Military Personnel
DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of Mobilizations for Reserve Forces Gao ID: GAO-03-921 August 21, 2003On September 14, 2001, President Bush proclaimed that a national emergency existed by reason of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Under section 12302 of title 10, United States Code, the President is allowed to call up to 1 million National Guard and Reserve members to active duty for up to 2 years. GAO was asked to review issues related to the call-up of reservists following September 11, 2001. GAO examined (1) whether the Department of Defense (DOD) followed existing operation plans when mobilizing forces, (2) the extent to which responsible officials had visibility over the mobilization process, and (3) approaches the services have taken to provide predictability to reservists. GAO also determined the extent to which the Ready Reserve forces, which make up over 98 percent of nonretired reservists, were available.
About 300,000 of the 1.2 million National Guard and Reserve personnel have been called to active duty since September 11, 2001. They fought on the front lines in Iraq; tracked terrorists throughout Asia and Africa; maintained the peace in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Iraq; and participated in a wide range of domestic missions. However, DOD's process to mobilize reservists after September 11 had to be modified and contained numerous inefficiencies. Existing operation plans did not fully address the mobilization requirements needed to deal with the terrorist attacks or uncertain overseas requirements. For example, no previous requirements called for the extended use of National Guard and Reserve members to fly combat air patrols over the nation's capital and major cities. Because DOD could not rely on existing operation plans to guide its mobilizations, it used a modified process that relied on additional management oversight and multiple layers of coordination, which resulted in a process that was slower and less efficient than the traditional process. Under the modified process, the Secretary of Defense signed 246 deployment orders to mobilize over 280,000 reservists compared to the less than 10 deployment orders needed to mobilize over 220,000 reservists during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. DOD did not have visibility over the entire mobilization process primarily because it lacked adequate systems for tracking personnel and other resources. DOD's primary automated readiness reporting system could not adequately track the personnel and other resources within the small units that were frequently needed. Also, visibility was lost because some services' active and reserve systems for tracking personnel were incompatible, resulting in ad hoc coordination between active and reserve officials. Both groups often resorted to tracking mobilizations with computer spreadsheets. In addition, some reservists were deployed beyond dates specified in their orders or stayed on alert for more than a year and never mobilized because officials lost visibility. The services have used two primary approaches--predictable operating cycles and advance notification--to provide time for units and personnel to prepare for mobilizations. All the services provide predictability to portions of their forces through some type of standard operating cycle, but only the Air Force has a standard operating cycle that brings predictability to both its active and reserve forces. The Army prioritizes its units, and lower-priority units generally need extra training and preparation time before deploying. Yet, since September 11, a number of lower-priority units have been mobilized with relatively little advance notice. Despite the large number of lower-priority units within the Army Guard and Reserve, the Army does not have a standard operating cycle to provide predictability to its reserves. Without such a concept, the Army's opportunities to provide extra training and preparation time to its reserve forces are limited. Mobilizations were hampered because one-quarter of the Ready Reserve was not readily available for mobilization. Over 70,000 reservists could not be mobilized because they had not completed their training requirements, and the services lacked information needed to fully use the 300,000 pretrained IRR members.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-03-921, Military Personnel: DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of Mobilizations for Reserve Forces
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Report to the Subcommittee on Personnel, Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
August 2003:
Military Personnel:
DOD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of Mobilizations for
Reserve Forces:
GAO-03-921:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-921, a report to the Subcommittee on Personnel,
Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate
Why GAO Did This Study:
On September 14, 2001, President Bush proclaimed that a national
emergency existed by reason of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. Under section 12302 of title 10, United States Code, the
President is allowed to call up to 1 million National Guard and
Reserve members to active duty for up to 2 years. GAO was asked to
review issues related to the call-up of reservists following September
11, 2001. GAO examined (1) whether the Department of Defense (DOD)
followed existing operation plans when mobilizing forces, (2) the
extent to which responsible officials had visibility over the
mobilization process, and (3) approaches the services have taken to
provide predictability to reservists. GAO also determined the extent
to which the Ready Reserve forces, which make up over 98 percent of
nonretired reservists, were available.
What GAO Found:
About 300,000 of the 1.2 million National Guard and Reserve personnel
have been called to active duty since September 11, 2001. They fought
on the front lines in Iraq; tracked terrorists throughout Asia and
Africa; maintained the peace in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now
Iraq; and participated in a wide range of domestic missions. However,
DOD‘s process to mobilize reservists after September 11 had to be
modified and contained numerous inefficiencies. Existing operation
plans did not fully address the mobilization requirements needed to
deal with the terrorist attacks or uncertain overseas requirements.
For example, no previous requirements called for the extended use of
National Guard and Reserve members to fly combat air patrols over the
nation‘s capital and major cities. Because DOD could not rely on
existing operation plans to guide its mobilizations, it used a
modified process that relied on additional management oversight and
multiple layers of coordination, which resulted in a process that was
slower and less efficient than the traditional process. Under the
modified process, the Secretary of Defense signed 246 deployment
orders to mobilize over 280,000 reservists compared to the less than
10 deployment orders needed to mobilize over 220,000 reservists during
the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
DOD did not have visibility over the entire mobilization process
primarily because it lacked adequate systems for tracking personnel
and other resources. DOD‘s primary automated readiness reporting
system could not adequately track the personnel and other resources
within the small units that were frequently needed. Also, visibility
was lost because some services‘ active and reserve systems for
tracking personnel were incompatible, resulting in ad hoc coordination
between active and reserve officials. Both groups often resorted to
tracking mobilizations with computer spreadsheets. In addition, some
reservists were deployed beyond dates specified in their orders or
stayed on alert for more than a year and never mobilized because
officials lost visibility.
The services have used two primary approaches”predictable operating
cycles and advance notification”to provide time for units and
personnel to prepare for mobilizations. All the services provide
predictability to portions of their forces through some type of
standard operating cycle, but only the Air Force has a standard
operating cycle that brings predictability to both its active and
reserve forces. The Army prioritizes its units, and lower-priority
units generally need extra training and preparation time before
deploying. Yet, since September 11, a number of lower-priority units
have been mobilized with relatively little advance notice. Despite the
large number of lower-priority units within the Army Guard and
Reserve, the Army does not have a standard operating cycle to provide
predictability to its reserves. Without such a concept, the Army‘s
opportunities to provide extra training and preparation time to its
reserve forces are limited.
Mobilizations were hampered because one-quarter of the Ready Reserve
was not readily available for mobilization. Over 70,000 reservists
could not be mobilized because they had not completed their training
requirements, and the services lacked information needed to fully use
the 300,000 pretrained IRR members.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that DOD improve mobilization planning, increase
visibility over the readiness of small units, provide for the seamless
transfer of reservists‘ data, update mobilization guidance, improve
predictability for Army units, increase access to the Individual Ready
Reserve (IRR), and update IRR policies. DOD generally concurred with
the recommendations in this report.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-921.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click
on the link above. For more information, contact Derek B. Stewart at
(202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov.
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOD's Mobilizations after September 11, 2001, Were Not Based on
Existing Operation Plans:
DOD Officials Had Limited Visibility Over the Mobilization Process:
The Services Have Two Approaches to Provide Preparation Time for
Mobilizations and Deployments:
DOD Has Limited Access to Portions of the Ready Reserve:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Appendix III: Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11,
2001:
Table 2: Numbers of Army National Guard or Army Reserve Units That Were
on Alert in Excess of 90 Days (March 28, 2003):
Table 3: Fiscal Year 2002 Questionnaire Response Rates:
Table 4: IRR Screening Event Participation Rates:
Figures:
Figure 1: Flowchart of the Mobilization Process:
Figure 2: Guard and Reserve Members on Active Duty (January 2002-July
2003):
Figure 3: Reserve Force Mobilizations by Service (January 2002-July
2003):
Figure 4: Reserve Force Mobilizations as Percentages of Service Ready
Reserve Strengths (January 2002-July 2003):
Abbreviations:
DOD: Department of Defense:
GSORTS: Global Status of Resources and Training System
IRR: Individual Ready Reserve:
OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense
RFF: Request for Forces:
United States General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
August 21, 2003:
The Honorable Saxby Chambliss:
Chairman:
The Honorable E. Benjamin Nelson:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Personnel:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
Mobilization is a complex process used to move the military from its
peacetime posture to a heightened state of readiness to support
national security objectives in time of war or other national
emergency. It involves the activation of all or some of the 1.2 million
members of the National Guard and Reserve components, as well as the
assembling and organizing of supplies and materiel. The process
involves many different organizations and, while reserve component
officials have a role in the process, civilian leaders and active
military officials within the Department of Defense (DOD) take the lead
in the process. Active component officials generate and validate
mobilization requirements, and civilian leaders approve requests to
alert, mobilize, and deploy forces. In addition, when
reservists[Footnote 1] are mobilized they come under the operational
control of the active forces.
On September 14, 2001, President Bush proclaimed that a national
emergency existed by reason of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks. His proclamation[Footnote 2] further stated that he intended
to utilize section 12302 of title 10, United States Code (commonly
referred to as the partial mobilization authority), which allows the
President to call up to 1 million National Guard and Reserve members to
active duty for up to 2 years.
We were asked to review issues related to the call-up of reservists
following September 11, 2001. As agreed with your offices, our review
was focused on the efficiency of DOD's process for mobilizing
reservists from among its authorized 1.2 million Ready Reserve[Footnote
3] members. Specifically, we examined (1) whether DOD followed existing
operation plans when mobilizing reserve forces after September 11,
2001, (2) the extent to which responsible officials had visibility over
the entire mobilization process, and (3) approaches the services have
taken to provide predictability to reservists who were subject to
mobilizations and overseas deployments. You also asked us to determine
the extent to which the Ready Reserve forces were available for
mobilization.
To evaluate the efficiency of DOD's mobilization process, we reviewed
mobilization statutes, regulations, instructions, and guidance. We
analyzed mobilization data obtained during meetings with military and
civilian officials from the offices of the Secretary of Defense (OSD),
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the services, the reserve component
headquarters, and a number of commands that used mobilized reservists.
We also collected and analyzed information on the roles and
responsibilities of key mobilization officials, the steps of the
mobilization process, and the methods and systems used to track
mobilization requirements and reservists who had been mobilized. To
gain first-hand knowledge about the effects of mobilizations on
individual reservists, we interviewed both unit and individual
reservists at sites where they were deployed or undergoing mobilization
processing[Footnote 4] and training. We also observed DOD's 2-1/2 day
November 2002 symposium where senior military and civilian officials
came together and reviewed the mobilization process. A more thorough
description of our scope and methodology is provided in appendix I.
Results in Brief:
About 300,000 of the 1.2 million National Guard and Reserve personnel
have been called to active duty since September 2001. They fought on
the front lines in Iraq; tracked down terrorists throughout Asia and
Africa; maintained the peace in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Iraq;
and participated in a wide range of domestic missions. However, the
process to mobilize reservists after September 11 had to be modified
and contained numerous inefficiencies.
DOD did not follow existing operation plans after the events of
September 11, 2001, because those plans did not adequately address the
mobilization requirements needed to deal with terrorist attacks at home
and abroad, or with uncertain overseas deployment requirements. The
following examples illustrate how the existing operation plans failed
to accurately identify mobilization requirements.
* No previous requirements existed for National Guard troops at the
nation's civilian airports.
* No requirements called for the extended use of Guard and Reserve
members to fly combat air patrols over the nation's capital and major
cities.
* Overseas requirements focused on traditional operations against
national military forces, rather than on tracking terrorists throughout
Afghanistan and around the globe.
* Requirements in the Iraq operation plan had to be modified to address
the tenuous political environment, when assumed coalition partners and
planned access to bases and airspaces became uncertain.
* Requirements for individuals and small, tailored task forces were
much greater than those contained in the operation plans.
Because the existing operation plans had not adequately identified
mobilization requirements, DOD began using a modified mobilization
process after September 11, 2001. This modified process relied on
additional management oversight and multiple layers of coordination
among crisis action teams that were established to screen, clarify, and
fill mobilization requirements. This additional oversight and
coordination resulted in a modified mobilization process that was
slower and less efficient than the traditional process of synchronized
mobilizations and deployments based on existing operation plans.
