SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2005
[H.A.S.C. No. 109–17]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
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TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
ON
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE RESPONSIBILITIES IN HOMELAND DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY MISSIONS
HEARING HELD
MARCH 15, 2005
TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey, Chairman
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
JEFF MILLER, Florida
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FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts
ADAM SMITH, Washington
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
CYNTHIA McKINNEY, Georgia
Thomas E. Hawley,Professional Staff Member
Jean D. Reed,Professional Staff Member
Uyen T. Dinh,Counsel
William H. Natter,Professional Staff Member
Brian R. Anderson, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2005
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HEARING:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005, Fiscal Year 2006 National Defense Authorization Act—Department of Defense Responsibilities in Homeland Defense and Homeland Security Missions
APPENDIX:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2005
FISCAL YEAR 2006 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE RESPONSIBILITIES IN HOMELAND DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY MISSIONS
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Meehan, Hon. Martin T., a Representative from Massachusetts, Ranking Member, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee
Saxton, Hon. Jim, a Representative from New Jersey, Chairman, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee
WITNESSES
Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven, Chief, National Guard Bureau
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Keating, Adm. Timothy, USN, Commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command
McHale, Hon. Paul, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Blum, Lt. Gen. H. Steven
Keating, Adm. Timothy J.
McHale, Hon. Paul
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[The Documents submitted can be viewed in the hard copy.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[There were no Questions submitted.]
FISCAL YEAR 2006 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE RESPONSIBILITIES IN HOMELAND DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY MISSIONS
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House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, March 15, 2005.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:03 p.m. in room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jim Saxton (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. SAXTON. While we are getting settled, we would like to yield for just a moment to Mr. Wilson, who has a special guest he would like to introduce.
Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is a great honor to have visiting today—actually, the past day and a half through tomorrow—my eldest son, Alan. Alan is a classic member of the Army National Guard. He was mobilized 15 months ago. He served for a year in Iraq. He arrived back 3 weeks ago, and he will return to his law practice of being a prosecutor in our home county in 3 weeks.
So I am very proud that he is under the command of General Blum and also Admiral Keating. I am just very proud of the service of Captain Alan Wilson.
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Mr. SAXTON. Alan, thank you for being with us today. It is an honor to have you here, and thanks for your great service.
Okay, we will get under way here.
The Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities meets this afternoon to continue our follow-up on the topic of this subcommittee's hearing of 2 years ago, an overview of the role of the Department of Defense in homeland security and homeland defense missions. Since the initial subcommittee hearing in March, 2003, our distinguished ranking member, Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, and other members of the subcommittee and I have participated in a very wide variety of sessions, informal and formal, and have traveled extensively, both domestically and overseas, in an attempt to understand the issues and help our Nation improve in this critical area.
As Members of Congress and as members of the Committee on Armed Services, we never forget that national defense is the primary and most important function of the Federal Government. The tragic events of September 11, 2001, forced us to reexamine how we carry out that function, resulting in the creation of a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security, a new Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense within DOD (Department of Defense), and the creation of a new combatant command, Northern Command, within the Department of Defense.
To complicate matters even further, we have provided new authorities to the Secretary for use in the national guard, added new structure to the intelligence community, and provided more statutory guidance in the intelligence reform legislation of last December.
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I believe it is time to take a breath and see where we are. How are all of these new organizations going about the critical business of keeping America's homeland and Americans safe? More importantly, are their efforts well coordinated so that there are no seams for an enemy to separate? What more needs to be done, we might ask ourselves.
We recognize and wholeheartedly support the Nation's desire to stop terrorists in their own homeland, keeping the fight well away from American shores. While that is our goal and the witnesses' goal as well, I am sure, we still must be ready at home. I know that many agencies have responsibilities for homeland defense, which is exactly what troubles me.
My concerns fall into two broad areas: a clear understanding of responsibility of the various government agencies involved in homeland defense and homeland security and a clear understanding of the technical means for connecting all responsible entities with command, control and intelligence.
For example, we are still concerned about the adequacy of the lines of authority for the command and control of the national guard. We understand that the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense have agreed on respective responsibilities of the coast guard and the Navy in protecting the U.S. coast. While this is good, what is being done to find threats on the high seas before they approach the U.S.? What is being done to insure all U.S. Armed Forces, including the national guard, appropriate elements of the Department of Homeland Security, and State and local first responders can communicate with each other in the case of a crisis? How do we insure all have the needed intelligence information before a crisis develops?
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I also note that the Reserve forces of the United States are undergoing force structure changes to better accommodate the demands of globalization and contingency missions. I trust that homeland defense missions have been accounted for in the ongoing rebalancing of Reserve forces.
As I said at the outset, there is much to discuss. So now let me turn to my friend and colleague, Marty Meehan, for any comments that he would like to make.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN T. MEEHAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS, RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I join you in welcoming our distinguished panel of witnesses.
This hearing examines the DOD's role in setting homeland security policy and coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies as we seek to counter threats against our homeland and guard against attacks on U.S. soil.
We also address a key role that our national guard forces play in homeland security. Despite the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, I believe that the Defense Department has, and will continue to have a key role to play in protecting our Nation from internal terrorist attacks. The presence of DOD personnel, particularly the national guard, in every State and territory provides ready-made means to augment and work cooperatively with our State and local first responders.
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Second, the Department of Defense has significant information technology and communications capability that can help achieve integration among counterterrorist organizations within our government. This integration among agencies can help achieve timely and coordinated responses to terrorist attacks.
Recognizing that the Department of Defense has a potential to make positive contributions toward improving our ability to respond to terrorist attacks, I nonetheless have some concerns.
First, I am concerned that we may be at the point of stretching our national guard forces too much. The national guard troops currently make up about 40 percent of our troops in Iraq. At the same time, we are here today to discuss the guard's role in homeland security. To be fully successful in combating terrorism, I have to believe that we need to clearly define goals for the national guard which take into consideration operational realities on the military side. We don't want to stretch our national guard to the point where they are unable to perform assigned missions as effectively as they always have in the past.
We must also clearly define roles and responsibilities among executive departments, in particular between the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, so that we know which department is responsible for which activities. We simply cannot afford to have a situation in which the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, resulting in gaps in the performance of critical missions or unnecessary redundancies.
Finally, I think there needs to be a high degree of coordination within the Department of Defense. I understand the importance of the role that the Northern Command plays in coordinating DOD's responses to terrorist attacks, but we need to have a clear chain of command between the Northern Command and our national guard units.
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The Northern Command also needs to be joined at the hip with efforts undertaken by Secretary McHale's office. I am hopeful that the forthcoming national military strategy will provide guidance and clarity concerning these issues. Our common goal is to have as seamless, coordinated and complementary an approach to Homeland Security and security as possible. I hope that the distinguished panel of witnesses will shed some light on the Department's progress on this effort to date.
Again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Marty.
Before we begin, I am informed that Mike Turner, a member of the full committee, has joined us; and I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to sit at the dais and ask questions of the witnesses.
Without objection, so ordered.
We have one distinguished panel this afternoon, and they are all old friends.
I would like to welcome our former colleague, Paul McHale, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense.
Thank you for being with us, Paul.
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He is joined by Admiral Thomas Keating, Commander of the Northern Command, who is making his first appearance before this subcommittee; and Lieutenant General Steve Blum, Director of the National Guard Bureau.
Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL MCHALE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE
Secretary MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Meehan and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is a personal pleasure to be back in this room. I have some very strong and very warm memories with regard to the historic events that have taken place in this particular location.
It is also an honor to sit next to two officers of the caliber of Admiral Keating and Lieutenant General Blum, no two finer men wearing the uniform of the United States today.
As always, I am told by the professional staff that you are eager to move to questions. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I will submit my formal statement for the record. Again, with your consent, if I may, I will simply provide a brief summary of my more lengthy comments.
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Mr. SAXTON. Without objection.
Secretary MCHALE. It should be recognized that homeland defense in this generation, as in all generations, begins overseas and must be seen as a primary element of global strategy. Accordingly, we in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense have drafted a new strategy for homeland defense and civil support that I anticipate will be sent to the Secretary of Defense for his review and critique within the next couple of weeks. The core element of that strategy is for the creation of an active, layered defense in depth.
In the President's fiscal year 2006 Homeland Security budget you will find $9.5 million in funding identified by OMB, plus $1.2 billion for what we call Operation Noble Eagle—that is the air defense of our domestic air space—and $1.6 billion in homeland defense-related expenditures.
In my brief opening statement what I would like to do is give you a sense of what you will buying with that homeland defense investment.
First of all, in the air domain, United States defenses, domestic air defenses are built on a base of well-established bilateral capabilities. Since 1958, we have partnered with our ally and neighbor, Canada, to establish the strongest air defense system the world has ever seen. That system has dramatically improved in the last 3 years. Each day we fly combat air patrols within our domestic air space to ensure that we are prepared to respond to the kind of attack that we experienced on September 11th.
