question. >> first off, we need the bsa to protect our soldiers. soldiers, sailors and marines operating there. that allows them to do their job and continue supporting the afghan. in afghanistan, it has come so far. it is hard to describe to someone who has never been there how far that country has come. the progress made, the security that the people feel. the fact that the afghan security forces are stepping up in a big way to support their own people, but they're not ready to completely do that on their own so it's important that we have to provide new kinds of support, training, advising, building their institutions, making sure they continue to move forward because there are those that want to go back and take control and there are extremist organizations that will directly threaten the united states. we have come too far and invested too much for us to back away from that now. we are close on the cusp, i think, of being successful. i think it's important that we

understand that and we should draw lessons from what we are seeing in iraq to that as we move forward. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, senator ayotte. mr. donnelley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it is an honor to have you serve and lead our country. general odierno i was privileged to serve with ike skelton. he was the model of how to serve with dignity, humble, hard working, incredibly smart. as i know you know his reading list was also required reading for the rest of us, as well. the question i have is in this ties in admiral green to a conversation we once had. you mentioned earlier today about at one time paying benefits was 1/3, looks like it's heading to 2/3. for each of you, what is about the proper balance in terms of those kind of costs around

everything else? general amos you mentioned it's at 70% now. what is the right balance for each of your forces? general odierno, if you would like to start? >> best case we want personnel costs to be somewhere between 42% and 45% of our total budget. we are past that now. we are over that at this point. >> admiral? >> i agree with general odierno. we are right now at about 50%. i think that's okay. that's about right. then we need to look internally and say which growing the fastest and what does it mean to our constituency? does it really affect them that much and what makes them a better sailor, soldier, airman, marine? there is that piece of balance across those entitlements. >> senator wrig, i would be thr if i was in the low 50s. >> we recognize it's different

for each force. >> it is. it is a shared budget with our department and the navy. it's a function of being able to get that down. there are ways we can do that. we absolutely have got to commit ourselves as department of defense and congress to help us do that. that's going to erode my buying power to the point. saw a study, we took a brief three or four weeks ago that said if we stay on the course we're on, somewhere around 2025 we'll have 98 cents of every dollar going for benefits. you project it out, extrapolate. >> right. >> senator, depending on what you include of your accounting, we are somewhere between 38% and 50% right now. the problem for us is that range would be fine. it's the growth we are worried about. i think we owe you and other members the incredible job

you've done compensating all the great men and women who served in our military service the last 20 years. the growth in that category is the thread to modernization readiness. we need to control that growth over time. >> as a follow-up, it would be helpful to get your best ideas how to accomplish that on our end, as well, as we look forward to how we put these budgets together for the future to hit that proper and right mix. does flexibility help all of you and how significant would that be? >> senator, depends how you define flexibility. if you're saying flexibility within each budget year it help as little bit. in my mind it helps around the fringes. probably different for every service. what we need is flexibility across the whole sequester action. as general welch mentioned earlier, that's helpful because

the front-loaded nature of it throws us off skew how we sustain our balance. if you gave us year to year flexible, there are some things we can do. that's only around the edges and doesn't solve the problem. >> this will be to all of you in particular. i was in afghanistan late april/early may, hillm manhelma province, as well. we had metrics saying if we could keep on these metrics by december '14, we'll be in a position to basically turn everything over to the afghans with some presence of residual forces. there was some controversy -- not controversy, but disagreement by some there, are we able to hit these metrics and say on target? i was wondering if you could fill us in on where we are?

>> we are ahead of those metrics. we turned over responsibility to the afghans and really over 90% of all afghans. there are only a very few places where they have not taken complete control of their own security. in my mind, they are ahead of the metrics we originally established back in that time frame. they continue to move forward and do better than we expected. faster than we expected. >> we are exactly the same position. we transitioned about a year ago to training advise and assist missions instead of offensive combat operations. we changed the training of marines going in there. we put more senior leaders on the ground so they could partner with the afghan battalions. we built that structure and put a one-start general in charge specifically to focus on that. we cut that force back by 50%.

not because we are trying to cut the force structure but it's been met with such great success. by december 2014 will it be phenomenal? no. it will be -- i'm confident we will have set the conditions with the greatest opportunity for the afghan people to take charge of their lives. i feel good about it. >> thank you. i see my time is up, mr. chairman. >> senator vitter. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks to all our witnesses, particularly for all of your service to our country. we all appreciate that. i understand you all have clearly articulated real problems and readiness, number one, and number two, that lack of readiness costs lives. lives are directly at stake. that concerns us all.

