[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 113-22]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FULL COMMITTEE HEARING
ON
THE POSTURE OF THE
U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND
U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 20, 2013
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COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Thirteenth Congress
HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, California, Chairman
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas ADAM SMITH, Washington
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
JEFF MILLER, Florida ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
ROB BISHOP, Utah JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio RICK LARSEN, Washington
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado JOHN GARAMENDI, California
ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
DUNCAN HUNTER, California Georgia
JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado JACKIE SPEIER, California
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia RON BARBER, Arizona
CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire
JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey DEREK KILMER, Washington
AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama SCOTT H. PETERS, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois
RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas
KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
PAUL COOK, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana
Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
Catherine Sendak, Professional Staff Member
Paul Lewis, Counsel
Tim McClees, Professional Staff Member
Aaron Falk, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2013
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, March 20, 2013, Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense
Authorization Act--The Posture of the U.S. Northern Command and
U.S. Southern Command.......................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, March 20, 2013........................................ 39
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2013
FISCAL YEAR 2014 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--THE POSTURE OF THE
U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' a Representative from
California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services.............. 1
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
Member, Committee on Armed Services............................ 2
WITNESSES
Jacoby, GEN Charles H., Jr., USA, Commander, U.S. Northern
Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Army 3
Kelly, Gen John F., USMC, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, U.S.
Marine Corps................................................... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Jacoby, GEN Charles H., Jr................................... 47
Kelly, Gen John F............................................ 73
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''.............................. 43
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 45
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Palazzo.................................................. 122
Mr. Rogers................................................... 120
Ms. Shea-Porter.............................................. 121
Mr. Smith.................................................... 119
Mr. Wittman.................................................. 120
FISCAL YEAR 2014 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--THE POSTURE OF THE
U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 20, 2013.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''
McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' MCKEON, A
REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED
SERVICES
The Chairman. Committee will come to order. Good morning.
The committee meets today to receive testimony on the
posture of both our Northern and our Southern Command.
I am pleased to welcome General Charles Jacoby, Commander
of the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace
Defense Command; and General John Kelly, Commander, U.S.
Southern Command.
Gentlemen, thank you for your long and distinguished
service to our Nation. And thank you for being here today.
Even as we proceed in this difficult budget environment and
the news commands our attention to Africa and the Middle East,
we must be diligent in keeping our own hemisphere safe.
Therefore, I was pleased by the Administration's announcement
last Friday affirming the program of the previous
administration to deploy 44 ground-based interceptors at two
sites in California and Alaska.
On the other hand, canceling the fourth phase of the EPAA
[European Phased Adaptive Approach] sends a terrible signal to
America's allies. I would have hoped after the 2009 fiasco that
we would stop waking up our Eastern European allies to tell
them at the last minute that we are changing our missile
defense plans on them.
General Jacoby, I look forward to learning more about how
we are filling the gaps in our homeland missile defense.
I also look forward to hearing your assessment of the
progress being made by the new president of Mexico on drug-
related violence and what NORTHCOM [U.S. Northern Command] is
doing to support Mexico and build their capacity and
capabilities. This is a daily threat and directly impacting the
U.S. homeland and we need to treat it as a national security
imperative.
General Kelly, in my mind, the illicit trafficking threat
is the greatest challenge we face in your geographic area of
responsibility. While we continue to see success in Colombia,
destabilization and violence in Central America is rampant.
Tackling these issues requires close collaboration and
coordination with NORTHCOM as well as our interagency partners.
Unfortunately, the Navy will eliminate its ship presence in the
Caribbean in April due to sequestration.
This guarantees an increased flow of drugs and illicit
networking across our borders. To that end, will you please
elaborate on the other consequences of sequestration in both of
your commands.
Again, thank you, gentlemen, for being here with us today.
Mr. Smith.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the
Appendix on page 43.]
STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to join you
in welcoming General Jacoby and General Kelly, thanking them
for their very, very long service. I have had the pleasure of
knowing both gentlemen for a while. General Jacoby, when he was
commander out at Fort Lewis, did a fabulous job, was a real
asset to our community.
It is good to see you again.
And, General Kelly, way back when I was first elected, you
were working in the liaison's office, had the opportunity to
travel together. You did an outstanding job there and you have
done an outstanding job since.
So it is a real pleasure to have both you gentlemen here
today, and thank you very much for your service.
In your current commands, I concur completely with the
chairman. We do have to pay attention to our own hemisphere.
It is our, you know, first and most important line of
defense. And I have had the opportunity to meet with both of
you and I think you are doing an excellent job of that. As the
chairman said, the main thing we want to know is how is
sequestration affecting that?
I know, General Kelly, it is making your primary mission of
drug interdiction very difficult if you don't have the assets
to do that. We would like to have you elaborate a little bit
more on the challenges of that, and what that means for us here
at home, and how it potentially puts our safety at risk.
Also, you have the unenviable task of monitoring the
Guantanamo situation to a certain extent. There are
increasingly needs down there, in terms of military
construction, as we fight the political battle back home as to,
you know, whether we ever close it or how long it is there.
It is beginning to have implications long-term. I think it
would be good for this committee to learn a little bit more
about those implications and the challenges you face. If we are
going to keep it open, there are funding obligations that are
coming in order to make sure that our troops that are serving
down there have the facilities and the support that they need.
On the homeland side, I had the pleasure of visiting
NORTHCOM not long ago. I am learning a little bit more about
what your command is focused on.
Certainly air defenses--what you do every day to track and
monitor and protect our airspace--is something I don't think
most people are aware of. We appreciate that. We would like to
hear more about that. I concur with the chairman's concerns
about missile defense, how we need to pay attention to
protecting our homeland from rising threats in other parts of
the world.
And lastly, of course, the situation in Mexico is an
ongoing and evolving concern. Thus far, we have managed to, I
think, protect this country fairly well, even as the violence
in Mexico has become extreme.
But going forward, I would like to hear more about our
partnership with Mexico with their newly elected government,
where you see that going--how we can build on that partnership
hopefully to begin to make Mexico less violent but certainly to
make sure that we protect our country from any spillover
results from that violence.
With that I yield back and I thank you very much, both of
you again, for your service and for testifying today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 45.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
We will include your written statements in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
General Jacoby.
STATEMENT OF GEN CHARLES H. JACOBY, JR., USA, COMMANDER, U.S.
NORTHERN COMMAND AND NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND,
U.S. ARMY
General Jacoby. Chairman McKeon, Congressman Smith,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today.
It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and fellow
combatant commander, General John Kelly. On behalf of the men
and women of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace
Defense Command, I appreciate this committee's continuing
support of our important missions.
Now in the case of U.S. NORTHCOM, our missions include
homeland defense. And it is my number one priority mission, and
a mission in which we also work closely with Canada in our
integrated NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command]
binational command.
Next, we remain active in conducting our core mission of
defense support to civil authorities, for which the highlight
last year was our participation in the interagency response to
Hurricane Sandy. And finally, alongside cooperative defense
activities with our ally, Canada, we continue to conduct
security cooperation efforts with our close partners in Mexico
and the Bahamas.
Now, our NORAD missions specifically include aerospace
warning and control and maritime warning for the United States
and Canada. Our command's motto is, ``We have the watch.'' This
reflects the vigilance with which we approach our duties and
commitment to both the American and Canadian people. We execute
our NORAD missions principally through our well-honed and
uncompromising, 24/7 defense of our skies, Operation Noble
Eagle.
Now our citizens have high expectations of our ability to
defend and support them here in the homeland, and rightfully
so. In the event of a natural or manmade disaster, U.S.
NORTHCOM meets those expectations by leveraging the tremendous
capabilities and capacities of the Department of Defense to
support a lead Federal agency such as FEMA [Federal Emergency
Management Agency].
Hurricane Sandy offered us a glimpse of what a complex
catastrophe which spans several States and regions could look
like. We will continue to mature the successful dual status
command construct provided in the 2012 NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act] so that we will be ready to act swiftly and
with unity of effort when the unthinkable happens and we are
called.
Now we are facing an increasingly complex and dynamic
security environment. Threats are adapting and evolving while
technologies advance and proliferate, creating greater
vulnerability in the homeland than ever before and complicating
the accomplishment of our mission sets from cyber and ballistic
missile defense to the disruption and defeat of transnational
criminal organizations.
As such, a critical command priority is to advocate and
develop capabilities in our core mission areas in order to
outpace these threats. Yet, while we are confronted with this
emerging threat landscape, the current fiscal environment adds
uncertainty to the availability and development of the
capabilities we will need to manage the risks these threats
will pose.
Readiness concerns are sure to grow, as clearly described
by our recent service chief testimonies. My most pressing of
those will include unforecasted cuts to training and exercise
programs which are fundamental to building the partnerships
essential for responding to events in the homeland. Unexpected
loss of service capabilities in readiness could also, in the
future, erode our ability to conduct our critical homeland
defense missions.
Now as we look forward, despite these challenges, our
current layered partnerships and history of training,
education, and exercise programs for now leave U.S. NORTHCOM
and NORAD postured to defend the Nation against a full spectrum
of threats, but we will have to work hard with the Services to
sustain that posture as we deal with program and budget
uncertainty.
Now, today and in the future, we will remain committed to
deter, prevent, and defeat aggression aimed at the United
States and Canada as two commands oriented on a single vision.
With our trusted partners we will defend North America, outpace
and mitigate threats, maintain faith with our people, and
support them in their times of greatest need.
We will need this committee's continued support to meet
that vision.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today
and I look forward to the questions.
[The prepared statement of General Jacoby can be found in
the Appendix on page 47.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
General Kelly.
STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN F. KELLY, USMC, COMMANDER, U.S. SOUTHERN
COMMAND, U.S. MARINE CORPS
General Kelly. Chairman McKeon, Congressman Smith,
distinguished members of the committee, thanks for the
opportunity to come here this morning and talk about something
I am very proud of, and that is the United States Southern
Command.
We are going to talk about four missions very briefly. The
first, and as the chairman pointed out, countering
transnational organized crime. It is both a Title 10--there is
a Title 10 aspect to this as well as security cooperation
activities that we are involved in every day.
Our support to law enforcement includes detention--
detection, rather, and monitoring operations. We share
information. We build capacity of countries we work with in the
south in an attempt to dismantle these hugely powerful,
ruthless, and very well financed organizations.
The second mission is partner engagement. We focus on
building relationships with regional militaries to enhance the
defense of the United States and the security of Latin America.
Human rights play a role in virtually everything we do, from my
engagements with regional leaders to our joint training teams
that are working alongside our partner nations in Central
America, South America, and the Caribbean.
Militaries in this region have made enormous strides in
terms of professionalization and respect for civilian
authorities and human rights, thanks in very large measure to
what the U.S. military has done over at least two decades.
The third thing we do down there is contingency response.
This involves planning for a wide range of possible crises like
natural disasters, mass migration. We have seen that in the
past--evacuation of American citizens.
And finally, a fourth is, as Congressman Smith pointed out,
Guantanamo Bay. I manage and take care of the detainees. I
support the commissions. I do not have any role in the
commissions per se, but that is the fourth and final mission
that the U.S. Southern Command is responsible for.
And I certainly look forward to answering all of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of General Kelly can be found in
the Appendix on page 73.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
With the Administration's pivot to the Pacific we must not
lose sight of the security and stability within our own
hemisphere. What do both of you consider the greatest threat to
our hemisphere?
I think when we were talking yesterday we talked about we
have troops around the world. We travel ``this way'' [east and
west], and we don't travel much ``this way'' [north and south].
And I think that we need to make sure that we are not
taking for granted our neighbors, [to] the south, and our own
borders here. So, if you could tell us what you think is our
greatest threat in our hemisphere.
And then what do you believe, in addressing this threat--
what part of the DOD's [Department of Defense] core mission is
part of supporting other agencies? And what do you think--what
do you see the problems with sequestration is going to cause in
your commands?
General Jacoby. Chairman, I will start, if I may.
First of all, as the commander responsible for the defense
of the homeland and how we support our citizens in the homeland
with military capabilities, I would say, to put as fine a point
on it as I can, the thing that is troubling most to me would be
a weapon of mass destruction that arrives in the country
through some illicit organization, or--whether it is terrorist
or transnational criminal or of any nature. And that is my
biggest concern.
And that is why our principal effort in our chemical,
biological, radiological, and nuclear response enterprise is so
important and has been maintained at a very high standard and
we are receiving continued support from the Services on that.
So I think that is really the--before I go to bed, that is what
I would worry about the most.
Secondly are unexpected activities or events in the
homeland, whether natural or manmade. Unexpected catastrophe
could come from the fault systems on the West Coast to
earthquakes or volcanic activity--something of a ``Sandy-times-
two,'' ``Sandy-times-three,'' where we would have to be very
focused and not being late to need--to support our citizens.
And so that may sound strange to have it be that high on
the list, but since I have been in command I have had three
major hurricanes, two major wildfires. We were very active in
the last major Northeast snowstorm. So there is an expectation
that we are going to do better and better at supporting our
civil authorities in that regard.
And then we have some of the standard, longstanding, what I
call now ``hybrid'' threats--states that can range or pose a
threat to us, all the way from traditional means, whether it is
missiles, aircraft, existential threats, but all the way down
to unattributable threats such as cyber. And so those are new
types of threats. They are difficult to deter across the entire
spectrum because of degrading amounts of attribution and
deterrent capability that we have.
So those are the--really the three bins of things that
concern me in the homeland.
In supporting other agencies, in the homeland I get depth
in the defense of the homeland by partnering. That is how I get
depth--by creating relationships across Federal, State, and
local agencies that allow us to see the whole ``safety,
security, defend'' paradigm. And the better we are doing as
partners in safety and security the less we may have to do in
defend, or the more effective we are if we have to defend.
