support and every tool they need to
accomplish the mission. Since the attacks of
September, I believe it's fair to say that we
have all worked towards that end no matter our
politics or districts. This year must be no
different.
We can start
by, at minimum, fully funding the President's
budget request for the next fiscal year. That
does not necessarily mean accepting it as is
or without scrutiny. But we should agree that
no matter what debate follows as part of our
normal process, we must make sure that our
troops in the field fighting receive all the
resources they need to carry out their mission
as effectively and safely as possible. Funding
the President's requested defense budget
topline is an essential start point toward
that goal.
Doing that may
be difficult this year. There are some who
apparently believe that the threats to U.S.
national security are sufficiently contained
to allow us to begin cutting defense spending
again. That would be a mistake. Al Qaeda is
still out there. Ansar al-Islam is still out
there. Rogue states are still out there; and
as the daily news headlines confirm, some of
them continue to pursue weapons of mass
destruction.
It has been
said that eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty. Now is not the time to let down our
guard by shortchanging our troops on the
battlefield.
In that same
vein and beyond the budget debate, it is
equally important that Washington - both
Congress and the Pentagon - take every step
and exhaust every option in providing our
troops in the field with all available
technology and equipment options to carry out
their mission. As both of our witnesses know
from various discussions we've had, I am
deeply concerned that our military acquisition
system is too hidebound and obsessed with
archaic process that only gets in the way of
rapidly fielding simple equipment solutions
that can make the difference between soldiers
coming back home alive or in one piece.
You can be
assured that this committee will be making
these force protection issues a critical
priority for as long as we have our troops
deployed in harms way. I certainly hope we can
continue this productive dialogue in this area
and continue to work together to find ways to
push these critical capabilities into the
field and into the hands of soldiers as
rapidly as humanly possible. I assure you that
this committee and my colleagues stand ready
to do anything we can to assist you in this
regard.
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