[Senate Hearing 110-549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-549
THE MILITARY'S ROLE IN DISASTER RESPONSE: PROGRESS SINCE HURRICANE
KATRINA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 19, 2007
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
37-361 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
BARACK OBAMA, Illinois PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN WARNER, Virginia
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Eric P. Andersen, Professional Staff Member
Alistair F.A. Reader, Legislative Assistant
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Asha A. Mathew, Minority Senior Counsel
John K. Grant, Minority Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Lieberman............................................ 1
Senator Collins.............................................. 3
Senator Stevens.............................................. 23
WITNESSES
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Peter F. Verga, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs, U.S.
Department of Defense.......................................... 5
General Victor E. Renuart, Jr., U.S. Air Force, Commander, North
American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command... 7
Vice Admiral Roger Rufe, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.), Director,
Office of Operations Coordination, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security....................................................... 10
Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, U.S. Army, Chief, National
Guard Bureau................................................... 12
Major General John W. Libby, U.S. Army, Adjutant General, Maine
National Guard, and Commissioner, Maine Department of Defense,
Veterans, and Emergency Management............................. 14
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Blum, Lieutenant General H. Steven:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 67
Libby, Major General John W.:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 75
Renuart, General Victor E., Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Rufe, Vice Admiral Roger:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 63
Verga, Peter F.;
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 31
APPENDIX
``Report to the Senate Committee on Armed Services and the House
Committee on Armed Services on Department of Defense Civil
Support, '' April 2007, submitted by Mr. Verga................. 80
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Verga.................................................... 101
General Renuart, Jr.......................................... 112
Vice Admiral Rufe............................................ 120
Lt. General Blum............................................. 137
Major General Libby.......................................... 147
THE MILITARY'S ROLE IN DISASTER
RESPONSE: PROGRESS SINCE
HURRICANE KATRINA
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:50 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, Collins, Stevens, and Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. Good morning. The hearing will come to
order. Thanks to everyone, particularly our distinguished panel
of witnesses, for being here. I am going to start. Senator
Collins has been unavoidably delayed, but we work so well
together. There is this kind of extrasensory--thanks. Welcome,
Senator Collins.
Almost 2 years ago, Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed a
governmental emergency response system that was shockingly
underprepared. Most local, State, and Federal emergency
agencies--with a few exceptions, like the Coast Guard and the
Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Service--stumbled while the region
drowned. And many lives were lost.
In the immediate aftermath of that disaster, we in the
Federal Government, and the American people more generally, had
to face a big, painful question: Why weren't we better prepared
for a disaster that we knew one day was going to happen?
Today's hearing, which will focus specifically on the role
of our Nation's military in responding to disasters, is an
important part of this Committee's ongoing efforts to ensure
that we won't ever have to ask that question that we asked
after Hurricane Katrina again.
The response of our Nation's military--both active duty and
National Guard--to Hurricane Katrina was ultimately
unprecedented and very important. More than 70,000 military
personnel deployed to the Gulf Coast from all across the
country, bringing with them helicopters, ships, medical
support, and logistical capabilities.
However, as this Committee's investigation into the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed, there were very
serious weaknesses in planning, preparedness, and coordination
within the Department of Defense and between the Department of
Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.
In March of this year, the Commission on the National Guard
and Reserves, tasked by Congress with assessing the role that
the Department of Defense should play in homeland defense,
reached this sobering conclusion:
``Although the current DOD Strategy for Homeland Defense
and Civil Support states that securing the U.S. homeland is
`the first among many priorities,' DOD, in fact, has not
accepted that this responsibility requires planning,
programming, and budgeting for civil support missions.''
The Commission made a number of thoughtful recommendations
to ensure that the active and reserve components of the
military, the Department of Homeland Security, and the States
can respond more effectively and seamlessly to a disaster.
To his credit, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has agreed
with a majority of those recommendations and directed the
Department to begin an aggressive implementation schedule to
improve the military's ability to provide support after
domestic disasters--both natural and terrorist.
We have a very impressive and important group of witnesses
here today, and I hope that their testimony and answers can
help us answer three questions.
First, exactly what should we expect from the military in
providing and carrying out the homeland security mission?
Second, what is the Department of Defense doing to put in
place the planning, programming, and budgeting necessary to
carry out that mission?
And, third, are the Department of Defense and the
Department of Homeland Security doing everything they can
within the current structure to ensure an effective,
coordinated response to a catastrophic disaster, not just a
natural disaster but a catastrophic disaster such as Hurricane
Katrina, including a catastrophic terrorist attack with weapons
of mass destruction?
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) issued just 2 days
ago found that al Qaeda remains intent on conducting and
carrying out attacks on our homeland, and the NIE ominously
warned, ``We assess that al Qaeda will continue to try to
acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or
nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them
if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.''
Are we prepared to prevent and respond to such attacks?
Well, in April of this year, the Preventive Defense Project
of Harvard and Stanford Universities, co-chaired by Ashton
Carter and William Perry, provided an answer to that question
that is not reassuring. The project brought together leading
Federal, civilian, and military officials, and other experts
from other levels of government and the private sector, and
asked them a tough question: What would our Nation do in the 24
hours following a nuclear attack on a U.S. city?
The conclusion of Mr. Carter and Mr. Perry is jarring:
Policymakers who they questioned in Washington, they found,
continue to believe that State and local officials will be able
to control the situation ``the day after'' a nuclear attack.
Yet Mr. Carter and Mr. Perry argue, ``as the fiasco after
Hurricane Katrina suggests, most cities and States will quickly
be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the humanitarian, law and
order, and logistical challenges of responding to a nuclear
detonation.'' The result, they say, ``is a failure to plan
realistically.''
Now, that sounds too much like the lack of preparedness
that contributed so much to the failed response to Hurricane
Katrina, and I know all of us know that we cannot allow that to
happen again. That is one big reason why we are holding this
hearing today with a sense of urgency, why I appreciate the
presence of the witnesses here, and why I look forward to their
responses, not just to the questions I pose but to the
conclusion of the Carter-Perry study.
Senator Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Senator Collins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Every American who witnessed Hurricane Katrina's assault on
the Gulf Coast and its aftermath has reason to feel proud of
the men and women of America's armed forces. Whether active
duty or National Guard, our military worked heroically and
humanely to help rescue victims, maintain order, and provide
vital services.
As Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul McHale told the
Committee during our investigation of the Hurricane Katrina
disaster, the American military response--some 50,000 National
Guard members and 22,000 active duty troops--was the largest
domestic deployment since the Civil War. It was indeed a
massive effort and a vital one for a devastated region and its
suffering people.
As we also learned during our investigation, however, more
help could have arrived sooner and been used more effectively
with better planning, situational awareness, and coordination.
Our Committee report on Hurricane Katrina spoke, in fact, of a
``rapid but uncoordinated response.''
Most disturbing was the lack of coordination among military
headquarters in the early stages of the response. As Secretary
McHale testified, ``National Guard planning, though superbly
executed, was not well integrated with the Joint Staff at
NORTHCOM.'' The director of operations at Northern Command told
us that lack of a central overview of the massive State
responses to the disaster prevented proper integration of
capabilities and tasking of units until they arrived in the
devastated region, and I think the Chairman and I will never
forget the testimony of Admiral Keating, saying that Northern
Command was unaware of the breaching of the levees until they
read the papers the next morning.
Our Hurricane Katrina investigation also produced seven
specific recommendations for improving coordination between the
Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act which we
authored implemented several of them.
I can attest that at least one of our codified
recommendations has already borne fruit. Each of FEMA's 10
regional offices now has a Defense Coordinating Officer in that
region, working directly with FEMA. I attended a FEMA exercise
in New England this spring, and I heard over and over again
that this arrangement has greatly improved operating
relationships and communication.
I am also pleased to hear that better coordination among
planning staffs has been established and that the work advances
on the 15 National Planning Scenarios. Fleshing out these
plans, which include how we would respond to catastrophes such
as earthquakes, pandemic flu, small-scale nuclear attacks, and
a toxic industrial accident, is a vital part of preparing an
effective response. Each of these scenarios could require a
major response from DOD as well.
Work by FEMA and DOD to streamline and predefine the
``mission assignment'' process that caused so many delays
during the response to Hurricane Katrina and was so
bureaucratic is also another welcome sign of progress.
