• The readier units were called up first. Forces Command reported that between August and early November 1990, 15 percent of Army units reporting to mobilization stations were rated as not deployable ( i.e., C - 4 / 5 ). From early November 1990 to mid-January 1991, 34 percent were rated as not deployable.
• Forces Command had increasing difficulty improving the incoming combat support units to a C - 3 rating. Early efforts to move people from one unit to another, due to lack of access to the IRR, greatly exacerbated the problem for later deploying units. Further, the mobilization stations were running out of equipment to make up for the equipment shortfalls of newly arriving units.

          Some expedient solutions were available. Fuel handlers could become water handlers. But these solutions were limited.

          By the end of the mobilization, Forces Command had nearly exhausted its ability to put together the kind of support units needed in Southwest Asia.

What Happened?

          One reason for the readiness problem at the mobilization centers was that the units being called up simply were not as ready as the Army's rating system had said they were. The report that is used to capture readiness is the Army's Unit Status Report. This report allows a unit much discretion and, it turns out, was a poor predictor of how well - prepared a unit was to do its job.

          One guard hospital unit arrived at the mobilization station rated C - 2 and, therefore, supposedly deployable. It had more than 80 percent of its authorized personnel. The problem was that it had none of the 12 doctors required by the unit.

          One brigade reported itself to be C - 2 overall despite being short 179 mechanics.

          Many reserve component Military Police units did not have the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle ( HMMWV ). This bigger, more powerful successor to the jeep was required for service in Southwest Asia and had to be supplied to the units.

          Other units had never been assigned their full complement of equipment during peacetime, training each year with borrowed equipment.

          Each unit assessed its own rating under pressures to inflate ratings to make unit performance look better. Several of the officers interviewed for this paper said higher headquarters inflated their ratings before sending them on to Washington.

          The Army has a fail - safe system, however, to prevent unready units from deploying to a combat theater. Since the Korean war, the Army had required a formal validation of reserve component unit's readiness by active - duty commanders at the mobilization station before the unit could deploy outside the United States.

          This prevents the Army from sending units into combat that are not ready, but it does nothing to prevent them from arriving at the mobilization station that way.

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