SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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87–332
2003
[H.A.S.C. No. 108–2]
HEARINGS
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004—H.R. 1588
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
FULL COMMITTEE HEARINGS
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ON
AUTHORIZATION AND OVERSIGHT
HEARINGS HELD
MARCH 13, 2003
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Eighth Congress
DUNCAN HUNTER, California, Chairman
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD P. ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
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JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
KEN CALVERT, California
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
ED SCHROCK, Virginia
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
JEFF MILLER, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire
ROB BISHOP, Utah
MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
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LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
TIM RYAN, Ohio
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Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
James M. Lariviere, Professional Staff Member
Justin Bernier, Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2003
HEARING:
Thursday, March 13, 2003, Fiscal Year 2004 National Defense Authorization Act—Combatant Commanders of U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Strategic Command
APPENDIX:
Thursday, March 13, 2003
THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2003
FISCAL YEAR 2004, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—COMBATANT COMMANDERS OF U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
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Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
Eberhart, Gen. Ralph E., USAF, Commander, U.S. Northern Command
Ellis, Adm. James O., Jr., USN, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
[The Prepared Statements can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Eberhart, Gen. Ralph E.
Ellis, Adm. James O., Jr.
Hunter, Hon. Duncan
Miller, Hon. Jeff
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Skelton, Hon. Ike
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Questions and Answers can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. Davis
Mr. Miller
FISCAL YEAR 2004, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—COMBATANT COMMANDERS OF U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Thursday, March 13, 2003.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 8:04 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Duncan Hunter (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
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The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. This morning, the committee continues hearings on the posture of our unified combatant commands. And it is a pleasure to welcome our witnesses this morning, General Ralph E. Eberhart, United States Air Force, Commander, U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), and Admiral James L. Ellis, Jr., United States Navy, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM). And gentlemen, thank you for being with us. We look forward to your testimony.
As we discussed yesterday, the 2002 Unified Command Plan made major changes to the missions and responsibilities of our unified commands. Nowhere are those changes more apparent than in the commands represented here today. With the creation of U.S. Northern Command last year, the United States has, for the first time in its history, a unified combatant commander whose sole responsibility is defense of the homeland.
Northern Command's primary focus is on military threats emanating from outside the United States. However, NORTHCOM is also charged with providing military support to civil authorities in conducting emergency preparedness to support the President and Secretary of Defense in the case of a designated national security emergency.
All these missions require NORTHCOM to interact on a daily basis with multiple government agencies. Chief among these is a new Department of Homeland Security, an organization that, like NORTHCOM, was only recently created. General Eberhart, the committee is very interested in hearing what progress has been made in standing up your command, and how your interaction and coordination with other government agencies is progressing as we move to improve homeland defense.
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In addition to creating NORTHCOM, the Unified Command Plan made major changes to U.S. Strategic Command. Not only did STRATCOM absorb all the missions of the now defunct U.S. Space Command, but STRATCOM was also assigned the additional missions of global strike, command, control communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconaissance (C4ISR), integrated missile defense, and information operations. In addition, last year's nuclear posture review altered the concept of the traditional nuclear triad, changing the way we think about our nuclear deterrence.
Admiral Ellis, the committee looks forward to receiving the report on the progress STRATCOM is making in integrating all the various mission areas that are now your responsibility. And now, I would like to recognize, before we kick off here, the committee's Ranking Democrat, my partner, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton, for any remarks he might want to make.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hunter can be viewed in the hard copy.]
STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and thank you for setting up this hearing. I think it is very important. We welcome General Eberhart and Admiral Ellis, and we look forward to hearing testimony.
Gentlemen, it is very fitting that we ask you to testify together today. Two new commands, Northern Command, which stood up only last October, and Strategic Command—is very different from the old command, which bore the very same name. These changes were necessary and will help us respond better to the new threats and the challenges we face as a nation. Both these commands are still in the process of settling into new roles and responsibilities.
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General Eberhart, we understand what a huge task the defense of this nation is. We know that you have already achieved great success in continuing mission Operation Noble Eagle. And as we know from our legislative efforts in creating the Department of Homeland Security, many organizations are involved in keeping the American people safe.
One of our concerns has been that we may have created too many organizations all at one time—the Department of Homeland Security, the Northern Command, the Civilian Homeland Defense Organization at the Pentagon all standing around at the same time. I hope you will tell us how these organizations are working together.
Admiral Ellis, Strategic Command has faced an equally daunting task. You had to figure out how to implement a nuclear posture review that redefined what strategic forces are and had to take on four new and critical missions. Now, Strategic Command has global responsibilities. You have had an important role in helping other commanders plan operations in the Global War on Terrorism.
I hope you will address what lessons you have learned so far and how we may help in planning your future operations. I hope you will explain how the Strategic Command is getting involved with the evolving questions of nuclear weapons policy and doctrine.
We thank you both, General and Admiral, for being with us. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be viewed in the hard copy.]
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank my colleague. And gentlemen, obviously, it is important that we get a fix on this new apparatus that we have created here. And without objection, your written statements will be taken into the record, and so you are free to summarize as you wish.
General Eberhart, the floor is yours, sir.
STATEMENT OF GEN. RALPH E. EBERHART, USAF, COMMANDER, U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND
General EBERHART. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. It is an honor to be in front of this committee again, and thank you, once again, for your interest and your commitment to a strong national defense, and your support of those marvelous men and women who serve this great nation, and their families. It is also an honor for me to be here today representing the men and women of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and NORTHCOM.
We will focus our comments, as you suggested, Mr. Chairman, on Northern Command. And NORAD dates back to 1958, and everybody is very familiar with NORAD. NORTHCOM is, first and foremost, a U.S. unified combatant command, a regional command, tracing its roots back-or at least combatant command is tracing their roots back to the National Security Act of 1947, when we established, essentially, the combatant command structure we know today: European Command, Pacific Command, and Southern Command.
At that time, we believed, and I think rightfully so, because of two friendly neighbors and two wide oceans, we did not need to establish a command in charge of this area of responsibility, where North America lies. We later decided that we did need NORAD to counter long range aviation and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), but we still did not establish a command that was responsible, a single command, for this area of responsibility (AOR).
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As we know, during the 1990s, we debated this issue. We looked at an Americas Command, we looked at a Homeland Defense Command; we also looked a Northern Command. It was very difficult to get our arms around that task, but in the aftermath of 9/11, it became clear to the Secretary of Defense and the President, when they had to go to several different commanders to craft our reaction to that attack, that we were violating the principle of centralized command, decentralized execution, and that we had several different commanders in charge of the defense of our homeland.
And thus, they decided to establish Northern Command, which, as you said, was established in 1 October of this past year for initial operational capability. And we will achieve full operational capability (FOC) no later than 1 October of this year.
So as we are on this road to full operational capability, what have we accomplished and what is there left to accomplish? First and foremost, we go back to that basic principle, that we are a U.S. unified combatant command. We have all the responsibilities and authorities of other combatant commanders when it comes to national defense, specifically homeland defense, protecting the interests of the United States and our friends and allies in this area of responsibility.
But what makes this command different from the other combatant commands is the fact that our homeland exists in our area of responsibility. So therefore, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, we have responsibilities where it comes to support the civil authorities in the area of homeland security. In the former, homeland defense, protecting against threats that emanate from outside the United States, we would clearly have the lead.
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But in the latter, for homeland security activities, more often than not, we would be in support of another lead federal agency, be it the Department of Justice or, now, the new Department of Homeland Security.
And so, as we proceed on this road to full operational capability, we have been focusing on the latter mission, the mission support to homeland security-type missions, support to other lead federal agencies. We are able to do that because we do not see a peer competitor right now in terms of an attack over the horizon. We keep our eye on that. We have developed plans. We train for that. But we think, sadly, we are more likely to face an attack like we did on 9/11, whether it is from the air, land, or sea, from a terrorist or some sort of a copycat, if you will.
So we have been exercising with these other lead federal agencies. On occasion, there will be as many as 50 different government agencies involved in our tabletop exercises and our war games, if you will. We did one of those right prior to initial operational capability to make sure that we were prepared to stand up to command.
We have done well of late as we prepare to support possible war in Iraq. And we will this summer, if you will, as a graduation exercise, as we move to full operational capability. What I have learned from those exercises is, in fact, we were farther along than I had thought in terms of cooperation between our first responders, our state militia, government agencies, and the military.
And I thank Joint Forces Command for their efforts over the last several years, when they had the lead in this area, for advancing the ball as far as it has been advanced. I often hear, ''What is the difference now between the fact that you and NORTHCOM have this mission as when Joint Forces Command had this mission?''
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My answer is that now you have a four-star commander, you have a command that, day-in and day-out, focuses on nothing but homeland defense and homeland security, whether it is an external threat, whether it is a pending natural disaster from a hurricane or a flood, or whether it is man-made, if you will, a terrorist attack. Our head is in that game all day, every day, and we try to lead on those types of activities.
If you look at our mission statement, we talk about deterring, preventing, and defeating threats. And to me, that will be the key to our success as a nation. We have to be good at clean up, we have to work that hard, but my view is an offense is much better than a defense here. And while we have to be good at consequence management, we have to be better at crisis management, and we have to work the front-end of this problem.
And the key to working the front end of that problem is actionable intelligence and information, and fusion of intelligence and information, and not just the classical intelligence that we get from the intelligence community, albeit very important. But we need intelligence and information from other sources—law enforcement. A lot of this is open intelligence and information that we can get off the Internet and from other sources.
And the task, the challenge is to fuse this information. As the Secretary of Defense says, ''Connect the dots,'' so we have something that is actionable, so again, we can go out and deter, prevent, or defeat an attack against the United States, whether it emanates externally or internally. And again, the difference between the two is the former, we would have the lead, and in the latter, we would be in support of another lead federal agency.
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So as we proceed down this road to FOC and beyond—and I would offer to you that we probably will never reach full operational capability because this mission will continue to evolve over time—we have to continue to get better. We have to stay ahead of the bad guy, if you will. And to me, we should never be satisfied with full operational capability, because that would be a moving target.
What I can say, Mr. Chairman, is that we are much better prepared to deal with these threats than we were a year ago, six months ago, three months ago. But we cannot be satisfied where we are. We need to proceed ahead as quickly as we possibly can. We need to hone this technology, we need to get the right people involved, and we need to cooperate all the way from those first-responders to the forces that we command in Northern Command to work this problem.
As the Secretary of Defense says, ''This is important business.'' There is no more important mission than protecting the American people where they live and work. We thank you for your support.
[The prepared statement of General Eberhart can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
Admiral.
STATEMENT OF ADM. JAMES O. ELLIS, JR., USN, COMMANDER, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND
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Admiral ELLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative Skelton, and distinguished members of the committee. It is an honor for me also to appear before you today, representing the outstanding members of the United States Strategic Command, men, women, active reserve, uniform and civilian alike.
It is also a pleasure to share the panel with General Eberhart. Over the last several months, we have worked together to stand up our two new unified commands. As you well know and you mentioned in your opening remarks, there is now a new United States Strategic Command. It is a reflection of the clear guidance that the President gave the Department to, ''challenge the status quo and envision a new architecture of American defense''.
It is also a reflection of the recommendations of the Space Commission, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Nuclear Posture Review. And finally, it is a reflection, as you have already noted, of the new international security environment that we all must work to effectively address together.