As the Committee's report on the Hurricane Katrina
investigation demonstrated, the number and scale of natural and
manmade threats to our country demanded progress on many
fronts. We not only need better contingency planning, but a
more aggressive, forward-leaning posture as identifiable
threats emerge and requests for civil support can be
anticipated. We need better training, exercising, and
communication. And, again, I think there has been some real
progress in those areas. And we need better protocols for
handling Emergency Management Assistance Compact requests among
States, better arrangements for Federal and State command and
coordination of effort, and greater clarity on balancing a
President's ability to call on National Guard troops to restore
order while preserving the States' very important and lead role
in responding to natural disasters.
Because the National Guard is such a vital part of our
response capability, I am delighted that we have with us today
the representative of the State Adjutant Generals to FEMA's
National Advisory Council, and I am particularly proud and
delighted that he comes from the great State of Maine. Our
Adjutant General Bill Libby has deep experience in emergency
management, and I am delighted to welcome all of our witnesses
today, but particularly General Libby, with whom I have worked
very closely.
The views and issues before us today are matters of
considerable concern to this Committee because they are
literally potentially matters of life and death for American
citizens.
Again, I want to thank the Chairman for holding this
hearing so that we can better assess the progress that has been
made since Hurricane Katrina, and I am sure our witnesses will
help us identify areas where work remains to be done.
Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins, for that
excellent statement. Thanks particularly, among other things,
for pointing out the pleasure and pride that I share that the
recommendations in the FEMA reform legislation that emerged
after our investigation are now being implemented and that a
representative of the Department of Defense is present in each
of the 10 regional offices, which should give people around the
country a greater sense of security.
Again, I thank all of you for being here. We have allotted
up to 10 minutes to each of you for your opening statement, and
we will begin now with Peter Verga, who is the Acting Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas'
Security Affairs. Good morning.
TESTIMONY OF PETER F. VERGA,\1\ ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE AND AMERICAS' SECURITY AFFAIRS,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Verga. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, other
Members of the Committee, thank you very much for the
opportunity to appear today. In order to maximize the time we
have for questions, I am going to keep my opening remarks very
brief and to the point, but I would ask that a full statement
be made part of the record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Verga appears in the Appendix on
page 31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Lieberman. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Verga. The greatest threat in today's security
environment is the nexus between transnational terrorism and
chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons,
as we call it. It was highlighted in the National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE). You mentioned in your opening remarks that
weapons proliferation does pose the greatest threat we have
today.
Unlike our adversaries during the Cold War, terrorist
adversaries consider CBRN weapons ``weapons of first resort,''
not last resort. And should they ever acquire such weapons, we
can be certain that they will use them against the United
States at their very first opportunity.
Our Nation, in cooperation with our international partners,
has taken the fight to where the terrorists organize, plan, and
train to keep them from striking Americans at home and abroad.
But we must also think about and be prepared for that which we
hope will never happen--that is, the use of such a weapon on
American soil. And while we must be prepared for such a
catastrophic event, at the same time we must think about and be
prepared for those natural disasters and other emergencies
which occur with regularity, albeit sometimes with unexpected
intensity, as was demonstrated during Hurricane Katrina. As has
been well documented, in terms of people displaced, businesses
disrupted, economic effect, Hurricane Katrina was one of the
most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency are, of course, those agencies
responsible for the coordinated U.S. national effort to prepare
for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters and other
events, including terrorist CBRN attacks. DOD, at the direction
of the President or the Secretary of Defense, as appropriate
and consistent with the law and the imperative to maintain
military readiness, provides critical consequence management
support to civil authorities as part of a comprehensive
national response.
With few exceptions, the capabilities and capacities that
the Department of Defense can bring to bear in a natural or
manmade disaster are designed for combat operations and the
wartime protection of DOD's personnel and facilities. For the
most part, DOD relies on general purpose military forces, dual
capability units, or other existing DOD elements to support
civil authorities in domestic consequence management.
In case of a CBRN incident, such dual capability forces
including the National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil
Support Teams, National Guard CBRNE Enhanced Response Force
Packages, our Joint Task Force Civil Support, the Marine Corps'
Chemical-Biological Incident Response Force, the Army's
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Teams and Technical Escort Units,
and the CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces.
In terms of preparation for natural disasters, the
Department has acted upon the lessons identified in the White
House, Senate, and House of Representatives examinations of the
response to Hurricane Katrina. I have included in my formal
statement for the record a copy of the report \1\ which was
required by the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2007 on the Department's implementation of the
recommendations identified in the White House and House of
Representatives reports. Examples of some of the
implementations have already been cited by the Chairman and
Senator Collins: Close collaboration with the Department of
Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) in planning and preparing for catastrophic incidents;
assignment of a Defense Coordinating Officer and Defense
Coordinating Element to each of the 10 FEMA regions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The report submitted by Mr. Verga appears in the Appendix on
page 80.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Secretary of Defense recently signed and we published
an execution order providing the commander of U.S. Northern
Command--my colleague, General Renuart--with specific forces
and resources to employ in case of a hurricane: Installations
to be used as FEMA mobilization centers, medium and heavy lift
helicopters, search aircraft, and other capabilities.
And in coordination with our colleagues at the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, we have drafted pre-scripted
requests for assistance for transportation, communication,
debris removal, and other types of support. And the Defense
Logistics Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency
have entered into a Memorandum of Agreement to procure, store,
rotate, and provide supplies, including meals, health and
comfort kits, generators, and other types of support. We have
also had annual and biannual exercises to ensure readiness and
identify potential gaps and weaknesses in our plans and
readiness.
Mr. Chairman, I commend you and the Members of the
Committee for your leadership in these important matters, your
continued interest, efforts, and support for the Department of
Defense in the defense of the United States and our ability to
support civilian authorities here at home.
I look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Secretary, for a good opening
statement.
Am I correct that you are ``Acting'' because Secretary
McHale is on military reserve duty in Afghanistan?
Mr. Verga. He is, sir. Secretary McHale, who is also a
member of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, went on active duty
last December, deployed to Afghanistan. He has just returned
back to the United States. He will be resuming his duties on
August 1.
Chairman Lieberman. Give him our thanks and our best
regards.
Mr. Verga. I will.
Chairman Lieberman. And thank you for sitting in for him.
Next we have General Victor Renuart, Commander of the North
American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command.
General, glad you are here. I believe this is the first time
you have testified before the Committee since you have taken
over this command. I know you come to it with extraordinary
experience, and we look forward to working with you and hearing
you now.
TESTIMONY OF GENERAL VICTOR E. RENUART, JR.,\1\ U.S. AIR FORCE,
COMMANDER, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND AND U.S.
NORTHERN COMMAND
General Renuart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins,
and Members of the Committee, I too am grateful for the
opportunity as the new commander of both of those commands--
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S.
Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)--to have the opportunity to come
and talk to you today and answer questions from the Committee
on a variety of topics relating to our missions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of General Renuart appears in the
Appendix on page 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you know, both NORAD and USNORTHCOM have the
responsibility for homeland defense operations, conduct of both
active and National Guard-supported missions to defend the
homeland, as well as supporting civil authorities during some
of the disasters we have talked about here.
In fact, if you look at the events that we have seen in
London just a few days ago, it reminds us why homeland defense
must be the highest priority that our Nation gives to its
military, and we at NORAD and USNORTHCOM stand ready to conduct
those missions.
In the area especially of support to civil authorities
during disasters, we have worked very hard since Hurricane
Katrina and in response to not only recommendations of the
Committee but guidance from the Department of Defense to ensure
that we are prepared and ready for each of the contingencies
that are captured not just in a Chemical, Biological,
Radiological, Nuclear, and High-Yield Explosive (CBRNE) event
or a hurricane, but also in any one of the 15 National Planning
Scenario events that have been highlighted by the government.
We plan for, train for, and integrate the military unique
capabilities that Mr. Verga mentioned just a moment ago into
the overall response provided by the Department of Homeland
Security, by FEMA, and, equally importantly, by the States.
Each governor, each adjutant general has particular roles. I am
pleased to say I had a chance to visit Major General Libby and
Governor Baldacci in Maine just a few weeks ago to talk about
this particular element of integrating USNORTHCOM capabilities,
integrating the National Guard into a force that allows the
governor to respond within his State. And so we have worked
very hard to ensure that our Federal partners, as well as our
State partners, understand that our job is to help make them
successful.
