[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-98]
STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS: LEARNING FROM THE
PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM (PRT) EXPERIENCE
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
OCTOBER 30, 2007
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OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey JEFF MILLER, Florida
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
JIM COOPER, Tennessee K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania
Suzanne McKenna, Professional Staff Member
Thomas Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Roger Zakheim, Professional Staff Member
Sasha Rogers, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2007
Page
Hearing:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007, Stabilization and Reconstruction
Operations: Learning from the Provincial Reconstruction Team
(PRT) Experience............................................... 1
Appendix:
Tuesday, October 30, 2007........................................ 45
----------
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2007
STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS: LEARNING FROM THE
PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM (PRT) EXPERIENCE
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking
Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.............. 3
Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee...................... 1
WITNESSES
Christoff, Joseph A., Director, International Affairs and Trade,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 9
Herbst, Ambassador John E., Coordinator for Reconstruction and
Stabilization, U.S. Department of State........................ 4
St. Laurent, Janet A., Director, Defense Capabilities and
Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office.............. 7
Ward, Celeste, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Stability Operations Capabilities, Department of Defense....... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Akin, Hon. W. Todd........................................... 51
Christoff, Joseph A. joint with Janet A. St. Laurent......... 66
Herbst, Ambassador John E.................................... 54
Snyder, Dr. Vic.............................................. 49
Ward, Celeste................................................ 63
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Questions and Answers Submitted for the Record:
Ms. Davis.................................................... 105
Dr. Snyder................................................... 93
STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS: LEARNING FROM THE
PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM (PRT) EXPERIENCE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, October 30, 2007.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Dr. Snyder. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning. We appreciate our witnesses being here this morning
and all other folks in attendance.
This is the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation's
hearing on stabilization and reconstruction operations,
learning from the provincial reconstruction team experience.
This subcommittee has conducted a series of hearings and
briefings on the PRT problems and challenges in Afghanistan and
Iraq to get a getter understanding of what the PRTs are, what
they do, and the contribution that they are making in
stabilizing Afghanistan and Iraq.
Every witness and every PRT veteran we heard from, both at
our public meetings and our private briefings, told the
subcommittee that PRTs are a vital tool and are critical to the
success of our operations.
We have heard that much of what any given PRT does is
determined by the team on the ground based on local or
provincial needs and the security conditions in the area in
which it is serving.
In Afghanistan, we know the PRT's job is to extend the
reach of the Afghan central government out to the provinces. In
Iraq, some PRTs are there to help develop provincial government
capacity, while others are there to assist and advise the
brigade combat team commanders in the conduct of
counterinsurgency operations at the local level.
But beyond that, we have heard that the PRT mission
statements are vague, that they need clearly defined
objectives, and that there is no concrete means to assess their
effectiveness.
One witness boiled the situation down into a single phrase,
``Improvisation is not a concept of operations.'' That witness,
Robert Perito, of the United States Institute of Peace, argued
that guidance needs to come from Washington and that that
guidance needs to be from a very senior level.
Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction, testified that the U.S. experience with PRTs
has been ad hoc and that we need a more effective interagency
approach and structure for stabilization and reconstruction
operations.
Throughout the discussions this committee has had and the
testimony that we have heard, given these challenges, we have
been very, very impressed with the personnel from the varied
agencies that participate in PRTs. They are some of the most
remarkable Americans and we commend them for the work that they
do.
Our concern is that perhaps we in Washington are not doing
everything we ought to do to help them in their efforts.
We chose the PRT topic several months ago now because PRTs
are critical to our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We also
chose to examine them because they represent a case study on
how the interagency process works or does not work in
Washington and in the field, which brings us to this hearing
today.
We have witnesses today from both the State Department and
the Department of Defense who are working on improving
interagency planning, resourcing, management and oversight of
future stabilization and reconstruction operations, and one of
them, Ambassador Herbst--is it Herbst?
Ambassador Herbst. Herbst.
Dr. Snyder. We have great expectations for you today,
because there have been a lot of people bragging on you over
the last several weeks from folks we have heard. We very much
appreciate your efforts.
We also have Government Accountability Office (GAO)
witnesses who have been examining the interagency efforts that
our two executive branch witnesses are responsible for.
We also want to thank Mr. Shays, who allowed Mr. Akin and I
to sign on as a co-requestor for the GAO report that has been
prepared on the DOD efforts.
Our panel of witnesses today includes Ambassador John
Herbst, the State Department's coordinator for reconstruction
and stabilization; Ms. Celeste Ward, the deputy assistant
secretary of defense for stability operations capabilities; Ms.
Janet St. Laurent, the director of the Defense Capabilities and
Management, United States Government Accountability Office;
and, Mr. Joseph Christoff, director of international affairs
and trade team, also from GAO.
And I want to say, for our committee members, for those of
you who have read or who have not read the statements today, I
thought a lot of what we read in these reports today was some
of the biggest [expletive] gobbly-gook I have read in a long,
long time. That was the biggest [expletive] gobbly-gook, Dr.
Gingrey.
The challenge for us is it important gobbly-gook, and we
need to sort that out with the help of our witnesses here
today, because at some point, it is having direct impact on
very brave men and women we have in Iraq and Afghanistan today,
and we will talk more about that later.
Now, I would like to yield to Mr. Akin for any opening
statement he would like to make.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the
Appendix on page 49.]
STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI,
RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Akin. Thank you, Dr. Snyder. And thank you all for
taking time to be with us this morning. The fact that you have
this many people on a subcommittee hearing means that you have
interest. Usually, there is the chairman and maybe the ranking
person.
This particular public hearing on provincial reconstruction
teams, it is not our first, but we want to take a look at the
policy framework for dealing with stabilization and
reconstruction operations.
While we have studied the PRT concept, how an interagency
team comprised of civilian and military personnel works to
extend the reach of government into regional provinces and
local areas, we have not investigated how the PRT experience is
affecting how policy-makers in Washington plan for future
stabilization contingencies.
While we may not be engaged in the future in a nation
building operation equal to the scale of what we are currently
doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think it is fair to say that
the United States will likely be engaged in similar
contingencies in the coming decades.
We were conducting similar operations in Bosnia and Haiti
in the 1990's. September 11 has only reinforced the importance
of these missions.
Even those skeptical of nation building understand that
stable states are less likely to have ungoverned spaces where
terrorists find safe harbor.
The focus of today's hearing, therefore, is to learn how
the Defense and State Departments are ensuring that we are
translating lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan in a 21st
century interagency apparatus that has the resources, the
capabilities, and plans to run seamless interagency
stabilization operations.
This is the goal of the national security Presidential
directive NSPD-44. Today our witnesses will tell us how these
are progressing.
I am curious how the State Department, particularly, the
coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization understands
its role as lead agency for reconstruction and stabilization
under the new directive. This subcommittee is certainly
interested in learning more about how your office is building
three distinct corps of civilian agency personnel for these
types of missions. And this is a welcomed initiative.
I am particularly interested in what tools the civilian
reserve corps will need to be successful. Such success will
hinge, in large part, in determining the role of the Department
of Defense in future stabilization operations.
The directive makes stabilization operations a core mission
for Defense Department on par with combat operations. When I
think this catches up DOD policy with the reality that has been
true in the department for almost two decades, I am interested
in how we are going doing on policy execution, whether our
combatant commanders are planning for these missions and
whether the services are budgeting and building the
capabilities for this mission.
I would like our witnesses to comment on how they think the
Department of Defense is progressing in terms of implementing
this directive. If there are any hurdles, please identify what
they are.
Again, thank you all for joining us this morning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for pursuing, I think, a very
interesting line of questions for oversight.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
We have had requests from some members who are not a member
of the Armed Services Committee nor this subcommittee to join
us. So I will ask unanimous consent that they be allowed to
participate, if they arrive.
We are going to go in the order that I--I think just right
down the line here.
Ambassador Herbst, I want to begin with you, because you
have the overall responsibility for some of the things we are
talking about, and then we will hear from the other witnesses.
We will have Suzanne put the five-minute clock on you. So
you will get a green light, then a yellow light, and then a red
light. But in contrast to our members here, I will not rap the
gavel on you. If the red light goes on, but you still have some
things to share with us, you feel free to go ahead. It is just
to give you a sense of where the time is.
So we will begin with you, Ambassador Herbst.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR JOHN E. HERBST, COORDINATOR FOR
RECONSTRUCTION AND STABILIZATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Herbst. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify.
Weak and failed states pose a serious security challenge
for the United States and the international community. They can
become breeding grounds for terrorism, weapons of mass
destruction, proliferation, trafficking in humans and
narcotics, as well as organized crime.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been
engaged in or contributed significant resources to more than 17
reconstruction and stabilization operations. The challenge
persists and will persist well into the future.
If the U.S. Government is going to meet these threats, we
must adapt our national security resources appropriately. State
Department/Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and
Stabilization (S/CRS) was established in 2004 to do just that.
Starting with just a handful of staff, the office has grown to
over 80.
My office is charged with two tasks. The first is to ensure
that the entire U.S. Government is organized to deal with
reconstruction and stabilization crises affecting our national
interests. That includes harmonizing civilian and military
activities, making sure that civilians operate as one team.
Our second task is to enable the civilian capacity to staff
these missions when called upon to respond. These tasks are
easy to describe, not so easy to achieve.
They require nothing less than revolution in the way that
the civilian part of the U.S. Government operates, something
similar to the reforms in the military in the 1980's with the
Goldwater-Nichols legislation.
In December 2005, President Bush issued National Security
Presidential Directive 44 to improve the management of
reconstruction and stabilization operations. The directive
states that the secretary of state is responsible for this and
that S/CRS is her executive arm for doing this.
We have made significant progress on implementing the
National Security Presidential Document-44 (NSPD-44) and the
pace has moved very quickly over the past eight months.
Specifically, on task one, how we organize the Federal
Government, we have created the interagency management system.
It has been approved by the National Security Council
(NSC). It involves the following structures. There will be a
policy group, a country reconstruction and stabilization group
that will manage the policy for senior policymakers.
Under this, there will be a secretariat run by my office.
All members of the interagency who have a role in the crisis
are a part of the secretariat. Most importantly, the
secretariat will draft a civilian plan of operations, ensuring
that all parts of our government operate as one team and that
this is linked up with the military.
To ensure linkage to the military even more strongly, we
will create an integration planning cell. This is an
interagency group led by S/CRS that would deploy to the
relevant combatant commander if military forces are involved in
the stabilization operation, if the U.N. military force they
deploy to the U.N. military headquarters.
The purpose is to make sure that military and civilian
plans are completely linked up.
The last institution that will be created in the
interagency management system is the advance civilian teams.
This is actually our phrase for PRTs. These will be an
interagency team, probably, in most cases, led by S/CRS, but
involving all members of the interagency that will deploy to
the country in crisis.
If there is an American embassy in place, the ambassador
will have control over this mission. If not, this will be the
senior U.S. civilian's authority in that country.
That is what we have done to achieve our first objective.
To achieve our second objective, building civilian capacity
to respond, to actually go into the field, we have created
three pools of people. The inner corps is what we call the
active response corps. These are people who will sit in the
government whose full-time job is to train and be ready to
deploy to a country in crisis.
My office right now has ten such active response corps
members. If you take, for example, the Lugar-Biden legislation
that has been submitted to authorize this activity, they talk
about 250 active response corps members seated throughout the
Federal bureaucracy.
The second pool of people are the standby response corps.
These are people sitting, again, in the civilian interagency.
They have full-time day jobs, but they will train for two to
three weeks a year so that they could deploy in a crisis.
The Lugar-Biden legislation talks about 2,000 such members.
Right now, we have, in the State Department, about almost 100.
The idea is that these folks would be ready to go when you
have a crisis and within 45 days of a decision, they get
deployed to the field.
The last corps is the civilian reserve corps. This
functions much like our civilian armed military reserves. These
are civilians who would sign up for four years. In this four-
year period, they would be training two or three weeks a year.
They would have an obligation to deploy for up to one year in
this four-year period.
If we develop all of these corps, we would have the ability
to put hundreds of people, maybe even 1,000 or more, on the
ground in a crisis, civilians with the necessary skills, within
60 days of a decision.
Thank you very much. Under five minutes.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Herbst can be found
in the Appendix on page 54.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Ms. Ward.
STATEMENT OF CELESTE WARD, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR STABILITY OPERATIONS CAPABILITIES, DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Ms. Ward. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Akin and distinguished members
of this committee, I would like to thank you for inviting me to
discuss such a critical issue for our military and for our
government.
I have submitted my written statement, but I thought I
would make a few points of introduction.
As deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability
operations capabilities, part of my charter is to make
recommendations for how to enhance the capabilities of our
military forces to confront irregular challenges, to include
conducting stability operations.
I am also charged with exploring ways that our military
forces can and should work with our interagency colleagues in
operations that require the application of both civilian and
military capability.
I have been at this work for a little over two months now.
I am returning to government, where my last post was as the
political advisor to Lieutenant General Chiarelli, the
operational commander of our forces in Iraq, in 2006.
This was my second tour in Iraq. During my first tour, I
participated in the rebuilding of the Iraqi ministry of defense
and other Iraqi national security institutions.
So I come to my current job with some experience and some
perspective about how we might adapt our government
institutions to better prepare for them for the challenges we
face now and in the future.
The Department of Defense has taken significant steps to
adapt the armed forces to better confront irregular challenges
and stability operations. Among these steps, in 2005, the
department issued DOD Directive 3000.05, military support to
security, stability, transition and reconstruction operations,
by which the department was instructed to accord stability
operations priority comparable to major combat operations, as
you noted, sir.
Since DOD Directive 3000.05 was signed, the department has
taken steps to implement the directive's vision by focusing on
those areas most likely to generate systemic change throughout
our armed forces, to include planning, doctrine, training and
education, organization, intelligence, and information sharing.
The Defense Department has also taken major steps in better
integrating our planning, training and operational concepts
with our interagency colleagues. My office works closely with
Ambassador Herbst and S/CRS as they build the State
Department's and the broader interagency' capabilities.
As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said recently, ``Our
military must be prepared to undertake the full spectrum of
operations, including unconventional or irregular campaigns,
for the foreseeable future. The nonmilitary instruments of
America's national power need to be rebuilt, modernized and
committed to the fight.''
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I genuinely
appreciate your interest in these issues and the insightful
questions that you are asking. I look forward to discussing
these matters and to working with you to adapt our institutions
to better confront the challenges facing our nation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ward can be found in the
Appendix on page 63.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
I should have let you all know, too, that your written
statements will be made a permanent part of the record.
Now, our two GAO folks, do you have a preference on which
of you goes first?
Ms. St. Laurent. I will start out.
Dr. Snyder. Go ahead, Ms. St. Laurent. I assume you both
are testifying, is that correct? You have different
responsibilities.
Ms. St. Laurent. Yes. We have one written statement, but we
would like to do separate oral statements.
Dr. Snyder. That is made a part of the record.
Ms. St. Laurent.
STATEMENT OF JANET A. ST. LAURENT, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Ms. St. Laurent. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,
thank you very much for inviting GAO to be here today to
discuss DOD's efforts to improve its stability operations
capabilities.
Today I would like to focus on two issues--first, DOD's new
approach to stability operations and, second, DOD's challenges
in implementing this approach and enhancing its capabilities
and plans and efforts to work in an interagency environment.
My remarks are based on a report we issued in May 2007 on
actions needed to improve DOD's stability operations approach.
First, DOD has taken several positive steps to implement a new
approach.
In November 2005, as other witnesses have mentioned, DOD
issued a new directive, the elevated stability operations to a
core DOD mission. We believe that this is a very important and
positive step.
The directive assigns responsibility for improving DOD's
capabilities to 18 various DOD organizations, including the
services, the combatant commands, the office of the secretary
of defense, and assigned them over 115 tasks.
DOD has also modified its guidance to combatant commanders
for developing routine military contingency plans.
Specifically, DOD's new guidance places greater emphasis on
pre-conflict efforts to stabilize countries or regions so that
conflicts do not develop.
It also emphasizes the need to plan for post-conflict
stabilization and reconstruction activities, when they are
necessary, in conjunction with civilian agencies.
Third, DOD has developed a new joint operating concept for
stability operations that would address all of the services'
efforts and involvement.
Finally, each of the services has begun to implement
initiatives to improve their capabilities. For example, both
the Army and Marine Corps are taking steps to improve cultural
awareness and language training.
Despite these positive steps, we identified four major
challenges that may hinder DOD's ability to improve its
capabilities. First, although DOD's new directive requires the
department to identify and prioritize needed capabilities, DOD
has made limited progress in this area to date.
Specifically, some officials we spoke to from the services
and the combatant commanders expressed some confusion regarding
what approach or process they are supposed to use to identify
capability gaps.
Moreover, the undersecretary for policy has not yet
developed a list of priority capabilities, as required by the
directive. Completing a capability gap analysis in a systematic
way is particularly important, since it can help to focus DOD's
efforts on the highest priority issues and provide a foundation
for resourcing decisions.
Second, DOD has made limited progress to date in developing
measures of effectiveness. DOD's directive required numerous
organizations within DOD to develop measures of effectiveness
that could be used to evaluate progress in meeting the
directive's goals.
However, DOD has not completed this task because, again,
significant confusion exists among the services and combatant
commanders over how to develop these measures and limited
guidance has been provided by OSC to date.
Third, DOD has not yet determined what mechanisms should
best be used to obtain interagency participation in the
development of military plans. We found that the combatant
commands are beginning to establish interagency working groups
and reaching out to embassies. However, coordination with
numerous embassies can be cumbersome for a combatant command
and civilian agencies often do not receive draft military
contingency plans until late in the planning process, if at
all.
Several factors currently hinder interagency participation
in the development of DOD's plans. First, DOD has not yet
provided specific guidance to combatant commanders on what is
the most effective mechanism to use.