i think the last time this possibility of a real hollow force and significant lack of readiness happened was in the 1990s. general odierno, would you consider that challenge then -- excuse me, let me rephrase it. would you consider our challenge today greater or lesser than that challenge? >> i believe our challenge is much greater today than it has been since i've been in the army in terms of readiness. this is the lowest readiness levels since i've been serving the last 37 years. >> general, i agree. i think the numbers confirm that. for instance, in the 1990s, this general episode i'm describing at that problem, the military described 80% of conventional and unconventional forces as acceptable with, quote, pockets of deficiency. today in contrast, at least on

the army side, you have said only 15% of army forces are acceptable, with 85% being below that, is that correct? >> that is correct, senator. >> today's situation is much worse. in the 1990s there was a response to that. the administration, president clinton's administration made a specific proposal and worked with everyone, including republicans in congress to get $25 billion allocated for readiness. will there be a specific administration proposal any time soon to this far greater challenge? >> i can't answer your question, senator. what i would say is it has to do

as the chairman said earlier, the negotiations going on for the bunt deal. out of that we hope there will be something that comes back to the department of defense that allows us to deal with this three to four-year window we have of readiness challenges we have and get rid of this sequestration as everyone said here numerous times a horrible way to do business. >> i'm familiar with those negotiations. i don't think anything is being discussed currently that approaches a specific concrete response to this particular problem. i would urge, i know you all aren't the ultimate decision makers, but i would urge the administration to put forward a specific proposal as president clinton did in the 1990s in a situation that i believe you're correct in saying was far less challenging, although it was serious. general, i also want to ask about some readiness issues

regarding joint readiness training and the like. i have a particular interest in that because some of that happens at ft. polk in louisiana. sequestration forced the cancellation of several combat training center rotations. can you describe how important those rotations are and the impact on that readiness? >> in fy-13, we had to cancel seven rotations. what that means is usually it's a force of about 5,000 to 8,000 men and women who go there who get a chance to train and really get certified in the kind of operations we think they might have to deploy and weren't able to do that. not only that, you lose a significant amount of experience that are gained by leaders. for example, that equates to about 250 company commanders, about 50 battalion commanders and seven or eight commanders

that did not get the training necessary for them to do the operations. that also includes their soldiers. if that keeps happening, it continually degrades the readiness. in '14 we have to focus all of our dollars to seven brigade elements. at least i can get seven brigades trained. that's the only money i have to do that. everyone else is going to go untrained. they will not be able to do the training necessary. >> if that is accomplished for seven brigades only and no more, how would you describe the impact on critical core competencies and readiness? >> we'll have about a little over 20% of the force, maybe 25% of the force that is trained in its core competency and the rest will not be trained in core competencies. >> general, i want to underscore the specific training we are talking about is the training that's most relevant to the sort of operations we face today, is

that correct? >> that is correct. if we had to deploy in the middle east, if we had to deploy to korea or anywhere, that is the training they are not receiving. what keeps me up at night is if something happens and we are required to send soldiers, they may not be prepared the way the american people expect us to have them prepared. >> a final question for any or all of you. has the standards in terms of what we are preparing for, in fact, been lowered over the last few years? the requirements,ed readiness requirements? >> let me -- i don't know if i would say lowering. let's take afghanistan, for example. the units are getting ready to go to afghanistan are training differently today. as general amos mentioned, they are being trained to do training and advisory missions.

they are not training to do full spectrum operations, which we would normally train them to do because they are just going to do them. they have not been trained in the things we think are important as we develop the readiness levels in order to respond to contingencies. >> i guess what i'm asking, let me try to be clear. overall in 2010 and the qdr, the requirement was to fight two wars on multiple fronts and win while engaged in significant counterterrorism operations. hasn't that bar been lowered significantly? >> it has. >> as that bar has been lowered significantly, do you think the world has become a safer place? >> no. as i stated earlier, i believe this is the most uncertain i've ever seen the international security environment. >> thank you. that's all i have. >> thank you, senator vitters. senator geraldo. >> thank you all for your service and acknowledging the

contributions and service of congressman ike skelton whom i had the privilege of serving in the u.s. house. you testified with quite a lot of specificity about the negative impacts of sequestration. i look at the defense strategic guidance and i think each of you acknowledged that this is an articulation of future threats, challenges and opportunities. we face enough challenges, i.e. cost overruns of the cost of energy to the department of defense, increasing personnel costs with that, and meeting the goals of dsd without the mindlessness of sequestration. so there are some who say that we should just give you more flexib flexible, but in my view giving you flexibility which takes sequestration as a starting

point is like moving the deck chairs on the "titanic." would you agree with that? >> flexibility is not the ideal solution. it's getting rid of the mechanism of sequestration. >> yes. we need to replace. >> flexibility is a help if we can't do that. >> so would you all agree what we need to do is replace sequestration with a more rational approach to what you all need to do? >> absolutely. >> all of you agree with that? >> yes, ma'am. >> there were some questions relating to the unsustainability of the percentage personnel costs with a regard to all your budgets. you must have done some thinking on what factors would you apply and making recommendations to changes to your personnel costs.