One of the most challenging disasters we prepare for is, as
we have mentioned, the chemical, biological, radiological,
nuclear, high-yield explosive event, again, called CBRNE. Just
a few months ago in Exercise ARDENT SENTRY, we experienced one
of those events in an exercise, a 10-kiloton improvised nuclear
device exploded just outside of Indianapolis. The unified and
integrated efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, the
State of Indiana, the National Guards of not only Indiana but
the surrounding States, and Title 10 forces from U.S. Northern
Command not only was impressive to watch but allowed us to
really understand and acknowledge some of the problems you
mentioned, where it is very difficult for any one State or any
one entity to deal with a disaster of that size. But from that
we learned how we can become better integrated, how we can
combine our forces in a way that truly takes advantage of the
interdependent relationships of each of those agencies as we
respond to something on that order of magnitude. And that can
occur in an accident or intentionally, and so we have to be
prepared for something similar to chemical explosions that we
have had in plants on the East Coast in previous years. So
whether it is manmade or natural, USNORTHCOM has to be prepared
to support and respond.
We have developed specific plans for each of these
disasters, and we have worked hard with the Federal agencies
that we sit here with today to ensure that the response is
seamless, that the capacity and capabilities flow in time to
allow the responders to absorb, as well as the public to feel
confident that they are getting the right support from their
State and the Federal Government.
We have a specific Joint Task Force, our Joint Task Force
Civil Support, which focuses on weapons of mass destruction
response, and, in fact, I just installed their new commander
yesterday down at Fort Monroe. A National Guard officer, Major
General Long, is eager to help continue to improve and increase
the capacity of that organization and stand ready to support
any of the Federal and State agencies that may need it in an
event of a disaster.
I have tried to highlight so far--and I will continue to
foot-stomp on this as I go through my statement--our teamwork
relationship with the National Guard, with the Reserves of the
various components, and with our Federal agencies is critical
to ensuring that the response is adequate to the event.
I would also like to say that we are working closely with
international partners in the same regard. USNORTHCOM's Area of
Responsibility includes both Canada and Mexico, and we have
been in close contact with military and civilian agencies in
both countries to ensure that a response to a CBRNE event in
either country could be supported with forces available and
unique capabilities available from both countries. But we need
some assistance.
There is an act being considered now, the Building Global
Partnership Act of 2007, that will allow us to improve the
homeland defense and civil support efforts not only of the
United States but of our neighbors. In fact, that will increase
our capacity to respond in our border areas for events like the
Vancouver 2010 Olympics upcoming. We would ask, while not
specifically under the purview of this Committee, but we would
ask the support of the members as this is considered in
upcoming discussions on the floor.
Recently, NORAD and USNORTHCOM completed Exercises ARDENT
SENTRY and NORTHERN EDGE, as I mentioned. This was the largest
and most comprehensive set of national-level exercises ever
undertaken. Our objectives, outlined in my written statement,
provide an excellent point of departure for our key exercise
events. While we continue to finalize our lessons learned, it
is clear that collaboration and communication are the key
threads that support the important missions of homeland defense
and support to civil authorities.
Hurricane preparedness, a focus of this Committee and
certainly one of all of the agencies represented here, is an
important area where collaboration, preparation, and
communication are critical. U.S. Northern Command has made
great strides in preparing for the 2007 hurricane season.
Senator Collins, I appreciate your noting the presence of the
Defense Coordinating Officers in each. These are post-brigade
command Army officers in the grade of colonel with combat
experience who understand not only the importance of planning
for a difficult operation, but in executing it. I think they
have all received rave reviews. Our role has been to increase
the staff so that they have the muscle in the planning process
to allow them to be successful, and we continue to look for
ways to expand those relationships with the various regions of
FEMA.
Working with the various States, the Department of Homeland
Security, the National Guard, and our other partners, we have
conducted conferences, tabletop exercises, and collaborated
routinely to ensure we are ready to respond to these natural
disasters. We recently exercised our hurricane preparation
during Exercise ARDENT SENTRY with a simulated Category 3
hurricane striking the New England region, and, in fact, both
of your States were represented in that exercise, and I had the
opportunity to meet the adjutant generals of Connecticut,
Massachusetts, and Rhode Island during this discussion. But
importantly, we demonstrated the value of the Defense
Coordinating Officer as well as the integration of State
Emergency Operations Centers, the Joint Field Office with the
regional director from FEMA, as well as our Joint Task Force
Headquarters. What we found is that there are no gaps in
command and control, in integration, and in intent. The ability
to bring those together in a cohesive fashion really was a
significant element of progress made since Hurricane Katrina.
USNORTHCOM continues to work closely with our National
Guard and reserve components. I am pleased to have my National
Guard advisor, Major General Rick Nash, here with me today. We
believe these efforts and initiatives really help us to
increase our communication, our collaboration, and our
cooperation. And we have especially worked hard with both FEMA
and the Department of Homeland Security to strengthen the unity
of effort.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, the men and women of
USNORTHCOM remained focused on homeland defense, and we are
prepared to support civil authorities in any activity.
Additionally, we seek to be joint in all we do. We use
interagency cooperation as much as possible, and we push that
with each of our agency partners. And we are not hampered by
who is in charge or who gets credit. In fact, the guidance we
have given to our staff is that our role is to make the Federal
agencies, the governor of a State, and the adjutant general a
hero, and they do not need to even know that USNORTHCOM is
there. We just need to make it succeed.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, thank you for your time, and
I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, General Renuart. Your
testimony was encouraging, and I think we ought not to take for
granted the transition that has occurred. The Command over the
decades of the Cold War was really primarily responsible for
defending the United States from attack from the air, including
nuclear attack, from the Soviet Union. And after September 11,
you took on this additional responsibility of homeland defense,
which now in some sense is a central responsibility for you. So
I appreciate it very much. I know we will have some questions
for you.
Next is Vice Admiral Roger Rufe, retired from the U.S.
Coast Guard, now coming before us as Director of the Office of
Operations Coordination at the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security. I cannot resist saying, if I may paraphrase
MacArthur, that it is not that you are an old general, but
retired admirals of the Coast Guard do not fade away. They,
fortunately, hang in there and continue to work for us at the
Department of Homeland Security, and I thank you for taking on
this assignment. Admiral, we look forward to your testimony
now.
TESTIMONY OF VICE ADMIRAL ROGER RUFE,\1\ U.S. COAST GUARD
(RET.), DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF OPERATIONS COORDINATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Admiral Rufe. Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, Members of the
Committee, thank you very much for this opportunity to discuss
with you the ongoing coordination between DHS and the
Department of Defense for catastrophic events.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Admiral Rufe appears in the Appendix
on page 63.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My colleagues in their prepared remarks today have, I
think, laid out in a very complete form the very extensive
military support to and coordination with the Department of
Homeland Security, so I am not going to go over that ground
with you. I instead would like to concentrate my few moments
here on the planning aspect of what we do with our partners at
DOD. Mr. Chairman, both you and Senator Collins mentioned that
extensively in your opening remarks, and I know it is a
particular interest of yours.
As you know, under the Homeland Security Presidential
Directive-5 (HSPD-5), the Secretary is named as the ``principal
Federal official'' for domestic incident management, and it
also directs the Secretary to coordinate the Federal
Government's resources used in the response to and recovery
from terrorist acts, major disasters, or other emergencies.
The Secretary's unique interagency responsibilities
accentuate the importance of interagency planning--the very
difficult job, I must say, of interagency planning. One of my
primary roles in my job is to support the Secretary in
coordinating our national-level strategic interagency planning
effort.
Two of the critical recommendations related to planning
from the Federal response report to Hurricane Katrina after
action was to, first, create a permanent planning body within
DHS; and, second, to develop for the first time a formal
planning process that could be used to build interagency plans
for the 15 national planning scenarios, and we have done both
of those things.
In August of last year, less than a year ago, the Secretary
directed the creation of the Interagency Incident Management
Planning Team (IMPT), and directed me to oversee their actions
in planning for the 15 planning scenarios. The mission of the
IMPT is to provide national-level contingency planning and
crisis action incident management planning through a
collaborative, interagency process. The IMPT's planning process
is designed to be at the strategic level, whereas FEMA's
planning responsibility is at the operational level, as laid
out in the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.
The IMPT's initial efforts have been to develop national
strategic level interagency concept plans that address each of
the 15 National Planning Scenarios. Each plan developed by the
IMPT identifies the actions that individual departments and
agencies, including DOD, will take in the event of a given
scenario, and they identify the national level commitments in
one complete comprehensive document. To date, the IMPT has
developed draft plans--and I stress they are draft plans at
this point--to address the 10-kiloton improvised nuclear device
scenario, the pandemic influenza, radiological dispersal
device, major hurricane, and improvised explosive device.
