Army Force Structure: Issues Related to the Drawdown in Europe and Impacts on Soldiers and U.S. Bases

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Army Force Structure:

Issues Related to the Drawdown in Europe and Impacts on Soldiers and U.S. Bases

T-NSIAD-92-28: Published: Apr 9, 1992. Publicly Released: Apr 9, 1992.

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GAO discussed the: (1) difficulties the U.S Army, Europe (USAREUR) faces in implementing its drawdown in Europe; and (2) drawdown's impact on selected U.S. bases. GAO noted that: (1) as of March 1992, the Army has achieved 42 percent of its military personnel reduction goal, 25 percent of its civilian personnel reduction goal, and 35 percent of its installation reduction goal; (2) unit inactivations, combined with a recent Army decision to eliminate the entire stockpile of excess war reserve equipment in Central Europe, have created large excesses of equipment awaiting inspection and disposition; (3) USAREUR has only achieved 25 percent of its civilian personnel reduction goal, since it retained some civilians to support Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and to carry out drawdown tasks; (4) some of the units returning to the United States after Operation Desert Storm had very low percentages of equipment at the fully mission-capable rate; (5) the influx of a large number of personnel being relocated to the United States has placed additional demands on many U.S. installations and their surrounding communities; (6) the Army and USAREUR agreed to fund the drawdown from normal operational funds, with no separate appropriations earmarked for drawdown costs; and (7) the Army has cut the USAREUR total operational funding budget for fiscal year (FY) 1992, because of USAREUR inability to validate its budget needs, and now USAREUR expects to only receive about $2 billion in FY 1993, compared with $4.5 billion in FY 1989.