Second, DOD's policy is to not share contingency plans with
DOD agencies unless explicitly authorized by the secretary of
defense and when that is authorized, again, it is usually late
in the plan development process.
Third, DOD and civilian agencies, such as State and United
States Agency International Development (USAID), lack a
complete understanding of each other's planning processes,
cultures and capacities.
In addition, we found that military planners are not
consistently incorporating lessons learned from past
operations. DOD routinely collects lessons learned in numerous
databases. However, accessing and searching these databases is
cumbersome and DOD's plans review process does not always
evaluate the extent to which lessons learned are used.
Our May 2007 report included several recommendations to
help DOD address these challenges. Specifically, we recommended
that the undersecretary for policy establish a clear
methodology for identifying and prioritizing capability gaps
for stability operations; second, distribute better guidance on
how to develop measures of effectiveness.
We also recommended that DOD, in coordination with the
State Department, take efforts to establish mechanisms to
involve civilian agencies in the development of combatant
command plans, facilitate information sharing, and include
civilian agencies in the development and the use of lessons
learned.
In conclusion, although DOD has taken a number of positive
steps to improve interagency cooperation, several obstacles
must be overcome before significant results are achieved.
Overcoming these obstacles and implementing our
recommendations will require DOD's sustained leadership and
partnership with other agencies.
Thanks very much.
[The joint prepared statement of Ms. St. Laurent and Mr.
Christoff can be found in the Appendix on page 66.]
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Christoff.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. CHRISTOFF, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Christoff. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for inviting
us. I am going to address my remarks to the State Department
side of the interagency approach.
Following problems with early reconstruction efforts in
Iraq, the State Department concluded that the United States had
relied on ad hoc processes for planning and executing stability
operations in Iraq.
State also found that the U.S. Government had no civilian
capacity to plan and manage these operations.
So in December 2005, the Administration issued NSPD-44 to
improve the planning and implementation of stabilization and
reconstruction operations. The Secretary of State was assigned
to lead these efforts.
My testimony today discusses our preliminary findings, some
of our report that we will issue next week. The report provides
our assessment of State Department's efforts to develop
civilian response corps and an interagency framework to better
manage and plan stability operations.
First, in terms of the interagency framework, we found that
the National Security Council had adopted two elements of the
proposed framework, an interagency management system and
procedures for using the framework. State is currently
rewriting a third component, the ``Guide for Planning
Operations,'' to address the interagency concerns.
We believe it is difficult to determine the framework
effectiveness, since it has not been fully applied to any
reconstruction and stabilization operation.
While S/CRS has used draft versions of its planning guide
to plan operations in Haiti, Sudan and Kosovo, implementation
of the plans has been limited.
The Administration is using existing processes under NSPD-1
for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As State completes the framework, it must address three key
issues. First, there is inconsistent guidance as to who will
plan stabilization and reconstruction operations. S/CRS
interprets NSPD-44 as assigning these roles and
responsibilities to itself.
In contrast, the foreign affairs manual assigns these
responsibilities to State's regional bureaus and chiefs of
mission.
We have found that this has resulted in confusion and
disputes about who will develop plans and policies for these
types of operations.
Second, the framework does not define what constitutes
stabilization or reconstruction operations. It does not
distinguish these from traditional development assistance of
counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations.
As a result, it is not clear when, where or how the
Administration would apply this framework.
And, third, officials expressed concern about the
framework's usefulness. These state staff characterize aspects
of the framework as unrealistic and redundant, because
interagency teams had already devised planning processes under
NSPD-1.
Others asserted that senior management had shown ambiguous
support for S/CRS by not giving it responsibility for
operations in Lebanon and Somalia.
We intend to recommend that State clarify S/CRS' authority,
complete the framework, and test it on an actual operation.
Let me turn to the civilian corps. Since 2005, State has
been developing three civilian corps to deploy rapidly to
international crises. State established two units made up of
State employees, an active response corps with active first
responders, and deploy immediately to unstable environments to
assess a country's needs and coordinate a U.S. response.
A standby reserve corps would act as second responders and
would provide additional skills and staff. And State is
developing a third corps, the civilian reserve corps, which
would be made up of civilian police officers, judges, public
administrators and civil engineers from outside the Federal
Government, and these civilians would become Federal employees
and would deploy for up to one year.
State and other agencies face challenges in establishing
these three civilian corps, including, first, achieving plan
staffing levels and training; second, securing resources for
international operations that some agencies do not view as part
of their domestic missions; and, third, ensuring that home
units are not understaffed as a result of overseas deployments.
In addition, State needs congressional authority to
establish the civilian reserve corps and to provide a benefits
package that will attract volunteers.
As part of State's request to authorize the civilian
reserve corps, we are considering recommending that the
department provide Congress with complete information on the
corps' annual costs, training needs, types of operations for
which it would be used, and potential obstacles that could
affect recruitment and retention.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. Thank you.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Christoff and Ms. St.
Laurent can be found in the Appendix on page 66.]
Dr. Snyder. Thank you all for your testimony. Mr. Akin and
I and all the members of the committee will be on the five-
minute rule, in the order in which they came.
We have been joined by Mr. Sam Farr from California, who is
not a member of this committee, but I will ask unanimous
consent that he be allowed to participate and ask five minutes
of questions at the end of the members.
Go ahead and start the clock, Suzanne.
In my opening statement, I made reference--I think the
phrase I used was a ``bunch of [expletive] gobbly-gook'' and I
hope you didn't take offense to that, because I suspect your
very proud of some of that gobbly-gook, but you know what I
mean. This is very complex bureaucratese language.
I want to read a statement that I think is not gobbly-gook
and I am going to quote this, ``The cultural barriers between
the military, Department of State and other civilian agencies
seem more striking than those between the United States and
Iraqis, to me. We say the right things about breaking out of
stovepipes, but our comfort level tends to put us right back in
the mindset, language and ways of doing business.''
That is from a civilian employee in Iraq right now, as we
are talking, multiple tours, has kids back home, working for a
U.S. Government agency, trying to train PRT members to go out,
and that is her perception of where we are at today, that he
cultural barriers between agencies are more striking to her
than between her and her Iraqis.
Now, that seems quite an indictment of what all of us are
about today.
What I was struck, Ambassador Herbst, about your statement,
aside from, I guess, the complexity of the task that you have,
is the timeframes. At one point in your written statement, you
say that there will be two to three years. In another
statement, you say that it may be as long as ten years before
we have the kind of setup that you think will help the folks
that are dealing on the ground with the stovepipes.
Talk about the timeframe on this. Where do you see this
going in terms of a timeframe where we will have the kind of
structure that will provide the kind of support from here in
Washington that my friend right now perceives has such striking
cultural barriers with other agencies of the United States
government?
Ambassador Herbst. I would like to start by noting that
while we were--and from the very beginning, S/CRS has worked
very closely with the military and I think that we in S/CRS are
at the forefront of change in the State Department to prepare
for the complex new world of destabilized countries.
That includes, that preparation includes coming to
understand the military's culture and adapting the best of the
military culture which fits into this new world for the State
Department.
So we have, I think it is safe to say, the best planning
capability right now that exists in the Department of State,
because we have learned a great deal from our friends in the
military, although we have a long way to go to be able to plan
with the level of nuance that they plan. That is coming.
As to your specific question on timelines, we right now
have an approved interagency management system that is ready
for use. So in that sense, ensuring a unified approach,
ensuring a whole of government approach to a crisis is ready.
What we don't have today is the civilian response
capability that can be used to man that interagency system in a
large crisis and to put people on the ground in large numbers.
For us to get that, we need to have both authorizing
legislation and appropriations.
In the 2007 Iraq-Afghan supplemental that was passed on the
springtime, up to $50 million was set aside to create a 500-
person civilian reserve corps. That was a large definite
direction of creating the civilian response capability.
But in order to get access to that money and to begin
building this corps, we need to have authorizing legislation.
Dr. Snyder. But what you are saying there, you are coming
across as if the problem you have is staffing only. That is not
the problem and the greater challenge is a structure of
planning and coordination, is it not? That is what I am hearing
from my friend here in Baghdad today.
She is not saying, ``And by the way, we are short on
staff.'' What she is saying is there are cultural barriers
between agencies that are not being broken down. That is not a
manpower problem.
I will accept that we are all in this together. I said that
at the outset, but I am more concerned about this interagency
structure for planning and where that is going to go and your
timeline, where you say we will have something, you are
hoping--your exact words, ``I have no doubt the U.S. Government
will have this capability in the next ten years.''
We have been in this war a long time. We have been in
Afghanistan for five years and we need to have a sense, I
think, of trying to expedite this in a way so that our brave
men and women in the civilian capacity in Iraq will have the
kind of support they need, and I don't think it is just
manpower.
Ambassador Herbst. I agree completely and that is why I
have said we have two tasks. One is to organize effectively.
The other is to have civilians who could go out to the field
with the proper training, the proper skills, the proper
equipment.
We are at the point where we have a system that can be used
and this system is the command--or can be, should be the
command and control for reconstruction and stabilization
operations.
This system is the key to breaking down these cultural
differences between the agencies. My office sits in the State
Department, but my office is very much interagency project. I
have people on detail from other agencies.
As I said at the start of my answer, we have been working
very closely, for example, with the Pentagon to develop the
planning capabilities that will suit us for these operations.
We see the interagency management system when it is in
action as completely an interagency structure. It is not a
State Department structure. And our plans are for people in
this active response corps, the standby response corps and the
civilian reserve corps, to train together, to use the same
tools, to operate as a single unit, but bringing into this
single unit the specialized skills associated with different
agencies of the Federal Government.
Dr. Snyder. Suzanne got frisky with the clock here and the
light went outs, but my time is up. I will want to hear GAO's
response to that, but we will do that another time or the
opportunity will probably come along with other members.
Mr. Akin, for five minutes.
Mr. Akin. It is a little bit tricky. We understand, in an
overall sense, the problems of trying to create this jointness.
Exactly how the structures work is not easy, because some of us
aren't even that familiar with the differences between State
and DOD and other different things that have to come together.
But ultimately, I think what I heard you saying,
Ambassador, is that what you are starting with, that when you
go into a specific country, you are putting a team together
there that has the responsibility of dealing with that
particular situation. Is that correct?
Ambassador Herbst. That is right.
Mr. Akin. And that team is at what level? Is that at the
top level in terms of planning our operations in that country?
Ambassador Herbst. The way it would work is you would
develop the plan back in Washington through the secretariat to
the county reconstruction and stabilization group and that
plan--if we already have people in the country in crisis, we
would be getting information from them, recommendations from
them that would be factored into the plan, but the plan would
be built in Washington.
The people who go into the field would have the
responsibility of implementing that plan and, again, the people
going into the field would represent all agencies which have
skills that could be used properly in the country in crisis.
Mr. Akin. So in other words, we develop plans for various
countries here ahead of time and then we put those plans into
place by putting personnel into the field.
Ambassador Herbst. That is the ideal situation. That is
what we are aiming toward.
Mr. Akin. Now, first of all, right at that point, in the
process of developing those plans, is there a lot of pushing
and pulling as to what those plans should be or sort of the
philosophy of them or the over-the-top level of management,
what we are trying to accomplish? Is there a lot of
disagreement there or does that tend--is that something that
you have an organization that people can work together and
actually come up with something practical?
Ambassador Herbst. We have done planning in a few instances
and in those planning processes, we have generally found
clearly different points of view, but a recognition of the
goals that we are seeking to achieve and a recognition that
this is a common enterprise.
Mr. Akin. Okay. So in other words, what you are saying is
let us say we turn the clock back and it is 2000 and we may be
going into Iraq. We haven't gone in there yet.
What you are saying is you start with a plan for the
country to begin with.
Ambassador Herbst. Right.
Mr. Akin. Okay. And that plan is going to be developed by--
overall, it is under the auspices of State. Is that correct?
Ambassador Herbst. It would be under the auspices of a
secretariat which we would share, but this is controlled by the
interagency, ultimately under the NSC.
Mr. Akin. Okay. So that is how it starts. Then you have
people that go into the country. Let us say we have gone into
Iraq and that the war has progressed and all.
Then you have people that go into the country that are
directly executing this plan.
Ambassador Herbst. That is correct.
Mr. Akin. And DOD is in the loop and they know what the
plan is.
Ambassador Herbst. DOD is part of the secretariat that
writes the plan. We also have, as I mentioned before, this
integration planning cell that is an interagency group that
would deploy to the command headquarters of our military to
ensure that civilian and military planning is completely linked
up.
Mr. Akin. Because one of the things that we are dealing
with here, we have been looking at, in a sense, a lower level.
We have been looking at the reconstruction teams. That is where
the rubber is on the road.
But we are trying to project backwards now and to say,
okay, now, as you move up the line and you are planning, that
gives you the mission for the reconstruction team, because they
are executing the plan.
In a sense, that team that is going into the country is
sort of a high level reconstruction team of itself, is it not?
Ambassador Herbst. Correct.
Mr. Akin. Okay. I think that is at least, again, a concept
of what you are trying to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will pass on the rest of my
time.
Dr. Snyder. Mrs. Davis, for five minutes.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate you all being here.
Quite a few of us have been sort of grappling with some of
the concepts, and so I really appreciate that there is
something at least down on paper to respond to now.
I want to thank Mr. Farr, as well, and I am interested in
how you see at least the legislation that has been drawn up,
that has been conceptualized, and where you see it really
responding to the needs, and where do you think, in many ways,
it is perhaps off base some way in terms of the reality.
Ambassador Herbst. You have House 1084, which Congressman
Farr introduced, and you have Senate legislation, 613,
introduced by Senators Lugar and Biden, and we think these
pieces of legislation are very similar. They present the main
elements of what is necessary and if they were approved, they
would enable us to get cracking.
We are already working, but we need legislation to continue
and speed up our work.
Ms. Davis of California. Are you familiar enough to respond
in terms of what you think are--are the bones there that are
appropriate, but in the implementation, what problems?
Mr. Christoff. Well, what we are going to probably
recommend next week in our report is that there certainly is a
need for having these civilian corps, no doubt about it, but I
want to know what I am getting for the $50 million, such that I
would want to know more detail than what is being provided and
the costs, the annual costs.
I think there are still concerns about how much this 2,000-
person civilian reserve corps is going to cost, the startup
cost, the annual cost, according to what it is going to be used
for. I want to know how you are going to define stability
operations.
So I don't disagree with the concept, but I just want to
know a little bit more before the Congress approves it. And in
doing so and providing that authorization for these civilian
corps, I think you should ask State to provide you with more
details.
Ms. Davis of California. Ms. Ward.
Ms. Ward. The Defense Department strongly supports the
legislation that would authorize S/CRS to get moving on the
civilian response corps. We believe this is a vital capability
and that it will create the civilian partners that our military
folks need on the ground.
So we are very supportive of that legislation.
Ms. Davis of California. I noted in prior testimony people
had suggested getting volunteers is not going to be an issue,
that people are going to be interested in doing that.
But I would wonder a little bit about that, as well. Could
you respond more how we would go about that in the country and
do you envision--believe that in order to have the kind of
leadership that we see in the military command and control,
however you want to describe it, that you would need to have
perhaps a more massive training?
This isn't something that takes place over six weeks, that
all of a sudden people get how to do that. I am interested more
in how you really are developing this kind of civilian corps
and where you think primarily it would come from and how early
in education and training we might reach to really do this in a
way that we would all look back 20 years from now and say, yes,
this is the way to do it.
Ambassador Herbst. First of all, regarding recruiting,
right now, the appropriations that were made in the spring was
for a 500-person civilian reserve corps, not a very large
capability, but a substantial one, significant one,
nonetheless.
We have had literally scores of phone calls, e-mails and
such from interested civilians after the President referred to
a civilian reserve corps in the ``State of the Union'' speech
in January.
I spend a lot of time talking to professional organizations
about what we are trying to do and there is always a great deal
of interest in the crowd.
I believe if we are recruiting a corps of 500, we will be
able, under the legislation that has been proposed, to find
skilled people who we need.
Now, as for the training, you need to look at what we have
proposed as a system as a whole and the active response corps,
which would be the inner corps of the civilian response
capability, will be made up of people whose full-time job it is
to deploy and to prepare for deployment.
So these folks, if there is no crisis where they need to
be, would be training constantly and they would provide the
backbone of the system which others would join.
You are certainly right that it would be better, all things
considered, if we gave both our standby response corps members,
as well as our civilian reserve corps members more than a few
weeks of training a year.
But you take intelligent people who are committed to the
cause, you train them for a few weeks a year, you have a Web
site and other ways by which, when they are not training or not
deployed, they can get up to speed. You provide them leadership
via both this active response corps, as well as others in the
government who are going to be involved in a operation, and I
think they will be able to perform admirably in crisis.
That is the basic concept.
Ms. Davis of California. One of the things, having been in
San Diego, obviously, in some ways, we do have this and my
friend, Mr. Farr, reminds me we actually saw a quite
spontaneous--numbers far--hundreds of people coming forward who
thought to themselves, ``Gee, I am a tour guide. I know how to
organize people. Maybe I could help,'' and they just came
pouring into Qualcomm Stadium.
So I do think there is a local response, as well, that they
were building on and I think it--I guess what is difficult with
all this is that in every community, we probably could see this
and yet wonder why it has taken us so long to somehow bring
this about.
So can you go to the main problems in terms of the culture
that kept us from starting to move this a lot sooner and how we
overcome that? Because I think if you talk to people in the
State Department, they feel as if they were really the poor
stepchild in this.
Number one, they weren't asked whether we have the capacity
even to begin this kind of an operation at the beginning. They
certainly didn't have the skills or the breadth of expertise
that was required.
So have we overcome that? What steps should we take to do
that? Even though we have got all this on paper, which sounds
good, but I am still concerned about getting there.
Ambassador Herbst. I think you are right. The key to this
is to turn a concept into a reality. You are right that we have
seen the problem at least for years and we are where we are
today. We would like to be farther along.