In the effort to put together a planning system that would
allow us to develop these plans, DHS developed a National
Planning and Execution System, which we developed with a great
deal of support from DOD as they are really the only partner in
the interagency that has a well-developed planning system. And
because of that, we made sure that our efforts were quite well
integrated with the planning system that DOD uses called the
Joint Planning and Execution System (JOPES). We borrowed
extensively--in fact, stole shamelessly--from some of the
concepts therein and modified it to be more appropriate for the
interagency and more civilian jargon. But it is now a very well
accepted planning system. We have now trained over 500 members
of the interagency in the planning system, so it is now being
dispersed and disseminated to our partners in the interagency
for their use in developing the plans that they need to prepare
for.
Once we have these plans on the shelf, in order to improve
them, modify them, and make them more effective over time, we
need to validate them through the exercise planning system.
General Renuart mentioned ARDENT SENTRY. We were very active
participants in the ARDENT SENTRY exercise this year, both in
the hurricane scenario in Rhode Island, as well as the 10-
kiloton nuclear device, which gave us the opportunity for the
first time to test in an exercise this draft plan that we had
put together through the IMPT. We are now developing a
radiological dispersal device (RDD) plan that we will have in
draft form in time for the TOPOFF 4 exercise, which will occur
in October. It will give us an opportunity at that time to test
that plan against an RDD-type scenario.
We have worked very closely with DOD in all these planning
efforts. They not only are active participants on the IMPT in
terms of providing us support, but we also have been engaged
with them ensuring that the planning they are doing, which,
quite frankly, is in advance of our planning, is fully
integrated for each of the 15 planning scenarios.
As you mentioned, I am an old admiral, Mr. Chairman. I
retired from the Coast Guard in 1999, so I am kind of a Cold
War guy, and so I relate to what you described as far as the
transition in the Department of Defense. Since I returned to
public service just a year ago, I, frankly, have been surprised
and actually quite heartened by the deep and broad commitment
that I have seen from all elements of the Department of Defense
in protecting the homeland and working with the Department of
Homeland Security and with the interagency. We could not ask
for better partners in our efforts than our shipmates at DOD.
I thank you both, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins, and I
look forward to your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Admiral, and we look
forward to the question period, too.
Next we have Lieutenant General Steven Blum, Chief of the
National Guard Bureau, who is a familiar face here, one we
always enjoy having, and we always benefit from your testimony.
Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL H. STEVEN BLUM,\1\ U.S. ARMY,
CHIEF, NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU
General Blum. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Senator
Collins, and other Members of the Committee. Thanks for the
opportunity to discuss the role of your military in disaster
response here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of General Blum appears in the Appendix
on page 67.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since September 11, 2001, we have all worked very hard to
transform the National Guard to be better prepared to respond
here at home in either a homeland defense or support the
homeland security role. As you are well aware, on September 11,
we had zero Joint Force Headquarters, only 10 civil support
teams, no Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Enhanced
Response Force Packages, no critical infrastructure protection
assessment teams, zero National Guard Reaction Forces that were
trained, organized, and equipped to respond on short notice,
and zero Computer Emergency Response Teams. Today I am pleased
to tell you that we have 54 of each of those, 17 enhanced
response force packages, and the old civil support teams that
were established by Congress that were only 10 on September 11,
now today we have 55, and hopefully that will grow in the
future to 57.
In addition, we have rebalanced 80,000 jobs in the National
Guard in the last 5 years to train them from Cold War
specialties to what we need today in today's real-world
requirements. While we have made huge strides in training and
exercising with our DOD partners, we are still not funded to
participate in joint Department of Homeland Security exercises.
The National Guard in the States are funded and trained to go
to war, but they are not resourced to participate in large-
scale homeland security preparation exercises.
I am honored to testify today with the gentlemen on this
panel, all of them, from DOD, from NORTHCOM, from DHS, and from
the States. The post-Katrina relationship between the States,
the National Guard Bureau, the Department of Defense, the U.S.
Northern Command, and the Department of Homeland Security grows
stronger every day. This Committee needs to know that. We have
worked very hard at it. Today, all of us sitting before you
have a better understanding of the supported and supporting
relationships that are necessary in times of crisis.
I was the first Chief of Staff at NORTHCOM when it was
established, and we all knew then we did not get everything
perfect on the first attempt. I am extremely encouraged by
General Renuart's committed leadership to making the changes
that are required as problems are identified. There will always
be room for improvement. We will never get it perfect. Within
the Federal Government, though, we need a Department of
Homeland Security, a Department of Defense, and a State
cooperative planning process. This country needs and deserves
that.
We need, at the Federal level, specifically defined
requirements and measuring metrics so that we can analyze the
dual-use military equipment that we use in a homeland defense
or homeland security response scenario. We need homeland
security resource requests for military equipment to be
submitted so that they get visibility here at the Congress.
We need to train together. We need better visibility on the
capabilities of our interagency and intergovernmental partners.
Together this group represents a football team that is getting
ready for the ultimate Super Bowl, and we need to train,
exercise, scrimmage, practice, and huddle on a regular basis
together.
Our Nation's governors have stated their assessment is that
their National Guard units in the States are underequipped for
homeland security missions. As you know, the National Guard
today has 53 percent of their required combat equipment, the
dual-use equipment needed in an emergency, on hand here in the
United States. The ability of each governor, as the commander-
in-chief of his or her National Guard, to plan and execute for
the first response to an emergency is absolutely critical and
essential to them. Governors know their local emergency
capabilities and they know their limitations. Capable local
response saves time. Saving time results in saving lives.
There are operational models in place that the Federal
Government might want to emulate, such as Israel's military/
civil support system, the Joint Interagency Task Force South
that is in existence, the Incident Command System that our
emergency responders use all over our Nation. These are great
models that the Federal Government may want to take a look at.
In Maine, and many States like it, people like Adjutant
General Bill Libby have full visibility on both their civil and
military disaster response capability. General Libby deploys
resources in response to his known weak areas. His weak areas
are well known to him, but we cannot know those intuitively at
the national level, so we have to rely on local knowledge.
In the National Guard, we have begun to build a joint
capabilities database to fill this gap. National Guard units
report their readiness to respond to various disaster
scenarios, and they can include information on their civil
first responder partners. We share this information with DOD
and U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland
Security.
Thank you for your efforts to improve the ability of the
Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the
National Guard, and the States to work together, and I look
forward to your questions, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, General. I will wait for the
question period, but did you say that the National Guard at
this point is not funded to participate in the large-scale
homeland defense exercises?
General Blum. That are conducted by the Department of
Homeland Security, yes, sir. They are funded to do the ARDENT
SENTRY----
Chairman Lieberman. So you were involved in ARDENT SENTRY.
General Blum. Very heavily involved. That was probably, in
my judgment, the finest exercise conducted by DOD and the
National Guard here domestically to date.
Chairman Lieberman. That is great. OK, thanks.
Major General John W. Libby, U.S. Army, Adjutant General,
Maine National Guard, with the very heavy responsibility of
protecting Senator Collins in time of need. We thank you for
that, and we look forward to your testimony now.
TESTIMONY OF MAJOR GENERAL JOHN W. LIBBY,\1\ U.S. ARMY,
ADJUTANT GENERAL MAINE NATIONAL GUARD, AND COMMISSIONER, MAINE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, VETERANS, AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
General Libby. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify
today. I want to emphasize at the beginning that I am here
today representing the State of Maine and the Adjutants General
Association of the United States (AGAUS), and my contemporaries
throughout the country. Although I am a federally recognized
and U.S. Senate-confirmed general officer, I am here today
speaking as a State official in State status at State expense
and expressing issues and interests that reflect the State's
sovereign interests.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of General Libby appears in the Appendix
on page 75.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wear multiple hats in the State of Maine. In addition to
being a Cabinet-level commissioner on the governor's staff--my
Cabinet, by the way, does include emergency management--I am
also the adjutant general and the governor's homeland security
adviser. Among my peers, this puts me in a rather unique
situation wearing all of those hats.
In my judgment, the place in the United States where the
emergency management process is best integrated between
military, civilian, and business partners is at State level,
and this is a model, I think, that this Committee and the
Federal Government needs to look at more closely.
There is an emergency management axiom that suggests that
all disasters are local; therefore, all response is local. And
the governors have a sovereign responsibility to carry out in
their respective States emergency preparedness, response, and
recovery activities in the name of the health and welfare of
the citizens of their respective States.
When the resources to manage such events exceed the ability
of the States, clearly we reach outside the States through
mutual aid agreements, the Emergency Management Assistance
Compact. In New England, the New England Governors and the
eastern Canadian premiers have signed the International
Emergency Management Assistance Compact similar to the Pacific
Northwest Compact, which allows us to reach out to
international partners. But I want to spend the bulk of my time
this morning making some observations about the process.