The new United States Strategic Command was created, first and foremost, to provide responsive, integrated, and synchronized combat capability and support across geographic and AOR boundaries.
I am convinced that the alignment of responsibility for our nation's on-orbit capabilities, under the same unified command that now has global responsibilities in four previously unassigned mission areas of missile defense, global strike, Department of Defense (DOD) information operations, and communications and intelligence, has created new opportunities to better shape our future.
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I am committed to working with a strong and growing team of partners to address each one of those areas. We are crafting not only a vision, but a clear and detailed course of action in each of those new mission areas. During the extraordinary five and a half months since the new United States Strategic Command was established, we supported the regional combatant commanders by deploying intelligence, planning, space, and information operations experts to their theaters by optimizing communications, bandwidth, and Global Positioning System (GPS) performance for combat operations.
And we continue to provide 24 hours a day, seven day a week missile warning to our forces in the field and to General Eberhart for his area of responsibility, our homeland. We also remain committed to the nation's deterrent capability, resident in our stockpile and delivery systems, and to retaining and advancing the United States' position as the preeminent space faring nation.
As I hope you can sense, this is a very exciting time for the professionals at United States Strategic Command. We have tremendous opportunities ahead of us and are engaged in charting the course for meeting our future warfighting needs. To pursue these needs, we will advocate for advanced conventional weapon capabilities, support the sustainment and modernization of our nuclear deterrent force, sustain the tremendous capability that our on-orbit assets and their support systems bring to the nation, and finally, work to develop and maintain a cadre of highly trained space, strategic, and information operations professionals.
As we meet the challenges in these areas, we will then be able to more effectively address war-fighting needs such as robust communication architectures. Responsive and affordable access to space is a key element of our ability to operate to, from, in and through that critical region. We will address the warfighting needs of persistent intelligence collection, and we will be chartered to operationalize and fuse a multi-layered ballistic missile defense capability into a globally operational system, and finally, create a viable information operations capability for all of our warfighters.
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It is an honor to represent the professional and talented men and women of United States Strategic Commands and our partners in the services, national agencies components, and this committee, who are putting their skills to work today to create the most effective operational capabilities for tomorrow.
Thank you and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Ellis can be viewed in the hard copy.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Admiral. And General, thank you for being with us this morning. Admiral, let me start with you, because you just completed your statement, and you have really laid out a vast responsibility. Tell us a little bit about your responsibilities as the command that undertakes to defend the U.S. against missile attacks, and also to at least provide the warning, although I take it the theater commanders and the combatant commanders in theater are the ones who would operate, for example, theater missile defenses.
You are providing, as I understand it, the warning information to these commanders. So explain to us, a little bit, your role in the event of a missile attack on the United States, understanding that we do not yet have a missile defense in place. But we are going to have a few silos in soon, and you will actually have a few arrows in your quiver. So tell us how you are going to run that operation, and at the same time, you might tell us how you would integrate with the warfighters in theater, in the event of a missile attack on troops in theater, which we have had in the first Gulf War.
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Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir. I would be delighted, Mr. Chairman. That is certainly one of our primary focus areas. As you know, we are on a very aggressive timeline to deliver, in 19 months, that initial capability in support of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), which, as you know, has development and acquisition responsibilities.
Our role, in a nutshell, Mr. Chairman, is to operationalize that concept. What has now been a developmental capability, and well and aggressively pursued by General Kadish and his team, now needs to be transferred and translated into the operational realm. Who is going to oversee it? How does the battle management and command and control system work?
What kind of command architecture is envisioned as we provide this capability, as you have rightly pointed out, not just to General Eberhart, but to all of our regional combatant commanders for their statutorily mandated defense of their area of responsibility? We see our role, in support of that effort, to cross the seams that might exist, or to eliminate seams that might exist from one region to another, to ensure there are common concepts of operations, common command and control systems, and that we are able to capitalize on the layered approach, which, as you know, characterizes the newly defined global missile defense, which involves both regional capabilities and the ground-based mid-course element that you described that will be operational in the fall of next year.
So we are the integrator. We are the operationalizing element of that and provide those capabilities, then, to the regional combatant commanders for their execution.
The CHAIRMAN. So what you are telling us is that—you have asked more questions than you have answered here. That is a great style. Let's say we go a couple years and you have a couple arrows in the quiver; you have got a few missiles in Alaska and you have got a few at Vandenberg, and you have a launch on the United States, a couple of rogue missiles.
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Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Who is running the operation here?
Admiral ELLIS. That is exactly the point I am trying to reach. And as you pointed out, and I neglected to mention in my earlier answer, we, of course, oversee the health and well-being of the on-orbit resources and provide that threat warning so that NORAD can do the attack assessment and provide that to the regional combatant commanders.
But in that hypothetical scenario that you described, sir, in the future, as the systems and capabilities deliver, we need to draw on everything from the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC–3) batteries to airborne laser capabilities, when they mature, to the Aegis capabilities that are resident in theater.
We need to have the command and control systems that allow us to, very quickly, using the sensors, determine what is a regional threat, to support the regional combatant commander as he deals with that, and also to very quickly identify what becomes a regional threat to the homeland, which is General Eberhart's responsibility for executing, the defense of that.
We provide that capability. We are not envisioned as the trigger-puller. We are the supporting element, the architecture that ensures commonality. Because there really, given the time criticality of this mission, needs to be a common net. There needs to be a common level of understanding. There need to be agreed upon rules of engagement and advance.
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The response time for this type of threat is measured in minutes and seconds. It is not measured in hours or days.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Who is going to be the trigger-puller here? You are going to ensure that operational capability is reached with this small array of ICBM killers that we will have, at some point? You will ensure that we have those operationally effective?
Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Go back to the attack. We have an attack. How does General Eberhart figure in? Where do you leave off as the operation guarantor? And where does the trigger-puller come in and where is his shot?
Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir. In that sense—and I will let Ed answer in a moment, sir—but we provide the capabilities to the regional combatant commanders to enable them to execute their missions of defense——
The CHAIRMAN. Well, does that mean you are going to be operating the defenses at Alaska and at Vandenberg?
Admiral ELLIS. No, sir. That means the components, the Army, as you know, is the lead in the missile defense elements in Fort Greeley, Alaska. There are other service elements, as I described, that will contribute as their contributions mature. My role is to integrate that together and provide that capability to the warfighting component commander.
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The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Let's say you go back, you have got a rogue missile launch. You are going to be providing warning.
Admiral ELLIS. We provide the initial warning. We provide the assessment of where that missile is destined, what area it is threatening. The regional combatant commander will be up on his network, and if it is a regional threat——
The CHAIRMAN. Let's say it is a U.S. threat. Let's say you have got a couple sites in the U.S. and you have got a rogue missile coming in.
Admiral ELLIS. Then it defaults to General Eberhart and his team in Cheyenne Mountain to address. And I would let Ed answer the specifics. As I know, we are working in tandem—the concepts of operation, on a global scale, to ensure that they are common with those of the regional combatant commanders.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay, General Eberhart.
General EBERHART. Sir, the way I like to think about it is that Strategic Command will build the overall architecture, the global view, the holistic view. They will run the sensors. They will detect an attack. They will characterize the attack, and they will say to the Northern Commander, the Pacific Commander, the European Commander, ''It is coming your way, and this is what it looks like.''
And then, we will be in a unique situation in North America, in Northern Command, because we will have these interceptors, obviously, a limited number of them, but we will have these interceptors. And then, based on the character of the attack, based on the enemy order of battle, how many missiles we know that they have that they could attack us with, then we will provide logic in terms of rules of engagement, of how we will use our interceptors to intercept those missiles.
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But that command and control will be done with a coordination with Strategic Command, NORAD, but executed by Northern Command.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So you would today, if we had that capability today, and if we had a rogue missile coming at the U.S. today, you would envision you are the guy who, in the end, is going to give the interceptor launch command. Is that right?
General EBERHART. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay, let me ask just one other question, and then I know we have got lots of folks with lots of great questions here. Because the way your folks work your independent shops and the way you interact, I think, is a key issue for this committee.
But General Eberhart, obviously, chem/bio has got to be a very important area for you. We have got lots of independent pieces or shops in the DOD, and now we will have in the domestic complex, that are putting together systems for the detection of chemical and biological agents, being able to know what is in the air, what is in the water, and come up with, to the civilian authorities, with the right stuff to treat for this stuff before your hospitals get clogged.
It is going to be a real key to homeland defense. It has been tough, I think, for the country to get its arms around this, all these independent contractors, and to really assess, accurately, all the various agencies and the product of all the various agencies, DOD and domestic, and the domestic contractors, civilian contractors, who are putting together, now, lots of stuff for the detection of chemical and biological agents.
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I was at a hearing the other day, and a guy walked up with what looked like a little pocket calculator. And he said, ''Two seconds. Two seconds and I can tell if you have got anthrax in the air.'' I said, ''Well, you are working with DOD?'' and he said, ''I cannot get in the front door.''
And, of course, you know, you always have anecdotal stories of that type of thing, whether you are talking about the new challenges or old ones. But it is representative of a pretty creative industrial base out there, and a lot of creative folks in government that are really working this idea of being able to detect bad stuff, whether it is chemical or biological.
And I think if there is going to be any genius in this new apparatus that we put together, both the re-jiggering of the commands and this homeland security apparatus, it is going to be if we can harness all this great, presently diffused, industrial capability and creative capability in our high tech industry and get it focused on being able to handle some of these things and get the absolute best stuff out there, and not only get it developed, but get it produced, which, by god, has been a problem of late with the 10, and 15, and 20-year systems. By the time they get through the bureaucracy, they are old hat.
But getting that stuff produced early and getting it deployed in such a way that if some bad stuff gets in the air or water in this country, we are going to be able to handle it and help the communities handle it. And I know that is a big, broad question. But have you looked, General Eberhart, at how you are going to get your arms around this big issue, on chem/biological detection and getting the right stuff out there to handle the problem?
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General EBERHART. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I agree wholeheartedly that the way to work this problem is with technology and the initiative and innovativeness of our industry. And that never ceases to amaze me. And I, like you, have people knocking on the door all the time with solutions. The problem is, it is very difficult to search your way through many of those proposals and find ground truth, not that I do not believe them, but what the application really is.
So what we have done is a couple things. Based on this strong belief in technology and how it will help us solve these problems, we have entered into a strategic partnership with DTRA, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and with the Sandia labs there in New Mexico, to help us sort through these things in terms of what they really translate to, what they promise—can they deliver? What seems to make sense?
And we are also interested, as you implied, we are interested in interoperability and the ability to train and maintain these things. So it is important to us that, hopefully, we have a system, a technology that we can apply all the way from the local responders, who are going to be there first, to the military, who will be there for continuity, and if the problem is too big, for the local responders and the state militias to use.
So this is equipment that, to me, will be very important for the fire departments, the police departments, the civil support teams (CST)——
The CHAIRMAN. Well, listen, I agree it is going to be important to everybody when we get it. But my question to you is, do you think you are building a system that will allow you to access, basically, the creative product of this country? Because we have got this stuff percolating all over the place, and it seems like no one agency has been able to get their arms around it and figure out how we get the very best stuff into production quickly and get it fielded.