I think the same could be said about the way our military
operated in the 1970's and before, with a recognition that you
had to have the different arms of the military operating
jointly together, but it took a substantial push, including
legislation in the mid 1980's, Goldwater-Nichols, to force a
transformation.
As Congressman Snyder mentioned, citing his source from
Iraq, you have different cultures and you have to break that
culture. Our organization, S/CRS, is at the forefront of
breaking that culture within the State Department, forcing
within the State Department, and also within the interagency.
Again, we haven't moved as fast as we would like, but we
have picked up speed over the past eight or nine months and we
now need to continue that process.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you.
Mr. Christoff, in thinking--you obviously took a really
hard look at this over time and you have said you have got to
keep asking those specific questions.
Some of those specific questions I think really amount to
how do you begin to develop the real framework for being able
to determine the extent to which we are being successful and
what kind of standards, because in many ways, you have said,
well, each one is different, each PRT is going to have to be
different, not just each country, of course, is different, but
each community, each village.
Do you feel that we are beginning to do that? And just one
example of where you think we could look back in a few years
and determine the extent to which that was a good measure, a
good metric, if you will, a good tool.
Mr. Christoff. Well, I think the concepts are good concepts
of having this interagency framework. I think the concepts are
good concepts in having us building a reserve corps.
But once again, I go back to my comments about the costs. I
need more information about the costs.
Your point about training, I think it is not thought out
well in how we are going to train these civilian and reserve
corps and the standby response corps. We are talking about
providing training for up to 4,000 people by fiscal year 2009.
I am not certain where that training is going to come from,
how long it is going to be. The Canadians and the Germans have
comparable reserve corps and our counterparts over at the
Congressional Research Service had forum to discuss lessons
learned from their experiences and one of their most important
lessons learned was that you have to thoroughly vet and
identify skills of the individuals that are volunteering to
make sure that they fit with the needs of the mission that you
are going to send them to.
And you have to make sure that you provide them real world
training, not online training, not a week of training, but
training that would help them work best with oftentimes
military advisors and military personnel that they might be
working with hand-in-hand.
Ms. Davis of California. Mr. Chairman, I suspect my time is
gone.
Dr. Snyder. You have benefited from psychological
malfunction.
Ms. Davis of California. I see this green light, but I know
how many questions I could ask.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield.
Dr. Snyder. The co-head of the working group on interagency
reform can have all the time she needs. We, frankly, can't get
the green light off.
Mr. Bartlett, for five minutes. And, Roscoe, you may hear a
gentle tapping at the end of five minutes instead of a red
light.
Mr. Bartlett. Because the light is not working.
Dr. Snyder. The light works fine, it is just there is no
meaning behind it.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Clearly, we are pretty much plowing new ground in this
reconstruction effort. This is not what we have done in the
past. We have been focusing primarily in this hearing on
organizing ourselves to do that and that clearly is a bit
challenge.
But I am also concerned about the challenge of deciding
what we want to do. I have visited, in my 15 years in the
Congress, a lot of foreign countries and generally we are met
at the bottom of the steps coming from the airplane with the
State Department and, depending on the country, you may be
whisked off to a secure location where we are briefed.
And being as scientist, I often reflected that the State
Department attitude toward the country we were visiting was
very much like the attitude of the sociologist, the animal
sociologist who was watching a troop of chimpanzees.
And it is understandable that we could have that kind of an
attitude. We are one person out of 22 in the world and we have
a force of all the good things in the world. We have been
enormously successful.
And it is easy to understand how you would conclude that a
country that has a system of government and a culture different
from ours has to be somewhat inferior to ours and I think we
fail to remember that we had several hundred years of cultural
history from the Magna Carta before we decided to strike out on
our own in this country.
So I am concerned that what we want to do may not be
consistent with the realities of the country that we are trying
to reconstruct.
Let me give you an example. When it comes to agriculture,
we have been really successful there. We now have two percent
of our people which feed all of us and have a lot of stuff to
export, but that may not be the model that, in today's world,
should be pursued in other places.
We brag that we have the most efficient agriculture in the
world. That is because one man sitting on a 150-horsepower
tractor can produce enough food to feed himself and 50 other
people and some to spare to ship overseas.
But in an energy deficient world, that may not be the
criteria we ought to be looking at. As a matter of fact, in
terms of BTUs in and calories out, we probably have the least
efficient agriculture in the world. But when oil was $10 a
barrel, that hardly with mattered. With oil at $92 a barrel,
that may matter a great deal.
Also, there may not be jobs for people and when they are
moving off the land to the city and turning over their land
to--and we kind of see the John Deere tractor and the big
combines as the way agriculture ought to be going and, for much
of the world, that probably is not the way agriculture ought to
be going, because it is enormously energy intensive, and with
the cost of energy and its lack of ready availability in the
future, that may not be the model we should be following.
How do we determine what we ought to be doing? Do we have
people who really understand the cultures that we are going to
so that we are helping them to develop the kind of a
government, the kind of a culture, the kind of an economy that
will be sustainable after we leave, with all the money we are
pouring in?
How do we do that?
Ms. St. Laurent. I don't have a perfect answer for that,
but I think that your comments illustrate why an interagency
approach is needed, because I think if each agency devised its
own strategy, it may not reflect consideration of all the
factors that need to be weighed in coming up with what the U.S.
approach should be.
For example, the military has a lot of resources at its
disposal and engineering battalions and other units that can
construct things and build things and one of the things I
think, although they have those capacities, that needs to be
thought through is what would be the benefit or the outcome.
What outcome would those kinds of construction projects
achieve? And I think that is where input from AID and the State
Department and Agriculture, if it is an agriculture-related
project, need to be joined together with military personnel to
decide what the strategy is.
The example, for example, of building a school. The
military can construct a school, but unless enough thought goes
into developing a comprehensive strategy that provides teachers
for the school, makes sure that students can attend the
schools, because they are not working in agricultural fields or
in factories or otherwise occupied, and ensuring books are
there and all the other things that go together with achieving
a goal of improving an educational level within a country have
to be thought through.
So I think, again, this idea of an interagency process to
work out, first, at a national level, what the U.S. strategy
ought to be and then have mechanisms where you translate that
into the combatant command, country team level, and then
further down to tactical capabilities in units like PRTs is
very important.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Johnson, for five minutes. The nightmare may be over.
We may have a clock that works.
Mr. Johnson, for five minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Ward and Ambassador Herbst, were both of your offices
involved in the run-up for both Operations Enduring Freedom and
Iraqi Freedom? In the run-up for those operations, were your
offices involved?
Ambassador Herbst. No.
Ms. Ward. Actually, at that time, sir, my office didn't
exist and my office actually recently had been created in its
current form as of December of this year. There was a stability
operations before.
To my knowledge, they were not involved in the planning and
their task and purpose was a little different from what we do.
One of the things we are trying to do is look at those
operations and derive the lessons from them as we make
prescriptions about capabilities needed in our military forces
in the future. But we weren't involved in the initial planning
process.
Mr. Johnson. So you are, both offices, now involved in the
provisional reconstruction teams now operating in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Ms. Ward. Sir, on my wide, I do not have operational
oversight of those. That is conducted by the regional offices,
the Iraq and Afghanistan offices in OSD policy. But we are
staying abreast of events in the PRTs and how they are
organized and how it is going, again, for the lessons learned
process, so that we can be thinking about civil-military teams
in the future and make sure we understand what worked and what
didn't work, as well.
Ambassador Herbst. Our office does not have responsibility
for the PRTs, but we are right now engaged in Afghanistan at
the request of General Rodriguez and we have helped a couple of
the PRTs with their planning process and we are now applying
that to the rest of the PRTs in Afghanistan.
Mr. Johnson. Is that a formal structure or kind of an
informal process that is taking place within both of your
offices?
Ambassador Herbst. Well, we were, you might say, formally
asked to take on this job that we have taken on and we have
several people out in the field doing it. But, again, we are
not overall responsible for PRTs in Afghanistan.
Ms. Ward. More informal on our side, sir, but we believe we
have expertise to bring to the question, the stability
operations capabilities center of excellence, if you will, in
the Pentagon.
So we believe we have something to add, but mostly we are
trying to make sure we integrate the lessons from those
situations.
Mr. Johnson. It would seem that these two opportunities are
great to learn from the activities in Afghanistan and Iraq with
respect to future civilian reserve corps operations.
Is there any particular reason why the integration of your
offices with these efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq by the PRTs
are not more formalized?
Ambassador Herbst. Well, S/CRS was created in June of 2004,
when both Iraq and Afghanistan had been going on for some time.
And the resources of our office are relatively modest and
the resources going into both Iraq and Afghanistan are
substantial. And the decision was taken at the time by then
Secretary Powell and my predecessor that we would not be
engaged in a major way in either place.
That has pretty much been true since then, although, as Ms.
Ward said, we have been in touch with people coming out of both
places for lessons learned purposes and my office is staffed
with a lot of folks who had served in those PRTs and have come
to us precisely because they want to devise a better way to do
this.
Ms. Ward. On that, sir, I would say that the organizational
arrangements for managing those efforts sort of grew up before
my office existed.
At this point, it might merely add a bureaucratic layer,
but what we try to do is contribute the functional expertise
and assist in those efforts where we can.
Mr. Johnson. Any response from GAO?
Mr. Christoff. I would agree with your premise that there
is a lot that one can take from the experiences in the PRTs and
to bring up to the development of the interagency process.
The mere fact that you--the military had to provide a lot
of the personnel for the initial staffing of the PRTs and we
are still going through a three-phase process this year to try
to replace some of the military personnel that were temporarily
put in place in the PRTs with civilian personnel.
So I think the lessons learned from PRTs can bear on how we
develop this interagency process and how we think through from
the very beginning the makeup of these corps at the lowest
levels within a country and who is going to be responsible for
what.
Ms. St. Laurent. And I would add that I also agree that
that issue is very important and the lessons from the various
models of PRTs need to be looked at very carefully.
The military has a process that it goes through in
designing organizations and units and developing capabilities.
Their shorthand is DOT and OPF, but I think it is reflective of
the kinds of things that need to be looked at for the future.
What kind of doctrine for or what are the missions of these
organizations, should they be in the future, if PRTs or
something similar are going to be used? ``O'' stands for
organization. How should they be organized? What are the
command and control relationships? Who do they report to? What
kind of training do they need? What kind of material and
resources and do they need? What kind of personnel, both in
terms of skill levels, where they come from, the mix of
contractor versus DOD versus civilian personnel, and logistics
support? What is the concept for providing security force
protection and all other kinds of logistics support?
But I think that kind of a framework would be very useful
to think about in analyzing the various models that have been
used to date and then where we go for the future.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Gingrey, for five minutes.
Dr. Gingrey. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thank all of our
witnesses.
Some of the testimony and the questions make me reflect
back on Hurricane Katrina, when lots of people wanted to
volunteer. They tried to call and find out where to go and
sometimes they got in automobiles and tried to drive down to
the Gulf Coast and some got there, some didn't.
You had a lot of people wanting to help, I am sure. As Ms.
Davis was just pointing out, in San Diego, the same situation
existed with that natural disaster. And a lot of times, it just
creates mass confusion.
I know after Hurricane Katrina, there was a lot of thought
put into, but I don't know if any action was ever taken in
regard to developing a civilian reserve corps of physicians,
where you had a database and you not only made sure that they
were appropriate to the mission, but that they were vetted very
carefully. I think that is something that needs to be done.
But the bottom line is a lot of people in these emergency
situations need to stay home, stay on their job, send money and
pray. They don't need to show up at the theater of operation.
But I would hope, in regard to the civilian reserve corps,
that you would want to train some physicians. I think all
professions were mentioned except maybe health care, but you
would probably want to have some of them, as well.
And maybe it is the active reserve corps that is full-time
responders, if you will, civilian responders should be the ones
that do the training of the civilian reserve corps, and that
training, of course, should be done on a periodic and timely
basis, because you may have 500 that get trained initially and
then they don't get called for 5 years.
So you have to make sure you continue to have that group
trained and up-to-date.
Now, I do have a question and I am getting to that and this
is probably more for our GAO witnesses.
Given Directive 3000.05, equate stabilization operations
with combat operations, how satisfied are you that DOD really
accepts the critical role that effective interagency
coordination and planning must play for success?
And more specifically, as I suspect, the answer would be
yes, do you see resistance akin to the services' initial
rejection of Goldwater-Nichols reforms?
I think that is a big, big issue, a big area of concern
here and I would like to know your opinion on that.
Ms. St. Laurent. I would respond by saying that I think
DOD's intent is in the right place. I think it was a very
significant policy to say that stability operations equate to
or are as important as combat operations.
And I think many folks that we have talked with in the
services and the combatant commands recognize the need to place
greater emphasis on stability operations and reconstruction
activities and work more closely with civilian partners.
But I think, again, the devil is in the details in terms of
how the military moves forward to do that and it may require
very, very significant shifts in the processes that they have
had for a long time.
For example, the military combatant commanders typically
produce a very wide range of plans, theater security
cooperation plans, contingency plans that are very, very
detailed, others that are more concept oriented, and they have
a lot of resources to be able to do that.
They have established coordination groups at each of the
combatant commands where they encourage interagency
representatives to attend and work with them. However, their
model is that they want full-time agency representatives and
that may not always be possible for some of the civilian
agencies that don't have similar capacity as DOD.
So I think DOD is going to have to work with State, AID,
Treasury and other Federal agencies in thinking through if
there is a need to get more interagency input into the
development of military plans, how do we go about doing that
and understanding that other organizations----
Dr. Gingrey. Let me interrupt you just----
Ms. St. Laurent [continuing]. Don't have the same
structure.
Dr. Gingrey. Ms. St. Laurent, excuse me, I apologize, but
my time is running out. I did want to ask this point.
Do you think that our office corps are getting sufficient
training at command and general staff college or war college
level or wherever in regard to preparing them and their mindset
for this climate of interagency cooperation that we seem to be
going to, a Goldwater-Nichols type approach to the interagency?
Either one of you.
Ms. St. Laurent. I think it is changing. I think that
military is moving in that direction. I have seen materials in
terms of how DOD is trying to address some of the curriculum at
the senior schools and a variety of other schools throughout
DOD.
But it is taking time to develop those courses and get
those initiatives in place, but there are already courses that
have been put in place. It is a matter of expanding on them and
moving this throughout the entire department.
Dr. Gingrey. Mr. Chairman, I see my time has expired. On a
second round, maybe Ambassador Herbst and Ms. Ward would like
to comment or if you will permit it----
Dr. Snyder. If anybody has any comments, go ahead now.
Ms. Ward. I would like to comment on a couple of those,
please.
The analogy to the resistance to Goldwater-Nichols I think,
in this case, is not apt. In my experience, the military is
very interested in getting help from our interagency partners.
I would say, across the board, there is enthusiasm about
integrating with the interagency and helping to build their
capabilities so that they can take on some of the tasks that
the military may have been doing, but maybe is not their core
function.
So I would say that they welcome the integration a lot and
it still needs to be worked out, but in terms of their
disposition and their attitude toward that integration, I would
say it is very positive, certainly in my experience.
As far as the training of our officers, I was recently at
Fort Leavenworth and talking to them about that training and I
think Ms. St. Laurent is right. We do see the training and
education of our officer corps changing substantially now and
some of these--many of these officers actually have personal
experience on the ground.
They are coming from Iraq and Afghanistan and they have a
personal understanding of their interagency colleagues that
they didn't have in times past and they are also learning about
their interagency colleagues and trying to break down those
cultural barriers significantly.
There is a lot of steps in that direction. More work to do,
but I think we are going in the right direction on that.
Ambassador Herbst. I would agree with that. My staff spends
a lot of time at the various combatant commands and the various
military war colleges and there is a great deal of interest and
enthusiasm even for what we are doing.
We have overseen training, as well, for people going out to
PRTs and a lot of officers have taken that and, again, we see
the enthusiasm for what we are doing. So I think this is moving
in the right direction.
I would just like to add, Congressman, that if I did not
mention public health workers when I was talking about the
people in our corps, that was my oversight. They are definitely
part of the corps. We have already sent people out with those
skills.
Dr. Gingrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Dr. Gingrey and Dr. Snyder appreciate that
acknowledgement, Mr. Herbst.
Mr. Jones, for five minutes.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Christoff, I really enjoyed watching your body
language, particularly as State was speaking and DOD.
Your comment about concept and reality, concept and
reality, and that seems not just from you, but from Ms. St.
Laurent, as well. What is the government--I have been here for
14 years and any time a program is established, it doesn't seem
like it ever goes away.
And I certainly am not criticizing the concept. I think the
PRTs have worked extremely well. I think we all, as a nation,
have made mistakes and, first of all, shouldn't have gone in, I
understand that.
But the point is that it seems like you are saying at GAO
that we need to slow down a little bit. We need to make sure
that if this program is going to be in place and this program
is going to be successful, there needs to be more work done
before the $50 million is allocated, because the $50 million
will become $100 million and it will continue to grow and
expand.
This nation is in deep, deep financial trouble. We are
borrowing money from foreign governments right now to fight the
war in Iraq. We are borrowing moneys from foreign governments
right now to pay the interest on the public debt.
And I hope that if this program is worthy, and I don't
question your positions at all, but based on what--I have great
respect for GAO as a whole. I listen to David Walker on a
regular basis. I have tried to read, I have tried to understand
what is happening in this country from the standpoint of
expanding government, that the poor taxpayer can't even pay
their grocery bills back home because we are getting so large
and expansive.
My question to GAO, what would be your suggestions to this
committee or to any committee--and let us take this concept as
the purpose of my question.
What would you say to Congress? How can we have better
checks and balances before--and I know I am not on
appropriations, I am not being critical of appropriations, but
this is a great hearing, Mr. Chairman. This has been a great
Oversight Committee that we never had until a year ago.