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In addition, and quite recently, we significantly improved our ground-based air defense, surface-to-air defenses in order to provide an additional layer of capability. We are steadily advancing our ballistic cruise missile NUAD defenses, and we are currently engaged in the negotiation of a NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) agreement renewal in order that that partnership may continue into the foreseeable future.
It is in the maritime domain that I believe we have our single greatest opportunity to enhance our domestic U.S. security. Senior Department of Defense officials have spoken of the need to create a maritime NORAD, that is a naval defense in depth designed to defeat hostile nation states as well as transnational terrorists potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction. We have an obligation, pursuant to a Presidential directive that was signed in December, to develop a maritime strategy for the United States deliverable to the President of the United States by mid-summer of 2005.
The lead in drafting that maritime strategy has been assigned to the Department of Defense and to the Department of Homeland Security, and we have a team of maritime strategists and writers who are actively engaged in that drafting right now.
As part of that maritime strategy, there will be a component part for enhanced maritime domain awareness. We can't defeat a threat if we don't see it. The time has come to integrate our collection capabilities in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the threat as it exists within the maritime domain.
It is, in short, a key homeland defense objective to insure our ability to execute maritime intercept operations in the NORTHCOM (Northern Command) and PACOM (Pacific Command) areas of responsibility, to interdict and defeat weapons of mass destruction at a safe distance from the United States coast.
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In an age of weapons of mass destruction, we cannot afford to allow such a weapon to enter a U.S. port. Locating that weapon at that point is a definition of defeat. Proper resourcing in NORTHCOM's maritime requirements and a continuing refinement of NORTHCOM's command and control relationships will be essential to that mission requirement. I am pleased to tell you that Admiral Keating is moving rapidly and effectively in both of these areas.
We must achieve, in short, complete synchronization of coast guard and Navy capabilities. I heard reference earlier to the agreement that has been negotiated between the Navy and the coast guard to achieve that unity of effort; and, in fact, we are now in the process of negotiating a secondary and related memorandum of agreement that will allow us to rapidly place U.S. Navy forces under coast guard command and control, as required by the mission.
Finally, in the land domain, an area where I think General Blum will spend a significant portion of his testimony, it is now the policy of the Department of Defense reflected in appropriate execution orders for our department, to have the capability to respond to multiple, near simultaneous, geographically dispersed domestic attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. If terrorists attack our Nation at diverse locations at very nearly the same time, using chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high explosive weaponry, we will be prepared to provide assistance to the lead Federal agencies, typically the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, in order to insure that military capabilities are there to support civilian leadership.
As referenced earlier, we have gone through the initial stages of what Steve Blum has led, and that is a historic transformation of national guard capabilities. I anticipate that at a later point we will have some considerable and detailed discussion of what I think is truly the monumental legislative achievement that was led by Representative Gibbons to amend title 32 so that in an age of transnational terrorism we could effectively employ national guard forces domestically for counterterrorism missions and particularly for protection of critical infrastructure, a mission to be executed under gubernatorial command and control but at DOD expense.
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I am sure General Blum will tell you more about our civil support teams. We have 32 that are currently certified, 12 more in the pipeline. By 2007, our Nation, by statutory mandate, will have 55 civil support teams, again under command and control of the governors, paid for by the Department of Defense, trained and equipped by the Department of Defense, to provide an initial response capability to an attack involving weapons of mass destruction.
General Blum will tell you about his CERFPs (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High-Yield Explosives Enhanced Response Force Package), a capability designed to replicate within the Reserve community the kind of capabilities found only today within the Marine Corps' active duty CBIRFs (Chemical, Biological Incident Response Force).
Extraordinary circumstances may require us to deploy title 10 quick reaction forces within the United States. The defense of the United States domestically is primarily a civilian law enforcement function. The quick reaction forces that are available within the national guard can, in compliance with and actually under an exemption to posse comitatus, work closely with law enforcement activities.
But if law enforcement officials and the national guard cannot guarantee the land security of the United States because there is an overwhelming terrorist threat, we are prepared today, as we were not on September 11th, to deploy quick reaction forces under Admiral Keating's command and control not for purposes of law enforcement but for purposes of war fighting against foreign threats on our own soil.
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We are looking at the maturation of JTF (Joint Task Force) North, a new command based on the preexisting JTF–6 that has now been given statutory mandate not just for counternarcotics mission requirements but for counterterrorism activities as well.
During questioning, we can get into Operation Winter Freeze and the interagency security plan pursuant to which Admiral Keating's JTF North provided extraordinary technical capabilities, WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) detection capabilities, in support of civilian law enforcement along the Canadian border.
In short, we have to achieve a complete integration of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and DOD capabilities so that, while we will not have unity of command, nor do we desire in this circumstance unity of command, we absolutely must achieve unity of effort.
My last point, Mr. Chairman, is that we have come to recognize that, in order to have an integrated, layered defense in depth, we must incorporate into that defense the assistance that is available to us bilaterally and multilaterally. That means that we have been very actively engaged in discussions with allies such as Canada, Mexico and the U.K., plus a long list of other countries, in order to assure that the civilized nations of the world can mutually reinforce one another's homeland defense activities.
In short, Mr. Chairman, in the 21st century's security environment, there is an urgent demand for unprecedented homeland defense capabilities. With that sense of urgency, the Department of Defense is building them.
I welcome your questions.
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Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.
[The prepared statement of Secretary McHale can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. SAXTON. Admiral Keating.
STATEMENT OF ADM. TIMOTHY J. KEATING, USN, COMMANDER, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND AND UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND
Admiral KEATING. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
With your permission, I would like to introduce our senior enlisted advisor, Command Sergeant Major Scott Frye from New Haven, Connecticut, who provides remarkably insightful counsel to me at both NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command, and the United States Northern Command.
As such, I am proud to come in my normal visit before your committee, Mr. Chairman, representing those same 1,500 representatives of the civilian community, our five services, and I say five, including the coast guard and international officers. Included also are representatives from 57 different interagency organizations who report full time to our headquarters and are helping us develop common operational pictures, common language and procedures that we hone and refine during major exercises so that, in the event of our requirement to provide military assistance to civil authorities, we are not exchanging business cards at the incident site.
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We have worked with each other. We speak a common language. We understand each other's capabilities. Those 57 representatives serve us well in our headquarters.
One of the agencies with whom we spent a good deal of time working is the United States Coast Guard. We have a coast guard flag officer on our staff. He is our Deputy J–3.
I personally have spent more time in coast guard headquarters, on coast guard ships than I have in Navy headquarters or ships since assuming command on the 4th of November. We have a robust, hearty exchange of information program and liaison officers with the United States Coast Guard, and it leads to what I am sure we will discuss in follow-on questions, as Secretary McHale mentioned, the integrated, interactive defense for maritime domain awareness and maritime security.
We have conducted six national special security efforts in a supporting role to a lead Federal agency, including the Presidential inauguration and President Reagan's funeral. There have been upwards of 17,000 folks—active, reserve and guard—in that capacity.
As Secretary McHale said, we have enjoyed a common command and control chain, if you will, with a title and title 32 empowered commander in two cases, a national guard officer, appropriately empowered by the Secretary of Defense, so that command and control of those forces has been ironclad and seamless in these recent examples.
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As a Northern Command commander, I have been privileged to participate, when directed by the Secretary, in some humanitarian relief operations in the hurricanes in Florida, and we have been flying upwards of 250 C–10 sorties fighting wildfires in the western part of the United States.
Secretary McHale mentioned Joint Task Force North where we provide law enforcement agencies and drug enforcement agencies support for units who are training to go to Iraq, for example, in similar climates in our southwestern border. We are attempting to capitalize on advances in technology, tunnel-finding capabilities and unmanned aerial vehicles in our support of drug and law enforcement agencies.
I am prepared, when so directed by the President and the Secretary of Defense, to assume our role as operational commander for ground-based mid-course defensive missile systems currently in the ground in their silos in Ft. Greeley and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The last point I would make, Mr. Chairman, is the number of exercises we have conducted in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense. We conduct two major exercises every year. We will conclude our next one in May of this year, and I would point out that we only do two of them—which doesn't sound like a lot—but it is the lead-up, the execution and the lessons learned that we share across the interagency that go a long way to insure our capability to provide appropriate, measured responses when directed by the President, or the Secretary of Defense in the case of military assistance, to civil authorities.
I would be happy to take your questions, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. SAXTON. Admiral, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Keating can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. SAXTON. General Blum.
STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. H. STEVEN BLUM, CHIEF, NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU
General BLUM. Chairman Saxton and Congressman Meehan, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, this afternoon.
I direct your attention, please, right to our left, front left, and you will see a chart over there that shows you that your national guard is simultaneously performing every single mission that could possibly be assigned to them by the Department of Defense, and they are not dropping any of these glass balls in the performance of any of them.
You will also note that from the left-hand side of the chart, where all of those mission sets are shaded with a yellow oval, they are equities that the governors of the 50 States and the Territories of our great Nation have a great stake in, great equities, and that great concern. Those missions center significantly around defending the homeland and supporting the appropriate civil agencies with regard to homeland security.
