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32–994 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 109–88]

THE ARMY’S M1114 UP-ARMOR HIGH MOBILITY MULTIPURPOSE WHEELED VEHICLE (UAH) DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

OCTOBER 20, 2005
(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

JIM RYUN, Kansas

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

JOE SCHWARZ, Michigan

CATHY MCMORRIS, Washington

MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

LANE EVANS, Illinois

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island

STEVE ISRAEL, New York

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

TIM RYAN, Ohio

MARK UDALL, Colorado

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, Georgia

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

ROBERT L. SIMMONS, Staff Director

JESSE TOLLESON, Program Analyst

ANDREW HUNTER, Professional Staff Member

PAUL ARCANGELI, Professional Staff Member

CURTIS FLOOD, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2005

Page

HEARING:

Thursday, October 20, 2005, The Army’s M1114 Up-Armor High Mobility

Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (UAH) Distribution Strategy .......................... 1

APPENDIX:

Thursday, October 20, 2005 .................................................................................... 35

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2005

THE ARMY’S M1114 UP-ARMOR HIGH MOBILITY MULTIPURPOSE

WHEELED VEHICLE (UAH) DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services ......................................................................................... 1

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................................... 3

WITNESSES

Cody, Gen. Richard A., Vice Chief of Staff, U.S. Army ........................................ 6

Harvey, Hon. Francis J., Secretary of the Army ................................................... 4

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Hunter, Hon. Duncan ....................................................................................... 39

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade-and-Below (FBCB2) ........................... 59

Information Paper, Providing Force Protection Capability to Iraq: 4th

Infantry Division Up Armored HMMWV (UAH) Flow to Iraq .................. 66

Slides presented by General Cody .................................................................. 47

Timeline for Vehicle Allocation in Theater .................................................... 52

U.S. Casualty Status ........................................................................................ 61

United States Marine Corps 90 Day Casualty Report .................................. 58

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Questions submitted.]

(1)

THE ARMY’S M1114 UP-ARMOR HIGH MOBILITY MULTIPURPOSE WHEELED VEHICLE (UAH) DISTRIBUTION

STRATEGY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Thursday, October 20, 2005.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9 a.m., in room 2118,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of

the committee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE

ON ARMED SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

This morning, the committee continues its ongoing review of Operation Iraqi Freedom and force protection issues. For the past two

years, we have had, as one of our highest priorities, the timely provision of adequately armored tactical vehicles to our men and

women in combat.

Today we will address a directly related issue having to do with

the Army’s distribution policy for new production, M1114 up-armored Humvees. The committee must fully understand the rationale behind the Army’s tactical vehicle distribution policy that calls

for the delivery, beginning in late July of this year, of new production up-armored Humvees to the fourth infantry division, currently

based in Fort Hood, Texas, while their exists an immediate need

for the vehicles in United States central command Theater of Operations, particularly in Iraq.

With us today to examine these issues are two distinguished

public servants representing the U.S. Army, the Honorable Francis

J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army, and General Richard A. Cody,

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Gentlemen, thanks for being with

us this morning. We thank you for your service to our country and

it is good to see you both again.

This committee established force protection, and specifically, the

adequacy of tactical-wheeled vehicle protection as a high priority

area of interest and concern. This marks another hearing in a continuing series of hearings and briefings the committee has held on

force protection issues.

At issue today is whether the best armor solution is being provided to the warfighters who are fully engaged against a very

adaptive enemy. Terrorists continue to employ roughly 30 daily

IEDs, or improvised explosive device attacks against our troops in

Iraq. Until we have a better solution, adding armor to our military
2

vehicles and expediting new armored vehicles to theater appears to

be our best course of action to protect our troops.

Our troops deserve nothing less than the best possible protection.

And they need to know that not only is the best equipment being

provided to them, but it is being done in a timely manner. And that

brings us to the focus of today’s hearing.

Why is a division that is still based here in the United States

and not scheduled to complete deployment to theater until after the

first of next calendar year receiving 824 new production up-armored Humvees while there remains an immediate need in theater

for these vehicles for both the Army and the Marine Corps? I understand the Marines have an up-armored Humvee requirement of

2,814, but only have 744 of these vehicles on-hand in Iraq, just

over 25 percent of the requirement. I also understand that the

Army has fulfilled its theater requirement for up-armored

Humvees, yet the third ID, the division taking most of the Army

casualties in Iraq, has less than 20 percent of this total requirement.

In addition, the Army is still operating with close to 1,800

Humvees that have only level III protection. It would appear that

there are immediate tactical vehicle armor needs that warrant a

more immediate response. Units in theater have indicated a need

for a level I armor solution. While we continue to emphasize parallel efforts for rapid development in fielding the systems to

counter IEDs and persistent surveillance solutions, we must maintain a high priority of fielding the up-armored Humvees to protect

our warfighters.

We need to better understand why the Army has a policy that

does not appear to be meeting the objective in the most timely possible manner.

So Secretary Harvey and General Cody, we look forward to hearing your assessment of the rationale behind the current M1114 uparmored Humvee distribution plan.

And what I would like to do is direct our witnesses in the committee to the Army plan. In fact, maybe we could move that chart

up here to where the witnesses can see it. I don’t know if you see

the Army, the Army plan that has got the arrows it is over to the

left of the room.

Basically what that shows is that we have had three traunches

of Humvees, of up-armored Humvees, which is considered to be the

gold standard for protection, troop protection. Turn it a little bit

this way so members can see it also.

You had, in July, some 75 M1114s moving not to Iraq, but to

Fort Hood. In August, 319 of the same up-armored Humvees moving not to Iraq but to Fort Hood, and in September, 430 Humvees

moving not to Iraq, but to Fort Hood. Now understanding that the

fourth ID is going to Iraq, we understand that at some point, those

vehicles are going to be married up with the personnel of the

fourth infantry division when they get to the theater after the first

of the year. Nonetheless, it appears that there is a fairly substantial delay for the first traunch, much more than the last traunch,

but a 5-month delay for the 75 Humvees going to Iraq.

There is approximately a 4-month delay for the second traunch

of 319 Humvees which are built, completed, manufactured, and
3

here in the States, and in September, 430 Humvees delivered not

to Iraq, but to Fort Hood. That is approximately a 3-month delay.

Now, understanding that at some point, those are going to be

married up with fourth ID troops, when the fourth ID is totally deployed to Iraq after the first of the year, the question that the committee has, gentlemen, is why couldn’t we be utilizing those up-armored Humvees, which are considered to be the gold standard in

protection for our troops, why couldn’t they be in theater now?

Now, I understand that the Army has stated that they need to

do C4ISR upgrades, so-called blue force tracking primarily and put

those systems in those up-armored Humvees. Our staff in being

briefed on this by the Army has been instructed that this takes

about one to two days to put a blue force tracking system in place.

That doesn’t explain, gentlemen, or take a big piece of these four—

three-, four- and five-month delays of these fairly significant numbers of up-armored Humvees going to troops who don’t have them

in theater, and are having to use level II and level III armor on

a daily basis.

So gentlemen, thank you for being with us. We think this is an

important issue. And I am concerned that this is going to become

a—that this holding armor back and moving it into theater with

forces is going to end up becoming the standard method of delivering armor and troops to theater.

So we look forward to your testimony today. And before we do

that, let me turn to my partner on the committee, the very distinguished gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he

would like to make.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be found in the Appendix on page 39.]

STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. SKELTON. Senator Harvey, General Cody, welcome. We

thank you for being with us. This is a very important hearing. And

Mr. Chairman, let me commend you for calling this hearing. I

agree with you that no issue is more important to our committee

than ensuring our soldiers in Iraq have all the force protection

equipment that they need, and I share your concern about the

Army’s distribution strategy on this issue.

Although I understand the Army’s desire to have the 4th infantry division trained on the equipment they will be fighting, I am

troubled by the decision to detour the M1114 up-armored Humvees

to Texas instead of sending them to Iraq as soon as possible. I look

forward to hearing the Army’s explanation for this decision. Even

more importantly, however, I look forward to hearing how the

Army plans to get the highest quality armored vehicles to our

troops as fast as possible in the future.

Today in Iraq, 95 percent of all vehicles have either level I armor

straight from the factory, or level II armor kits. Although our level

II armor kits seem to be working and are providing good protection, they have been put on Humvees that weren’t built to that

their weight. These vehicles are wearing down rapidly. And I believe the Army should commit now to replace high mileage level II
4

Humvees in Iraq with new up-armored vehicles thus requiring continuing production in a high rate and perhaps even increasing production of up-armored Humvees for at least the next year, or

maybe longer.

We have seen several times in last two years where the Army

has allowed up-armored Humvee production and armored kit production slow down when it appeared their requirements were being

close to being met. Let’s not make that mistake again. I am encouraged that the Army is moving toward a new version of the up-armored Humvee called the M–1151, whose design the Government

will own. The Army will be able to produce M–1151s faster than

they have been able to do so with the M1114 by diversifying suppliers.

Now as I stated at our last hearing, gentlemen, on armored vehicles, I also believe we need to think about now about getting beyond the Humvee to tactical vehicles designed for the kind of fights

we are currently engaged in. I understand that next year the Army

will host a demonstration day for industry to show what kind of

tactical wheeled vehicles they can produce with today’s technology.

Vehicles that are designed for light combat from the ground up

with V shaped hulls, and integrated armor will protect our soldiers,

I think, even better. I urge the Army to continue with its plan for

an industry demonstration date. I hope you will notify Congress of

that when it comes to pass.

I know that the Army leadership is dedicated to its soldiers and

wants to protect them. We here on this committee are no less committed to this effort as evidenced by the hearings and the questions

we put to previous witnesses before today.