Coordination was much more difficult under the modified process due to
the large number of deployment orders. For example, under the modified
process, the Secretary of Defense signed 246 deployment orders to
mobilize over 280,000 reservists between September 11, 2001, and May
21, 2003, compared to the less than 10 deployment orders needed to
mobilize over 220,000 reservists during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
DOD officials did not have visibility over the entire mobilization
process primarily because DOD lacked adequate systems for tracking
personnel and other resources. First, DOD's primary readiness reporting
automated data system tracked only the readiness of large units and not
the readiness of resources within the units that were frequently needed
after September 11, 2001. DOD's readiness reporting system does capture
separate information on the status of various personnel and equipment
categories for the unit as a whole, but it does not capture information
on the smaller units that make up the reporting unit. The Air Force had
a system to report the readiness of small units, but the other services
did not have similar capabilities. As a result, OSD, Joint Staff, and
service headquarters officials could not view automated readiness
information for the full range of units available to meet the small,
tailored requirements. Instead, they had to spend considerable time to
coordinate with individual units or reserve component headquarters to
obtain this information.
Second, visibility was lost because some services' active and reserve
component systems for tracking personnel were incompatible. The reserve
systems had visibility over one part of the mobilization process and
the active systems had visibility over a different part of the process,
but the systems were not able to directly transfer information and data
between the systems. As a result, the tracking of reservists required
extensive ad hoc coordination between active and reserve component
officials, and both groups often resorted to tracking mobilizations
with computer spreadsheets. Also, DOD and service officials sometimes
lost visibility over the length of deployments for mobilized reservists
who, in turn, were inadvertently deployed beyond the original year
specified in their orders. In other cases, hundreds of Guard and
Reserve members were kept on alert to mobilize for more than a year,
without ever mobilizing.
In addition, visibility was sometimes lost when coordination and
communication failed to take place due to outdated or conflicting
guidance. For example, Air Force officials drafted a mobilization
instruction to reflect changes to the roles and responsibilities of
personnel and the flow of information that had occurred under the
modified mobilization process. However, this instruction was never
finalized and signed. Some Air Force mobilization officials followed
the unsigned draft instruction, while others followed the older
"official" instruction due to the officials' uncertainty of which to
follow. We discovered cases where air reserve component units had been
mobilized without their reserve component headquarters being informed
of the mobilizations, because the new guidance had not been followed.
The services have used two primary approaches--predictable operating
cycles and formal advanced notification--to provide time for units and
servicemembers to prepare for upcoming mobilizations and deployments.
Key officials throughout DOD have acknowledged the importance of
predictability in helping reserve forces to prepare for mobilization
and deployment. Predictability helps units anticipate (1) downtime, so
they can schedule lengthy education and training for personnel and
lengthy maintenance for equipment and (2) the likely periods of
mobilization or deployment, so they can focus on efforts to increase
readiness, including last minute training and the screening of medical,
dental, and personnel records. Predictability also helps individual
reservists by giving them time to prepare their civilian employers and
family members for their possible departures. All the services provide
predictability to portions of their forces through some type of
standard operating cycle, but only the Air Force has a standard
operating cycle that brings predictability to both its active and
reserve forces. Faced with a high and increasing pace of reserve
operations, the Air Force adopted a standard operating cycle to help it
manage its commitments while reducing the deployment burden on its
people. Under the cycle, forces were scheduled to deploy for only 3 of
every 15 months. The Army prioritizes its units, and lower-priority
units generally need extra training and preparation time prior to
deploying. However, a number of lower-priority units were mobilized
with relatively little advance notice. For example, five transportation
companies containing 976 reservists were alerted on February 9, 2003,
and told to arrive at their mobilization stations by February 14, 2003.
Despite the large number of lower-priority units within the Army
National Guard and the Army Reserve, the Army does not have a standard
operating cycle concept to provide predictability to its reserve
forces. Without such a concept, the Army's opportunities to provide
extra training and preparation time to its reserve forces, particularly
those with lower priorities, are limited.
Lacking a standard operating cycle to provide predictability for its
reservists, the Army strives to provide its reservists with official
written orders 30 days in advance of mobilizations, in accordance with
an OSD policy goal. Between September 2001 and March 2003, advance
notice for Army personnel fluctuated from less than 72 hours to more
than 4 weeks. While advanced notice is beneficial to individual
reservists, it does not provide the longer lead times made possible by
predictable operating cycles. Such cycles allow reserve units, which
typically drill only once every 30 days, to schedule their training and
maintenance so the units' readiness will build as the mobilization time
approaches. While always important, predictability and preparation
times are likely to become even more important when the pace of reserve
operations is high. The Army has had more than 100,000 reservists
mobilized since February 12, 2003, and the Army Manpower and Reserve
Affairs office projected that mobilizations would remain high at least
through the end of 2004. However, the Army does not employ standard
operating cycles for its reserve forces, leaving it with limited time
to prepare for the increased mobilization and deployment demands on its
reserve forces.
After September 11, 2001, mobilizations were hampered because about
one-quarter of the Ready Reserve force was not readily available for
mobilization or deployment. Over 70,000 reserve members could not be
mobilized because they had not completed their training requirements.
In addition, the services lacked vital information necessary to fully
use an additional pool of over 300,000 pretrained individual
reservists, known as the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Many of the
IRR members were not available for mobilization because the services
did not have valid contact information (addresses or phone numbers) for
these individuals. For example, in April 2003, the Army estimated that
it had inaccurate addresses for at least 40,400 of its IRR members.
When the services were able to contact their IRR members and obtain
vital information necessary to use their IRR pools, exemptions and
delays often limited the services' abilities to fully use these
personnel. For example, in February 2003, the Army sent mobilization
orders to 345 IRR members, but 164 of these reservists requested and
were granted exemptions so they did not have to deploy. Another 35 were
granted delays in their reporting dates.
The services have used three primary methods to gain and maintain
access to their IRR members. First, they brief the members when they
leave active duty or drilling reserve positions to make them aware of
their responsibilities as members of the IRR. Next, they send the
members questionnaires to verify basic information, such as current
addresses. Finally, the services conduct a limited number of 1-day
screenings where certain IRR members are ordered to military facilities
to physically verify their fitness for mobilization and deployment.
However, service officials considered response rates for the
questionnaires and participation rates for the screenings low, and the
services have not developed results-oriented goals and related
performance metrics to collect and maintain updated IRR member
information. In addition, some mobilized Marine Corps IRR members told
us that their IRR responsibilities had not been clearly explained
during exit briefings when they left active duty.
DOD's reluctance to use the IRR has resulted in additional situations
where the Ready Reserve force was not readily available for
mobilization or deployment. For example, DOD and service policies have
discouraged the use of the IRR because IRR members do not participate
in any regularly scheduled training and are consequently not paid
regularly. The policies call for the mobilization of reservists who
have been participating in regular paid training, no matter the type of
mobilization requirement that is being filled. This reluctance to use
the IRR contributes to situations where individual mobilization
requirements are filled with personnel from reserve units, thus
creating personnel shortages within the units that had supplied the
reservists and affecting the units' readiness to mobilize and deploy.
As the Army mobilized forces for the war in Iraq, it moved unit
reservists from one unit to another to fill vacancies within the units,
which were first to mobilize and deploy. When units that had supplied
reservists were later mobilized, reservists from other units had to be
transferred into these later deploying units. If IRR members had filled
the initial requirements, many of the subsequent transfers would not
have been necessary. Further, the reluctance of one service to use the
IRR can affect other services. For example, the Air Force's reluctance
to access any of its more than 44,000 IRR members has left the
responsibility for guarding Air Force bases to over 9,000 Army National
Guard unit personnel.
We are making several recommendations to enhance the efficiency of
DOD's reserve mobilizations. These recommendations are directed at
improving mobilization planning, increasing visibility over the
readiness of small units, providing for the seamless transfer of
reservist information regardless of whether the reservists are in an
active or reserve status, updating mobilization guidance, improving
predictability for Army reserve units, increasing access to the IRR,
and updating IRR policies.
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD fully concurred with six
of our seven recommendations and partially concurred with our
recommendation concerning the need for the Army and the Navy to capture
additional readiness information. DOD stated that the Army and the Navy
fully support capturing relevant information in the DOD readiness
reporting system but that combatant commanders will need to establish
resource requirements to include tailored mission requirements. We
agree that improvements in readiness reporting should be closely linked
to efforts to more clearly define requirements.
Background:
Mobilization is the process of assembling and organizing personnel and
equipment, activating or federalizing the reserve component, and
bringing the armed forces to a state of readiness for war or other
national emergency. It is a complex undertaking that requires constant
and precise coordination among a number of commands and officials.
Mobilization usually begins with the President invoking a mobilization
authority and ends with the mobilization of an individual Reserve or
National Guard member.
Reserve Components and Categories:
There are seven reserve components: the Army Reserve, Army National
Guard, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, Naval Reserve, Marine
Corps Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve. Reserve forces can be divided
into three major categories: the Ready Reserve, the Standby Reserve,
and the Retired Reserve. The Ready Reserve had approximately 1.2
million Guard and Reserve members at the end of fiscal year 2002, and
its members were the only reservists who were subject to mobilization
under the partial mobilization declared by President Bush on September
14, 2001.
Within the Ready Reserve, there are three subcategories: the Selected
Reserve, the IRR, and the Inactive National Guard. Members of all three
subcategories are subject to mobilization under a partial mobilization.
* In fiscal year 2002, the Selected Reserve had 882,142 members.
Members of the Selected Reserve are all the personnel who are active
members of the National Guard or Reserve units who participate in
regularly scheduled training. As a result, they draw regular pay for
their reserve service. It also includes individual mobilization
augmentees--individuals who train regularly, for pay with active
component units.
* In fiscal year 2002, the IRR had 314,037 members. During a partial
mobilization these individuals, who were previously trained during
periods of active duty service, can be mobilized to fill requirements.
Each year, the services transfer thousands of personnel who have
completed the active duty or Selected Reserve portions of their
military contracts, but who have not reached the end of their minimum
service obligations, to the IRR.[Footnote 5] However, IRR members do
not participate in any regularly scheduled training, and they are not
paid for their membership in the IRR.[Footnote 6]
* In fiscal year 2002, the Inactive National Guard had 3,142 Army
National Guard members. This subcategory contains individuals who are
temporarily unable to participate in regular training but who wish to
remain attached to their National Guard units. These individuals were
not subject to mobilization prior to the declaration of a partial
mobilization on September 14, 2001.
Mobilization Authorities:
Most reservists who were recalled to active duty for other than normal
training after September 11, 2001, were mobilized under one of the
three authorities listed in table 1.
Table 1: Authorities Used to Mobilize Reservists after September 11,
2001:
U.S.C. Title 10 Section: 12304; Type of mobilization: Involuntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized: 200,000[A]; Length of
mobilizations: 270 days.
U.S.C. Title 10 Section: 12302; Type of mobilization: Involuntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized: 1,000,000; Length of
mobilizations: 2 years.
U.S.C. Title 10 Section: 12301 (d); Type of mobilization: Voluntary;
Number of Ready Reservists that can be mobilized: Unlimited; Length of
mobilizations: Unlimited.
Source: GAO.
[A] Under this authority, the services can mobilize the Selected
Reserve and up to 30,000 IRR members who count against the 200,000-
person cap.
[End of table]
DOD had the authority to use section 12304, the Presidential Reserve
Call-Up authority, to mobilize reservists in support of contingency
operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Southwest Asia prior to September 11,
2001. It continued to use this authority to mobilize reservists for
ongoing operations in these areas even after the partial mobilization
authority (section 12302) was invoked on September 14, 2001.
The partial mobilization authority has been used to support both
domestic and overseas missions related to the global war on terrorism,
including the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. After invoking
section 12302 on September 14, 2001, the President delegated his
mobilization authority to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of
Transportation. The Secretary of Defense further delegated this
authority to the service secretaries and allowed them to delegate the
authority to any civilian official who was appointed by the President
and confirmed by the Senate.[Footnote 7] When the Secretary of Defense
delegated his authority, he set limits on the numbers of personnel that
the services could mobilize. On September 14, 2001, the Secretary of
Defense assigned the Army a mobilization cap of 10,000 personnel; the
Navy a cap of 3,000; the Marine Corps a cap of 7,500; and the Air Force
a cap of 13,000, for a total cap of 33,500. The caps were raised
several times, but in aggregate they have remained below 300,000 since
they were first established.
Since September 11, 2001, the services have also made extensive use of
their section 12301(d) authority. This authority can involve
complicated administrative processing because reservists must
volunteer to be activated, and individuals who are brought on to active
duty under this authority have varying starting and ending dates.
However, this authority provides flexibility that is advantageous to
both individual reservists members and the services. The reservists can
schedule their active duty periods around family and work
responsibilities, and the services are not constrained by the numerical
caps and time limitations of other mobilization authorities.