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To the right of the chart, where you see the orange arc, you see the contribution that your citizen soldiers from the national guard, both Army and Air, are making to the war fight overseas. And today, as I speak to you, I am proud to say that, as Alan Wilson has come back from Iraq as a signal officer captain from South Carolina, that he has 113,000 just like him deployed today. Fifty percent of the ground combat power of the United States Army in Iraq today is Army national guard.
At the same time, I don't want anybody to walk away with the idea that we can only do one or the other. These mission sets are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are mutually supportive. The same skill sets, the same expertise, the same discipline, the same training that is necessary to conduct stability and support in combat operations in a joint, interagency, governmental, multinational environment in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and the Sinai are exactly the same skill sets, minus the lethal application of force, that we will need when the governors call us out, whether we are visited by the ravages of Mother Nature or some terrorist organization on our homeland.
So I would just caution the well-intended folks that think we should do one or the other to take a holistic look at what your national guard can do.
There is no governor of all 54 governors that does not have the sufficient national guard joint capabilities when they leverage their joint capabilities of their Army and Air National Guard to, in fact, protect the homeland and to support homeland security back here at home while we continue to deploy about 25 percent of our force overseas.
The Congress' title 32 legislation that was just passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act clearly helped bridge a significant gap that previously existed and did close seams that may have existed for DOD response to defend the homeland or to, in fact, support the homeland security operations right here in CONUS.
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Your national guard has achieved a balanced force and continues to rebalance its force so that every governor has the right force mix, the right kind of units, the right kind of skill sets to do both homeland security here at home and still provide combat war-fighting capabilities as a Federal Reserve of the Air Force or the Army to the combatant commanders overseas.
Sir, in the interest of time, I will cut my statement short and submit my longer statement for the official record, and I anxiously await your questions.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of General Blum can be viewed in the hard copy.]
Mr. SAXTON. Let us turn first to Mr. Meehan for any questions that he may have.
Mr. MEEHAN. Well, General, I guess what I would ask—and I don't think anyone doubts the capability, the training of the guard to do—you know, to respond to terrorist attacks on American soil, at the same time meeting their responsibilities around the globe. My question is, how do you strike the right balance here?
Some guard forces are deployed in Iraq, others are serving on active duty under a Federal capacity under title 10, some may be called upon to serve in a State under title 32, subject to the control of State governors, as you plan the national guard's participation in homeland security missions. How do you tend to balance those responsibilities and how do we deal with the potential of overuse of forces?
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I mean, clearly, we cannot afford to use our national guard so much that they forfeit their civilian jobs or overstretch their families and then don't reenlist. If they don't reenlist and enlistment is going down, then obviously it is going to make it difficult to attract new recruits. So I guess that is the issue or the question I would ask. How do you balance all of this so that we keep our recruitment—recruit numbers up and get people so that their reenlist numbers are up?
General BLUM. Congressman Meehan, that is an excellent question. It was a question on the minds of the 54 governors that assembled in Washington last February.
I had the privilege to meet with the National Governors Association in executive session, closed session with the governors; and I addressed them as the commanders in chief of their Army and Air National Guards, not as governors in their elected capacity, but in their statutory responsibility as a commander in chief of the Army and Air National Guard when it is not in Federal service. We struck a—I asked them what they wanted from their Air National Guard.
If you would put up chart two, it would be very helpful. This chart was created at the end of that meeting, actually during that meeting, and it represents what the governors of our Nation ask of their national guard.
They want at least 50 percent of their Army and Air National Guard available to them at all times; and in the chart that you see up here, that is represented in the 50 percent that is shown in red. Red is good if you are a governor on this chart. That means these are the forces, the capabilities and the kinds of units that have the right skill sets to both respond to, in your case, blizzards or ice storms or acts of violence perpetrated on us, WMD or other terrorist attacks.
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Within that would be command and control, civil support teams that Secretary McHale outlined earlier. The ability to conduct maintenance operations, aviation assets would be left in place for the governor, engineer assets so that they could do technical extraction and the removal of debris and rubble, if it were reacting to an event, medical, domestic and mass decontamination of patients and mass casualty treatment, communications, which are absolutely necessary.
It is the kind of communication that can bridge the capabilities of the civilian first responders with the military first responders so there is a cohesive, synchronized response, transportation so that we can bring commodities, people, personnel and equipment in to the affected area or out of the affected area, as required, and a security force that could do critical infrastructure protection such as guarding nuclear power plants or communications terminals and hubs, such as we did in the airports after 9/11, or to provide a cordon sanitaire if we had a biological situation or protect any other reactive civil disturbances and so forth. They felt that this would be adequate as long as I could guarantee this to them.
I am happy to say today that if we take the chart—now this, they agree, is acceptable to them, while the portion of the force in green represents the 113,000 citizen soldiers and airmen out of your Army and Air National Guard that are deployed and unavailable to the governor because they are serving overseas. That still leaves about 25 percent of the force that is training intensively to get ready to go overseas.
They, in an extremist condition, are also available to the governor. So we—in reality, every governor has at least 75 percent of their organic and Air National Guard available to them at all times, at all times, even while we are deployed in unprecedented numbers overseas. And today we are deployed in unprecedented numbers. I think we are probably at the high end of our Op Tempo.
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Now if you will please show me the chart for the east coast, I will show you reality today. This was last February. We met with the governors. I heard their request, and this is what we delivered on.
If you will put up the chart of the east coast—you can find your States, if you live east of the Mississippi; and, again, red is good on this chart. If over half of the chart is red, I have met my agreement with the national governors.
You can see that every State east of the Mississippi has at least 50 percent, most have significantly more, and yet we still are able to generate the force overseas that is necessary to prosecute the war fight in southwest Asia.
So it is not a matter of if/or; and I maintain that these citizen soldiers, when they come back from Iraq, such as the ones in Florida, were superbly trained and ready to respond to the hurricanes for that 6 weeks of horror that they had when they had four hurricanes and a tropical storm ravage Florida. That was the 53rd infantry brigade that was the command and control and response package. They were the same young men and women that went over to Iraq. That is why they responded with such professional response capabilities.
And if we put up the other chart, that shows the western States, and you will see they are equally balanced.
So your concerns, Mr. Congressman, are spot on, and they are exactly in tune with what the national governors are concerned about. But I can assure you that we have taken the measures that we can deliver on their promise now, and I think we can do this indefinitely at the present rate or at a reduced rate.
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I expect to have a reduced usage of the guard in the next rotation over in southwest Asia. I think we are at our high watermark right now. I think this is the most significant percentage of the contribution to the war fight the guard will make if things stay as we think they are.
I expect on the next rotation our contribution will be significantly smaller, and that is an agreement that we had going in with the United States Army. Because we are putting combat forces in there, frankly, to bide time so that General Schoomaker can reset his Army into active Army, into modular forcing needs, so that he can reduce the stress on the national guard and provide more forces to remain back here in the United States and available to respond to Admiral Keating, if NORTHCOM needs them, or to the governors, if they should need them.
Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, excellent, General.
Admiral Keating, I am curious about how you see Northern Command participating in DOD's response to terrorist incidents. How does your command coordinate with State and local first responders and to what extent does the Northern Command participate in the planning and execution of the exercises or actual operations at night be conducted by agencies outside DOD?
Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. We are active participants. We cosponsor two major exercises annually. The next one is coming up in April.
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It will be conducted in the east coast and off the eastern seaboard. It involves not just tabletop exercises, but there are actually folks out in the field from Northern Command and folks and forces that are provided to us by the Department of Defense from other services, where we work very closely with the Department of Homeland Security and all of its agencies in the formulation of the exercise and the planning leading up to the exercise and the conduct of the exercise and, very importantly, in the lessons learned from the exercise.
So to address one of the questions you asked, I think, sir, about the communication capabilities between the Department of Defense and national guard or State and local tribal first responders, it is not a case of where we just sit around and look at it on paper. We get out there and physically work with these good and brave folks during these big exercises, two of them a year, again, and then get back to our respective headquarters, compile our lessons learned and come back together with all of those agencies with whom we participated to discuss these lessons learned.
So it is not just a theoretical application. It is out there in the field, practicing what we are preaching.
I am much better convinced that we are better prepared today as a Department of Defense agency responsible for military assistance and civil authority, that we are much better prepared today than we were 2 years ago to try to provide this assistance.
Mr. SAXTON. Gentlemen, we are going to tag team this vote. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Kline have gone to vote. As soon as they come back, we will go vote. So we will, hopefully, in the interest of time, be able to keep ongoing.
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Mr. Gibbons is next.
Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and, gentlemen, welcome to each of you. It is good to see you today. Thank you for your service to your Nation. Secretary McHale, it is nice to see you back before us as well.
I did want to ask you, Mr. Secretary, about the legislation that we passed in the 108th Congress that you briefly mentioned in your opening statement. My intent or the intent of the legislation that we passed was to expand title 32 language in order to allow the national guard to broaden its mission, supporting homeland defenses, in a title 32 status——
Secretary MCHALE. Yes.
Mr. GIBBONS [continuing]. With Federal compensation. It is my understanding that the national guard does not have written guidance needed to execute that broader homeland defense mission today. Can you explain to us why that has not yet taken place?