But the point is that if we didn't have this oversight,
many of us, unless we were on the committees of jurisdiction,
we would not even know that this concept is trying to be
developed into a reality.
What should we be doing to make sure, before the $50
million is allocated, that this program is ready to get on the
ground and start to be effective?
Mr. Christoff. If this were the title of a GAO report, it
would say ``Concepts are good, more information needed.'' And I
think that is what we have been trying to say and that I think
you agree with.
We agree that you need to have better interagency, you need
to have this framework. You want to have civilians that can
make a contribution and that can deploy rapidly to an
international crisis.
But when we look at the framework, and, Dr. Snyder, you
read a lot of the details and you saw a jargon, you saw a lot
of what you characterized as gobbly-gook. It is hard to get
through a lot of the details of this interagency framework.
And so our first recommendation is that you clearly define
the roles and responsibilities of S/CRS, because there is
disagreement within State. There are turf battles within State
as to whether or not S/CRS should have the lead or the
traditional regional bureaus.
So, one, you have got to clarify the roles of this
important office. And, second, this concept remains a concept.
It is a framework. Parts of have been tested, but the whole
framework has not been implemented and you need to implement
the whole framework for stability operations to see if it is a
useful interagency process.
For the civilian corps, again, more information. How much
is it going to cost beyond the initial seed money of $50
million? What operations would this corps be tasked to do? And
you want to understand the complete framework of the civilian
corps before you authorize it.
You have appropriated for it already, the Congress has, but
it hasn't been authorized yet.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, I would hope, because I know my
time is just about over, I would hope that this committee would
write the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction and just
say that we have concerns based on testimony before we move
forward with appropriations, because I don't know where the
money is coming from, to be honest with you.
I yield back.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Davis, for five minutes.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just listening to this debate and having come from the
consulting world, dealing with process organization and
following this interagency issue is probably our number one
priority related to national security.
And my office, Dr. Snyder, Mrs. Davis and I have worked
very closely on this. I am concerned that the establishment of
the civilian reserve corps simply is responding to a symptom as
opposed to the root cause.
And not to denigrate in any way the issue of having lots of
professional resources, but more to the point, you have those
folks, kind of like a political campaign, where you are going
to bring a couple of hundred volunteers in, you have to have an
infrastructure and a process within which they are going to
function to have any level of productivity and not absorb
additional costs.
And building off of Walter's comments on establishing this
process, I would ask probably a simpler question, and,
particularly, I am going to confess that Congress is a big
piece of the problem.
The Armed Services Committee has invested much of its time
in minutia at a technical and a tactical level as opposed to
strategy, which I think is important. The Foreign Affairs
Committee has done the same thing, focusing on a variety of
resolutions and programs, but not having an authorization in
over a decade.
And here is my question, at probably a crude level. Why not
simply reform that process that the military is crying out for?
I have friends I served with in the military who are running
entrepreneurial startup programs, ag programs, medical
programs, educational programs. None of them have run a
business, run a farm or been a school teacher or worked as a
professional educator.
And certainly I commend our military and their ability to
stand up for that, but fundamental problems. The CENTCOMM area
of operations has four State Department bureaus overlapping it,
which immediately is an impediment to efficiency in
organization.
There is cost and overhead that is incurred just because of
that inefficiency and rather than say, ``Well, we are going to
hire 500 more people,'' why don't we say, ``We can fix the
process and improve the productivity and the effectiveness of
our frontline folks?''
Now, the turf battle that you talk about in State or in
Defense or here on Capitol Hill, too, because I watched staff
earlier this year actually kill an interagency reform because
there was concern about offending the jurisdiction of the
Foreign Affairs Committee.
My question is, why wouldn't we want to coordinate more
closely with NGOs, for example, in certain areas that have that
regional and that cultural ability? They can do things much
more quickly.
But at the end of the day, here is my question. Why not
just simply reform the agency process first so you have a
workable process and, second of all, what specific small steps
in legislation would you all ask for that would allow closer
coordination, more flexibility on the budget, for example, in
an area so that resources could be passed to the appropriate
agency?
Ambassador Herbst. There is no question that you need to
have an effective interagency structure to use the resources we
are asking for and we believe that the interagency management
system does provide that structure.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. I disagree with you and I don't
think we should provide resources until--there have been no
substantive legislative reforms and that is the thing I am
getting to.
We are creating departments, but I am talking to the folks
out on the front lines who are doing this for a living and when
you get personalities that can work well together, it is fine.
But I receive a string of e-mails monthly from the PRT in
Karbala who is pointing out exactly the opposite of what you
were talking about here.
I am not impugning your integrity, but I am saying it is
not working, because we are wasting a huge amount of money and
not getting the level of productivity that----
Ambassador Herbst. Congressman, we are talking about two
different things. You are referring to the system that is--
rather, you are referring to what is currently underway. What
is currently underway is not the system that we have created.
The system we have created has been devised, is being
tested, but it has not been actually implemented. The idea is
to use this for the next such operation, hopefully, not an
operation on that scale. That is the point.
So when you say it is not working, you are not referring to
what we are discussing today. You are referring to something
that exists, but is not being----
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Just reclaiming my time. I don't
disagree with your point in concept, but I come back to the
issue of treating a symptom.
This is a look back and saying, ``Oh, what do we need
different? We need more bodies,'' when----
Ambassador Herbst. No, that is--excuse me.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. That is one piece of it. But here is
the question, though, at the end of the day.
What congressional mandated agency reforms do you need, not
done at an executive directive level, because having watched
executive directives, where agencies can do what they want to
do, again, the PRT example of standing up in Iraq with the so-
called surge, it ended up coming back to the military, as a
close friend of 30 years pointed out what exactly happened,
because of internal regulations and a lack of authorization for
the appropriate structure.
Ambassador Herbst. I would say most national security
experts who have looked at the current theme see the need to
create the type of capability that we are describing. There are
different ways to do that.
Some people have said, in a sense, what you have just said
right now. What we need is legislation comparable to Goldwater-
Nichols on the civilian side. That is one way to fix this
problem.
But given the efforts within the current Administration,
within the Bush Administration, given the National Security
Presidential Directive 44, given all the work we have done over
the past 18 months to implement that, we are in a position,
even without legislation, to make the necessary interagency
changes, the fundamental changes that current international
circumstances require.
The resources we are asking for we believe only work within
the framework of a new system, the system we have described.
Now, the GAO is correct that it has not been used in an
actual operation to date. We have used it to do specific things
in the real world. We have done testing for the overall
concept. This has to come.
But the point is we are on the cusp of doing that. As for
the resources that we would use, $50 million is to create only
a 500-person civilian reserve corps. That will give us an
opportunity to test this capability in the real world.
The GAO said there are no figures for what it would cost to
maintain a corps. Well, in fact, there are. To maintain a
civilian reserve corps of 1,000 people would cost $20 million a
year, of 2,000 people, $30 million a year, of 3,000 people, $42
million a year.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. If I could just reclaim my time.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Davis, your time has expired. What we will
do, we will go to Mr. Farr for five minutes. We have votes. We
will recess, and then we will come back after that and pursue
this more.
We will recognize Mr. Farr for five minutes.
Mr. Farr. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the committee for allowing me to sit in on this hearing.
I think it is the first one I have experienced in all the
years that I have been here dealing with this issue, and what I
find in the questioning and answering is that there is a lot
more going on than you realize, and I really want to compliment
your committee and the Defense Committee, because, frankly, the
lead on this post-construction, reconstruction and stability
has been led by the Department of Defense rather than by State
Department or USAID and others.
There was a committee commissioned back many years ago,
about a dozen members of this House and the Senate sat on, and
I was asked to sit on it, and out of that came a whole list of
recommendations, some of which you are still having before you.
But the IR Committee wouldn't accept them, thought it was a
great idea, we need to do this, did nothing. The Defense
Appropriations Committee looked at it and said this is great,
we have got to get on with it and set up a center in the
military at the naval postgraduate school in Monterey, where,
for the last four years, three or four years, this center for
stabilization and reconstruction has been incredibly valuable
in what the lessons learned are.
One, first of all, it is not just State Department and
military. It is our military and the extended IMET, which is
about 400 different officers around the world that are studying
at the naval postgraduate school. Some of them are in this
course.
It is U.N., it is NGOs, it is all the actors who go in to a
country when you need to stabilize. They have never been at the
table before. They have never had a piece in it.
They have had several--you would call them war games. They
just call them games on very specific issues, like emergency
response in a war zone, with a natural disaster, I mean, throw
everything on top of it, and working out the protocols that
would be needed for rescues.
So I just have one question of the panel. And I know that
the ambassador has been to the program. I have spoken with him
there. But I don't know if any of the other members have been.
Have you visited the center for stabilization at the naval
postgraduate school?
Ms. Ward. Sir, I am familiar with it. I have not visited
yet in my tenure. I haven't visited it.
Mr. Farr. I think I would recommend that you go out and
look at it, because some of the concerns that you raise are
already being addressed there.
What is essential? What do we need to do? We know that we
have trained people in the civilian sector, as well as the
military sector, and we have--once they leave Federal service,
we have no contact with them.
I learned this from astronauts. After you are an astronaut
and you leave NASA, you don't have any astronaut alumni
program. There is no getting back.
And what concerned me, I learned a language in another
country and when we had 9/11, we had no way to look to see how
many people in this country spoke Arabic. So we started a
question of let us create registries, let people go online,
volunteer, say ``I have this language capability, I have this
expertise, I would like to come in and be called if you need
me.''
At least that gives you a starting point of where the
talent lies. This reserve corps is made up of experts. This
isn't training new people. These are people that are already
the linguists. They know the country. They know the politics.
They know the geography. They know how to get around. They have
worked in their careers with other groups and other people.
That you bring these people back in crisis and say, ``All
right, you all know this stuff. Now, let us go in as an
organized team to try to help with stabilization and
reconstruction.''
That is what is missing. And here is our problem. We have
created it on our own. In the military, we have no title for
this kind of work. So even though we offer a master's degree in
the program, we only have two naval officers, because Admiral
Mullen has been real keen on it and insisted that we send
officers out to get this degree. But guess what? After they get
this master's degree, where do they go to get assignment,
because the Department of Defense has not yet created
positions, other than FAOs, to deal with this.
So in this committee, I think you ought to think about how
do you create people with this special category.
Second of all, the State Department has a lot of these
people, but they have never been authorized to pull all these
other groups together and that is what this bill that Biden and
Lugar have in the Senate and Mr. Saxton and I have in this
House.
It is essentially to authorize the readiness response corps
of civilian experts in the fields of judicial, policing and
finance and it establishes the curriculum for use by the
Foreign Service Institute, the Center for Stabilization and
Reconstruction Studies, the National Defense University and the
United States Army College, and it specifies how you would go
about recruiting and training these people.
We need to get that legislation passed so we can get on
with the next phase.
And, Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate you allowing me to
come in and speak with this committee.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Farr, we appreciate your very able comments
and participation.
What we are going to do, we have about three minutes left
on the vote. There is going to be three votes, however. We are
sensitive to your time. I understand Mr. Christoff has an
afternoon testimony experience coming up and I am sure all of
you have busy days.
We would ask, if you can, to wait here for the recess. The
staff will be available to help you in any way. We will not be
offended if you decide the best way to organize your day is to
have lunch sitting in front of you when you come back.
We do not anticipate probably going much more than 45
minutes or so when we return, but we will come back.
We will stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Dr. Snyder. We appreciate you all standing by. I don't see
any peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches in front of you, so I
guess you are holding up all right.
We will go ahead and start this temperamental clock and go
around once or twice with the members we have remaining.
Mr. Herbst, I want to ask a little bit about this issue of
the timing. I don't know if you saw the Monday night football
game last night, but Brett Favre was Brett Favre once again and
did the first pass of the overtime, threw an 82-yard touchdown
pass, but he is the kind of player that puts people in the
position to win.
There are no guarantees, but he puts his team in a position
to win, and it seems like, as you acknowledged in your opening
statement, the changing nature of war, we have always thought
before our military wins wars.
And it may be that we are having to shift--part of the big
picture is we are going to have to realize maybe our military,
in certain wars, puts us in a position to win the war, but
ultimately it is going to be civilians on the ground doing
political reform and economic development and capacity building
that actually wins the war.
By winning the war, we define it having the kind of
democratic free government in place that is helpful to the
world and not hostile to the world.
And so as you have described this today, I didn't realize
until--I guess it was in response to questions--that you
actually are setting up a parallel system, parallel to what is
going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now you are going to impact
on that and you are involved in training and those kinds of
things. But that is where your timeline is from two to three
years to ten years.
You all are entering into this really with no intention
that, at some point, the system that you are setting up is
going to replace what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Is that an accurate statement?
Ambassador Herbst. I would say the following, that the
capabilities we are trying to develop, once we have them, could
be used in Iraq and Afghanistan. We already have, as I said,
the interagency system which is ready for use, but we don't
have the civilians who are able to go out under this system in
the countries in question.
But if we had the authorizing legislation and the
appropriations to create these various capabilities, in theory,
we would be able to put hundreds of people onto the ground
within a year and certainly within two years.
Dr. Snyder. But I am confused. Now you have confused me
once again. There are people on the ground. They are in the
numbers now that the President had requested.
Part of the issue is personnel and we talked about that,
but the other part of it is structure, a Washington structure
that permeates out to Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever the field
is.
But what you are saying is you are going back to this issue
that it is like you need authorization for people power, but,
in fact, it is a structural issue, is it not?
If you set up the structure that provides for better
planning, training, coordination, breaks down the stovepipes
that my friend in Iraq complained about, why can't that move
in? Why would you not want that to move in with the personnel
that are in place tomorrow or the next day in Afghanistan and
Iraq?
Ambassador Herbst. Okay, I see what you mean. I think the
answer is that you have--the structure is in place today.
People are sitting in these positions and the decision has been
taken that our capability is meant for the future.
Dr. Snyder. I am sorry. Say that again.
Ambassador Herbst. The decision was taken at the very start
when this office was created that we are to address future
crises and not these.
Dr. Snyder. Right. I am trying to think of a metaphor, Mr.
Akin. Mr. Akin has done a lot of great work on this committee,
from his visits at a time when he had a son in the Marine Corps
in Iraq and came back early on saying there are some problems
with the way we are armoring vehicles and he personally saw
some of the vehicles.
In a way, what you are saying is we ought to armor the
Humvees and come up with the MRAP and let us put them in South
Korea and test them. We are not going to put them in Iraq or
Afghanistan.
I don't understand. I didn't realize that what you are
coming up with is not something intended to impact on what is
going on in Iraq or Afghanistan, because part of that--no
wonder the pace is leisurely. There is no pressure to perform.
There is no pressure to ultimately win the war in Afghanistan
or win the war in Iraq, coming from what you all are doing.
Is that a fair statement? I mean, if your mandate is not to
deal with Iraq or Afghanistan----
Ambassador Herbst. It is geared to the future, but if we
develop the human resources, we will put them. But, again, it
is not the system. It is the way we would plug into the
existing framework.
Dr. Snyder. So Mr. Farr's legislation--when the President
talked about the civilian reserve corps, I think every Member
of Congress that heard that took that to mean it would try to
impact on what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan.
You agree with that.
Ambassador Herbst. That is correct.
Dr. Snyder. But it would be through the structure that is
going on currently in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Ambassador Herbst. That is correct.
Dr. Snyder. Not through the structure that you all are
devising.
Mr. Akin, for five minutes.
Mr. Akin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, then what you are saying, Ambassador, is you
don't have any direct impact at all on what is going on with
the reconstruction teams right now, other than trying to create
a model to make them more effective in the future.
Ambassador Herbst. We are, in fact, engaged in----
Mr. Akin. It will work for you, though.
Ambassador Herbst. We have no oversight over PRTs in either
place. But as I mentioned earlier, we have people in
Afghanistan right now who have helped two PRTs develop a
planning model and are going to be doing that for the rest of
our PRTs, as well, in Afghanistan.
Mr. Akin. Let me just ask, as I take a look a little bit
back in my own limited history of being here, I have been here
seven years, I have seen at least the Iraq situation develop,
and I take a look at different things that happened and some of
them--and people talk about, well, we have made a whole lot of
mistakes in Iraq.
I don't know that we have made a whole lot, but there were
certain things that did jump out at me. The first thing is we
put Sharia law into the Iraq constitution. That seems to me to
be really a dumb thing to have done, or we allowed them to.
Now, would your structure help prevent something like that
from happening?
Ambassador Herbst. The step you have just described was, I
would say, a political judgment and the system we are creating
will likewise be subject to political judgments.
So I would not say that what we are devising is meant to
solve the issue you have just described. What it is meant to
solve is, one, coordination of the civilian side of the U.S.
Government and, two, the provision of trained, equipped,
skilled people for mission.
Mr. Akin. My question is, would the organization that you
are proposing or that you are theoretically developing, would
it have the capacity to deal with a decision like whether or
not we are going to put Sharia law into the Iraqi constitution?
Ambassador Herbst. Absolutely. The system that we----
Mr. Akin. Would that system then have a considerable amount
of input from different people before something like that was
done?
Ambassador Herbst. For sure. We would create--we have
created, I would say, a rational decision-making, information
flowing process, where all factors would be considered.
Mr. Akin. It was also pretty much--I assume it was Bremer
did it. To a degree, we isolated or at least gave the Sunnis
the impression that they weren't really going to be players in
the new government or they got that impression.
Is that the kind of thing that would be discussed and
vetted in a more coordinated kind of approach?
Ambassador Herbst. The process we have described, the
interagency management system would involved substantial
regional expertise in order to make the right decisions.
Mr. Akin. And one of the things that we have continuously
had as a problem over there is the fact that the major
television station is totally hostile to everything that we
stand for or are trying to accomplish. And so we are working in
a complete media--we have no media to counter their media.
Would that be the kind of thing that your organization also
would deal with that question?