Mobilization Process:
As figure 1 indicates, mobilization is a decentralized process that
requires the collaboration of many organizations throughout DOD.
Figure 1: Flowchart of the Mobilization Process:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Shaded blocks emphasize the extra coordination that was required
under the modified process.
[End of figure]
The mobilization process typically begins with the component
commanders, who are responsible for commanding their services' active
and reserve forces within a combatant commander's area of
responsibility.[Footnote 8] The component commanders identify
requirements for wars or contingency operations within their areas of
responsibility and submit the requirements to the combatant commanders.
The combatant commanders, who have responsibility and operational
control over forces from two or more services, consolidate the
requirements from their component commanders and develop "requests for
forces" (RFF). Each RFF generally identifies the mission, along with
the equipment, personnel, units, types of units, or general
capabilities that are necessary to carry out the mission. RFFs may be
very detailed or very general, depending on the nature of the mission.
Furthermore, RFFs typically contain requirements that must be filled by
more than one service.
The combatant commanders send RFFs to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, who is the principal military advisor to the President and
the Secretary of Defense on mobilization matters. The Joint Staff
validates and prioritizes requirements from the combatant commanders
and then sends draft deployment orders via E-mail to the supporting
commanders, who will supply forces or equipment. The Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff considers (1) the assessments of the service
headquarters, reserve component commanders, and supporting combatant
commanders; (2) input from his own staff; and (3) the technical advice,
legal opinions, and policies provided by OSD. The Chairman then makes a
recommendation to the Secretary of Defense concerning the timing of
mobilizations and the units or individuals to be mobilized.
When the Secretary of Defense completes his review of the validated RFF
and is satisfied with the mobilization justification, he authorizes the
deployment of forces, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
issues a deployment order. The services then review the approved
requirements on the deployment order and coordinate with applicable
force providers and reserve component headquarters to check the
readiness of the units that had been projected to fill the
requirements. If necessary, units or individuals may be identified to
substitute for, or augment, the units and individuals that were
originally projected. When the units or individuals are firmly
identified for mobilization, the assistant secretaries of the military
departments who have responsibilities for manpower and reserve affairs
issues approve the mobilization packages.[Footnote 9]
Finally, the services issue mobilization orders to units and
individuals. These orders state where and when to report for duty, as
well as the length of duty. In September 2001, the Office of the Under
Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness), which is responsible
for developing the policies, plans, and programs to manage the
readiness of both active and reserve forces, issued a memorandum
containing specific mobilization guidance. This guidance instructed the
military departments to write mobilization orders for 1 year[Footnote
10] but allowed the service secretaries the option of extending
mobilizations for a second year.
In subsequent mobilization guidance, issued in January, March, and July
2002, the Under Secretary instructed the services to use volunteers to
the maximum extent possible, so that involuntary mobilizations would be
minimized. In conjunction with the services, the Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, which has overall
responsibility for reserve policies and procedures within DOD, set a
goal to provide reservists with 30 days notice prior to mobilization,
when operationally feasible. The services took different approaches
when alerting their reservists prior to mobilization. The Army took the
most formal approach and attempted to provide its reservists with
official orders 30 days prior to their mobilization dates. The other
services took less formal approaches and tried to notify reservists of
impending mobilizations and deployments when requirements were
identified or validated, or at some other key point in the mobilization
process.[Footnote 11]
According to DOD officials, the mobilization process--from the time a
requirement is generated until the time that a reservist reports to a
mobilization site to fill that requirement--can take anywhere from 1
day to several months, but it normally takes several weeks. Based on
our observations at mobilization processing sites and discussions with
mobilization officials, we found that most reservists were able to
complete their required briefings, screenings, and administrative
functions within 24 to 96 hours after reaching their mobilization
sites. However, some reservists required lengthy postmobilization
training before they were able to deploy.
Reserve Tempo:
Unreliable and inconsistent data make it difficult to quantify the
exact change in the tempo of reserve operations since September 11,
2001.[Footnote 12] Officials from the Office of the Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Reserve Affairs have characterized mobilization data
from the early days and weeks following September 11 as questionable.
In addition, because reservists can perform a wide variety of
sometimes-overlapping training and operational missions, in a variety
of voluntary or involuntary duty statuses, mobilization data have been
captured differently over time. For example, because the state
governors mobilized large numbers of National Guard troops to provide
security at their civilian airports, DOD's mobilization figures for
most of 2002 included state active duty figures as well as figures for
federal mobilizations. However, state active duty was dropped from
DOD's mobilization figures after the National Guard moved out of the
last civilian airport in September 2002. It is also difficult to fully
capture increases in reserve tempos because mobilization figures that
are based strictly on section 12302 partial mobilization orders ignore
the major contributions of reserve volunteers, some of whom are serving
lengthy tours under section 12301(d) orders. Despite the identified
data challenges, figure 2 uses consistently reported data to
demonstrate that reserve mobilizations have not dipped below 50,000
during any week since January 2002. Figure 2 also shows the dramatic
increase in mobilizations that began in January 2003 to support
operations in Iraq.
Figure 2: Guard and Reserve Members on Active Duty (January 2002-July
2003):
[See PDF for image]
Note: Data from the early days and weeks following September 11, 2001,
are not reliable. Further, the services captured mobilization data
differently over time, making it difficult to aggregate the data. To
present the data consistently, our figures display data beginning with
January 2002.
[End of figure]
Figures 3 and 4 show the mobilizations of each of the services between
January 2002 and July 2003.
Figure 3: Reserve Force Mobilizations by Service (January 2002-July
2003):
[See PDF for image]
Note: Data from the early days and weeks following September 11, 2001,
are not reliable. Further, the services captured mobilization data
differently over time, making it difficult to aggregate the data. To
present the data consistently, our figures display data beginning with
January 2002.
[End of figure]
Figure 3 shows that between January 2003 and July 2003, the Army had
more reservists mobilized than did all the other services combined.
However, figure 4 shows that the mobilizations were most wide reaching
within the Coast Guard, which had more than one-third of its Ready
Reserve forces mobilized during April 2003.
Figure 4: Reserve Force Mobilizations as Percentages of Service Ready
Reserve Strengths (January 2002-July 2003):
[See PDF for image]
Note: Data from the early days and weeks following September 11, 2001,
are not reliable. Further, the services captured mobilization data
differently over time, making it difficult to aggregate the data. To
present the data consistently, our figures display data beginning with
January 2002.
[End of figure]
Relevant GAO Products:
Previously, we reported on several issues surrounding the increased use
of reserve forces. Our June 2002 report noted that maintaining
employers' continued support for their reservist employees will be
critical if DOD is to retain experienced reservists in these times of
longer and more frequent deployments.[Footnote 13] We assessed the
relations between reservists and their civilian employers, focusing
specifically on DOD's outreach efforts designed to improve these
important relationships. We found that many employers we surveyed were
not receiving adequate advance notice prior to their reservist
employees' departure for military duty. We reported that in spite of
repeated memoranda from the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve
Affairs, advance notification continued to be a problem and that the
services had not consistently met the 30-day advance notification goal.
We recommended that the Secretary of Defense direct the services to
determine how many orders are not being issued 30 days in advance of
deployments and why, and then take the necessary corrective actions
toward fuller compliance with the goal. DOD agreed with the merit to
studying why the reserve components miss the 30-day goal.
Citing the increased use of the reserves to support military
operations, House Report 107-436 accompanying the Fiscal Year 2003
National Defense Authorization Act directed us to review compensation
and benefit programs for reservists serving on active duty. In
response, we are reviewing (1) income protection for reservists called
to active duty, (2) family support programs, and (3) health care
access. In March 2003, we testified before the Subcommittee on Total
Force, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, on our
preliminary observations related to this work.[Footnote 14]
During the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, health problems prevented the
deployment of a significant number of Army reservists. To help correct
this problem the Congress passed legislation that required reservists
to undergo periodic physical and dental examinations. The National
Defense Authorization Act for 2002 directed us to review the value and
advisability of providing examinations.[Footnote 15] We also examined
whether the Army is collecting and maintaining information on
reservists' health. In April 2003, we reported that without adequate
examinations, the Army may train, support, and mobilize reservists who
are unfit for duty.[Footnote 16] Further, the Army had not consistently
carried out the statutory requirements for monitoring the health and
dental status of Army early deploying reservists. At the early
deploying units we visited, approximately 66 percent of the medical
records were available for review. We found that about 68 percent of
the required physical examinations for those over age 40 had not been
performed and that none of the annual medical certificates required of
reservists had been completed by reservists and reviewed by the units.
We recommended that the Secretary of Defense ensure that for early
deploying reservists the required physical examinations, annual medical
certificates, and annual dental examinations be completed. DOD
concurred with our recommendations.
DOD's Mobilizations after September 11, 2001, Were Not Based on
Existing Operation Plans:
DOD did not follow its existing operation plans after the events of
September 11, 2001, to mobilize nearly 300,000 reservists. DOD's
traditional mobilization process relies on requirements from operation
plans that have been coordinated with key mobilization officials prior
to the start of the mobilization process. The operation plans in
existence on September 11, 2001, did not include all the requirements
that were needed to respond to the domestic terrorist threat. Overseas
operation plans did not focus on terrorist threats or the uncertain
political environment in southwest Asia. Nor did operation plans
adequately address the increasing requirements for individuals and
small, tailored task forces. Because DOD could not rely on existing
operation plans to guide its mobilizations, it used a modified
mobilization process that was slower than the traditional mobilization
process.
About 300,000 Reservists Called to Active Duty:
DOD has called about 300,000 of the 1.2 million National Guard and
Reserve personnel to active duty since September 2001. These reservists
fought on the front lines in Iraq; tracked down Taliban and al Qaeda
members throughout Asia and Africa; maintained the peace in the
Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Iraq; and participated in domestic
missions ranging from providing security at airports and at the Salt
Lake City Olympics to fighting drug trafficking and providing disaster
relief. With many of these missions--including those associated with
the global war on terrorism--expected to continue, reserve force
mobilizations are likely to persist for the foreseeable future. DOD
recognized before September 11, 2001, that no significant operation
could be conducted without reserve involvement.
Sound Operation Plans Can Help the Efficiency of DOD's Mobilization
Process:
DOD's mobilization process was designed to mobilize reservists based on
the execution of combatant commander operation plans and a preplanned
flow of forces. As a result, the mobilization process operates most
efficiently when operation plans accurately and completely capture
mobilization requirements. However, since DOD develops its operation
plans using a deliberate planning process that involves input and
coordination from OSD, the Joint Staff, and the services, the process
can take years, and operation plans have not been quick to respond to
changes in the threat environment.
Prior to the events of September 11, 2001, we issued a number of
reports highlighting the need for effective U.S. efforts to combat
terrorism domestically and abroad.[Footnote 17] For example, we
recommended that the federal government conduct multidisciplinary and
analytically sound threat and risk assessments to define and prioritize
requirements and properly focus programs and investments in combating
terrorism.[Footnote 18] Threat and risk assessments are decision-making
support tools that are used to establish requirements and prioritize
program investments. DOD uses a variation of this approach. We also
reported on DOD's use of a risk-assessment model to evaluate force
protection security requirements for mass casualty terrorists'
incidents at DOD military bases.[Footnote 19]
While DOD's goal is to conduct mobilizations based on operation plans
developed through a deliberate planning process, the department
recognizes that during the initial stages of an emergency it may have
to resort to a crisis action response rather than adhering to its
operation plans. This is particularly true if the emergency had not
been anticipated. During such crisis response periods, DOD can use a
variety of authorities to position its forces where they are needed.
For example, following the events of September 11, 2001, DOD used
voluntary orders and other available means to get and keep reservists
on active duty. As of November 8, 2001, almost 40,000 reservists had
been mobilized under the partial mobilization authority for the global
war on terrorism, but almost 19,000 reservists were on active duty and
positioned where they were needed under other federal authorities. By
comparison, more than 53,000 reservists were mobilized under the
partial mobilization authority for the global war on terrorism on
December 3, 2002, but the reservists on active duty under other federal
authorities had dropped to less than 5,000.[Footnote 20]
Operation Plans Did Not Include Requirements to Address the Domestic
Terrorist Threat:
When DOD moved beyond its crisis action response to the events of
September 11, 2001, it was not able to rely on operation plans to guide
its mobilizations because operation plans did not contain requirements
to address the domestic response to the terrorist threat. According to
senior DOD officials, when terrorists crashed planes into the Pentagon,
the World Trade Center, and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11,
2001, none of DOD's operation plans contained requirements for National
Guard troops to deploy to the nation's civilian airports. In September
2001, we reported that some threats are difficult, if not impossible,
to predict.[Footnote 21] Therefore, an effective antiterrorism program
that can reduce vulnerabilities to such attacks is an important aspect
of military operations. We also reported that the effectiveness of the
DOD antiterrorism program was becoming an important aspect of military
operations. However, the effectiveness of the program had been limited
because DOD had not (1) assessed vulnerabilities at all installations,
(2) systematically prioritized resource requirements, and (3) developed
a complete assessment of potential threats. DOD has been taking steps
to improve the program.