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Do you think you have got the right combination with Sandia working this problem for you?
General EBERHART. Yes, sir. I believe we are headed down the right road. Obviously, we have to make sure that we are plugged in, and we are working to plug in now, at the homeland security agency, as it stands up, because we have to do this in parallel and in lockstep.
The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. I would like to ask each one of you one question. General, give us an example of what your command would do in two instances; one where you have somewhat credible intelligence that something is going to happen bad on the East Coast, and the second instance, where something bad happened on the West Coast. What do you do?
Admiral, let me ask you. How would you—other than in missile defense, how would you cooperate or coordinate with the general in your efforts, in these examples he will give us now?
General EBERHART. Sir, we will start with something that is going to happen, and it is going to happen on the East Coast. When we receive our intelligence briefs, on a daily basis, those intelligence briefs are along the lines that I implied in my openings remarks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is in the room; it is not the classical intelligence brief that I grew up with in the military.
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So when we hear about a threat, the first thing we ask is, ''Do we think this threat is credible? What is the credibility? Should we act on this threat?'' The second thing we ask is, ''Who else knows? Do the right people know? If it is going to happen on the East Coast, do the FBI regions on the East Coast all know? Have they shared this with the local law enforcement? Do our commanders in that region know?'' So the second question is, ''Who knows?''
The third question is, ''What do we believe are the capabilities of local law enforcement and federal law enforcement organizations to deal with this threat? What might the need be from the military? What do we have that we can provide?'' So we are working our way down this checklist, per se.
The other thing we ask is, ''Who will be in charge?'' So usually, for crisis management, hopefully, the front-end of a problem, it will be the Department of Justice, the FBI. So they will be the lead federal agency. So what might we be asked to provide? What can we provide, much like we did in the sniper incident here in the D.C. area?
The next question we ask is, ''What command and control structure will we use to command and control the military forces that we would provide in support of a lead federal agency?'' And obviously, that depends on the size of the task, the size of the problem, the size of the mission, if you will.
We could use existing joint task force (JTF) commanders, or we can stand up for them. On the East Coast, we would most normally use the First Army Commander, Lieutenant General Joe Lynch, who I know you know, would be our commander for that operation, if it was predominantly a land operation.
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But obviously, if it is out in the sea, then we would look at a Coast Guard Command or a Naval Command. And the Coast Guard Command could be under title 14 or title 10, or we could use NAVNORTH, who is our good friend. Admiral Bob Nadder could be our commander for that operation.
Now, if we turn to the West Coast and something bad has happened and we are in the reaction mode, we essentially go down through the same checklist: What has happened, what do we know, who else needs to know, who is going to be in charge—it will probably be the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at this point—what do we need to establish in terms of things we can provide from the active duty military? What might they need? And how are we going to command and control those forces?
And essentially, that is the checklist. Those are the war games, those are the scenarios that we have been doing since last summer, with this myriad of government agencies, to talk our way through, all the way from chem/bio, to anthrax, to terrorist kinetic attacks, et cetera, et cetera. But that is essentially how that process would unfold, sir.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.
Admiral, how would you coordinate with him?
Admiral ELLIS. Thank you, sir. As you inferred from my earlier statements—and understand very well, there are resources or capabilities that are resident in each of the combatant commanders. Those resources that we oversee are particularly specialized in the areas of intelligences, surveillance, and reconnaissance, ISR, sensor assets, and communication capabilities, satellite bandwidth and the like.
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In a crisis or a circumstance where General Eberhart has taken the lead to respond domestically, we would provide all of the resources that are available to us, including command and control elements such as aircraft that have historically been created for more classic strategic missions that could be converted to support his efforts on the domestic side in responding to this contingency.
We are not just talking about exercises, because Ed and I well remember a few weeks ago one Saturday morning, a tragic Saturday morning of the Columbia shuttle mishap, when we literally were on the same secure phone line together, coordinating exactly that kind of support.
As we went through a domestic events conference, as it is called, as Ed was setting up the task force organization, we were beginning to flow forces and resources that were under our purview as director of DOD support command space flight operations, to support his efforts in the immediate hours after that tragic event. So we have got real world expertise, admittedly, on a scale that we had not seen before and with an on-orbit capability that brought us together operationally, and I was very pleased with the support we were able to provide him.
Our principal mission, in many areas, is support to the regional combatant commanders, using the global systems and capabilities we have. And that is what we provided to Ed on that day.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you, gentlemen.
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The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Unconventional Warfare and Terrorism, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, it was a pleasure to meet with you each before today, and I enjoyed those conversations. Yesterday, General Eberhart, after you and I had a chance to chat, just by coincidence, I was paid a visit by Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul McHale, with whom I know you are both going to be working closely on these matters.
And I just think at the conclusion of the day yesterday, after I had met with you three, I thought, what a great team, and looked forward to being a part of it, as well. General Eberhart, one of the things that occurred to me is that your job is fairly complex, to say the least.
But with all the facets of providing for homeland defense, to me, at this point, they fit into two categories. The category of things that you can do in response and in close-in defense against events occurring and, on the other hand, in coordination with Admiral Ellis and others, the ability to reach out and stop something from happening before it becomes an actual domestic threat. I mean, it is going to be a threat, but it is going to be an offshore threat.
And one of the things that I learned yesterday in talking with Paul McHale—and I had not focused on this—the only reason I did not know, I suppose, is that your ability to reach out directly in your command, you reach out quite a ways to the east and quite a ways to the west. So it is not just continental United States, it is a good bit of the Atlantic Ocean and a good bit of the Pacific Ocean. Is that correct?
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General EBERHART. Yes, sir. It is essentially 500 miles off the coast.
Mr. SAXTON. Five hundred miles off the coast. And Paul told me yesterday that because of the configuration of the East Coast, in some places, it is as much as 1,000 or 1,500 miles off the coast. And one of the concepts that the chairman and I have talked about with regard to homeland defense is that it would be neat to have a concept where we would stop the bad guys, if you will, as far offshore as possible.
And I assume that you would agree with that. It is much better to beat the threat somewhere else than New York Harbor.
General EBERHART. Yes, sir. I mean, we talk in, again, our war games and scenarios we run. I mean, we want to capture the terrorists in Afghanistan or Iraq and take that terrorist camp down wherever it is, and not let those bees get away from the hive, if you will, and show up in our area of responsibility, show up in our homeland.
And I would much rather stop that ship that would have cruise missiles on it or terrorists on it in a harbor someplace or as it sets sail for the United States. And in my view, it is a classic supporting relationship. You could say that we are the supported command, and Pacific Command, or European Command, or Central Command, or Strategic Command would be the supporting command to take out that threat to our homeland wherever it exists, not wait for it to come to that 500 mile border, if you will.
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Mr. SAXTON. That is a good news thing, but does not that create—this is just an informational thing, because we need to know, in terms of supporting policy—does that change the role? Does that give the Navy an additional responsibility?
General EBERHART. Sir, I think it is a responsibility that they already have. I mean, the Navy is out there protecting the lanes of communication, the sea-lanes of communication, and protecting our interests around the world. And, in my view, all it does is continue to focus that effort to make sure that we have the intelligence to know that this constitutes a threat.
And ideally, we would like to work with other nations, whoever is the flag of that ship to take that ship down. But in my view, the Navy has this responsibility, has this authority today. And we are just using the naval component of Northern Command or the naval component of Pacific Command, European Command, you name the command, to protect our interests worldwide.
Mr. SAXTON. You spoke of the importance of intelligence, and we certainly agree with that. Let's say that in your morning brief, you are presented with a situation that says that four days ago, a ship set sail from some port in the Middle East with a containerized cargo, and all of the sudden, intelligence indicates that there is a suspected threat, a nuclear device, let's say, aboard that ship in a container. What do you do?
General EBERHART. Sir, what we would start doing at that time is, first thing, we would try to check the credibility of the threat, of the intelligence. Second, we work with the combatant commander whose region that threat is in right now, the ships in the Pacific, the ships in Europe, to see what their view is. And then we work through—in that case, would work through law enforcement organizations to go back to the port where it departed and see what additional information we can get. And then, you can go down another, several different, then, logical trails, where you can decide whether or not you go to the nation that flagged that ship and see what action they are prepared to take.
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And then, you continue to run those different possibilities down, and if you are convinced that, in fact, there is this radioactive device that is on its way to the United States of America, then a decision can be taken in accordance with international law by the president, the Secretary of Defense, to either board that ship wherever we can find it, or as it approaches our waters, board it then. That would be a decision that would be taken by the President.
But those are the kinds of things we think our way through, and again, we are crazy, in my view, to let that ship show up at the port. I mean, we need to verify, at some point, by boarding or inspecting that ship. And whether that is done by the Navy, or the Coast Guard, or by a friend of ours, an ally of ours, those are all the actions that we ought to look at in the example that you pose.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you. Admiral—I know my time is up—let me just ask you a real quick question. What if the intelligence said that that ship had a Scud missile on it and that it was somebody is intent to launch that Scud missile at New York, 400 miles offshore?
Admiral ELLIS. The support that I described earlier could be much more narrowly focused, via the sensor surveillance, the defensive systems that would, depending on the timeline in which the scenario you describe unfolds, that would be in place, could be aligned to provide that multi-layered level of defense in anticipation of the actions that General Eberhart described, sir.
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Mr. SAXTON. Obviously, you would both be working together. General Eberhart and others would be running the trail, if you will, back to the port from which it sailed, to the government, with our allies. And at the same time, I suspect you would be using whatever technology we have from naval and land-based missile defense that might be, as the chairman puts it, ''arrows in your quiver'' at that time, to prepare to defend in the event of the actual launch of the Scud missile.
Admiral ELLIS. Exactly, sir. And using on-orbit resources, as well, to the extent that they are able to focus on this, while we proactively move to negate that threat before it ever launches. That is the best way to deal with it, not to wait until those arrows get fired, but to deal with the source of them.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.
General EBERHART. And, of course, the big difference, Mr. Saxton, which you well realize, is, obviously, the standoff distance is different. So we can let that other ship come a little bit closer and not be a threat. But based on the range of the Scud, that is the radius in which we cannot let it come inside, in my view.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, gentlemen. I am going to go to Mr. Taylor, but I just had one follow up question on Mr. Saxton's question, and that is, it would seem we have several species of missile threats that we need to look at. One, obviously, is the big fast movers, a rogue missile coming in, ICBM, but also this Scud threat from the tramp freighter, if you will, that gets close to our shoreline.
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That would seem to logically move us to develop some theater missile capability, and perhaps give an emphasis on the seaborne antimissile capability, which has tested very well in recent months. Because if we had a threat, we could move those platforms, move Aegis or Aegis type ships along the coastline, thereby picketing the coastline if you could.
Is there some thought that is going along those lines?
Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir, there certainly is. The maritime element is an essential part of the Missile Defense Agency's movement towards that total system. They have already, as you may be aware—and I am sure you are, Mr. Chairman—the Navy has transferred an Aegis cruiser under the control of Missile Defense Agency for precisely that kind of developmental effort, in an effort to accelerate that program within the next 20 months.
