Rumsfeld: New personnel system could help avoid increase in troops

A new Defense Department personnel management system could help the Pentagon avoid an increase in the size of the military, which some lawmakers want but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld opposes.

Addressing the National Conference of State Legislatures in Washington on Friday, Rumsfeld was asked whether the U.S. military is large enough to handle its global commitments. Earlier this week, more than two dozen House Democrats introduced legislation that would increase Army troop levels from 482,400 to 522,400, the Air Force from 359,300 to 388,000, and the Marine Corps from 175,000 to 190,000.

Rumsfeld said senior Pentagon leaders are studying whether the military has enough active-duty soldiers, or "end strength," but have not come to any conclusions.

"They're doing analysis now and to the extent we need more end strength, needless to say we'd ask for it and the Congress would give it," he said. "At the moment we don't have any analyses that are sufficiently persuasive that at the present time it's needed. And it's expensive, so if you do it you've got to not do something else."

But Rumsfeld added that a new personnel management system recently approved by Congress will give the Pentagon flexibility in using its civilian workforce to perform jobs that are currently done by uniformed soldiers.

"We got some transformational legislation through the Congress which is going to enable us to do a much better job using the civilian workforce and the contracting workforce rather than using military people for tasks that need not be performed by military people," he said.

Rumsfeld estimates that up to 300,000 military personnel are doing jobs that civilians could do, mainly because using civilians was too difficult under "antiquated" rules.

"Anyone with any sense in the Department of Defense who wanted a task done would reach in and grab a person in uniform, knowing they could tell them what to do, have them do it, and if they didn't do it deploy them someplace else and get on with life," Rumsfeld said. "Now we've got changes and flexibility in the personnel system that we believe will make better use of civilian personnel because people won't be driven away from them by virtue of the fact that we didn't manage that system."

Rumsfeld said the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently met with military commanders and determined the services have enough troops to meet their requirements. However, he added that the Army is 2 percent over its allowed size, and may go to 3 percent over, which is permitted by law.