I believe there is an emerging exchange of information,
views, and identification of capabilities taking place between
DOD, DHS, and the States. As has been stated already, Maine was
one of several States that General Renuart visited recently.
The governor and I were immediately impressed by his
philosophy, his candor, and his understanding of the States'
sovereign roles. He articulated clearly his understanding that
Federal military resources brought to the State would be at the
request of, and in support of, the governor.
We had a very interesting discussion about a term that we
obsess about on both sides--``dual-hatted command''--and
frankly concluded, the governor and I concluded, and I think
the general agrees with us, that what we are looking for in
Maine and in other States, although we can only speak for
Maine, in the presence of Federal resources is support.
The governor and I have no issues with Federal troops
remaining under the command and control of either their normal
chain of command or a Title 10 cell in the State of Maine. What
we are looking for is the opportunity to assign tasks,
designate missions, and give authoritative directions necessary
to complete those missions. What we do not want or need in the
presence of Federal resources is to direct matters of
administration, discipline, logistics, internal organization,
or unit training. What I am describing is a term of art that we
call ``operational control,'' and we look forward to continuing
that discussion with NORTHCOM.
General Renuart also articulated and distinguished between
his understanding and we agree with the need to deploy Federal
resources in advance and the need to employ Federal resources
at the request of the governor. We talked at length on several
occasions this morning about the valued presence of the Defense
Coordinating Officer and the DCE elements at each of the FEMA
region offices. They are critical.
We also talked about the fact that in developing a common
operational picture, there is a problem right now in that 40-
plus States are using WebEOC, and that is not a system that is
employed universally throughout the emergency management
system.
And, interestingly, from the governor and my standpoint,
but encouragingly, the General supports the continued
discussion about the role of reserve capability that resides in
every State with regard to its availability to the governor in
the event of a Federal declaration.
General Renuart is continuing the dialogue begun by Admiral
Keating, and we look forward to the AGAUS Homeland Security
Subcommittee and meeting with him and his staff at the end of
this month to continue that discussion.
From our point of view, if there is a shortfall in the lack
of dialogue, it occurs between the States and DHS. And it
occurs principally because in many States the TAGs do not find
themselves in my position where they wear the multiple hats
that I wear. And I would point out to you a FEMA Region I
initiative under the leadership of Art Cleaves which I think
addresses this problem. Region I convenes quarterly homeland
security forums for the regional States. Art includes in those
forums the State's homeland security adviser, the State's
adjutant general, and the State's EMA director. I may be the
one guy from Maine representing all three of those positions,
but from Massachusetts, by way of example, there are three
different people in the room.
What that forum does in its inclusiveness is it ensures
that none of those three principal partners at the State level
are out of the information loop. I think it is a model worth
adopting nationwide.
I would be remiss if I did not commend the Commission on
the National Guard and Reserve for their recommendation on the
establishment of a bipartisan Council of Governors. The issues
surrounding a properly layered response to a major disaster are
primarily, in my opinion, about communications and
coordination, and this council will enhance both.
I would be so bold from the State perspective as to make
some recommendations to you this morning.
One, preserve the ability of the State Governors to direct
the emergency response in their respective States through the
repeal of Section 1076 of the 2007 Defense Authorization Act.
Two, reinforce the intent of HSPD-5 which states that the
Secretary of Homeland Security is responsible for coordinating
the Federal resources to prepare for, respond to, and recover
from a terrorist attack, a major event, or other emergencies.
The understanding of that Homeland Security ``Chain of
Command'' at the Federal level is critical to communications
and coordination.
Three, accept the Commission on the National Guard and
Reserve's recommendation that the commander or deputy commander
of NORTHCOM be a National Guard officer, and note that I have
not said National Guard or Reserve officer. It is our opinion
that only a National Guard general officer who has risen
through the ranks of the National Guard can fully understand
the concept of the governor's roles and sovereign
responsibilities. That is something that I would argue a U.S.
Army Reserve officer cannot.
And, finally, institutionalize NIMS within the DOD
educational system. It is the language with which we speak at
State level in responding.
In conclusion, I would say within the Department of
Homeland Security there is an organization, FEMA. It is the
only organization that speaks efficiently, effectively, and on
a daily basis from Washington, Maine, to Washington, DC. And I
think FEMA needs to play a critical, an increased role in
interagency coordination. I would close by quoting Casey
Stengel, and, Senator, I apologize for this. Casey said,
``Getting good players is easy. Getting them to play together
is the hard part.'' We have great players.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, General. That was excellent.
Thanks for your suggestions. I presume your apology for quoting
Casey Stengel, a great manager of the New York Yankees, was
directed to Senator Collins, who is a Red Sox fan.
Senator Collins. It was.
General Libby. You are correct, sir. [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much for the excellent
testimony.
We are going to have 8-minute rounds of questions for the
Senators. Let me begin by asking you a question that I am going
to ask you to give a one-word answer to, yes or no, and then I
am going to come back with a second one to give you plenty of
time to elaborate on it. But I want to go to the conclusion
that I mentioned in my opening statement that Ashton Carter and
Bill Perry drew from this Defense Project in which they
interviewed a great number of Federal civilian, military, and
other experts, and the conclusion, I will repeat--which they
presented with regret--was that policymakers in Washington
continue to believe that State and local officials will be able
to control the situation the day after. And in this case, of
course, they were looking at the day after the extreme
catastrophic circumstance of a nuclear attack, but,
unfortunately, that is the world in which we live.
Do each of you agree, from your own perspective, that
policymakers in Washington continue to believe that State and
local officials are going to be able to control the situation
in a catastrophe the day after? Mr. Verga.
Mr. Verga. No, sir, I do not believe so.
Chairman Lieberman. General Renuart.
General Renuart. Mr. Chairman, no, I do not believe that.
Chairman Lieberman. OK. I can feel your desire to add to
that, so I will come back to it.
Admiral Rufe.
Admiral Rufe. Nor do I, sir, and I participated in that
roundtable, so I would be happy to answer further.
Chairman Lieberman. Good. General Blum.
General Blum. No, sir, I do not think so, and I think the
word ``control'' is the problem. I would like to address that.
Chairman Lieberman. Good. General Libby.
General Libby. No, sir.
Chairman Lieberman. OK. So let's come back and let me frame
this question and give you a little more time. This is the
quote that I had from the Commission on the National Guard and
Reserves, in which they said, ``Although the current DOD
Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support states that
securing the U.S. homeland is `the first among many
priorities,' DOD, in fact,'' they concluded, ``has not accepted
that this responsibility requires planning, programming, and
budgeting for civil support missions.''
So to turn it into the question that we have on our minds
and that I can tell you our constituents have on their minds:
If we accept the initial assumption, which is that State and
locals in a catastrophe are going to be overwhelmed, as they
were in Hurricane Katrina, are we prepared for a coordinated
response from the get-go and specifically from the Department
of Defense and Homeland Security? Mr. Verga.
Mr. Verga. Sir, with regard to the specific recommendation,
the Commission is correct in that we do not plan, program, and
budget for support to civil authorities' missions per se, with
a few exceptions, such as weapons of mass destruction civil
support teams, things like that.
Chairman Lieberman. That is important, though. That is
relevant to the scenario that I was----
Mr. Verga. Yes, sir. And I think that serves the Nation
well because, quite candidly, to set up essentially a dual
military structure that says you are going to have one set of
capabilities that are designed, organized, trained, and
equipped to operate with the civilian authorities alone and
another set of capabilities that are designed for your overseas
warfighting missions is sort of a false choice. And what we
need to be able to do is employ those dual capability units and
our general purpose military forces in that coordinated manner
that General Renuart spoke about to meet those needs that the
civilian communities do not have.
In addition, I would very much support efforts to enhance
and increase the capabilities in the civilian communities. You
have noted the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support.
That actually has three tenets to it: A concept of lead,
support, and enable--things in which the Department of Defense
will clearly be in the lead, the air defense of the country
against air attack, for example, the military defense of the
country against military threats. Supporting civil authorities
with capabilities that we have that they need that are not
appropriate to be invested in the civilian community. There is
no need for the civilian community to have extensive ability to
do aerial reconnaissance, for example, or to do space-based
things, communications, for example.
The other is that enable concept, and that is where we take
capabilities the Department of Defense has or capacities, quite
honestly, talents, plans, procedures, and then enable our
civilian partners, such as helping Department of Homeland
Security with their operational planning system, translating
the Joint Operational Planning System into a civilian
equivalent. And that is, I think, where we need to place our
greatest emphasis.