And so, for instance, along the Southwest border, that is a
terrific opportunity for us to partner with Customs and Border
Protection services.
They have got the lead. They have got the mission. But they
are that front line of defense for illicit activity that could
come into the country. And although they don't work on it every
day, they are having an effect that is very beneficial for
perhaps other types of illicit activity that would fall more
within NORTHCOM's realm.
So that is where I think that partnering with other
agencies may be a little more important in the homeland than
just about anyplace else. And we have wonderful partners. In
our headquarters today, 60 interagency partners from 50
agencies help bring a unity of effort that we haven't seen in
the past before.
And finally, on sequestration, just a brief comment,
Congressman, and I can go into more detail later, but I don't
own a lot of assigned forces in the homeland so I am reliant on
trained and ready forces provided to me by the Services on very
short notice. And so, as service readiness erodes, as risks are
taken across the readiness front, that will have an impact on
my ability to accomplish my missions from homeland defense,
defense support to civil authorities, and theater security
cooperation with our critical partners in Canada, Mexico, and
the Bahamas.
The final thing on sequestration is the morale factor for
the people that work for NORAD and U.S. Northern Command. And
so the idea of, for instance, of furloughing civilians--my
civilians are critical to what I--what we do. That is one of
the great changes I have seen over 36 years of service is the
role civilians now play.
They help us with missile defense. They help us with--they
are essential to our NORAD mission across all of our mission
sets. And so telling them that they are going to take a 20
percent pay cut because we haven't been able to manage our
budget is a really tough pill to swallow for dedicated, loyal,
committed members of my team.
So thank you, Congressman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Kelly.
General Kelly. Mr. Chairman, I think the committee
understands that the U.S. Southern Command has traditionally,
at least in the last 10 or 15 years, been kind of the economy
of force command of all the geographical ``CINC [commander in
chief]-doms.'' So, for a long time we have operated down in the
Latin America or Caribbean without a lot of assets. Now, the
good news story is there is not, from a military point of view,
there is not a great number of military threats down there, at
least towards the United States.
But I am the beginning of the away game, if you will, for
Chuck Jacoby's home game. If he is worrying about things that
are coming across the Mexican border or coming through a port
somewhere in the United States I think we have probably failed
him and the American people in keeping it away. And I do think
we fail the American people every day because there is so much
that gets through that we can't take off the playing field, if
you will.
The first thing I would--what is the greatest threat down
there? To me, it is really the network--the network that we
deal with.
Obviously, you think about drugs initially, but the network
we deal with is incredibly efficient and it is plugged into a
worldwide network of crime. And anything that anyone wants to
put on that network, wherever it is in the world, if it is--if
that person, if that individual, if that enemy of ours wants to
get it into the United States, pretty good chance he or she can
do it.
So the network is incredibly concerning to me because, as I
say, almost anything can get on that network. You know, we
watch, obviously, the drugs that come up from Central America
and from Mexico. A lot of it is taken off the market, so to
speak, on the way in, but an awful lot of it does get in. We
watch individuals come into the network from as far away as the
Middle East.
Now, there are individuals that are trying to get into our
country to make a better way of life and to jobs and things
like that, but these are not the same kind of people. People
pay big, big, big money to go from, say, I will give you an
example, say Pakistan or from places like that, from Iran, pay
big money to get into Latin America, and then they get on the
network and disappear and get into America.
Whatever they are up to, they are not paying--they are not
coming here to drive a cab in Washington, D.C., and they are
paying a lot of money to get here. So the network is the thing
that concerns me.
Like Chuck, what we do in the south and SOUTHCOM [U.S.
Southern Command] is a very, very whole-of-government,
interagency, not just DOD. In my headquarters we have dozens of
the same kind of individuals that represent the entire U.S.
Government--DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration], FBI [Federal
Bureau of Investigation], Border Patrol, all of the agencies.
They are all heroes. They all work as hard as I do to try to
serve the Nation and keep these malign influences and objects
from coming into the United States.
But again, the network is incredibly efficient. It
certainly rivals anything that Federal Express can do. It has
1,200 hubs that we know of in the United States, all controlled
by cartels. They move hundreds and hundreds of tons of drugs,
as an example, along that network.
You know, drugs in America cost us 40,000 lives a year, not
all from what comes in the country. A lot of it is from
prescription drugs. But 40,000 people a year die from drugs--
our countrymen.
And you can't even put a number on the human misery
associated with that, with families that lost children and all
of that. Drugs cost our country $200 billion a year, much of it
in trying to rehabilitate drug addicts.
A relatively small amount of it, $26 billion, is used in
law enforcement. But if drugs get ashore in Central America
they are essentially in the United States with almost--with
very, very little success in taking them off the market.
But the profits that the drugs generate from the drug use
in the United States obviously goes back into the drug cartels'
pockets to generate more drugs that come into our country. But
it also generates malign influences, or influences in other
areas. And we know that Islamic extremist groups, as an
example, benefit from the drug profits from our country.
We also know that drug trafficking, sex slaves, this kind
of thing--much of that is financed by the drug trade coming out
of the United States once the money is laundered down through
Mexico and Central America.
What does sequestration do? Probably the most--the starkest
figure I could give you is, generally speaking--and we
understand this network, by the way, in the same way--almost to
the same degree that we understood and understand the Al Qaeda
network in Africa or in the Middle East.
But last year--numbers are up and down, but somewhere
between 150 and 200 metric tons were taken off before they ever
got ashore--of cocaine--before they ever got ashore in
Honduras. And as I say, once it gets ashore in Central America,
as hard as the Hondurans are in this fight with us, the
Guatemalans, the Belizeans, the El Salvadorans--and they are
shoulder-to-shoulder with us in this fight, with terrible,
terrible death tolls in their countries, and of course, the
real shining example of how to win the drug war is Colombia,
and they are hugely appreciative of what we have done for them
over the years.
But the point is that 200 tons--and that costs the U.S.
Government about $600 million to take 200 tons off the market.
Because of sequestration, if I lose all of the ships I am
expected to lose, and ships are critical, as is airborne ISR
[Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance]. If I lose
those assets, if they go to zero, and there are some that are
predicting they will go to zero, then all of that cocaine, all
of it, will get ashore. And more, I would predict, will get
ashore and be on the streets of New York and Boston and
Portland, Maine, and all the rest of it very, very quickly.
So we would essentially, with the exception of what our
partners can do for us, particularly, as I say, the heroic
efforts on the Honduran part and the Guatemalans and others--
but they take very little off the market--all of that drug will
get into the United States.
I also have had to cancel much of--some of my engagements
in Latin America. These are small engagements. These are 12, 15
members of my staff going down and advising, you know,
Colombia, Peru, Chile, all of these great partners--Brazil--
advising them on this, that, or the other thing, maybe sending
mobile training teams down. But I have had to cancel these.
And I live and breathe the engagement. I live and breathe
on small trips down into the AO [Area of Operation] I have had
to curtail my own trips in the future down into the AO.
And, you know, that leaves a question in their minds as to
how committed the United States is to them. They want us in
their lives, with the notable exceptions of a few countries.
They want us in their lives.
They are very happy on the mil-to-mil relationship we have.
They are very happy on the law enforcement relationship we have
with them. But they question the commitment beyond that because
there is so little interest already in that part of the world.
Our State Department does tremendous things in our
embassies throughout the region, but it is hard to argue that
the United States should be the partner of choice in that part
of the world when we don't really do much in the way of
partnering anymore.
So thanks very much for an opportunity to answer that
question.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize, I will have to pass and get my questions in a
moment. I have got a phone call that I have to take at 10:30,
so I will pass to Mr. Larsen if he is ready, and when I come
back I will take my questions then.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Larsen. Do I have Ranking Member Smith's unlimited time
to ask questions, as well?
[Laughter.]
Didn't hear an answer. All right, we will move on.
General Kelly, some questions about Guantanamo, if I could.
First, with regards to listening and recording of
conversations, there have been reports of listening devices
disguised as smoke detectors in meeting rooms where detainees
meet with their defense counsel. And are you familiar with
this, that JTF-GTMO [Joint Task Force Guantanamo] has placed
listening devices in meeting rooms where detainees have met
with attorneys?
General Kelly. Am I familiar with the issue?
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly. Yes sir, I am.
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly. It is nonsense, but I am familiar with the
issue.
Mr. Larsen. It is why I am asking. It is why I am asking.
So have these conversations between counsel and detainees
been listened to or recorded in the detention facility at
Guantanamo?
General Kelly. No.
Mr. Larsen. Are there currently any video or audio
recording devices in meeting spaces of the detainees and their
attorneys?
General Kelly. Visual--video.
Mr. Larsen. There is video.
General Kelly. And I can elaborate if you want, I----
Mr. Larsen. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
General Kelly. Guantanamo was built to be a temporary
facility----
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly [continuing]. Eleven years ago.
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly. If we would have had any idea we were going
to be there even 5 years doing the operations down there that
have changed significantly, as you know, over the years----
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly [continuing]. If we knew we were going to be
there 5 years even, we would have built a different facility.
If we would have known we were going to be there 11 years we
would have built a--you know, so this is kind of really a
thrown-together operation, and it is really not 11 years long,
it is 1 year 11 times.
And as the ranking member mentioned, I mean, all of these
temporary buildings, for the most part, are falling apart. And
we really do need to get serious about taking care of our
troops that are down there as well as improving the security--
not the creature comforts, if you will, for the detainees.
Mr. Larsen. Right.
General Kelly. They are already well taken care of in that
regard. But taking care of our troops.
But the point is that many of the--the facility was not
built for any one thing. So years ago that particular facility
was used for another purpose and that purpose required not only
audio devices but visual devices. It was not used for attorney-
client rooms. Again, the mission down there has morphed over
time.
So the room that they were using for attorney-client
discussions still had equipment, but that equipment was not
energized, it was not used. And I can tell you that without
question, we have not violated their rights by listening in.
Now what I have done is--since this became an issue I said,
well, let's just make this simple. Let's pull it all out.
And in fact, this week not only have we pulled it all out,
with exception of the video cameras, we are sending down some
counterintel people to make sure that they have special
technical devices to make sure that there is--they are all out.
So no, they weren't listened to. Yes, the video devices
will remain--temporarily, at least. And the attorneys will
understand that.
Mr. Larsen. And why are the video devices staying?
General Kelly. Well, some of these men, arguably, are
dangerous--arguably are dangerous.
Mr. Larsen. Sure.
General Kelly. And although you would think that their
defense attorneys would be safe, I have a responsibility to
protect the defense attorneys as well, as I do the ICRC
[International Committee of the Red Cross] that visits and the
5,700 non-DOD people that have visited Guantanamo since the
beginning.
Mr. Larsen. Right.
General Kelly. I have a responsibility to protect them, and
so I believe it is prudent to keep the video cameras going. And
we will see--if they contest that, which I am sure they will,
then we will see what the----
Mr. Larsen. I understand.
General Kelly [continuing]. The judge has to say.
Mr. Larsen. I understand.
With regards to the hunger strikes, what is your
understanding of why the hunger strike is happening?
General Kelly. Well we, in talking to the detainees and
talking to the hunger strikers, so-called----
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly [continuing]. They had great optimism that
Guantanamo would be closed. They were devastated, apparently--
and I don't live down there but they work for me--they were
devastated--not the detainees, of course--they were devastated
when the President, you know, backed off, at least their
perception, of closing the facility. He said nothing about it
in his inauguration speech; he said nothing about it in his----
Mr. Larsen. Yes.
General Kelly [continuing]. State of the Union speech; he
has said nothing about it. He is not re-staffing the office
that would be--that was, you know--that looks at closing the
facility, so----
Mr. Larsen. Right.
General Kelly [continuing]. That has caused them to become
frustrated and they want to get this--I think turn the heat up,
get it back in the media.
And we know that because they talk to us. We have,
actually, a fairly positive relationship down there with most
of the detainees.
And we have definitions of what a hunger striker is, and of
course we have an ability to take care of them if they go too
far, and we will. I hope that answers your question.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
I see my time is up. Thank you----
The Chairman. Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
And, General Jacoby and General Kelly, it is a pleasure to
listen to you, as you are leaders of our Nation. And thank you
very much.
And, General Kelly, I think it was maybe a couple years ago
I either read a book or we had a hearing on the Southern
Command, and it seems like that I, in my mind, remember
whomever spoke or the book I read, that there was an interest
in the number of those from the Middle East coming into
Honduras.
In your comments you made mention, but just very--not
casually, but you made mention that Middle Easterners coming
into Central America. And my question is basically, is there a
concern from either one of you gentlemen that one country or
another country, you are seeing more activity of those from the
Middle East moving into that country as to the point that maybe
the population numbers are going to be at a point that they
could have some type of political influence within that
country?
General Kelly. Probably the country that we see--the
country we see with the most activity from the Middle East is
Iran. They have been very, very active over the last few
years--a close relationship with Hugo Chavez, of course, in
Venezuela. That became their kind of best friend in the area.
But since then they have opened embassies, they have opened
cultural centers, they have done things like that. On the
surface, certainly nothing wrong with that if they are just
doing that to try to create better relations between them and
other countries in the world, but to what end is obviously the
issue.
In an unclassified setting can't get into some of the
aspects of what they are using some of those centers that they
are opening and even their embassies--what they are using them
for, but in an open hearing we can say that they are certainly
trying to befriend or get friends in the region because the
more of that they can have on their side, you know, things like
sanctions and all, activities in the U.N., condemnation, they
are trying to create friends out of that.