We can only help when we are informed of Army decisions in

time. My view on this issue such as today’s is where we have expressed great interest over and over again. Early communication—

I will repeat that again—early communication with us is a mandate. It is not just a mere courtesy. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

Again, gentlemen, thank you for being with us this morning to

talk about this important issue. Secretary Harvey, the floor is

yours sir.

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS J. HARVEY, SECRETARY OF

THE ARMY

Secretary HARVEY. Chairman Hunter, Congressman Skelton and

members of the committee, General Cody and I are here today to

discuss the Army’s efforts to provide the Marines with M1114 uparmored Humvees.

The CHAIRMAN. Secretary Harvey, without objection, your total

written statement will be taken into the record as will General

Cody’s, so feel free to depart from it if you want to and the written

statement will be in the record.

Secretary HARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said, we are

here today to discuss the Army’ efforts to provide the Marines with

M1114 up-armored Humvees while simultaneously upgrading the

Army’s 4th infantry division M1114s with communication equipment that significantly improves soldiers’ situational awareness,

combat effectiveness and fratricide prevention.
5

In a classified letter to you, Mr. Chairman, dated September 22,

General Cody explained the joint Army, Marine Corps plans for

M1114 production and allocation to meet the immediate needs of

both services.

While I am limited in the details, I can provide in this unclassified forum, the plan agreed upon in July of 2005 allows the Marine

Corps to meet its M1114 requirements in April 2006, and the Army

to meet its M1114 requirements 16 months later in July of 2007.

Under this joint Army-Marine Corps agreement, the 824 up-armored Humvees allocated to the Army would first be sent to Fort

Hood to install the 4th infantry division’s version of the battle command system in the vehicles prior to deployment.

The installation of this equipment at Fort Hood was deemed to

be a much more efficient and effective way of adding this critical

situational awareness combat effectiveness and fratricide prevention technology.

More specifically, the hardware systems knowledge, and technical expertise are all located at Fort Hood.

Doing this upgrade at home station takes about 14 days versus

an estimated 60 days it would take to do the work in Kuwait. That

14 days is effective, is efficient, and well worth the time it takes

to give our soldiers the best equipment available.

Furthermore, doing the work at Fort Hood enhances training by

allowing soldiers in units to work with the equipment prior to deployment while ample training and technical support is available.

Once units arrive in theater, they can immediately begin training

in Kuwait rather than devote critical time to installing the battle

command system.

The Army did not act in a vacuum. Three star representatives

from the Army, Marine Corps and joint staff approved this plan of

action in July of 2005. And this plan was further coordinated and

approved by commanders in the field. The services revised the

overall allocation to accelerate delivery of up-armored Humvees to

the Marine Corps at the same time as well.

Work on equipping the Army’s 824 up-armored Humvees is already far along, and we are ahead of scheduled as described in the

same classified letter to you, Mr. Chairman. All 824 have been delivered to Fort Hood. Work has been completed on the majority of

vehicles and more than half have already been shipped to Kuwait.

The remainder will depart for Kuwait by November 1st.

In closing, let me reiterate, there is nothing more important than

protecting the service men and women we send daily into harm’s

way.

The Army is totally committed to providing the highest level of

protection to include fielding a fleet of level I Humvees in theater,

and we have made these decisions in full coordination with the Marine Corps and the joint staff.

Thank you. Before we answer your questions, General Cody will

make a few remarks.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Go right ahead, General.
6

STATEMENT OF GEN. RICHARD A. CODY, VICE CHIEF OF

STAFF, U.S. ARMY

General CODY. Thank you, Chairman Hunter, Congressman

Skelton, members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity

to speak to you and provide you an update of our progress of equipment to protect our soldiers. On behalf of our Army Chief of Staff,

who is traveling right now in Europe Pete Schoomaker, and the

612,000 soldiers we have on active duty today, active guard reserve

in over 120 countries, of which 150,000 are serving in harm’s way

in Afghanistan and Iraq, let me offer a sincere thank you to this

committee for your commitment in investing to the welfare of our

men and women in uniform.

Our soldiers know and appreciate the support of this committee

to provide them the mission of essential equipment they need to

prosecute and win this Global War on Terror.

In 2003, as we transitioned from a conventional combat force to

reconstruction security operation in irregular warfare, we knew we

faced substantial requirements to acquire a variety of equipment to

ensure the safety and effectiveness of our soldiers not just the uparmored Humvees. And as we managed the 17 brigade combat

team force in Iraq and Afghanistan for Operation Iraqi Freedom

(OIF) 1, OIF 2, OIF 3, and now the fourth rotation as well as seven

National Guard brigades that we had to fully equip with front line

equipment, the Army has been in a rapid fielding, equipping and

managing assets of organizational equipment in combat with the

priority there first and then back here for the next uptrained units.

Because of these resource challenges that we experienced in our

investment accounts during the 1990’s not every unit was equipped

to the necessary level. We are now rapidly closing that gap and

must bear in mind the need to stay ready for future commitments

by continuing to invest in the modernization of our Army. Our soldiers deserve no less, and I know this committee is committed to

it.

I just recapped on this chart up here to my right what this committee has enabled us to do, and what we have done for our soldiers to put it in context. We know the story of the soldiers’ body

armor. From the base line of September of 2003. We now have over

520,000 sets as well as the deltoid protectors.

We know where we were with the IED jammers when this war

started, and we now have over 21,000 IED jammers down range

and more to follow. And there is not a single jammer back here in

the States. We are pushing them all forward, which is an interesting point because right now we are getting some criticism and

some discussion about why don’t you keep some jammers back here

in the states to train with because of the complexity of it, and we

have made this commitment to send every one of them downrange

to do that because we are short jammers.

Likewise, we had no tactical or small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

(UAVs) in theater in September of 2003. We now have over 155.

We have had to buy back the aircraft survivability equipment for

our aircraft, and we are doing that as well as buy back our ammo

production so that we could not only fight this war, but train our

soldiers on each one of those rotations we talked about so we can
7

get ready for the next war, and then, of course, the commitment

in this committee and Army to buy all the shortages of radios.

So it is about humvees, but it is about a bunch of other ready

equipment that we had to buy back. And we appreciate the support

of this committee. And I look forward to discussing in detail the

charts that you passed out, chairman, that is labeled the Army

plan, because quite frankly, that is not the Army plan. And we

thank you for your support.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, I thank you, General Cody.

General Cody and Mr. Secretary, what you have labeled the

Army plan is precisely what we were informed from the Army were

the delivery schedules of the Humvees, and let’s walk that down.

If we are wrong, I want you to show us.

General CODY. Okay.

The CHAIRMAN. The 75 Humvees were delivered to Fort Hood in

July; is that accurate?

General CODY. What I have—and I just came from Fort Hood,

and I believe—throw the chart up of flow of up-armored Humvees

to Fort Hood. What I have here is a copy of the fourth infantry division of every Humvee that came in and when it came in and for

what unit. So side by side, I think if you aggregate what you have

there on the left on your slide, those numbers may be close. What

I disagree with, and I think is not accurately portrayed, is the arrows that say 5-month delays. If you take a look at the first two

units——

The CHAIRMAN. But let’s walk through this first, General Cody.

We will do it piece by piece and we will give you an opportunity

to disagree with that delay. I want to go to the arrival dates first

because that is the key date.So in the aggregate, 75 Humvees did

arrive, up-armored Humvees did arrive in July at Fort Hood.

General CODY. I am showing 35, for the support troops and for

the division headquarters.

The CHAIRMAN. When did the others come in?

General CODY. We had 14 in 22 August, 36 by 22 August and

then the largest traunch came in 22 September, 157 for the second

brigade combat team, 83 on 26 September for aviation brigade, 157

on 9 October for the third brigade, the fires brigade got 42 on 10

October. The fourth brigade got 157 in 11 October. And then the

last brigade, which is first brigade, which is the last one deployed,

got another 157 on 18 October. And then across the line, you will

see that those numbers I just read, those that arrived on the end

of July were shipped 10 August.

They went through the Central Technical Support Facility

(CTSF), had the stuff put on, and that was the command and control vehicles and the forward, what we called the advanced party

of the division headquarters that is in Kuwait now moving towards—and some were in Iraq doing the battle handover.

The CHAIRMAN. How many of those——

General CODY. 35 shipped in 10 August, first 35.

The CHAIRMAN. So how many Humvees are in Kuwait out of

those 824?

General CODY. I think over 400 right now. Over 400, and the last

157 will be shipped November 1st.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, so——
8

General CODY. I guess what I am telling you is those arrows may

be—the months may be okay, in the aggregate it doesn’t project the

true picture of how they flowed in because they didn’t all flow in

in September. Four hundred and thirty didn’t flow in in September,

319 didn’t flow in August. These things were echeloned in based

upon the production rate and based upon what they needed and

how—what the throughput was through the CTSF at Fort Hood,

and then they were quickly given to the unit, tested, and then put

on boats at Beaumont and shipped. And it was based upon the——

The CHAIRMAN. General Cody, we did do these three arrows in

the aggregate.

Now you may have traunches of 5 and 10 and 15 and 20 vehicles.

But if you didn’t have—75 vehicles did not arrive in July, I want

to know how many vehicles did arrive in July? Because we got

these numbers from the Army.

General CODY. Thirty-five vehicles which arrived at Fort Hood on

28 July.

The CHAIRMAN. I have got your distribution picture right here.

General CODY. This is from the fourth infantry Marine——

The CHAIRMAN. I am reading this picture to you as of 24 August.

This is what your people sent over to us. It says in August, 319

Humvees.

General CODY. That is a production chart. That was not what arrived. This is what the division command received on the ground

at Fort Hood.

The CHAIRMAN. So these were—so this was labeled the level I

Humvee Distribution Plan. It said that as of—in August, you had

319 Humvees produced for distribution.

It said in July, and I will send it down to you, you had 75, and

in September you had 430.