Then what is the time line? When do you expect that the national guard will receive this written guidance?
Secretary MCHALE. Mr. Gibbons, the word ''guidance'' can be interpreted a couple of ways, so let me answer it comprehensively.
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If by guidance you mean the strategy of homeland defense and civil support with whether there is a separate focus and reliance upon the guard and reserve, that strategy is now in its final form. I anticipate it will go to the Secretary of Defense within the next 2 weeks. It has received broad support throughout the Department of Defense and the interagency; and I anticipate that that strategy, if approved by the Secretary of Defense, will provide, actually, the kind of strategic guidance to which you made reference.
If your question is really focused more narrowly on title 32 and the guidance that is required for the national guard to implement its newlyassigned authorities under title 32, we have a team of researchers and writers at the Pentagon now working on the drafting of the regulations that will bring granularity to the broad statutory authority contained in title 32, and I anticipate that a draft—a final draft of those regulations will be completed by April.
I would not want you to think, however, that in the absence of those regulations we are not using this new capability. Even in advance of the statute, but, frankly, pushing the outer edges of existing authority, Admiral Keating's predecessor, General Eberhardt, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, used the national guard in title 32 status under this kind of approach for additional security at the G–8 summit in Georgia.
I hesitated for a moment. I want to make it clear that, in title 32 status, the national guard forces are not commanded directly or even indirectly by the combatant commander. The title 32 forces are under command and control of the governor.
But utilizing a recent statutory provision, beginning at the G–8 summit but then again at the Democratic Convention, the Republican Convention and Operation Winter Freeze along the Canadian border, a single national guard officer, one man, was given a dual-hatted command. He was placed in title 32 status to command the title 32 forces. He was placed simultaneously in title 10 status under the command and control of the combatant commander so that unity of effort could be achieved, even though we maintained the distinction in terms of unity of command.
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So while we go forward in drafting those regulations, we have implemented and we will continue to implement the actual authority, but the regulations in April will bring greater understanding of the scope and detail of that authority.
Mr. GIBBONS. Well, thank you for that very detailed answer. I appreciate it.
Let me turn to General Blum and ask you, General, is this working for you?
General BLUM. I think it has enormous potential. I think, because of the trust and relationships that exist between the three people at this table, we make it work. I think that it would probably be well to codify the arrangement so that if we ever have three people at this table that don't see this with the singular purpose that this group does, it would be helpful to the citizens of the United States.
Mr. GIBBONS. So what you are telling me is that as long as the three people here, Admiral Keating, Secretary McHale and General Blum, are engaged in this process that you are very comfortable that the end product will be what you would expect to be workable for the national guard and the Department of Defense with regard to title 32 activities under Homeland Defense?
General BLUM. Sir, if it were left up to the three of us at this table, I am sure that would be the case.
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Mr. GIBBONS. Do you foresee anything that would not allow for the three of you to be engaged or to allow for that product to be completed while the three of you are in the position which you are in today in a timely fashion that will allow for you and the national guard to get the resources you need to complete the national guard functions under Homeland Defense?
General BLUM. I don't see any sinister plot or someone lurking out there to subvert what we are doing, sir. But, as in all things in our system, it would bear watching, if you want them to come out with the end result that the three of us would probably like.
Mr. GIBBONS. I guess my real intent here was to emphasize the fact that we believe that the intent of the legislation was significant enough to expedite in this process to get the national guard the resources, especially knowing the involvement that we have gotten today.
The reason that the legislation was passed is to create momentum to make sure that we integrate the guard with homeland defense missions and the resources are there for them. So if I take it from your testimony, Mr. Secretary, it is coming along fine and it will be available shortly, then I can take it from General Blum as well that he has got the avenue and the resources today to do the mission, working under the guidance of the three of you.
Mr. SAXTON. Jim, we have got 3 minutes left in this vote, so I guess we are going to have to take a short pause here. As soon as Mr. Wilson comes back, we will start.
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Mr. GIBBONS. That is all right, Mr. Chairman. My time was expired anyway. So I just want to thank you for that.
Mr. SAXTON. We will be back shortly.
[Recess.]
Mr. WILSON [presiding]. Ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to be back.
General, you would be very proud, think I can still do my two-mile PT run.
Secretary MCHALE. Ready, begin.
Mr. WILSON. I know it is extraordinary for a JAG officer to be able do that run, but it was very important in my home section, during my entire service, did proudly.
But, indeed, we are facing the issues today—for Secretary McHale and General Blum, I have a bill pending in regard to State defense forces. In our State, it is known as the State Guard.
It is just extraordinary to me that we have so many people who, as in the civil defense role of World War II, who will volunteer to serve in the State Guard. They serve as backfill for the members of the national guard when they are deployed, whether it be for State deployment or, in our State, hurricane duty or with the opponents that we have now. They are just terrific to come in and backfill at the armory, to come in and make sure that the armory is fully staffed and also back up in regard to traffic flow or other issues that are very important by way of evacuations in the event of hurricanes.
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With the bill pending, another fact about this is that it is with surplus equipment that they work with, so the cost is minimum zero. So I would like both of your opinions on the State defense force potential for its enactment for national use.
Secretary MCHALE. Congressman, I have not had a chance to look at your bill, though I would welcome the chance to do that. I listened carefully as you described at least some elements to look at that bill as those elements relate to the use of surplus material and equipment. We can use all the help we can get in building an integrated, coordinated defense in depth, to include military and civilian capabilities, Reserve and active component personnel.
So I am afraid the best I can offer you today is a sincere opportunity for the Department of defense to review your legislation and determine what the implications are. The only concern, I would express, we need to be careful to deconflict the various elements of that defense.
On September 11th, 2001, I had retired from the Congress. I then went back home, and I was then the Assistant Division Commander of the Fourth Marine Corps Ground Component Reserve Capabilities. We discovered immediately after September 11th that there were members of the Marine Corps Reserve who, largely for educational benefits, had enlisted in some of the State forces. We found that at the same time that we were calling upon those forces to be available for title 10 Reserve duty they had conflicting obligations under State law.
That is not a criticism. It is simply a recognition that, as individuals sign up for various forms of service, particularly when benefits are associated with that service, we have to be careful to deconflict their potential obligations when they are called to duty.
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Mr. WILSON. Thank you, General Blum.
General BLUM. Congressman, I have nothing but the highest regard for these State defense forces and other similar titles that they have. It varies by State and Territory. They are truly patriots who are willing to, without compensation, apply their civilian acquired skills or their previous military experience skills to augment the national guard and to augment civilian agencies where appropriate.
I am unfamiliar with the details, frankly, on the surplus equipment. But I would just caution those who think there is a lot of surplus equipment in the national guard—prior to 9/11, the percentage of fill on the equipment for the National Guard—because, in those days, it was viewed as a strategic reserve in the Army National Guard, the equipment, there was some risk assumed, and they were underequipped because they were to be equipped in the later innings of World War III.
We had 74 percent of our equipment on hand prior to 9/11. Now, 3 years later, because of cross leveling to make sure the best equipment and people like your son went overseas with everything they should have, our equipment on hand is now 34 percent. So there is not much surplus to be had, and then you don't want surplus communications gear that really will not net with current communications systems. Otherwise, you don't have the capability. You just have equipment.
So, well-intended, it sounds like a good idea, but I would like to look at the details before I give you an unequalled endorsement to it.
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Mr. WILSON. I have also seen firsthand, it was really helpful, and the send-off ceremonies which I have had the opportunity to participate in, also, in return programs. They have been there, again, in a very unobtrusive but thoughtful manner, have been present to back up our guard on active duty and reserve, and it is just——
General BLUM. I no way want to diminish their performance and the human element and the great qualities they bring. That is not my concern.
Mr. WILSON. Right.
General BLUM. My great concern is there will be competition for resourcing the national guard as they come out of the combat zone, and I don't want to exacerbate that already shortage of resources that the national guard is enduring by thinning that out some more for an organization that is our auxiliary. That is all I am trying to convey.
Mr. WILSON. Well, I have extraordinary faith in both of you.
Additionally, I was very interested in hearing about the maritime domain, the integrated defense in depth.
Last Monday, I was at the port of Charleston, and I was able to see various efforts being made for port security. The district that I represent is bordered by Charleston to the north, the fourth largest container port in North America, and Savannah, immediately to the south, the fifthlargest container port in America. So I am very interested in any points that all three of you may have, beginning with Admiral Keating, beginning as to how you feel port security is developing, and are there models that are being followed, and is there anything that we in Congress can do to assist?
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Admiral KEATING. Thank you for the question, Mr. Congressman.
The United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard, the two chiefs of those services have signed an agreement which essentially says we will work to eliminate any and all seams—now we are liable to create a little overlap, but we certainly don't want a lot of seams. So as these container ships—I think the number is about 25,000 containers per day come into our country. What we are looking to do, in conjunction with our other interagency colleagues and other combatant commanders and international colleagues, is develop this vigorous, active, integrated layered defense.
