Proposed Budget Provides Tools to Manage Demand on Forces
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2004 -- With 2.2 million men and women on active duty and
in the reserve component, there's no shortage of manpower to support the war on
terror, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim told reporters here during a Feb. 2
briefing.
"We have about 2.2 million people serving in one way or another, and yet people
are telling us there's a strain in maintaining the forces in Iraq," Zakheim
said. "That's a management challenge. And we have to manage the demand on the
forces."
Zakheim said the president's proposed fiscal 2005 budget will provide critical
funding required to help the Defense Department make the most effective and
efficient use of its manpower.
That initiative, he said, involves expanding the military's capabilities,
rebalancing the force, retaining critical skills, receiving authority for
higher personnel levels during peak demands, and converting some military
positions to civilian and contractor jobs.
Part of this effort involves expanding the military's capabilities so it is
able to fulfill missions with smaller forces. This far-ranging initiative
involves everything from improving weapons systems to reconfiguring the U.S.
presence overseas.
One aspect of this is the Global Defense Posture Review, started in mid-2002.
"We are looking at where we might move troops to be in a more relevant place
for future threats and where we might reduce troops that are already serving or
based somewhere overseas," Zakheim said.
As critical as it is to provide the best-equipped and best-supported troops at
the right locations, Zakheim said, it also is imperative that the Defense
Department continues rebalancing its force to reduce its reliance on the
reserve components.
The goal, he said, is to limit involuntary Reserve mobilizations and to reduce
the need to call Reservists and Guardsmen to active duty within the first 15
days of military operations. Zakheim said the department ultimately wants to
ensure that members of the reserve components are required to serve no more
than one year of active duty every six years.
This will require beefing up the active force's early response support
capabilities: logistics, transportation and medical, among them. It also means
retooling the missions assigned to the reserve components. "We don't need as
many people in artillery (in the reserve components)," Zakheim said. "We need a
lot of people in military police and in civic affairs, medical and
transportation."
By continuing to implement the National Security Personnel System, Zakheim said
the department will be better positioned to compete with other employers to
hire top-quality candidates with critical skills. The new system also will
enhance the department's ability to smoothly convert some military positions to
civilian positions, he added.
"You have a lot of military folks who are actually doing the work of civilians
in defense agencies," Zakheim said. He called hiring civilians to do those jobs
and returning the uniformed members to their services to fill military jobs "a
win-win: a more efficient civilian side, a more effective military side."
These conversions already are under way. During fiscal 2004, Zakheim said,
10,000 military-to-civilian conversions are scheduled, with an additional
10,070 projected for fiscal 2005.
Biography:
DoD Comptroller Dov Zakheim
Related AFPS Articles:
Terror War Needs Funded in
Proposed 2005 Defense Budget
Budget Request Funds Current
Readiness, Transformation
Proposed 2005 Budget Contains
Money For Troop Pay Raise
Bush to Ask for $401.7 Billion
for Defense in 2005
Army to Restructure, Will Grow
by 30,000
Army Chief 'Adamantly
Opposes' Added End Strength
DoD to Transform Reserve And
Guard by Rebalancing Mission
Related Web Sites:
Office of the Undersecretary
of Defense (Comptroller)
National Security Personnel
System
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