what would be your philosophical prospective going forward making your recommendations? >> senator, i'll take a crack at it. for example, if we were to slow pay raises or something to that regard, something when done look at the impact on the constituency and can that be reversed because we have to maintain the all-volunteer force. that's very important. two, it has to be transparent. our folks, we have to speak to them and make sure they understand why, what, how and what is the purpose and where this all fits in and their families so they see that. three, i believe there has to be a balance. i alluded to this before. pay housing, tricare, tuition assistance to get a degree is the quality of their life, but also when they go to work, what is that quality? do they feel appreciated in that job? do they have what they need? tools, personnel, oversight,

leadership and the train something they are proud of what they do? we need to balance those as we look at it. >> senator, within i think from my perspective a couple of categories. internal controls on things like bonuses and everything from reenlistment and things we do to recruit and assess marines. we have gone back into that in the last 12 months and culled out significant savings. internally, those are the mechanisms that we are balancing with regards to retention and recruitment, but to admiral greenert's point, this holistic package of kind of the force. i've got a piece we are writing on be careful we don't break the all-volunteer force. whatever we do, there is plenty of room to maneuver before you get there. i'm not advocating there is not.

we need to be mindful we had this all-volunteer force. we asked a lot of it. they've done remarkably well. it's probably a model for every nation around the world. inside of that, there is room to maneuver on health care costs. we talked about tri-care benefits, not benefits, premiums. there is room to maneuver perhaps on pay raises. there is room to maneuver on basic allowance for housing. how much is right now it's typically on a 2% to 3% rise every year. do we need to do that while we are in this? there are things like that we are working on. >> my time is almost up. i take it that all of you would make these recommendations with a view that we are really mindful of the need to support our troops and to support their families so that we are not going to take away kinds of

benefits, programs that they rely upon, as you move forward to decrease these personnel costs? sxwrshgs senator, that is exactly right. we have to take into consideration what it takes to maintain the all-volunteer army. that is forefront in our minds. if you get out of balance, the best way to take care of a soldier and his families, make sure he is properly trained and when he goes some where he comes back to his family. we've got to balance that part of it to make sure they can live the quality of life some the service they are giving to our nation. we understand that. it's finding that right balance. we think we have methods to do that, senator. >> mr. chairman, my time is almost up. i do have some questions i will be submitting to do with how sequester is impacting the research and development efforts across all of our services. and making sure we maintain an industrial base as one of you, i think it was admiral greenert

who mentioned that it is really important to maintain our defense industrial base and the impact of sequester on that goal. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator hirono. senator lee. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks to all of you for service to our country. on behalf of the constituents i have back in utah, i express my deepest gratitude to you and those who serve under your command. for the last two years, we heard a lot from a lot of high-ranking military officers like yourselves who have come before this committee and others in front of the men and women that they command, in front of the american people to express the grave concerns they have about sequestration and what it could do to our military, our military readiness and everything we do through our military. i heard members of congress on both sides of the aisle and on both ends of the capitol express

grave concerns about the impacts of sequestration, about what could happen. i've heard my own constituents, people from throughout utah, many whom are currently serving or have served in the military express similar concerns. it's an interesting conversation. it's sad we have to be having this conversation since sequestration was something put into law at a time when nobody believed it would ever happen. it was supposed to be so bad that we would do anything and everything possible in order to avoid it, yet it has arrived. my first question, which i'll leave open to any of you who might want to answer it, i'd like to know a little about the means by which the format by which the regularity with which you talk about the source of concerns we are having today about sequestration's impact on readiness and on the department of defense generally. how and in what way do you communicate those concerns to

the white house? >> i would say that first off, as joint chiefs we meet twice a week to discuss many key issues, to include policy issues of health of force issues, and we clearly have discussions and then the chairman, as the chairman takes those to the white house. we also have periodic meetings with the white house. in fact, we have one next week where we'll have the opportunity to go over and discuss many of these issues with the president. i think he's been very open in meeting with the joint chiefs on these types of things. there are forms in place to do that. we also obviously meet on a regular basis with the secretary of defense where we have the opportunity to talk about the issues we have. he also takes those forward. i think there are avenues there that are clearly open to us that we use on a quite regular basis. >> if i understand you, you do