The CHAIRMAN. And one other idea along that line that I know has been pursued by MDA—and I know we have got the Chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee here with us, Mr. Everett—is that if you are going to use this picket, or defend American shoreline, approach with seaborne assets, it might make sense to develop a platform that is maybe less expensive and less complete than, say, an Aegis ship—for example, a flatbed ship, if you will, with a missile defense system bolted on it, either one of our seaborne-types that we are testing out, or maybe a Triad, maybe a Patriot system, maybe get a little more bang for the buck.
But are you folks discussing that with MDA?
Admiral ELLIS. I think MDA is examining the full range of concepts, Mr. Chairman. The sensor piece is very important, as you know, represented in Aegis or Aegis-like capabilities, as are the positioning and geometry of the interceptors critical to the success, depending on scenario. And the evolutionary approach that General Kadish has taken is going to consider all options.
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The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank both of you gentlemen for what you do for our country and for being here this morning.
There was a Library of Congress report in September of 1999 that said two very alarming things. It mentioned that the White House, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the Pentagon, and the Capitol were all prime targets for an air attack. In that same report, it mentioned that the son of the blind cleric who was convicted in the bombing of the World Trade Center had talked about hijacking a plane and holding the passengers for ransom in order to free the father.
That guy, in Secretary Rumsfeld's words, did not exactly ''connect the dots.'' But two years later, almost to the date of the publication of that manual, we saw planes hijacked and used as weapons. And what is particularly disturbing, if you think about it, is that 40 minutes after the second plane hit, and people knew it was not an accident for the first, the Pentagon was attacked.
Now, less than two years later, we have combat air patrols, you have radar coverage over the Capitol, we have, I know, about 100 Mississippi National Guardsmen across the river in a monitoring situation. So it would not happen again today. But it did happen.
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With all the things we are talking about—and I do not disagree with any of the scenarios any of my colleagues laid out—I still think the easiest way to harm a large number of Americans is to put a chemical, biological, nuclear device in one of the 13 million, 20-foot cargo equivalents that come through this country every year. Our nation, by admission, inspects 1 percent of them.
And General, with the limited maritime background I have, on a ship that has 5,000 cargo unit containers, it does not even have a crane on board. They are stacked so closely, you cannot open the doors; you cannot get to the ones way down in the stack. And so, it is a vulnerability.
I say all this also knowing that as I cross the 14th Street Bridge, I look out at some 80, 90, 100-foot yachts, any one of which could very easily have brought a nuclear device up the Potomac. What is troubling is that for all the things you say trying to reassure the American public, I see the vulnerability similar to what that congressional report did two years ago, is that you are not coordinated with the Coast Guard, that there really is not anybody checking those yachts or those tugboats coming up the Potomac for a nuclear device.
And my friends laid out some scenarios that certainly could happen. It takes some technology to put a Scud missile launcher in a freighter and launch it from offshore. It would be very easy to stick it in the engine of a large boat or a tugboat. And that is not something that could happen a year from now, it is something that could happen five minutes from now.
What is your command going to do to address that missing link, or do we wait for something horrible like that to happen and then say, ''Maybe we need some small boat assets. Maybe we ought to start looking at vessels that come into our shores.''
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One of my colleagues from Florida mentioned a Cuban patrol boat that just steamed into Miami recently, with four people in Cuban uniforms on board, and they were at the dock before anybody knew what happened. Do we have to get burned before you address that missing link is my question?
General EBERHART. Sir, I hope to answer that question as not ''Yes, that we have to get burned.'' As you know, and as we have discussed, I spent a lot of time with the Coast Guard over the last six, seven months, most recently with the West Coast Commander, Vice Admiral Terry Cross. I was on the phone yesterday with Jim Hall, the Atlantic Commander.
I am, in fact, optimistic about the types of things that the Coast Guard is pursuing now, the advancements that the Coast Guard has made since 9/11, their increased budget that allows them to start addressing some of the things that cause you concern, cause me concern, and I know cause the American people concern.
Back to the chairman's and my discussion about technology, we both know that that is the way we are going to have to work this problem over time. We are never going to have the ability to open those other 99 percent of the containers that we cannot open now, but we are going to have to have sensors on board. In my view, we are going to have to harness hyper-spectral and other things, over time, from air and from space, that allows us to better understand what is in the hulls of these ships.
We are going to have to use processes—and you and I discussed this. These are not foolproof, but it helps us sort, and that is the 96 R Novus, et cetera. We also have to use, in my view, a neighborhood watch program—and that is my term, no one else's—but where people have to be very cognizant and attentive of what goes on in that port, in that marina, and not hesitate to report things that do not make sense.
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And we have seen more of that reporting, obviously, since 9/11, and as the awareness is heightened.
Mr. TAYLOR. General, if I may——
General EBERHART. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAYLOR. And Mr. Chairman, with your permission. The point I am trying to make is, I do not think you can have a real homeland defense without including the United States Coast Guard. And if you have to separate search and rescue out and if you have to separate and navigation out, and those other core Coast Guard functions out away from it and call them something else, then you have to do so.
But I truly do not think you will ever have a true homeland defense without the inclusion of the Coast Guard.
General EBERHART. Sir, we work with the Coast Guard each and every day. So we are joined at the hip in terms of homeland defense, homeland security. We have coastguardsmen on our staff as the Deputy J–3; Admiral Van Sice here with me today. He is there so we have that Coast Guard expertise.
We have linkages daily to the two commanders that I cited earlier. We have commanders calls; we have the commanders conferences. Those commanders and the Commandant of the Coast Guard or his representative come to those. So we are linked to the Coast Guard.
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Now, they are part of the Department of Homeland Security, but as you know, they can go from title 14 to title 10, or in title 14 they can go on homeland defense-type missions. So we are linked to the Coast Guard.
Mr. TAYLOR. What is the only government agency that has the legal right to board any vessel at any time?
General EBERHART. Sir, we both know the answer to that question. It is the Coast Guard. They can do it for safety——
Mr. TAYLOR. Are they included in your command?
General EBERHART. Sir, they are linked to our command with a dotted line. So we have forces out there that the Coast Guard uses. We have Coast Guard law enforcement detachments on Navy ships. And we support the Coast Guard when they need support.
Mr. TAYLOR. Well, I was not really crazy about your answers, general. But thank you very much for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman who is the Chairman of the Strategic Subcommittee, Mr. Everett?
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Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. You both have tremendous tasks, and we appreciate your dedication to accomplishing what you have got to do and to this country.
We have spent considerable time on what I am about to ask you. I know the chairman and Mr. Saxon both talked about it, and I would like to go back to our layered defense. And we all know that the sooner we can get to an incoming, the better off we are. That would probably be the booster stage.
Admiral, you pointed out yourself that we are dealing with a matter of seconds and minutes, and seconds, in many cases. And my question is, with the day-to-day operations remaining in the service components command, we have another layer there, and I want to know if that layer inhibits us in reacting as quickly as we could, given the fact that we are dealing with seconds.
Admiral ELLIS. Thank you. That is an excellent question. And as you and I discussed, the layered approach and the role of the regional combatant commanders is absolutely essential. We will rely on them for the intelligence, and the awareness, and the sensitivities that are properly theirs within their area of responsibility.
They will be the first to be aware of growing tensions and crises. And quite frankly, sir, as you pointed out, while in flight, the boost phase is the first opportunity to deal with that threat. There are opportunities prior to launch that need to be addressed, as well, and the regional combatant commander would have an essential role in the intelligence and assessment of that capability.
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It is not our intent to inject any artificial layers. The rules of engagement and the streamlined processes that we well understand will have to be a part of this layered missile defense that will be exercised, will be tested, will be refined over the next months to ensure that we can deliver on those very aggressive timelines.
And we in the United States Strategic Command will be backing up the regional combatant commanders in their roles in providing the capabilities they need to make that decision in those critical moments.
Mr. EVERETT. In other words, you are telling me that the way we have it set up now, that there would be no delay between making a decision from the sensors and the trigger-pullers.
Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir. The important point that General Eberhart made earlier, and has been well known and addressed in this committee, is the role of intelligence and assessment in all of this. The bolt out of the blue is one scenario, where there is no pre-warning, there is no heightened tensions, there is no pre-awareness or possibility that this might occur. That total surprise is one scenario.
But I would also point out there are likely many other scenarios where regional tensions begin to heighten. We can begin to focus our sensors and our assessment on a more continuing basis on those potential areas of threat. And so, that will decrease our responsive time and increase the warning that we would get for the potential employment of those systems.
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All of that needs to be worked together. That is what we are going to be wargaming in the months ahead, and that is going to be our metric for success, those timelines for responsiveness as we look at the alternative structures that will need to be a part of this operationalized capability.
Mr. EVERETT. Let me move to another subject. Your information operations mission is pretty complex. Let me note, you have complex computer operations, electronic warfare, psychological operations, deception operations. Can you give the committee a brief idea of any changes you have in your command, and also, if you are adequately funded to meet these new missions?
Admiral ELLIS. I would be delighted to, sir. The information operations area is one that is nascent and new to any combatant commander. Those responsibilities, in the context of Department of Defense information operations, have never been assigned to a combatant commander before.
It includes the elements that you describe, amongst them computer network defense and computer network attack. Thanks to the great work of the gentleman sitting to my right in the computer network defense area, we have had a longstanding joint task force that exists to support that defense of the nation's Department of Defense computer networks and support of the government and commercial networks, as well.
We are now beginning to assess how to look at enhanced capabilities with the skills and talents of other government agencies, such as the National Security Administration and the like, and are crafting new relationships with them to better enable us to pursue effective efforts in both the computer network defense (CND) and computer network attack (CNA) role.
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The piece that you described in electronic warfare is particularly important, as we will articulate the warfighters' requirements in these areas and oversee the very wide range of programs that are being pursued by each of the services in support of that effort. The strategic deception piece is something that we need to address further. Some could argue that we have been perhaps too transparent in what we do and that there are ways in which we can craft systems and capabilities so that it does not make it as easy for our potential adversaries to understand where we are and what we are doing.
Clearly, operational security is important to us. We have to be able to safeguard our systems to prevent intrusion when we can, but to realize that we also have the ability, should intrusion occur, that we have the ability to very quickly and effectively deal with it, given our increased reliance on this network-centric concept that underpins not just our national security efforts but our nation's efforts on the economic side.
So we see real potential, for the first time, to bring together all of these disparate elements of information operations and add value to it. As I mentioned, this is the first time these responsibilities have been assigned to a uniform element in the Department.
Mr. EVERETT. And the funding level, are you satisfied——
Admiral ELLIS. Yes, sir. The funding levels; as you know, given our structure, will be supported by the services and the agencies, and each of them is aggressively pursuing these capabilities. It is the intent to move into real operational capabilities that have the rigor and discipline that we have historically assessed with our conventional and kinetic options, to take this from the realm of the development and experimentation into operationalization. And the funding levels are growing in each of the service areas in support of that goal.
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Mr. EVERETT. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I may have additional questions I will submit for the record. I must excuse myself. I have friends in Fort Rucker at 9 o'clock, and these folks are really interested in our helicopter operations at Fort Rucker and, more directly, in Flat 21. And I am going to excuse myself and meet with them.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman and look forward to having a meeting with he and Admiral Ellis here a little bit later, and maybe in an office setting to do a little more discussion. So thank you very much.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Marshall?
Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too appreciate the service that you are giving our country and all the troops that you command. I am a former mayor and a military brat. In fact, my father was Commanding General of the Safeguard Program when we were trying to develop that system. And I guess I have learned little or nothing from my father's experience, but a fair amount from having been a mayor.
And we tried to implement E 9/11 while I was the mayor, and we had a very difficult time doing that because of the bureaucracies that were involved. And that is a system that is designed to respond quickly to an emergency. And I must say I am skeptical, as Mr. Everett, I think, is wondering, about multi-layered systems, separate bureaucracies trying to respond to an emergency in just a matter of minutes or seconds.
I think it is natural, probably natural in the military, certainly natural in typical systems, you know, in a large city with multiple departments, for a fair amount of respect to develop between department heads. A particular department is responsible for certain things, another department is responsible for certain things, and now, all of the sudden, they have got to work together. And the focus is on a separate system altogether, and the separate system, in this instance, is a system that is designed to respond quickly to a threat.
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And it is only natural in a bureaucracy for the two separate departments to agree to work with one another and to do their very, very best to respect one another's ability to work carefully with the other and all the troops underneath them to work carefully in sync. And my experience has been, typically, it does not work. In fact, I do not know of a single instance in which a system like that did not slow down the response.
It would be one thing if the overall system that is designed to respond to the threat is one that requires very different technological or other capabilities so that you have to put a team together. But in this instance, it does not sound like that is the case. It sounds like one unified command could identify the threat, evaluate the threat, direct response to the threat and respond, and that that one unified command would probably be quicker than a layered command.
And what I worry about is that it is only natural, in a bureaucratic system, for the two of you to work carefully with one another and in good faith. We can do this. And to miss the opportunity to create a new system—one thing, one whole system that will effectively respond much quicker.
I know you cannot respond to that right now. I suspect you have actually had conversations about that within the Department. And I just tell you that as we progress with this, I am going to be very interested in hearing why the multi-layered approach is going to be quicker than one unified command that is responsible for the whole thing. Because my prejudice, my experience tells me that the one unified command responsible for the whole thing is the way for us to go.
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And that is just a statement here, Mr. Chairman, rather than a question. I thank the gentlemen.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons?
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, join the accolades of my colleagues in thanking each of you for your service to this nation. It is great to have such fine leaders out there at the right time, in the right organization for America, in this time in our history.
I have just two basic areas that I want to talk about. Perhaps, I will direct my questions to General Eberhart. NORTHCOM has, as we have heard, air, land, and sea responsibilities. It has few permanently assigned personnel to the organization. With the operations tempo (OPSTEMPO) of our militaries across the world, and various problems that we see today, whether it is the fight against terrorism, whether it is possible action in Iraq, my question would be, General, do you feel it is a requirement to have specific forces either allocated or apportioned on a call-up basis to you?
In other words, with the OPSTEMPO that we have got, the stretching thin of our forces across this globe, should we have some specific allocation of forces directed at your call for that responsibility, to cover all of the air, land, and sea problems?
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General EBERHART. Sir, essentially, today, we do have some forces that are identified and available for our use. In some cases, we are the combatant command for those forces. In other cases, those forces are identified, and once we decide to use them, we will either have operational command and control or tactical control. And we have done that for air, land, and sea forces.
So I am comfortable with that situation today. The question is, over time, will we need more forces assigned, more forces available to us to conduct our mission—and, obliviously, that will be a factor of one threat—and then, frankly, how responsive Joint Forces Command is as the force provider to provide those forces so that we can use those in a timely nature. I am confident of Joint Forces Command's support.
As we look at the precedent of other combatant commands as they stood up—U.S. Space Command in the mid 1980s, our Transportation Command as we know it today—they initially had command and control, combatant command control of very few forces. But, as the command structure matured and their ability to command and control was realized, second, as missions were added, they received combatant command of additional forces.
And there is no doubt in my mind that that is where we are headed in Northern Command.
Mr. GIBBONS. You know, many times we look at—and I want to get into the second area, which is the working relationship with local law enforcement in NORTHCOM. If we look at the training requirements for our military forces, seldom do we have military forces, that might be assigned to you, trained in police-type actions. Most of them are military force-on-force-type actions.
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And with the close working relationship that you are going to need with our local law enforcement, and the fact that intelligence is probably the number one defensive tool that you will have in your arsenal, I guess my question is, how are you planning to de-conflict actions with your command and your involvement with local law enforcement involvement, which may bridge the laws that prevent military actions or support of civil law enforcement where they are excluded expressly by law?
General EBERHART. Obviously, one of the things that is part and parcel to everything we do is complying with the laws of the land, and most notably, as you inferred, posse comitatus, in this case. We believe that there are many different ways to provide for the security of the American people, where we, in fact, do not violate the spirit or intent of posse comitatus.
You are well aware, in your background, of one of the major ways, and that is the state militia. The guard, under the direction of the governor, will be able to do things with local law enforcement, in support of local law enforcement, that federal forces cannot do, unless the President uses the Insurrection Act, or something very extreme.
So that is how we would intend to do that. And we would use federal forces with clear lanes in the road, doing those things that federal forces are authorized to do by posse comitatus and by the laws of the land. But those are the types of things we exercise, and our commanders, if we deploy them, would clearly know who is in charge, who they take tasking from, who the lead federal agency is, what our command and control structure is, and what they can and cannot do in terms of rules of engagement.
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Mr. GIBBONS. And, Mr. Chairman, just one final follow up. I know that the National Guard, though, once it is activated or federalized, then loses that state militia capability and becomes a federal agency in this graying of that line in any action that they would take.
General EBERHART. Exactly. And we are very aware of that. And that is why I am very sensitive to the issue of how we use and deploy the National Guard. In many cases, it is much better to use them under state status or 32 status as opposed to federalizing them, for the reasons you list.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, the gentlemen both, for appearing here today.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.
The gentlelady from San Diego, Ms. Davis.
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Thank you, General Eberhart and Admiral Ellis for being here, and for your service, as well. I had an opportunity to participate in the National Defense University's strategic decision exercises recently, as did some of my colleague, and I actually would recommend that. I think it is good for us to do that.
And one of the concerns, of course, was the role of the military in homeland defense. And, basically, I think all of my colleagues are really asking some of the same questions today, and I appreciate that this is difficult. What was clear to me is how ambiguous the roles can be, the role of the military and homeland defense.
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Could you pinpoint for us where you think those roles are the most ambiguous today and what we are doing to really try and define them better?
General EBERHART. I think that the things that are most confusing for us when we work our way through these scenarios, these war games, these tabletop exercises, is clearly what might be expected of federal forces and what we have to offer. And it is an education process. And it is thinking differently in terms of a commander of military forces.
For example, there is a sniper situation in D.C., the tragedy that occurred in and around the District of Columbia. And to get into the mindset of thinking, what do we have in the Department of Defense that might be of value to the law enforcement agencies who are trying to solve this problem, protect the American people—at the same time, comply with the laws of the land.
So I think it is getting together, discussing these things as you did over at Fort McNair, at the National Defense University, and increasing the awareness of what might be expected. But probably, that comes second.
What we have to offer, therefore—because people do not know what question to ask until we say, ''We have these kinds of things,'' things that go all the way to satellite capabilities of imagery that we have, in fact, used in the aftermath of the Columbia tragedy, that we use to fight fires—the list goes on and on—but to use these things in a transformational way, if you will, to protect the American people where they live and work. And that is what it is all about.
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Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Did you want to answer that, also?
Admiral ELLIS. I think I would echo the comments of General Eberhart. The key to this is the opportunity that you were afforded, Congresswoman, where we get together and work. But it has to go beyond just the occasional exercises. And General Eberhart is working to create interagency relationships that make that a continuing set of exposure and involvement, not an episodic or periodic one.
It is a cultural change for all of us. We have historically had stovepipe responsibilities, and particularly domestically, where we have been fortunate as a nation not to have been significantly challenged in decades past. That is no longer the case. So it is forcing a different mindset, a different set of interoperability requirements, and a different set of opportunities, I would argue, to better integrate that.
Each of our major exercises now draws heavily on the interagency and other departmental elements to bring in representatives to play roles and to facilitate that understanding. We need to pursue, just as we have with your involvement, that through our training and education courses. We need to share those experiences for our young and upwardly mobile leaders so that they have got the opportunity not just to meet, but to actually work and exercise with their contemporaries and other elements.
That is the way we are going to get this most effective capability to deal with these challenges to the nation.
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Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. Any obstacles to that? You are saying they are cultural, in many ways.
Admiral ELLIS. I am not sure that I would call them obstacles. I just think we are thinking our way through, what are the most effective vehicles? We need to bring some rigor to this and some focus on, what are the mechanisms that offer the most promise, most quickly to meet these challenges?
So I would not call them obstacles. I would rather categorize it as, which are the best opportunities to advance that cooperation?
Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo.
The gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Miller.
Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, gentlemen, both for coming, as well as your staff. I appreciate you all coming for an early morning meeting here. I have been fascinated listening to you explain, I think, in a very comprehensive way, what the Northern Command is.
And as you have had your first six months putting your mission together there, I have a, perhaps, little parochial question. And I am just trying to understand how you do interface with, not only Mexico, but in particular, I have a question about Canada. I represent a district in southeastern Michigan, and on the Northern Tier there, as a northern border state, we have a number of dynamics that we are very concerned about with homeland security.
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We sit with the Ambassador Bridge, which is the busiest border crossing of commerce on the Northern Tier, the tunnel to Canada through Windsor there. In my district, we have something called the Bluewater Bridge, which is the third busiest border crossing behind Buffalo, actually, for a commerce artery there. There is a Canadian National (CN) rail tunnel there.
Obviously, on the Great Lakes, one-fifth of the fresh water supply of the entire planet, about 90 percent of our nation's fresh water supply. We have the largest Arabic population in the nation, I think, outside of L.A. Our state police have identified quite a few terrorist cells within Michigan.
And we are very concerned about the commerce that is coming through these various arteries. And perhaps this is a question for the homeland security director, but I ask you, how have you interfaced, in particular, with your Canadian counterparts there? We have a tremendous amount of consternation about not having—somebody had asked about the Coast Guard and their involvement with cargo ships—but we have a tremendous amount of consternation about not having any pre-clearance for all of these tens of thousands of trucks that are coming.
They only get cleared after they have been over the bridge or after they have gone through the tunnels. And we are just wondering, do you have any interaction or interface with your Canadian counterparts about these kinds of things?
General EBERHART. We are not directly involved right now in terms of the threat that might exist because of that truck traffic, if you will, of that commercial traffic. However, we are doing things that, we believe, in the long run will contribute to, hopefully, mitigating, lessening that risk.
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I hate to sound like a broken record, but we are back to the technology issue—so that we are able, with sensors, remote sensing, to have a good idea what is in that truck without pulling it over and x-raying it. And then, you know how that stops everything and delays things, and obviously is not good for our commerce or the commerce of our good friend to the north.
So I am convinced, as we move ahead here, the right way to work this is sensors on those bridges, in those tunnels, that keys us to something that is suspicious. And then, we, in fact, go take that truck apart and make sure there is nothing there that is hazardous.
Now, on a larger scale, what we are doing, which I think will reap dividends for both of our nations, and especially those states and provinces along the border, is that we are establishing a bi-national planning group that will be there in Colorado Springs, appended to North American Aerospace Defense Command, to see if the relationship that we have enjoyed since 1958 in air and space defense should, in fact, be expanded for maritime operations, land operations, or civil support activities.