Chairman Lieberman. OK. General Renuart, Senator Collins
made reference to something we found in our investigation of
Hurricane Katrina, but Admiral Keating, your predecessor, was
not directly involved initially in the response to Hurricane
Katrina. As I recall, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon
England watched what was happening on TV and acted just because
of that kind of informal public notice in order to get Northern
Command involved.
So are we better prepared now for a quick response by our
military in the case of a local catastrophe in the United
States?
General Renuart. Mr. Chairman, absolutely we are, and I say
that without any doubt. We have spent a great deal of time
working through our Defense Coordinating Officers but, more
importantly, working directly with the States that, for
example, in the case of the hurricanes are likely to be
affected by these storms, working directly with their Adjutants
General, with their State emergency management directors, and
with the governors themselves, to ensure that we understand
where they do have vulnerabilities and gaps.
The National Guard Bureau has a great stoplight chart that
can show you by level of hurricane, as the hurricanes become
more intense, where the States begin to have shortfalls. Our
role is to plan for those shortfalls and to be prepared to fill
in those gaps, not when they call for the response but to be
prepared prior.
Mr. Verga mentioned the Secretary signed out an order in
the last couple months that is giving me authority to mobilize
and deploy a substantial force, not just necessarily of a
standing brigade combat team but, rather, tailored kinds of
capability--the ability to do reconnaissance of a damaged area,
communications capability so that we do not have a repeat of
the gaps in communication and the inability for first
responders at the State level and military responders and
assistants to communicate.
The ability during the exercises that I have mentioned for
us to integrate command and control capabilities, it is not an
issue of who is in command but, rather, how do we get all of
those nodes to talk to each other.
Finally, as Mr. Verga mentioned, we really have spent a lot
of money since Hurricane Katrina and really in recognition of
the importance of these national planning scenarios to train,
fund, and equip teams at the State, at the regional, and at the
Federal level to respond to a CBRNE event. So I am much more
comfortable, and I think if Admiral Tim Keating were sitting
here today, he would give you the same answer.
Chairman Lieberman. Good. Admiral, from the DHS
perspective?
Admiral Rufe. Yes, sir. Just to go back a little bit to the
Carter-Perry report, I participated in that roundtable, and I
do not think that was the conclusion that I drew from it. It
was the conclusion, I think, of the people around that table
that clearly an event of that nature would overwhelm State and
locals even in a city as well prepared as New York and that
there needed to be a strong and immediate Federal response to
that. But, more importantly, I think it recognized the fact
that no matter how well prepared we are--and we still have much
to do--an event that horrific in terms of the number of dead,
the number of people irradiated, the extent of radiation
contamination, which would leave a large area uninhabitable for
an extended period of time, and on and on, that the emphasis
ought to be placed certainly on preparing for such an event
but, more importantly, on preventing such an event.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, absolutely. Obviously, we have
spent a lot of time, including on this Committee--I appreciate
your mentioning it--on both the work that your Department of
Homeland Security does and the Director of National
Intelligence does, along with other parts of our government,
obviously DOD, to prevent these attacks from occurring. So we
are focused here--and it is important to point that out--on the
response.
General Blum and General Libby, do you have a word or two
from the perspective that you have, which is more uniquely a
State perspective?
General Blum. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The
question that I wanted to respond to was the words ``control
the situation.'' There is no State or local government that is
equipped and prepared to deal with the type of event that you
describe. You are talking about a nuclear detonation in a
large-population area. It will absolutely require all of the
elements of this Nation's power to respond in a support role to
the constitutionally established civilian governance that
exists or survives that event.
Chairman Lieberman. And, quickly, of course.
General Blum. Absolutely. It has to be immediate, and that
requires preplanning and pre-thinking. The type of exercises
that we conducted in Indianapolis take us a far, far, giant
step forward in being better prepared. We are not fully
prepared, but I will tell you we are far better prepared today
than we were just several months ago, and dramatically better
prepared than we were 5 years ago.
Chairman Lieberman. And, obviously, you are speaking from
the perspective of the National Guard.
General Blum. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I am speaking from the
perspective of the National Guard, but the National Guard as a
player on a team with the Department of Defense, the U.S.
Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security, and the
States. From my position on the team, the team is far better
prepared. Are we fully prepared? No.
Chairman Lieberman. General Libby.
General Libby. Yes, sir, thank you. I do not disagree with
anything I have heard, and I would simply say that I do not
think any of us at State level anticipated, prior to Hurricane
Katrina, that a State would be overwhelmed as quickly as
Louisiana was.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
General Libby. And I would tell you that all of us now take
seriously that one part of our responsibilities to our
governors is to prepare them for the eventuality that a State
may be overwhelmed. I think that is where we are focusing our
attention right now. Clearly, the response to that and the
protocols that will direct that response are being developed
above us. But I think our obligation at the State level is to
prepare each one of these politicians who are our governors for
the reality that the State can be overwhelmed, and they need to
be prepared to deal with that, and the protocols are in place.
Chairman Lieberman. Very important. Thank you. That is the
critical point that is hard for some people to understand. We
are distinguishing here between a natural disaster, which can
have significant adverse effect--a normal hurricane or a
tornado--and, on the other hand, a catastrophic disaster, which
was what Hurricane Katrina was. Again, we need to have these
discussions about a WMD attack against the United States here
in this kind of session in a rational way. We are in a very
different place, of course, than we have been before, and it is
not a place any of us want to be, but that is where we are, as
the National Intelligence Estimate said yesterday. So one can
imagine even a WMD attack that would be controllable in a local
area, but you can imagine others, such as a nuclear attack,
that would be catastrophic and would totally overwhelm State
and local and where all of you are going to be very important.
Thank you very much for those answers.
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Blum, in January you testified before the
Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, and you said,
``Eighty-eight percent of the forces that are back here in the
United States''--this is after having been deployed--``are very
poorly equipped today in the Army National Guard.''
A GAO report that was also released in January found that
most State National Guard leaders had also expressed concerns
about having sufficient equipment to respond effectively to a
large-scale disaster, whether natural or manmade.
What is your assessment today of whether the National Guard
has sufficient resources to provide adequate support to civil
authorities in the event of another catastrophic event like
Hurricane Katrina?
General Blum. Senator, let me put it to you this way: If it
is a predictable event, we have enough equipment in the United
States to move it and preposition it with advance notice, both
in the National Guard and then if I do not have it in the
National Guard, I can get it from the other elements of DOD. In
a predictable event, I can do that, as we have done in
preparation for this hurricane season that we are in right now.
All the Coastal States from Maine to Texas have
predetermined requirements of the equipment that they do not
have. In Maine, for example, General Libby has requirements if
a hurricane were to hit the coast of Maine. He knows what he
has and he knows what he needs. We know where it is coming
from, and that is the chart to which General Renuart alluded.
The fact that he knows about the chart and the Department
of Defense knows about the chart and the Department of Homeland
Security knows about the chart, and the States built the
charts, is very important. That did not exist 4 years ago. In a
predictable event, we can make do with not having enough
equipment because we can move it around.
In a no-notice event, we are at risk, and we are at
significant risk. In the kind of event that Chairman Lieberman
is describing, we would be at great risk.
Senator Collins. I appreciate that assessment.
General Libby, General Blum mentioned a database that the
National Guard Bureau has developed of 10 key areas of
capabilities for missions that the National Guard would be
called upon to perform in the event of a disaster, such as
transportation, logistics, and security. And the intent, if I
understand it correctly, of this database is to show which
States are mission ready in each of the 10 areas. The database
also requires each of the TAGs to report on mission readiness
not only for the National Guard units but also for other State
agencies, such as medical or HAZMAT capabilities.
Now, you are in a unique situation because you wear all
those hats in Maine, but that is not the case in most States.
Do you think this database is a feasible, realistic, and
accurate description of the capabilities for other States?
General Libby. Yes, I do, Senator, because, again, it is
being developed at State level, and despite the fact we are
organized uniquely from State to State, the development of that
database, while it might be an action of the TAG because it
involves looking at Department of Transportation, marine
resources, inland fisheries and wildlife, and the like, takes
place in what we call the emergency response team level at
State level. So I am satisfied that occurs.
Again, I think where the disconnect in communication occurs
is that database can be developed and shared upwardly, but in
the communication that comes down the pipe from DHS in
particular, if we do not provide a forum--and Art Cleaves is
doing that at FEMA Region I--where we get those disparate hats
into the room when one person does not wear them all in the
State, that is where our communication gaps occur.