Ambassador Herbst. What we have created is designed to
ensure basic government operations and services in a place
where none exists, if our national interests are engaged, and
that would include media, as well as all affairs, all elements
of government.
Mr. Akin. And last of all, is the type of structure that
you are working on, is it, in a sense, parallel to the existing
State Department structure? So you are creating two separate
organizations.
Ambassador Herbst. Secretary Rice talks about
transformational diplomacy and she is trying to change the
structures and the culture of the State Department.
I would say we represent the cutting edge in that process
and the system we have devised is changing the way the
department reacts in crises and we have a ways to go.
Mr. Akin. I think that sounds like a fair answer. I
appreciate it.
Thank you for the time, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Akin.
Mrs. Davis, for five minutes. And we are really watching
the clock this time, Mrs. Davis. I figured out how it works.
You have to jiggle this wire.
Ms. Davis of California. That was really impressive, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you.
Getting back to the chairman's comments, I think it really
is interesting that there are two parallel engagements going on
here in many ways. And I am trying to find a connection, if
there is one.
I have to assume that the work that is going on,
Ambassador, that you are doing in trying to bring this together
and think it through over the next few years, essentially, that
there has got to be some connection to what is happening in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
But I am still a little confused by that and what that
might be, what lessons learned would be applied and back and
forth.
What do you----
Ambassador Herbst. We have created this system to use the
next time. Of course, it is related to Iraq and Afghanistan.
One of the reasons or maybe the reason it was set up, the
office was set up and we have doing this work is because we
believe we can make adjustments and do it better next time.
As part of this, we are in touch with people who are in it
and who have been in both countries. We are doing lessons
learned. We are factoring that into the system we have devised.
My office gets lots of especially non-officers who have
been in both places in PRTs and want to do it better. We are
developing systems to measure, what we call metrics, systems to
measure progress and we are also feeding that back to our
operations in both places, although more so perhaps right now
in Afghanistan, by having people on the ground helping PRTs
plan.
So there is certainly a connection. But the thing to keep
in mind is while our office has grown from a handful to 80-
plus, that is a tiny number, small resources compared to the
enormous number of people and funds that we are expending in
both Afghanistan and Iraq. So there is a problem of scale.
Ms. Davis of California. The order over the weekend, as I
understand it, they reported that the State Department would be
ordering diplomats into the region. I assume that is no longer
on a voluntary basis.
How does that impact what you are doing, if at all, and are
those folks available to do that? Even thinking in the short
term and the long term, how is that going to affect your
efforts?
Ambassador Herbst. Well, my colleague, Harry Thomas, the
director general, is charged with helping ensure we have the
right people we need currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and they
are looking at various ways to do that.
If they wind up directing assignments, I am not certain
that has a great impact on my operation. I think I already
get--S/CRS already gets people who are interested in going to
the world's less predictable places with all of the problems
that are involved with that unpredictability and I think what
you are seeing is as more people in the department are funneled
to Iraq and Afghanistan, the culture is starting to change and
some of those, a fair number of those people wind up coming to
work in S/CRS.
Ms. Davis of California. I wanted to ask also about just
the interplay of intelligence in all this and whether the
culture has changed to the extent that as we begin to do this,
and I think that my colleague, Roscoe, Mr. Bartlett, asked
really a good question.
I mean, what is it that we really want to be doing? Do we
have a role in essentially this kind of nation building and how
do we do it and, I would hope, how do we do it differently?
But that interplay, though, with intelligence and
information sharing, because sometimes there has been a
reluctance to do that. I guess it is hypothetical, but would it
have made a difference?
If somebody said, ``You know what? You have no idea what
you are doing here,'' which I think some people in the State
Department would have liked to have said, if they had been
asked. How in the thinking does that play a role?
Ambassador Herbst. Our process includes the intelligence
community. So decisions that would be made in this would be
based upon the best information available.
I agree with you that what Representative Bartlett said is
very important, that what we are trying to do is inherently
difficult, but it is also true that we learned on September 11
that there are areas of the world which are destabilized, which
represent very dangerous national security threats, and that
our military is going to be involved in addressing those
dangers and the military knows that they need the civilian
component, as Congressman Snyder mentioned, Chairman Snyder
mentioned, to have a chance of winning.
Without that, we are not in the game.
Ms. Davis of California. Right. And I guess just a quick
follow-up. Do you believe, in your estimation, that we are
moving from a DOD centric thinking to more agency centric?
Ambassador Herbst. We are definitely moving to an
interagency centric thinking and our office, while the State
Department represents the interagency, and this system, this
interagency management system is precisely that one that
involves the entire U.S. Government.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Farr, for five minutes.
Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My first question I think is for the Department of Defense
and that is that your directive, and I have copies of it here,
of 3000.5, it is almost two years. It came out in November of
2005.
Why hasn't the department then created the professional
positions which all of your internal directives and
coordination have all--it seems to me you have got everything
in place except what you want these people to do after they get
trained.
Ms. Ward. Well, sir, we do have a number of different skill
identifiers and specialty skills in the military that relate to
stability operations. I am thinking here--you mentioned FAOs,
sir, but there are also civil affairs officers. We have----
Mr. Farr. Excuse me for interrupting. But what I find is
that--because when I traveled with a lot of young officers and
they all know about the naval postgraduate school and now that
they have had in-country experience, this is the kind of thing,
they see ``This is what I want to do,'' the stability ops and
things like that.
But there is no incentive to go get a master's degree in
doing that, because you still haven't created those sort of,
for lack of a better expression, the MOS when you come out with
that training.
Ms. Ward. At my office, we are constantly looking at
questions just like you raise. Should there be a specialized
skill? What would be the career track for these people? How
would it fit into the rest of the force?
So it is something that we relook frequently and something
I intend to look at closely during my tenure. At this point,
there isn't a specialized stability operations MOS.
Mr. Farr. Can we create that? I mean, I think that is
important, because you don't have the high motivation. As you
know, your ascendancy promotions are going to be based on doing
a good job with the job you are handling and if you don't have
that job, you are not going to apply for it.
Ms. Ward. True, but I think it is also true that you are
seeing commanders now who have experience on the ground and
recognize that they need to not only understand major combat
operations, but they need to understand how they apply non-
kinetic effects on the battlefield.
So the idea is you actually have a force that can do both
of those things. They can conduct major combat operations and
they can conduct stability operations, as well. So what you try
to do is infuse the education throughout the force so that you
have that full spectrum capability.
Mr. Farr. Well, I agree with that, too, but I also think
you need to be keen on a really good education and you stand up
in the Navy and Department of Defense, at the naval
postgraduate school, the only graduate school that the military
has, for master's and doctorate degrees and you give them to
our officers and officers around the world, that there you do
have the center and it seems to me it is logical that that is
where you start getting a lot more specified.
I want to ask the ambassador. We have the facilities, we
have the programs. Do you see the State Department using that
center more than just for the gaming purposes now? Do you see
it actually sending State Department folks there to, again,
maybe get a master's degree or to be part of that study
program, whether short course or long course?
Ambassador Herbst. I am not responsible for our--the
training, you might say, of the foreign service officers in
general, but it seems to me that this is something that can and
should be looked at, just as we send--let people go for
master's programs at other universities. It seems to make sense
to me.
Mr. Farr. Well, this is, I think, the one criticism. I am
keen on what you are all doing and I think we should have done
it years ago. I, frankly, think that had this all been set up,
we wouldn't still be in Iraq. We would have been smart about
how to get in and get out, and we get in and we get stuck,
because we haven't had this kind of planning before.
So from the GAO's office, from a cost-effectiveness
standpoint, this the ounce of prevention that is going to save
us a lot of money, but I am also surprised because you have all
got it and why it is so important and we yet haven't created
these career positions, because this is a new--as you have all
indicated, it is the interagency and it is probably
international, as well as interagency, and you are going to
have to have those skills.
And I would think those skills are linguistic skills and
area study skills and knowing--I mean, just think if we had
non-English speaking people from some other country to respond
to the fires in California, not even knowing where these roads
are, where these places are, couldn't communicate with the
people whose houses are burning down. You would have a real
mess down there.
I sit on the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee,
and what I find is that and what all the experts tell us is
that if you prepare for a natural disaster, you have prepared
for a terrorist disaster, because the first responders are
going to be the same. Maybe the prevention is different, but
the response is going to be the same.
It seems to me we would never think of responding to a
disaster in this country without people being prepared, yet we
are offering to be responding to war related or war created
disasters without being prepared. And we get it, but now we
have got to start professionalizing it, because you are not
going to have people seeking careers in this area, which is so
keen right now, if you don't give them a job to do that.
I would like a response, if there is time, Mr. Chairman. Is
it misdirected?
Ms. Ward. There is no doubt that we need to vastly expand
our language and cultural awareness skills throughout our
military, and I would argue that a lot of steps have been taken
in that direction already.
I mentioned earlier that I was at Leavenworth recently and
talked to them about education at all levels and the language
training and cultural awareness training is spreading
systematically throughout our military.
So I think we are taking that very seriously, the need for
us to understand other cultures and have more people who can
speak more languages more skillfully.
I think really the question you are getting at is whether
there should be a special category of people who are trained in
this particular kind of operation. Right now, we are certainly
taking steps to spread this type of education throughout our
force, not just language and culture, but also the principals
of counterinsurgency and how to be successful in the stability
operations, and that is going really throughout our force.
And so I think you are looking at a question of, well,
should there be a specialty category, a cadre of people who do
this specifically for a living, and I think that is an
important question that we are looking at and will continue to
look. Right now, we do not have that, that is true.
Dr. Snyder. We will go ahead and start the clock. We will
go another round here, if you are still with us.
I want to hear from, I guess, Ms. St. Laurent or either one
of you, Mr. Christoff, on one of the things that has been said
here in the last ten minutes or so.
You have expressed concerns about more questions need to be
asked about the $50 million and the appropriation and
consistent with what Mr. Jones and some others have said.
I am now not clear. What do you all think about this idea
that this is a parallel track that is being set up that is not
going to be the way that services are going to be delivered to
Iraq or Afghanistan and how does that impact on budgeting?
And from the perspective of the investment of the American
taxpayers in this process that Ambassador Herbst is working so
hard on, why would we not want to benefit somewhat sooner in
Iraq or Afghanistan? If you could address some of those themes,
please.
Mr. Christoff. Several comments I have, also in reference
to some of your comments and Mrs. Davis about lessons learned.
But, first, in terms of the civilian reserve corps, I think
we fully support the concept. I am not disagreeing with that. I
am just suggesting that as the Congress moves forward and you
are ramping up to 2,000 standby reservists and an additional
2,000 civilian reserve corps, you would want to know a little
bit more about the details.
So I think that is something that is appropriate in terms
of looking at any new program that will probably cost more
money in the future.
But I want to try to see if I could relate this structure,
the framework that we are trying to develop through Ambassador
Herbst's office with Iraq, because you were talking about
lessons learned.
Are there any lessons learned from Iraq that might be
applied to this new framework? And I think there are and I
think the development of the joint campaign plan, the campaign
plan that was developed by the Multinational Force Iraq and the
U.S. embassy is an example of interagency coordination and it
was done at the field level.
And I think that in looking----
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Christoff, is this the joint campaign plan
that the Department of Defense refuses to give to this
committee, the House Armed Services?
Mr. Christoff. Correct.
Dr. Snyder. It is that very same joint campaign plan, but
they give it to GAO.
Mr. Christoff. Correct.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you.
Mr. Christoff. But since it is within the Administration
right now, it would be a good document to look at from the
perspective of the lessons learned.
Dr. Snyder. We thought so for several weeks to months.
Mr. Christoff. But what I am saying is some of the concepts
and the framework that Ambassador Herbst talks about I can see
in the interagency process that is occurring within Iraq.
There is what is called the Iraq policy and operations
group, the IPOG, which is at the NSC level, very much similar
to the concept that Ambassador Herbst is proposing for this
country reconstruction and stabilization group.
The FACs, the field advanced civilian corps, are PRTs that
are in Iraq right now and then you have interagency and
coordination mechanisms within U.S. embassy Baghdad MNFI, as
well.
So I think there are a lot of lessons learned in the
development of our plans in Iraq that could be fruitful and
come in completing this framework that we now have for our
future stability operations.
Dr. Snyder. That doesn't answer my question, though, Mr.
Christoff. I understand that. Mr. Herbst has been, I think,
very aggressive about trying to learn from what is going on in
Iraq.
It doesn't solve the problem of my friend who says the
cultural barriers between the military, Department of State and
other civilian agencies seem more striking than those between
the United States and Iraqis, to me, somebody who is in Iraq
right today.
I don't see it is going to go up. I don't see that the
structural change that Mr. Herbst is working on, there is no
intent of having that structure somehow help to break down
those stovepipes.
From your all's perspective of trying to get the most bang
for the buck, why would we not be insistent that this work be
expedited and that we put a priority on it so that their good
work can come back down to help the folks that are on the PRTs
in Iraq and Afghanistan today?
Does that not concern you?
Mr. Christoff. Well, but, again, you have a process in Iraq
now that is being implemented under NSPD-1.
Dr. Snyder. But we don't think it is working very well, do
we?
Mr. Christoff. What difference--well, according to the GAO
report, probably not.
Dr. Snyder. We have heard from GAO about you all reporting
that it is not working as well, I mean, our anecdotal
information. We think they are wonderful people. We think they
are doing good things and are obviously working very hard at
great risk themselves to do good things, but you all have
pointed out, where are the measurable objectives, what are the
goals and objectives and it is not measurable.
And the good things that are being done, we think, would be
even greater, that there would be more good if we had the kind
of structure that Mr. Herbst is working on to assist them, to
break down some of these stovepipes here in Washington.
I think that is the direction we are heading. Well, anyway,
I am getting too long
I wanted to ask, Mr. Herbst, we have had this issue come up
in the last day or so. I have used the example of my friend in
Iraq there that you just heard me read her quote again and we
have had this issue in the paper this morning about, the ``New
York Times'' headline, ``Immunity Deals Offered to Blackwater
Guards,'' that apparently State Department had a press report.
State Department security investigators offer some kind of
immunity to these guards, unbeknownst to the Justice
Department, that is now involved.
Is that not an example of stovepiping? I mean, should
that--after five years of war in Afghanistan, with an abundance
of contractors, and heading into five years of war in Iraq,
with an abundance, thousands of contractors, is that not the
kind of issue that should have been broken down?
Somebody somewhere should have said, ``You know, one of
these tens of thousands of armed contracted personnel may have
a legal problem. Perhaps we should ahead of time have a
discussion with the Department of Justice about how to handle
that.'' Is this not a glaring example of the breakdown, of our
failure here in Congress, the failure of the government to not
have foreseen these kinds of issues and break down some of
these stovepipes?
Is that not an example of that?
Ambassador Herbst. Congressman, I read that article, but I
really don't have any more information than what I read in that
article.
All I can say is that the system, the interagency
management system would have in all of its institutions the
relevant agencies playing a role in the area in crisis.
So that State Department would be working with USAID,
Treasury, Justice, et cetera, which should make it possible to
formulate responses to events which reflect the outlook and the
interests of the entire interagency.
Dr. Snyder. Which should not surprise another agency.
Actions should not be taken----
Ambassador Herbst. Transparency is a very important part of
the interagency----
Dr. Snyder [continuing]. That surprised another agency and
it clearly was a surprise here.
Mrs. Davis, for five minutes.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am
happy to just wrap up my questions.
One of the issues, and I guess this really reflects on the
House committee, as well, when we think in terms of personnel.
It is my understanding, from a colleague, that if somebody
serves in the PRTs, if one of our military offers serves in the
PRTs, that is not considered a joint station, essentially, or
joint experience in the same way that we think of jointness in
the services and their need to be able to do that in terms of
career development and career ladder.
So are you aware of that? And I guess the question would
be, was the State Department, as well? It is my understanding,
again, that initially there was no great incentive for anybody
to serve over in Iraq or Afghanistan, because it didn't help
them in their ability to progress in their career.
Has that changed and what other changes do you anticipate?
And I think to GAO, to Ms. St. Laurent and Mr. Christoff, I
asked about the DOD centric perception. What is your perception
of that? How well do you believe that we are engaging agencies
perhaps beyond State in this interagency now and in these new
plans that are being developed?
Is it still 90 percent? Is it something other than that?
And what is it that reflects that for you, that actually we
have gone beyond that mentality?
Go ahead.
Ms. Ward. If I could take that as a question for the record
on the joint billets, because I just don't know the answer
whether the PRT leaders are, in fact, joint billets. So I will
provide the committee an answer on that.
I would say that I think the commanders on the ground see
the PRT as an increasingly important capability in their
counterinsurgency fight. So someone serving in that is
certainly going to get recognition for that.
It is my understanding, in Afghanistan, that often the PRT
leaders are coming off of the command list, so have been
selected for command in any case or are actually doing their
second command.
So these people are getting rewarded for their service on
the PRTs. On the joint billet issue, I owe you an answer on
that.
Ms. Davis of California. And at the State Department?
Ambassador Herbst. Again, I am not responsible for
personnel policies, but my understanding, as a career foreign
service officer, is that people who have gone to both Iraq and
Afghanistan have gotten consideration, for example, as they
move toward next assignments and I think it has been helpful
for people's careers to serve there.
So that is I don't think a problem in terms of our
recruitment for those assignments.
Ms. St. Laurent. In response to your second question, I
think, again, DOD's interest is in expanding the extent to
which they cooperate with other agencies, but if you look at
the status of planning today, I think there is still probably
very much a DOD centric view in the development of their own
plans and there is also the issue of DOD having much more
capacity to respond to these kinds of events today.
I think one issue I would like to raise with regard to the
interagency management framework is it is still not clear to
what extent that framework is going to be triggered and when it
would be triggered to deal with future crises, because that has
to be a specific determination that is made, whereas the
military commands are able to carry out a wide array of routine
planning.