Now, this is against—so you did—so the numbers that we have

taken have been taken off the distribution sheet that you folks,

your shop, delivered to us. And it says, as of 24 August, 2005. So

you may——

General CODY. If you read that chart, it will tell you the fourth

ID C4ISR requirement 75 in July. What was delivered in July was

35. And this is a distribution plan based upon the requirement.

And you can see that those are large numbers. That is not how

they flowed.

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Have all of the Humvees now been delivered?

General CODY. Yes. They are all at Fort Hood and most of them

are downrange and we have got 432 have been shipped, and the

rest are flowing through the CTSF to boats to marry up with the

transfer of authority time of each one of those brigades and battalions with the third infantry division.

The CHAIRMAN. But they are not going to the third infantry division. They are going to Kuwait.

General CODY. They are going to Kuwait.

The CHAIRMAN. Now the ones that are in Kuwait——

General CODY. Third infantry division is being replaced by the

fourth infantry division.

The CHAIRMAN. We understand. So the point is they are not

going to third infantry division, and the committee is concerned by
9

the fact they are not going to the third infantry division because

you have soldiers in the third infantry division who are going out

every day on operations, and they don’t all have what is considered

to be the gold standard in armor, which is the M1114.

Now, the ones that are in Kuwait, as I understand—in fact, our

staff, the reason we even knew about this plan, and because this

wasn’t briefed to us, even though we have had numerous armor

briefings with you, the reason we know about it is because we had

a staff member who was down and members of our professional

HASC staff who were in Fort Hood and noticed up-armored

Humvees in Fort Hood.

Now our understanding was that the lives of our people in Iraq

were the most precious things that we have. And we have literally

gone around to the Areas of Operation (AOs) around the world

where we have up-armored Humvees, including Korea, and taking

every single vehicle that is available and moved it to the ongoing

operations in Iraq with the idea that when troops got there, they

would marry up with the vehicles.

This is a departure. So whether you say that the arrows that

show that you had 75 vehicles coming in in July, you had 319 in

August and you had 430 in September, they must have come in at

some point in there if they are all here now.

General CODY. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. And my point is, even if they only came in now,

and you don’t come into the end of the warfighting theater until

after the first of 2006, you have, by all accounts, at least two or

three months of completed production up-armored Humvees that

could be operated right now.

Now, the second point I would make is this: We asked our professional staff to contact the Army and find out how long it took to

put the C4ISR upgrades in. The response that we got back was one

to two days.

Now, Secretary Harvey has just told me it is 14 days and people

are worried that if we get it anyplace else, we could go to 60 days?

Secretary HARVEY. Correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Even if you take 14 days, you have a lengthy

delay between troops in theater, whether they are third ID, fourth

ID, or some other unit—or even another service—operating those

Humvees. The ones that are going over to be married up with the

bulk of your troops are going to be parked in parking lots in Kuwait until your troops arrive. Is that not accurate?

General CODY. Mr. Chairman, if I could respectfully say a few

things here because these, the way you present it is not accurate.

And if our people told you one to two days, that is talking about

blue force tracking, which is not Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade-and-Below (FBCB2), Enhanced Position Location and Reporting System (EPLRS) based system that the fourth infantry division

has, which is much more complex, and is a ground-based system

that has its own network, very similar to what we have—extremely

similar to what we have on the Stryker brigade. Blue force tracking

units that we put in for everybody is a satellite-based piece of

equipment that is not FBCB2 total. It is an SA, situational awareness thing, and that only does take two or three days. But when

you talk about the EPLRS-based fourth infantry division striker
10

brigade and first Cavalry (CAV) division, it is an entirely different

system, and what we have had to do is make them talk to each

other.

So two days, if you ask somebody about blue force tracking, is

probably accurate. When you talk about this system, it is 14 days.

The second piece, if I could, if I could show you the two courses

of actions that the three stars, not just at the Pentagon, but the

three stars downrange, the commanding generals of the troops in

the field, were faced with, as we looked at the fourth infantry division, and then, we can have the discussion about whether the decision to go with one course of action or the other was right or not.

And I think that may help us through this discussion.

The CHAIRMAN. Well go right ahead. Do you want to make a further presentation?

General CODY. Yes, sir. And I think I gave you these slides.

Course of action, one that they looked at was to install the systems

in Kuwait. In other words, keep the—take the bare up-armored

Humvees, take them out of Cincinnati, bring them down to

Charleston, ship them over to Kuwait. At the same time, take the

EPLRS-based systems that are on nonarmored Humvees that the

fourth ID had back at home station—and they only had about 40

percent of their equipment of tactical vehicles—take them off. Pack

them up. Put them in Connexes and ship that equipment to marry

up with the Humvees in Kuwait.

And to do that, we would have had to take almost all of them

and put them over there at the same time that they had mission

rehearsal exercises at the National Training Center. And so we

were trying to balance, and moral obligation we had to keep these

troops trained and ready and equipped at the same time.

So then, under this course of action, the EPLRS-based, blue

FBCB2 equipment would then be broken out of the Connexes, married up with the Humvees as they came in. We would have to

recreate the CTSF workforce we had at Fort Hood that supports

the rest of the Army, as well as the Stryker brigades, put that at

Kuwait, divert some of the workers we had working building 200

up-armored Humvees to level I and IIs that we have in Kuwait

that is producing every month, divert that workforce to do this

work, and it was going to take two months. And the flow of the brigades into Iraq would have extended and we would have missed

the Transfer of Authority (TOA).

And so when we showed this plan and we had an Multi-National

Corps-Iraq (MNC–I) commander and the staffs of the third infantry

division and all the people that looked at this. They said, during

this time frame in December—because remember, you said January 2006, a lot of this stuff is moving prior to that and some of the

brigades and units are towing in December. During this time

frame, we can’t afford that operational slip. We said okay.

Then we came up with the second course of action, the one that

you have talked about. This course of action was to take those

Humvees, move them down to Fort Hood, run them through the

CTSF and then flow them in to marry up at the same time that

the troops are moving for Reception, Staging, Onward-Movement

and Integration (RSOI) and move them through Kuwait and into

theater.
11

When we presented that plan, it saved us about 2 to 3 weeks.

It allowed us not to take all the EPLRS-based equipment away

from the fourth infantry division’s units that were training and allowed it to flow and meet the TOA dates. And that was the course

of action that the commanders in the field, and my three stars and

the Marines signed up to.

And when they brought it to me, I asked these questions. And

we meet every Saturday, as you know, with about 30 generals all

downrange. And we had this conversation. And I asked them, are

you short any up-armored Humvees? Will this affect any operational requirements? The answer was no.

You have an edict out that no vehicles leave the FOB unless they

are up-armored. Will this cause any problems? The answer was no.

Will this affect the TOA and give you the operational flexibility

that you want? And the answer was yes.

And the reason why the commander in the field wanted this is

because this unit is going into Baghdad. And the FECB2 equipped

EPLRS-based Humvee that we are now fighting as a combat vehicle gives it situational awareness and situational understanding so

that you don’t have the 507 maintenance platoon problem where

they take a left turn in Baghdad and get lost. More importantly,

everybody knows where they are.

The commander of the division feels so strongly about it, he has

further put it that no up-armored Humvee, EPLRS, FBCB2

equipped will leave the Forward Operating Base (FOB) unless all

that equipment is operational. So it is not just the armor that he

is putting this edict on. It is the situational awareness in the command and control.

So these were the two courses of action. We liked neither of

them. We liked neither of them. But this is what we were faced

with because as you know, we had to strip out the fourth infantry

division’s vehicles when they left Iraq, as well the 101st, and cascade about 3,600 vehicles to the National Guard, leave it in country, and bring those units back, short well over 3,000 vehicles, and

they were the next up to go into combat. And this is what we had

to manage the entire time. And so this is why we picked this

course of action.

The CHAIRMAN. First, General Cody, if you asked the commanders if they had all the up-armored Humvees they needed and they

said yes, they obviously weren’t referring to M1114s because all the

vehicles aren’t M1114s. You also have level IIs and level IIIs as

you know.

Secretary HARVEY. Level IIIs are not being let out of Fort Hood.

The CHAIRMAN. That is true, but you have level IIs that are operational. So they are not all M1114s. And the point is that even if

you took 14 days to upgrade these systems—and I think we should

look at that pretty carefully—having a traunch of vehicles that are

available coming off the assembly line in July for an operation that

is not going to involve a troop deployment in the main, into the

theater, until at the first of the next year, having 319 in August,

having 430 in September, is a great deal of time for up-armored

Humvees, which can be the difference between life and death for

our troops, whether they are in the 3rd ID or the 4th ID. Let me
12

complete here, General Cody. I will let you discuss this at some

length.

The one thing I don’t like about either of these plans is, I

thought that our plan and our agreement with the Armed Services

and all of them and the Secretary of Defense and you, was that

every single M1114 in the world, would be made able into theater

as soon as possible, and that it would not leave theater and it

would be married up with the next force that came in. And I would

presume that when you leave, the M1114s even though they have

got the blue force tracking and the other C4ISR are going to be left

for other units in Iraq; Is that right?

General CODY. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not going to take them back so they are

not absolutely——

General CODY. Plus they are being replaced by first CAV division

that has the same system.

The CHAIRMAN. But even if you had, if you don’t have the first

CAV there, and I presume if you had people that were taking lots

of heat in one of the AOs in Iraq, you would move your—you have

up-armored Humvees for that unit. My point is you have had

many, many months with a fairly large number of Humvees at a

time when our guys are taking about 30 IEDs—this is a departure

from the way we have done this in the past.

And this committee didn’t even know about it until we had somebody down there at Fort Hood, and they see these in the parking

lot. If you assume—I assume that all the Humvees you have got

there now do have the C4ISR equipment, they do have the blue

force tracker.