meet regularly with the white house and you are able to communicate these openly, effectively to people in the white house at the highest levels including the president and secretary of defense? okay. that is good to hear. my concern and one of the things that animates that question is that i have not sensed quite the same level of alarm coming from the white house as i have sensed when i met with each of you. i have not sensed that same level of concern. we've seen a lot of action, a lot of energy from the white house going into efforts involving everything from gun control to defending owe bam aye care to fixing the website and so forth. i have not heard the same level of concern, the level of alarm i'm hearing from you. that does cause me some concern. it seems to me if the administration did, in fact, think this situation was this dire, as dire as you're explaining it to us, i would expect to see that issue, those

set of issues receive a lot more time and attention and energy from our commander in chief. going along with that, instructions on preparing for sequestration in 2013 were not even initiated until just a few months before it went into effect. the president didn't consider the possibility of sequestration in his 2014 budget request, despite the fact that it is law, despite the fact that that law has not been repealed, has not been modified in a way that makes it irrelevant or less irrelevant. so can you, any of you describe for the committee what instructions, if any, you are receiving from the white house and from omb with regard to how to deal with sequestration in 2014 and the budget for fiscal

year 2015? we've been directed and are in the process as we described before to put together a budget that we call it the alternate palm. today we are deliberating on that program budget review in the department. there is a secondary level that is under consideration at a higher level we will deliberate over so that there is an option available, but we are focusing on in the department right now the alternative. that is the budget control act capital levels, if you will. there are two, there are two options. >> okay. thank you, admiral for that. when you say so there is an option available, you mean so we have options on the table, options --

>> there are options. what option will be chosen and under what circumstances, i really couldn't tell you, senator. but if you wanted to know what are we directed to do and that is what we are doing. again, those two levels. >> okay. presumably those options will be considered by the president and the secretary of defense and at some point a decision will be made? >> presumably, yes, sir. >> thank you, admiral. i see my time expired. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator lee. senator king. >> thank you, mr. chairman. there is a lot of discussion about flexibility. it seems a way to think about it is we are telling you you have to cut a finger off and you get to decide which one. that's an unattractive form of having to make decisions. i want to talk about morale and the effect of this. senator levin and i were in the middle east this summer. the biggest impression i came

back with was extremely favorable impression of the young people we have working for the united states government in the military, the intelligence community and state department. these are idealistic, hard-working, dedicated people who we are frankly not treating very well. they've been through furloughs, they've been through a shutdown. they got the sequester. they don't know what the future of their benefit programs are. is this starting to play itself out in terms of retention and recruitment and morale in the services, general odierno? >> senator, thank you for the question. there are two pieces, civilian work force and military work force. civilian work force, we are seeing, not significant morale issue, but questions because they've been through a furlough. they went through shutdown. i think they are questioning the -- and a reduction along

with that. so they are questioning how stable is your work environment, especially since it's still on the table. in terms of the soldiers, the way i explained it, morale is good but tenuous. reenlistments are fine, recruiting okay. there's a loot of angst. the angst is what you just said. people talking about benefits, people talking about obviously in the army we are significantly reducing the size of the force. they are worried about their future. what makes me feel so damn good is what you described. that their morale is high, they are doing exactly what we are asking them to do, training as hard as they can with the money we give them, trying to accomplish the mission to the best of their ability. that is so frustrating to me because of their personal dedication to our nation and to our army, yet they have a lot of angst, individually and with their families because of all this discussion going on.

the fact they might lose their job, might lose benefits. what is inspiring, they continue to do what we ask them and do it to the best of their ability. that's the best way to describe it, senator. >> i think our civilians, i don't have metrics for this yet because it's too soon to tell, but when i talk to our civilian marines as i mentioned in my opening statement, our civilian marines are looking at this going, i'm not sure, i love the institution, i love being a civilian marine, i like what it stands for, i just don't have confidence in it. they are looking at this, not only what they've just gone through, but looking at the fact that sequester, they know, is going to require a cut in civilian personnel over the next ten years. it will require a cut in civilian personnel, no question about it. you look at all the things they've gone through. they are going, maybe i ought to look around. i don't see people jumping ship,