We will leave that, you know, in terms of what I can say in
an open setting about what the Iranians are doing.
But just very briefly--and it is not Middle East, but, you
know, the Chinese, as an example, are doing very similar things
economically. They have penetrated Latin America in a big way
economically--not a bad thing, but it is something that they
are very aggressive, as they are all over the world, frankly.
Mr. Jones. General Jacoby, would you like to answer, sir?
General Jacoby. Yes, sir.
We are keeping our eye very closely on any Iranian activity
in my area of responsibility. I do not believe that they wield
any influence on the governments, but they are certainly
aggressive. Iranians are aggressive globally, and so any
Iranian involvement in Mexico, Canada, Bahamas will be
highlighted for us.
And we have good partnerships there and I don't see it as a
threat other than the network itself of any Iranian activity.
Mr. Jones. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be important if I
might suggest that we hold a classified hearing on Central and
South America, because of the problem. And you said this, Mr.
Chairman, in your opening comments--for too long, I think, our
country--maybe the Congress--has not been as interested in the
southern hemisphere as we should be.
And I do think that, from what I have heard from General
Jacoby and General Kelly today, that a classified hearing to
get more into the details of the Iranians and also the Chinese
would be very beneficial, and I assure you I would be here if
we have that kind of hearing.
So thank you, gentlemen, very much, and I--40 seconds left,
I will yield back my time.
The Chairman. Thank you, and thank you for your suggestion.
We will definitely look into that. We have lots of hearings
scheduled the next few weeks, but we will see what we can do on
that.
Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Kelly, the 2009 Guantanamo review team made
recommendations for conditions at that facility that it warned
might become inhumane over time. Since those recommendations
were made there has been no outside evaluation to assess the
current conditions of Guantanamo, which have changed since
2009.
In addition, it is clear that the attorneys who represent
the inmates are the best sources of information on the
conditions under which their clients live.
General Kelly, in 2009, at the time of the study, the
office of chief defense council was given less than 24 hours to
generate an ad hoc list of issues that were forwarded to the
2009 review team to consider as they conducted their review. No
allowance was made for the provision of classified or otherwise
protected information.
At least two defense teams attempted to provide
unclassified information under their own initiative and sought
permission to provide classified or otherwise protected factual
information, but each was blocked from providing that
information. One team was told that the Central Intelligence
Agency would not allow them to release the information to the
Secretary of Defense or his staff.
Inmate lawyers are certainly a better place to learn and
transmit information about the impact of confinement conditions
on their detainee clients. They are better equipped than any
other source. A more reliable study would allow meaningful
input by counsel.
Why has there been no followup with regard to these
conditions identified in the 2009 Guantanamo review?
General Kelly. Congressman, first--and I don't mean to
challenge you--but there is no one on this earth that is better
positioned to tell you what the conditions are inside
Guantanamo than me. No one. Not their defense attorneys. Not
their families. Nobody.
I can tell you that they are humanely dealt with. They are
obviously in jail. They are in a detention facility. But from
the standards that are set in our own country in terms of these
kinds of operations--in fact, the ICRC gives us very, very high
marks down there every time they visit for how they are treated
and how they are dealt with----
Mr. Johnson. Well certainly, General, I accept the fact
that you assert and have no reason to doubt what you are
asserting, but in terms of independent assessment, that is what
I am talking about.
The attorneys seem to have been shut out of the process,
and moreover, there appears to be no followup with regard to
the conditions that were cited in the 2009 study that may
become inhumane conditions. And so I think that it deserves a
fresh look. It deserves an impartial look and a full
investigatory look from different perspectives.
So I understand your perspective. I think the defense
counsel has a different perspective, and perhaps some of the
organizations bring their own perspectives to that mix.
Why hasn't there been a followup?
General Kelly. As I say, Congressman, I have no agenda at
Guantanamo other than to do what my President has charged me to
do: to take care of 166 prisoners--excuse me, detainees--and to
take care of them humanely and provide them all of what they
need on a day-to-day basis. And I do----
Mr. Johnson. Well my question is, why hasn't there been a
followup----
General Kelly. I do that every day.
ICRC comes down regularly unannounced and announced. They
know what goes on inside the detention facility. They give us
high marks.
Mr. Johnson. So pretty much we are just going to have to
rely on your assertion to us that everything is fine down there
in Guantanamo and we are not going to get an independent review
of the conditions down there? Is that what you would testify
to?
General Kelly. We get an independent view on a regular
basis. The International Committee of the Red Cross is down
there regularly. I mean, that--they are as independent as
anyone.
Mr. Johnson. I don't know if their agenda is the same as
defense counsel or other interested parties' might be.
The Chairman. Gentleman's time has expired.
I would ask the gentleman, have you had a chance to go to
Guantanamo?
Mr. Johnson. Yes, I have.
The Chairman. Would you like to go again?
Mr. Johnson. Actually, I would like to see that facility
closed and I would like to see the inmates housed elsewhere.
The Chairman. The reason I am asking, I would be happy to
put together a CODEL [congressional delegation] for any members
that would like to go down there and see for themselves the
situations they see at----
Mr. Johnson. I will state for the record that when I was
down there about 5 years ago I was definitely impressed with--
--
The Chairman. Five years, and the general has been down
there much more recently than that. But if you would like to
go, let me know and we will put together a CODEL for anyone
that would like to----
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I may take you up
on that.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Forbes.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, General.
And, Mr. Chairman, thank you not just for offering to do
that, but for your leadership in having had those CODELs
before, and you have taken a lot of members down there. I had
the privilege of going down there with you and we got to see
firsthand, and we are about as independent as you could get
from this committee.
And, General, I think you are doing a great job and we
appreciate your efforts down there.
General Jacoby, in the prepared testimony of the director
of national intelligence last week he stated--said, ``We judge
Iran would likely choose a ballistic missile as its preferred
method of delivering a nuclear weapon. Iran's ballistic weapons
are capable of delivering WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. In
addition, Iran has demonstrated an ability to launch small
satellites and we grow increasingly concerned that these
technical steps, along with a regime hostile toward the United
States and our allies, provide Tehran with the means and
motivation to develop larger space launch vehicles and longer-
range missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic
missile.''
General, do you agree with the statement, and has Iran
decided to build an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]?
General Jacoby. I concur. I agree with the statement by the
director.
It is my belief from every day looking closely at the
intelligence that Iran is on the path to developing an ICBM and
that they have demonstrated capabilities that should inform us
that they can achieve, in the future, an ICBM capability.
Mr. Forbes. When is the earliest, in your best professional
military judgment, that you believe Iran could flight test an
ICBM, and could they do it this year?
General Jacoby. Some of these estimates need to be
discussed in a----
Mr. Forbes. I understand.
General Jacoby [continuing]. In a closed hearing, and we
would be glad to. I think that we should consider that Iran has
a capability within the next few years of flight-testing ICBM-
capable technologies.
Mr. Forbes. Are you worried about Iranian military and
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ballistic missile programs,
and are they both, in your opinion, under the firm control of
the Iranian leadership? And why are there two programs?
General Jacoby. Congressman, I think that many of the
issues associated with that very good question need to be
discussed in closed session.
Mr. Forbes. Well, General, I would hope that we could
arrange that so that members of this committee and the chairman
could orchestrate an opportunity for us to do that. I think
this is a crucial thing for us to be looking at.
And specifically, when we have that--Mr. Chairman, if we
could have that kind of briefing--we would love to get your
input on what additional resources, if any, you need to make
sure we are adequately dealing with this situation. I know some
of that you will have to give us in that classified setting as
well.
General Jacoby. Thank you, Congressman. I would be very
happy to do that.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, I spoke with General Dunford on the phone getting
an update from Afghanistan, so they are doing an outstanding
job over there, as we all know.
I want to talk through the Guantanamo thing just for a
minute--couple of editorial comments and then one question. I
know there is--we have had this debate and argument in this
committee and I am not interested in restarting that particular
argument at this moment, but there are some very severe long-
term implications of what is going on down there.
We have I think it is 166 inmates down there now. They are
aging, as we all are, and there are certain--there is a certain
lack of support facilities in that general area. And if we are
planning on keeping them there forever, there is an enormous
amount of expense, in terms of both caring for the inmates and
then also dealing with our staff down there that has to do
that.
You know, I think medical care is one of the biggest
concerns. There are not, you know, the first-class facilities
down there. And as the law stands now, if we have an inmate who
has a heart attack, doesn't die, but needs more complicated
care, where is he going to get it in Guantanamo? He is not. And
that opens up all kinds of implications in terms of human
rights violations and problems that we would have with our own
laws, as well as with international laws.
And, you know, Miami may be 2 or 3 hours away, but under
the law right now we can't take them there, and sort of on, and
on, and on. We have got, you know, the--not to use the cliched
joke, but it is the Hotel California: You check in but you
can't ever check out on any----
And that is not sustainable, you know? I don't know if it
is not sustainable past 3 years or 4 years or 10 years, but at
some point we will have an utterly and completely unworkable
situation in Guantanamo if we continue to say that once you are
there you can't ever be let out. We need to think about that as
policymakers and how we are going to deal with it.
And in the short term, since we have a standoff between the
Administration that would like to close Guantanamo and Congress
that will not let them, Congress wins that fight--just the
nature of the process--so the place stays open, but we then
have expenses of keeping it going.
So with that preamble, the question is: What are your
short-term needs--things that we simply have to begin building
down there? And, you know, we hate to invest military
construction down there if you think the place isn't going to
stay open very long, but we reach the point where we have to
because it is open. It is going to be open for the foreseeable
future regardless of how any one of us feels about that.
So what are the short-term needs that this committee and
this Congress has to provide to you to make sure that your
troops down there get the support they need to do the job that
they are doing?
General Kelly. Congressman, we briefly discussed this
yesterday. I am with you, by the way, on the medical care. I
have gotten some legal opinion from the general counsel of DOD,
who has advised me on what our--not necessarily our public
affairs position is relative to, as you point out, one of them
having, say, a heart attack and we stabilize him there on-
island but can't move him off to a higher level of care----
Mr. Smith. We are stealing that example directly from what
you said to me yesterday, so for full attribution, but go
ahead.
General Kelly. So, that is a concern, but I am told legally
as long as they have access to all of the medical care that is
available on-island--which is--it is considerable. There is a
naval hospital there, but it is kind of a small--it would be
like a small town hospital. It is--doesn't have a higher level
of care for, say, cancer treatment or kidney treatment or
something like that.
But in any event, I have dealt--worked with the general
counsels on this issue and feel as though at least the advice
they have given me is we are within the law so long as they
have access--and immediate access--to any and all medical care
on-island, and they, of course, have that.
As far as things like MILCON [military construction], if we
would have built that--if we had built the facility down there
thinking that it would even be open 10 years, we would have
built a far different facility.
So what are the immediate needs down there? I have 1,900
mostly uniformed personnel in JTF Guantanamo Bay--Joint Task
Force Guantanamo Bay--roughly 1,900. They are living in, to say
the least, not squalor but in some pretty questionable--we need
to take care of our troops. So we have several MILCON projects
that I have submitted.
And as you know, Congressman, everything that is built down
there is at least twice as expensive because everything that we
build with, to include the carpenters that have to build it,
has to come----
Mr. Smith. You have got to get people there.
General Kelly. Yes. So it is really 55 percent, so a 10-
penny nail costs 20 cents. So everything is more expensive.
So we have to take care of barracks. We have to replace the
dining hall, the mess hall, as marines would call it. It
prepares meals not only for my guard personnel, most of whom,
as I say, are uniformed, but the--for the detainees, as well.
It is literally falling apart.
And there are other projects that have to do with--none of
them have anything to do with, you know, if you will, creature
comforts for the detainees. They are already living humanely
and comfortably, acknowledging the fact they are in jail, but
they are humanely and comfortably treated.
So none of these projects would enhance their lifestyle, if
you will. But some of the projects will add security and better
ease of movement for them. That will benefit the guard force,
not the detainees--make the guard force's life a lot less
complicated. But we are talking in the neighborhood of $150
billion to $170 billion--excuse me--million dollars, so it is a
considerable bill.
There are other projects that I couldn't talk about here in
the open, but do have to do with replacing one of the camp
facilities where some of the detainees are--special detainees
are housed. We could get into that off-line if you want.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
General Kelly. But that is where we are right now. These
are things that we have to do right now.
I am assuming Guantanamo will be closed someday, but if we
look into the past 11 years, it was supposed to be temporary.
Who knows where it is going? We have got to take care of our
troops.
Mr. Smith. Yes. I completely agree with that.
That is all I have. I have had the opportunity to speak
with General Jacoby before and visit with him so most of my
questions have been answered.
So, sir, I will yield back.
And again, thank you, gentlemen, both.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And staff has informed me that Congresswoman Roby is
leading a delegation to GTMO [Guantanamo] on April 22nd. We
have three other members signed up, so anybody else that would
like to go, please contact staff and get on that trip and we
will send out some notice to all of the members if they have an
interest to join in that CODEL.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank both of you for being here today.
And, General Kelly, I am so pleased with the success of
Plan Colombia. Our family works with the Partners of the
Americas program, where each American State is associated with
a part of Central and South America. South Carolina is
associated with Southwest Colombia. We have hosted exchange
students from Cali. Two of my sons have actually been exchange
students to Cali.
And so this is a success story about Plan Colombia that the
American people need to know. If you could tell us what the
current status is, that would be very helpful.
General Kelly. It is a great program. I have had something
to do with it in other places other than SOUTHCOM, but I just
talked to SOUTHCOM. I think we have 26 partnerships with
States' National Guard all over the Caribbean, Latin America,
Central America. It is a great program. It is a grassroots
program.