General, unless—except for a very few that are up in the AO,

they are parked in Kuwait. They are parked. They aren’t shedding

IED fragment up in Baghdad for other people that are there that

don’t have as good an armor. So if you want to argue that you have

got to get these things upgraded before they are good to go and

bring into the theater, then let’s not have them in a parking lot in

Kuwait. Let’s move them up into Baghdad. Let me finish. And I

will let you respond. Why not move them up into Baghdad and let

the 3rd ID or others that are taking a lot of hits with IEDs use

them or maybe move them over to the Marines who are taking

roughly 50 percent of the casualties and have roughly six or seven

percent of the up-armored Humvees in theater. Why not use those

Humvees, get them out of the parking lots and get them up there?

General CODY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First off, when you

say that these Humvees, by not being in Iraq today, are causing

soldiers to be ripped up by IEDs is a false statement.

Because we are not letting non-up-armored Humvees leave the

FOB. So every soldier that goes out——

The CHAIRMAN. General Cody, that was not my statement. My

statement was it is the gold standard in armor—and it does shed,

according to your own testimony—it sheds this stuff better than

the Level II or the level III, you still have level II in operation. And

if you had all up-armored Humvees, you would take them right

now, right.

General CODY. We would.

The CHAIRMAN. Then why not use them?
13

General CODY. Because when we looked at this plan, again in

Kuwait, we are building Humvees in the workforce and everybody

is working pretty hard at it. Had we been presented this a year

ago, we wouldn’t have done this. We would have had to do something else. But because we are over 105 percent of the up-armored

production that were in theater and because of the number of level

of up-armored Humvees that we had, level II, as well as the production that we had increased in Kuwait that we did not want to

disrupt, and it wasn’t us that didn’t want to disrupt it. It was the

commanders in the field that said don’t disrupt that flow that we

have got, fix the fourth ID this way, we will be okay, and it is the

best way to do this. And so that is why we went into that.

Secretary HARVEY. Mr. Chairman, if I could, can I interject something?

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely, go right ahead.

Secretary HARVEY. Let’s look at the two alternate courses of action a little bit differently. If we would have taken the 824

Humvees and immediately put them into theater, as you suggested,

and given them to the third ID, that would have accomplished a

near-term objective. And let me just say parenthetically that level

II protection is a very high level of protection, as you know. It is

not like they don’t have protection. However, then we come in with

the fourth ID. The third ID is gone.

We would have had to take those 824, put them in a forward operating base for six months in order to install the communication

equipment, and therefore, we would have then put the fourth ID

at some risk. So, we didn’t have a perfect solution, but a solution

that minimized the time that soldiers were in level II.

And so, the decision that General Cody talked about, I think,

minimizes the time that soldiers will not be in level I. And again,

as you know, and we have talked about this in the past, armor is

one component of force protection. This communication system enhances force protection by at least ten-fold because of the situational awareness that is imparted, particularly in your urban surroundings. So I think this approach provides the maximum protection to the soldiers over the long-term when you take the third and

fourth together.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Secretary, are all the 824 now upgraded?

Secretary HARVEY. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Then why aren’t they in theater? Not in Kuwait,

not in Fort Hood. If having the upgrades is the key for that and

that is your basic reason for having this delay, then why not just

move them into theater right now? They are upgraded.

Secretary HARVEY. They are being moved to theater. About half

of them are in Kuwait and the other half——

The CHAIRMAN. I am not talking about Kuwait. I am talking

about in the theater.

Secretary HARVEY. I guess we could do that, but then, the

TOWA, as you know, we can’t discuss in detail, is starting in December.

And so the soldiers that start flowing in on the fourth are going

to receive these things. Again, doing it in Kuwait is——

The CHAIRMAN. I am not talking about doing it in Kuwait. I am

talking about the fact that they are upgraded now——
14

General CODY. We could give those to the 3rd infantry division,

but when we look at this, it takes two weeks to train those soldiers

because it is EPLRS-based. It is like mixing a Commodore 128

computer with an Apple. And so we have to train those troops on

all the message tracking because EPLRS, FBCB2 is different.

We don’t like this, but this is what we had 5 years ago in the

Army battle command system. And it is going to take us a while

to fix this whole thing. And that is why the FCS spirals are so important to get this right.

Third ID soldiers are not trained on it. We offered that solution.

And we said we would send them up there, but the commander

didn’t have time to pull his people off of his other vehicles that they

are trained on and train them on these while they are in the fight.

The CHAIRMAN. Again, the last point here if the third ID—you

are talking about training third ID soldiers, and it is the difference

between having a level II, and having a M1114, if they don’t use

the C4ISR equipment, it certainly doesn’t prejudice them to drive

a vehicle in an operation without using that equipment, because

they don’t have it right now any way on the level II vehicles.

Secretary HARVEY. Mr. Chairman, we can take a look into that.

We can talk to the commanders and as you say, don’t activate,

the—don’t activate the FBCB2. Give them to the third ID. And

that is a decision, certainly that we can offer to the commanders

to see if they want to do that in the meantime, before the so-called,

transfer of authority.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.

Mr. SKELTON. The chart that you showed us that says equipping

our soldiers——

General CODY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SKELTON. Is that a true and accurate representation of the

fact as you understand them?

General CODY. They are rounded up numbers, Congressman

Skelton, random order of magnitude showing from——

Mr. SKELTON. Are they accurate, to the best of your ability?

General CODY. This one right here?

Mr. SKELTON. Yes. Are there any inaccuracies?

General CODY. They are pretty accurate, yes, sir.

Mr. SKELTON. In looking at the September, 2003 list, all the way

from soldier body armor, where roughly 10 percent of our soldiers

were equipped, only 500 Humvees, up-armored Humvees, they are

already down to radio production, it appears to me harking back

to my Boy Scout days, where I lived and learned that the motto

was to be prepared, that you were not prepared to enter and perform the required duties on September, 2003, to fully protect our

soldiers, as compared to what you have now, and as I go all the

way down the list from soldier body armor all the way down

through radio production.

Either you were unprepared, or there is another explanation for

the great discrepancy. Would somebody please tell me whether you

were unprepared or whether there is some other explanation for

this chart?

General CODY. Well, I testified before this committee in 1999,

after Task Force Hawk. In that testimony, I believe I said that the

services had investment accounts that were $5 billion short of their
15

requirements. In that case, we were discussing the aircraft survivability equipment, as you know, Mr. Chairman.

Those moneys never came, and we are putting them in now. That was for Infra-Red (IR) countermeasures and EPLRS and stuff like

that. I don’t know the full history. I guess I could go back and

study the history.

I do know that when we started this war, we sent spent—and as

I know, I have testified before this committee—we spent $3.2 billion meeting the CENTCOM required task for the bridging equipment, the radio equipment, the C4ISR equipment that they wanted

for the Fifth and Third Divisions, the radio requirements, and, yes,

the upgraded small arms protective inserts (SAPI) that we couldn’t

build fast enough, as you know, until we got the six vendors. So

you can go across all of our different equipment. We were an equipment-short Army when we entered this war, yes.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Secretary, you made a reference to the new

HMMWVs having situational awareness. I think General Cody

touched upon that. Would you again explain that for us, either one

of you, please?

Secretary HARVEY. You mean the HMMWVs that have the

EPLRS?

Mr. SKELTON. Whatever you mean by situational awareness,

please.

Secretary HARVEY. The situational awareness means that, in the

HMMWV, the soldiers have a display in front of them, which shows

where they are in their position, just like you have on your car

navigation. It shows where all their fellow soldiers are, and where

all the other HMMWVs are, as well as the Bradleys, as well as the

M1s, if that is the formation.

General CODY. And the enemy.

Secretary HARVEY. And the enemy. So you have situational

awareness, which means you know where you are on the battlefield

or in the town or in the city, and you know where your fellow soldiers are. That situational awareness gives you tremendous ability

in the area of force protection, in combat effectiveness and fracture

site prevention.

Mr. SKELTON. And the new HMMWVs would have that.

Secretary HARVEY. These 824 HMMWVs, which are part of the

Fourth ID, would have that.

Mr. SKELTON. One last question. How much longer can we expect

to use the HMMWVs in Iraq, today carrying the level II armor kits

that were not designed for them?

Secretary HARVEY. As I said in my opening statement, for the

Marines, they will have all level I by April of next year—and let

me also say in the Marines, level II kits, they provide a very high

level of protection. Then the Army will be fully—fully level I in

July of 2007, but prior to that, we will have enough HMMWVs so

that from—a level I HMMWV so that, from a operational point of

view, the commanders will be able to send soldiers only out in level

I prior to that.

General CODY. Sir, if I could follow on. As you know, we are recapping about 900 HMMWVs back here in the States. We are upgrading the engines. I think this gets to your question, upgrading

the engines and the chassis. The decision to move to the M1151s
16

and the M1152s will allow us the flexibility to go up-armored and

carry that load. That is what we are moving to.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Hefley.

Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen,

help me understand, it has been noted that the fourth ID needed

to equip their M1114 HMMWVs with the C4ISR upgrades prior to

arriving in the theater, the Striker brigades and the First Cav are

equipped with similar C4ISR capabilities and technology. What did

these units do to prepare their vehicles for deployment, and did all

of their vehicles have these C4ISR technologies, or did they simply

make do in theater with what they had?

General CODY. Which unit are you talking about, the Stryker

Brigade, sir?

Mr. HEFLEY. Well, the M1114 HMMWVs, yes.

General CODY. Well, first off, we have done this—I want to make

sure it is clear. When the Fourth Infantry Division came home,

they left in round numbers well over 1,600 of their vehicles in

country. So they were short back here for a year. We had to issue

and swap around brigade sets of equipment so they could put their

EPLRS on these systems and train with them.

Unlike the Stryker Brigades, which we have not done that to,

and they are full up—so we didn’t have that swapping of gear. We

left—the Stryker was a different story, so it is a different paradigm

that we had to deal with.