but i do worry about them because they are the professionals. that's the civilian side of the house. they are the shock absorber for us and the corporate memory. inside my force, we are a young, marine corps is a young marine corps. 67% of all marines than on active duty are on their first enlistment. they are between 18 years old and 22. they didn't come in to sit back at home stations and be a garrison marine. they like the point. when you visit them in afghanistan and western pacific, you don't get questions like, what is sequester going to do to me? they know how to spell it, but that's about it. they want to know, commandant, is this the last deployment or am i going to be able to go to combat again or go to west back again? so our morale is high right now and going to stay high as long

as we give them something to look forward to. the orientation to the pacific reenergized marines. afghanistan, we are coming out of there in 2014. what's left? we talk about darwin, australia, japan, guam. their eyes light up. morale in my service is high. >> an annedote. you are not going to have a reduction in force, we'll do it with attrition. we have a lot of people retiring. that struck me because that's a lot of seniority and talent and experience going out the top and we don't have a lot going in the bottom. we'll be out of balance. i spoke about that in my oral statement. general welsh mentioned kids getting bored. so in the navy we are starting

to develop a situation where when you get ready to deploy, you're going to be ready. boy, you're going to do it fast and do it hard. our pilots, a lot of our air wingers, carrier strikers are flying a lot and training a lot for about seven months. they barely have time to get their will done, get their power of attorney done and they are deployed and gone six, seven months and they come back and longingly look out the window at their hornet aircraft saying i wish i could fly again. that have and have not when that gets into service records, you are going to get a have and have not feeling about it. i worry about that in morale and eventually retention. >> i want to -- i would commend to all of you gentlemen an extraordinary speech by robert gates given in the last couple of weeks. he put what you've been saying all morning, but put it bluntly and suck -- succinctly that the

greatest air of threat is capitol hill and the white house, that we are the problem. it was very stark. that it's point you've been making today. what we are talking about here isn't academic, not dollars on a balance sheet. it's lives, readiness and the ability to defend this nation. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, senator king. senator fisher. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would add my thanks to you four gentlemen for your service for this country and my thanks to the men and women who serve under you for their commitment to keeping us all safe. i would like to go on a different track here a little bit. at the end of july, secretary hagel released a statement on the strategic choices management review.

in that, it's basically how the department is going to cope with the sequestration over the next ten years. general odierno, in your testimony before the house armed services committee you stated that the skimmer was based on assumptions which you described as rosy and some what dangerous. specifically, you pointed out it assumes conflicts will last just six months, little to no casualties will be sustained, no follow-up stability, operations will be necessary. u.s. forces deployed elsewhere will be able to complete, disengage and redeployed to support a major regional contingency and the use of weapons of mass destruction wasn't even considered. can you elaborate on those assumptions and the danger you refer to about building force structure based on those assumptions? >> so if you reduce the requirement, you reduce the amount of forces necessary. so what happens is, we do not

have the ability to replace our soldiers that have to accomplish this. you don't have enough. it's about quantity. the war in korea would last less than a year. there is nothing that makes me feel that is a good assumption. that we won't have any casualties during a war somewhere around the world. the fact that we do full disengagement. we just fought two wars, iraq and iran. we did not disengage in other places around the world. it's just not assumptions i believe are appropriate. what i worry about is in the end, the weight of those assumptions are not going to be on me, it's going to be on our soldiers, our young men and women asked to do a mission they do not have the capability and quantity of capability to accomplish. it results in more casualties and it results, which is the most, in my mind, critical thing.

it also makes rosy assumptions about our ability to quickly build a larger force. in the 2000s, first it took us four years to make a decision to say we can grow the army. then once we did that, it took about 32 months to do it because you've got to recruit them and then i've got to train them. you can't do that within a six or eight month period. it's impossible to do. we made assumptions we would magically build this huge army in a short period of time. it doesn't happen that way unless we go to national mobilization, go back to a draft, many other things. even then it would take longer than six months to a year, two years plus to build an army. assumptions like that are incredibly risky as we go forward. >> do you think this review is helpful in my what to help planning within your different departments and the department as a whole? >> it is. there are some things that are

good about it. some things about efficiencies are good. a lot of people mentioned there are clearly efficiencies we have to garner out of our own budgets and we have to do that. some of that is very good. i do significantly worry about these assumptions we make about our war-fighting capabilities which are rosy and somewhat dangerous. >> thank you. admiral, do you have anything to add on the skimmer? >> well, i think we need to keep in mind it was options for a future, which was described. as general odierno said that's nice. we've never been able to predict that future. it's dangerous if you're wrong. the world i live in providing presence if we reduce force structure to a level we are not out and about, our allies are wondering about our reliability. therefore potential adversaries