I think the exchange is both ways, as you point out. I
mean, people in South Carolina, to use your example, have
learned a lot about a place they would have never--probably
couldn't find on a map, except that there is this great
relationship between Colombia and the South Carolina Guard.
I think they, as I said, they get more out of the--just the
example we show them and how we interact with them on a mil-to-
mil basis. You know, we treasure in our country the
relationship between the military--civilian control of the
military. A lot of countries in the world don't see that, but
increasingly, through the guard program or the partnership
program, more and more countries are getting that message.
Same thing with human rights. I mean, we can lecture people
all day long about human rights, but by our example, by the
great guys and gals from South Carolina National Guard or
whatever that they interact with, they get it. And they get it
more and more and more.
So I can't say enough good things about the program, sir.
Mr. Wilson. And how would you characterize the level of
violence that has been addressed in Colombia? And the American
people really aren't aware. Actually, this is a country of 40
million people. It is huge. And it--the people there are just
extraordinary. And so the level of violence is--how is that
being addressed?
General Kelly. Fifteen, 17 years ago when I worked up here
as a--the Marine liaison, I can remember the debates about
Colombia, and some of you will remember those debates. Colombia
was considered at the time to be a failed state. You couldn't
move outside of your home in Colombia without being at risk of
being killed. I mean, the country was run by the Medellin and
the Cali cartels.
I mean, and here we go--or here we are a few years later
with a considerable investment of U.S. funds--I mean, it is in
the billions of dollars. But now we have a country that is not
only shoulder-to-shoulder with us fighting our drug problem
down there--they took 200 tons of cocaine off the market before
it ever left their country and got into places like Venezuela
or started the trip up to Central America--200 tons.
The biggest IED [improvised explosive device] casualty
problem in the world outside of Afghanistan is in Colombia
because it is how the cartels protect the factories in the
jungle that make the cocaine, or how the growers--the cartels,
the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]--how they
protect the grower--you know, the orchards, if you will. They
are in this thing, but the violence--it is an amazing place.
You can go to Medellin now and go out to dinner and there
is no violence. In Bogota where you used to be able to--you
could hear the bombs going off at night from the FARC, and now
all of that is pushed very--is pushed well away from the
population centers. So the violence has gone down dramatically
in the last 10, 12 years.
Mr. Wilson. Well, congratulations--an extraordinary success
story.
General Jacoby, I am very concerned and--but also
supportive of missile defense. In the 2013 budget request there
was a reduction in the ground-based midcourse defense program
of $256.8 million. Why was the funding reduced and how does
this impact the reduction of GMD [Ground-Based Midcourse
Defense] operations reliability and any modernization?
General Jacoby. Congressman, I would have to look exactly
at what those cuts were in. In 2013 we have made some great
progress, particularly with testing, which is directly
impacting the reliability of the GBI [Ground-Based Interceptor]
fleet. So I think that what we have seen with the rollout, the
introduction of new initiatives in ballistic missile defense
that was announced Friday, I think we are on a good path to
outpace the threat--both North Korean and Iranian threats in
the future.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, very much.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask--I had
a NORTHCOM question. I am from Texas and we are a border State,
and I wanted to know particularly about the drug-related
violence in Mexico and partnering with the Mexican police to
bolster efforts there.
General Jacoby. All right, thanks for the question. We have
had a really important change over the last 4 years or so,
probably a little bit more than that, in our military-to-
military relationship with Mexico. We have become very good
partners and a lot of that has been a centerpiece of, you know,
going after, together, a shared problem, which is the drug-
related violence.
And so I can point to numerous routine border conferences
that are held between U.S. law enforcement and U.S. military
and Mexican military. They are very beneficial. They are very
cordial, and they make real progress: improved communications,
improved information sharing. And we have not seen diminishment
of that over the change of administration--the recent change of
administration in Mexico.
So there is still a lot of work that has to be done. There
is still more violence than either country wants.
The violence shifts around a bit. There is less in the
north now and more deeper into Mexico. There has been a
decrease--a percentage decrease so far in 2013. But it has
moved and it has increased in other parts of the country.
So this is a tough fight against a resolute, well-funded
enemy. But, you know, the commitment we have with our Mexican
partners is very strong, and I believe that our partnership
will just grow over time.
Mr. Veasey. Some of the border cities--you know, El Paso
and some of the areas in the valley that are along the Texas-
Mexico border--are some of the safest cities on the United
States side. With some of the violence, you know, that
continues in Mexico, do you think that enough is--what we are
doing right now is adequate enough to ever stop that from
spilling over? Because they have done it--they have been doing
a great job so far.
General Jacoby. Right. So security is going to remain a
moving target. It is going to remain a moving target as long as
we are not having a disruptive effect on the networks
themselves.
And so it is not geographically bound. It is going to be an
issue of working together across many governments, not just the
United States and Mexico, and across the agencies to attack
this network--this system of networks that is able to exploit
vulnerabilities and gaps as they expose themselves.
And when they run into a brick wall that, you know, good
law enforcement, good partnering has created with technology
support, they adapt. And they are agile.
And so, we have to go after the network. We have to go
after financiers, logisticians, operators, and leadership.
And we also have to make sure our institutions--and this is
essentially a law enforcement problem so we have to make sure
our institutions and our partners' institutions are strong and
can provide the kind of security that allows for an environment
where we can attack the network more effectively.
Mr. Veasey. Let me ask you one more question, and this may
be outside of your purview. The Wall Street Journal has done a
really good job of highlighting the drug-resistant tuberculosis
problem that is happening in India.
And as you know, recently there was someone that actually
came, you know, from India and tried to come through Mexico,
and that would have brought that drug-resistant strain here
into the country. How do you feel about people being on the
lookout for--and I know it is--obviously you can't tell if
somebody has tuberculosis, but fighting something like that,
just someone that looks like, you know, a normal person coming
in. What do you do about that?
General Jacoby. Well, we have a limited role in Support of
Civil Authorities, and so we actually do have a plan for how to
support civil authorities if there was ever a pandemic crisis.
So we are going to roll up our sleeves and get behind the
relevant agencies that would deal with that.
But I think you ask a really good question in terms of--it
is not illicit activity but unwanted activity that crosses our
border, and so it goes back to the network. So the network that
would bring you drugs and what that does to our society, human
trafficking, money laundering, weapons--there are all kinds of
things that can ride on that same network.
And so, as you know, in Texas we had a whole lot of
children with chicken pox dropped off on the border. Those
children did not come from Mexico. They came from all over
Central America, brought on the same wave of these networks and
deposited them on the border.
And so I think you bring up a very good point and it is
another reason why we need to look harder and work with our
partners across the globe and interagency to get a better
handle on this.
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Jacoby. Thanks.
The Chairman. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Jacoby, General Kelly, thank you for being here,
and thank you for your dedication to what is obviously most
central to our issues of our national security, and that, of
course, is the protection of our homeland.
General Jacoby, I appreciate your characterization of the
emerging threats that we see from Iran and North Korea.
Probably our most important program that we have in trying to
respond to an emerging threat is the issue of our missile
defense. I was very concerned by last Friday's announcement by
Secretary Hagel of the scrapping of the portion of the Phased
Adaptive Approach that would have provided additional
protection to the homeland.
In our policy on missile defense, one of the tenets that we
have looked for for technical capability is the concept of
``shoot-look-shoot.'' With respect to North Korea, General
Jacoby, do we have shoot-look-shoot capability in responding to
a North Korean threat from the West Coast looking at our assets
in California and Alaska?
General Jacoby. Congressman, shoot-look-shoot makes a lot
of sense. It makes a lot of sense as a warfighter, not just as
a technological means of conducting our tactics for missile
defense. So, you know, shooting down--you know better than
anyone, shooting down a ballistic missile is a sniper weapon
requirement; it is not a machine gun requirement.
So we want to pursue shoot-look-shoot not just for North
Korea but as a warfighter technique. Those are emerging
capabilities and I can discuss them in detail with you in a
closed session, but we are very much interested and have worked
closely with MDA, Missile Defense Agency, to try to improve
where we are in shoot-look-shoot.
Mr. Turner. I appreciate that, General, and I look forward
to that. But in an open session, I mean, it has been
acknowledged that part of the reason why we had the final phase
of the Phased Adaptive Approach providing that additional
forward basing of missile defense to respond to Iran was
because we had a deficiency on the East Coast with respect to
shoot-look-shoot with Iran, both the--President Bush's third
site that was proposed for Poland, President Obama's final
phase of the Phased Adaptive Approach, was an attempt to plug
that and provide that additional capability, was it not?
General Jacoby. Phase four of the European Phased Adaptive
Approach, specifically with the SM-3 [Standard Missile 3] Block
IIB, was designed to provide a first shot at any Iranian
missile that could be coming towards the United States.
Mr. Turner. And then we would have the additional shot from
Alaska that we would have as our additional backup.
General Jacoby. That is correct.
Mr. Turner. NORTHCOM, in its 2007-2008 GBI study, had
proposed an East Coast site to look to providing that shoot-
look-shoot, that additional capability when we look to
protecting the East Coast, both for Iran and for North Korea.
Now that phase four of the Phased Adaptive Approach is
scrapped, the--you know, obviously, we see even greater reason
for that East Coast site, having been an initiative that the
House put in the National Defense Authorization Act.
I think you would agree, would you not--I mean, looking at
your testimony from the Senate, that the--with--building out
the Alaska field does not provide us that additional capability
that an East Coast site would be or that the phase four of the
Phased Adaptive Approach would have provided or the George Bush
third site would have provided. Is that correct?
General Jacoby. What building out the missile field at Fort
Greely does for us is it allows us to increase our capability
in a way that would serve both a threat from North Korea and a
threat from Iran.
And so as we have adopted the missile defense approach----
Mr. Turner. General, I have a limited amount of time so I
am sorry to interrupt you----
General Jacoby. Sure.
Mr. Turner [continuing]. But the NORTHCOM 2007-2008 GBI
study took into consideration the Alaska site but still made a
recommendation for an East Coast side. You would agree that
that East Coast site would provide us additional capability
that we cannot have in merely building on Alaska?
General Jacoby. I would agree that a third site, wherever
the decision is to build a third site, would give me better
weapons access, increased GBI inventory, and allow us the
battle space to more optimize our defense against future
threats from Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Turner. One additional issue that I would like to
raise, the, you know, the old adage of ``all your eggs in one
basket'' seems to be similar to the interpretation of the issue
of Alaska.
I mean, we do increase our vulnerability when we limit
ourselves to a concentration of some missiles in California and
a significant number in Alaska without that third site. I would
think that would be an additional justification for a third
site.
General Jacoby. I wouldn't argue with you on that.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And General Jacoby, General Kelly, thank you so much for
being here. I am sorry I missed the earlier testimony.
But I wonder if I could just follow up with my colleague
for a second, because, General Jacoby, it sounded to me like
you didn't, you know, directly answer that question, and I am
just wondering whether there are some real downsides to that
consideration that, perhaps, have not been clear? And we are
talking about the East Coast site, if you could expand on that.
General Jacoby. All right. The original missile defense
construct was for limited defense against limited threats that
most of them postulated into the future. And what we have done
is we have availed ourselves of some options that were left
open to us by not abandoning the rest of--or finishing the
construction of missile field two in Alaska, not abandoning
missile field one. And so that has allowed us now to keep
ahead, to outpace the threat in North Korea. And also it
addresses an Iranian threat, as well.
We are very pleased with the NDAA that has directed us to
do a study, and it is going to allow us to keep making steps in
the direction to provide us options in the future so that as a
threat evolves we can keep pace or outpace the threat. And so I
think we are on a good path with that.
I will tell you, all of the missile defense activity really
starts with intelligence. It really starts with our
understanding of the threat and building that threat picture
and keeping up with it. And so we have made important strides
in that regard, as well.
So I take all the points that have been brought up on an
East Coast field. The fact of the matter is there is still work
to be done on if a third site, where is the optimum place for a
third site, given--balancing between those two threats, one of
them far more advanced than the other threat?
Mrs. Davis. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that because I
think it is obviously a point of contention, and----
General Jacoby. Sure.
Mrs. Davis [continuing]. Doesn't sound like it is
necessarily the strategic direction that we need to go right
now.
General Jacoby. What is not in contention is I fully feel
responsibility and accountability for the defense of this
Nation, not just from North Korea but from any threats to the
Nation. And so I will be the strongest advocate for preparing
ourselves and arming ourselves for evolving threat.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, General. If I could come back to you
for a second, as well. I know that earlier discussing the three
greatest threats in your area of command--and General Kelly, I
am not sure if you weighed in in the same way on that on the
three--and cyber obviously is one of those, and we certainly
are well aware of that.
I wondered if you could talk a little bit more, though,
about what you see the impacts that such attack would have upon
our homeland, and whether there are opportunities to use,
perhaps, the National Guard differently in preparing for any
cyber defense strategies. And are there other opportunities
that you think, perhaps, because of cost constraints or just
about anything else, that we are not doing to the extent that
you would suggest?
General Jacoby. On the cyber front, we share cyber concerns
with Strategic Command and Cyber Command specifically. But we
have great partners in the National Guard, strong partnership
with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. And so
that is how the spectrum of responsibilities kind of unfolds in
the homeland, where the President's executive order and the PDD
[Presidential Decision Directive] really helped illuminate some
stratification of responsibilities, and I think that is
swimming into focus pretty well.
Within the Department, roles and responsibilities for the
different components--Active, Title 10 Reserve, and National
Guard--we are working hard on those. It is really important
that in the cyber domain that the standards and certification
of units that participate in cyber work have got to be of the
highest; and really the commander that sets the pace and sets
the standard is Cyber Command.