The fourth Infantry Division, all four of their brigades, had just

enough of the C4ISR blue force, not blue force tracking but FBCB2,

to do their training, but they weren’t full up. In fact, the division—

I can give you in a classified setting, for the whole year, was certainly not C1, because of the shortage of equipment.

So that goes back to the discussion of how we were able to train

them, each one of their brigades, with the barest amount of equipment, and barest amount of HMMWVs that were not up-armored,

and then make the decision of whether to ship all that stuff and

then marry it up, those two courses of action that I showed you.

That is why we picked the course of action that we picked. So

we are trying to balance our training requirements, Congressman

Hefley, as well as the right way to balance what we were shipping

into country.

Mr. HEFLEY. To follow on, typically as you have indicated, sir,

units leave behind their equipment for successor units. If the

fourth ID is replacing the third ID, which uses a different type of

C4ISR technology, can it be assumed that the third IDs equipment

will not be used at all by the fourth ID. If not, then what will happen to the third ID’s vehicles when they leave Iraq?

General CODY. That is a great question, Congressman. That was

part of the—why the theater commanders made the decision. They

want to take those vehicles and cascade them and thicken up the

other units with them. That is what they are do going to do with

them.

Secretary HARVEY. If they are level I.
17

General CODY. If they are level I, they will fill up and increase

the percentages again, and that was what was attractive to them

as they looked at this.

Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks for having both of you with us this morning. The hearing

of course is focusing on a CENTCOM requirement for armored vehicles and up-armor. It appears you are finally getting close to

meeting the need. But looking down the road, what could be the

next pressing readiness issues that the Army will phase, that it

could move to the front burner sooner so that we can start paying

attention to be of help to you. Do you have other issues that you

feel we might need to pay attention to as well, Mr. Secretary, or

General?

Secretary HARVEY. Let me just say—and General Cody mentioned this. I think we are doing an adequate job here, and that

is the counter IED, the countermeasure IED devices. As you can

see, we have 20,000 in theater, and as the General said, we are diverting all the production lines into theater. So I think we are generally meeting the commanders’ needs, but it is very tight. In the

ideal situation, we would have some to train on also.

General CODY. Well, I agree with my Secretary’s assessment. But

if you step back from this and look strategically, first off, no one

in the Army leadership is happy with the production schedule we

have. We would like to have it all faster. This committee has

helped us in several, several ways, from IED jammers to the uparmoring and everything else. We may disagree on how we handle

it and how we distribute it. But I think we all agree we want this

stuff as fast as we can.

But if you have to step back and look at this strategically, we

have to ask ourselves, how did we get here? It is because we did

not modernize. Why did we not modernize, and who made the decisions? Today, we are getting ready to discuss here in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and discuss in this body and other bodies the Army’s modernization plan, which is the future combat system.

I don’t think that we want to make the same mistakes or not

have the same vision that we had that got us to this point. We are

going to be in this long war. General Abizaid came here and testified two weeks ago. I agree with his assessment that this will be

a long war.

So if we step back, we have to ask, what type of modernization

accounts do we want to fund? What are the threats out there? And

are we funding to the right modernization accounts? I think the

paths that Secretary Harvey is restructuring the future combat

system—and General Schoomaker—are right on target, especially

on the battle command side. This third ID, fourth ID problem, will

go away when we do the spirals, and we will fix our battle command. Battle command is a combat force multiplier and a force protection issue. We want to see them first. We want to shoot them

first. We want to avoid them first. We want to know where our

buddies are at all times.
18

So I think it is our modernization accounts, Congressman Ortiz,

that we need to pay attention to right now. We will get through

this with the help of Congress and with these type of oversight

meetings where we stress ourselves on these things, so that we all

get it right. We are going to get this piece fixed. We have got to

get ready for the next fight.

Mr. ORTIZ. I seem to agree with you, but we need to stay ahead

of the curve. I can, I guess, speak for the committee that we are

here, because we want to help you. But we need to know what is

ahead of us so we can get in a position to really respond to your

needs.

Secretary HARVEY. Congressman, as the General said, it is important that we carry out the future combat system program as the

baseline plan is presented. So, as the General said, in order for us

not to get in this situation we are in today, we have got to continue

to modernize the force, and the Future Combat Systems (FCS)

technology, one of the prime technologies, is the network. And we

have plans to spiral that in as well as the other advanced technology, into the current force, in real time, starting in FY 2008. So

we need your total support of that program as planned in order to

ensure that this force is able to fight the Global War on Terror in

the long run.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you both. Thank you so much for being with

us today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hayes.

Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

As I try to listen carefully to what is being said, I am trying to

see what people in the field and people back home are hearing or

not hearing us say today. What I am sensing is that we are doing

a good job in planning and preparation, but we are not getting the

maximum amount of protection to our soldiers in the field as quickly as possible.

Now, your comment about seeing first and shooting first is absolutely critical, but number one priority, and I am more than willing

to be corrected, is to protect our soldiers. Yes, they are getting shot

at, and we want to be as offensive as possible. But the problems

occur with these continuous car bombings and roadside bombings.

So the capabilities that you describe-- again, I am not the one to

make the call, may need to be sacrificed in terms of training and

capability and having this combat system available to them in

order to put the protective priority in the field. Now, again, I may

be missing something. I am not trying to second guess you, but I

am just telling you what I have heard today.

Secretary HARVEY. Congressman, we believe that this plan that

we have formulated in July, with the Marines and with the Joint

Staff and importantly with the combatant commanders, with the

commanders down field, down range, provides the maximum protection to our soldiers. We really believe that, because it takes the

least amount of time to install this equipment at Fort Hood rather

than putting it in the theatre and then taking it back out in the

middle of the employment and installing it.
19

Remember what we are doing here is that these 824 HMMWVs

with the so-called FBCB2 equipment is even better than a M1114.

It is the next level of protection. Armor provides a certain level of

protection. But as the committee knows, even under certain situations, armor can protect you in an M1 tank. So the situational

awareness gives the soldier the knowledge to avoid being put into

a situation. It gives him the knowledge that he may be able to

avoid an IED. So this is the next level of protection beyond armor,

situational awareness, that gives you that enhanced level of force

protection. To do that at Fort Hood takes the minimum amount of

time. And our fourth ID soldiers get to theater. If we have to take

those M1114s out and put in the so-called FBCB2. That is a much

longer time they would be without it.

So, overall, given the big picture, we believe that this provides

the maximum protection to our soldiers, which is by and far the

number one priority that I have as the second, and the chief and

the advice have. The well-being of our soldiers, that protect our soldiers, is above anything else in this Army absolutely.

General CODY. Let me see if I can also add a different perspective. If you remember from the OIF 2 rotation, the combatant

asked for the tank and Bradley units to come over with one tank

company and two of his tank companies in HMMWVs. That was

the one-third heavy, two-third light. Halfway through that rotation

we shipped back over 100-some odd tanks and 100-some odd Bradleys. At that time, they said, oh, by the way, make sure they have

the embedded battle command, because—even in the tanks and

Bradleys—the embedded battle command, the FBCB2, gives us

much more situational awareness.

I bring that up to you because, when we built this plan when we

came from theater about how many up-armored HMMWVs, it was

based on one-third, two-thirds force for patrolling inside of Baghdad. Today, it is a three-quarter heavy, one-quarter HMMWV force.

This is why the commander in the field is saying, I have got a lot

of tanks over there compared to what we had in OIF 2.

It is not just HMMWVs that are providing the force protection.

We have a lot of tanks of Bradleys that are in there that weren’t

in that second rotation that we picked them back up because of

this threat.

Mr. HAYES. As I say, it is a complex subject.

General CODY. It is.

Mr. HAYES. Secretary Harvey, everything we can do to protect

soldiers, my point would be—and I think the chairman has said it

in another way—if we had sophisticated turn-off equipment but

have the maximum armor protection, we want to make sure it is

there. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for holding

this important hearing. I join my colleagues in echoing your concerns.

Thanks to our witnesses for coming before us this morning.

I am deeply troubled for the need for today’s hearing. Time and

time again, I am joined with members of this committee, colleagues

on both sides of the aisle and pressing our nation’s military and its
20

civilian leadership to ensure that men and women, they risk their

lives to protect our country, are fully equipped and properly protected.

Two years ago, two of my constituents, Brian and Alma Hart, received the kind of news that a parent should never have to receive.

Their son, Private First Class John Hart was killed when the

unarmored HMMWV he was driving was sprayed with bullets. Just

days before he died, Private Hart had called his father to tell him

how unsafe he felt riding in HMMWVs that lacked bulletproof

shielding or reinforced doors.

We have come a long ways since then, in no small part due to

the activism and dedication of parents like John and Alma Hart

who have been outspoken advocates for getting us moving in the

right direction. As leaders of the country and leaders of military,

I think it is imperative that we do everything we can to make sure

that people like Private Hart—that his colleagues get everything

they need and when we send our troops in harm’s way, we need

to do everything that we can do to give them what they need.

You have indicated that the Marines will be all level I by April

of 2006, and the Army will be level I prior to July 2007. But prior

to that, we will reach the level when level Is will only be sent to

the field. When will the Army reach this level I point relative to

HMMWVs?

Secretary HARVEY. In terms of absolute numbers, as you indicated, Congressman, that is July of 2007, right now, the commanders in the field are determining when, before that, there will be

adequate HMMWVs so that they can meet their deployment, making certain assumptions, their deployments in theater with all level

Is. I don’t have a specific answer, because that is being determined

as we speak.

Mr. MEEHAN. Last November, November 17th, in a hearing on

the status of U.S. forces, I asked General Schoomaker and General

Hagee whether or not the Pentagon is tracking a number of casualties that resulted from attacks on unarmored vehicles. Both had

stated that they knew of no such information during the hearing,

but followed it up to say that the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Task Force had recently conducted a multidetailed analysis on

this.

Is there any more current information that is available?