So, again, unless this mechanism is tested and used, the
military may still be in the position of having the most robust
plans for dealing with potential conflicts.
Ms. Davis of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Farr, would you like another five minutes
of discussion?
Mr. Farr. Yes, sir.
Dr. Snyder. Five minutes.
Mr. Farr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Ward, in reading your testimony and understanding how
keen you are on this Directive 3000.5 and recognizing the
importance that the Department of Defense ha set up in the
naval postgraduate school center there, my question is do you
intend to POM that in the next budget?
Ms. Ward. Sir, I do not know the answer to that question,
but I will look into that. My understanding of the center is
that it is seen by all to be a very important center and
contributing a great deal. So I have no information that it
won't be POM'd.
But I would be happy to provide you an answer in writing on
that.
Mr. Farr. Thank you.
And I guess to the ambassador. Ambassador Herbst, I am
trying to get your bill passed and perhaps this hearing will
make another committee in this House a little bit more
interested in it, hopefully so, but without the authorization,
we have appropriated the money and when the appropriators
understand how important it is to get moving.
Without that authorization, what does that do to your----
Ambassador Herbst. We need the authorizing legislation in
order to actually get the money and to use it to create the
civilian reserve corps.
If we receive the money within the next week or so, month
or so, a year from now, we will have a 500-person civilian
reserve corps trained, equipped, obviously, recruited, with the
right skills to deploy in a crisis.
Mr. Farr. Because that reserve corps has to be experts and
when you are talking about recruiting, you are talking about
people that have had careers in these various fields of need.
So they come in with those language skills and with other kinds
of skills.
What you are doing is honing them into a response team,
right, so that they can operate internationally?
Ambassador Herbst. They will come in with the requisite
technical skills needed. Some of them will probably have
language skills, too, but we will make sure that the unit has
the necessary language skills and the necessary area expertise.
So we would be hiring skilled people and then training and
recruiting them for stabilization operations, yes.
Mr. Farr. I thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I think what is really important here is,
again, the nature of this hearing is all about interoperability
of our Federal agencies and it just strikes me that one thing
we haven't done, and maybe GAO could get into this, is we ought
to at least keep a registry of who these experts are, even if
we just set it up voluntarily.
We have the capacity to do that. But when I tried to set
that up with the Manpower Defense Center in Monterey, which has
the computer capacity to handle it all, they were saying it all
had to go out to bid and had to all--it got so confusing that
we haven't even been able to do it, and we were just looking
for a registry for linguists.
But I do think, as the Federal Government, we need to keep
track of people. The policy is when you leave Federal service,
unless you sort of want to be called, you are gone and we don't
know who you are, we don't know where you are.
And what a waste of just having an alumni association
directory and that is what I think part of this, setting up
this reserve corps, crisis corps is made up of those people,
and we wouldn't have to be looking to draft people to go to
Iraq. We might have people that would come out of retirement
and could do that job very well.
Mr. Christoff. And I think there are some good lessons from
how the Canadians and the Germans are trying to put together
this list that could help our purposes, as well.
Mr. Farr. I think these incidents are international, we
have international partners, and they ought to be at the table,
too. So I would like to see us move as quickly as possible to
get the skill level and the one-stop process going.
And I want to just applaud the military for taking a lead.
It is certainly a long way from saying we don't do nation
building to Directive 3000.5. I think that is an admission that
we can't stabilize or lead without this skill set.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Snyder. Thank you, Mr. Farr.
I have just one or two short questions and then we will
conclude. I know that Mr. Christoff and others need to get
going.
My question for GAO, in your conclusion, you know, we read
these little highlights over here and what GAO recommends,
``GAO recommends that DOD take several actions to improve its
capabilities in interagency planning. DOD partially agreed, but
did not specify actions it would take to address them.
Therefore, GAO suggests Congress require DOD to do so.''
We love legislation, you know, so we are glad to hear those
kinds of recommendations. Then you amplify that, stating, ``We
have also suggested that Congress require DOD to develop an
action plan and report annually on its efforts to address our
recommendations.''
Would one of you comment on that, amplify on that a little
bit? Since we, I think, are all in agreement that DOD is the
one who has been most insistent on doing something different
and yet the action plan, you are wanting a legislative mandate
on DOD rather than the other agencies.
Would you comment on that?
Ms. St. Laurent. Certainly. We made several recommendations
in our report. Again, we see DOD making progress and moving out
and implementing the directive, but we think there are several
areas that it needs to address more systematically, and one is
the question of how to best define and what process to use to
identify needed capabilities and then whether we have gaps in
those capabilities today.
So that was a recommendation we made. When we got the
department's response to our report, it was not clear that they
were going to take any specific steps in response to that
recommendation.
We made other recommendations that they provide better
guidance on, how to go about determining measures of
effectiveness or performance measures, again, for how they are
doing in implementing all the things in the directive.
And because DOD's responses to all of our recommendations
were rather vague, we think these are issues that need to be
addressed with very specific action plans. So that is why we
then suggested to the Congress that they might want to require,
in some future legislation or committee report, that DOD report
back to them on what they are doing in response to the
recommendations we have made.
Dr. Snyder. A week ago or so, we had a hearing here with
representatives from State Department and USAID, Justice,
Treasury, Ag, and we had a minor little dust-up, because two of
the opening statements, written statements, one from the
Department of Justice and one from Ag, had an identical
paragraph in it that apparently came from the NSC, which I am
fine with the paragraph.
I just think it surprised the witnesses to find out that
they had each had an identical paragraph, even though they were
coming through two different agencies. I think it was a little
bit embarrassing for them.
But I wanted to read the one sentence from that paragraph,
which I assume that at least we have a buy-in from Justice, Ag
and NSC, since they all had that as part of their--have
acknowledged some joint authorship.
``To improve our ability to respond to overseas challenges
and provide the personnel expertise needed will require that we
increase our numbers of available trained and deployable
personnel within our department and others and that we support
them with a structure in Washington that conducts planning and
coordination.''
I think that--and you are working on it, Mr. Ambassador. My
only perhaps minor criticism today would be I understand the
importance of the civilian reserve corps, and I think we under-
fund the State Department. You have no redundancy around the
world.
If we pull an Ag person out of Uzbekistan to go to Iraq,
there is no one to step forward and do the work in Uzbekistan.
There are a lot of issues there. But to me, the most important
issue here is ``and support them with a structure in Washington
that conducts planning and coordination.''
And what we are hearing today is you all are working on a
structure that you hope will be ready in two to three to ten
years, but the concern is it is not going to be helping, we
don't think, in any immediate way with the work that our folks
are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
And that may be something that we all need to spend more
time talking about and how we can impact on that.
I did want to acknowledge Mr. Akin's absence. He would have
been here, but he has an amendment on the floor today.
Mr. Ambassador, did you want to make a final comment?
Ambassador Herbst. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The structure is
ready now. I think the reason why we have a bit of confusion is
it is not being applied directly to run the current crises, but
the structure is ready now.
What is not ready now is the human response capability
which has the necessary--all the training and the skill sets
and the interagency elements that we have devised.
Dr. Snyder. Well, I think we have had that discussion. I am
still not clear why there is not more immediate impact on what
is going on with our current PRTs overseas in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It sounds like a parallel structure.
We appreciate you all being here. You all should take this
as an open ended opportunity, if there is anything you want to
clarify for the record, take as a question for the record, feel
free to add any additional comments.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
October 30, 2007
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
October 30, 2007
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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
October 30, 2007
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER
Dr. Snyder. NSPD-44 designates the Secretary of State as the lead
for coordinating and integrating U.S. Government efforts to prepare,
plan for, and conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities.
-- What have been the most significant challenges that State, and
S/CRS in particular, have faced as they attempted to coordinate and
integrate U.S. government stabilization and reconstruction activities
in the form of PRTs and their interface with other State and USAID and
military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and how have these challenges
informed your work in S/CRS?
Ambassador Herbst. Consistent with NSPD-44, the Secretary of State
has directed the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and
Stabilization (S/CRS) to develop the mechanisms needed to lead,
coordinate, and institutionalize civilian capability to prevent or
prepare for post-conflict situations and to help stabilize and
reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, so
they can reach a more sustainable path toward peace, democracy, and a
market economy. However, S/CRS was created after the missions in
Afghanistan and Iraq were underway, and it has not been directly
involved in the management of the PRTs.
Instead, over the three years since it was established, S/CRS has
begun to create a fundamentally new approach to enable more timely,
integrated, and effective management of U.S. Government efforts in
reconstruction and stabilization. This new approach draws on lessons
learned from the U.S. experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular
the importance of ensuring that adequate civilian resources are
available to conduct effective reconstruction and stabilization
operations and the need to maximize unity of effort among civilian
agencies and between civilians and the military in pursuit of a common
strategic objective.
For instance, in Afghanistan, S/CRS has developed a planning
methodology with CJTF-82, the operational U.S. military headquarters in
Afghanistan, and the Embassy to improve interagency PRT planning as
well as to train new PRT leaders. Lessons from S/CRS' current work on
PRTs in Afghanistan are being applied in the IMS operations guide,
which, for example, lays out coordination procedures between the FACTs
and the other structures in the IMS.
On the larger question, improved performance in future
reconstruction and stabilization missions requires modification of
long-standing bureaucratic practices and creation of new habitual
relationships, lines of communication, and forms of cooperation.
Creating these new forms of cooperation and securing the resources to
carry out its mandate have been among the most significant challenges
S/CRS has faced.
Dr. Snyder. NSPD-44 designates the Secretary of State as the lead
for coordinating and integrating U.S. Government efforts to prepare,
plan for, and conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities.
-- Do you agree with GAO's assessment that the roles and
responsibilities of all organizations need to be more clearly defined?
If not, why not? What steps are being taken to clarify the roles and
responsibilities within State and among Government agencies that not
only related to other interagency stability and reconstruction efforts,
but could help the PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan now?
Ambassador Herbst. The GAO report contains useful recommendations
that we will consider as we move forward on developing the interagency
procedures and mechanisms for effective management of reconstruction
and stabilization operations. The Department believes that the GAO
report, however, does not fully capture progress made toward achieving
the goals articulated in the report recommendations, as well as the
overall progress achieved toward developing a civilian reconstruction
and stabilization capability.
S/CRS and our interagency partners continue to work on fine-tuning
the Interagency Management System (IMS), the interagency policy and
operational mechanism for managing the USG response to reconstruction
and stabilization situations. In conjunction with our interagency
partners and colleagues in State's regional bureaus, we will refine and
test the IMS through a number of events, experiments, and exercises
with the goal of further identifying gaps and clarifying roles and
responsibilities both within the Department of State and among
executive branch agencies.
Over ten U.S. Government departments participated in a recent
demonstration of the IMS and in the after-action review that provided
very useful input to help the interagency fine tune IMS procedures and
mechanisms.
These lessons learned and new ways of cooperation among State and
the interagency can help facilitate integrated, coordinated civilian
activity in the PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dr. Snyder. NSPD-44 designates the Secretary of State as the lead
for coordinating and integrating U.S. Government efforts to prepare,
plan for, and conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities.
-- From your perspective, do you see significant differences in
the capabilities and capacities of U.S. Government agencies to engaged
in stabilization and reconstruction activities as indicated by the
challenges of standing up three different kinds of PRTs in Iraq and
Afghanistan and how are these differences best addressed as you move
forward in planning for other current and future stability and
reconstruction efforts?
Ambassador Herbst. Differences in interagency capabilities and
capacities do exist and are being addressed through multi-agency
working groups convened under the authority of the NSPD-44 Policy
Coordinating Committee that bring together representatives from a dozen
U.S. Government (USG) agencies, as well as National Security Council
staff, to develop the means for effective future interagency management
of reconstruction and stabilization operations.
The civilian response capability being developed by the Office of
the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) under
NSPD-44 will provide the ready, quick response, civilian surge capacity
needed to meet short or long term personnel requirements for
reconstruction and stabilization missions. It includes the following
components:
Active Response Corps (ARC), the USG civilian ``first
responders,'' who are ready for immediate deployment within 48 hours to
reconstruction and stabilization crises worldwide.
Standby Response Corps (SRC), USG civilian employees who
maintain their current government positions but are trained and ready
to deploy within thirty days.
Civilian Reserve Corps (CRC), the pool of civilian
(private sector and state and local government) experts requested by
President Bush that will, if authorized this fiscal year, provide
trained volunteers with specialized skills.
S/CRS is working with its interagency partners to create, staff,
and operate these three corps. Our coordinated effort will help
harmonize differences among agencies' capabilities and capacities.
Dr. Snyder. I understand S/CRS has been working with PRTs in
Afghanistan, but I appreciate that they started and formed before S/CRS
was up and running. If the U.S. Government decided to take on an
entirely new stabilization and reconstruction task similar to what we
are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan starting today, could you give
us some idea as to how the work you have been doing in S/CRS would be
applied? Why isn't S/CRS involved with PRTs in Iraq? Should it be? Why
or why not?
Ambassador Herbst. In the initial stages of a new reconstruction
and stabilization operation of a similar nature and size as that in
Afghanistan, the U.S. Government (USG) can activate the Interagency
Management System (IMS) for Reconstruction and Stabilization. When
activated, the IMS is the structure by which the USG would plan for and
manage an operation in Washington (Country Reconstruction and
Stabilization Group), at military headquarters (Integration Planning
Cell), and in the field (Advance Civilian Teams).
In Washington, S/CRS would coordinate and co-chair with the NSC and
the Assistant Secretary of the relevant State Department regional
bureau an operation-specific Country Reconstruction and Stabilization
Group (CRSG) to oversee Washington-based whole-of-government strategic
planning and operations. This planning process would follow the USG
Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabilization, and Conflict
Transformation currently being refined by an interagency working group.
In addition to the Washington-based CRSG structure, the supported
Geographic Combatant Command or multi-lateral military command would
receive a team of USG civilian planners--called an Integration Planning
Cell (IPC)--to harmonize civilian and military planning processes.
Finally, if requested by the Chief of Mission, an interagency
Advance Civilian Team (ACT) would deploy to support the Embassy in
implementing the U.S. strategic plan for reconstruction and
stabilization. An ACT could also deploy with the military if there was
no existing U.S. diplomatic mission, as was the case in Afghanistan in
2001. In addition, Field Advance Civilian Teams (FACTs) could be
further deployed to extend the U.S. reconstruction and stabilization
capacity to the regional or provincial level, serving a role similar to
that played by PRTs in Afghanistan today.
The different components of the IMS structure would include
representatives from all relevant federal agencies. To ensure adequate
staffing for such missions, S/CRS has established an Active Response
Corps (ARC) and a Standby Response Corps (SRC) of full-time federal
personnel. President Bush has also proposed a Civilian Reserve Corps
(CRC) that would be comprised of civilians with the requisite skills
who contractually obligate to serve--much as in the military Reserves--
making their relevant skills available for Reconstruction &
Stabilization missions if and when called-upon by the President.
In Afghanistan, S/CRS has developed a planning methodology with
CJTF-82, the operational U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan, and
the Embassy to improve interagency PRT planning as well as to train new
PRT leaders. Lessons from S/CRS' current work on PRTs in Afghanistan
are being applied in the IMS operations guide, which, for example, lays
out coordination procedures between the FACTs and the other structures
in the IMS.
S/CRS also has been involved with PRTs in Iraq. In response to
requests from the Department of State's Near Eastern Affairs bureau, S/
CRS helped design and field interagency training in support of the 2007
surge of PRT personnel to Iraq. S/CRS is also working to capture
lessons learned from the Iraq PRT experience to inform PRT training and
improve the USG's response to future contingencies.
Dr. Snyder. As the PRTs have amply demonstrated, reconstruction and
stabilization is not a task the U.S. should take on alone. What, in
particular, are you doing to apply the key lessons from the experience
of having international partners in Afghanistan and Iraq doing parallel
work in some regions to a larger, overall planning framework for
reconstruction and stabilization? Are other nations' efforts viable
models for us to consider?
Ambassador Herbst. The USG Planning Framework for Reconstruction,
Stabilization, and Conflict Transformation, currently being refined by
an interagency working group, was initially developed jointly with the
United Kingdom's Post-Conflict Reconstruction Unit (PCRU). The
principles, processes, and methodologies in the framework, including on
conflict assessment and metrics, have been tested with more than 30
U.S. and international partners through Multi-National Experiments 4
and 5. We continue to jointly refine these tools with international
partners to enable close integration of efforts in future
reconstruction and stabilization operations. In consultation with
regional bureaus, some of these tools have been adapted for U.S.
efforts in Afghanistan.
Since its inception, S/CRS has engaged with potential partners
around the world to establish relationships, learn from each other's
best practices, and generally set the stage for coordinated responses
to future engagements. S/CRS is in close and frequent coordination with
counterparts in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, United
Nations, the European Union, NATO, Finland, Japan, South Korea, and the
Netherlands, to name a few. To share lessons and refine procedures for
future coordination, S/CRS staff collaborate on a working level with
international counterparts and participate in training and exercises
led by these partners, and vice-versa.
In future reconstruction and stabilization operations, as it is
now, much of the work of finding and committing international partners
will be diplomatic. The responsibility for diplomatic outreach
ultimately rests with the Department of State regional bureau in
support of the Secretary of State and the President. This effort would
be bolstered by the Interagency Management System for Reconstruction
and Stabilization (IMS), a newly agreed upon system for how the U.S.
Government should organize itself to deal with a stabilization crisis.
It would be a function of the Washington portion of the IMS, the
Country Reconstruction and Stabilization Group (CRSG), to identify the
objectives, to know which international partners have capacity and
expertise in which areas, to frame the discussion with these potential
partners, and to integrate to the greatest extent possible planning and
operations with these partners. By approaching these partners early and
at a high-level and then planning deliberately together at capitals and
in the field, we hope to avoid doing parallel work and better focus our
efforts on our areas of strength.