General Grass and I met with General Alexander earlier this
week to have this very discussion because we know that there is
an important role for the Guard to play in support of our
global, regional and State requirements for cyber.
Mrs. Davis. May I just ask you, General, quickly, I think
one of the concerns in this area, because it is relatively
new----
General Jacoby. It is.
Mrs. Davis [continuing]. In the scope of things in terms of
the pipeline of skill sets and the expertise. How comfortable
are you feeling about the way in which that training and the
opportunities for people to really--to work in this field is
developing now?
General Jacoby. I think it deserves our constant attention.
You know, we are under tremendous uncertainty in terms of
manning and budget and programs, and so I will tell you,
though, this is General Alexander's domain. But he has got
everyone's attention on the requirement for, as you say,
ensuring that cyber warriors are in the pipeline to meet the
future requirements, not just the day-to-day.
In terms of what it might look like in the homeland, I
would just say that we are concerned that a cyber--a large
cyber attack on the homeland--and former Secretary Panetta
characterized it as the potential 9/11 event--will have
cascading effects. An event like that will have cascading
effects.
So they may hit the transportation network and shut things
down maybe in the East Coast corridor, but it would be more
than just stopping transportation. It would be the economic
implications and other rippling effects into society.
A good example of how that might unfold, really, was
Hurricane Sandy.
The Chairman. General, gentlelady's time has expired. She
got that question in just at the close of her time.
General Jacoby. I will be glad to talk to you about it at
any other time----
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
The Chairman. Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, General Jacoby, before I get to my questions, I hope
you remembered my invitation for you to join me for this fall's
Talladega 500.
General Kelly, you come with him. You will have a good
time.
General Jacoby, were you involved in the new missile
defense posture decisionmaking that was recently announced on
Friday?
General Jacoby. Congressman, yes I was. It was a very
collaborative and detailed process over the last several
months.
Mr. Rogers. Why was the decision made last week, 3 weeks
before the budget is released? Why was it important, do you
think, to go ahead and announce it last week?
General Jacoby. I can't speak to the exact timing of the
release. I know that it is a report that Congress asked for
quite a while back and it was due.
Mr. Rogers. I agree.
Do you know when the President's security adviser is going
to be making his trip to Russia to talk about more arms
control?
General Jacoby. No I do not, Congressman.
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Are you aware that the Russians have
repeatedly stated that the SMD--SM-3 IIB missile is a
``dealbreaker'' for more nuclear arms control, which President
Obama has indicated he wants?
General Jacoby. I know the Russians have been unhappy with
some of our missile defense program, but I can't speak to the
details of that.
Mr. Rogers. On Friday Under Secretary Miller stated, when
asked if it had been a mistake to mothball the Missile Field
One [Missile Field Number One at Fort Greely, Alaska], he
responded, ``We saved resources at the time that we will now
have to spend. But at the time the threat was uncertain, right?
We didn't--we didn't know that we would--what we would see
today--we did not know we would see today what we now see.''
Were we surprised by the North Korean threat?
General Jacoby. I wouldn't characterize it as being
surprised. I think that North Korea proceeded at a pace faster
than we had anticipated and I think there were many factors
involved in that, to include the change in leadership--the very
dramatic change in leadership in North Korea over the past
year.
And so I think it is very appropriate that we proceed with
continuing developments that allow us to outpace this North
Korean threat.
Mr. Rogers. But as far as capability, were we surprised by
the successful recent test that they had and their new
capability? I recognize the leadership change was unexpected.
General Jacoby. Right. There have been several attempts
with a TD-2 [Taepo Dong-2 intermediate-range missile] to put a
space vehicle into orbit. The intelligence community was mixed
on whether they would be successful, and I think that they--we
have to consider that successful and we have to consider it a
demonstration of their ability to pursue ICBM technology, as
reflected in the rollout of the long-range, road-mobile
missile.
And so from the NORTHCOM perspective now, what that means
is we honor that threat. Okay, so exactly where it is, exactly
how many is still unclear. Is it operational? Is it not?
But from a warfighter, from a commander's point of view, we
honor that threat today.
Mr. Rogers. Don't we have similar concerns with the Iranian
potential threat?
General Jacoby. As I mentioned earlier in my testimony, I
believe that the Iranians are intent on developing an ICBM.
They have had some successful space launches where they put
into orbit satellites. I believe they are pursuing ICBM, as the
director of national intelligence has testified as well, so I
think that we have to proceed under the assumption that without
any other intervening factor that they will continue to seek an
ICBM and we should be prepared to improve our capabilities as
required to meet the evolution of that threat.
Right now, as you know, we are able to defend the United
States against Iranian--a threat from Iran today.
Mr. Rogers. Right.
General Jacoby, can you elaborate on sensor improvements,
including added deployments of sensors that NORTHCOM believes
are needed? For example, would added X-band sensor coverage on
the East Coast protect against threats from Iran?
General Jacoby. Thank you.
I have been a strong proponent to work across the entire
enterprise and not to stay focused on just one piece. And so to
have the best GBI in the world but not to have a redundant and
resilient sensor architecture to support that wouldn't make
sense. And so we very much look at the whole category of things
to improve across the BMD enterprise.
Now, as part of this rollout you know that TPY-2
[Transportable Radar Surveillance]--a second TPY-2 into Japan
is central to that and it gives us that redundancy and
resiliency in our sensor architecture.
You know that there are improvements that are being made in
our UEWR [Upgraded Early Warning Radar] sites. We are strong
proponents on that for both the West and the East Coast, and we
should be fully prepared to add sensors to the program as
required and as the threat develops.
And it really has to do with, how sophisticated do our
adversaries become over time and what does the sensor
requirement become over time?
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
The Chairman. Ms. Bordallo.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member.
And good morning, General Jacoby and General Kelly.
This question is for the two of you. The U.S. territories
of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have become
increasingly affected by the drug trade. The most recent
statistics provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, and the Drug Enforcement Administration show
very steep increases in drug seizures in and around the
territories in 2012 compared to 2011 with no corresponding
decrease in the street price of drugs in either territory.
Violence linked to the drug trade has also spiked, and the
homicide rates in the two territories are the highest in the
country by a substantial margin. I believe that this is a
national security problem, given the fact that these are U.S.
jurisdictions and the fact that the evidence suggests that up
to 80 percent of the drugs that enter Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands are subsequently transported by air and maritime
means to the U.S.
So can you comment on what steps NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM are
already taking to address drug-related violence and what
additional steps you intend to take going forward to address
this problem?
General Jacoby. Thank you for that question. It is a great
concern for us that--the levels of violence and NORTHCOM does
have responsibility for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and
the Unified Command plan.
One of the first things that we did was to send our defense
coordinating officer and planners down to work with the Puerto
Rico National Guard, and that is principally how we do business
is we support civil authorities, we don't conduct separate
operations.
So we are very much in support of any initiatives that they
may ask us to do, or our partners. And so Customs Border
Patrol, Coast Guard, DHS [Department of Homeland Security]--I
know that they are working a campaign plan for looking at the
problems and how we can help.
And my organization that would get behind that is Joint
Task Force North. They are my go-to organization to provide
Defense Department support to civil authorities. That will be
constrained by the budget, by how much--how many resources we
can put against it, but we will make it a priority as requests
come in for support.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you.
And, General Kelly.
General Kelly. As we watch the drug trafficking patterns,
most of it of course--well 20 years ago it all came up through
that part of the Caribbean and into Florida primarily--well,
certainly the East Coast of the United States. Those patterns
changed as our partners and our own Government was successful.
So as we stop that flow 20 years ago or so the flow now goes up
through Panama--correction--Central America and Mexico.
As we have been somewhat successful--I wouldn't say highly
successful, but fairly successful--in an operation that was
started by my predecessor, Operation Martillo, we have been
pretty successful in getting an awful lot of cocaine primarily
off the flow. As that has been successful, I think we have
started to see--and you--as you point out, the traffickers
finding another way around.
The good news is, unlike 20 years ago, we watch this
network pretty closely; we know what they are doing and we can
detect even pretty small changes in their operation patterns.
But at the end of the day, my responsibility is for
detection and monitoring, and working shoulder to shoulder with
law enforcement, the other heroes in this fight: the DEA, local
law enforcement, FBI, Treasury, Justice. And they are really in
the interdiction business.
But, if I don't have assets, which I don't, all I can do is
watch the drugs go by.
Ms. Bordallo. Well, thank you. Thank you, General.
And I have one quick question for you, General, again.
This is regarding the State Partnership Program. I am a
very strong proponent of the program and I value strong state
relationships such as the one between Guam and the Philippines.
I believe the National Guard state partnership program provides
combatant commands with a tremendous tool to partner with
allied nations.
So can you comment of the value of this program in your
command? And what, if any, other opportunities are possible for
the expansion of the SPP [State Partnership Program] in the
SOUTHCOM AOR?
General Kelly. I agree with the Congresswoman that it is
very, very useful, highly successful, as I mentioned to Mr.
Wilson; he asked a similar question. We get a lot out of it for
very, very, very little money. So I would certainly--I think we
have 26 down in the SOUTHCOM AOR--be certainly happy to see
that increase, but I think it does, to a large degree these
days, come down to budget.
Ms. Bordallo. Well, thank you very much.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Jacoby, General Kelly thank you so much for joining
us today. We really appreciate your service to our Nation.
General Kelly, I want to ask specifically about the
criticality of the Navy's mission there in SOUTHCOM and that
AOR, the things that are going on there. Obviously it is a
pretty expansive mission. Want to get a perspective about what
the sequester and the potential of the C.R. [Continuing
Resolution] places there on Navy operations in that area.
And we all know that recently the cancellation of the USNS
Comfort's availability in that region. Just want to get your
perspective on where you believe the operational capacity will
be, where the needs may exist, and where there may be a gap
potentially.
General Kelly. Well, the need is there, certainly. The
wonderful thing about Comfort is it is a tremendous outreach to
people who in some cases have never seen the U.S. flag before
and suddenly they are having, you know, fairly detailed medical
procedures done for free. I mean, thousands and thousands of
medical procedures.
So the Comfort is a big deal. By the way, the Chinese have
gotten involved in that as well and have deployed their own
hospital ship to the region. To the best of my knowledge right
now, Comfort is gone this year, it is--we are losing that and--
because of sequestration. And not just because of
sequestration. I mean, when you take a $487 billion bite out of
the budget things are going to start to fall, and then if you
add another $500 billion on that.
So Navy ops [operations] in my area of operations will
essentially stop--go to zero, I believe. With a little luck,
the United States Coast Guard, you know, the other heros in
this fight--with a little luck I might--we might see a Coast
Guard cutter down there, but we are going to lose airborne ISR
in this--in the counterdrug fight, we will lose the Navy
assets.
Many of the assets we got--excuse me--many of the assets we
got even in the recent past were just assets that were down in
the Caribbean, as an example, training. And they have got to--
you know, they have got to be at sea so they come down and
while they were training in the Caribbean or in the Eastern
Pacific they participate in the drug fight, if you will. So a
lot of this stuff wasn't even dedicated to me, it was just
opportune.
Same thing with some of the airborne ISRs. Believe it or
not, B-52s [Stratofortress strategic bomber] and B-1s [Lancer
strategic bomber] when they train have to train somewhere. The
airplane doesn't know where it is when it is doing its training
so we actually had aircraft like that flying over the
Caribbean, JSTARS [Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar
System], opportune opportunity because they were training and
we just, you know, benefited from that training exercise.
So much of what we have gotten is not really dedicated to
us, but simply we take advantage of it.
Mr. Wittman. Okay. Very good.
General Jacoby, I want to ask you specifically about the
aerospace control alert system. As you know, it is our 24-hour
system that allows us to respond.
If you look at the Air Force budget it looks like that is
going to be reduced significantly to where we will not have a
24-hour alert capability, and obviously in looking at the
effects of the sequester and the C.R. my question is, going
forward--and I understand that the Air National Guard and the
Air Force provide that dual capability there--how is the
sustainment of that particular effort and the critical nature
of that going to continue obviously in the face of that
proposed reduction, but also in looking at sequestration and
the C.R., and how important is having that 24-hour capability
to our ability to detect and respond to threats?
General Jacoby. Thank you.
This is a core mission for NORAD, and so we are going to
maintain a 24/7 capability.
Last year a very tough decision was made to reduce two
sites from 24/7 to a lower category. There was some uncertainty
with the language coming back out, and so we believe that--we
haven't seen the 2014 numbers but we believe that we still may
lose those two, so we have a plan to stand those down. But that
is not getting rid of the unit, that is not getting rid of the
capability, that is coming down from 24/7.
I believe I could mitigate that reduction but I don't want
to take any more. And so across the country I still have 14
bases where I have two fighters ready to go in 7 minutes. And I
really think that that is the most rapid, most capable military
response that our Secretary and President has at his finger
tips and we are going to maintain that. It is essential to what
we do.
Mr. Wittman. Let me jump right in and ask this before my
time runs out: So you will continue the 24/7 capability at
those sites?
General Jacoby. At the 14 remaining sites in continental
United States, two in Canada, one in Alaska, one in Hawaii.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Nugent.
Mr. Nugent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank both generals for being here today. We really do
appreciate your service to this country.
General Kelly, I know one of the previous members had asked
questions as it relates to GTMO and alluded to the fact that he
thought that defense attorneys were a great source of
information in regards to the treatment of prisoners at GTMO.
That may or may not be true.
I will tell you having run a detention facility of 500
prisoners, they weren't necessarily objective in their
criticism, you think? Particularly when we ended pizza Fridays,
that was a problem.
