House Armed Services Committee
Subcommittee Chairman Ortiz' opening statement--February 13, 2007
"This hearing will come to order. I thank our distinguished witnesses for appearing before these subcommittees today. We appreciate all the Marine Corps and Navy are doing to try to keep our marines and sailors equipped for combat.
"Today the Readiness and Seapower subcommittees will hear about the reset programs of the Marine Corps and the Navy's Seabees and Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams.
Reset means, for the civilians among us, what it will take to fix and re-supply the Marine Corps and Navy so they are ready to fight. Since November 2001, operations in Afghanistan - then in Iraq - have taken a significant toll on the Marine Corps' and Navy's equipment.
"According to the GAO, as much as 40% of the Marine Corps' ground equipment is deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan or at depots waiting to be repaired and returned to the fight. Some Seabee units - which are Naval construction forces - are reporting equipment usage rates 43 times the peacetime usage rate. These factors, along with battle losses and industrial base constraints, are reducing the overall equipment readiness of the Marine Corps and the Navy's Seabees and EOD teams.
"To fix this, the Department of the Navy has implemented the reset strategy to repair, recapitalize and replace damaged and destroyed equipment. The Marine Corps and Navy must accomplish this program efficiently in order to quickly restore the full equipment readiness of their forces.
"This committee understands the need for a successful reset. To that end, we authorized $6.6 Billion for Marine Corps reset in Fiscal Year 2007, fully satisfying all reset requirements requested by the Marine Corps, including some carried over from the previous year.
"It is vital that the Marine Corps and Navy move as quickly as possible to quickly re-equip units with new and repaired equipment for combat. I hope our witnesses will discuss how the troop escalation in Iraq will affect reset in both dollars and time and what measures are being taken to mitigate these effects. We also would like to understand how Reserve Component equipment "payback" will be figured into the Services' reset strategies.
"We all understand that how quickly you execute reset - actual repair and replacement, not just how quickly you pay for it - will determine how quickly the Marine Corps and Navy will be whole again and fully prepared for any challenge.
"Before we hear our witnesses' testimony, I would like to ask my good friend from Mississippi if he has any opening remarks he would like to make."
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