I also need to point out to you that as we have gone
through transformation in the National Guard, there has been a
recognition at the National Guard Bureau level that these 10
essential capabilities are, in fact, essential for each
governor to carry out his or her responsibilities for their
citizenry, and there has been a magnificent effort at the
National Guard level, as we have gone through transformation,
to ensure that we all have some piece of those essential
elements.
So I am absolutely satisfied that the data that is
reflected on those charts has been vetted properly at State
level.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
General Libby, General Blum just told us that if there is a
catastrophic event that is unpredictable--not a hurricane that
you know is coming but, for example, a terrorist attack would
be an unpredictable event--he believes that we are at
significant risk because we have not sufficiently equipped the
National Guard to help provide the adequate response to civil
authorities.
Is that your assessment for the State of Maine as well?
General Libby. Yes, Senator it is. We spend the bulk of our
time in Maine, as they do in all of the other 53 States and
Territories, looking at the risks that we have assessed that
the State faces and focusing our attention on those risks. They
have not included until very recently the catastrophic type
events that we are talking about here this morning, but I am
absolutely satisfied that in Maine--and I think I can speak for
virtually the other 53 States and Territories--and concurring
entirely with the Chief's assessment, we are not prepared to
deal with those type of catastrophic events.
Senator Collins. General Renuart, the Commission on
National Guard and Reserves in its March report stated that the
commander of U.S. Northern Command does not sufficiently
advocate for the full range of civil support requirements
affecting the National Guard, and the report goes on to say
neither do the chiefs or the vice chiefs of the Army or the Air
Force.
The Commission went on to say that it had raised this issue
repeatedly with witnesses from both the Department of Defense
and DHS, but that no one person is a real advocate in this
area. Could you comment on that?
General Renuart. Senator, I would be happy to, and I
appreciate that question, and I think at the time of the
Commission's report, the statement was accurate. I do not think
it is accurate today.
First, given the additional authority from the Secretary of
Defense, the Commander of USNORTHCOM is the advocate for the
National Guard and the Reserve in the budgeting process within
the Department of Defense. And as a result, I take the
assessments that General Blum and the Adjutants General (TAGs)
put together on the gaps that exist out there in terms of
funding for their equipment. And in this budget cycle, I will
be carrying them forward in my commander's Integrated Priority
List, which is the way that we put requirements into the Joint
Requirements Board process within the Department of Defense,
and compete them for funding.
Now, the Committee I know is aware that through the work of
the National Guard Bureau and the Secretary of the Army and the
Chief of Staff of the Army, in the 2008 to 2013 budget cycle,
there is a substantial infusion of money into equipping the
National Guard, some $21 billion over that 5-year period. That
will not solve all of the issues that we have worked. Our job
at USNORTHCOM is to look at those unique gaps that exist
between what I will call traditional warfighting missions and
the missions that the governors would ask the National Guard to
do to respond to a catastrophic or a natural disaster event in
their State.
We then will take that through the funding process and
advocate that, whether it is before the Committees or in our
normal budgeting process.
So I think today we have a much clearer process whereby the
Commander of U.S. Northern Command will be a principal advocate
for the National Guard in this process.
Senator Collins. Secretary Verga.
Mr. Verga. Thank you, ma'am. I would add to what General
Renuart said that the U.S. Northern Command, in conjunction
with our office, is, in fact, leading something we call a
``capabilities-based assessment'' of the homeland defense and
civil support missions that the Department might have to
undertake. That capabilities-based assessment will, in fact,
result in our ability to work within the requirement-setting
process so that we can, in fact, meet those needs that are
identified there.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Collins.
Senator Stevens, glad to have you here this morning.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much. I am sorry to be
late.
I have come primarily because of a problem that I ran into
in Alaska. I do not want to get too provincial about this, but
our fire situation nationally is becoming one of the major
natural disasters that we all face. I have found that the
planes that have been used to scoop up water from our lakes and
drop it on the fires are now non-existent, that they have all
been taken out of our State, one-fifth the size of the United
States. We have more than 60 percent of all the timber of the
United States in one State. The last two planes are in Arizona,
I am told, that are available to the system.
Now, it is not a National Guard problem per se, but I think
we need to look at developing new strategies to deal with some
of these emergencies, such as fires. I had occasion to visit
with our adjutant general, who is a great friend and a very
competent man, and we talked about the use of helicopters that
they have to lift the buckets of water. They are not as
efficient as the planes used to be. Why we have passed up the
concept of building a new generation of planes to fight fires I
do not know, but we do not have any. I am told that these last
two are under contract, as a matter of fact, not even owned by
the Federal Government.
Admiral Rufe, you and General Renuart and General Blum, I
have worked closely with all of you over the years on a lot of
things. So I was surprised to find this problem, that it had
not been addressed, so far as I can find out, and Arizona now
has the planes. And it is logical because they are down close
to the place where more development and more individuals might
be affected by fires. If I were managing it, I probably would
have made the same decision, send them where the fires will
occur in later summer. Our fires, incidentally, occur primarily
before the 4th of July. But that is because of the storms. They
are primarily set off by lightning, although this last one was
caused by a young man who was sharpening a shovel with a file.
We will not go into that, but the difficulty I have is planning
ahead. We now have beetle kill in the West that has killed so
far about one-third of the trees in the national forests, and
we expect that to continue to expand. The beetle kill is an
enormous fuel for fires.
Is anyone addressing the question of equipment for the
National Guard to meet emergencies? I do not know if you all
have gone into that. This is just one instance of the type of
equipment. We have the total force there equipped for war, but
are they equipped for national emergencies of this type? Should
we have someone make a study of the equipment that you all need
to meet these new contingencies? I certainly think it is going
to be a budget problem.
What do you think about this? How can we handle this
equipment problem, particularly where we have a situation where
the primary tool for fighting fires--and I am told that was the
best tool we had, the aircraft--is gone.
General Renuart. Senator, if I might lead off, that is a
great question. I appreciate that. I would tell you that you
are correct, the contract process for that has a smaller
footprint than it has ever in the past. Of course, that is run
and coordinated by the National Interagency Fire Center that is
out in the West in the United States today.
While we do not have in the Department of Defense specific
airplanes designed for that process, I do have and the
Secretary signed an execute order (EXORD) that will allow me
authority to keep six C-130s--in fact, they are based at
Peterson Air Force Base. I fly with that unit. They are
configured with a modular airborne fire fighting system. They
are available at the request of the National Interagency Fire
Center, and they can be deployed anywhere in the country.
So we have chosen to retain that capability with this unit.
That particular unit owns 12 airplanes. We have six of the
airborne systems, and to this point, the fires have been such
that the request has not been exercised. However, I have the
authority to deploy them on a telephone call.
Senator Stevens. Well, let me tell you, the fire that I
went to see this last recess was one that was very interesting
because the first 2 days, the cost of fighting that fire was
very small. It was contained. The third day it got away, and
the increased cost of that fire to the Federal Government and
to the State government and some of the private owners was
horrendous. It increased 40-fold.
The planes had left Alaska the day before that fire
started, and where you have those planes, it is going to take
at least a day or two to get up to where we are.
Why can't we work out some regimen with the National Guard
for emergency use of some of these helicopters and these
buckets? It will at least be of some use. But, also, why can't
we get a study on getting them back into Federal ownership?
Those are Canadian planes, as I understand it. We are
chartering them from Canada after their fire season is over.
Mr. Verga. Sir, if I may, of course, we work with the
Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, when we are
talking about what we do in support of wildland firefighting.
It is coordinated, as the General said, through the National
Interagency Fire Center, which is out in----
Senator Stevens. I understand that, Mr. Secretary, but you
know how long that takes? That takes 3 days if you are dealing
with Alaska. In that 3 days, the fire consumes another 80,000
acres of timber.
Mr. Verga. Yes, sir. With regard to the availability of the
National Guard aircraft--helicopters, for example, that would
be up in Alaska--it is within the authority of all local
commanders to include Title 10 forces, or anything, to use DOD
resources in support of an emergency, to prevent great property
damage, save lives, or mitigate suffering. We call it the
emergency immediate response authority. So the local commander
of a base, if he has a helicopter and it is equipped with--the
term is ``Bambi Bucket''--the buckets that scoop up and drop
water, has the authority on his own to be able to respond.
Again, the modular airborne firefighting system that
General Renuart talked about had been procured by the Forest
Service and are flown on National Guard and Air Force Reserve
aircraft, which are available for deployment at the direction
of the center that is coordinating forest fire response
throughout the country.