can get out of hand, if you will. we can pretty much have a mess. we are not deterring those by being together with our allies. that is a great deterrent effect. lastly, i would say the ability to produce ready forces, you've got to look into that closely. as general odierno said there were some assumptions made we talked about the debilitating effects here in the industrial base. that can be extraordinary we need to consider that. >> i've had some comments made to me that president reagan was able to build up the force fairly quickly when he became president. would you agree with that? both of you have said it's difficult to build force up quickly. has it happened in the past? do you think president reagan did? >> what he did was, he didn't increase the size. he increased the investment into the force. during the reagan buildup what we did was increase our readiness, significantly increased our modernization

programs, which had an incredible impact on the capability that was developed during the time what is in the army. >> the delivery of in my world the ships and aircraft took place quite a bit after the investment, if you will. so the same thing occurs when you draw down. boom, they're gone and you say i'm going to stand it up again. i've got to make sure you've got ship builders and aircraft builders, as well. president reagan was fortunate in that regard he had a broad enough industrial base to respond. >> general amos and general welsh, just briefly. >> ma'am, i'm with my colleagues on president reagan. we live with his legacy through the '90s. we had the reagan buildup. when we went through the '90s, the gulf war, we used the equipment that came from the reagan buildup. we sustained that through the

25%, 28% reduction of force in the late '90s in revolutionary military affairs. it takes a long time to build a force of people. in today's market it takes a long time to develop ships, airplanes. we are seeing that right now. >> you are opinion of the structure and the skimmer, general amos. do you have an opinion on those? >> say that again, please? >> on the assumptions listed in the skimmer. did you have any thoughts you wanted to share on that? >> i share my colleagues' app pensions. they gave a range of what a service should look like. that is helpful because dialogu everybody kind of moving. >> thank you. >> ma'am, another assumption that was in there that is significant based on where we are today is that skimmer was underlined by an assumption that our force was fully ready and

that allowed you to execute the strategy. we're clearly not there today. the other thing i would mention about the reagan buildup is for the air force specifically. we purchased about 2600 new aircraft to modernize our force. in the latest buildup of our top-line budget between 2000 and 2008, we built 260. we did not modernize. so the force still needs to be modernized in critical areas. thank you very much. >> thank you, senator, fischer. senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chair and to the witnesses. i appreciate your patience with us. the effect of sequester on virginia is just so palpable in all the communities that i visit. i gave a speech on the 27th of february as a senator. i think most maiden speeches are sort of here's who i am or let me tell you about my state or let me tell you what i want to

do. i don't think many maiden speeches were like mine. let's not do something stupid. i had to make my maiden speech about let's not do something stupid because it was right on the eve of the sequester kicking in. we cast a vote in the senate to turn off the sequester, and there were 53 votes for that. because of the ability to insist upon 60 votes, 53 votes wasn't enough to turn off the sequester. and i just think it's always very important that we say this, and you couldn't be more diplomatic than i'll be. it's because of congress. sequester is because congress hasn't done a budget. sequester is because we haven't been able to find a deal in normal order. we haven't been able to find a deal in super committees. we haven't been able to do anything other than kick the can down the road, continuing resolutions. congress could have fixed this. congress shouldn't have put it in place. congress can fix it. the one bit of good news about this is there's a budget

conference finally going on right now. one of the things i would certainly ask everyone connected with the military or who loves it, whether you're active, veteran, or just a patriot, tell the budget conferees, and there's some of us around this table. angus and i are both on the budget conference. tell us to get a budget deal by the 13th of december. what you need is certainty and a path out of sequester. there's been some questions today, mr. chair, along the lines of have you explained to the president how sequester is hurting national security? i found those questions kind of odd. the president submits a budget every year to congress. and i imagine that you talk to the president about your needs. if congress would just pass the president's budget or pass the dod portion of the president's budget or pass something within the general time zone of the dod portion of the president's budget, would our readiness

issues be much easier to deal with than they are under the sequester? >> yes, sir, they would. i mean, the budget we submitted and testified to, i for one, found was acceptable. >> so there isn't a need for a president to come and bring a special request for, you know, we're having readiness problems, here's my proposal for how we deal with readiness problems. all we have to do is pass a budget and get in the general, you know, time zone or area of what the president is proposing vis-a-vis the dod. while it wouldn't eliminate all the challenges we have, we wouldn't be here looking at charts like this, would we? general amos, i want to ask you a question. i looked through your written testimony quickly. you said something pretty blunt in your opening comment. i think i heard you use the word

