- WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld on Monday submitted to Congress a sweeping proposal for
changing the U.S. military that would rewrite Pentagon retirement and retention
rules and abolish practices that have governed the military for generations.
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- The 204-page document also would expand the secretary's
authority to eliminate reports to Congress and waive rules that interfere
with military readiness.
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- The package of changes, titled the "Defense Transformation
for the 21st Century Act," would raise the retirement age for senior
officers, push some military jobs into the private sector and exempt the
Defense Department from environmental laws the secretary considers an impediment
to readiness.
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- Rumsfeld appeared to be taking advantage of the success
of the Iraq war to push changes that have been fiercely resisted by Pentagon
brass and their allies in Congress.
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- Rumsfeld has argued for restructuring the U.S. military
to make it lighter and more flexible. He contends the military still is
configured for fighting a major conflict in Europe against the defunct
Soviet Union rather than for the more rapid and long-range kind of warfare
the U.S. has been waging in Iraq.
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- As he said last month at a Defense Department town meeting,
"The attacks of Sept. 11 make transforming the department even more
urgent," because the military is not designed "to fight the shadowy
terrorists and terrorist networks that operate with the support and assistance
of terrorist states."
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- Rumsfeld submitted his plan at a time when the Pentagon
high command is busy with the Iraq war and Congress is out of town for
a two-week spring recess.
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- Spokesmen for the Senate and the House Armed Services
Committees said there would be no official response to the document until
it had been studied. Rumsfeld asked that the legislative package be adopted
as part of this year's defense authorization bill.
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- One controversial provision of the proposal would remove
the four-year time limit for generals and admirals serving in top leadership
positions, including chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chief of naval
operations, Army chief of staff, Marine Corps commandant and Air Force
chief of staff. It also would allow less senior officers to remain in command
positions for longer periods of time.
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- "I think that the United States armed forces make
a terrible mistake by having so many permanent changes of station, by having
so many people skip along at the tops of the waves in a job and serve in
it 12, 15, 18, 24 months and be gone," Rumsfeld told the Reserve Officers
Association in January.
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- "They spend the first six months saying hello...
the next six months trying to learn the job and the last six months leaving,"
he said.
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- There has been deep-seated opposition to that change
because of fears in the officer ranks that it would mean a slower rate
of promotion and stagnation in lesser positions.
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- As compensation, the proposal would allow some high-ranking
officers to retire early without loss of benefits. It also would eliminate
limits on the number of generals and admirals the services could have at
various pay grades.
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- Another provision would reorganize the reserves and National
Guard into separate job classifications for assignments that could require
long deployments on active duty and those that would only require reservists
to attend weekend meetings and two weeks' training in the summer.
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- "The reality is people in the [National] Guard do
in fact have jobs and are not signed up to be full-time," Rumsfeld
said. "They're signed up to be part-time. They're signed up to be
helpful when needed."
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- More than 200,000 reservists and National Guard troops
have been called up from civilian life to active duty for the Iraq war,
and some are facing deployments exceeding a year.
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- Rumsfeld's plan would allow reserve and National Guard
generals and admirals to serve until age 68 and allow some designated by
the defense secretary to serve until 72.
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- It also would permit generals and admirals and senior
enlisted ranks to receive retirement pay greater than 75 percent of their
base pay, the current limit.
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- According to David Chu, undersecretary of defense for
personnel and readiness, the U.S. armed forces are 31,400 over authorized
strength because a "stop loss" hold was put on members preparing
to retire or otherwise leave the service during the Iraq emergency.
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- Rumsfeld is proposing to keep uniformed strength at about
1.5million but turn over as many as 300,000 jobs now performed by military
personnel to outside civilian contractors.
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- Rumsfeld's plan also would:
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- * Authorize the secretary of defense to spend $200 million
to "assist foreign nations whose support is critical to counterterrorism
efforts";
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- * Empower the secretary to waive laws that require the
use of American-made products if they interfere with national security;
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- * Enable the Pentagon to award contracts on the basis
of quality as well as low cost;
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- * Remove limits on the defense secretary's office staff;
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- * Streamline the defense secretary's ability to spend
money on the missile defense program;
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- * End a requirement for the Defense Department to periodically
report to Congress on many issues--the list covers about 100 pages--including
the B-1 bomber, which Rumsfeld says has proved itself in combat.
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- Comment
- From Horst
- horst@nakis.gr
- 4-17-3
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- in short: prepare a military government!
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