Senator Stevens. Mr. Secretary, none of those carry water.
You are talking about C-130s. They are not going to be capable
of carrying water like the old planes we used to scoop up water
with. And these people have not been trained to fly buckets and
trained to coordinate with the ground crews to fight fires with
those buckets.
Now, I am saying to you it is nice to say you have got that
coordination on the books. I do not think there is a finer
commander in the country than General Campbell, and he tried
his best. The difficulty is to get this coordination going
while the fire is going on. To my best knowledge, there is no
current arrangement for training of some of the local National
Guard people to work with the firefighters to deal with these
situations if they occur.
Second, why should we get down to the point that a Nation
this size has two planes left that will scoop up the water and
dump it on the fire, which is the best method of stopping a
fire immediately.
Mr. Verga. Yes, sir.
Senator Stevens. I really cannot accept the fact that you
have got a lot of things in agreements. If you had them in
agreements, they did not work in this case. And I do not think
they are working currently down in the South 48, either.
Mr. Verga. I will commit to you, sir--we had a similar
situation in California about 3 years ago when we ran into the
problem with a lot of fires out there. I will commit to you to
looking into the ability of the military units in Alaska to be
coordinating with the ground firefighting elements and let's
get that necessary training communications to be----
Senator Stevens. Coordinating with what, Mr. Secretary?
There are not the aircraft there. When are we going to wake up
and start getting some plans to replace those aircraft?
Chairman Lieberman. General Blum, do you want to get into
this?
General Blum. Mr. Chairman, not really, but I will do
this----
Chairman Lieberman. Do you want to come to the defense of
Secretary Verga?
General Blum. Well, I think I will just try to bring some
perspective to the discussion. What Senator Sevens is saying is
true. The capability to scoop water is not in the military air
capability any longer. It is in the civilian contractor world.
These are old airplanes. They are operated by civilian
companies and under contract from various people for
firefighting.
What General Renuart was describing and what we do have in
the National Guard, and we do make available, Senator, is the
kits--we have 16 kits that will slide up inside of a C-130. The
crew must be trained how to operate the kit and maintain the
aircraft because it is problematic. You have seen that red
stuff----
Senator Stevens. General, don't you have to go back
somewhere and land to fill those----
General Blum. Absolutely you do.
Senator Stevens. With the other ones you just went back to
the nearest----
General Blum. You went to the lakes.
Senator Stevens [continuing]. Water and fought it.
General Blum. No question. But what I am trying to tell
you, Senator, is they do not exist in the U.S. Air Force or the
U.S. Army today. They are certainly not in the National Guard
because we only have Army and Air Force equipment.
What exacerbates what you are describing is that at the
time the Alaska fires were going on, there were wildfires in 17
other States that were competing for the scarce resources that
we do have in Colorado, Wyoming, California, and North
Carolina, and these buckets that Secretary Verga is talking
about, they literally are buckets. They hang under the
helicopter, and they are literally a bucket on a rope in a more
sophisticated manner, but you can drop them in a local water
source, a lake nearby the fire, but you are throwing a bucket
of water on an 80,000-acre fire from the helicopter, and it is
less than optimal.
I will make a commitment to call General Campbell, and if
there is anything not in the fight right now in the country, we
will get it in the fight in Alaska.
Senator Stevens. I am not being totally provincial. I am
saying I think we should plan to find a way to build some new
aircraft or at least adapt some aircraft to the old function.
One helicopter dumping--I do not know how many gallons it can
hold, but it really does not do the job that airplane used to
do. I am told that if we had had those two aircraft, we could
have put that fire out in 2 days.
General Blum. And I tend to think you are correct.
Senator Stevens. But there are no such airplanes now.
General Blum. Well, sir, we are in violent agreement on
that.
Senator Stevens. Why doesn't someone come up with a plan
and a request to build some airplanes or modify some old ones
to turn them into the scooping type of aircraft?
General Renuart. Well, Senator, I think that goes back to
my role advocating for just this kind of capability. I think we
have committed that we will try to figure this out, and we will
return back to you or to the Committee and try to give you a
sense of how we could move forward on this.
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Stevens.
I think Senator Stevens raises a question from a unique
local perspective which obviously has very serious national
implications, and in some ways on a slightly different disaster
consequence, it is exactly what General Blum said earlier,
which is that the National Guard is ready to respond to a
predictable natural disaster, perhaps even one of a
catastrophic nature--predictable, I presume you mean, General,
in the sense that there is a weather forecast that is credible
that says that a catastrophic hurricane is heading somewhere,
to the Gulf Coast, let's say. And the reason that you are ready
is that you can move resources and personnel--you have the time
because it is predictable--to wherever the crisis is. But the
problem is where the National Guard is not ready everywhere in
the United States for a non-predictable event such as a
terrorist attack.
General Blum. Or even a tornado. A killer tornado going
through three towns in Iowa, the Governor of Iowa and the
adjutant general of Iowa are going to be looking for help from
neighboring States and surrounding States, no question.
Chairman Lieberman. Right. So I think there are two
questions. One, can we create a system that is ready throughout
the country for the non-predictable events? Or two, is there a
way in which USNORTHCOM can be prepared to rapidly supplement
local areas in the case of a non-predictable event, either
natural or terrorist? General, do you have a quick answer.
General Renuart. Mr. Chairman, yes. I think we have through
the lessons learned with Hurricane Katrina, through the lessons
we saw in both Exercise ARDENT SENTRY in New England and in
Indianapolis, we have, if you will, created tiered sets of
capability that allow a first responder to get on scene and
begin to assess, but very rapidly brings additional State
responders, whether it is civilian or the National Guard, the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact that brings in
surrounding States, and then at the same time, the Department
of Homeland Security and FEMA are responding from the Federal
level to bring the larger muscle movements to that.
Senator I think it would be unfair to characterize that in
a nuclear detonation, for example, a terrorist detonation of a
nuclear weapon, all of us would not be overwhelmed up front. So
it is important to realize that you will have that period as
you are building your response.
I think I am comfortable in saying that among all of the
agencies here, we recognize the size of that problem, and we
are in the process of building additional capacity that will
allow us to shorten sort of the period of chaos----
Chairman Lieberman. In other words, your goal is not to be
overwhelmed for long?
General Renuart. Correct.
Chairman Lieberman. I got you. Unfortunately, a vote has
gone off. This is a very critical question, and it is one that
I actually would like to see if we can organize some process--
Senator Stevens said it about his particular question--to
determine what we need to shorten that gap during which it is
going to be hard not to be overwhelmed so that we can bring
relief to the people as quickly as we can.
Senator Collins has one question, and then, unfortunately,
we are going to have to adjourn.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Libby, you, among this panel, are probably the only
one who realizes that I have never missed a vote, so I am going
to ask you to be very quick in your response to my question.
You talked about the fact that there were included some changes
in the Insurrection Act at the behest of Senator Warner in the
DOD bill, and you suggested that be repealed. So let me ask you
this question: Do you see any need to expand the situations in
which the President can deploy Federal troops to a State during
a disaster? Or do you think that the old law was adequate?
General Libby. I think the governors and the adjutants
general spoke with one voice on that subject a year ago, and
the answer, Senator, is the old law was adequate in our
collective opinions.
Senator Collins. Thank you. And I want to thank all of our
witnesses today for truly terrific testimony. Very helpful.
Chairman Lieberman. I agree. I thank you. I thank you for
what you do every day. I am just looking at the panel, and you
are really the five people that the Commander-in-Chief is going
to turn to on a day of a catastrophe in this country, which we
hope and pray does not come but we know probably will. And the
bottom line, my reaction to the testimony that you have given
today is that we are significantly better prepared, certainly
than we were on September 11, but definitely than we were in
response to Hurricane Katrina. We are going to keep the record
open of this hearing for 15 days. We have got more to do, and I
invite you to be as specific as you can in writing to the
Committee about what you need from Congress to help you be as
prepared as humanly possible.
INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD FROM GENERAL RENUART
We would appreciate the Committee's support of our efforts to
integrate most day-to-day operations into a single NORAD and USNORTHCOM
Command Center on Peterson Air Force Base. Exercise ARDENT-SENTRY--
NORTHERN EDGE 2007, which is the most complex exercise of this
magnitude every undertaken by USNORTHCOM and the National Guard Bureau,
reinforced that our integration of NORAD and USNORTHCOM missions into a
single command center is an essential element for an effective response
to the full spectrum of threats to the United States and Canada.
Senator Lieberman. But in the meantime, I thank you very
much for being on guard every day for us and for the people of
this country. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7361.120