Hi all; Rumsfeld comments on Reserve activation:
DoD News Briefing - Rumsfeld / Myers
DefenseLINK.mil, November 4, 2002
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Q: Hi. I'm sure there's a good number of National Guard members and Reservists watching the media closely, especially amid reports that the call-up from them might be as large as the one for the Persian Gulf War, if we were to do something with Iraq. Like Charlie, I too know that the president hasn't made any decisions on that, but I'm curious if you could shed any light on the possible timing of such a call-up; whether something like that could begin even before a formal decision by the president, in sort of the guise of -- I mean in sort of the idea of prudent planning, and when we might actually begin to see some movement in that direction?
Rumsfeld: Well, if you think about it, we've called up a great many people already. We've called up over 70,000 men and women in the Guard and Reserve. The numbers have been reduced now to the point of something in the 40,000 to 50,000 range. (Ed. Note: Currently 57,721: See defenselink.mil
Myers: Exactly.
Rumsfeld: And we also have had some stop-losses of people who have not been excused from duty, who otherwise would have been. So there -- an awful lot of those people are volunteers.
There is no question but that we will continue to be making various types of call-ups and -- Reserve and Guard call-ups. We do it as we look at the entire force disposition worldwide. We have folks in Kosovo, we have them in Bosnia, we have them in the Sinai, we have them in a number of places around the world and -- in the Philippines.
There are an enormous number of complicated issues in doing this. And if, for example, you have an activity that involves people who require, oh, 30, 60, 90 days to go do what it is they do, then you might do some of those. If you have people that are on very short calls, you might not. You have to rotate people, and that process is going on continuously.
So I would expect that there would be additional Reserve call-ups in the period immediately ahead, and I would expect also that we may very well continue to let some additional people out who have been in for some period, and we would be replacing them, for example. And it's -- an awful lot of the people, as I say, however, are in voluntarily -- I don't mean "involuntarily." (Laughter.) They are serving voluntarily, even though their units were called up. And those folks, for the most part, are not bracing at getting out right now. So it's a --(Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness)) David Chu and the Joint Staff and I have met, I don't know, two or three times, at least --
Myers: Yes, sir. At least three times --
Rumsfeld: -- looking at all of this and trying to do a layout over a period of time as to what we think might be the demands, but I would look for additional call-ups.
Q: When you say "the period ahead" -- this week, by the end of the month?
Rumsfeld: Oh, I wouldn't want to nail that down. But it could be anytime. And it may very well be pieces, scraps, units, elements, activities, capabilities, those types of things.
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-- Carl |