ashamed. i think it was in connection with you're sort of ashamed about the way we're treating maybe some of our civilians with respect to the furloughs. i didn't write down the precise quote. when i went back through your written testimony, i couldn't find it. could you just refresh me on exactly what you said because i want to ask you what you meant by it. >> i just handed my oral statement back, but i said i'm ashamed of the way we've treated our civilian marines. as i look back at how we went through the furlough and how we went through the government shutdown, i'm looking at them -- and by the way, we required them as soon as they came back to help us get this budget put in and get all the contracting done, close out all the deals at the end of the year. these are the professionals that do that, senator. it's typically not military people that have trying to get the contracts in, trying to get all the money obligated. the professionals working on our airplanes, ships, tanks, equipment. so to be honest with you, when i

look at them in the eye, i'm embarrassed. i'm ashamed. because i think they are every bit as much patriots as we that wear the uniform are. and i think we treated them poorly. that's what i meant by that. >> and i appreciate you saying that because, you know, again, we really are dealing with a problem that congress created and only congress can fix. you know, peppering you with more questions about whether you're appropriately informing the commander in chief about these effects is an effort to kind of avoid looking in the mirror. you know, we just have to look in the mirror in this place. again, mr. chair, we do have a good opportunity right now because the budget conference that should have started in march is now underway to try to find some certainty. general dempsey was with a number of us the other day. he said the problem with sequester is it's money, it's timing, and it's flexibility. all three of those create

problems. i worry about your planners. i think you've got some superb planners in all your branches and with dod, but instead of letting your planners run free to plan how to deal with an uncertain world, we're tying up their time, making them figure out how to deal with an uncertain budget situation. you don't have a budgetary number right now. you don't know when you'll have a number, and you don't know what the rules will be about the number that you will eventually get at some uncertain time. so we are in an uncertain world. we are making your task almost impossible. and so i feel ashamed. i feel ashamed to have you come back here again and again and again and tell us the same thing and not see any action to do anything about it. >> senator, can i comment? we're under continuing resolution. you know that. it's a forced diet. that prevents us from signing multi-year contracts.

i've got $815 million worth of military construction in '14. three-quarters of it is for the president's strategy, the rebalance to the pacific. i'm not going to be able to commit that. i'm not going to be able to do those kinds of things. i was just looking through only numbers in preparation for this hearing. as a result of sequester alone and the amount of my shares, 10.2% or 3% over ten years, it's going to -- just in marine aviation alone, it's going to cost me $6.5 billion of inefficiency. so we talk about cost overruns and all the other things we're going to try to call the money out. $6.5 billion. that's because of multiyear contracts i either can't sign or have to cancel so i have to pay penalties now. i'm buying airplanes on an individual basis. at the end of that, that's four jsf squadrons and two osprey

squad squadrons, simply because of the inefficient way we're going about business in this sequester. >> mr. chair, i hope if we have another hearing on this, i'm going to suggest something that you're all too diplomatic and reasonable to do, but if we have another hearing on sequestration, i would suggest that you bring -- you can bring whatever charts you want, but i suggest you just bring a bunch of mirrors and put them up so we can look at ourselves in our own faces as we're talking about this. it's the only place we're going to solve this. this isn't on you to solve. it's not on the president to solve. only congress can pass a budget. a congressional budget doesn't even go to the president for signature. it's just fully within this body. it's fully within our power to solve this. i pray that we will. >> and the public gets this, mr. chairman. the public understands this. that's why our approval rating is below al qaeda's. i mean, it's a sad state. >> two quick requests.

one, did each of you support the president's budget request? >> yes. >> admiral? >> yes, sir, i did. >> yes, chairman. >> yes, sir. >> all right. secondly, would you give us, general amos, the breakdown for the record of that $6.5 billion that you made reference to? now, senator bloomen that will? >> yes, mr. chairman, i realize we're in a vote so i'm going to be very quick. >> and i'm going to turn the gavel over to you. is it safe? >> that's an awesome responsibility, but i think i'm capable of it. >> thank you, all. >> thank you. and we are in the middle of a vote so i'm going to be very brief. first, i understand, mr. chairman, in a glaring admission on the part of our committee, we have not yet wished general amos a happy birthday even though it's a little early. happy birthday. >> thank you, senator. >> let me ask, for the record. i don't want to take your time with this. i agree with what senator kaine has just said about the responsibility being on the part