We all know that there are relationships out there right now between some states and provinces, agreements to come to each other's assistance, if necessary, for natural disasters or, possibly, for man-made disasters. We are trying to take this to the next level and make these agreements between the nation of Canada and our nation. And that is what we call the Bi-National Planning Group, which I think will help us work a variety of problems along our common border.
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But to answer your question, we are directly involved day in and day out. That is homeland security. Now, after 9/11, if those people who are in charge of the borders believe that we cannot deal with this situation, we need military support, that military support would, in fact, come from Northern Command, and we would be directly involved.
But I think there are technologies that we are developing that will be very, very helpful, some of which are already in use.
Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Abercrombie.
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you, Mr. Hefley. I believe that I arrived after some of the other members.
Mr. HEFLEY. Well, Mr. Hunter had established a pattern of going from the Democrat side to the Republican side, so——
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay, I appreciate that.
Mr. HEFLEY. So, while I am in power at the moment, I realize I will be out of power soon. So I would better follow his——
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you very much, indeed. General Eberhart, I am pleased we had a chance to discuss things, and I do not want to take the committee's time up today. But I do think Mr. McHale's name has been mentioned during the hearing already, and I think it would be very useful if Mr. McHale could meet with some members of the committee who have questions as to the structure, especially, of the Northern Command and what is involved with that.
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In particular, I would like to touch on some of the points that we discussed. You have in your testimony some mention about posse comitatus. And you and I have discussed, and it is no news to members of this committee, because I have raised the issue previously in other contexts for the committee that, to me, the principal element which separates this democracy from other nations on the earth is the rigid and public separation of its military capacity from civilian police activity.
And that my perception is—and it is not simply mine, but I think it is generally shared in the country where issues of liberty are concerned—is that a nation which has its police functions and its military functions essentially synonymous is, in fact, a fascist entity and antithetical and anathema to freedom, to individual law collective as we understand it in our democracy.
The question here becomes, certainly not by design—I mean, I grant that right from the beginning—but by default, could we possibly be setting up a situation in which the Northern Command would be taking over civil police functions? Now, obviously, you are assuring us that we are not, that the law is being obeyed. Although, I noticed in your testimony, you say you do not think the posse comitatus laws, and/or the judicial decisions made in the wake of posse comitatus, need to be changed, and I think the phrase is, ''at this time.''
I regret that you felt the necessity of putting ''at this time,'' because it implies that there might be a time in the future when we should alter that, and I would find that very regretful. But aside from that caveat, is Mr. McHale in the process of putting together a proposal for the Congress, either by way of legislation or a presentation of rules, regulations, administrative authority, which could institutionalize the separation of the Northern Command from any implication or indication that it somehow could have authority to supercede the existing civil police functions that are now in place; everything from, obviously, local responders in terms of fire and police and civil defense, to the National Guard, under the collective adjutant generals, and et cetera.
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General EBERHART. Sir, I am not aware of any specific effort or move on his part to do that. We both know, as a former member of this committee, as a lawyer, as a reserve officer in the Marine Corps, he has a very unique appreciation for the problems that——
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, that is why I think he might be useful. So my suggestion—I think, General, you do not have to answer this today, because I have every confidence that, with what I have just outlined, we are in essential agreement on—and I do not have any doubt the administration has the same attitude.
But you and I also both know, and I am sure the administration does, that democracy does not dependent on individuals. If it does, it is in trouble. What we need to do is institutionalize this process in a way that is not dependent on your goodwill or your intelligence, or your authority, but personally, that whether I sit in this seat or you sit in that seat, that this country is assured that there are protocols in place that clearly outline what the United States military is instructed to do, what its obligations and responsibilities are.
And because this is unique and because it is evolving, I think it is important for that to take place. And my suggestion to you is that, perhaps, Mr. McHale, in league with the committee, can produce what is necessary to assure the public that institutionally, we are on the right track.
And then, Admiral, I would like to follow up on Mr. Taylor's question. I read through your testimony. I regret to say—this is not a personal observation—but I regret to say that much of it is what my journalism teacher called in high school ''glittering generalities.'' And that does not make them less important or less pertinent to our decision making, but some of this, of necessity, I realize, because you are evolving your mission, of necessity may be general in nature, almost generic in nature.
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But the specificity of what Mr. Taylor was bringing up, I think, needs to be answered. And I would hope—thank you, Mr. Chairman—I would hope that you would follow up. This maritime question is one that absolutely needs addressing. It is going to be expensive. It is going to involve a lot of personnel. But absent its implementation in some fashion, as indicated by Mr. Taylor, in cooperation with your recommendations, I think that we stand vulnerable and will have to answer for it, perhaps one day, something we would all regret.
Admiral ELLIS. Thank you, sir.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And General, Admiral, thank you very much for being here, and I appreciate, in particular, your lead role in defending the homeland. It is truly remarkable that NORTHCOM had to be created in the first place, because of the emphasis of potential conflict overseas. But I feel like we are in good hands.
I particularly have a great interest in the military, in that in our immediate family, we have persons currently serving in the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, and we are all familiar with the rivalries. And I need to give you a report, General—and you will appreciate this—there is a bit of rivalry between my son and his wife expecting a baby at Bethesda, Addison Graves Wilson the Third, and his first cousin, my nephew and his wife, who are in the Air Force at Langley.
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And I need to report that Grace Elizabeth Heritage arrived last night at Langley. And so I am very proud of Captain (Ret.) Kristen Heritage and Captain Alan B. Heritage. They came forth, and so we are still in a holding pattern, Admiral, at Bethesda.
Admiral ELLIS. Congratulations, sir.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Thank you very much.
General EBERHART. Does that mean Air Force One? [Laughter.]
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. Actually, yes. And it is hard for me, as an Army person, to acknowledge that. I want to thank you, General, for your statement in regard to NORTHCOM challenges, not problems. But what you are doing is so important, and in particular, the first point as to intelligence, and you referred to the Combined Intelligence Infusion Center. Could you explain where that is, what it does?
Because that is my concern, and you even referenced it: ''Connecting the dots.'' And there are a lot of geniuses after events occur. Rather than name calling, I would rather see what can be done.
General EBERHART. This is an organization that is located at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado Springs. It is an intelligence infusion center, and the name implies that not only does it take intelligence from a variety of sources, it also takes information from a variety of open sources, and other sources, and fuses that information.
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It is different from an intelligence fusion center, an intelligence center that maybe you would see at Camp Smith, in Hawaii, for Pacific Command or European Command, and that we are not gathering intelligence, nor are we, in fact, doing analysis with the big ''A'' in terms of we rely on the defense intelligence agency and other organizations to do that for us.
So we have tried to leverage the capability of other commands to include the Strategic Command, to get the intelligence and information we need. And again, we redefine joint here. We get it from the FBI, we get it from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); we get it from a variety of sources, intelligence and information. And the challenge for our folks is to put that together so we have something that is actionable.
We also believe that this will be a good pathfinder organization for the Homeland Security Department and the new intelligence organization that the President will be setting up.
Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. And in addition to working with the 50 different intelligence agencies on the federal level, another challenge that you identified second is working with states and municipalities, counties. How is that coming together?
General EBERHART. What we are doing right now in our Joint Task Force for Civil Support, we are out there soliciting the state and local emergency response plans. So what we are trying to do is, one, encourage everyone to build a plan, to make a plan; if they have a plan, make sure it is current.
We are also trying to be a facilitator in terms of cross-leveling and benchmarking plans. If we find a plan that is very good, then we try to make sure that others can benefit from that planning process, try to get out of—''not invented here'' if you will. So we enjoy good success in terms of—and then, we will catalogue these plans so that if we ever have to go to Columbia, South Carolina, that we already have on record and we can study their emergency response plans, so it is not a pick-up game when we get there.
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Mr. WILSON OF SOUTH CAROLINA. That is excellent. And I would like to conclude by indicating I have a unique status in that, as a member of the Army National Guard, I am part of your command, and I am very grateful for that opportunity. And I appreciate your reference in the statement today that we believe that no force is better suited to help deter, prevent, and defeat many of the threats we face in today's National Guard.
And no one would know that better than General Bloom. And I am delighted to know he is with you, because it is guard members who are willing, they are trained, they are very enthusiastic to be there, they have got the networking, they know the communities, they are leaders in the communities, largely, and so it is a real resource that I appreciate you using.
And I also was interested in the instantaneous title 10 method and however we can cooperate. And I just thank you for what you are doing.
General EBERHART. Thank you, sir.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Ryan?
Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. I just have a couple questions also regarding your interaction with some of the local agencies and some of the, even the counter-drug task force that you worked for. Are those primarily with border states, or are those with any state in the union, just based on what the threat is?
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General EBERHART. They are primarily with border states, but they are with many states that, in fact, are not border states. So the preponderance of our activity is with the border states, but not exclusive of other states.
Mr. RYAN. Thank you. The Joint Task Force-6, in some of the information that we received, they said they may be expanding their mission, the DOD may be expanding their mission. What would that entail?
General EBERHART. In terms of policy, one of the things the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is looking at is that maybe we are better served when we look at our borders in terms of homeland defense and homeland security as opposed to counter narcotics, illegal aliens, smuggling, et cetera—look at it in an overarching homeland defense, homeland security, and then work those issues as subsets.
So one of the things the department is looking at is using JTF–6 in a broader homeland defense, homeland security mission set as opposed to restrict the funding and activities to things that support counter-narcotics. It does not mean that you would not still do counter-narcotics, but you would do other things in addition. That is what the Office of the Secretary of Defense is looking at as we speak.
Mr. RYAN. Some of the numbers that we got, as far as the Northern Command, are around 200 right now. Is that correct?
General EBERHART. It depends. If you look at the headquarters, it is about 250, 240 right now. If you look at the headquarters, that is correct.
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Mr. RYAN. And they said it was going to grow to about 500.
General EBERHART. It will probably be closer to 600 in terms of the headquarters, yes, sir.
Mr. RYAN. Just for my own personal satisfaction, how do the numbers breakdown between the homeland security, civil support, and JTF–6, roughly?
General EBERHART. Again, those are numbers that are in our subordinate commands, so those commands are in addition to those 600.
Mr. RYAN. I see.
General EBERHART. And I can provide each of those for the record for you.
Mr. RYAN. Okay. Thank you very much. One more question regarding the emergency preparedness. How do you go through and figure out what scenarios you are going to prepare for? I would imagine that there are a million, especially after September 11, given the fact that we do not exactly know what the emergency may be or what the act may be.
How do you kind of go through and just determine what may happen and how to address the problem?
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General EBERHART. We built these areas based on several things. One: History. Some of them, again, are natural disasters that we build tabletop war games for, hurricanes, floods, et cetera. Others are based on what the intelligence folks are telling us that they are hearing might happen. So we try to stay ahead of what they are picking up in intelligence.
Three, we try to think out of the box. What have not we thought of? We were surprised on 9/11 despite the fact that people had talked about that. We did not anticipate them taking over the airplane. We anticipated them holding hostages, doing those kinds of things that Mr. Taylor referred to, but we did not anticipate them taking over the airplane and flying the airplane themselves.