Despite the lack of airport security requirements in operation plans,
between November 2001 and April 2002, an average of approximately 7,500
National Guard members were mobilized at the nation's civilian
airports.[Footnote 22] During the same period, an average of almost
1,900 National Guard members were on state active duty, many to provide
security at other key infrastructure sites such as tunnels, bridges,
and nuclear power plants. According to senior Air Force officials, none
of the operation plans that existed on September 11, 2001, contained
requirements for the extended use of Guard and Reserve members to fly
combat air patrols over the nation's capital and major cities. Yet,
reservists were performing that mission on September 11, 2001, and they
continue to support the combat air patrol mission, particularly when
the national threat level is raised.
According to DOD officials, preexisting service mobilization plans
called for Guard and Reserve forces to move to active duty bases and
provide security at those bases after the active forces had departed
from the bases. However, after September 11, many Guard and Reserve
members were on active duty (voluntarily and involuntarily) at active
and reserve bases and were filling security requirements that were not
in any operation plan. For example, even while active forces remained,
two selected Marine Corps battalions were mobilized for approximately
12 months--one at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and one at Camp
Pendleton, California--to quickly respond to any additional terrorist
attacks within the United States. In addition, the Air Force had to
unexpectedly bring reservists on active duty to provide security for
their reserve bases after September 11. In particular, Air National
Guard security forces were needed to provide security at bases from
which the Guard was flying combat air patrol missions.
Overseas Operation Plans Did Not Focus on the Terrorist Threat or the
Uncertain Political Environment in Southwest Asia:
According to DOD officials, requirements in overseas operation plans
focused on traditional operations against national military forces,
rather than on tracking terrorists throughout Afghanistan and around
the globe. For several years, defense planning guidance had been
formulated around the concept that the military had to be ready to
fight and win two major theater wars, generally viewed as one in
southwest Asia and one on the Korean peninsula. According to DOD
officials, operation plans for these areas focused on the threats posed
by rogue countries. Moreover, even after defense planning guidance had
begun to indicate a need for the military to be capability based rather
than threat based, operation plans continued to focus on conventional
adversaries.
According to DOD officials, some of the mobilizations that took place
in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom followed the order and timing
established in the relevant operation plan and its associated time-
phased force deployment and data file. However, the order and timing of
other mobilizations changed due to the tenuous political environment
and uncertainties concerning coalition partnerships and access to
airspaces, as well as access to bases in Turkey, Oman, and Saudi
Arabia. Access-to-base issues had also arisen during the 1991 Persian
Gulf War.
Operation Plans Did Not Adequately Address Increasing Requirements for
Individuals and Small, Tailored Task Forces:
According to DOD officials, the combatant commanders' requests for
small, tailored task forces and individuals have been increasing since
September 11, 2001, but the requirements for these small groups and
individuals have not been fully addressed in the combatant commanders'
existing operation plans. Mobilization statistics demonstrate the large
numbers of small groups and individuals that have been mobilized
recently. For example, a DOD report showed that on March 5, 2003, the
services had thousands of reservists mobilized as parts of small units
or as individuals. The Navy had 266 one-person and 152 two-person units
mobilized, and the Army also had hundreds of one-and two-person units
mobilized. The Marine Corps strives to keeps its units intact, and
Marine Corps policy states that detachments must consist of at least
two people, but the Marine Corps had 24 two-person and 22 three-person
units mobilized. The Air Force had just 6 units with less than 20
people mobilized on that date. However, the services also had 12,682
individual augmentees mobilized on March 5, 2003--1,438 of them from
the Air Force's two reserve components.
The Modified Mobilization Process Was Slower and Less Efficient Than
the Traditional Process:
After September 11, 2001, DOD used a modified mobilization process
because existing operation plans had not adequately addressed
mobilization requirements and changing priorities. The modified process
was able to respond to changing priorities and new requirements.
However, because key mobilization officials did not have a lengthy
deliberate planning period to discuss these new requirements and
changing priorities, coordination had to take place during the
mobilization process, thus lengthening the process. Under the modified
process, close to two dozen approvals are needed to mobilize one unit
or individual. A contractor study conducted for the Army Operations
Office looked at how long it took from the time the U.S. Central
Command issued a RFF until the time a deployment order was issued.
Preliminary results showed that the monthly averages from February
through June 2002 ranged from 18 to 19 days for this portion of the
mobilization process.[Footnote 23]
Coordination was much more difficult under the modified process due to
the large number of deployment orders. For example, under the modified
process, the Secretary of Defense signed 246 deployment orders to
mobilize over 280,000 reservists between September 11, 2001, and May
21, 2003, compared to the less than 10 deployment orders needed to
mobilize over 220,000 reservists during the 1991 Gulf War. The longer
modified mobilization process is less efficient than the traditional
process primarily because it relies on additional management oversight
and multiple layers of coordination between the services, OSD, and the
Joint Staff during the validating, approving, and filling of
mobilization requirements. Many of these factors are detailed in the
sections below.
DOD Officials Had Limited Visibility Over the Mobilization Process:
DOD officials did not have visibility over the entire mobilization
process primarily because DOD lacked adequate systems for tracking
personnel and other resources. First, DOD's primary automated readiness
reporting system could not adequately track the personnel and other
resources within the small units that were frequently needed by
combatant commanders. Second, some systems used by the active and
reserve components to track personnel were incompatible. In addition,
outdated mobilization guidance led to communication and coordination
problems amongst the components.
Data Systems Unable to Track Readiness of Resources Within Units:
DOD officials had limited visibility over the readiness of the entire
force because DOD's primary readiness reporting data system tracked the
readiness only of large units and not the readiness of resources within
the small units that made up the larger reporting units. These smaller
units were often sufficient to meet the combatant commanders'
requirements for the small, tailored units that were frequently
requested after September 11, 2001. [Footnote 24] Because DOD officials
did not have quick access to readiness information of these small
units, they had to coordinate with reserve headquarters officials and,
in some cases, the individual units themselves to obtain the readiness
information needed to determine which unit would be best able to fill
the combatant commanders' requirements.
The Global Status of Resources and Training System (GSORTS) is DOD's
single automated system for reporting the readiness of all operational
units within the U.S. armed forces. It does not function as a detailed
management information system, but it does provide broad information on
selected readiness indicators[Footnote 25] and include a commander's
assessment of the unit's ability to undertake the missions for which
the unit was organized or designed. Units provide readiness reports to
a central site where the data are processed and stored and then
distributed to decision makers. The information in the system is
supposed to support crisis response planning as well as deliberate
planning. However, the services are only required to register forces
that are included in operation plans or other war-planning documents.
Generally, all large units report their readiness in the system.
However, resources within the units are not necessarily reported. For
example, GSORTS could show that a specific unit is not ready to perform
its mission, but fail to capture information that would indicate that
some of the personnel and equipment within the unit are capable of
performing their mission. Such information would benefit the services
in their efforts to assemble the forces needed to meet joint
organizational requirements.
Because the Air Force combined various capabilities into nontraditional
force groups in support of its Aerospace Expeditionary Force, it
recognized the need to report readiness for small "building block"
units that could be combined to provide the needed capabilities. As a
result, the Air Force developed its own readiness reporting system that
reported the readiness of more than 67,000 units in January 2003.
The Army and the Navy do not report readiness at this small unit level.
Consequently, when the combatant commanders submit RFFs that do not
coincide with the forces that are reported in GSORTS, the decision
makers within the services must coordinate with active and reserve
component commanders to determine the readiness of the forces that
would be available to fill the requested requirements.
Some Active and Reserve Personnel Tracking Systems Were Incompatible:
DOD officials also lost visibility over the mobilization of reservists
because some active and reserve component personnel tracking systems
were not compatible. Some components within the respective services
maintain personnel data in their own data systems for different
purposes. In those cases, both the active and reserve components
require data that are provided only in the other's data systems. Yet,
in some cases, active and reserve component systems were not always
compatible with each other, resulting in cumbersome workarounds or
extensive ad hoc coordination between active and reserve officials,
and, according to DOD officials, the sometimes outright loss of
visibility over the length of reservists' mobilization or deployment
status.
The reserve and active components within some of the respective
services maintain personnel data for different purposes. The individual
reserve components maintain the mobilization data in their respective
systems in order to track and maintain visibility over reservists'
physical location and mobilization status. The reserve systems also
maintain information on reservists' mobilization dates. Active
components' systems maintain personnel data for forces that are under
their control. Using a variety of data systems, the active components
track such information as the number of personnel, the units to which
the personnel are attached, and the location of the unit. However, the
active components cannot always discern between the regular active and
mobilized reserve servicemembers in their data systems.
The services' active and reserve components have developed their
respective computerized systems to track their personnel data, but they
are often unable to directly transfer information and data between
their systems. Often, these systems do not report information in a
standardized format and are not integrated with each other. For
example, while most of the services provide DOD with unclassified
mobilization data, some services provide classified mobilization data.
DOD must then aggregate selected unclassified information on a separate
computer file that can be used to produce a single consolidated
mobilization report.
The incompatibilities between some active and reserve component data
systems required mobilization officials to develop workarounds to
acquire the information needed. Air Force officials cited the lack of a
central automated system to manage and track mobilized reservists as a
major problem that required extensive coordination between active and
reserve components. Some components, like the Air National Guard and
the Air Force Reserve, developed their own mobilization reporting
systems to track the location and status of their reservists using
computer spreadsheets.
The use of local, nonintegrated data systems also affects the validity
of some mobilization data. For example, we requested mobilization data
from the Army Reserve on several occasions during our review, but Army
Reserve officials cautioned us concerning the use of figures from their
computerized database. They stated that the figures were unreliable and
conflicted with the overall number of personnel they thought had been
mobilized. Without an automated means for quickly and reliably
capturing mobilization data, the Army has had to rely on a slow
mobilization process that requires constant coordination between active
and reserve component officials.
The coordination between active and reserve component officials within
the Army and the Navy often takes the form of relatively inefficient
methods to determine the status of mobilized reservists. For example,
in the initial months following September 11, 2001, the Navy had no
automated means to track reservists from their home stations to their
gaining commands. The entire mobilization process was based on paper,
telephone calls, faxes, and e-mail messages.
The lack of compatibility between automated data systems, and the
sometimes cumbersome workarounds undertaken by the services to obtain
reservists' information, has at times led to the outright loss of DOD
visibility over the length of reservists' mobilization or deployment
status and resulted in cases where reservists were inadvertently
deployed beyond the original year specified in their orders.
Additionally, Air Force officials told us that their major commands
have had trouble filling new requirements because they cannot
consistently determine who has volunteered and who is already serving
on active duty. Because of limited visibility, some Navy processing
personnel did not know in advance which reservists had been ordered to
their mobilization processing sites or when the reservists were
expected to report.
Air Force officials said that they either totally lost or had
diminished visibility over their reservists once they were mobilized
and assigned to active commands. Reserve component officials from the
Air Force said that a tracking system does not exist to effectively
monitor reservists from the time they are mobilized and assigned to an
active command to the time they are demobilized and return to their
normal reserve status. As a result, reservists were deployed beyond
their scheduled return dates and were not able to take the leave to
which they were entitled prior to the expiration of their orders.
Reserve officials said that this happened because replacement personnel
had not arrived in time to relieve the reservists and the active
commands were not willing to send the deployed reservists home until
replacements had arrived. In many cases, Air Force reserve component
headquarters said they did not have visibility over the replacement
personnel because these personnel were coming from active component
units.
The Army experienced situations where the lack of visibility
contributed to the breaking of service policies. During the current
partial mobilization, the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and
Reserve Affairs) issued a verbal policy that stated that units were not
to be placed on alert for more than 90 days. The Army's force providers
were to review the list of units on alert each month and determine
whether the units needed to remain on alert. If the force providers
needed to keep any units on alert beyond 90 days, they could request an
extension from the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and
Reserve Affairs).[Footnote 26] Table 2 shows that on March 28, 2003,
204 units had been on alert for more than 90 days and that 12 units--
representing hundreds of Guard and Reserve members--had been on alert
for more than a year. The Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and
Reserve Affairs) told us that he was not aware that the 12 units had
been on alert for more than a year. He worked to resolve this matter as
soon as we brought it to his attention.