Dr. Snyder. We have been interested in learning about metrics to
determine success for PRTs in both Afghanistan and Iraq and we
appreciate that the work they do is inherently difficult to measure,
but as you consider what sorts of reconstruction and stabilization
efforts you might be called upon to coordinate are you giving
sufficient thought as to how the effectiveness or success of those
missions might be measured? Describe the methodology you intend to use
to measure the performance of civil-military teams involved in
stabilization and reconstruction operations.
Ambassador Herbst. Since its creation, S/CRS has developed
methodologies and processes based on the principle that metrics must be
integral to mission planning and operational management. From the
outset, at the strategic level, policy options need to be paired with
an understanding of what ``success looks like'' on the ground. At each
level of planning (strategic, operational, and tactical), planners and
decision-makers must arrive at a shared and realistic understanding of
how success will be measured. Metrics, when used appropriately, should
help policymakers determine when changes in strategy or tactics are
required.
Effective metrics do not simply capture USG ``outputs'' alone
(e.g., number of schools built or number of police trained). While
those data sets are critical to program management and oversight,
policymakers must be concerned with what ``impact'' our efforts are
having on the lives of the people on the ground (e.g., do people feel
safe and do people feel that their government is providing the
necessary services). We and our international counterparts are learning
to measure outcomes in addition to outputs. This will inform our policy
towards the host nation; aid us in refining our continuing
reconstruction and stabilizations efforts in the host country; and will
be instrumental in the research and study done to improve the efficacy
of future reconstruction and stabilization engagements elsewhere in the
world.
Dr. Snyder. Are you developing benchmarks or measures to determine
when stability operations are no longer needed and more traditional
means of providing development and diplomatic assistance can be used?
How permissive does the environment need to be? Have milestones or
standards been established to determine when to transition to more
traditional means? If not, why not?
Ambassador Herbst. The transition from R&S operations to long-term
development and diplomatic activities should occur when local
government and other relevant local actors have the capacity to sustain
a stable environment and adequately address spoilers and other
instigators of conflict. In each country, potentially in each province,
this transition point is different. Measures of success, similarly,
should be tailored to the country and province.
S/CRS has partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USAID,
U.S. Institute of Peace and the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations
Institute at the U.S. Army War College to develop a menu of possible
indicators that focus on assessing the security of local civilians.
This project is titled Measuring Progress in Conflict Environments
(MPICE). In addition, MPICE contains menus of indicators for the four
other sectors (Governance, Rule of Law, Economics and Social Well-
being) identified as critical to success by the report Winning the
Peace: An American Strategy for Post-Conflict Reconstruction produced
by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Dr. Snyder. What are the resourcing considerations for future
stability operations? How will they be reflected in future budget
requests? Does the State Department require an increase in the overall
number of FSOs?
Ambassador Herbst. In Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007, S/CRS worked to
demonstrate through interagency assessment, planning, coordination, and
deployment that it can provide more effective assistance for
reconstruction and stabilization operations. In Fiscal Year 2008, S/CRS
is answering the growing demand and will build on our proven value-
added. We will expand the Active Response Corps, deploy more experts,
increase our country planning engagements, increase our training, and
continue to build our long-term ability to put interagency civilians
teams on the ground where and when we need them.
For FY 2009, a unified budget request is being prepared for all
resources needed to develop and deploy the interagency response, such
as training, readiness, equipment, some deployment funds, and new
staffing, including Foreign Service and Civil Service positions
necessary to build the capacity for quick response during crises.
Dr. Snyder. What types of incentives do you believe will be
required to induce civilians to volunteer? Are you re-evaluating
current incentives to determine if additional or other incentives are
needed in light of the unanticipated need to direct assignments to
Iraq?
Ambassador Herbst. We believe that patriotism will be a strong
incentive for volunteers, keeping in mind that they are volunteering to
be part of a national resource; not in response to a particular
engagement. However, realizing the danger and hardship inherent in
assignment to countries where conflict is ongoing or has recently
ended, members of the Civilian Reserve Corps who are activated will be
eligible for the same monetary incentives available to other federal
employees civilian employees when deployed. Depending on the location
and conditions of the assignment, these may include Premium Pay, Post
Differential, Danger Pay, Locality Pay, and possibly a Recruitment
Bonus depending on the difficulty in filling positions.
There will be a dual compensation waiver for retired Foreign
Service and Civil Service employees, which will be a significant
incentive for federal retirees.
Reservists, when deployed and on a term appointment in the civil
service, will accrue the same Leave benefits as other federal employees
and will be eligible for life and health insurance, workers'
compensation, and participation in the Federal Employees Retirement
System and the Thrift Savings Plan.
We believe the incentives above as well as a desire to serve one's
country, as demonstrated by the high fill and re-employment rates of
the ``3161'' positions in Iraq, will be sufficient. However, we will be
regularly re-evaluating our recruitment efforts to determine if
additional incentives are required.
Dr. Snyder. Describe the interaction and relationship S/CRS has
with the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security
Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. Describe the role of the Assistant to
the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and
Afghanistan plays in the Interagency Management System and in the
Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabilization, and Conflict
Transformation.
Ambassador Herbst. S/CRS plays a supporting role to the respective
Department of State regional bureaus. As a result, our interaction with
the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for
Iraq and Afghanistan occurs through the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
and the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.
The Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor
for Iraq and Afghanistan is not involved directly with the IMS and the
USG Planning Framework, as these mechanisms are not being used for Iraq
or Afghanistan. However, other components of the NSC monitor the
progress of--and participate in--the implementation of National
Security Presidential Directive-44 on Management of Reconstruction and
Stabilization Operations, including the development of the Interagency
Management System for Reconstruction and Stabilization and the USG
Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabilization, and Conflict
Transformation.
Dr. Snyder. What policy and guidance have you set for the Services
for selection and or training for stability operations?
Ms. Ward. DoD Directive 3000.05, ``Military Support for Stability,
Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations'' establishes
policies governing stability operations training. It directs DoD
institutions to develop stability operations curricula across the
spectrum of training activities to include both individual and unit
training. In keeping with the Directive's overall mandate of giving
stability operations priority comparable to major combat operations,
stability operations training is an integral part of DoD's training
regimen.
Particular emphasis is placed on ensuring an appropriate balance in
training for combat and stability operations, with the needs of current
operations tipping the balance toward greater stability operations
training. For stability operations, focus is placed on the skills
necessary to:
- Analyze the environment, and apply kinetic and non-kinetic
capabilities as the situation demands.
- Train and advise foreign security forces at the tactical,
operational, and national levels.
- Work with civilian partners (USG, international, host nation,
etc.).
- Support transitional security, civil governance, and essential
services activities in conflict zones.
- Operate within a foreign culture.
DoD is capturing the best practices from current operations to
ensure DoD maintains and enhances its capacity to prepare units for
operations in any theater, including stability operations.
Dr. Snyder. GAO reported that DOD has yet to identify and
prioritize the full range of capabilities needed for stability
operations because of a lack of clear guidance on how and when to
accomplish this task. What progress has DOD made in identifying and
prioritizing capabilities needed to effectively conduct stability
operations? What steps is DOD taking to ensure that different combatant
commands approach the identification of requirements in the same way?
How is CENTCOM doing it? Does CENTCOM have responsibility for U.S. PRT
strategy and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? How have the
capability requirements for the PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq been
identified and addressed?
Ms. Ward. DoD's approach has been to focus on updating strategic-
level guidance documents to instruct DoD components, including
Combatant Commands (CoComs), to incorporate stability operations
considerations in the planning and conduct of operations.
The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Stability Operations Capabilities is working to more accurately
identify specific capability gaps across the spectrum of doctrine,
organizations, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel,
and facilities. The Army has also conducted an extensive stability
operations capability gap analysis to identify missing stability
operations capabilities.
The CoComs are an integral part of stability operations capability
development for both U.S. and international partners. Through the
standardized Integrated Priority List (IPL) process, CoComs provide
information to the Department on the capabilities needed to conduct
their mission. These requirements are assessed in program development
across all CoComs using a prioritization process that seeks to balance
risks. Each CoCom has priorities unique to the nature of their region.
One region may require capabilities in the security sector while others
require governance or rule of law capabilities. DoD does not expect
that each CoCom will submit the same requirements, but instead expects
each to provide an assessment of their requirements across the spectrum
of capabilities. As any other CoCom, CENTCOM participates in this
process and provides requests for information (RFI), requests for
forces (RFF) and Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statements (JUONS) to
acquire specific capabilities to conduct stability and other types of
operations.
USCENTCOM does not have sole responsibility for Provincial
Reconstruction Team (PRT) strategy and operations in Iraq or
Afghanistan. In Iraq, this is the responsibility of the Office of
Provincial Affairs, under the Department of State. In Afghanistan, this
responsibility is shared by NATO's International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF), US Embassy, and USCENTCOM.
USCENTCOM retains responsibility for operations in Iraq but has
delegated a number of authorities for the conduct of the campaign in
Iraq to Multi-National Force--Iraq (MNF-I). MNF-I coordinates directly
with the Office of Provincial Affairs on matters relating to PRTs. In
Afghanistan, PRTs fall under the authority of ISAF, and broad PRT
strategy is developed jointly by ISAF, the Government of Afghanistan,
the U.S. Embassy, and Allies.
PRT capabilities and requirements have been identified as part of
the Request for Forces process; specific equipment needs are met
through a combination of unit equipment and Joint Operational Needs
Statements. In certain instances, PRT capabilities are also requested
in Joint Manning Documents, which are developed and submitted in
support of headquarters elements, and through direct coordination with
the Department of State for necessary civilian skills. DoD is tracking
these capabilities and requirements in order to inform future
capability development and institutionalization.
Dr. Snyder. We have been interested in learning about metrics to
determine success for PRTs in both Afghanistan and Iraq and we
appreciate that the work they do is inherently difficult to measure,
but as you consider what sorts of reconstruction and stabilization
efforts you might be called upon to coordinate are you giving
sufficient thought as to how the effectiveness or success of those
missions might be measured? Describe the methodology you intend to use
to measure the performance of civil-military teams involved in
stabilization and reconstruction operations.
Ms. Ward. DoD is supporting development of PRT metrics that
include: (1) establishing clear objectives and end-states; (2)
developing milestones and transition phases for achieving the
objectives; (3) applying resources in a coordinated fashion; and (4)
continuous joint assessments based on an agreed-upon model with
indicators.
DoD (the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, U.S. Army
Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, and U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers), the Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for
Reconstruction and Stabilization, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the Fund for Peace are
working on a model for conflict measurements to assist in campaign
design for stability operations. The goal is to measure and evaluate
success and progress against stated objectives. Such measures will also
be applied to the development of milestones and transition points.
Although objective data are difficult to collect in a conflict
environment, the aim of this undertaking is to reflect the reality of
conditions on the ground. This is especially important for establishing
trend lines, to include the ebbs and flows of shifting conditions, in
order to inform decision-makers of needed resource allocation and
priorities. DoD is also examining existing models and data collection
efforts by think tanks such as Carnegie, Brookings and commercial
country risk assessment as a check on its internal measurements.
Dr. Snyder. What are the resourcing considerations for future
stability operations? How will they be reflected in future budget
requests?
Ms. Ward. DoD does not anticipate creating separate stability
operations budget lines for DoD capabilities, but is instead driving an
overall shift in priorities in capability development. As DoD continues
to identify key capabilities, ranging from doctrine to organization to
equipment, they will be reflected in the deliberations of the
Department and in budget requests. DoD will work through existing
budget frameworks and risk-informed deliberations of mission
assignments and program development across the Department. Future
resourcing for stability operations will be reflected in both programs
and in application of key authorities, such as those needed to develop
partner capacities.
Beyond DoD, the U.S. government is currently underinvested in
civilian capacity to conduct stability operations. During his recent
Landon lecture series speech, Secretary Gates highlighted the need for
``a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of
national security--diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign
assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and
development.'' Increasing resources for civilian capacity will be
critical in order to conduct successful stability operations in the
future. Likewise, as the capabilities of foreign partners become more
critical, changes to U.S. government programs that support functions
such as foreign train, advise and assist programs can be expected.
Dr. Snyder. According to GAO's testimony, DOD's policies and
practices inhibit sharing of planning information and limit interagency
participation in the development of military plans developed by the
Combatant Commanders. Specifically, GAO reported that there is not a
process for sharing plans with non-DOD agencies, early in the planning
process, without specific approval of the Secretary of Defense. What
actions is DOD taking to improve information sharing with interagency
partners early in the planning process?
Ms. Ward. DoD believes that the quality of DoD planning improves
with appropriate participation from other U.S. departments and
agencies; this has been the experience in Homeland Defense and War on
Terror efforts, where DoD routinely plans with other agencies in whole-
of-government efforts. However, DoD must balance the benefits of
sharing military contingency plans with the need for force protection,
operational security, timely plan development, and the limited capacity
of civilian agencies to participate in the DoD planning process.
Currently, DoD shares critical aspects of military plans with
elements of other agencies, while not necessarily sharing the entire
plan. In executing current operations, DoD encourages field
coordination between CoComs and Chiefs of Missions, and the assignment
of liaison officers for sharing information. DoD has recently taken the
step of inviting interagency representatives to participate in the
development of DoD strategic planning guidance. DoD intends to work
with other agencies to test new processes and fora for plans
coordination as well as solicit their input earlier in the planning
process. Additionally, the Departments of Defense and State are
reviewing personnel-detailing processes between the departments with
the intent of increasing collaboration. Finally, DoD strongly supports
National Security Presidential Directive-44 whole-of-government
planning efforts, which will guide the development of U.S. government
plans that military contingency plans may support.
DoD believes that these efforts, as well as increased involvement
of civilian agencies in reviewing DoD plans, will build those agencies'
ability to support DoD planning efforts.
Dr. Snyder. According to GAO, previous DOD planning guidance
considered four phases for military operations. However, DOD's revised
planning guidance now includes six phases of an operation. Could you
explain the significance of this shift and how it affects stability and
reconstruction operations?
Ms. Ward. The shift from four phases to six phases is significant
in that it emphasizes the importance of planning for and conducting a
variety of activities throughout an operation. The new construct
recognizes that all military operations are a combination of offensive,
defensive, and stability operations. The proportions of those
activities vary based on the operation's phase and type. This means
that greater emphasis in military planning will be placed on activities
conducted during: Phase IV--Stabilize; Phase V--Enable Civil Authority;
and back to Phase 0--Shape.
Dr. Snyder. Describe the interaction and relationship the
Department of Defense has with the Assistant to the President and
Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan in the
implementation of DOD Directive 3000.05 and NSPD-44.
Ms. Ward. DoD's primary interlocutors on the National Security
Council staff for implementation of DoD Directive 3000.05 and National
Security Presidential Directive-44 are through the Office for Defense
Policy and Strategy and the Office for Relief, Stabilization, and
Development (under the Deputy National Security Advisor for
International Economics). Those offices work with the Office of the
Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. DoD, as well
as State and NSC, are working to ensure lessons learned from across the
U.S. government and from these and other post-conflict engagements are
integrated into the development of new interagency doctrine, policy,
and capabilities.
Dr. Snyder. Your testimony cited several challenges that DOD has
encountered in implementing its stabilization and reconstruction
policy.
What are some of the significant challenges that DOD has
faced in identifying needed capabilities and measures of effectiveness?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. As discussed in our report on
DOD stability operations, we found that the identification of stability
operations requirements was occurring in a fragmented manner and that
DOD had yet to systematically identify and prioritize the full range of
needed capabilities.\1\ As a result, the services were pursuing
initiatives to address capability shortfalls that may not reflect the
comprehensive set of capabilities that will be needed to effectively
accomplish stability operations in the future. At the time of our
review we identified two factors contributing to DOD's limited progress
in identifying capabilities. First, DOD had not issued guidance or set
specific timeframes for the combatant commands to identify stability
operations capability requirements. Furthermore, Joint Staff officials
explained that the combatant commanders were expected to identify
capability requirements based on revised operational plans, but DOD had
not issued planning guidance to the combatant commanders to revise
plans to reflect stability operations activities. Joint Staff officials
expressed concerns that if combatant commands based their requirements
on existing plans that have not been updated to reflect new planning
guidance, the requirements would not reflect the more comprehensive
stability operations capabilities needed. Second, a lack of a clear and
consistent definition of stability operations resulted in confusion
across the department about how to identify activities that are
considered stability operations. For example, Air Force officials
stated in their May 22, 2006, Stability Operations Self Assessment that
the absence of a common lexicon for stability operations functions,
tasks, and actions results in unnecessary confusion and uncertainty
when addressing stability operations. In March 2007 they reiterated
that they still considered the lack of a common lexicon a hindrance in
identifying stability operations capabilities. Without clear guidance
on how and when combatant commanders are to develop stability
operations capability requirements, and a clear definition of stability
operations, the combatant commanders and the military services may not
be able to effectively identify and prioritize needed capabilities.
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\1\ GAO Military Operations: Actions Needed to Improve DOD
Stability Operations Approach and Enhance Interagency Planning, GAO-07-
549 (Washington, D.C.: May 31, 2007).
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Similarly, we found that DOD guidance did not clearly articulate a
systemic approach for developing measures of effectiveness and because
of significant confusion over how this task should be accomplished, DOD
had made limited progress in developing them. For example, the Army,
Navy, and Marine Corps had placed the development of measures of
effectiveness on hold pending more guidance and the Air Force believed
that they had met the requirement to develop measures through a
biennial review of Air Force Concepts of Operations \2\ conducted in
2005. At the time of our review, officials from DOD's office for
stability operations stated they were aware of the confusion
surrounding the development of measures of effectiveness and were
planning on conducting training that would help in developing the
measures. However, as noted in our report, without clear departmentwide
guidance and milestones for completing the measures, confusion may
continue to exist and DOD will be limited in its ability to assess its
efforts to enhance stability operations capabilities.