General CODY. I have it. Sir, as you know, we stood up the Joint

Task Force. We stood it up October of 2003, and now it is under

the guidance and leadership of Secretary England as a Deputy Secretary of Defense. It is classified—the chart I am holding here. We

briefed this committee—Chairman, you asked for that briefing a

while back. We briefed, and we did a comparison between up-armored, level II, level III. We did a comparison on Bradleys and

M1113s. We also did a comparison of what type of devices and jamming devices. We are getting better. Then, if you like, Chairman,

we can come back over with General Votel and lay that out for you.

Again, I am glad you asked the question.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it is about the time to have another scrub

with General Votel and the task force.

General CODY. We can set that up, sir. But, again, we do this

also to make the risk assessment to make sure that what we are
21

doing in terms of level IIIs, how quickly we need to pull them out,

as well as, was there a marked difference between level II and

level I.

That all came into play with these decisions that the commanders in the field were making and what we were making in terms

of when to swap out the level Is for operational reasons. I don’t

think I want to say anything more on that, because we are doing

better, but I don’t want to put that information out.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The gentlelady from

Michigan, Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I certainly appreciate you calling this very important hearing this

morning, and to both of you, gentlemen, we certainly appreciate

your service to our nation under unbelievably challenging times,

and I appreciate you being here.

I am trying to follow this entire thing as well and what has happened and where we are and what we might be able to do as we

look to the future.

I would just say this. I come from Detroit. We are not the

glitziest people in the world, but one of the things we know how

to do is build things like automobiles, vehicles. In fact, during

World War II, our area was known as the arsenal of democracy because we had the manufacturing capabilities that literally built the

armaments that led the world to peace during that time.

In the case of the HMMWV, are we in a situation, perhaps, that

because of a sole source, that this is a situation we have. And as

we are grilling you on the hot seat here, I think there is a lot of—

many fingers in the pie here of our procurement processes, what

has happened in the past, to use my own personal analogy again.

I mean, if we have a particular vehicle General Motors (GM) is

making that customers want it, they will make it. They ratchet up

the assembly lines, and you don’t start a vehicle at the beginning

of an assembly line and have to send it to this place and that place

and this place and so on. That thing rolls off the end of the line.

You put the key in the ignition and drive it away.

Is there something that we can do to—in fact, General, you used

the term as to how we are going to modernize. Don’t we go back

a bit and, say, if we are going to modernize, use the old common

sense of American ingenuity of how we actually built things?

Secretary HARVEY. Let me address that. And then I will turn it

over to General Cody. That is a very important question. I will tell

you what the Army has done in that regard. We talked about the

M1114. We haven’t talked a lot about the M1151 and the M1152,

which is the next generation.

In that—and the M1151 and the M1152 will be built in such a

way that a basic frame will be produced, and then armor from a

multitude of vendors will be added on to it, and that armor can be

taken off if it is not being used in a situation which requires it.

That is to say, in a fort operating base or in the United States

which will produce wear and tear, it will provide the same level of

protection as the so-called M1114.
22

Unfortunately, historically, the Army got themselves into a position where we had a sole source provider of the M1114. The M1151

will have a basic frame and multitude of armors in an assembly

line situation.

In order to address that situation, that led us to level II armor.

These are kits that go on the basic existing HMMWVs. We had

eight, in that regard, we had eight of our depots producing these

add-on kits, level II. We had the Air Force, the Navy, and we had

five outside vendors. We had something like 13 to 15 suppliers producing level II add-on armor. In the future, as we convert over to

the so-called M1151, we will have a multitude of vendors producing

that armor. So we will be in a very modern situation.

In the meantime, we had to face the reality of the M1114. As you

may know and remember, the production rates have been taken

from a production of 30 per month in the fall of 2003 up to today

to 650 a month.

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. If I could interrupt. What percentage

is that line running at though? I mean, if they went from 30 to 600,

I mean, are you running that thing 24/7.

Secretary HARVEY. 24/7, and it has been expanded. It is not the

original line in order to do that. This particular supplier has increased its capacity. He was capacitated out at 30, so he has gone

up by a factor of 20 by increasing the size of the plant and equipment.

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Still, is that a single source then for

that?

Secretary HARVEY. Yes, but as the M1115 and M1152 come on,

we will have a multitude of sources with one frame supplier, right.

So we will get ourselves into a situation—unfortunately, the intellectual property in that case was not owned by the Army. In this

case, it was owned by the Army in the M1151. So, historically—

I wasn’t around. So I don’t know how this happened. But we have

changed, and now we are in a situation which is ideal. We have

a multitude of vendors, and we own the intellectual property. You

may want to add to my remarks.

General CODY. I think the Secretary recapped where we are

going. I think it is important, Madam Congresswoman, to remember that we have to understand that we never designed the

HMMWV to be a crew-served fighting vehicle except in the delta

companies of our light divisions where we mounted tows on them

for the anti-armor for the light forces.

Now, in this fight, we have had to modify them not just with all

bringing up blue force tracking—if it was satellite based—or

EPLRS-based FBCB2, but we also modified them with cupolas, protection, put in the full intercom for the driver, assistant driver and

for the gunner up top. So we have now made this thing basically

a fighting vehicle. So that complicates the issue also.

So when we looked at it back before the Secretary came, about

how do we get these cupolas and fighting systems, it would have

slowed down the production system of who was making them at the

time, so we had to build the market and the capacity in Kuwait

to do that. That is what we are doing. At the same time, we had

to put air conditioning units on. We never designed them for the
23

weights. We had to put bigger engines in them, bigger springs, everything else.

So this thing has been—although it is slow and it appears slow,

there is a whole bunch of things that we did to this vehicle that

we never dreamed we would do.

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.

The gentlelady from Guam, Ms. Bordallo.

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this hearing. I would like to welcome the Secretary and the General. Thank you very much for your service to our country. This

committee has been especially active on pushing the issue of armoring our forces and protecting the vital means of our service

members. In light of your decision to send equipment to a stateside

unit preparing to go to war so that it can properly train first, I am

particularly concerned about how this decision compares to decisions made concerning the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.

It seems to me that the guard and the reserve are badly underequipped, and here you have made a decision to deliver equipment

to the Fourth Infantry early so that they can properly train before

they go into combat. But it seems to have been decided many times

over in the past that the Army would not fully equip our guard and

reserve so that they can train properly before they are activated

into combat service.

So given the degree to which you are relying on the guard and

reserve in this war, when are we going to see the equipment they

are supplied become equivalent to their active duty counterparts.

Secretary HARVEY. General Cody is going to address that question.

General CODY. Thank you, Madam Congresswoman. As you

know, when we started this fight, the National Guard units in particular, like the 39th, the 30th and the 81st, were the first brigade

combat teams that we got ready to fight side by side as brigade

combat teams in OIF–2. Like their combat support and combat

service support brethren in the active force, they were short equipment. So what we did was we left equipment from the 101st, the

Fourth ID in Iraq and Third ID in Iraq, as stay-behind equipment,

and then we fielded first to those brigades all the brand new individual—what we call rapid fueling initiative for the soldier.

All the new equipment went to the 81st, the 39th and 30th before it went to active units that are getting ready to go. But we are

still short vehicles. We are still short radios and everything else in

the National Guard as well as our active CSS units. That was the

shortfall I talked about. So that is what drove us to the stay-behind

equipment sets.

As you get into these rotations, it was also depleting our active

component, like the Fourth ID and the 101st who came back left

30 percent of their rolling stock there for the National Guard units.

Then they had to train up and go back in a year later, because we

never ramped down the way everybody predicted.

So that has been what we have been wrestling with. The goal is

to get the National Guard equipment based upon going to

modularity. The goal is to get their equipment by 2011. We have
24

$21 billion in the budget, which is 5 percent more than we have

for the active component vehicles, just in rolling stock, because the

guard is short. The biggest thing we are tackling on the guard is,

they have 14,000 M35s, A5s that are 35 years old. That is the

deuce and a half. We have got to get them out of the force.

So we are getting that, and we have a balanced plan to do that,

but it will take until about 2007 or 2008 to see that, because we

just barely got the procurement dollars in the 2005 supplemental

that we could put in so we could start buying back this shortfall.

Secretary HARVEY. But let me add, in the near term, that no unit

regardless of whether they are active or National Guard goes into

theater unless they are in a fully-equipped position. As the General

said, we had to juggle, but no unit, as we say, goes over the berm

unless they are totally armored, so every National Guard unit is

fully equipped with the force protection and all the other weapons

that they need.

In the long term, what the General is referring to is to modernize

so that they are totally stand alone and don’t have to continue to

stay behind. So that works, and if the budgets that we have submitted are passed, we will have the resources to do that.

Again, as we have said in the past, we cannot do it without the

National Guard and the reserves. They are a very, very important

part of this and have given us the head room that we need to perform this force transformation, which we call modularity. So it is

very important to the guard, very important to us.

Ms. BORDALLO. I am very pleased to hear that. Thank you. I

thank the gentleman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlewoman.

The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Schwarz.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to follow up a little bit on the line of questioning of

my colleague from Michigan, Mrs. Miller. As of this morning, the

sole source provider of the chassis for the HMMWV is still AM

General. That is correct, is it not?

General CODY. Yes.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Their individuals, right from the shop floor this

morning, indicate that they are producing about M1152 chassis a

day, the numbers of the M1114 down, M1151, M1152s up. Well and

good, but the other information—and this is consistent over the

last several months as we ask the good folks from the United Auto

Workers (UAW) who are the workers on the line at AM General

making these chassises—the capacity is 100 a day.

So, the there is a reason perhaps that you could produce 100

chassis a day, but you still couldn’t armor them, so that the holdup,

perhaps, is in the armorer. But if we are producing 52 and people

on site who are doing the production tell us that we could produce

100, if given the go-ahead to do so, per day, why are they not doing

it?