Table 2: Numbers of Army National Guard or Army Reserve Units That Were
on Alert in Excess of 90 Days (March 28, 2003):
Days on alert: > 365; Number of units on alert[A]: 12.
Days on alert: 181 to 365; Number of units on alert[A]: 20.
Days on alert: 91 to 180; Number of units on alert[A]: 172.
Sources: U.S. Army (data); GAO (analysis).
[A] The Army's "Units On Alert" report does not identify the actual
numbers of reservists on alert, but it does include authorized strength
information for some units. Authorized strength figures were available
for 8 of the 12 units that had been on alert for more than a year and
totaled 1,939.
[End of table]
Some service components developed their own systems to gain visibility
over their mobilized reservists. For example, the Navy adapted a system
from the Marine Corps in February 2003 that provides all Navy
mobilization officials with the capability to track reservists
throughout the mobilization process. Commands now have visibility over
the entire mobilization process and can monitor the status of
reservists en route to their commands, including the reservists'
current locations. Since implementing this system, the Navy has
processed more than 8,000 mobilization orders and 6,000 demobilization
orders.
The Marine Corps implemented its system in 1994 to provide visibility
over its reserve forces. This local area network-based system supports
the continuous processing and tracking of newly mobilized Marines.
However, this system is not integrated with the Navy's system, and data
cannot be exchanged between the two systems. As a result, the Navy is
not automatically made aware of requirements for Navy medical,
religious, or other support personnel who are embedded in Marine Corps
units, when the associated Marine Corps units are mobilized.
Outdated Mobilization Guidance Led to Communication and Coordination
Problems:
Finally, key DOD and service guidance--including mobilization
instructions and publications--had not been updated in all instances to
reflect the modified mobilization process, leading to failures in
communication and coordination between components and further reducing
officials' visibility over the mobilization process. In some instances
where DOD and the services did draft updated guidance to reflect the
modified mobilization process, it was not clear to all mobilization
officials which guidance to follow. The lack of updated guidance and
the appearance of conflicting guidance resulted in situations where the
components were not effectively coordinating and communicating their
mobilization efforts with each other.
OSD and the Joint Staff provide guidance and instructions on the
mobilization policy, roles and responsibilities of mobilization
officials, and mobilization planning and execution. Similar guidance
and instructions are provided by the respective services for planning
and executing mobilization within their respective commands. However,
some of DOD's guidance failed to clearly identify the steps of the
modified mobilization process, the roles and responsibilities of
mobilization officials, and the flow of information. While the Under
Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) has issued several
mobilization guidance memorandums since September 11, 2001, many of
DOD's key mobilization instructions, directives, and publications have
not been updated to reflect current changes to the mobilization
process. For example,
* DOD's "Wartime Manpower Mobilization Planning Policies and
Procedures" instruction has not been updated since 1986;
* DOD's "Activation, Mobilization, and Demobilization of the Ready
Reserve" directive was last updated in 1995; and:
* DOD's "Management of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) and the
Inactive National Guard (ING)" directive was last updated in 1997.
In addition, the Joint Staff had not updated its key mobilization
guidance. The "Joint Doctrine for Mobilization Planning" publication
was under revision when we completed our review, but the update to the
1995 publication had not yet been released.
Within the Air Force, the lack of clear and consolidated guidance
hindered the mobilization process. The service's mobilization guidance
was issued in 1994, and although several draft revisions to this
guidance have been circulated since September 11, 2001, the guidance
has yet to be officially updated. Officials in both the Air National
Guard and the Air Force Reserve told us that they did not know whether
they were supposed to follow the old "official" instruction or the
revised (but unsigned) instructions. The lack of clear guidance led to
situations where Air National Guard units had been mobilized without
the knowledge of the Air National Guard headquarters' crisis action
teams, consisting of officials responsible for matching requirements
with available units and personnel. For example, on February 22, 2003,
the Air Mobility Command mobilized the 163rd Air Refueling Wing at the
March Air Reserve Base. When we contacted the Air National Guard crisis
action team 3 days later, the team was unaware that the 163rd had been
mobilized. According to a senior level Air National Guard official, the
Air Mobility Command had bypassed the Guard's crisis action team and
directly notified the unit of the mobilization. According to this
official, the Guard's crisis action team had been bypassed on
mobilizations directed by both the Air Mobility Command and the Air
Combat Command.
The lack of clear guidance for mobilizing reservists also slowed down
the Army's mobilization process. On October 24, 2001, the Army issued
guidance on the mobilization process. However, according to senior Army
policy officials, the Army's initial personnel replacement policy was
unclear. This led to cases where the Army Reserve would send a request
for a requirement to fill an empty position through the entire
mobilization process rather than simply attempt to fill the position
with another qualified individual. Between September 2001 and June
2002, the Army Reserve submitted 567 requests for just one individual
because the initial person selected could not fill the position. These
requests slowed down the mobilization process as each request was
reviewed. The Army recently drafted a policy to clarify its replacement
procedures.
The Navy's failure to update its guidance on the delegation of
mobilization authority led to a redundancy of efforts. In June 2002,
the Secretary of Defense, under the President's partial mobilization
authority, delegated mobilization authority to the service secretaries
and permitted further delegation only to civilian officials who were
appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. However, the
Navy had not updated its mobilization authority guidance, and
consequently the Secretary of the Navy continued delegating
mobilization authority to the Chief of Naval Operations and the
Commandant of the Marine Corps, who in turn continued to approve
mobilizations until 2003. When the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
became aware that mobilization authority had been improperly delegated
to military leaders within the Department of the Navy, he rescinded the
delegated authority and reviewed and revalidated previously approved
mobilizations, in addition to all new mobilization requests.
In some cases, the failure of mobilization guidance to define the roles
and responsibilities of officials participating in the mobilization
process also resulted in delays. For example, the Air Force found that
the roles and responsibilities of its crisis action teams had not been
adequately defined and that there was insufficient coordination between
these crisis action teams during the planning and execution stages of
the mobilization process. This led to different interpretations of the
policies concerning the use of volunteers. Moreover, a lack of an
established coordinated process resulted in delays getting policy,
guidance, and tasks to the field. For example, whereas the requirement
is to mobilize within 72 hours, there were instances where the
mobilization process took 9 days.
The Services Have Two Approaches to Provide Preparation Time for
Mobilizations and Deployments:
The services have used two primary approaches--predictable operating
cycles and formal advanced notification--to provide time for units and
servicemembers to prepare for upcoming mobilizations and deployments.
All the services provide predictability to portions of their active
forces through some type of standard operating cycle, but only the Air
Force has a standard operating cycle that brings predictability to both
its active and reserve forces. The Army assigns priority categories to
its units, and lower-priority units generally need extra training and
preparation time prior to deploying. Advanced mobilization notice,
while important, does not provide the long lead times made possible by
predictable operating cycles. The increased use of the Army's reserve
forces heightens the need for predictability so these units and
individuals can prepare for upcoming mobilizations and deployments.
Air Force Standard Operating Cycle Provides Predictability to Active
and Reserve Forces:
The Air Force is the only service that uses a standard operating cycle-
-providing deployments of a predictable length that are preceded and
followed by standard maintenance and training periods--to bring
predictability to both its active and reserve forces. The Navy and the
Marine Corps have used a variety of operating cycles to bring such
predictability to portions of their forces. Likewise, the Army has used
an operating cycle concept to bring predictability to a portion of its
active force, under its Division Ready Brigade program.[Footnote 27]
Key officials throughout DOD have acknowledged the importance of
predictability in helping reserve forces to prepare for mobilization
and deployment. Predictability helps units anticipate (1) downtime, so
they can schedule lengthy education and training for personnel and
lengthy maintenance for equipment and (2) the likely periods of
mobilization or deployment, so they can focus on efforts to increase
readiness, including last minute training[Footnote 28] and the
screening of medical, dental, and personnel records. Predictability
helps individual reservists by giving them time to prepare their
civilian employers and family members for their possible departures.
In the years following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Air Force Reserve
and Air National Guard forces, which already had the highest tempos of
any of DOD's reserve component forces, faced increasing tempos.
[Footnote 29] In August 1998, the Air Force adopted the Expeditionary
Aerospace Force concept to help it manage its commitments while
reducing the deployment burden on its people. This concept established
a standard 15-month operating cycle and divided the Air Force into 10
groups, each containing a mix of active, Air National Guard, and Air
Force Reserve forces. Two groups were scheduled to deploy during each
of the five, 3-month increments within the standard 15-month operating
cycle. However, because two groups contained more forces than were
generally needed to cover worldwide contingency operations, and because
the predictable cycles provided reservists with months of advance
notice, the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard were able to
rely on volunteers to meet significant portions of their requirements,
thus avoiding large-scale involuntary mobilizations.
While the predictability offered by the Air Force's standard operating
cycle has proved beneficial during "steady state" operations, the
Expeditionary Aerospace Force concept is not yet able to deal with
large and rapid surges in requirements. When the concept was first
implemented, Air Force officials stated that the expeditionary concept
would not be used to deploy forces to a major war prior to 2007. In the
months immediately following the September 11th attacks and during the
buildup for--and execution of--the 2003 war in Iraq, the Expeditionary
Aerospace Force operating cycles broke down. For example, personnel
with certain high-demand skills were involuntarily mobilized for longer
than the intended 3 months--up to 2 full years, in some cases. However,
for much of 2002, the Air Force used its operating cycles, and it has a
plan to return to normal 15-month operating cycles by March of 2004.
Preparation Time Is Especially Important to the Army's Lower-Priority
Units:
The Army prioritizes its units, and lower-priority units generally need
extra training and preparation time prior to deploying. The Army
allocates human capital and other resources using a tiered resourcing
system that is based on the placement of units in existing operation
plans. Units that are identified as the first to mobilize and deploy
are resourced at the highest level. Units identified for later
deployment are placed in subsequently lower resourcing tiers, based on
their planned deployment dates. A unit's resource tier affects its
priority with respect to (1) recruiting and filling vacancies, (2)
full-time staffing, (3) filling equipment needs, (4) maintaining
equipment, (5) obtaining access to schools and training seats, and (6)
funding for extra drills. Consequently, lower-priority units need more
time to prepare for mobilization and deployment.
The Army's resourcing strategy is a cost-effective means for
maintaining the Army's reserve forces when reserve forces will have
long lead times to mobilize. However, a large number of reserve forces
were quickly mobilized--from less than 30,000 on January 1, 2003, to
over 150,000 on March 26, 2003--to respond to the rapid surge in
requirements for operations related to Operation Iraqi Freedom and the
global war on terrorism. Because existing operation plans had not
accurately identified all mobilization requirements, a number of lower-
priority units were mobilized with relatively little advance notice.
For example, 5 transportation companies containing 976 reservists were
alerted on February 9, 2003, and told to arrive at their mobilization
stations by February 14, 2003. On January 20, 2003, four other lower-
priority Army National Guard companies, with over 1,000 reservists,
were alerted and told to report to their mobilization stations by
January 27, 2003. If these units had been able to plan for their
mobilizations and deployments based on a standard operating cycle, they
may have been able to complete some of their mobilization requirements
during normally scheduled training periods prior to their
mobilizations.
Despite the large number of lower-priority units within the Army
National Guard and the Army Reserve, the Army does not have a standard
operating cycle concept to provide predictability to its reserve
forces.[Footnote 30] Without such a concept, the Army's opportunities
to provide extra training and preparation time to its reserve forces,
particularly those with low priorities, are limited.
Advanced Notice Is Not As Beneficial As Predictable Operating Cycles:
OSD established a goal of providing reservists with at least 30 days
notice prior to mobilization when operationally feasible, but such
advanced notice does not provide the longer lead times made possible by
predictable operating cycles. Nonetheless, OSD's advanced notice policy
was written in recognition of the benefits of such notice to individual
reservists.
The Army, lacking a standard operating cycle to provide predictability
for its reservists, strives to provide its reservists with official
written orders 30 days in advance of mobilizations in accordance with
DOD's policy. However, in the early days following September 11, 2001,
this level of advanced notice was often not possible because reservists
were required immediately. In the weeks and months that followed,
advanced notice increased. Army data covering the mobilizations of over
6,400 personnel between June and August of 2002 showed that 83 percent
of the personnel had 4 or more weeks advanced notice. However, advanced
notice dropped again in the weeks leading up to Operation Iraqi
Freedom. During the first 15 days of March 2003, 95 percent of the Army
units that were mobilized received less than 30 days advanced
notice,[Footnote 31] and 8 percent of the units received less than 72
hours advanced notice. Much of this short notice is attributable to the
extra time that was required to validate and approve requirements under
the modified mobilization process.
