White: Army ready for battle beyond Afghanistan
by Joe Burlas
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 6, 2002) -- The Army is ready to win this nation's battles beyond current operations in Afghanistan, according its top civilian leader.
However, no decision has been made yet to make war on Iraq by President George W. Bush, Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White told a group of journalists Sept. 5 at the Pentagon.
"We as an Army, as we always would if anybody was prudent and responsible, are looking at the possibilities for the future," White said. "But our principal focus is still to support the war that's ongoing, not the war that the president has yet to make a decision on."
Looking at the possibilities, White said, the Army has verified within the past six months its prepositioned war stocks in the Gulf are in good operating condition. Those forward-deployed stocks -- one afloat and another in Kuwait -- are each capable of fully equipping a combat brigade.
White, a U.S. Military Academy graduate, Vietnam combat veteran and retired Army brigadier general, listed three priorities for the Army. They were winning the War on Terrorism, moving forward on Army Transformation and obtaining the right resources the Army needs to be successful.
Speaking about the War on Terrorism and his travels around the globe in the past year, the secretary said the Army and people in it are the best he has seen in the 40 years he has been around the Army. Soldiers are tough, smart, disciplined and in great physical condition, he said.
On Transformation, White claimed success for both the new wheeled Stryker vehicle and the acquisition process that is fielding 50 per month less than two years after signing the contract. Last month's Millenum Challenge exercise that tested joint transformation concepts, strategies and equipment validated the Stryker, he said.
"We moved the Strykers and we jumped the 82nd in with a forced-entry exercise," White said. "We then brought Stryker in by C-130. We've never had the capability to bring in a tactical vehicle by C-130 in a forced-entry environment, so I believe that is truly transformational."
The Army currently has two Stryker brigades, formerly known as Interim Brigade Combat Teams, standing up at Fort Lewis, Wash. They are the 3rd Bridage, 2nd Infantry Division and the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Four additional units are scheduled to convert to Stryker brigades over the next five years. Those units include: the 172nd Infantry Brigade at Fort Wanwright, Alaska; 2nd Brigade, 25th I.D. at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Polk, La; and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard's 56th Brigade in Philadelphia.
One of the Fort Lewis Stryker brigades will move to Europe by 2007 under current Department of Defense guidance, White said. Which of the two has not been determined.
The secretary praised next year's budget, saying it was the best federal budget for the Army in 20 years. "It pays for people, readiness and Transformation," he said.
White briefly discussed a new study currently underway into the Army's personnel management system. That study will examine increasing the number of unit overseas rotations as opposed to the primary system of individual rotations.
The Army currently rotates units as a whole to Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai and Korea. The purpose of the study is to determine the feasibility increasing the use of unit rotations for the purpose of unit readiness and cohesion. Under the proposal, units in the states would move unaccompanied for up to a one-year assignment in Europe and other locations.
"...If we don't fundamentally change the personnel system of the Army, which for the last 60 years has been focused on an individual rotation basis, which is the antithesis of unit cohesion and expertise -- if we don't do something about that, then the sum total of all the rest of this will not be nearly as effective as it could be," White said.
The study is scheduled to take a year.
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