So I am looking forward to a trip to GTMO to see exactly
the living conditions for our troops, but also how we deal with
those detainees, and you correctly pointed out that ICRC comes
there unannounced--announced and unannounced--and I would
suggest that that is a pretty independent group. I don't think
they have always been supportive, and maybe you can answer
that, and what has changed their mind from the past.
General Kelly. They look at it kind of two--there are two
parts to their--to a discussion with them, and almost certainly
within the first few days of taking command they came by to
just--we had a conference down in Miami down at my headquarters
that they participated in and had to do with detainee office
ops.
They gave us high marks overall for how the detainees are
cared for, housed, fed, medical care, but then the other part
of it is--and I understand this and I have nothing but respect
for what they do; I have worked with them in Iraq and other
places--their idea is that their conditions should always
improve ultimately until they are released.
And so there are limits, whether it is Department of
Defense or the commissions or other Government agencies are
willing to let that go, but they always ask for more and we do
the best we can to provide more--excuse me--but they are pretty
independent and they are pretty happy with what they see down
there.
Again, their view would be, you know, housed in another
place and maybe they question whether they should be there at
all, but at the end of the day all I am really interested in is
the marks they give me for how they, you know----
Mr. Nugent. They care for them.
General Kelly [continuing]. How humanely we treat them,
yes. Exactly
Mr. Nugent. You made a previous comment reference to
Comfort not being deployed. What message does that send,
obviously, because you are trying to build relationships with
those in South America, and typically an underserved area from
our perspective? How does that affect you?
General Kelly. Well, as I think I said a little while ago,
for the most part the people of the Caribbean, Central America,
Latin America, they really want us in their lives; with a few
notable exceptions, they want us in their lives.
That means engagement. You know, it is funny, they don't
ask for very much with the exception of, ``Hey, we are about to
do something, and, you know, could you send down a few officers
to help us plan this training exercise or naval exercise?'' So
they ask for very little.
And just to go down there, my trips down there is a big
deal to them. We will send down a small number of, say, special
forces guys, gals to train them in something, and--or a company
of marines to go down to Guatemala and teach them riverine ops,
that kind of thing. Very, very small investments.
And so, to answer your question, you know, as those things
are--not as many of those things under sequestration or even
under the initial $487 billion cut, there will be fewer--less
and less of that kind of thing. And then I would--I can't
underscore enough, the Comfort is a huge deal to them down
there. And to not have Comfort go down is--will catch their----
Mr. Nugent. You made, I think, a very good observation that
China is going to fill that void with their own ``Comfort,''
and flying the Chinese flag, particularly far away from where
they live, right in our back door. So I am concerned about, you
know, what message we are sending to our closest neighbors.
What else do you see from China in regards to their
influence in South America?
General Kelly. I am watching the chairman, but they are
very economically engaged, buying commodities in a big way and
also investing in port facilities and the things like that. So
they are very, very economically engaged throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean.
Mr. Nugent. I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
The Chairman. Dr. Wenstrup.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, General Kelly and General Jacoby, for being
here.
You know, some of the issues raised today are legitimate
concerns that we as Americans always have as to how we conduct
our business.
But as a Army medical officer who spent a year in Iraq at a
detention facility in Iraq from 2005-2006 I have some firsthand
knowledge of how we conduct our business. And I came home proud
to say how we conducted our business.
And I also found that often there were alleged activities
that absolutely had no bearing and--on things that simply did
not exist or take place. And I am sure you can appreciate that,
sitting in your position.
And I can attest to the quality of care that the detainees
received in our facility because it was the same providers and
the same care that was offered to our troops.
And I can also say, for the record, that as far as I know,
in the entire year that I was there, only one politician came
to see what we were doing and that was the governor of Florida,
Jeb Bush.
Also, what was addressed earlier was a hunger strike. And I
was involved with the hunger strike policy that we put in
place. In our case it was a very high-value detainee, and I can
attest to the very humane way that we go about the business of
taking care of those not so much as detainees, but we looked at
them as a patient.
So just for the record, I am very proud of how we conducted
our business, and I am hopeful and feel assured that you are
conducting it the same way.
My question is, at Guantanamo, where I have not been--and I
am assuming but asking the question--the access to medical care
for the detainees is the same as it is for our troops. Would
that be correct?
General Kelly. Absolutely.
Dr. Wenstrup. Thank you.
And I yield back my time.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Lamborn.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
having to be in and out. I have another committee that is
having amendments that--with--that has recorded votes so that
is why I was in and out.
But both of you, thank you for your service to our country.
Thank you for being here.
General Jacoby, in particular, I want to greet you. It is
always good to see you.
And for the people including yourself and under your
command who serve in Colorado Springs, you are such a great
addition to our community and the public spiritedness. I just
want to thank you for that.
And I will ask a technical question now, because I couldn't
turn down this opportunity. And it has to do with missile
defense.
And Chairman Rogers was referring to this earlier, but as
part of the overall strategic decisions--and I applaud the 10
additional ground-based interceptors that we are going to put
on our homeland, but I am hoping--and I know he shares this
same concern--I am hoping that that is not at the expense of
what would have been stationed somewhere in Europe, like, let's
say Romania, because that is much closer to the threat of Iran
that we all know is a developing threat, an emerging threat,
and does protect our homeland from Iranian ICBMs, should that
day arrive. And we know that their intentions are to have an
ICBM capability.
Could you comment on that, General?
General Jacoby. Congressman, thanks. And it is great to see
you and I will be ready to get back home with you.
So it is not really my lane for a European Phased Adaptive
Approach. The rollout spoke the story of how the phases one
through three will continue apace.
Phase four was centered around the SM-3 Block IIB [Standard
Missile-3 ballistic missile interceptor], and I want to make
sure that we are thinking about this in time correctly.
SM-3 Block IIB has been moving to the right for a long
time. It is beyond 2020. It is--you know, we have a saying in
the military, ``It is PowerPoint deep.''
And so there were some aspects of SM-3 Block IIB that are
being sustained. The advanced EKV [Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle]
design work that is being done, that will be of tremendous
benefit. So that continues.
But the option that was chosen was, if you place 14 more
missiles at Greely you are going to outpace the future North
Korean threat and still be able to defend against Iran. And so
you wouldn't be able to do that with an ICBM shooter in Europe.
You couldn't go both ways.
So, where we are, juxtaposing both threats, was a good
solid decision. And where we were on the SM-3 Block IIB
program, it was a solid decision. And I won't speak for how the
allies respond but I know that Admiral Stavridis is working
through that right now and I would defer to him.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, and I know that this isn't exactly what
you concentrate on all the time but it is peripheral to the
threats that you do handle and so, I appreciate your answer.
And I understand that if we have constraints, what was decided
may very well be the best decision. However, I am hoping--and
will be working--that it is a both/and situation, not an
either/or situation.
General Jacoby. Right. And as the commander responsible for
it, you know, we are not looking to compromise on the defense
of the American people.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. I have no doubt about that.
I thank you again, and you, General Kelly, for the great
service you have given our country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Conaway. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
that.
It is great to be here. I am a new guy to the United States
Congress. I have been here for 2\1/2\ months. But I am a naval
aviator and I have flown counterdrug missions in Central and
South America, from, you know, Colombia and El Salvador.
And I had a question for you, General Kelly, if you could
share for us what the correlation is between successful
missions down south and the price of cocaine at home, and if
that is a reasonable way to measure success? Can you share with
us your thoughts on that?
General Kelly. Well, I think the more cocaine you take off
the market before it gets to, you know, Anytown, USA, will--
just supply and demand will drive the price up.
Of course, they do have a little bit of an advantage there,
because they can also cut it more and drive the quality down.
But at a certain point even the average drug user has got its
limits in terms of the quality of the product he or she is
using.
But I think, again, if you drive--if you limit the amount
that flows north, that gets into Anytown, USA, that price will
go up. And with a lot of prediction, I think, fewer and fewer
people will try cocaine, young kids, as an example. It is not
to say they won't find another way to do harm to themselves,
but I think that is a measure of success.
I know the office--the White House office on drug reduction
and all claims that the use of cocaine is down by 40 percent. I
have no way to validate that number, but if it is down by 40
percent or 30 percent or 2.5 percent, it just might mean one
other family doesn't have to bury his or her--their children.
Mr. Bridenstine. Absolutely. I hear a lot, as a member of
Congress and somebody who just got through a campaign, that the
drug war is not worth fighting. And I would attest that when we
see success down south we do see the effect on the price of
cocaine at home. And ultimately, you know, we can prevent
people from becoming addicted by driving down the access here
in the United States of America.
So I just want to thank you for the work you are doing,
thank you for all the people in Central and South America that
are working so hard on this particular mission.
One other question I had, and this will be it: When you
consider the assets that we have in the Caribbean or the
Eastern Pacific and how they match up with the targets that
are, you know, available, can you talk for a minute about, are
those assets correctly matched? And what can we, as member of
Congress, do to maybe support you in the acquisitions process
to match the--you know, the right asset with the right targets?
General Kelly. Well, there are kind of three aspects of
what we do in terms of the monitoring, detection, and
ultimately some of the interdiction. You need good
intelligence, and we have really, really good intelligence. We
understand the network and have a lot of human intelligence
sources, have a lot of NSA [National Security Agency] and
things like that. And that is all managed for me down at JIATF-
South, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, in Key West.
And then as that picture is built, then we can vector
people like yourself when you flew, airborne ISR. And as I have
already mentioned, we take any airplane that was available, to
include B-1s and B-52s, at times, to search the ocean, find
what we are looking for.
And then rather than have, you know, the Coast Guard
cutters or U.S. Navy ships just out patrolling like they did 10
or 12 years ago looking, now we almost--JIATF-South can
basically tell them where to go, you know, get there by a
certain time, look off the port bow, and that guy that is going
40 knots, go get him. And that guy going 40 knots might be
doing, you know--might have 8 to 10 tons of very, very pure
cocaine on board.
We are getting better at it, and I don't want to get too
much into it in an open forum, but they have--I mean, we are
being so successful in many ways, they are now building their
own submarines with long, long, long legs--you know, a
submarine, fully submersible that can go 6,800 miles on a tank
of gas. And they are fully submersible--not for that whole
distance; they have to come up and recharge. But we have driven
them to that. They have to build these things in--primarily in
the--up the estuaries in Colombia, and then take them to sea.
So that is how--I mean, that is a measure of effectiveness
of how well we are doing on the high seas and in the air. We
are forcing them underwater and we are working to get at them
down there as well.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you so much.
Mr. Conaway. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Franks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, thank you for being here. I have had the
privilege of being able to visit with both of you in a private
setting and I just--you know, I always try to take the time if
I can, when people with stars on their shoulders that have
given their lives to the cause of freedom and given my children
a better chance to be free, I just want to thank you with all
my heart for your service, and I appreciate your patience
sometimes with some of the incredibly brilliant questions you
get from this panel.
With that said, let me try not to fall into that category
here.
General Jacoby, I wanted to just again thank you for your
time the other day. And I am curious to see how protected you
feel our critical defense assets are from potential severe
space weather or manmade electromagnetic pulse. It is a broad
subject.
You know, one of the challenges we have right now, we are
dealing a lot with cybersecurity. And of course, you know, our
generals are doing everything they can to protect us from that
but they don't have the supervisorial capability over the
private I.P. [Internet Protocol] network. And the same is true
of the civilian grid.
And I just wondered if you could expand on that and maybe
give me time to answer--ask General Kelly a question.
General Jacoby. Sure. Thanks, Congressman. It is good to
see you.
Right now I start my day with a weather report, and that
includes solar weather. It does have an effect on us. And so we
track that very closely and we are very interested in the
effects of any problems on the electric grid to critical
infrastructure.
And as you said, it is not just limited to defense critical
infrastructure. Our general security is really in the hands of,
you know, from private to Government to commercial, and so it
is working as a team to discover what is critical, where are
the nodes that need to be protected. And as we saw in Hurricane
Sandy, there are cascading effects when the power grid goes
down, so it is really important for us to be a partner in the
larger effort to do that.
Specifically for EMP [electromagnetic pulse], we are not
tracking a--intelligence on an EMP threat today, but
intelligence is really the key for us, but we do have
vulnerabilities. So I think that as part of any assessment of
our critical infrastructure that should be one of the important
questions we ask about what would an EMP effect be.
For my command itself, the NORAD, NORTHCOM, we are very
well protected for EMP. We have critical national-level command
and control systems that, as part of the development of those
systems, EMP hardening was taken into account and we have done
that.
So also, it is important to ensure that we train ourselves
in operating in a denied environment and we do that as well.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you, sir. I continue to be glad you
are on our side.
General Kelly, I wanted to just ask you that, you know,
related to Admiral Greenert's testimony to this committee, he
stated that unless our budget changes courses we will stop all
aircraft deployments to South America and stopping efforts that
interdicted hundreds of tons of illegal drugs in--coming into
the United States in 2012. Can you explain to this committee
the direct impact it will have on our Nation, from your
perspective--that particular issue?
And also, I guess a little more esoteric, do you feel that
greater use of autonomous surveillance sensors and
communications assets could help fill any gaps in the
counterterrorism and illicit drug trafficking capability
deficiencies that were highlighted by Admiral Greenert?
General Kelly. Well, in terms of ships and the like, with
almost scientific accuracy I can tell you that if we have one
average--if we have one ship working the drug interdiction
mission or actually detection monitoring and interdiction, one
ship, I can tell you on average how much that ship will be
responsible for taking off the market in the course of a year--
two ships, twice as much; three ships, and it goes up and up
and up and up.
By the same token, as you lose that capability on the water
it goes down. So if I go to zero, you know, we--I believe we
need 14 ships down there in the Pacific and in the Caribbean on
any given day and we could really, really hurt this drug flow.