While 30 days advanced notice is clearly beneficial to individual
reservists, it does not provide the longer lead times made possible by
predictable operating cycles. As discussed earlier, such cycles allow
reserve units, which typically drill only once every 30 days, to
schedule their training and maintenance so the units' readiness will
build as the mobilization time approaches.
Increased Reliance on the Army's Reserve Forces Heightens the Need for
Predictability:
While always important, predictability and preparation times are likely
to become even more important when the pace of reserve operations is
high. Figure 3, on page 16, shows the shift that occurred in July 2002
when the number of Army reservists on active duty exceeded the number
of Air Force reservists on active duty. The figure also shows the
dramatic increase in Army mobilizations in 2003. During calendar year
2002, the Army had an average of about 30,000 reserve component members
mobilized each week. By February 12, 2003, the Army had more than
110,000 reservists mobilized, and mobilizations peaked in March 2003,
when more than 150,000 of the 216,811 reservists mobilized were members
of the Army National Guard or the Army Reserve. On June 18, 2003, over
139,000 Army reservists were still mobilized, and the Army Manpower and
Reserve Affairs office projected that mobilizations would remain high
at least through the end of 2004.[Footnote 32] Given its ongoing
commitments in Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and at home, many of the
Army's reserve component forces will likely face the same types of high
operational tempos that Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve forces
faced in the 1990s.
As described above, the Air Force has effectively used predictable
operating cycles to help prepare its reserve units and individuals for
mobilization and deployment and to mitigate the negative
factors[Footnote 33] associated with high operational tempos. However,
the Army does not employ such operating cycles for its reserve forces,
thus leaving those forces with limited time to prepare for the
increased mobilization and deployment demands facing them.
DOD Has Limited Access to Portions of the Ready Reserve:
After September 11, 2001, mobilizations were hampered because about
one-quarter of the Ready Reserve was not readily accessible. Some
Selected Reserve members could not be mobilized due to the lack of
training. Furthermore, the services lack information that is needed to
make full use of the IRR. Finally, OSD and service policies reflect a
reluctance to use the IRR, resulting in situations where Ready Reserve
forces were not readily available for mobilization or deployment.
Many Selected Reserve Members Could Not Be Mobilized Due to the Lack of
Training:
In fiscal year 2002, most of the military's approximately 880,000
Selected Reserve members were available for mobilization and
deployment, but over 70,000 Selected Reserve members had not completed
the individual training that is required prior to deploying.[Footnote
34] By law, members of the armed forces are not permitted to deploy
outside the United States and its territories until they have completed
the basic training requirements of the applicable military
services.[Footnote 35] The law further stipulates that in time of a
national emergency (such as the one in effect since September 11, 2001)
the basic training period may not be less than 12 weeks, except for
certain medical personnel.[Footnote 36] The over 70,000 Selected
Reserve members who were not deployable in fiscal year 2002 included
personnel who had entered the service and were awaiting their initial
active duty training,[Footnote 37] personnel who were awaiting the
second part of a split initial active duty training program, and
reservists who were still participating in initial active duty training
programs. Each year between fiscal year 1997 and 2002, 7 to 10 percent
of Selected Reserve members were not deployable because they had not
completed their required initial training.
While most members of the Selected Reserve had met the initial active
duty training requirements in fiscal year 2002 and were therefore
available for mobilization, a portion of these personnel belonged to
units that would have required lengthy periods of unit training before
they would have been deployable. In particular, the reserve forces from
the Army's bottom two resourcing categories generally require lengthy
postmobilization training periods before they are deployable. Because
both the Presidential Reserve Call-up[Footnote 38] and partial
mobilization[Footnote 39] authorities prevented the services from
mobilizing reservists specifically for training, the Army could not use
many of its tier three and four Guard and Reserve units to meet
requirements that had to be filled immediately. On April 10, 2003, DOD
proposed that Congress change portions of the United States Code to
allow the military departments to order reservists to active duty for
up to 90 days of training in order to meet deployment
standards.[Footnote 40]
Services Lack Vital Information That Is Necessary to Make Full Use of
the IRR:
The services lack the vital information necessary to fully use their
IRR pools of over 300,000 pretrained individual reservists.[Footnote
41] Many of the IRR members were inaccessible because the services did
not have valid contact information (addresses or phone numbers) for
these individuals. Moreover, the services' use of three primary access
methods--exit briefings, questionnaires, and screenings--did not
obtain the results necessary to gain and maintain access to their IRR
members. Finally, the services have not developed results-oriented
goals and performance measures to improve the use of their primary
methods to access IRR members.
Services Lacked Valid Contact Information for IRR Members:
The services could not access many IRR members because they did not
have valid addresses or phone numbers for the members. For example, in
April 2003, the Army estimated that it had inaccurate addresses for
more than 40,400 of its IRR members. When the services were able to
contact their IRR members and obtain the vital information necessary to
use its IRR pool, exemptions and delays often limited the services'
abilities to fully use these personnel. For example, in February 2003,
the Army sent mobilization orders to 345 IRR members, but 164 of these
reservists requested and were granted exemptions for specific reasons,
such as medical issues, so they did not have to deploy, and another 35
were granted delays in their reporting dates.
Services Did Not Obtain the Results Necessary to Fully Access Their IRR
Members:
The services' use of their three primary IRR access methods did not
obtain the results necessary to gain and maintain full access to their
IRR members. These methods include (1) briefings provided to members
when they leave active duty or a drilling reserve position; (2)
questionnaires to verify basic member information, such as contact
information; and (3) 1-day screenings to verify member fitness for
mobilization.
First, the services brief the members when they leave active duty or a
Selected Reserve position. These briefings are designed to make the
individuals aware of their responsibilities as members of the IRR.
However, mobilized reservists that we spoke with said that IRR
responsibilities had not been clearly explained during exit briefings
when they left active duty. For example, Marine Corps reservists stated
that the separation briefings did not provide the detail necessary for
them to fully understand their commitment and responsibilities when
entering the IRR. They stated individuals conducting these briefings
should emphasize that reservists entering the IRR must keep their
reserve component informed of specific changes, including their home
address, marital status, number of dependents, civilian employment, and
physical condition. They added that reservists assigned to the IRR need
to know that they may volunteer for active duty assignments to refresh
or enhance their military skills.
Next, the services send the members questionnaires to verify basic
information--such as current addresses, marital status, and physical
condition--to ascertain whether the reservists are available
immediately for active duty during a mobilization. However, response
rates to the questionnaires have been considered low, as shown in table
3.
Table 3: Fiscal Year 2002 Questionnaire Response Rates:
Army: 40.41%; Navy: 51.47%; Air Force: 28.97%; Coast Guard[A]: 25.00%.
Source: GAO analysis of service data.
Note: The Marine Corps did not conduct a survey during fiscal year 2002
and could not provide survey specific information for prior years.
[A] Coast Guard responses include questionnaires returned by members of
the Selected Reserve and the IRR.
[End of table]
The services attributed the low response rate, in part, to incorrect
mailing addresses as indicated by the questionnaires returned as
undeliverable. During fiscal year 2002, for example, the Air Force
stated that 12 percent of the questionnaires mailed out were returned
as undeliverable. The Air Force is the only service that specifically
tracks undeliverable rates, but the Navy estimated a 30 to 40 percent
undeliverable rate and the Army estimated that approximately 30 percent
of its questionnaires were returned as undeliverable. The Coast Guard
has not measured the number of questionnaires returned as
undeliverable. Although the Marine Corps did not send out
questionnaires in fiscal year 2002 and could not provide documented
response rates for prior years, a Marine Corps official indicated that
the Corps had experienced about a 10 percent undeliverable rate in
previous years; but he was unable to provide any data to support the
claim. According to this official, most of the returned questionnaires
were mailed to junior enlisted personnel, including lance corporals,
corporals, and sergeants who appeared to change residences more
frequently than senior enlisted personnel or officers.
The services have taken some specific steps to correct bad addresses
and improve servicemember reporting of required mobilization-related
information. Specifically, the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps use
commercial contractors to try to update inaccurate address information.
For the last 4 years, a contractor has been regularly matching the
Army's entire personnel database of bad addresses with a credit
bureau's address database. For over 10 years, the Army has used another
contractor to update a small number of addresses, one at a time.
Despite these efforts, the Army still had over 40,000 bad addresses in
its database as of April 2003, and it recently contracted with its
second contractor to do batch updates rather than one-at-a-time
updates. The Marine Corps just started using its contractor. Finally,
the Army and the Coast Guard have implemented Web-based systems that
encourage IRR members to update critical contact information on the
Internet.[Footnote 42] According to an official representing the Naval
Reserve Personnel Center, the Navy has also started to create a Web-
based screening questionnaire to better track IRR members. However,
these efforts are not linked to a results-oriented management framework
that establishes specific goals to improve access to accurate addresses
and identifies the resources and performance measures necessary to
ensure success.
Finally, the services order a small number of their IRR members to
participate in a 1-day screening event at a specific site to verify
they are fit and available for mobilization.[Footnote 43] The screening
events focus on a specific number of IRR members to verify their
physical existence, condition, and personal contact data. Even though
the total number of IRR members ordered to report for screening during
a fiscal year is relatively small, the services have met with limited
success as the screening event participation rates in table 4 indicate.
Table 4: IRR Screening Event Participation Rates:
Last available fiscal year that screening occurred; Navy: 2002; Marine
Corps: 2002; Air Force: 2001; Army: 2000.
Total IRR population for applicable fiscal year; Navy: 71,140; Marine
Corps: 58,039; Air Force: 47,940; Army: 161,622.
Total number of orders mailed to reservists; Navy: 3,990; Marine Corps:
4,100; Air Force: 4,656; Army: 2,714.
Percentage of personnel that attended screening event; Navy: 35.9;
Marine Corps: 56.4; Air Force: 51.3; Army: 25.8.
Source: GAO's analysis of service data.
Note: The Coast Guard does not require members of the IRR to
participate in screening events.
[End of table]
As indicated in table 4, the Army and the Air Force have not conducted
screenings since 2000 and 2001, respectively. An Army Personnel Command
After Action Report concluded that screenings should not be conducted
until clear objectives are established and realistic cost and benefit
assessments are completed. The Air Force also decided not to conduct
screening events. Thus, these two services are not using one of their
three primary methods to gain and maintain access to their IRR members.
Furthermore, table 3 shows that the participation rates are relatively
low. The services indicated that the low screening event participation
rates were based on the services' inability to contact members of the
IRR because of incorrect addresses; IRR members who were excused
because of stated conflicts involving work, vacation plans, religious
issues, or physical disabilities among others; and members who ignored
orders and avoided participation in the screening events.
The Services Lack Results-Oriented Goals and Performance Measures to
Improve Use of IRR Access:
The services do not have results-oriented goals and performance
measures to improve their reliance on the three primary methods to
access IRR members. Specifically, the services have concentrated their
efforts on exit briefings, questionnaires to update critical
information, and periodic screening events. However, they have not
focused on the results of those activities, as evidenced by persistent
low response rates to questionnaires and low screening event
participation rates. By focusing on the execution of these activities
rather than their results, the services have not:
* established objective, quantifiable, and measurable performance goals
to improve the results of their three primary efforts to access;
* established a basis for comparing actual program results with the
goals in order to develop performance indicators to track their
progress in attaining results-oriented goals; and:
* described the resources and means required to verify and validate
measured values.
OSD and Service Policies Have Discouraged the Use of the IRR:
OSD and service policies have discouraged the use of the IRR because
IRR members do not participate in any regularly scheduled training and
thus are not regularly paid. The policies are also intended to avoid
the negative effects on individual IRR members. For example, the Under
Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness provided guidance
dated July 19, 2002, to the services that emphasized the use of
volunteers before involuntarily mobilizing reservists to minimize the
effects of mobilization on the lives of the reservists, their families,
and their employers.