of congress. i think part of the way to deal with this crisis, and it really is a crisis, is to perhaps modify some of the contracts long term, some of the procurement process, which is not your doing. you aren't the ones who in effect burden the military services with the way we do procurement and the contracts which in effect penalize the united states when it fails to make certain orders or when there are cost overruns that are not your doing. so i would like the panel to look at some of the procurement decisions, such as general amos has just described, where we are in effect going to pay a lot more for weapons systems, whether it's airplanes or ships,

as a consequence of sequester so that we have some examples. they don't have to be in charts, but we need to be able to convince the american people about what the impact of sequester is because right now it's a word. it's a term that has little or no meaning to 99.9% of the american people. and one of the other weapons systems you describe d, general amos, but admiral, i understand that the virginia payload module, which results in a $743 million design change to the virginia class submarine has been undermined by some potential cuts in the 2014 budget. i support that design change, the $743 million design program. i think it will measurably and

materially and significantly add to the capability of those submarines and to remove the money for designing and researching it, i believe will be really a loss of a tremendous opportunity. would you agree? >> yes, sir, i will. and as stated before, this we're talking about the undersea do main. it's a high priority for us. as i discussed the concept of reprogramming, we'll search for that money. we're fortunate it's a long-term program, but obviously the impact if we continue this will be dramatic. >> i also finally want to raise again as i've done before the mi-17 helicopter issue where i understand there may be limits to what we can do to reprogram money. but i just want to state for the record, $1 billion to buy helicopters from the russian export agency that's also selling arms to syria when we

don't have afghan trained personnel to maintain those helicopters will strike most americans as a tremendous waste of money. first, because we're not buying american helicopters, which we should be doing if we have to provide helicopters at all. second, because the afghans can't use them as we would hope they would. i understand that you may have a different position. you, meaning the united states army or the department of defense. but if we're going to buy those helicopters, we should be buying them from american manufacturers and training the afghans how to use them. >> well, i would just say, senator, that i want to make it clear we're not buying those helicopters for our forces. i want to make that very clear. >> i understand. >> secondly, that's a decision that was made in theater based on their assessment of the ability for the afghans to --

they think they could, in fact, learn and train on mi-17s, because that's what they've had in the past. that's why we're purchasing them. we're the agent to purchase those aircraft for them. that's a decision made by those closest to that issue. >> i understand we're not using -- we're not buying those helicopters for american forces. they're being bought for the afghans, but we are using american taxpayer dollars, which could be used for the virginia payload module or any other of the very important needs that you have and this we need to address. so i understand that those decisions have been made as a result of recommendations by commanders in the field, and i just want to state for the record my reservations about that decision. so thank you very much. thank you to each of you for your service to our nation. i think i am in charge of

gaveling to a close, even though i don't >> we also really fortunate and grateful that we live in the united states of america. it is a very unique place. if amerco was considered to be a product, and we do try to sell our product overseas, what is our brand? is the our brand constitution, rule of law, and our value system. under thatbrand and value system, there is that notion of equal under the eyes of the law. under that brand and value system is the ava in trying to elevateda and trying to the lives of people with disabilities. >> it is a treaty. no one can disagree with these arguments. will betion is --

treaty actually have the legal effect that is being proctored by the proponents of the treaty? we do not hear citations to articles of the treaty. we do not hear consideration of the reports, the concluding operations. we do not hear the kind of analysis that would be appropriate for analyzing the legal impact of this treaty. >> this weekend on c-span, more than 130 countries have ratified nations-inspired united disabilities treaty. this week, the senate foreign relations committee took up the treaty again. watched saturday morning at 10:00 eastern on seized in2 -- on c-span2's book tv. malcolm >> on c-span3's american history tv, i credit sacramento street to feed from then-president ford, lynette squeaky from pull the trigger.

>> washington journal begins in a moment. we'll take your phone calls and tweets. president obama will travel to the port of new orleans to talk about u.s. exports and the economy. that is live at on: 10 eastern here on c-span. also this afternoon, state department officials will new resolution in keeping weapons of mass destruction from terrorists and other criminals. live from the stimson center at three eastern. this hour, alex seitz wald of the national journal discusses the u.s. constitution. dr. thomas friedman would join us from the cdc to discuss her priorities.

oner that, a cdc report birthrates and healthcare in the u.s.. venter of, stephanie the national center for health statistics and mark mader. topic of major discussion here in washington these days. members of congress are talking about it, city councils are voting on it, political commentators are writing about it. even the president is voicing an opinion. here he is. >> obviously, people get pretty mascots.to team names, i don't think there are any redskins fans that mean offense. i've got to say if i were the owner of the team and i knew that there was a name of my