WASHINGTON -- Army infantry units denied training for lack of funds.
Navy flying time restricted to pay for warship movements.
Marine pilots grounded to save the cost of fuel.
Defense-minded Republicans are set to tackle such indicators of an underfinanced and over-stretched military when they put their stamp on the nation's priorities next year.
The strengthening of military readiness -- the ability of U.S. forces to respond to any challenge -- has become the GOP's top defense priority as they prepare to take over Congress and oversight of the Pentagon.
Rep. Floyd D. Spence of South Carolina, the likely new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has warned that U.S. military units are now caught "in a downward readiness spiral that shows no prospect of easing in the foreseeable future."
Mr. Spence took issue this month with an assertion by John Deutch, the deputy defense secretary, that U.S. forces were currently "more ready and capable than they've ever been."
Mr. Spence, in a letter to Mr. Deutch, wrote: "If this indeed represents your judgment on the current state of U.S. military readiness, it sharply conflicts with the reality of the reduced readiness condition facing operational units across all services and commands."
To stop the perceived decline, Republicans are looking to freezing defense cuts, cutting U.S. peacekeeping operations, and stripping non-military spending, such as medical research, from the Pentagon's budget -- all to make more money available to combat forces.
The General Accounting Office estimated earlier this year that the Clinton administration's defense budget was underfinanced by as much as $150 billion over the next five years and accused the Defense Department of overstating savings and understating costs. The Pentagon questioned the GAO's methods of arriving at the figure.
Although it is widely presumed the advent of the Republicans brings good news to the Pentagon, a GOP veteran of defense legislation said: "There is going to have to be considerable tension because we are talking about billions of dollars. We are talking about a very badly costed and structured budget that cannot support the posture and strategy associated with it."
The central fear, inside and outside the Pentagon, is that U.S. forces could become "hollow," the description originally applied to their inability to perform their central mission during the late 1970s after the defense reduction by the Carter administration.
Pentagon officials acknowledge reduction in training schedules of some units, extension in length of deployments, and delays in maintenance schedules, but argue that the nation's military is still able -- and ready -- to fulfill its immediate missions.
In a letter earlier this month to Rep. Ronald V. Dellums, D-Calif., Defense Secretary William J. Perry said that the Pentagon had taken "aggressive measures" to minimize the threats to military readiness but admitted that "each of the services had to selectively cut back on readiness-related activities."
The basic reason, according to defense officials: the $1.7 billion fiscal 1994 cost of unforeseen overseas crises, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. These included the intervention in Haiti, the rapid deployment to Kuwait and the mission to Rwanda. They had to be paid out of the existing Pentagon budget at the expense of other programs, particularly training, which is key to overall readiness.
Congress has so far approved only $1.2 billion in supplemental funds to cover the extra costs of the contingency operations.
Mr. Perry has warned legislators that unless they approve the fiscal 1995 supplemental budget requests by March or April next year, U.S. force readiness could again be "at risk" as monies are sidetracked for emergency operations.
Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said: "Any readiness problems that face us are temporary and will be cured when Congress appropriates the money to pay for current operations. We have not gotten the money we need fast enough.
"The problem is not an acute problem. It is standard for funding shortfalls at the end of the year. This has been a year when the military forces have been challenged, and they have met those challenges in a number of very difficult geographic settings. A force that was unready would not have been able to perform this variety of demanding operations in such a short time."
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a Michigan-based military think tank, said: "We are still the best military in the world, but we are very quickly undermining that strength."
Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, a %o Washington-based research organization, said: "What is clear, on the basis at least of anecdotal evidence, is that very few units in our military today are going unscathed in the wake of this systematic, sustained diversion of resources, and inadequate funding of the military by this administration. It is simply untenable to continue to have the forces we do deploy be as unfit as they are."
Republicans point to these examples of readiness problems:
* The Army -- Three of the Army's 12 divisions are currently operating on a below-par readiness rating of C-3 on a Pentagon scale that sets C-1 as the optimum measure of a unit's ability to perform all its military missions.
A C-3 rating means that a unit is trained to undertake "many but not all wartime missions," undermining its operational flexibility and increasing its battlefield vulnerability.
It is the first time in more than a decade that so many U.S. troops have been so unprepared for battle, they say. Normally a division would not be allowed to drop below C-2 for any period of time.
Pentagon officials said they expected the three divisions to be back to full fighting form during the first quarter of next year. They pointed out that the divisions were designated as reinforcement forces, and were likely to be the last to be involved in any crisis. Although officials declined to identify the below-par divisions, the only three late deploying heavy reinforcement divisions are the 1st and 4th Infantry and the 2nd Armored.
Officials also confirmed that one of Army's six contingency divisions, slated to respond quickly to crises, was not fully
combat ready, and even "some" deployed divisions have reported readiness problems.
"The fact that some units are not C-1 does not mean the whole military force is unready," said Mr. Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman. "Demonstrably, our force is ready. It has been demonstrated time after time this year."
* The Navy -- The Atlantic Fleet needed 73 surface combatant ships in September to handle the crisis in Haiti and the exodus of Cuban boat people on top of its routine Caribbean responsibility. But only 61 vessels were available. To allow the available ships extra steaming hours, the flying time of Carrier Air Wing 17 was restricted aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Saratoga.
"There was a budget-fiscal problem last fiscal year when crises in Haiti, Cuba, and Bosnia required attention . . . when funds available for annual operations had largely been expended," said a statement from the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. "Since the Navy did not get supplemental funds for the operations at that time, adjustments had to be made, such as restricting flight operations."
The fleet statement to The Sun said it currently had enough ships -- 61 -- to meet its commitments, but added: "There is no excess capacity to meet increased requirements without making adjustments in one area to compensate for increases in another area, as we were forced to do in September."
* The Marines -- Flight hours for Marine pilots in 11 squadrons were curtailed in September because funds had been diverted to pay for operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti and Rwanda. Five of the squadrons were completely grounded for the month. The six others reduced flight training from a normal 300-600 hours to 50 hours. "Those squadrons affected did report lower readiness levels," said Chief Warrant Officer Robert Jenks, a Marine Corps spokesman, adding that training schedules had now returned to normal.
Marine Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. told Congress that the reallocation of budgeted funds for overseas missions had forced the corps to cancel major training operations, and said: "The fundamental truth is readiness is directly proportionate to funding."
To Mr. Spence, such examples "paint an increasingly dire readiness picture," and threaten "the beginnings of a long-term systemic degrading of the military's readiness." He blames the "lethal mix" of over-reliance on a shrinking military force combined with cuts in defense spending.