In terms of container security initiatives, there are 25 some major ports in the world who have signed on to this initiative. What this initiative involves is we verify that the contents of the container, as listed in the manifest, are accurate. We verify that the crew manifest, as listed on that piece of paper, is accurate.
Those ships then come to—whether it is Charleston or Savannah or the other ports in our country, the United States Coast Guard checks that manifest for all vessels over 300 metric tons, which is essentially any ship big enough to carry a reasonable number of containers. They check the manifest. And over time—I should also point out, in conjunction with those commercial entities who very much want us to not interfere with the movement of their cargo, they are working hard to verify the manifest both in terms of crew and cargo.
All of this integrated layer system of systems leads me to be able to tell you that I am confident that we have a reasonable-to-good handle on the port security issue because of the efforts of the Navy and the United States, the Department of Homeland Security—I am sorry, the Navy and the Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and other combatant commanders with whom we are engaged and the commercial shipping and container industries.
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Mr. WILSON. Thank you.
Secretary MCHALE. Congressman, I think the way I would describe it is this. Maritime homeland defense should be seen as an important element of a global requirement.
Immediately after September 11th, quite reasonably, we tend to be focused on better port security, better container inspections. Those close-in capabilities form an essential inner layer of what ought to be a forward-deployed maritime capability. As we thought about it within my office and other places within the Department of Defense and within the interagency process, it became clear that we needed a maritime strategy appropriately tailored to defeat the transnational terrorism threat.
We had a maritime capability that was largely the inheritance of the Cold War. We had forward-deployed capabilities that were still largely oriented toward a Soviet-style threat. That kind of capability is inadequate to the much more varied threat environment of the 21st century. We have to worry not only about hostile nation states and their navies but also transnational terrorists transporting weapons of mass destruction on much smaller boats than we had to defend against in the past.
So the President in December signed a Homeland Security Presidential Directive. It is simultaneously a National Security Presidential Directive, and it requires the drafting of a new maritime strategy to be completed by the end of June this year.
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Admiral Keating has been working diligently on a new maritime CONOPS (concept of operations) for NORTHCOM. Essentially, from a policy perspective, what we hope to achieve, what we intend to achieve, is a deliverable capability within the NORTHCOM and PACOM AORs (area of responsibility) that will allow us to conduct maritime intercept operations of the type that we have been conducting at distant locations pursuant to the proliferation security initiative within the NORTHCOM and PACOM AORs. So that if we have an indication of a threat on the high seas involving a weapon of mass destruction, forces will be available to Admiral Keating under his command and control to interdict and defeat that threat before it gets into port.
Lastly, there are some models to be followed. The JHOC, Joint Harbor Operation Center, in San Diego is an excellent example of the complete integration of Navy, coast guard, military, civilian capabilities to achieve a layered defense of a port facility itself. I visited that JHOC recently, and I personally was very impressed by it.
Mr. WILSON. Thank you. General.
General BLUM. Sir, the national guard contributions to that would be really the embodiment of the joint force headquarters in each State and Territory. Our job is to assist, that we are appropriate and directed in Northern Command, and where common sense drives us to close those seams where the maritime effort meets the land domain. That is our contribution to that, and we do that through the joint force headquarters that now exists and has existed in each state and territory for about 14 months.
Mr. WILSON. I appreciate all of your efforts, because it was instructive to me—the Port of Charleston, to see the ability of a TU container to be distributed across North America in 3-hour increments. In 24 hours, obviously, they are all the way to Detroit, St. Louis, Dallas. It is stunning, within 24 hours, by road transportation and by rail, how far they can go.
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One final question, Secretary McHale—and I have been encouraged and discouraged. The forward deployment is what I have been counting on and particularly in the interest of exporting nations that it is elementary that it would destroy commerce if a nation didn't assist or, even worse, there be an episode.
I was particularly encouraged in January to find out that, of all things, in a visit to Shanghai, China, that China is being very aggressive in working with us, even allowing a Department of Homeland Security to be located in Shanghai to monitor the situation.
But then when I was visiting, again, a port recently, I noticed that some of the last stops were ports, minor ports, say, in the Caribbean that I never heard of, I couldn't pronounce. I thought, good gosh, that is nice that we are monitoring Shanghai, but what about a much smaller port that, say, someone could, with evil intent, the transnational terrorist, possibly bribe someone to effect TEU. So then the smaller ports, are you encouraged or not encouraged?
Secretary MCHALE. I am encouraged but not satisfied. However, I want to emphasize very quickly that I don't think any interpretation of existing authorities would assign that responsibility to the Department of Defense. It is a critical national responsibility, probably under the leadership, in most cases, of the Department of Homeland Security.
We, for instance, are strong advocates of the container security initiative program, but we don't run it. Essentially what we have is a system where there are security measures in place overseas where those measures are largely under the authority of other Federal agencies, and, in my judgment, they have done a good job. Then there is an awful lot of battle space, international water between a foreign port and the coast of the United States. Admiral Keating has within his AOR 500 nautical miles going out from the west coast of the United States into the Pacific; at its greatest length, about 1,700 nautical miles going off from the coast of the United States into the Atlantic.
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We need to achieve in that battle space and beyond, within other geographic combatant commands, the capabilities to better detect, interdict and defeat threat vessels as they pass through the international domain en route to the United States. A big part of that is approved HUMINT (Human Intelligence and better surveillance tracking facilities.
As you come in closer to the United States you begin to encounter more robustly the traditional forward-deployed capabilities of the coast guard. That is what the Admiral is talking about in terms of the mutually reinforcing missions of the Navy and the coast guard. We recognize that we work as a team, and the coast guard and Navy capabilities, often under NORTHCOM command and control, the further out they are, is a national requirement.
Finally, you get into the ports where the coast guard takes the lead. We provide assistance as required, and layered defenses, such as those—as the Jayhawk in San Diego, come into play. What we have to do is interdict and defeat an approaching maritime threat when it leaves one of those small foreign ports en route to the United States.
Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much.
Mr. SAXTON [presiding]. Congressman Kline, I am told, is next.
Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
This is—I know, Mr. Secretary, you remember this well, we're doing musical chairs as we go vote and come back, and I don't know if it is disconcerting to you, but it is to us—or to me.
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Let me just in the time that I have got, let me address two issues. One—I guess I will start with anybody who would like to answer, but I am looking at Admiral Keating.
On December 11, 2001 there was a great deal of confusion between the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) over who was doing what to whom; and I have since then visited an air traffic control center in my district in Farmington, Minnesota and looked at their setup and understand there is some communication now, real time—live, that is—in place to prevent that from happening.
So my question to you, in general, do you have, do you feel like you have the ability in terms of communications, whether that is verbal or computer or whatever, do you have the ability in terms of communications to make sure that everybody who needs to be in the loop is in the loop? And then along with that, it is a command and control issue, is it clear in your mind, and others', who takes charge in the event of an attack of any kind?
Admiral KEATING. The answer to both answers is yes, sir. As I—the first part. We have in two command centers, in our NORAD Command Center and in our NORTHCOM Command Center, what is called the DEN, the Domestic Events Network, it is a real-time instantaneous feed of the FAA circuit over which they are discussing contacts of interest, and we can literally turn up or turn down the volume, depending on what is happening. We also have a full-time FAA representative at our command headquarters staff.
So we are looking at a common operational picture, we are listening to the FAA net, and we have an FAA representative in our headquarters. I am satisfied that we have the right information flow and the right operational picture, a simultaneous operational picture, with the Federal Aviation Administration.
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As to who would be in charge, I think that is also very clear. In the event of an untoward airborne situation, I as the northern commander would have the authority, resident also with the President, of course, and the Secretary of Defense, to take appropriate military action against an airplane that had been hijacked. And those courses of action are several. They are not an immediate shootdown of an airplane, if you will. We will come up and escort, pop flares alongside the airplane in an attempt to get their attention.
Also, querying real-time the FAA agency, are we communicating with the cockpit? Is the cockpit secure? Are there air marshals on board? What is their transponder code? So there is terrific back-and-forth real-time exchange of information with the FAA.
Mr. KLINE. Who makes the call between you and the FAA? When is it decided that you are now in command and you are going to launch aircraft? Does the FAA proactively go to you, or do you listen in and say, hey, we got it?
Admiral KEATING. It isn't a simple switch that we throw. I have the authority to launch the airplanes unilaterally, if you will, but of course we are communicating our intentions. As those airplanes then lift into airspace, they are communicating with the ground controllers. In the case of an airplane that is not responding to FAA controllers, the situation then passes over to an Operation Noble Eagle or NORAD command and control situation where I am. And we bring up various types of conference calls, including up to and including in the worst case the Secretary of Defense, or his representative, the deputy secretary. So it isn't a simple and/or situation. The FAA is in on those secure conference calls, and we are all contributing to general situational awareness.
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Secretary MCHALE. I think that is an important issue upon which to focus. We ought not to see because the law is written this way that you have alternative authorities vested in the FAA, and then at some point in NORAD they are simultaneous authorities. The FAA has a continuous responsibility to administratively—administratively—deconflict the airspace of the United States. Admiral Keating, right now as he sits here, has the vested responsibility to defend the airspace of the United States against a threat.