Policies intended to avoid the negative effects on individual
reservists may be disruptive to all reservists as well as to entire
units, because they contribute to situations where individual
mobilization requirements are filled with personnel from reserve units,
thus creating personnel shortages within the units that had supplied
the reservists and affecting the units' readiness to mobilize and
deploy. For example, in its reluctance to use the IRR, the Army filled
many of its individual mobilization requirements with personnel from
reserve units. In doing so, the Army created personnel shortages within
the units that had supplied the reservists. In some cases, the Army had
to later locate and transfer replacement personnel into these units
when the units were mobilized, thus transferring several unit personnel
as a result of a single individual requirement. Specifically, the Army
mobilized a combat support hospital unit that was 142 individuals
short, including the commanding officer, of its authorized strength of
509 personnel. To increase the hospital unit's strength to an
acceptable level for mobilization, the Army took a commanding officer
and other needed personnel from four reserve units. By taking this
course of action, the Army immediately degraded the mission capability
and readiness of the four affected units. The Army compounded this
negative effect when it later mobilized the already significantly
degraded unit that gave up its commanding officer to the hospital unit.
Further, the reluctance of one service to use the IRR can affect other
services. For example, the Air Force's reluctance to access any of its
more than 44,000 IRR members has left the responsibility for guarding
Air Force bases to over 9,000 Army National Guard unit personnel.
According to a senior Air Force official, the Air Force did not even
consider using its own IRR pool. Because the Army National Guard
volunteered for the mission, the Air Force did not consider mobilizing
any of its 3,900 IRR members who held security force specialty codes.
Conclusions:
About 300,000 of the 1.2 million National Guard and Reserve personnel
have been called to active duty since September 11, 2001. They fought
on the front lines in Iraq; tracked down terrorists throughout Asia and
Africa; maintained the peace in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and now Iraq;
and participated in a wide range of domestic missions. However, the
process to mobilize reservists had to be modified and contained
numerous inefficiencies. Existing operation plans did not adequately
address the mobilization requirements needed to deal with terrorist
attacks and overseas requirements. We recognize that some threats are
impossible to predict but until the combatant commanders identify all
of the mobilization requirements that have evolved since September 11,
2001--and create or update their operation plans as necessary to
account for these requirements--DOD risks the continued need for
additional management oversight and coordination between officials to
fill mobilization requirements, thus slowing the mobilization effort
and making it less efficient.
DOD officials also did not have visibility over the entire mobilization
process. Specifically, without the ability to capture the readiness of
personnel and other resources within the small units that were
frequently needed by combatant commanders, the Army and the Navy will
continue to face difficulties in their efforts to assemble the forces
needed to meet joint organizational requirements. Furthermore, until
all of the services develop fully integrated automated systems that
provide for the seamless transfer of reservists' information between
reserve and active components, the components will continue to face
cumbersome workarounds to obtain the data to track the length of
reservists' mobilization or their deployment status. In addition, until
the services update key mobilization instructions, notices, and
publications to reflect the modified mobilization process, DOD and the
services risk continued mobilization slowdowns and duplication of
efforts.
All of the services provide predictability to portions of their active
forces through some type of standard operating cycle, but only the Air
Force has a standard operating cycle that brings predictability to both
its active and reserve forces. Moreover, the Army's reserve forces face
increasing use to meet operational requirements. However, without a
standard operating concept to help increase predictability for its
units, the Army risks mobilizing units and individuals that are
unprepared for deployment.
Finally, the services have limited access to portions of the Ready
Reserve and are thus forced to spread requirements across the remaining
reserve force, leading to longer or more frequent deployments.
Specifically, the services' use of their primary IRR access methods--
exit briefings, questionnaires, and screenings--did not obtain the
results necessary to gain and maintain access to their members. Until
the services develop results-oriented goals and performance measures to
improve the use of their primary methods to access IRR members, the
services will be unable to systematically identify opportunities to
better access their IRR members for mobilization. Moreover, OSD and
service policies have discouraged the use of the IRR in order to avoid
the negative effects on individual IRR members. However, until the
services review and update their IRR policies to take into account the
nature of the mobilization requirements and the types of reservists who
are available to fill the requirements, the services will risk the
continued disruption to units that provide individual personnel rather
than mobilizing IRR members.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We are making several recommendations to enhance the overall efficiency
of the reserve mobilization process. Specifically, we recommend that
the Secretary of Defense direct:
* the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify all of the
mobilization requirements that have evolved since September 11, 2001,
and create or update operation plans as necessary, to account for these
requirements;
* the Secretaries of the Army and the Navy to capture readiness
information on the resources within all the units that are available to
meet the tailored requirements of combatant commanders so that these
resources will be visible to key mobilization officials within DOD, the
Joint Staff, and the service headquarters;
* the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in
conjunction with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve
Affairs, to develop a single automated system or fully integrated
automated systems that will provide for the seamless transfer of
reservists information, regardless of whether the reservists are in an
active or reserve status;
* the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Assistant Secretary of
the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs to update their
applicable mobilization instructions, notices, and publications;
* the Secretary of the Army to develop a standard operating cycle
concept to help increase predictability for Army reserve units;
* the service secretaries to develop and use results-oriented
performance metrics to guide service efforts to gain and maintain
improved information on IRR members; and:
* the service secretaries to review and update their IRR policies to
take into account the nature of the mobilization requirements as well
as the types of reservists who are available to fill the requirements.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD generally concurred
with our recommendations. The department specifically concurred with
our recommendations to (1) create or update operation plans as
necessary, to account for mobilization requirements that have evolved
since September 11, 2001, (2) develop an automated system to provide
for the seamless transfer of reservists' information, (3) update
mobilization notices and publications, (4) develop a standard operating
cycle to increase predictability for Army Reserve and National Guard
units, (5) develop and use results-oriented performance metrics to gain
and maintain information on IRR members, and (6) update IRR policies to
take into account the nature of mobilization requirements and the types
of reservists who are available to fill the requirements.
DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that the Army and the
Navy capture readiness information on the resources within all units
that are available to meet the tailored requirements of combatant
commanders so that these resources will be visible to key officials
within DOD. DOD stated that the Army and the Navy fully support
capturing relevant information in the DOD readiness reporting system
but that combatant commanders will need to establish resource
requirements to include tailored mission requirements. We agree that
improvements in readiness reporting should be closely linked to efforts
to more clearly define requirements. DOD also stated that the Army is
currently developing and implementing a system to provide visibility on
readiness issues in support of the combatant commanders. We did not
evaluate this system because it was not fully implemented during our
review.
DOD also provided technical comments from the Joint Staff, and we
received technical comments from the Coast Guard. These technical
comments were incorporated in the final draft as appropriate. DOD's
comments are reprinted in appendix II.
We performed our work between September 2002 and June 2003 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of Defense, the
Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff; the Secretary of Transportation; and the Commandant of the Coast
Guard. We will also make copies available to others upon request. In
addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site
at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staffs have any questions concerning this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-5559 or stewartd@gao.gov or Brenda S. Farrell
at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Others making major
contributions to this report are included in appendix III.
Derek B. Stewart:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
Signed by Derek B. Stewart:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To evaluate whether the Department of Defense (DOD) and the services
followed their existing operation plans when mobilizing reserve forces
after September 11, 2001, we reviewed and analyzed a small group of
requests for forces from the combatant commanders and discussed
differences between planned and actual requirements with the
mobilization officials responsible for validating and approving
mobilization requirements. To find out how the services screen and fill
requirements, as well as their procedures for turning generic
"capability" type requirements into actual unit and personnel
requirements, we met with, and collected and analyzed data from, a
variety of active and reserve component offices within each of the
services. Specifically, we met with officials from the following
offices or commands:
* National Guard Bureau; [Footnote 44]
* Department of the Army, Army Operations Center;
* Office of the Chief, Army Reserve;
* Army National Guard, Headquarters;
* U.S. Army Forces Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* U.S. Army Reserve Command, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* Department of the Air Force, Headquarters;
* Air National Guard, Headquarters;
* Air National Guard Readiness Center;
* Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois;
* Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia;
* Air and Space Expeditionary Force Center, Langley Air Force Base,
Virginia;
* Navy Personnel Command, Millington, Tennessee;
* Commander Naval Forces Command, New Orleans, Louisiana;
* U.S. Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs, Headquarters,
Quantico, Virginia;
* Marine Forces Reserve, Headquarters, New Orleans, Louisiana;
* U.S. Coast Guard, Headquarters; and:
* U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Maintenance Logistic Command, Norfolk,
Virginia.
We reviewed our prior work on risk management and issues related to
combating terrorism. We met with RAND Corporation officials to discuss
and coordinate ongoing work related to the requests for forces. We also
met with the Assistant Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air
Force who are responsible for approving mobilization orders.
To determine the extent to which responsible officials had visibility
over the entire mobilization process, we reviewed sections of the
United States Code, Executive Orders, Secretary of Defense memoranda,
Joint Staff publications, and service instructions related to
mobilization. We also met with senior and key mobilization officials
involved with the various phases of the mobilization process to
document their roles and responsibilities and collect data about the
process. We observed a 2-1/2 day DOD symposium in November 2002, where
senior military and civilian officials came together to review the
entire mobilization process. We reviewed relevant GAO reports and
reports from other audit and inspection agencies. We also met with Army
Audit Agency and Air Force Audit Agency officials. We reviewed the
services' detailed flowcharts, which documented the mobilization
process from different service perspectives. We also discussed and
observed the operation of the classified and unclassified automated
systems that are being used to track mobilized units and individuals,
as well as mobilization requirements. The Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs served as our primary source
for aggregate personnel and mobilization data. However, data from the
early days and weeks following September 11, 2001, are not reliable.
Further, the services captured mobilization data differently over time,
making it difficult to aggregate the data. To present the data
consistently, our figures display data beginning with January 2002.
To evaluate the services' approaches to provide predictability to
reservists subject to mobilization and deployment, we met with
officials from the Air Force offices that were responsible for the
development and implementation of the rotational Air Expeditionary
Force concept and analyzed data that documented the successes and
challenges that the program had experienced since September 11, 2001.
We discussed the 30-day advance notice goal with service officials and
officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) office,
which had issued the goal. We also discussed efforts to increase
advanced warning or predictability with officials from the Army, the
Navy, and the Marine Corps and, where data were available, compared
alert dates to mobilization dates. To gain first-hand knowledge about
the effects of mobilizations on individual reservists, we visited a
number of sites where reservists were deployed or were undergoing
mobilization processing and training.[Footnote 45] At these sites, we
collected mobilization data, obtained copies of mobilization processing
checklists, and observed the preparations for deployment that take
place after reservists have been mobilized. Specifically, we met with
officials from the offices or commands listed below:
* Army Headquarters, I Corps, Fort Lewis, Washington;
* 4th Brigade, 91st Division (Training Support), Fort Lewis,
Washington;
* 2122nd Garrison Training Support Brigade, Fort Lewis, Washington;
* 2122nd Garrison Support Unit, North Fort Lewis, Washington;
* Soldier Readiness Processing Site, Fort Lewis, Washington;
* Soldier Readiness Processing Site, Fort McPherson, Georgia;
* Central Issue Facility, Fort Lewis, Washington;
* Navy Mobilization Processing Site, Millington, Tennessee;
* Navy Mobilization Processing Site, San Diego, California;
* Marine Corps Mobilization Processing Center, Mobilization Support
Battalion, Camp Pendleton, California;
* 452nd Air Mobility Wing, March Air Reserve Base, California; and:
* Coast Guard Integrated Support Command, Portsmouth, Virginia.
While at these sites, we interviewed individual and unit reservists who
had been mobilized, as well as the active duty, reserve, and civilian
officials who were conducting the mobilization processing and training.
At the mobilization processing stations, we observed reservists getting
medical, legal, and family support briefings; having their personnel,
medical, and dental records screened and updated; and receiving
inoculations, combat equipment, camouflage clothing, Geneva Convention
Cards, identification tags, and the controlled access cards that have
replaced laminated identification cards. We also observed weapons
qualification training.
To determine the extent to which Ready Reserve forces were available
for mobilization, we reviewed sections of the United States Code and
OSD and service policies on the use of the Individual Ready Reserve
(IRR). We collected and analyzed longitudinal data on the sizes of
different segments of the Ready Reserve. We examined the data for
trends, specifically focusing on the IRR and the portion of the
Selected Reserve that was still in the training pipeline. We also
collected and analyzed data from the commands that are responsible for
managing the IRR, specifically:
* the U.S. Army Reserve Personnel Command, St. Louis, Missouri;
* the Naval Reserve Personnel Center, New Orleans, Louisiana;
* the Air Reserve Personnel Center, Denver, Colorado;
* the Marine Corps Reserve Support Command, Kansas City, Missouri; and:
* the Coast Guard Personnel Command, Washington, D.C.