So we are trying to make ourselves think the unthinkable, if you will. And then we try to go, again, from natural to man-made, biological to kinetic, and everything in between.
Mr. RYAN. For a biological or a chemical attack, with whatever chemical or biological agent, are there any contingencies for some kind of antidote to be sprayed? And I would not know enough about it, but you would think that there would need to be some plan saying if New York City, or any city, would be somehow sprayed and contaminated with a certain chemical—That their contingency is to have that area sprayed, or how would you address that emergency situation?
General EBERHART. I would say the first thing that we would try to do is take people out of the hot zones, if you will; get people out of there as quickly as we possibly can. Set up barricades and other things, but make sure that, in fact, no one goes in there, because obviously, there are going to be people very concerned who want to go in and try to get loved ones and friends, et cetera. And most of this initially is going to be done by those first responders, because they are going to be first on the scene. We are going to show up later if we are needed, and invited in.
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In terms of an aerosol spray that we deliver from the air, I am not aware of one that would suppress this. There are antidotes, depending on the situation, that we could give in terms of immunizations and other things that we would be looking at the supplies of that based on the threat, what had just occurred.
But the key to this will be getting people to shelter, getting them so that they are not exposed to this agent; if they have been exposed and its something that is contagious, keep them isolated. And then, frankly, in most cases, count on the weather and the normal dispensation of this chemical.
Mr. RYAN. I guess my third last question, Mr. Chairman—I think it was JTF–6, too, that does some preventative stuff or tries to do some preventive. Is there any wiretapping that goes on as far as through the Northern Command?
General EBERHART. We do not do that. We are not authorized to do that. We do not go out and collect information.
Mr. RYAN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was my final question.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Kline.
Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today, coming in early and enduring our many questions. I have got a question that is going to walk around the area that has been approached by many different members here of the committee, having to do with command and control, and posse comitatus, and 32 status, and all of those things, which, General, you are dealing with, that is foreign to my experience.
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In my years of active service, it was always straightforward. The chain of command was very clear, all the forces were active duty, the enemy were foreign nationals on foreign soil. We have a situation, perhaps today where, in the air or on strip alert, we have F–16s, perhaps the Minnesota National Air Guard and perhaps, F–16s from the active United States Air Force.
The first question is, who is in command right now, as we are sitting here today, of that air guard F–16 squadron and the United States Air Force F–16 squadron, in their role right at this minute?
General EBERHART. If they are sitting alert for the Noble Eagle mission, they are each commanded by the continental NORAD region. It is a two-star commander that is at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, who, in turn, reports to me, reports to NORAD and Northern Command, depending on which hat we wear. But there are clear lines of authority.
Mr. KLINE. When they come off of alert or come back from combat air patrol and land, they leave your command, then, is that correct? And the air guard, that, then, is not 32 status. I would assume that is a title 10, or how does that work?
General EBERHART. Sir, it depends. When you are on alert and you fly, they have hip pocket title 10 orders, if you will, based on the agreements with the state governors through the National Guard Bureau. When they come back, they can go into a variety of status. They could go into pure state status, state conduct, state activities. They could go into title 32 state status, where we pay for the training, as you are aware of.
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So there are a variety of different situations there depending on what the state elects to do. But that is up to the state how they do that. What they need to do is provide us, in NORAD, these airplanes this capability on alert.
Mr. KLINE. Okay, I think that is fairly clear. Now, let's take a change in scenario, and the admiral's forces identify a threat, at this point unspecified—I do not suppose it matters in this particular case. But you decide that those aircraft, F–16s on strip alert in the air, are not nearly enough to do the job, and you need, right now, six more squadrons worth. How does that work?
General EBERHART. What I would do is I would pick up the phone and call the Secretary of Defense and tell him that I needed six more squadrons for whatever reason. Hopefully, it is convincing. The Secretary of Defense says, ''You have six more squadrons''—six more aircraft, six more squadrons, whatever it might be. And then, I can go to a National Guard Bureau and Joint Forces Command, and I can get a combination of guard forces, active duty forces, which would be under our command and control to execute whatever mission, to defeat whatever threat was posed.
Mr. KLINE. So if it is three o'clock in the morning, how long before you have some more aircraft ready to go?
General EBERHART. It depends, again, on the different units and how many they have deployed overseas. But to give you a comparison, on 9/11, when the attack occurred, we had 14 aircraft on alert. When the sun went down that day, we had 200 aircraft on alert.
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Mr. KLINE. Okay, thank you. I want to get into the posse comitatus piece here in just a little bit. Those aircraft, when we had the 245, or however many, on alert or up, they were fully prepared to shoot down U.S. airliners. That is a MiG–23 or a MiG–25, or something. It is inside our borders.
Do you need clarification there? Are you all concerned about lines of authority? Is that a law enforcement function? Is it a military function? Is that now clear in your mind? Do you have everything you need to make that work?
General EBERHART. Sir, the answer, ''Is it clear?'' It is very clear. The lines of authority go from that pilot in there to the continental NORAD region commander two-star, to me, to the Secretary of Defense, to the President—the lines of authority. Law enforcement does not get involved other than to possibly cue us to a problem. But that decision is made through a solid line, clear lines of authority to the President.
Are we concerned? You bet we are concerned. There is nothing that I lose sleep over more than having this situation upon us and having to make that decision, or make a recommendation, to the Secretary of Defense. But the lines of authority are clearly understood. We exercise this weekly.
Mr. KLINE. Great. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Meek.
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Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad that you all are here this morning to speak with us. I know that Mr. Taylor mentioned something about this a little earlier this morning, and I think something of great importance, not only to the function of the Northern Command, but also I may say, which I believe, is the seam in our military defense.
We had down in Florida—I am from Miami, Florida—and we had down, a little incident in Florida less than a month ago, and we were on high alert. Three Cuban military officers, actually, it was in a go-past boat that was marked as a military boat, flying a Cuban flag, came right into the Hyatt Arena. They got out of the boat. One of the gentleman had a sign on and walked straight down to Wall Street and surrendered to a police officer.
Now, I know in south Florida, we have the largest coast guard station in the country. We have drug interdiction, customs, a number of those agencies that I believe sit at the table at Northern Command. I think that it is something that we need to pay very close attention to, and many times because south Florida is, how would you say, surrounded by Caribbean islands.
Many of those islands have issues, be it economic or government oversight, of what have you. And I am concerned because Cuba is in line with Iraq as it relates to the United Nations (UN). If they could, they would be side by side with Iraq, and they are diplomatically. I am very concerned because I do not think that our intelligence, even in Cuba, due to the fact that it is not a democracy, due to the fact that it has been a threat for a very long-time, and Castro is a long time standing leader of communism, that that is something that we really have to pay very close attention to.
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I spoke with General Hill yesterday, or SOUTHCOM, that is located right outside of my district, but still close to my district in Miami. He punted and said, ''It was NORTHCOM you needed to talk to.'' I know that we have planes that could scramble out of Homestead, or even out of the air force base there in Key West, I am not sure. But there has to be some coordination, serious coordination as it relates to it.
There was a news report in the Miami Herald. As a matter of fact, this is the police report with the military IDs of these individuals. But there was a newspaper account and the coast guard was asked, ''Well, what is your comment on this,'' and he said they could not determine if U.S. military, if they would been tracking these individuals from Cuba to Miami.
There is not supposed to be any activity at all, need it be air or sea, between Cuba and Key West, or south Florida. So I think with all of the capabilities and technology that we have, it is something that we need to pay very, very close attention to. And we definitely need you all at the Northern Command paying very close attention, very, very close attention, if I can emphasize that a few more times, due to the fact, if we want to look at our weak spot, it is definitely happening there.
We have had incidents, as you know, in 1991, a Cuban MiG landed on U.S. soil. It happened in 1969, but obviously, I was a very little person then. But I just want to say that this is a very heavy situation as we look at homeland security. I serve on Homeland. Many members of this committee serve on Homeland Security.
I want you to elaborate further on what we could do to avoid this in the future. We were at high alert. I just want to add, the same place where they docked there at the Hyatt, cruise ships are there overnight. And as we look at terrorism, that has to be something that we are dealing with.
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I do not know of any other place in the continental United States where we have a communist country where military individuals are able to penetrate through.
General EBERHART. Obviously, we share your concern. What happened should not have happened. We cannot make an excuse for that. I think what is important in what you asked is, what types of things are we pursuing in the future to try to preclude this? Again, it sounds like a broken record. It is technology.
And it is things like wide area sea surveillance, so that we, in fact, have as good a sea picture as we have air and space picture today, so that we have this vehicle traffic system that the coast guard is starting to deploy to the various ports and harbors, so that we truly know when something is approaching and entering the harbor, so that we do not have a situation where they dock, get out, and walk down Main Street.
When we have transponders aboard ships—now, again, the bad guys are not going to tell us who they are, but that allows us to at least sort out that person, that ship is not transponding, is not sending a signal. Maybe we ought to go look at that, and that would be a suspect in nature.
So those are the kinds of things that we need to do collectively from industry, commercial industry, to the Coast Guard, to those who support the coast guard, NORTHCOM in this case, as they do the maritime security role for this nation. And then, ideally, we should not let that even get close to our shore. So through other types of things, communications intelligence (COMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), et cetera, we ought to know that it is departing Cuba, and have a picture on the water so that we can go out and intercept it before it comes to the mouth of the harbor.
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But those are the kinds of ways that we need to work this problem to make sure that we will be secure in the future.
Mr. MEEK. Mr. Chairman, if I may—General, if you could——
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Meek, we are running out of time.
Mr. MEEK. Yes, but I just wanted to ask him——
Mr. HEFLEY. Be very quick.
Mr. MEEK [continuing]. If you would have your staff send me something in writing of some recommendations, I would love to follow up on that.
General EBERHART. Yes, sir, we will do that.
Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Simmons.
Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General and Admiral, for your testimony. General, you made the comment, ''think the unthinkable.'' I think that is what we have to do. You made reference to open sources of intelligence and fusion centers, which I think is absolutely critical in the task that you have before you.
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Ms. Miller asked a question with regard to our borders in Canada and some of the problems that we have there. And what I would like to do is to present a very brief scenario. You said on page three of your testimony that, with regard to your concern for threats within our airspace, we look forward to fielding expanded capabilities to track even smaller low-altitude threats—we look forward to it, smaller low-altitude threats.
In the Secretary of State's presentation to the United Nations, in open sources in the media, there is repeated discussion of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, currently in the possession of Iraq, with a range of around 500 kilometers, I believe, from open sources, tested and fixed with biological sprays, able to launch, let's say, in Loudon County, fly over Washington, D.C., spray the city, flying low, maybe 300 feet above the terrain.
What do you do in a scenario like that? And that is my question to you, and I will let you think about it for a moment, and I will pose my question to the Admiral so that I do not waste everybody's time. As we move away from Cold War military force collection strategies—Cold War military force collection strategies—toward the creation of the processes and systems necessary for comprehensive, synergistic, and flexible contingency intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. Think about explaining that to me in language that I would understand.
Admiral ELLIS. I would be delighted, sir.
Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you.
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General EBERHART. Sir, we are very concerned about the UAV threat, and the other threat that we referred to. But the smaller, more-difficult-to-see threats would be the cruise missile threat in the future, especially a cruise missile threat that has a low radar cross section.