And so it is not that we pass from the FAA to NORAD, it is that NORAD is informed by the information drawn from the FAA so that a decision can be made by the most senior military leaders, civilian and in uniform, to determine whether or not military action is required to defeat that threat.
Admiral Keating's duties are continuous; as he sits here today, he is to defend the airspace of the United States against any threat that might materialize.
Mr. KLINE. Okay. I mean, I accept that there are responsibilities going on concurrently. But it seems to me that at some point somebody has to take charge of that airspace. If you are going to be working F–16s and deciding to go in and escort an aircraft, there is not really, it seems to me, room for discussion between the FAA over who has got control over that operation.
But we're probably nitpicking here. I just—the question that I asked and you answered very directly was yes, you feel like you have the command and control systems, the communications to exercise that, and you are satisfied that there is now an understanding that would eliminate confusion such as occurred on September 11th.
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Admiral KEATING. I am satisfied, sir.
Mr. KLINE. All right. I have a lot of questions about the national guard, but I see the red light is on, so I see my time has expired. We will see if we have time later.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen.
Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Blum, this—I assume this chart is the one that you put together and the national guard put together?
General BLUM. Yes, sir.
Mr. LARSEN. Washington State has the 81st Brigade Combat Team returning—in the process of returning. Some have returned already. And I note that you have here on your chart 50 percent of the national guard available to Governor, 50 percent committed, mobilized otherwise.
I want to ask a question just about all these circles on the chart. When you say available to Governor, is that including just the people, or are you including the people and the equipment that uses to support their missions at home?
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General BLUM. Well, that is an excellent question; very perceptive, as a matter of fact. When I first looked at this chart, and have for the first several months, I have been comfortable because it reflects the people that are trained and available to the Governor. What it does not reflect is the equipment——
Mr. LARSEN [continuing]. That we have left in Iraq and Afghanistan.
General BLUM. Exactly. So I have a separate chart for that, which I regrettably did not bring, nor did I supply that to you; but it was not to hide or deceive you; in hindsight——
Mr. LARSEN. Is it more green or more red?
General BLUM. It is more red. And the reason for that is—and I stated this a little earlier, on 9/11, prior to 9/11—well, not good, let's forget the colors because the colors are a little bit confusing; red is good if you are a Governor on these charts. But what you are asking me specifically is do I have all of the equipment to deliver the percentage of the capabilities I would like. The answer to that is yes, because I leveraged the Air National Guard equipment and the Army National Guard training, and people to use that equipment. I leveraged the joint capabilities of the Army and Air National Guard. The Air National Guard is much more robustly equipped than the Army National Guard. The Army National Guard is unprecedented in its use deployed right now today overseas.
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So if about a third of my forces are deployed overseas, about a third of my equipment would be overseas. The problem is that I didn't have all of my equipment on, ever; I had at best 74 percent of the equipment I was supposed to have. We have now cross-leveled that equipment for the last 3 years, sending the best of it, obviously, so that the soldiers and airmen would have the best equipment when fighting awar in harm's way. And we have been ordered to leave some of that there, and I have no quarrel with that; it was the right decision to make.
My concern is that that equipment is reset, re-equipped, and that we replenish that equipment either by like kind or substitute items that are useful both in the warfight overseas, as well at back here at home, or we provide the funding to go out and acquire that equipment so that the Governor of Washington not only has the people and the training, but the equipment, to deliver those capabilities.
That is the long way around to your answer, but that is the holistic answer to it. And I watched that closely for—and it varies day to day with each state and territory, so I have to be careful how I answer you. But I make sure that every state and territory that has that equipment, and if I can't get it in that state, I make sure it is in a neighboring state that can move to assist them on demand.
Mr. LARSEN. So you are looking at different states supporting other states with the equipment. You are also looking at what the Air National Guard may have to perhaps support the local mission of the Army.
General BLUM. You hit it right on the head, Congressman. We leverage the joint capabilities of the Army and Air National Guard within that state or territory. And then I leverage all of the capabilities that exist in the United States in the Army and Air National Guard, and we exercise that through something as magnificent—and is a byproduct of 9/11, and which all of the Governors have signed, Emergency Management Assistance Compacts; which essentially, when we had the hurricanes in Florida, it wasn't just Florida that responded, it was 10 other states as far away as Pennsylvania and Texas that responded to Florida.
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When we had the G–8 Summit, that was another dozen States or so that responded to Georgia to help them. And the same thing happened in Boston with the Democratic National Convention and in New York with the Republican. The United States has grown up since 9/11 when it comes to homeland defense and how we act in a collaborative team manner.
So I am totally sensitive to the needs and concerns of the Governors, and I have made a pledge that I will not leave them uncovered. And when I find it unable to cover them through these things that I have talked about, I will be the first to come up on line and say I need help.
Mr. LARSEN. Okay, thank you.
General BLUM. And I think we probably need some attention in resetting and re-equipping the force. And I think I have gotten the leadership of the United States Army to understand that and put some dollar commitments against that. It is not the totality of it, but it is a very significant step in the right direction.
I do need to tell you that nobody goes overseas in harm's way without the absolute 100 percent forward best equipment this Nation can send them, whether they are guard, reserve or active. That is the first time in history this Nation's leadership in the Army has ever stepped up to that. That is a tribute to General Schoomaker and Secretary Harvey and Secretary Rumsfeld. It wouldn't have happened without their commitment to that.
Mr. LARSEN. In the next round we will talk about the reset costs.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Secretary McHale, thank you.
I am very interested in what you have been talking about with the coordination and cooperation of homeland security and maritime antiterrorism between the coast guard and the Navy. As you may or may not know, I chair the Coast Guard Subcommittee. And we seem to, since the Maritime Transportation Security Act was signed by the President, we seem to be struggling with getting ourselves on line with a plan. I think a lot of attention has been paid to aviation security, and while I know the coast guard is still going through rounds with the port security assessments and how to put that all together, it sounds like we may be going back a couple of steps so we can move forward.
Is that—I mean, do you care to comment on that? Because we had a plan that we thought was in place, and now we are coming back with another strategic plan that we are going to be seeing sometime soon to describe how the coast guard and Navy integrate on this. Or——
Secretary MCHALE. We are clearly moving forward. I really have not sensed any backstabbing in terms of the design and operational deployment of our maritime defenses.
The strategy that the President has directed is designed to achieve a forward-deployed maritime defense that will build upon our preexisting capabilities, many of those capabilities located within the coast guard.
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We recognize that in an era of weapons of mass destruction we can't allow a nuclear device to enter the territorial waters of the United States before we attempt to interdict it. The coast guard has written what I think is a visionary strategy for homeland security that focuses upon a layered maritime defense in depth, a little closer into our coast.
It would be inappropriate for me to comment upon the quality of their defenses, and I won't; but I can tell you that I have reviewed those defenses, and I am confident that they can capably support the related maritime activities of the United States Navy under Admiral Keating's command and control.
The strategy is intended to push out the interdiction of weapons of mass destruction and to deal with layers of defense, not all of them physical layers. We are not talking about a picket line off the coast; we are talking about better surveillance capabilities, better tracking capabilities, better integration of intelligence gathering overseas so that we can pinpoint an approaching maritime threat before it gets close to our coast.
The strategy that I have described that is now being written is in fact being written by a lead architect from the coast guard, with strong support from the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies. And I believe that it will be a very important document in transforming the maritime defense of the United States—still too oriented to the Cold War threat—in order to achieve a counterterrorism capability that is required by the current threat environment.
In addition, just very briefly, the President recently indicated that we would be pursuing the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office that will give us, we believe, improved capabilities to locate and sense at a remote distance weapons of mass destruction, most especially nuclear and radiological devices.
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So I would not interpret that evolving strategy at all as a step backward; if anything, it recognizes and builds upon the preexisting enclosed arena capabilities of the coast guard.
Mr. LOBIONDO. Okay. One of the challenges we have been facing is while we have been able to identify—and the coast guard has done a magnificent job, I think, above and beyond the call of duty on many occasions—but as we begin to identify where we need to focus energies and attentions, we are finding that, as in many other areas of the government, the resources are spreading very thin. Operation Deporter is behind schedule. The coast guard assets that we are relying on are—some of those cutters can collect Social Security. I mean, they are putting lives at risk almost every day. We have engine failures with helicopters; we are diverting some deporter money for that. And through all of that we are expecting the coast guard to carry on its traditional missions.
Now, they have done petty well under the budget this year, but I just hope we understand that as we hopefully expand this mission and integrate this mission, that we have got to talk about the resources as well.
I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but I will have a follow-up next round.
Secretary MCHALE. Just a brief comment. Recognizing the challenges that are faced and have been addressed quite well by the coast guard, when we looked at pushing out those boundaries for maritime interdiction, we have a similar requirement to identify appropriate maritime resources for employment by Admiral Keating, and potentially by PAYCOM (pay and command), to conduct maritime activities beyond the areas in which the coast guard would normally be operating. And what that means is that Admiral Keating—and I invite the Admiral to comment upon this—has the requirement to develop a maritime CONOPS that will recognize the appropriate resources—ships, airplanes and sensor capabilities—that will allow him to execute his maritime mission, probably further out in the blue water than the coast guard.