Officials from these commands also provided data on IRR members that we
analyzed to determine (1) response rates to questionnaires to verify
basic member information and (2) participation rates at 1-day screening
events to verify member fitness for mobilization.
We conducted our review from September 2002 through June 2003 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
RESERVE AFFAIRS:
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 1500 DEFENSE PENTAGON WASHINGTON, DC
20301-1500:
28 JUL 2003:
Mr. Derek B. Stewart:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management U.S. General Accounting
Office:
441 G Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Stewart:
This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft
report, "MILITARY PERSONNEL: DoD Actions Needed to Improve the
Efficiency of Mobilizations for Reserve Forces," dated June 30, 2003
(Code 350247/GAO-03-921). DoD responses to GAO's seven recommendations
for executive action are enclosed.
The point of contact for this office is Colonel Michael Cornell, OASD/
RA (RT&M), at (703) 693-8637 or via e-mail at michael.comell@osd.mil.
Sincerely,
Signed for:
T.F Hall
Enclosure as stated:
GAO DRAFT REPORT - DATED JUNE 30, 2003 GAO CODE 350247/GAO-03-921:
"MILITARY PERSONNEL: DoD Actions Needed to Improve the Efficiency of
Mobilizations for Reserve Forces":
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS:
RECOMMENDATION 1: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Chairman of the Joint Staff to identify all of the
mobilization requirements that have evolved since September 11, 2001,
and create or update operation plans as necessary, to account for these
requirements. (Page 45/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs with the recommendation to identify all of
the mobilization requirements that have evolved since September 11,
2001, and create or update operation plans as necessary, to account for
these requirements.
RECOMMENDATION 2: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretaries of the Army and the Navy to capture readiness
information on the resources within all units that are available to
meet the tailored requirements of combatant commanders so that these
resources will be visible to key officials within DoD, the Joint Staff
and Service headquarters. (Pages 45-46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Partially Concur. The Army and Navy fully support
capturing relevant information and integrating that information into
the DOD Readiness Reporting System. However, the Army, as a provider of
forces and capabilities to the combatant commanders, has sufficient
visibility of this information to make informed sourcing decisions for
tailored requirements. If additional readiness information is required
to meet the needs of the Department of Defense, then the tailored
requirement would need to be identified, the appropriate mission
essential task list identified, additional data collected and a DoD-
wide standard be identified for reporting. The combatant commanders
will need to establish resource requirements to include tailored
mission requirements. The Army is currently developing and implementing
an enterprise-wide Strategic Readiness System to provide visibility on
readiness issues in support of combatant commanders.
RECOMMENDATION 3: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in
conjunction with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve
Affairs, to develop a single system or fully automated systems that
will provide for the seamless transfer of reservists information,
regardless of whether the reservists are in an active or reserve
status. (Page 46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Concur. DOD needs one integrated automation system for
both the active and reserve components that will provide management of
human resources and unit mobilizations and allow for seamless transfer
of data among the services. The system under development that might
approach filling this need is the Defense Integrated Military Human
Resource System (DIMHRS). It is a personnel and pay system. Manpower
and training will be included at a later date. DIMHRS will furnish key
personnel information to the Global Command & Control System (GCCS) and
the Global Combat Support System (GCSS) Family of Systems (FoS) at the
strategic and service department level. It will support decision
support systems that are predictive in nature, require computer based
personnel accounting and strength management, and enable timely
coordination within weapon system crew requirements for deployment,
sustainment, and replacement operations. Identifying the required
personnel (i.e., military service member, civilian, or contractor),
their status, and organization comprise the minimum basic information
requirement.
RECOMMENDATION 4: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
for Manpower an Reserve Affairs to update their applicable
mobilizations, notices and publications. (Page 46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Concur. DoD concurs with the recommendation.
RECOMMENDATION 5: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Secretary of the Army to develop a standard operating cycle
concept to help increase predictability for its reserve units. (Page
46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Concur. Standard operating cycles that allow Reserve
Component (RC) commanders to allocate training and maintenance time for
mobilization preparation is desirable. The goal for deployments is to
structure forces in order to limit involuntary mobilization to not more
than one year every six years. Prior to the War on Terrorism, the Army
was meeting this goal, particularly in mature operations such as SFOR
and KFOR. As the operational tempo shifted (increased) and the RC was
asked to assume these missions, while also being called upon to meet
new requirements, there was an unavoidable loss of predictability.
Immature and dynamic operations will not lend themselves to
predictability until the operation duration and force structure is
stabilized. The Army continues to refine the rotation plan and study
the AC-RC mix to ensure predictability in employing RC forces.
RECOMMENDATION 6: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Service secretaries to develop and use results-oriented
performance metrics to guide Service efforts to gain and maintain
improved information on IRR members. (Page 46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Concur. The development and use of results-oriented
performance metrics should provide direction and guidance to improve
the available information on the IRR force. OASD/RA, acting for the
USD(P&R), will coordinate with the Military Services, the Reserve
Components, and the Reserve Personnel Centers to facilitate the
development and use of performance measures. This will be considered as
a topic for the next Reserve Personnel Center Commanders/Individual
Ready Reserve conference to be held in July 2004.
RECOMMENDATION 7: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Service secretaries to review and update their IRR policies
to take into account the nature of the
mobilization requirements as well as the types of reservists who are
available to fill the requirements. (Page46/GAO Draft Report):
DOD RESPONSE: Concur. OASD/RA will also review its polices for
governing the management, use, and mobilization of the IRR.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Staff Acknowledgments:
Acknowledgments:
James R. Bancroft, Larry J. Bridges, Michael J. Ferren, Chelsa L.
Kenney, Irene A. Robertson, and Robert K. Wild also made significant
contributions to the report.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Unless specified otherwise, the terms "reserves" and "reservists"
both refer to the collective forces of the Army National Guard and the
Air National Guard, as well as the forces from the Army Reserve, the
Naval Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve, the Air Force Reserve, and the
Coast Guard Reserve. Our review focused on DOD's reservists and its
mobilization process. We also included the Coast Guard Reserve in our
review because it is considered a reserve component of the U.S. Armed
Forces, even though it was part of the Department of Transportation
when we began our review and part of the Department of Homeland
Security when we completed our review.
[2] Proclamation No. 7463 of September 14, 2001.
[3] The Ready Reserve accounts for over 98 percent of nonretired
reservists and consists of units and individuals who are liable for
active duty under the provisions of 10 U.S.C.§ 12301 and § 12302.
[4] This processing included attendance at medical, legal, and family
support briefings; personnel record screenings and updates; medical and
dental processing, including receiving inoculations; and receiving
combat equipment, camouflage clothing, Geneva Convention Cards,
identification tags, and the new controlled access cards that have
replaced laminated identification cards.
[5] While enlistment contracts can vary, a typical enlistee would incur
an 8-year minimum service obligation, which could consist of a 4-year
active duty obligation followed by a 4-year IRR obligation.
[6] IRR members can request to participate in annual training or other
operations, but most do not. Those who are activated are paid for their
service. There are also small groups of IRR members who participate in
unpaid training. The members of this last group are often in the IRR
only for short periods while they are waiting to transfer to paid
positions in the Selected Reserve. IRR members can receive retirement
credit if they meet basic eligibility criteria through voluntary
training or mobilizations.
[7] Within each of the military departments, this authority was
delegated to the offices with primary responsibility for reserve
issues--the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve
Affairs), the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve
Affairs), and the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Manpower and
Reserve Affairs).
[8] The number of combatant commanders is not fixed by law or
regulation and may vary over time. While most of the combatant commands
are organized on a geographical basis, some are organized on a
functional basis.
[9] In September 2001, this final approval authority was delegated from
the Office of the Secretary of Defense to the military departments.
However, during the final buildup for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the
Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) acted as the final
mobilization authority.
[10] These orders did not prevent the services from demobilizing
personnel prior to the end of the year.
[11] Some high-priority reserve units are required to be available for
deployment within 72 or even 24 hours of notification so it is well-
recognized that formal notification will not always be available 30
days prior to mobilization. Even informal notification may be short for
quickly emerging requirements.
[12] Tempo refers to the total days reservists spend participating in
normal drills, training, and exercises, as well as domestic and
overseas operational missions.
[13] U.S. General Accounting Office, Reserve Forces: DOD Actions Needed
to Better Manage Relations between Reservists and Their Employers,
GAO-02-608 (Washington, D.C. June 13, 2002).
[14] U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Personnel: Preliminary
Observations Related to Income, Benefits, and Employer Support for
Reservists During Mobilization, GAO-03-549T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 19,
2003). We also provided a statement for the record to the Subcommittee
on Personnel, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, titled Military
Personnel: Preliminary Observations Related to Income, Benefits, and
Employer Support for Reservists During Mobilization, GAO-03-573T
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 19, 2003).
[15] Pub. L. No. 107-107, section 724.
[16] U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Health Care: Army Needs to
Assess the Health Status of All Early Deploying Reservists, GAO-03-437
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 15, 2003).
[17] See www.gao.gov for a complete listing of our reports on homeland
security, terrorism, and airport security from 1980 to present.
[18] U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Selected
Challenges and Related Recommendations, GAO-01-822 (Washington, D.C.:
Sept. 20, 2001).
[19] U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Status of DOD
Efforts to Protect Its Forces Overseas, GAO-NSIAD-97-207 (Washington,
D.C.: July 21, 1997) and Combating Terrorism: Efforts to Protect U.S.
Forces in Turkey and the Middle East, GAO/T-NSIAD-98-44 (Washington,
D.C.: Oct. 28, 1997).
[20] Reservists were also serving on active duty under state
authorities on these dates.
[21] U.S. General Accounting Office, Combating Terrorism: Actions
Needed to Improve DOD Antiterrorism Program Implementation and
Management, GAO-01-909 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 19, 2001).
[22] These reservists were under the control of their state governors.
[23] The minimum time was 1 day and the maximum time was 45 days.
[24] For example, an Army battalion would report its overall readiness
as well as its overall personnel and equipment readiness, but it would
not report the readiness of individual platoons within its companies.
[25] Specifically, units report personnel levels, equipment and supply
levels, condition of equipment, and training levels.
[26] Officials provided several reasons why units might remain on alert
for more than 90 days including: changing mission requirements or unit
readiness and rotational requirements.
[27] Within the Army's active divisions, brigades are rotated into an
alert status for 1-month periods.
[28] Because some skills (1) are very perishable (certifications may
last for 1 year or less), (2) require long training times, and (3) may
not be needed prior to deployment, units may be reluctant to send their
personnel to the required schools if the units do not know when they
are going to deploy. Predictability helps units to efficiently and
effectively schedule personnel for certification schools. Army
officials cited combat lifesaver and hazardous materiel coordinators as
two of these certified skills.
[29] Between fiscal year 1992 and 1999, tempos in the Air Force's
reserve components had risen from 55 to 65 days of active duty per
year, while the tempos in the other reserve components had remained
much lower--between 33 and 47 days per year.
[30] While the Army scheduled some of its reserve forces for
deployments to the Balkans several years in advance of the deployments,
the deployments were not part of an operating cycle and the deployed
forces did not know when they might be deployed again.
[31] Within these units, 21,908 personnel were mobilized.
[32] An estimate placed the mobilization number at 90,000 through the
end of 2004.
[33] Senior DOD officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that
repeated mobilizations of the reserves could eventually lead to
recruiting and retention problems.
[34] In fiscal year 2002, the Selected Reserve made up 74 percent of
the Ready Reserve.
[35] 10 U.S.C. § 671.
[36] 10 U.S.C. § 671(c).
[37] The Fiscal Year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act (section
533 (a) P.L. 107-314, Dec. 2, 2002) increased the maximum time that
reservists may delay commencement of their initial active duty training
from 270 days (10 U.S.C. § 12103) to 1 year after their enlistments.
[38] 10 U.S.C. § 12304.
[39] 10 U.S.C. § 12302.
[40] "The Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act" had not been
signed into law as of the date of publication of our report.
[41] In fiscal year 2002, the IRR and the Inactive National Guard made
up 26 percent of the Ready Reserve.
[42] The Coast Guard's Web-based system had only been in place for part
of fiscal year 2002, when the 25 percent response rate was reported.
Response rates, which reached 48 percent after the Web-based system had
been deployed for a full year, are being reported monthly.
[43] The services call these screenings musters.
[44] Unless otherwise noted, the officials listed in this appendix have
their offices in the Pentagon or at other locations in the Washington
D.C., metropolitan area.
[45] A small number of personnel were undergoing demobilization
processing during some of our site visits.
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