More on our broken military

When a readiness 'crisis' is a real crisis
By David Isenberg

Curiously enough, defining military readiness, or the lack thereof, is more difficult than one might think. For example, during the US administration of president Bill Clinton, Republican opponents tried very hard to convince the public that the military was in the midst of a grave "readiness crisis". In reality, the charges were as dubious and politically motivated as were the Cold War-era bomber and missile "gaps".

Most of the so-called readiness deficiencies in late 1994 and early 1995 were confined to a few military units that had already been earmarked for demobilization. The remaining problems largely reflected temporary cash-flow difficulties arising from unanticipated missions in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf. Now it is increasingly apparent that the US military really is in trouble, but even the new Democratic Congress has yet to recognize all the trouble signs.

In fairness, defining readiness is far easier than measuring it, an inherently subjective process. The US Government Accountability Office reported in 2003 that since 1998, the Department of Defense (DOD) has made some progress in improving readiness reporting, particularly at the unit level, but some issues remain. For example, DOD uses measures that vary 10 percentage points or more to determine readiness ratings and often does not report the precise measurements outside the department.

DOD now includes more information in its Quarterly Readiness Reports to Congress. But quality issues remain in that the reports do not specifically describe readiness problems, their effect on readiness, or remedial actions to correct problems. Nor do the reports contain information about funding programmed to address specific remedial actions.

One of the newest and unreported signs of unreadiness involves something called C-ratings. Historically, readiness of US military forces at the unit level has been measured using the Status of Resources and Training System. Under SORTS, units report their overall readiness status as well as the status of four resource areas (personnel, equipment and supplies on hand, equipment condition, and training). These are readiness indicators based on the comparison of the resources that units have with the levels prescribed for wartime. The lower the number, the higher the state of readiness.

# The readiness status of a unit is reported by assigning capability, or "C", ratings as follows: C-1 Unit can undertake the full wartime missions for which it is organized or designed.
# C-2 Unit can undertake the bulk of its wartime missions.
# C-3 Unit can undertake major portions of its wartime missions.
# C-4 Unit requires additional resources and/or training to undertake its wartime missions, but if the situation dictates, it may be required to undertake portions of the missions with resources on hand.
# C-5 Unit is undergoing a service-directed resource change and is not prepared to undertake its wartime missions.

It has not been widely publicized that US units being deployed to Iraq that are rated at C-3/4 levels are being elevated to C-1/2 after only a couple of weeks in Kuwait, the functional equivalent of a military miracle.

Last December, CQ Weekly reported that US Army planning assumes that 37 of its 70 combat brigades are ready for deployment under its C-1-to-C-5 rating system. But the article noted, "A recent army document showed that all combat brigades [including both army and reserve] in the United States, even those next to deploy, are unready."

According to a briefing chart, 19 brigades that were next to be deployed were assumed to be at a C-1 or C-2 level, when they were actually C-3 or C-4.

It should take several months for a low-readiness unit to become ready for any combat. According to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, "The entire CONUS [Continental US] Army is in the crapper."

It is no great secret why US military units are increasingly unready. All their problems are the consequence of overuse. Last month the Center for American Progress in Washington released a report detailing that overuse. It found that of the army's 44 combat brigades, all but the one permanently based in South Korea have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Of those 43 brigades, 12 have been deployed once; 20 have been deployed twice; nine have been deployed three times; and two have been deployed four times. It also found that army readiness doctrine mandates that after a unit is deployed for one year, it should receive one year of recuperation followed by a year of training before being redeployed to theater.

Because of the US administration's mismanagement, the army has been forced to ignore its own guidelines. Of the 43 brigades deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, nine have been deployed one year or less at home and 25 have been deployed with less than two years at home.

On Monday, the Pentagon announced additional major units scheduled to deploy to Iraq. These include the XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters, 1st Armored Division Headquarters, 4th Infantry Division Headquarters, and the 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. The last has already been deployed three times to Iraq or Afghanistan. It has also, contrary to army policy, been deployed with less than two years at home since its previous tour.

Last June the army tacitly confirmed the readiness problem, when a memorandum circulated on Capitol Hill by the House Armed Services Subcommittee chairman, Republican Congressman Joel Hefley, suggested the army has already deployed units to Iraq and Afghanistan officially rated at the lowest levels of readiness.

An army spokesman said that although some units arrive in theater at less than top preparedness, they receive additional equipment and training before undertaking missions. In the Persian Gulf, for example, army units typically fall in on equipment in Kuwait and undergo weeks of additional training there before moving into Iraq.

According to retired army Colonel Doug Macgregor, "Nobody is going to give you a truthful account. Many of the returning units have soldiers who are psychologically traumatized, previously wounded, or newly recruited. And many of those recruited are of a quality that would not have been taken back before 2003."

Macgregor says it is silly to think US military units can upgrade their readiness from C-3 or C-4 to C-2 or C-1 levels after only a couple or few additional weeks of training in Kuwait before arriving in Iraq.

According to Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran and now an independent businessman, "We are at an all-time low in soldier and unit readiness in the army." Why isn't this a topic of discussion? He thinks the reason is that there is enormous pressure on generals to say things are going well. "How much truth has been heard on the military side since the start of the war? There is no real accountability on the military side."

David Isenberg is a senior research analyst at the British American Security Information Council, a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, and an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information, Washington.

Original article posted here.