Monday
Nov162009
Today At TRNS
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 9:47AM
The Washington bureau will be covering:
- A joint discussion with the UN Correspondents Association and the American Moroccan Institute on "Women Leaders in the Arab World."
- A pen and pad briefing with Senators Lamar Alexander and Jim Webb on bipartisanship in furthering national clean energy technology.
- A stakeout following Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George Casey Jr. and Secretary of the Army John McHugh's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on circumstances surrounding the Ft. Hood shootings.
- The Coalition for Religious Freedom's news conference held to "condemn [the] Stupak-Pitts Amendment"
- A Natural Resources Defense Council discussion on "President Obama's Trip to China and Climate Issues."
- The American Enterprise Institute and National Chamber Foundation discussion on "Challenges to Creating 20 Million New Jobs."
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion on "Restoring the Non-Proliferation Treaty."
- A discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress on unifying diplomatic, development and military strategy under the Obama administration.
- and the AAAS and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research hosts a discussion on "Climate Change: Health and Policy Implications."
- A joint discussion with the UN Correspondents Association and the American Moroccan Institute on "Women Leaders in the Arab World."
- A pen and pad briefing with Senators Lamar Alexander and Jim Webb on bipartisanship in furthering national clean energy technology.
- A stakeout following Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George Casey Jr. and Secretary of the Army John McHugh's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on circumstances surrounding the Ft. Hood shootings.
- The Coalition for Religious Freedom's news conference held to "condemn [the] Stupak-Pitts Amendment"
- A Natural Resources Defense Council discussion on "President Obama's Trip to China and Climate Issues."
- The American Enterprise Institute and National Chamber Foundation discussion on "Challenges to Creating 20 Million New Jobs."
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion on "Restoring the Non-Proliferation Treaty."
- A discussion hosted by the Center for American Progress on unifying diplomatic, development and military strategy under the Obama administration.
- and the AAAS and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research hosts a discussion on "Climate Change: Health and Policy Implications."
Testimony on the army budget reveals challenges and future of conflict
In his opening statement Geren said that Army is stretched, but not hollow. He emphasized that this was the most capable fighting force he had seen in his career. Casey and chairman Skelton said that they foresaw a future of prolonged and constant dynamic conflict worldwide.
The big emphasis from the witnesses was to defend the budget and highlight the four priorities of the Armyspending: sustain the troops in theater, prepare for future conflict, reset the balance of the force interms of troop deployment and equipment and transform the nature of the force to meet future challenges.
To prepare and transform the army needs to train for both counterinsurgency and what Casey called "full spectrum" operations. But current deployment rotations do not allow for this kind of training as troops are 15 months out and only 12 months home. Both witnesses said that these need to be evened out to a one to one ratio. They want to increase home time not only for rest and families but also for this strategic training.
Both witnesses repeated that the Army is stressed and that it is unbalanced. Geren said that he was hopeful that the 09 budget would help grow the army because as he said, "we are too small to meet the commitments we have."