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We need to take a look at the command and control relationships that will allow NORTHCOM to effectively exercise authority over the resources that are assigned, typically U.S. Navy resources that are assigned to NORTHCOM. And Admiral Keating, I assure you—and I believe he will comment upon it more directly—has been developing that kind of mission analysis and resource assessment as part of his maritime concept of operations to do what I have just described.
Admiral KEATING. Yeah; we have worked pretty hard with my good friends in the United States Navy on both the east and west coast, and our good friends in the United States Coast Guard to develop this concept of operations the Secretary mentions. It is a capabilities-based and not necessarily platform-based concept of operations. If I am directed to find, fix, surveil, track, board or take down a vessel, I will be less concerned with the service that is providing that support than the capability of the platform that we will use.
We are exercising frequently—weekly on both coasts—this find, fix, surveil, starting as far away as we can from our shores, transferring the tracking platform, if you will, whether it is a Navy P–3, a coast guard helicopter, a ship, even up through and including coast guard auxiliary men and women who are helping us out of their own time, as you know, without fee, so as to provide this integrated layered active defense so that we can monitor those maritime assets as they approach our shores. It is working now. One phone call and I have got the assets moving if I need them.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.
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Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a question—actually two questions, the second one for the Secretary. But first for Admiral Keating and General Blum. I appreciate your comment.
It is a comment on your perspective, looking at the competing demands on personnel, equipment and units in jurisdictions. And I remember my drill sergeant 29 years ago made the comment early on, ''This is how you train, this is how you fight''. And with the demands on guard forces, operational guard units that are overseas right now, what I would like you to make a comment on is perspective on current personnel levels and troop utilization within the States regarding the issue of direct mission training. And here is why. Having had experience in the Middle East military and overseas and active Army, and then doing a lot of things postmilitary with domestic law enforcement, different agencies, I am very interested in this whole—if we have an incident, say, in the heartland, we get beyond the borders, and some kind of an incident in the heartland where we have containment of a problem, agency coordination, mass casualty, along the lines of some of the SBCCOM (Soldier and Biological Chemical Command) studies that were done in the late 1990's, you know, interagency operability, the whole jurisdictional issue.
I would like your perspective on the quality of training of the guard unit, should they have to be mobilized for one of these type to train, knowing how, you know, different that mission is and the personal relationships involved with—for example, in my district we have quite a number of units that are in theatre right now as opposed to back here—how you feel about that response. And after that question, I will have a follow-up for the Secretary.
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Admiral KEATING. Congressman Davis, I have seen in my capacity as northern commander zero, no adverse impact both in terms of the training and the equipping of national guard forces when responding to Northern Command task, whether it is a table-top exercise where we are using data and readinesstables supplied by the National Bureau, or the actual exercises that we are running in the field. And then in those situations, as I mentioned in my opening statement, where we have provided military assistance to civil authorities, whether it is in the State of Florida where they had—some of their national guard forces are deployed—other States sprang to the floor in helping us provide that support that the Governor of Florida requested.
So long story said, as brief as I can, I see no adverse impact.
Mr. DAVIS. General, would you like to comment on that?
General BLUM. Yes, Congressman. I stated before and I would like to restate it, the missions—we put up the chart that showed the full spectrum missions which talks exactly what you are talking about. This is a full menu of what reasonably could be expected on such a task list. These are the things that the United States Army does as a COMPO 2 of the Army National Guard of the United States Army. We are doing everything on that list simultaneously today. About 100,000, or 25 percent of us, are deployed to the right-hand side of the chart, and three-fourths of us, 75 percent of the force, is working directly in the Governor's equities that you suggest.
Now, there were some gaps, there were some seams and capability shortfalls that were identified about a year and a half ago, and the commander communicated those gaps and seams and shortfalls through both Secretary McHale—and Admiral Keating is acutely aware of them, and that is why we stood up several initiatives in the national guard out of the 75 percent of the forces that are here at home and will be at home for some time, a reasonable time, 3 to 4 years before they would be reasonably called up to go overseas; and we gave them special training, special equipment, and we formed what we call chemical, biological, nuclear high-conventional explosives response force packages. It is a big mouthful, but basically we call them CERF-Ps. And what we do with those CERF-Ps—and we put 12 of them all around the United States to include in the Pacific Command. We have one of those in Hawaii to take care of the Pacific region. But in every FEMA region of this Nation there is one of these CBRNE (Chemical, Biological Radiological Nuclear Explosive) CERF-P response force packages. These packages are existing units of the Army and Air National Guard that take their go-to-war mission units and equipment and take additional equipment and additional training so that they can do—if they are a medical or chemical unit, they can do mass decontamination, they can do mass casualty treatment to the same exacting standard as the Marine sea berth; in fact a Marine CBERF trained them.
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In addition, they have the—they are being trained right now by Marine CBERF at Fort Leavenworth, Missouri to be able to do technical extraction of people that may be in leveled buildings, whether the building fell down because of poor construction or because it was blown down by a terrorist or if it was shaken down by an earthquake or a tornado or like that, you still have to deal with the same consequences.
So we are developing that capability so when Northern Command would need an immediate response to multiple simultaneous events, whether they are Mother Nature and terrorist acts in combination, or anything that would stress our fragile system beyond what the civilian authorities are capable of, then these CERF-Ps would be the first DOD responders, local responders or regional responders, that could get there very quickly or in reasonable time, 4 to 24 hours, so that they could do something that would have effects that would save lives and property and restore faith and confidence in government in support of the local and State governments.
If it gets beyond that, the Northern Command has a whole host of assets in DOD it can call upon, but they will be there later. So they would be following forces.
So we have a Joint Force headquarters that command and controls this effort on a day-to-day. It feeds Northern Command with situational awareness, it receives intel feeds and informational feeds from Northern Command, so it can be properly positioned and prepared and postured to respond.
And then we take those combat forces that are training, as you said, for overseas warfight, they are ideally suited to be the critical infrastructure protection units, to be the ones to establish cordons and checkpoints, and they are also specially trained for military assistance to civil disturbance forces just like the QRFs (Quick Response Force) and the RRFs (Rapid Response Force) out of the Marine Corps and the Army. They are hard-pressed right now to deliver those capabilities, and even if you called them, it would be 72 to 96 hours, at best, before they arrived. So it makes sense to use the local national guard capabilities to provide that asset to Admiral Keating if he needs it. And certainly the Governor is going to call on that first, even if the DOD doesn't.
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So we have put those in place. So when you have the CERF-Ps and the QRFs and the RRFs where you have response in less than 4 hours for at least 100 people, and response in less than 24 hours for 500 people, and then you have the civil support teams that Secretary McHale talked about—32 of those now, 12 more that will be ready by next year, and then 11 the Congress will fund and field 12 next year, hopefully even sooner, you will have those—2 years from now you will have one in every State and two in California.
When you put all of that together and the Joint Force headquarters, and then the magnificent information technology that is allowed by the Air National Guard and the Army National Guard IT systems which forms the backbone of something we call a Joint CONUS, meaning in the Continental United States, communications support environment, you have a huge, huge response capability that did not exist 18 months ago, that I think this committee in particular ought to be very, very happy that that capability now exists.
Now, is that sufficient? That remains to be seen, but right now that is as far as my resources and my direction will take me.
Mr. DAVIS. I appreciate the overview. And with the Chairman's indulgence, could I just ask a corollary question?
Mr. SAXTON. Sure.
Mr. DAVIS. This is all very encouraging, seeing the pieces coming together. I just appreciate perspective from you as from the political side looking at the Posse Comitatus Act, using domestic military forces as law enforcement, because you get into what potentially can be a gray area here.
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What do you see as the principal trigger? Is it the Governor's request if it is contained within a State jurisdiction, or is it an incident level that by policy you would assert jurisdiction?
Secretary MCHALE. The Posse Comitatus statute was passed in 1878, and basically what it says is that you can't use what we call Title 10 active-duty military forces for purposes of civilian law enforcement; if you do that, it is a criminal offense. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a prosecution under that statute, but it is binding law and it is a criminal constraint on range of conduct.
The Department of Defense has taken the position, after a thorough review, that the current language in the Posse Comitatus statute is not an unreasonable impediment to any operational mission that we think we ought to be able to execute in a homeland defense or civil support role. What the statute says is that you can't use military forces for that purpose unless there is express authority under the Constitution, or by statute; and since 1878 there have been many statutory exceptions that have been grafted onto the purpose of the language of the original statute.
So what it comes down to is this: The national guard, in state status or Title 32 status, is not covered by Posse Comitatus. So when General Blum was talking about quick reaction forces in the guard, even if they were to be called out at DOD expense in Title 32, based on the language that was included, for instance, in Mr. Gibbons' amendment to Title 32, those national guard forces engaged in a counterterrorism mission could work side by side with police officers because they are not covered by Posse Comitatus.