But to get to your question, again, I think that the key to our success here will be working the front-end of this problem. Intelligence cueing, intelligence that somebody is going to bring one of those aircraft into the nation, or somebody is building one of those aircraft in the nation. And then, look for the marriage of a vehicle like that with chem/biological weapons, and who has the stockpile, who has the authority to do that.
And then, frankly, it is an awareness on the part of people and neighbors there in Loudon County, the farmers, the ranchers, the law enforcement folks to realize that these things can pose that type of a threat.
And then, finally, depending on the profile it flies and how big it is, the ability with the air defense assets that we have in the Capitol region today, the combat air patrols we have to possibly shoot it down. But again, that is problematic based on the flight profile and the size of that vehicle in terms of how we detect it and then how we engage it.
But the key to success, in my view, is you have got to work the front-end of this problem. If you do not work the front-end of this problem, if you wait until that thing is launched, the profile, the scenario that you suggest would be very difficult to defeat.
Mr. SIMMONS. Thank you. And just as a quick follow on—and I am still interested in the admiral's comments—in nuclear facility security, we test the security system with operations. In communications security, we test the system security with operations. The U.S. has within its capacity the ability to fly a UAV to test the system. Have you done so, will you do so, and if so, when?
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General EBERHART. To test the system to detect a UAV and engage it?
Mr. SIMMONS. Yes.
General EBERHART. Yes, sir. We have done those types of profiles, but not at the size range that you have talked about, not at the smaller range.
Admiral ELLIS. Thank you, Mr. Simmons. The intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms that were addressed in my statement are those things that provide a great deal of that oversight and perspective on the regions that may threaten us around the globe.
Historically, those systems, be they on-orbit satellites or air-breathing collection aircraft, or even terrestrial or maritime monitoring capabilities, have been procured in service-specific stovepipes. They have not been procured or addressed as part of a larger system that, I would argue, we need to consider as we look to the challenges of today.
As we see in each area of crisis in recent years, we tend to move all of those surveillance resources to support the theater commander, who is fully engaged. Clearly, that is important and he needs that support, and we need to provide everything that he requires for success. But we also need to acknowledge that we run the risk of then uncovering other areas, which now are unmonitored or in which there are activities of which we may be unaware.
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It is my belief that we need to develop the persistence that the service chiefs have talked about, and our ability to surveil what is going on, but also develop a capability to look at things globally. If we are engaged in global conflicts such as the Global War on Terrorism, our ISR systems have to be procured as systems that allow us to do that, to meet the legitimate needs of the regional combatant commander, including General Eberhart, but at the same time ensure that we are continuing to monitor other areas of potential crisis on the globe.
And that is what I say when we are looking beyond the stovepipe approach before and now helping to define, from a joint perspective, what those overarching requirements might be.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Reyes?
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late. But as you know, with this compressed schedule, we have multiple hearings going on. I appreciate the opportunity and the service of the General and the Admiral.
I have just one brief question for General Eberhart, and that concerns JTF–6. And I know, General, you have had an opportunity to go down there and visit, and also visit with the heads of the many different law enforcement agencies that are served so well by the JTF–6 support and operations. Can you, for the record here and the committee, can you give us your opinion and your impression of JTF–6?
Because in today's environment, I believe that DOD is trying to eliminate a substantial part of their budget. And since it is now under your command, the concern is that there is going to be a strategy to try to get law enforcement agencies to fund those operations, which, obviously, they cannot, and it is a critical time in our history with the pressure on the border, including people wanting to militarize the border.
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So if you would give us your impressions of JTF–6, I would appreciate it.
General EBERHART. I would characterize my impressions of JTF–6, prior to going there, as a supporter. After visiting with JTF–6 and the other organizations and agencies they coordinate with and perform missions with on a daily basis, I have become a champion of JTF–6. I guess I would challenge anyone to visit JTF–6 and not come away with that very same opinion.
My view is that JTF–6, like JTF East and JTF West, are models for interagency cooperation at the tactical level that we would do well to emulate at the operational and strategic levels in terms of cooperation, trust, confidence, friendship. And it does not come as a surprise to any of us, but it is good to see that, as always, the sum of the whole is much bigger than the individual entities that contribute to that when they work together for the security of this nation, in this case, in securing our border.
So I am a big fan of JTF–6. I am very impressed with what they do. My view is that we ought to expand their mission, and in, again, a more overall homeland security, homeland defense, which I know that the policy folks in OSD are looking at as we speak.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Ms. Wilson?
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Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have three questions. General, you are off the hook; they are all for Admiral Ellis. The first has to do with the strategic deterrent. And Admiral, I wanted to know, from your perspective, are we capable of holding at risk the things that our potential enemies value most, both now and in the future? And I am particularly concerned about the fusing in of and tunneling in of some capabilities.
And do we need to study modifications to our strategic stockpile to hold these targets at risk?
Admiral ELLIS. Ms. Wilson, that is an excellent question. As you know very well, and as the members of the committee know, the proliferation of hard and deeply buried targets around the world is a source of continuing concern to us. And the honest assessment is that not all of those can be dealt with by systems currently in the inventory, conventional or nuclear, and that as we consider options for, hopefully, in a deterrent character, for the future, but to give us an ability to respond to these future threats, we are going to address or should address the full spectrum of options that may be required, conventional, non-kinetic, and even nuclear, in an analytical and assessment role, simulation and modeling.
And that would enable us, in my view, to have that discussion about what options might best serve the security needs of the nation, based on a consistent set of factual information and data. So I am very much supportive of allowing that assessment and insight to continue.
Mrs. WILSON. Thank you. I am interested in your new missions in space, and particularly, how you are better connecting space to the war fighter, not so much the programs or the benefits, which I think we all agree on, but the ''how.'' How, in your command, are you looking at setting up functions, and procedures, and mechanisms to systematically be looking forward at how space can help the warfighters?
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Admiral ELLIS. Well, it is an excellent question. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I give fair credit to the gentleman seated to my right, who, when he was commanding the, then—United States Space Command, really moved dramatically forward in the provision of support to the warfighter.
The support occurs at many levels. It is not just in the headquarters element. It is not just in the area of where we are proponents for joint requirements. It is not just an area where we ask our fellow combatant commanders what they most need from support from space. It is also represented in the deployed end of personnel forward, so that they have an understanding of the complexities and the opportunities that are resident in our space systems.
We have deployed space and information operations elements, teams on the order of 45 to 50 people, to support General Franks' efforts, for example, with significant reach-back capabilities to our headquarters both in Omaha and in Colorado Springs, so that they understand the issues.
And as General Eberhart alluded to earlier in response to a different question, it is important that the warfighters understand what is available in space, that they understand the right questions to ask, that they understand the things that can now increasingly be done for them, how we can actually not only oversee the capability of a GPS constellation, for example, but enhance its accuracy for them at times where that is critical to their operations; how we can, as we have in support of General Franks, brought together bandwidth and communications connectivity to support his disparate locations all over his theater of responsibilities, literally move satellites in order to do that and provide that coverage for him and his forces, to allow him to draw very quickly on expertise for planning, and targeting, and assessment in support of whatever contingencies might be required of him in the future.
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All of those, more today than ever before, are not enabled by, not supported by space resources, but are made possible by space resources and cannot be done without them, from the targeting pieces to the guidance of those precision weapons that he might be called upon to use. It is important that he has unencumbered access to that space expertise and to those systems. And that is very much a part of our focus now and in the future.
Mrs. WILSON. I appreciate that it is part of your focus, and we encourage you to continue to look at ways to systematically do that as opposed to, somebody knows somebody else who used to work somewhere, and they know that that capability is out there. And I appreciate that.
The final question I had was about information operations. And you have been given a new mission, which is a particularly challenging and important one, on computers, integrating computer warfare, electronic warfare, pschological operations (PSYOPS), deception, as well as defense of our own information operations. And that is a pretty big piece to chew.
And I wonder if you would talk about what changes you envision in your command, driven by that mission, and do you have the resources to do it?
Admiral ELLIS. I think that is a great question. Information operations is almost as broad as you can imagine. We have been tasked with support of Department of Defense information operations, which encompasses the five elements that you described there. Clearly, there will be a need to, through the Department of Defense, integrate with the other elements of informational operation and national influence that have to be consistently applied to ensure we maximize the effects.
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From an organizational standpoint, this is going to require new sets of component relationships. In other words, I do not think it is reasonable for me to even expect to create, on my staff, a level of expertise and computer network assessment, and the fact that is resident, for example, in the National Security Agency, with tens of thousands of people.
What we need to do is establish relationships where we can draw on the capabilities that they have, satisfy the very legitimate title 10, title 50 issues, and have them support me with the expertise and talent so that we then can access that when we need it. There are many other organizational elements that can provide similar capabilities in the information operations (IO) area.
It is not about ownership. It is not about self-aggrandizement or wholesale growth of the organization. It is the ability to bring together, for the first time, the unity and the integration that is required to begin, for the first time, to really deliver on the capabilities that information operations promises the nation.
It is my view that we have talked a lot about this for a number of years, but that we have not yet begun to deliver on the potential. This organizational alignment gives me the responsibility and the authorities now, for the first time, to bring together all of those who are participants in this—agencies, services, and the like, and begin to move in that direction.
We are excited by the prospect. We know there is much to be done, but they are going to be fundamental to our success.
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Mrs. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Gingrey.
Dr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Eberhart and Admiral Ellis, I thank you very much for your testimony. I apologize for coming in late. And I have a question for General Eberhart, and maybe it has already been asked, but just in case.
What is the relationship between your Northern Command and the new Department of Homeland Security? And I know that is a broad question, and I just want to have a general feel for that.
General EBERHART. I think the best way to describe that relationship is to look at what I call the strategic, and operational, and tactical levels. The strategic level, the level at which we set policy and make resource decisions—that will be the Department of Defense with the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Ridge to Secretary Rumsfeld and their offices.
At the operational level, where we do the planning that will, in fact, execute that policy, that will be done predominantly at Northern Command, working with our counterpart organizations inside Homeland Security—Coast Guard, the former FEMA, et cetera, et cetera.
And the tactical level, out where things really happen, where success is dictated, that will be the people in the field, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, working with their counterparts, whether it is a lead federal agency, FBI, FEMA, or whether it is first responders, or whether it is the state's militia. That will be the tactical level where we exercise, train, and execute, if we have to execute.
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Mr. HEFLEY. We are out of time, and I want to thank you gentlemen for being here. Admiral Ellis, I appreciate you stopping by the office earlier so that we could have a visit. And General Eberhart, I apologize to you for standing you up. I want to apologize publicly, not only because of who you are and that you are a dear friend, but you are also one of my constituents. So I feel very bad.
Do not go home and tell them that I stood you up, but I was over on the floor voting when you came by. I think the testimony was excellent this morning. We appreciate so much what both of you are doing in this very, very serious, dangerous, exciting time in our nation's history.
Mr. Skelton?
Mr. SKELTON. Let me add to that a special thanks to each of you. Your testimony has been excellent and we appreciate it very much. If anyone in uniform has no defect jobs, it is the two of you. So we wish you well, continued success, and I hope you will stay in touch with us so we can give assistance.
Thank you.
Admiral ELLIS. Thank you, sir.
Mr. HEFLEY. The committee stands adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 10:23 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]