Where is the hold up? Is the hold up, they don’t have the goahead to do it, or is the hold up, we could produce 100 and that

would be fine but you would never have the capacity to armor

those chassis?

General CODY. Well, I am not the expert on production lines. As

you know, I am not the acquisition executive. But having dealt
25

with this for three years, a long pole in the tent has always been

the armor materiel. I have some extras back here; if the Chairman

would allow me to call one forward that could answer this.

The CHAIRMAN. Sure, go right ahead.

General CODY. General Speakes runs our force protection programs for all our equipment, and he has been intimately involved

in all of this.

So, Steve, if you could answer the good Congressman’s questions

about the chassis versus the armor.

General SPEAKES. Yes, sir. Sir, let me go ahead and address this

issue in the context of what the Army is trying to do, as the Secretary and General Cody both outlined earlier this morning. What

we are into is a comprehensive strategy that is designed to increase

the flow of armor to the theater, and also to increase the quality

of that armor protection.

So, for example, back this last June, we were only producing 550

systems. As you know, that is a substantial upgrade from where

we were. As we look right now at the month of October, we are up

to 700 systems. I call them systems, because, as you recognized, it

is AM General producing the frame.

Then what we right now have is a sole source solution for the

armored solution we are putting on them. As we move to the

M1114, we will move to the next generation which will essentially

give us the ability to add and remove armor. We will own the property rights to the armor, and we will be able to then increase the

production of frames, because armor is no longer the determining

step. We are working in collaboration with the manufacturers right

now, so that, at this point, we move from the 550 to where we were

earlier this summer to 700 right now.

What we are in the process of doing is moving up to 1,100

frames, which is where we are going to be in February. That 1,100

frames will be supported by a variety of armored solutions. What

it will have moved into then is the start of armored solutions for

the next generation of vehicles, which is the M1151 and M1152,

also produced by AM General but which has a difference kind of

basic construction in terms of its ability to hold armor. So we are

moving now to an era where we can have flexible armor, removable

armor and also the ability to modernize our armor solutions because, as we all recognize, the battlefield is getting more threatening rather than less.

So that is an explanation of the depth of our program as we

move from where we were this last summer to where we are now

to where we will be in February of 1,100 and then about enhancing, where we own the property rights to the next generation of armored solutions. And essentially then the only determining step becomes the ability to produce frames, and then the ability to apply

the rest of the ingredients that make up a total armored solution.

General CODY. So bottom line, over the next few months, we will

be doubling our production rate.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Okay. So when we meet again, which we inevitably will—I checked with AM General and the folks there, what

they tell me, if the plan goes as you foresee, is that the numbers

of frames produced, M1151, M1152, which is what they are moving

to, will be significantly more than are being produced today, be-
26

cause you will have broken through and found a solution or have

a solution to the armoring. Am I tracking here?

General SPEAKES. Yes.

Dr. SCHWARZ. Thank you very much.

I thank the gentleman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We are finding

down here—if we could make this the rapid fire round, I have five

or six questions. If I can ask them quick and you give quick answers, we can get to several of them.

First of all, General Cody, are you satisfied with where we are

at with regard to these issues of armor and equipment for Afghanistan?

General CODY. You are talking about Task Force Phoenix, Dr.

Snyder?

Dr. SNYDER. Yes.

General CODY. No. I have talked to the commander in the field

over there. We would like to push more. The issue becomes the

threat assessment, and the Secretary and I and the chief have

talked about it. In fact, we want to push aside 250, but they have

done a mission analysis and threat assessment. We have asked

them to go back and relook at it.

Dr. SNYDER. The second question doesn’t have anything to do

with this hearing today, but there has been discussion of press reports about some dissatisfaction with regard to the guard members

with regard to their $15,000 reenlistment bonus for reenlisting

while they are overseas. Are you familiar with that issue at all,

that it was taken back, they are not going to get it? Do you know

anything about that?

General CODY. I am not familiar with that. I do know, though,

there has been some discussion about reenlistment bonuses. I will

tell you, in each case—the Sergeant Major in the Army and I discussed this with the Secretary the other day—in each case where

a soldier had a reenlistment bonus that for some reason because

of an MOS change or contract change, we are going back, because

we have the authority, the Secretary, and the title goes to the soldier and we will just put it aside.

Secretary HARVEY. If that is the issue, if it is a change of MOS

and then he doesn’t get his bonus, we will fix that, if that is the

issue you are referring to.

Dr. SNYDER. We will follow up with your folks.

Secretary HARVEY. Sure.

Dr. SNYDER. There has been ongoing discussions over the last

several years about the level of troop strength in Iraq. We have

had two episodes now where we have an election, troop strength—

you all brought troop strength up sometime before that. Things settle down. We drop it back, then bring the level up, as we did at

the most recent election, in order to provide security for the election.

In the multiple times we have asked this, General Myers, Secretary Rumsfeld, about the level of troop strength, they say that

the commanders get whatever they want in terms of what they

need to get their mission done. My question is, has there been a
27

system created, do you think, General Cody, in your years in the

Army, where people have gotten the word they should not be asking for additional troop strength, because, you know, it is just really not going to be coming your way?

Because we have a situation where we can pick up the paper,

can read—people, you know, people on the ground in uniform saying they can’t get their job done along the Syrian border: We can’t

get this done without additional strength. Do you think we have

created a system where people ought to get the word we ought not

to ask for additional troop strength even though we think we need

it?

General CODY. I know most of these generals, and they are

tough. They are also loyal, but they are tough. I will tell you that

I believe—and I trust them. I have got my sons over there. If any

one of those general officers needs more troops, I guarantee you,

they will ask for them. They may be told, no—I don’t know what

the discussions are that go on at that level. But I trust those guys.

They are tough. If they want them, they will ask for them.

Dr. SNYDER. Then, General Cody, based on your years of experience—we haven’t had, really, any discussion on the House side

about Senator McCain’s amendment with regard to interrogation

standards that passed the Senate 90 to 9.

I am just asking this as an open-ended question. Because we

have had a flare of press reports here, a front line story, a lengthy

story or a program a couple of days ago. We had the incident in

the papers this morning about the allegations of the burning of

corpses. We have had these ongoing press reports.

It has seemed to me that Senator McCain’s amendment, by laying down a bright line in statute that would apply to both the people in uniform and any governmental agencies out of uniform representing the United States, that would be helpful in terms of how

war is conducted in the future, avoiding the kinds of incidents,

some of these incidents we have had in the past. What is your personal opinion on that?

General CODY. Well, first, Mr. Congressman, I haven’t read what

the Senator has put in. I probably should go back and read it.

Dr. SNYDER. That is all right.

General CODY. I have been pretty busy with wrestling and pushing stuff forward. My professional opinion is no different than my

personal opinion on these matters. That is, we have to establish a

highly disciplined, highly moral, highly ethical leadership, chain of

command. We have to instill those things into our soldiers as part

of the training. Policy letters and decrees and everything else don’t

fix these issues. Tough leadership up and down the chain of command, and that is where the Chief and the Secretary and I are focusing every day on developing our leaders, training our leaders,

training our soldiers, to the ethics and the moral and the physical

and the mental discipline, as well as training our leaders to take

care up and down.

Because that is the only way that we will remain—we are still

the best army in the world and the most disciplined army in the

world. That is the only way we are going to be able to retain that,

by making sure we have the right leadership at every level.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
28

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Conaway.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The chairman and Congress haze suggested you go ahead in

pushing these specially-equipped FBCB2 out of Kuwait up into the

theater. When we make that decision, it seems to me that there

would be a cost to that. That special gear will deteriorate and degrade. Some of it will be destroyed, and then the fourth ID will

show up fully trained, I guess, to really use it. There will be some

lag between once they get there, and it is reaching its full capabilities and capacities. Can you speak to us about what you think the

cost might be?

General CODY. I don’t know what the cost will be, but it was an

operational decision. If I can give you a scenario: If you are a platoon leader in the Third Infantry Division and I am a platoon leader in the Fourth Infantry Division and I am replacing you, I am

going to show up in my HMMWV and we will do the right seatleft seat ride. But during the timeframe that this is going on, as

you know, it is during the elections. It is during quite a bit of

changing where they are operationally, where General Casey is

maneuvering forces. They did not do right seat-left seat right on

vehicles and have this highly important swap over vehicles. That

was part of the issue.

So if it were a cost, we would pay it. But it was an operational

decision not to. I mean, if there were dollars attached to this, plus

or minus, we would have paid it if it made operational sense. But

to the commanding generals down range, it did not make sense.

Secretary HARVEY. That is really their decision. For the record,

we should say that FBCB2 is Force XXI Battle Command Brigadeand-Below, just so that is in the record. We are using too many

acronyms.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you for that, Mr. Secretary. I would appreciate using fewer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Simmons.

Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize to our witnesses for being late and not hearing their testimony. But it is my

understanding that the issue under consideration is whether or not

up-armored HMMWVs and equipment that provides protection for

our forces is being deployed in an expeditious manner. As somebody who got involved with the up-armor issue a couple of years

ago, somebody who served for almost four years in Vietnam—so I

have a sense of what it feels like when you are out there and you

don’t feel like your equipment is fully up to what you need to protect yourself.

I guess I think, to the families that read the news articles, it is

unfortunate because sometimes news articles distort the truth and

distort the picture. But for those families that I know, who have

sons and daughters over there, the idea that equipment that could

protect them and keep them safe, the idea that has been manufactured, it has been produced, but it hasn’t been distributed—it is sit-
29

ting off in a parking lot somewhere—I guess that is a matter of

concern.

So I would like to hear reassurances that equipment is moving

to the field as rapidly as possible and that we are not holding it,

waiting for a deployment when, in fact, it should be up, forward for

those who are in country.