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\2\ Every two years, the Air Force conducts a comprehensive review
of the Air Force Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) that articulate the
capabilities needed and activities the Air Force must execute for the
Joint Force Commander. The Capability Review and Risk Assessment (CRRA)
process is the engine for capabilities-based planning. Inherent in the
CRRA process is the use of both internal and external analysis. Within
the CRRA process, the Air Force uses analyses provided by Risk
Assessment Teams and analytic organizations. The capabilities
identified in the CONOPS are consolidated in an Air Force Master
Capabilities Library.
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Dr. Snyder.
How does DOD typically identify capability gaps and to
what extent has this process been applied to examining stability
operations capabilities?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. During the course of our review
DOD identified a variety of methods being used to identify capability
gaps, and in their official comments to our report, stated that the
identification and development of stability, security, transition, and
reconstruction operations capabilities are not so different from other
DOD capabilities that they require new or separate methodology to
identify and develop military capabilities and plans. The methods
highlighted by DOD included:
Officials from the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy stated they intended to identify capabilities and
recommend priorities to the Secretary of Defense through an iterative
process where combatant commanders would compare planned requirements
for stability operations with current available forces and military
capabilities and propose remedies for eliminating gaps. The Joint Staff
would review these assessments and provide guidance to help identify
requirements. The combatant command requirements were then expected to
drive each service's development of stability operations capabilities
and capacity.
The use of Integrated Priority Lists.\3\
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\3\ A list of a combatant commander's highest priority
requirements, prioritized across Service and functional lines, defining
shortfalls in key programs that, in the judgment of the combatant
commander, adversely affect the capability of the combatant commander's
forces to accomplish their assigned mission. The integrated priority
list provides the combatant commander's recommendations for programming
funds in the planning, programming, and budgeting system process. Also
called IPL.
Joint Quarterly Readiness Reviews, which are a scenario-
based readiness assessment that identifies capabilities and risks
associated with missions that support strategic-level planning guidance
\4\.
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\4\ The Joint Chiefs of Staff are responsible for conducting a
Joint Quarterly Readiness Review, which is a scenario-based readiness
assessment that identifies capabilities and risks associated with
missions that support strategic-level planning guidance. Participants
in this review include the Combatant Commanders, senior representatives
from DOD, the Military Services, and other DOD components.
Other approaches, such as the Army's ongoing process to
address gaps in Army stability operations capabilities and capacities
and the Air Force's use of an analytical capabilities-based planning
model that identifies specific shortfalls related to stability
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
operations.
At the time of our review, however, limited progress had been made
by the department in identifying and prioritizing needed capabilities,
and at the three combatant commands we visited, we found that the
identification of stability operations requirements was occurring in a
fragmented manner. This limited progress was caused by weakness in
DOD's guidance, the absence of specific timeframes to complete
capability gap analysis and confusion over how to define stability
operations.
Dr. Snyder. According to your report, previous DOD planning
guidance considered four phases for military operations. However, DOD's
revised planning guidance now includes six phases of an operation.
Could you explain the significance of this shift and how it affects
stability and reconstruction operations?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. By expanding its planning
construct to consider shaping efforts to stabilize regions so that
conflicts do not develop and expanding the dimensions of stability
operations that are needed in more hostile environments after conflicts
occur, DOD has recognized the importance of deliberately planning for
stability and reconstruction operations. This change in the planning
construct reflects a fundamental shift in DOD's policy that designates
stability operations as a core mission that shall be given priority
comparable to combat operations, and emphasizes that planning for
stability and reconstruction activities is as important as planning for
combat operations. In addition, this shift in policy and planning
guidance requires DOD planners to understand and incorporate the roles,
responsibilities, and capabilities that all agencies and organizations
can contribute to stabilization efforts into military plans.
Additionally, DOD must collaborate with non-DOD agencies to coordinate
its planning efforts with representatives from various U.S. agencies,
organizations, other governments, and the private sector.
Although DOD has taken steps to establish interagency coordination
mechanisms and to improve interagency participation in its planning
efforts, it has not achieved consistent interagency representation or
participation at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of
planning. At the time of our review, we identified the following three
factors that limited interagency participation in DOD's planning
efforts:
DOD had not provided specific guidance to commanders on
how to integrate planning with non-DOD organizations.
DOD practices inhibited the appropriate sharing of
planning information with non-DOD organizations.
DOD and non-DOD organizations lacked an understanding of
each other's planning processes and capabilities, and non-DOD
organizations had limited capacity to fully engage in DOD's planning
efforts.
As a result, the overall foundation for unity of effort in
stability operations--common understanding of the purpose and concept
of the operation, coordinated policies and plans, and trust and
confidence between key participants--is not being achieved.
Dr. Snyder. According to your testimony, recent changes in policy
and guidance require State and DOD to integrate their stabilization and
reconstruction plans and to coordinate those plans with relevant
government and non-governmental organizations. Can you describe the
relationship between the planning framework State is developing under
NSPD-44 and the planning improvements you suggest DOD pursue for
improving interagency participation in military planning?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. As a part of its implementation
of National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD-44), State's
Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS)
led development of the Interagency Management System (IMS) for managing
high-priority and highly complex operations. IMS is designed to guide
communications and interagency coordination between Washington policy
makers and Chiefs of Mission, as well as between the civilian and
military sectors. NSC approved IMS in March 2007. Although S/CRS and
military combatant commands have jointly led exercises and simulations
to test the system and train personnel in using it, as of November
2007, IMS had not been applied to any stabilization and reconstruction
operations.\5\ As a result, it is difficult to know how effectively
civilian and military plans would be coordinated in an actual
operation.
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\5\ The NSC Deputies and Principals Committees must approve use of
IMS for any operation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As described above, the IMS is a mechanism that has been developed
by S/CRS to integrate planning for high priority and highly complex
operations, and the NSC Deputies and Principals Committees must approve
its use. In contrast, the planning improvements we suggest in our
report on DOD stability operations is focused on the wide range of
military plans combatant commanders develop for potential contingencies
on a routine basis for which they may need to seek input from other
agencies or organizations. In our report, we stated that although DOD
has taken steps to establish interagency coordination mechanisms and to
improve interagency participation in its planning efforts, it has not
achieved consistent interagency representation or participation at all
levels of planning; and that to successfully integrate planning
efforts, DOD and non-DOD organizations must overcome a lack of
understanding of each other's planning processes and capabilities, and
differences in each others planning cultures and capacities.
To improve military planning efforts we recommended that the
Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Secretary of State take
the following three actions:
Provide specific implementation guidance to combatant and
component commanders on mechanisms to facilitate and encourage
interagency participation in the development of military plans that
include stability operations-related activities.
Develop a process to share planning information with the
interagency representatives early in the planning process.
Develop an approach to overcome differences in planning
culture, training, and capacities among the affected agencies.
Dr. Snyder. According to GAO's testimony, DOD's policies and
practices inhibit sharing of planning information and limit interagency
participation in the development of military plans developed by the
Combatant Commanders. Specifically, you reported that there is not a
process for sharing plans with non-DOD agencies, early in the planning
process, without specific approval of the Secretary of Defense. What
actions should DOD take to improve information sharing with interagency
partners early in the planning process?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. As noted in testimony and our
stability operations report, at the time of our review, DOD did not
have a process in place to facilitate the sharing of planning
information with non-DOD agencies, when appropriate, early in the
planning process without specific approval from the Secretary of
Defense. Specifically, DOD policy officials, including the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations, stated that it
is the department's policy not to share DOD contingency plans with
agencies or offices outside of DOD unless directed to do so by the
Secretary of Defense, who determines if they have a need to know. In
addition, DOD's planning policies and procedures state that a combatant
commander, with Secretary of Defense approval, may present interagency
aspects of his plan to the Joint Staff during the plan approval process
for transmittal to the National Security Council for interagency
staffing and plan development. This hierarchical approach limits
interagency participation as plans are developed by the combatant
commands.
Additionally, according to State officials, DOD's process for
sharing planning information at the time of our review limited non-DOD
participation in the development of military plans, and invited
interagency participation only after the plans had been formulated. In
their opinion, it is critical to include interagency participation in
the early stages of plan development at the combatant commands.
Likewise, in the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy's interim report
to the Secretary of Defense on DOD Directive 3000.05, it was
acknowledged that DOD would continue to face serious problems
concerning the release and sharing of information among DOD, other U.S.
government agencies, international partners, and other non-governmental
organizations.\6\ The interim DOD report attributed issues in
information-sharing to DOD policies and emphasized that to improve
information-sharing capabilities senior leadership direction is
required. Therefore, as stated in our report, we recommended that to
improve information sharing between DOD and non-DOD agencies early in
the planning process, systemic solutions are needed and can be achieved
through improved guidance and more effective processes to appropriately
share planning information with interagency representatives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Interim Progress Report on DOD Directive 3000.05, Military
Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR)
Operations (Washington, D.C., August 2006).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Snyder. According to GAO's testimony, State's planning
framework provides unclear and inconsistent guidance on the roles and
responsibilities within the agency between S/CRS and its regional
bureaus.
What steps should be taken to clarify the roles and
responsibilities of organizations within State and among federal
agencies? Who has the authority to clarify the roles and
responsibilities government-wide?
Please provide examples of what specific guidance is
unclear or inconsistent.
What consequences could occur be if State does not
clarify the roles and responsibilities?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. To address concerns about
various actors' roles and responsibilities within the framework, we
recommended that the Secretary of State clarify and communicate
specific roles and responsibilities within State for S/CRS and the
regional bureaus, including updating the Foreign Affairs Manual.\7\ We
also recommended that the development of the framework be completed,
and that it be fully applied to an actual operation. Fulfilling this
second recommendation would require that the Secretary of State work
with interagency partners, including NSC, not only to clarify roles and
responsibilities within State, but also the roles and responsibilities
of agencies other than State. We also stated that although the NSC need
not approve all elements of the framework, without such approval, it
will be difficult to ensure that the U.S. government agencies
collaborate and contribute to planning efforts to the fullest extent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ GAO, Stabilization and Reconstruction: Actions Are Needed to
Develop a Planning and Coordination Framework and Establish the
Civilian Reserve Corps, GAO-08-39 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In November 2007, we reported that NSPD-44, related State and
administration guidance, and the planning framework collectively do not
provide clear direction on roles and responsibilities in two key areas.
First, S/CRS's roles and responsibilities conflict with those assigned
to State's regional bureaus and Chiefs of Mission. According to the
Foreign Affairs Manual, each regional bureau is responsible for U.S.
foreign relations with countries within a given region, including
providing overall direction, coordination, and supervision of U.S.
activities in the region.\8\ In addition, Chiefs of Mission have
authority over all U.S. government staff and activities in their
countries.\9\ As S/CRS initially interpreted NSPD-44, S/CRS's roles and
responsibilities included leading, planning, and coordinating
stabilization and reconstruction operations; these responsibilities
conflict with those of the regional bureaus and Chiefs of Mission. S/
CRS officials stated that they expected the next version of the Foreign
Affairs Manual to include a clearly defined and substantive description
of the office's roles.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Foreign Affairs Manual, 1 FAM 112(a).
\9\ 22 U.S.C. 3927.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, guidance varies regarding S/CRS's responsibility for
preventing conflicts. NSPD-44 and the memo announcing S/CRS's creation
include conflict prevention as one of the office's responsibilities.
However, S/CRS's authorizing legislation and a State memo aligning S/
CRS with the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance do not explicitly
include conflict prevention as a responsibility. Ambiguity about S/
CRS's prevention role could result in inadequate prevention efforts.
One DOD official in the Global Strategic Partnerships office stated
that responsibility for prevention is currently unassigned, and the
work might not be done without such an assignment.
The overlap and ambiguity of roles and responsibilities have led to
confusion and disputes about who should lead policy development and
control resource allocation. As a result, some of State's regional
bureaus resisted applying the new interagency planning process to
particular reconstruction and stabilization operations. In addition,
State and other agency staff said S/CRS had conflicts with Director of
U.S. Foreign Assistance over which office controlled resource
allocation for these operations, which also made it difficult for S/CRS
to coordinate and plan reconstruction and stabilization operations
using the framework.
Dr. Snyder. According to GAO's testimony, State's interagency
planning framework for stability and reconstruction operations is not
fully approved nor has it been fully applied to any operation. What are
the most significant challenges that S/CRS is facing in completing and
testing this framework and how would they be best addressed?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. Three challenges have slowed
development and acceptance of both S/CRS and the planning framework.
First, some civilian interagency partners are concerned that S/CRS is
assuming their traditional roles and responsibilities. Staff from one
of State's regional bureaus believed that S/CRS had enlarged its role
in a way that conflicted with the Regional Assistant Secretary's
responsibility for leading an operation and coordinating with
interagency partners. USAID staff noted how their agency had planned
and coordinated reconstruction operations in the past and questioned
why S/CRS now had these roles. Although most agency staff and outside
experts we interviewed agreed that interagency coordination should
improve, some USAID and State employees questioned why NSC was not
given the primary role for planning and coordinating stabilization and
reconstruction operations or for implementing NSPD-44.
Second, some interagency partners stated that senior officials have
provided limited support for S/CRS and its planning framework. Staffs
from various State offices said senior officials did not communicate
strong support for S/CRS or the expectation that State and interagency
partners should follow its framework for planning and coordinating
reconstruction and stabilization operations. In addition, S/CRS was not
selected to lead planning for recent high-priority operations, such as
the ongoing efforts in Lebanon and Somalia, which several officials and
experts stated are the types of operations S/CRS was created to
address. Finally, NSC approved the Interagency Management System (IMS)
as the mechanism for communicating and coordinating across U.S.
government sectors and between the field and strategic levels. Although
NSC approved the mechanism in March 2007, as of November 2007 it had
not initiated its use despite a resurgence of civil unrest in Lebanon
and Pakistan.
Third, interagency partners believe the planning process, as
outlined in the draft planning guide, is too cumbersome and time
consuming for the results it produces. Officials who participated in
the planning for Haiti stated that the process provided more systematic
planning, better identification of interagency goals and
responsibilities, and better identification of sequencing and resource
requirements. However, some officials involved in planning operations
for Haiti and Sudan stated that using the framework was time consuming,
involved long meetings and extra work hours for staff, and was
cumbersome to use because it was overly focused on process details.
Staff also said that, in some cases, the planning process did not
improve outcomes or increase resources, particularly since S/CRS has
few resources to offer.
Although many agencies participated in the framework's development,
concerns remain over the roles and responsibilities for S/CRS, State's
regional bureaus, and the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance. As a
result, we recommended that the Secretary of State clarify the roles
and responsibilities for stabilization and reconstruction activities
within State, including updating the Foreign Affairs Manual. Moreover,
the planning guide remains incomplete and unapproved by NSC. Although
there is no requirement that NSC approve this element of the framework,
without such approval it will be difficult to ensure that U.S.
government agencies collaborate and contribute to interagency planning
efforts to the fullest extent possible. Therefore, we also recommended
that that the Secretary of State, in conjunction with NSC and other
interagency partners, complete the framework's development and test its
usefulness by fully applying it to a stabilization and reconstruction
operation.
Dr. Snyder. According to the preliminary observations GAO
presented, State is facing several challenges in establishing and
maintaining a rapid deployment corps.
What are some of the most significant challenges that
State and other civilian agencies are facing in developing a civilian
response capability?
What are some of the effects on stabilization and
reconstruction operations if civilian agencies cannot develop the
capability and capacity to rapidly deploy in support of stabilization
and reconstruction operations?
Mr. Christoff and Ms. St. Laurent. State and other agencies face
three primary challenges in establishing internal rapid response
capabilities. First, S/CRS has had difficulty establishing positions
and recruiting for the Active Response Corps (ARC) and training Standby
Response Corps (SRC) members. S/CRS plans to increase the number of
authorized staff positions for ARC from 15 temporary positions to 33
permanent positions, but S/CRS staff said it is unlikely that State
will receive authority to establish all 33 positions. Although S/CRS
has not had difficulty recruiting SRC volunteers, it does not presently
have the capacity to ensure the additional 1,500 volunteers it plans to
recruit by 2009 are properly trained.
Second, although other agencies have begun to develop a
stabilization and reconstruction response capacity, most have limited
numbers of staff available for rapid responses to overseas crises.
Since most agencies primarily focus on domestic issues, it is difficult
to obtain either funding or staff for international operations not
directly related to their core domestic missions. Finally, deploying
volunteers, whether from State or other agencies, can leave home units
without sufficient staff to complete their respective work.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA
Ms. Davis. It is our understanding that if a military officer
serves in a PRT it is not considered a joint station or joint
experience in the same way that we think of jointness in the Services
and that their need to be able to do that in terms of career
development and career ladder. Are PRT commander billets identified as
``joint billets''?
Ms. Ward. Officers serving in PRT commander positions may request
their experiences be reviewed to determine if they warrant the award of
joint experience points.
From the inception of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 until 30
September 2007, the DoD Joint Officer Management (JOM) program was a
billet-based system. By policy, temporary positions (such as a PRT
commander post) were not authorized on the Joint Duty Assignment List
(JDAL) due to the tour length requirements in Title 10, USC, Section
664. However, statutory changes in the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2007 provide broader opportunities for officers to
earn joint credit.
DoD re-issued DoD Instruction 1300.19 in October 2007, updating the
Joint Officer Management Program and reiterating DoD policy that a
significant number of officers be educated, trained, and experienced in
joint matters to enhance the joint war fighting capability of the
United States through a heightened awareness of joint requirements,
including multi-Service, interagency, international, and non-
governmental perspectives. The new Joint Qualification System is dual-
track, counting both assignments in JDAL positions as well as the
accrual of joint experiences, no matter where they occur. Therefore,
officers may now earn joint experience points from duties other than
JDAL positions. The accrual of joint experience points, along with
requisite Joint Professional Military Education, leads to joint
qualifications.