I get on average about 5 or 6. That includes--I am sorry--
includes Coast Guard cutters as well, and they are very, very
stressed, the Coast Guard is.
So I get 5 or 6 if I am lucky. I suspect I will go to one
or zero because of the budget issues. So all of that drugs
that--all of those drugs will make their way up through Central
America, Mexico, across the border, and right into Arizona.
Mr. Franks. And as far as autonomous surveillance sensors,
any increased need there?
General Kelly. I mean, there are other ways to do this.
Again, I would rather go in a classified setting. We are doing
some things now, but things like drones and whatnot, just
surveillance drones, could really help us out and really take
the heat and wear and tear off of some of our manned aviation
assets.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you both again for your service.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Conaway. The gentleman's time has expired.
I recognize myself for 5 minutes.
General Kelly, it is good to see you.
Good to see you, sir, General Jacoby, as well.
Thank you for at least twice--I got here a little bit
late--for getting into the record the $487 billion cut, as well
as the $500 billion cut and the impacts as we are going--that
those will have. And we appreciate the struggles we are going
to have--you are going to have trying to make do with those
much-reduced resources.
Can you give us a bit of a brief on what is post-
Venezuela--or Venezuela will look like post-Chavez and the
impact it has had--the influence that Chavez had throughout
South America? Can you give what the current read is on what it
is going to look like without him?
General Kelly. As I know you know, Congressman, there were
two parts of Chavez. You know, at least 51 percent of the
population of his country thought very highly of him. He had
tremendous charisma and could appeal to certain elements of his
society. So that is one part of it.
The other part is how, as a president, what the country--
what the condition of the country is right now. And of course,
it is in tough shape. It is very, very high crime, high murder
rates; economy is faltering. The petrochemical industry is old
and needs and awful lot of money to restructure.
The expectation is that the vice president will win the
election on the 14th of April. He may or may not be a better
president. He doesn't have any of the charisma and the
belovedness, if you will, that Chavez had.
So he will have a tough row to hoe, because I think he
will--a lot of the things that maybe were happening or not
happening in Venezuela, people were willing to say, ``Well,
yes, we still love the President Hugo Chavez.'' Not going to
have that advantage if you are not Hugo Chavez.
So the expectation is that the vice president will be
elected and that things will continue to be as they are in
Venezuela, and who knows 5 years down the line.
One of the things that I think many of the countries that
benefit from Venezuela's largess--Cuba and some of the other
countries--I think they realize that they cannot continue to
get the very, very, very reasonable rates on loans and oil and
things like that at the cost they get it. I don't think,
probably, Venezuela can sustain that. So I think they are
nervous that with Mr. Chavez gone, that by necessity the vice
president, if he is elected--but anyone that is elected--will
have to rethink the flow of money that goes out of the country
to essentially buy friends.
So they are nervous about it. Many of their economies are,
these nations in particular, four or five of them, their
economies are kind of weak. And if they actually had to pay
world prices for oil or didn't get the very, very low-interest
loans that they enjoy under Chavez they would be in real
trouble.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Smith, anything else?
Mr. Smith. No, thank you.
Mr. Conaway. Gentlemen, thank you for your long service to
our country and your continued service.
And this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
=======================================================================
A P P E N D I X
March 20, 2013
=======================================================================
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 20, 2013
=======================================================================
Statement of Hon. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon
Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services
Hearing on
Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act--
The Posture of the U.S. Northern Command
and U.S. Southern Command
March 20, 2013
Good morning. The committee meets today to receive
testimony on the posture of both our Northern Command and
Southern Command. I am pleased to welcome General Charles
Jacoby, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American
Aerospace Defense Command, and General John Kelly, commander of
U.S. Southern Command. Gentlemen, thank you for your long and
distinguished service to our Nation and thank you for joining
us today.
Even as we proceed in this difficult budget environment and
the news commands our attention to Africa and the Middle East,
we must be diligent in keeping our hemisphere safe. Therefore,
I was pleased by the Administration's announcement last Friday
affirming the program of the previous Administration to deploy
44 ground-based interceptors at two sites in California and
Alaska. On the other hand, cancelling the fourth phase of the
EPAA sends a terrible signal to America's allies. I would have
hoped after the 2009 fiasco, we would stop waking up our
Eastern European allies to tell them, at the last minute, that
we're changing our missile defense plans on them. General
Jacoby, I look forward to learning more about how we're filling
the gaps in our homeland missile
defense.
I also look forward to hearing your assessment of the
progress being made by the new President of Mexico on drug-
related violence and what NORTHCOM is doing to support Mexico
and build their capacity and capabilities. This is a threat
daily and directly impacting the U.S. homeland, and we need to
treat it as a national security imperative.
General Kelly, in my mind, the illicit trafficking threat
is the greatest challenge we face in your geographic area of
responsibility. While we continue to see success in Colombia,
destabilization and violence in Central America is rampant.
Tackling these issues requires close collaboration and
coordination with NORTHCOM, as well as interagency partners.
Unfortunately, the Navy will eliminate its ship presence in the
Caribbean in April due to sequestration. This guarantees an
increased flow of drugs and illicit networking across our
borders. To that end, please elaborate on the other
consequences of sequestration on both of your commands.
Gentlemen, thank you again for appearing before us today.
Statement of Hon. Adam Smith
Ranking Member, House Committee on Armed Services
Hearing on
Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act--
The Posture of the U.S. Northern Command
and U.S. Southern Command
March 20, 2013
I would like to join Chairman McKeon in welcoming General
Kelly and General Jacoby. We appreciate your time and look
forward to hearing your thoughts.
Moving forward, sequestration will continue to complicate
how the Department of Defense plans and appropriates resources.
That will certainly have an impact on your day-to-day
operations as well as your ability to achieve your
requirements. In light of this challenge, and the other
challenges you face, I look forward to hearing from you.
General Kelly, after your first few months at SOUTHCOM, I
am interested in your thoughts on the important issues in your
new portfolio. These issues continue to be the nontraditional
threats in the region, the rising violence and instability in
Central America, our military-to-military cooperation in the
area, and your counternarcotics duties. I would also like to
hear about our continuing work with Colombia and finally your
impressions about the detainee mission at Guantanamo Bay. While
SOUTHCOM continues to lack traditional military threats to the
United States, these issues are important to the United States
and often require an interagency approach to address them.
General Jacoby, you and the dedicated men and women of
NORTHCOM and NORAD have been very busy lately, carrying out
various missions to defend our homeland. Your support to civil
authorities have been indispensable as our Nation responded to
massive fires and devastating hurricanes over the last year.
Internal threats such as these are increasing annually and
appear to be growing in intensity.
External threats such as those posed by North Korea and
Iran are also growing as they seek to improve their
capabilities to launch long-range missiles. I was pleased last
week to see that the Administration continues to respond
appropriately and firmly by bolstering our capabilities and
capacity to defend ourselves. The Administration's decision to
deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptors is a wise and
prudent step in implementing a sound strategy for missile
defense. General Jacoby, I trust we will learn more about this
decision during your testimony as well as better understand the
Administration's long-term efforts to make smart investments to
improve the effectiveness and reliability of our missile
defense capability.
I would also ask that you comment on the defense and
security partnerships with our northern and southern neighbors
as we pursue mutual security interests.
Again, thank you all for your time.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 20, 2013
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SMITH
Mr. Smith. What would the cost range be for an additional missile
defense site (including cost of construction, GBI procurement,
maintenance, personnel, etc.)? What were the total costs of the missile
fields at Fort Greely and Vandenberg AFB?
General Jacoby. This question is best answered by the MDA.
USNORTHCOM provides warfighter requirements to the MDA, which shape the
development of new capabilities.
Mr. Smith. What other installations would be required at an East
Coast site and what would the cost for those be (including radar
systems, command and control systems, satellite ground stations,
security, fencing and alarms, roads, runways, and other access)?
General Jacoby. This question is best answered by the MDA.
USNORTHCOM provides warfighter requirements to the MDA, which shape the
development of new capabilities.
Mr. Smith. The National Academy of Sciences report recommended an
East Coast site assuming a new type of interceptor booster and EKV were
developed. Is there a plan for a new interceptor acquisition program?
What would the costs be for a new booster and EKV? How long would
development of the new interceptor take?
General Jacoby. These questions are best answered by the MDA.
USNORTHCOM provides warfighter requirements to the MDA, which shape the
development of new capabilities.
Mr. Smith. Why did the DOD reject Grand Forks, North Dakota, as a
potential GMD site?
General Jacoby. This question is best answered by OSD and MDA.
USNORTHCOM provides warfighter requirements to the MDA, which shape the
development of new capabilities.
Mr. Smith. What is the legal obligation of the U.S. Government in
providing treatment for detainees for life saving/emergencies that is
readily available in CONUS, but not at GTMO (i.e. cancer, dialysis,
etc)?
General Kelly. The legal obligation of the United States for the
medical treatment of detainees is rooted in international law, Common
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and the Detainee Treatment Act of
2005. These principles of law are reflected in Department of Defense
Instruction, ``Medical Program Support for Detainee Operations,'' which
provides that ``to the extent practicable, treatment of detainees
should be guided by professional judgments and standards similar to
those applied to personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces.''
Detainee health care is provided by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo
(JTF-GTMO) Joint Medical Group (JMG), a group of more than 100
uniformed military health care professionals, and supported by the
Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Hospital. These doctors, nurses, and support
personnel provide detainees the same level of general health care given
to U.S. Armed Forces, applying identical professional judgments and
standards in caring for the detainee population. This health care
includes providing life-saving and emergency services to the extent
they are available at Guantanamo through the JMG detainee health clinic
and the Naval Hospital. Sustained medical care for more complex and
enduring illnesses may exceed the capabilities of Guantanamo Bay, and
are case dependent.
Mr. Smith. What is the legal obligation of the U.S. Government in
the event a detainee refuses to eat and/or accept medical treatment,
putting his own life in
danger?
General Kelly. The legal obligation of the United States to provide
health care to the detainees is based in international law, Common
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act of
2005, and the Department of Defense Instruction, ``Medical Program
Support for Detainee Operations.'' Health care personnel have a duty to
perform, encourage, and support, the humane treatment of detainees and
to ensure that no individual in the custody of the Department of
Defense shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or
punishment.
We recognize a legal and moral obligation to take action in the
event a detainee puts his own life in danger by refusing to eat, or by
refusing medical treatment. Prevention of unnecessary loss of life of
detainees through standard medical intervention includes involuntary
medical intervention when necessary in cases involving detainee's who
lack the mental capacity to appreciate the impact of their decisions.
Mr. Smith. Would there be any occasions in which there would be a
difference in care for a seriously ill service member at Guantanamo and
a seriously ill detainee? For example, are there medical situations in
which a service member would be sent by medevac to Miami and a detainee
would not be?
General Kelly. Yes. The difference between detainee medical care
and that of U.S. military personnel is that the latter will be brought
to the CONUS for any critical or specialized care required that is
beyond the capabilities of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Hospital. Detainees
must be treated with the medical assets available at Guantanamo;
however, medical specialists may be brought to GTMO to provide
specialized care for detainees.
Since 2009, each successive National Defense Authorization Act has
prohibited the use of funds by the Department of Defense to ``transfer,
release, or assist in the transfer or release to or within the United
States, its territories, or possessions'' those detainees currently
held at Guantanamo.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS
Mr. Rogers. Are you confident that the 20 CE-1 interceptor GBIs we
deploy are an operational capability to defend the homeland against
ballistic missile threats?
General Jacoby. I am confident that the GMD system, which includes
the 20 CE-I interceptors, can successfully defend the United States
against limited ballistic missile threats. It is important that we
continue to test and update our interceptors.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN
Mr. Wittman. General Jacoby, in your statement you discuss your
work with U.S. Cyber Command to establish a Joint Cyber Center to
recognize and assess cyber threats to the homeland. General, can you
characterize how proactive vs. reactive your efforts are today against
foreign cyber threats and attacks? Are you able to stay ahead of the
perilous entities that wish to do our Nation harm in this domain? The
reach of this threat is frightening because it touches so many parts of
American's lives. Are you working with nonmilitary cyber entities to
ensure we do not bore scope our efforts and focus, and potentially miss
large attacks that threaten our homeland?
General Jacoby. We are proactive in our defensive posture for NORAD
and USNORTHCOM command and control systems in that we strive to
minimize known vulnerabilities. Having the capability to identify
malicious cyber activity targeting our critical networks and the
ability to mitigate that threat when it occurs is essential for mission
assurance.
The Nation's capacity to stay ahead of entities that aim to do our
Nation harm in the cyber domain is improving, but much more needs to be
done. The cyber capability associated with NORAD and USNORTHCOM's Joint
Cyber Center is directly tied to DOD's increase in cyber capacity,
realized through changes in strategy and evolving awareness and
synchronization efforts alongside a host of mission partners including
DOJ, FBI, and DHS. It will take time to allocate and train the
necessary workforce.
My commands collaborate daily with non-military mission partners,
gaining insight into malicious cyber activity with the potential to
impact our ability to execute our assigned missions. We work most
closely with DHS to improve our domestic cyber situational awareness
and to appropriately plan for potential response and recovery support
of civil authorities, if requested in the event of a serious domestic
cyber attack.
Mr. Wittman. General Kelly, you mentioned the Lebanese Hezbollah
and Iranian connections to your theater. Can you discuss any possible
links between these groups and the drug trade? Furthermore, with
special operations forces and ISR assets in high demand in CENTCOM and
AFRICOM right now, and a limited presence in your AOR, how do we
maintain an active awareness and continue to foster the relationships
that we have built in SOUTHCOM? Do you see these narcoterrorist
organizations connections maturing and growing unchecked?