Secretary HARVEY. Congressman, we believe that is the case. If

we look at the big picture of the Third ID and Fourth ID and in

conjunction with what we are doing with the Marines, we believe

that this is the optimum situation for protecting the soldier overall

as rapidly as possible. So we firmly, in the Army, believe that.

General CODY. I agree with the Secretary,

Mr. Congressman. In fact, some of the Fourth Infantry Division

Brigades have already begun their transfer of authority and relieved the people in place. The Fourth Sustainment Brigade has already taken over its area in Iraq and released the Third Infantry

Division’s Sustainment Brigade. So they are already there. If you

look on the chart, we gave them 17 on the 28th of July.

We got it all equipped, and we shipped them over. They went

into Kuwait, did a two-week RSOI, the reception, staging, onward,

integration and then did their ten-day transfer of authority. So

they are equipped with the up-armored HMMWVs, and they relieved in place the their Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade.

We have several of those brigades and battalions starting now, all

the way up through the January timeframe. This is a big outfit,

and a decision was made, unlike OIF–1 and 2 where we changed

everybody in 90 days, if you remember, we decided to stretch these

things out, so that we weren’t changing battalions and brigades simultaneously throughout this theater and giving this enemy this

edge. So this also had to come into play as we looked at this.

Mr. SIMMONS. If I could just follow up, are there up-armored

HMMWVs in Continental United States (CONUS) in that are sitting and have not been deployed?

General CODY. There are up-armored HMMWVs right now that

came off the line of AM General for the Fourth combat team of the

Fourth Infantry Division, 157 of them. They were shipped on 11

October. They are not sitting at Fort Hood. They have the EPLRS

base——

Secretary HARVEY. FBCB2.

General CODY [continuing]. For battle command systems put on

them, and then they will be put on boats and shipped in a timely

manner so that they meet up with the Fourth Brigade that has a

transfer of authority with the Third Infantry Brigade outfit, and it

all throws within that 45- to 50-day time frame. So to say they are

sitting would not be an accurate statement. They have gone from

the plant to have the required equipment that we deem necessary

for the additional survivability and control and also meets the time

line of them being able to go through Kuwait with their training

and get into accordance with what General Vines wants.

Mr. SIMMONS. Are there soldiers driving around in Iraq that are

not armored?

General CODY. No.

Mr. SIMMONS. Bases?
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General CODY. There are some HMMWVs they have at level III,

about 157 give or take a few, that are on the FOBs, that do drive

around the FOBs, but they are restricted. They can’t go off base.

Mr. SIMMONS. Do any of those bases ever get hit with mortar attacks?

General CODY. Yes, they do, but the up-armored HMMWV will

not—that is not going to stop a mortar situation, although the

shrapnel will. We are dealing with mortars in a different way, as

you know.

Mr. SIMMONS. So it wouldn’t stop a direct hit, but it would stop

a near miss with shrapnel. Can you visualize any contingency

where people might have to evacuate a base, which would take

those vehicles off base?

General CODY. No.

Mr. SIMMONS. So that is the problem.

Secretary HARVEY. But it has never happened.

Mr. SIMMONS. I understand it never happened. The World Trade

Center situation never happened either—war is hell. You all know

that. These things can happen.

What I am suggesting, and what I think the concern is that some

parents may feel that their son or daughter is riding around in a

vehicle that is not adequate to this situation, whereas other vehicles are sitting back in the States waiting to be deployed. I understand the logic of what you are saying, but you have to understand

how some of those folks may feel about it.

Secretary HARVEY. We have 25,000 level I and II HMMWVs in

theater.

Mr. SIMMONS. I thank you for your testimony.

I thank the gentleman.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. I thank

the ranking member for putting up with this fairly long hearing on

this very focused issue.

Gentlemen, I think we have had a good hearing here. I think

that—let me give you several thoughts that have been derived from

the last couple of hours of testimony.

First, Mr. Secretary, while you just answered the gentleman

from Connecticut, you said that level III vehicles, that is add-on

type stuff that is put on generally in theater, that included the

scrap iron from Iraqi machine shops, that is being kept in the forward operating bases.

Level II kits, and that is considered to be not as good as the

M1114s, are deployed on operations. So if you want the real answer

to the gentleman, we do have people who are taking hits, who are

having IEDs blown on them on a regular basis who don’t have

M1114s.

General Cody, you and I, I think, had a good back and forth on

this, on the effect in theater. I think that you are a good soldier,

and you are dedicated, and you are steeped in the tradition of

warfighting, as your family is, and we respect that very much.

When an IED goes off, it is all physics. When you have a 155mm

round or 105mm round go off at three or four meters, as you know

from looking at the tests at Aberdeen, it is a function of how much

steel or other armor you have between the body of the American

soldier and that explosion, and a certain percentage of fragment
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may or may not get through that particular armor and hit our soldiers. At that point, it is all a function of the mass of the fragment

and the velocity at which it travels. You know, as well as—well,

I think, the upgrades that are manifest in the M1114—and we

don’t need to go into the details in this open session—but you are

aware of the upgrades which in some cases will stop a much larger

degree of that fragmentation than the level II vehicles that are

being used right now.

So the question is, will you, in some of those IED attacks, have

fragment that doesn’t enter the vehicle department where M1114,

where it might enter the vehicle department according to the laws

of physics and wound American soldiers? The answer is yes.

So it is desirable to M1114s in the field as early as possible. I

think we agree on that. Now, having gone around Robin Hood’s

barn—and I think you have explained in some detail, and I think

with some merit, the various considerations that you undertook in

making, putting this policy together—we are left with these base

facts.

Mr. Secretary, you own these vehicles when they come off that

assembly line. Now, you owned 75 vehicles in July. You owned another 319 in August, and you owned another 430 in September.

Now it obviously takes at least 130 days to deliver them. You have

a certain checkout you want to do on these vehicles, and then you

have the installation of this C4ISR package put in place.

It is a long time to own those vehicles when we are under a policy to get every vehicle we could find, not just in CONUS, but in

the world between the soldiers who are experiencing these IED

blasts and the blasts on those roadsides in Iraq. Even if you accept

this 14 days for installation period, you are talking about the first

tranche of vehicles so the delay or—if General Cody objects to the

term delay—the time lapse between you owning these vehicles

from the manufacturer and these things being on the road in Iraq,

protecting an American soldier, so that falls down on that first

tranche from five months to 4.5 months.

Let us take 14 days out of it and say you do them in CONUS.

The second tranche, you cut that down from four months to 3.5

months, and the last tranche from three months to 2.5 months.

Now, we can quibble about how long they are marked in Kuwait,

how long they are parked at Fort Hood and what you need some

of them to train on. But if your policy is directed at getting steel

between the soldiers who are operating on a daily basis and the

high intensity IED environment and the blast that will be coming

at them, we have some fairly long time periods between you taking

ownership of these vehicles and those vehicles being in a protective

mode for those soldiers on the roads in the areas of operation in

Iraq.

Now, you told me, Mr. Secretary, it would take six months—you

were told it would take six months if you did this in Kuwait. The

question that I think I would ask—and you are an industrialist,

you are a businessman, you would drill down into that and say,

Tell me how it takes 14 days in Fort Hood and you can’t get it done

in less than 6 months in Iraq? I certainly wouldn’t accept that.

Secretary HARVEY. I think it is two months, Mr. Chairman.
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The CHAIRMAN. I would drill down on two months and say, Why

does it take four times as long as it takes at Fort Hood to have that

done? Do we need more people? Do we need a tiger team?

We obviously have the ability to fix sophisticated technical equipment in theater. We have gained that ability with respect to our

aerial platforms and our land-based platforms. Why can’t we do

this?

And so I think that clearly, when all is said and done and you

have demonstrated that you want to have the C4ISR equipment on

these vehicles, you still have a long time between your taking ownership of these vehicles and the vehicles being in an operational

mode.

Now, these things happen, and I think you have explained fairly

clearly how you walk through this process and you came to the

judgment that you came to. I don’t agree with the results. I think

that it is too long between manufacture completion and these

things being in operation, especially under the policy that we have

had of trying to get every single M1114 in the world that is available between the soldiers and the road as quickly as possible.

So my recommendation is that you try to come up with some

kind of a plan that could utilize these M1114s in theater as quickly

as possible, and use some of that time when they would be waiting

for the 4th Infantry Division to marry up with their equipment, use

some of that time in protecting people who are deployed right now.

I think you can come up with a plan that does that.

So thank you for attending our hearing today. We will have a follow-up hearing, and the committee looks forward to your continuing to work on this issue.

And Mr. Skelton, the gentleman from Missouri, I think has a

closing comment. Go right ahead.

Mr. SKELTON. Let me thank the chairman again for calling this

hearing.

The American people are interested in this subject; it is not just

limited to our Armed Services Committee. This is evidenced by the

fact that some time ago, folks in Jefferson City, Missouri, raised

money and had locally prepared and manufactured armor plating

done there, which eventually ended up in Iraq, getting through the

red tape, but they got it done.

So—the folks back home are very deeply interested in protecting

their neighbors’ sons and daughters who are over there, so I hope

you will follow through on the recommendations coming from the

Chair and from the other comments that we have had. I thank you

for your appearance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Any closing comments

any of you Generals would like to make?

Secretary HARVEY. Let me say thanks for this hearing, Mr.

Chairman.

I think we share that mutual interest in ensuring that the soldier gets the maximum protection, and we believe our policy is one

of providing that maximum protection. And that is what I try to

emphasize, which is a combination of, as you say, getting the steel

between the blast and the soldier, but also in the long run, giving

him the knowledge so that he never even gets into that situation.
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So we want to try to prevent him from ever being exposed to an

IED by having that advanced situational awareness, and that is

our long-range objective.

The CHAIRMAN. So I thank you, gentlemen, for participating, and

let’s have another—we will have another hearing soon and see

where we go from here. And let’s all pull together.

Secretary HARVEY. Thank you.

General CODY. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 11:06 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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