General Kelly. Some Latin American drug trafficking organizations
with links to Lebanon maintain family and business connections to
Lebanese Hezbollah. An unknown portion of their profits benefits
Lebanese Hezbollah. Narcotics traffickers are generally motivated by
profit and refrain from activity that will increase scrutiny by law
enforcement. Conversely, terrorist organizations are ideologically
driven and seek public recognition for their actions. These inimical
motives will continue to limit collusion between the two groups.
Diminished Department of Defense ISR allocation means we rely on
contract ISR, organic human intelligence, open source and social media.
We foster interagency/partner nation relationships to maintain
awareness in the AOR. SOUTHCOM also promotes regional cooperation and
intelligence sharing among partner nations by underscoring
transnational organized crime as a hemispheric problem, which requires
regional collaboration to counter successfully. Through conferences,
workshops, bilateral and multilateral events, we have exposed partner
nations to a new analytical tool that changed the way intelligence and
information is shared with and among our partner nations. The Whole-of-
Society Information Sharing for Regional Display (WISRD) process
enables countries to share information. WISRD uses a Google Earth
geospatial tool to organize and display complex information, which
results in a three-dimensional regional common operating picture of the
complicated transnational organized crime environment. This process
provides a comprehensive common characterization to assist with
identifying information gaps so nations can work together to satisfy
them. Several Central/South American countries currently use WISRD
successfully.
The expanded awareness of illicit activities as a hemispheric
problem has increased traditional partnerships to include extra-
regional countries like Mexico and Canada, bringing an added dimension
to international collaboration. We have leveraged strategic partners
such as Colombia and Brazil to take on leadership roles and export
knowledge and lessons learned throughout the region. SOUTHCOM also
provides the technology employed by most partner nations to share
intelligence and information with their counterparts.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SHEA-PORTER
Ms. Shea-Porter. In GAO's report to Congress in January 2012, it
was noted that NORTHCOM was working to establish the commander's intent
and missions in the Arctic, as well as identify capability shortfalls.
Please provide an update on the effort to establish this framework and
what you view as NORTHCOM's mission in the Arctic. What capability
shortfalls currently prevent you from meeting this mission?
General Jacoby. As the DOD advocate for Arctic capabilities, I
engage with our key Arctic region stakeholders to evaluate future
capabilities and coordinate operations in the Arctic. Examples of these
efforts include the DOD/DHS Capabilities Assessment Working Group White
Paper I endorsed along with ADM Papp, Commandant of the U.S. Coast
Guard (USCG), which assesses required capabilities in the Arctic in the
areas of communications, Maritime Domain Awareness, infrastructure, and
presence. These areas have been explored by NORAD and USNORTHCOM's
exercise program, working closely with Canadian Joint Operations
Command (CJOC), to look for high-payoff partnerships and burden sharing
for Arctic investments. Additionally, as part of our Arctic campaign
plan, we are forming a partnership between my Alaska-based operational
headquarters, Joint Task Force Alaska, and the University of Alaska,
Fairbanks to bring Arctic expertise together in a collaborative forum
to shape the required capabilities way ahead. Lastly, in December 2012,
I signed the Tri Command (NORAD, USNORTHCOM, CJOC) Framework for Arctic
Cooperation at the Permanent Joint Board on Defense to promote enhanced
military cooperation in the preparation and conduct of defense,
security, and safety operations in the Arctic. My missions in the
Arctic region are consistent with the rest of my area of
responsibility: homeland defense (HD), defense support of civil
authorities (DSCA), and security cooperation with our partners. My
intent in the Arctic is to defend U.S. national security interests and
support homeland security interests in a complementary manner with
Canada to advance security, safety, and stability in the region. These
missions also involve cooperative efforts with key partners such as
U.S. European Command, CJOC, USCG, and other U.S. interagency and State
of Alaska partners that contribute to
the peaceful opening of the Arctic in a manner that strengthens
international
cooperation.
Although the Arctic is an austere operating area, even in the warm
summer season, today I do not currently have capability shortfalls that
prevent me from accomplishing my missions of HD, DSCA, and security
cooperation.
Ms. Shea-Porter. What steps is NORTHCOM taking, as recommended by
the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, to enhance maritime domain
awareness, communications, and search and rescue capability in the
Arctic?
General Jacoby. U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has accomplished
the following actions since the 2010 QDR:
Admiral Papp and I endorsed the Arctic Capabilities
Assessment Working Group White Paper, which identified DOD and DHS
shared capability gaps and potential solutions in the categories of
communications, Maritime Domain Awareness, infrastructure, and
presence.
In conjunction with the Canadian Joint Operations
Command, NORAD and USNORTHCOM signed the Tri-Command Framework for
Arctic Cooperation that outlines areas for close coordination and
collaboration on Arctic issues.
USNORTHCOM conducted a baseline assessment for Arctic
domain awareness. The output of the assessment provides the foundation
for requirements generation, plans development, and follow-on studies.
USNORTHCOM supports the Northern Chiefs of Defense Forces
and Armed Forces Security Roundtable meetings aimed at improving
security, willingness, and cooperation on difficult issues facing the
Arctic nations.
Proposed operations, plans and improvements in the Arctic
are regularly exercised and supported. USNORTHCOM recently sponsored FY
12 exercises and workshops for Arctic stakeholders. The Arctic
Collaborative Workshop brought together Federal, State, local, tribal,
academia, and industry stakeholders to focus on SAR and oil spill
response activities in the Arctic.
Joint Task Force Alaska (JTF-AK), my operational
headquarters in Alaska/Arctic, has been engaged at the tactical level
in exercising Arctic SAR and developing tactics, techniques, and
procedures. JTF-AK conducted a SAR exercise (SAREX) in February 2013
where an Arctic Sustainment Package was tested. JTF-AK is scheduled to
conduct a SAREX with the Joint Rescue Coordination Center Victoria at
the end of April 2013 to test an Arctic Sustainment Package with a
Canadian Major Air Disaster (MAJAID) kit.
Ms. Shea-Porter. The 2010 National Security Strategy states, ``The
United States is an Arctic Nation with broad and fundamental interests
in the Arctic region, where we seek to meet our national security
needs, protect the environment, responsibly manage resources, account
for indigenous communities, support scientific research, and strengthen
international cooperation on a wide range of issues.'' In Section 5 of
DOD's Arctic Report to Congress, DOD notes that, ``The U.S. Government
has enduring national interests in the Arctic, including security,
economic, and scientific interests,'' and that ``it is clear there is a
current and continued future imperative to provide a sovereign maritime
presence in the region.''
Since there is an imperative for a ``sovereign maritime presence''
not only in the future but right now, and DOD says that, `` . . . only
ice-capable ships provide assured sovereign presence throughout the
region and throughout the year,'' what would be the minimum and optimum
numbers of icebreakers to address U.S. national security needs in the
Arctic region? As noted by the GAO, DOD did not specify in Sec. 5 of
the Arctic Report.
General Jacoby. Admiral Papp, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard
(USCG) is the advocate of the ice-breaking mission area. I support his
ongoing assessment of ice-breaker requirements and the development of
those platforms. NORAD and USNORTHCOM are working closely with the USCG
as they develop their Polar Icebreaker Concept of Operations.
ADM Papp and I also endorsed the joint DOD-DHS Arctic Capabilities
Assessment White Paper which identifies the requirement for polar ice-
breaking capability. As expressed in my 2013 posture statement, I
believe the United States should maintain an ice-breaking capability as
it is essential for successfully operating in this new dimension of the
global commons. National security interests closely follow economic
interests; increased activity in the Arctic requires deliberate
preparation to guarantee economic access, ensure freedom of navigation,
and deter transnational crime.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. PALAZZO
Mr. Palazzo. Can you discuss ship presence in your AOR and how that
has affected your mission in light of the new defense strategy and
budget? What level of cooperation do you have with the Coast Guard in
counternarcotics operations in Latin America? Can you provide any
detail on the performance and needs of our Nation's new National
Security Cutters?
General Kelly. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, Joint Interagency Task
Force-South (JIATF-S) efforts were supported by a 10.2 ship presence,
where 1.0 ship presence is defined as one ship working on station each
day for 365 days. A much larger number than 10 ships is required to
sustain this presence for a full year.
The U.S. Navy provided 30% of the total presence, the U.S. Coast
Guard (USCG) provided 59%, and the remainder was provided by our
European and Canadian allies. The FY 2013 ship allocation, to support
the statutory detection and monitoring (D&M) mission under 10 USC
Sec. 124, was 8.3 ships with Department of Defense (DOD) and USCG
providing 31% and 61% percent respectively. On 5 April 2013, the
average ship presence fell to 2.0, provided solely by the USCG and
allies, and is expected to remain at this level through the remainder
of the Fiscal Year. No U.S. Navy ships will be assigned to the D&M
mission for the remainder of FY 2013.
These reductions will impact U.S. and partner nation law
enforcement efforts and significantly degrade our ability to support
partner nation counter illicit trafficking operations. In terms of
cocaine seizures, JIATF-S expects, at a minimum, an additional 62
metric tons to escape interdiction, which in effect, is a 41% decrease
in cocaine disruptions compared to FY 2012.
The majority of the maritime assets and a large portion of the
aviation assets under JIATF-S tactical control (TACON) are provided by
the USCG, and this partnership remains incredibly strong. The maritime
interdiction continuum consists of JIATF-S execution of D&M operations,
and as coordinated through USCG Districts Seven and Eleven, executing
interdiction and apprehension (I&A) activities conducted by Law
Enforcement Detachments (LEDET).
The performance of the National Security Cutter (NSC) in support of
JIATF-S operations has been impressive. During five deployments between
June 2009 and March 2013, totaling approximately twelve months in the
AOR, the National Security Cutters BERTHOLF and WAESCHE have disrupted
and/or seized 7.5 metric tons of cocaine, apprehended 30 detainees and
seized and/or destroyed 10 vessels. The unique capabilities of these
new cutters--greatly increased endurance and speed, high readiness
rate, a large helicopter flight deck, an over the horizon high speed
small boat, coupled with significantly improved command and control/
intelligence gathering capabilities--make them vastly superior to
previous/current vessels. The synergistic effect of these capabilities
is ideally suited to the vastness of the USSOUTHCOM Area of
Responsibility, creating a true force multiplier, for both the
counternarcotics D&M and I&A missions. The state-of-the-art
capabilities of the NSC gives it unique, dual tactical advantage
against air as well as maritime surface narcosmuggling targets of
interest (TOIs) in ways not achievable by other maritime assets in the
U.S. Government inventory.
Mr. Palazzo. With the proposed end strength of our Reserve and
National Guard, and then the restructuring of SOUTHCOM, are we as
prepared to respond to future natural disasters and other emergency
humanitarian crises in the region as we have been in the past?
General Kelly. The short answer is no. As an economy of force
command, SOUTHCOM has long depended upon deployed naval assets to
provide a rapid response capability. Lack of the availability of a U.S.
Navy amphibious ship during hurricane season seriously degrades our
ability to respond quickly in the Caribbean basin (especially Haiti)
and to remote areas of the coast of Central America.
For small scale disasters in Central America, Joint Task Force
BRAVO helicopter and medical assets at Soto Cano, Honduras will
continue to enable SOUTHCOM to quickly respond to logistics and medical
requirements to reduce loss of life.
For a large scale disaster response, SOUTHCOM continues to rely on
capabilities contained in the Global Response Force (GRF), and requests
unique capabilities not contained in the GRF be placed on an alert
status during hurricane season. Rapid sourcing of required Active Duty
and Reserve capabilities is critical to providing time sensitive
humanitarian and life saving disaster response operations, both in
support of HQ SOUTHCOM and deployed Joint Task Force requirements.
Mr. Palazzo. Is there an optimal mix of Active and Reserve forces
to execute SOUTHCOM's mission? What are we doing to enhance
collaborative defense and security capability in the region?
General Kelly. Optimally, SOUTHCOM would receive more Active
Component personnel, but due to our low priority in the Force
Allocation Decision Model, SOUTHCOM tries to cover gaps in the Active
Component force structure with Reserve Component personnel. As an
economy of force command, with no assigned forces, we must optimize the
forces made available to us to execute our mission. Our objective is to
maintain persistent presence, to the maximum extent possible,
throughout the theater to remain the partner of choice in the region.
Reserve forces are critical for sustained operations at the SOUTHCOM
Headquarters, Components, and Security Cooperation Organization.
The USSOUTHCOM Theater Engagement Program engages Partner Nations
(PNs) in our Area of Responsibility (AOR) on issues of mutual concern
to share information, exchange ideas, and assist in building the
capacity and capability of their security forces. Our exercises and
engagements focus on building PN capacities in Humanitarian Assistance/
Disaster Relief (HA/DR), maritime security, interdiction,
interoperability and peacekeeping operations. We use Foreign Military
Sales (FMS), Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and the International
Military Education and Training (IMET) program, collectively known as
Security Assistance, to build PN capabilities and interoperability with
U.S. systems and methods that foster regional stability through sharing
of common defense challenges. Our Civil Affairs and Humanitarian
Assistance programs improve access, create visibility, and increase
U.S. influence in the region, while building PN capacity to overcome
natural disasters. The National Guard's State Partnership Program
produces a persistent relationship between U.S. States and PNs in the
AOR that supports mutual interests and often goes beyond the military-
to-military ties to promote links with all levels of society. Finally,
we leverage International Research and Development programs to build
capacity, promote domain awareness, counter illicit trafficking, and
create
technologies that will assist during humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief
operations.