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Mr. DAVIS. That answers my question.
Secretary MCHALE. Great. Title 10 forces can be used to combat terrorism in a warfighting role so that Admiral Keating has quick reaction forces. But they would not be engaged in law enforcement, they would be engaged in warfighting on our own soil.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you for the great answers.
Mr. Marshall.
Secretary MCHALE. Oh, I am sorry—there was another point that I was going to cover, sir, but the time has expired.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Marshall.
Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have any number of questions, and probably would have even more if we were in closed session. I am not particularly interested in having you share with us what keeps you awake at night, in open session. And, Mr. Chairman, I do think that it would be wise of us at some point to have a closed session, either with Secretary McHale and Admiral Keating—probably not today—or with some comparable folks who at least can educate me concerning those threats they see as most real, most frightening, most definitely to defend against, and exactly where we are in our ability to come against those threats.
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It would be to me very helpful for my role as somebody who is supposed to be overseeing this process, not running it, to have that kind of understanding. But I cannot do it publicly.
Mr. SAXTON. I have had similar thoughts. And I have sat and listened to the discussions today, particularly I find myself wanting to ask how you do X or how you do Y and how you do Z, and we can't do it here.
Mr. MARSHALL. So, Mr. Chairman, I would simply suggest that we have another session, it would be a closed session, and that we go into as much as these gentlemen are willing to share with us. There are some things, frankly, I would prefer they not share with us; I suspect they know what these things are. And, you know, despite our best intentions here—gosh, my experience has been, in government anyway, once three people know a secret it is no longer a secret. But I think a closed session is a more appropriate place for you to tell us, for example, that somebody has figured out how to turn all migratory game birds into rabid animals that attack people when you try to shoot at them, or something like that.
I do have a question for General Keating. I know your operation is relatively new, and it may not fit the mold that is fairly typical, and that is projected budgets. You know, in 2000 you had a budget number expected for 2006, 2001, 2002, these projections. And so it might be difficult for you to answer this question, given how young your organization is.
I am wondering how disappointed you are disappointed by the budget you have to work with, at least the revenues, the money that you have to spend this go-around for the 2006 budget. My impression in asking this question of others is that there is a fair amount of disappointment. There are a lot of things that we have been planning to do that we think are essential to our security, to our military performcance, to the security and safety and effectiveness of our own forces, that we are just not doing, that we are pushing off into the future because of budget constraints. And I would be interested to hear things that you all have been planning to do and wanting to do, but are not able to do because you have been told you can't spend that money.
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Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir. To put a dollar amount on it, we submitted some unfunded priorities to the amount of about $32 million to the Department. So we are sad, but we are not morose, if that is the right way to put it. And those are still being adjudicated within the Department.
And those monies would help us do more in the way of joint task force civil support, our high-end folks who would respond to a chemical or biological or radiological incident. They would help us do a better job of developing our Joint Enterprise Protection Network, JEPN,which is a command-and-control circuit between all of the bases in the Department of Defense here in the United States so as to notify each other that, hey, somebody is trying to get through our front gate and we don't know who they are. It is a chat room and it is a voice circuit that we are installing.
So there are several programs that are partially funded, not completely funded. If we had another 32 mil, we would be able to field these systems in their full operational capability sooner rather than later. It is a discussion we are still having with our bosses in the Department of Defense. Our budget for operating headquarters operations and maintenance is around $200 million a year. We are relatively inexpensive; that is because we don't have any forces assignedto us. The services and a couple other combatant commands have a much healthier budget, and so they may be expressing some disappointment. You won't hear that out of us at Northern Command necessarily; we are relatively happy with the money that we have, and it is sufficient for our immediate needs.
Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, sir. That is all I have.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Langevin.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Like Mr. Marshall, I would have some questions that I just submit for the record, I will wait to ask during closed session.
But to the gentlemen, I want to thank you for being here. I will ask one question. Before I do that, though, I wanted to just say, Admiral Keating, I had the opportunity to travel to NORAD in the early fall and it was a very productive visit; I was very impressed with the operation you have out there.
Admiral KEATING. Thank you, sir.
Mr. LANGEVIN. My question is, since much of this is new and the Department of Homeland Defense—the Department of Homeland Defense and the Department of Homeland Security are starting to interact with each other, and NORTHCOM is new, what are you doing on a regular basis to both ensure good communication, good cooperation—in particular with respect to conducting exercises—so that this isn't a surprise to anyone, when an event should occur, that you have to go into action, that it becomes routine in a sense.
Secretary MCHALE. The connectivity between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense was identified early on as essential; and so over in the Homeland Security Operations Center at DHS there is a full-time cell from our office at DOD working side by side with DHS employees to ensure that kind of connectivity. At this very moment there are people from my office working over at DHS, and their purpose is to be aware of what is going on over there and to give us a heads-up if something begins to develop.
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Similarly, we have a homeland security exercise program into which NORTHCOM is fully integrated—Admiral Keating can comment upon that. We have recurring and frequent exercises in which DHA and DOD capabilities are utilized side by side to ensure there is complete coordination. In the real world, as an example, we meet on average about 100 requests for civil support from DHA each year, to include everything from assistance following a hurricane to assistance in border security on the Canadian and southern borders. Those are about 100 separate requests each year, and it gives us an opportunity not just to train and exercise side by side, but to actually operate side by side on frequent occasions.
Admiral KEATING. By way of illustration, Mr. Congressman, then-Secretary Ridge was in our Domestic Warning Center, our headquarters, for a visit in December, and he asked a similar question, very similar to this. He said, ''How do you communicate with my command center?'' and we said, ''This way, sir.'' we punched a button, handed him a hotline, and a video screen came up with a somewhat startled Department of Homeland Security watch officer who was looking at his Secretary. So it is a real-time, instantaneous, secure circuit that we can punch up just that quickly, and do all the time.
Mr. LANGEVIN. Very good. Gentlemen, thank you.
I look forward to having a closed session, Chairman, at some point in the near future when we can ask some more detailed questions. But I want to thank you for being here. And Secretary McHale, in particular, I always appreciate having you before the committee.
Secretary MCHALE. Thank you, sir.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Secretary, when you took this job you assumed the responsibility for what I consider to be an extremely difficult set of tasks, and that is—there are many reasons for that, but one of the reasons that I can identify quite readily is that we ask you to find a way to coordinate the activities of numerous departments and agencies and levels of government, each of which has had a traditional role in our scheme of governing, and to find a way to put all of those together in a way that makes sense, and to establish, if you will, a kind of chain of command or command-and-control system to protect our homeland.
And as difficult as it is for us from the outside to look into what you have accomplished, to the extent that you can, would you verbally describe that system to us and how it fits together; who is responsible to report to who? Who makes decisions? In as simple a way as you can, although I am not sure there is a simple way to do it because it has got to be a very complicated set of relationships.
Secretary MCHALE. I think it was H. L. Menckenwho said there is a simple solution to every complex question, and it is wrong. It is complex, but I think we can lay it out with clarity. Certainly the issues are clearer today than they were 2–1/2 or 3 years ago.
Mr. Chairman, what I would recommend to you and the members is that you think of it as two parts: There is the warfighting defense of the United States, the chain of command for that responsibility—which is the first half of Admiral Keating's mission statement—defeating terrorists or hostile nation states in the airspace of the United States or along the maritime approach to the United States; or, to a limited degree, in terms of military forces, along the land borders of the United States. Those are warfighting functions, not any different in terms of what any geographic combatant commander would do. And that chain of command was established by the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986. It is the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the gentleman who is seated to my right. So when it comes to commanding those aircraft under NORAD, commanding the ships of the United States Navy that have been chopped or transferred to Admiral Keating, or the use of military personnel for lawful missions along the border, that is a clear and distinct military chain of command, and it has not changed since 1986.
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If you look at the Admiral's mission statement, then there is a semicolon in it. There is a second half of that mission statement, and that is to provide civil support to Federal and State agencies upon request. That half of the mission statement has changed dramatically in the last 3 years in terms of the authorities that support it. We had the congressionally enacted Homeland Security Act of 2002, Presidential Directive HSPD–5, the recently published National Response Plan, which brings us into the threat environment of the 21st century as opposed to the natural disaster requirements that previously existed.
Now, we have got to have capabilities, coming back to Mr. Davis' question, we have got to be able to respond not just to hurricanes—we responded to four of those in about 6 weeks down in Florida; Admiral Keating's forces were directly involved in that consequence management of a series of natural disasters. But now we have to be prepared for catastrophic attacks of the type Mr. Davis made reference to, and in those areas, the way the authorities have settled and the way we now train, essentially we in the Department of Defense, under Admiral Keating's command and control, respond to requests for assistance that are transmitted to us from DHS; we work with them routinely. Those RFAs—we call them—come over to us, and we begin moving military forces at the direction of the Secretary of Defense to provide to Admiral Keating what he needs for a response. And that requirement reaches its highest level when we envision multiple catastrophic attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.
Finally, we owe you a duty of candor. General Blum and I and Admiral Keating can identify, as Steve did, the discrete capabilities, CSTs, (Civil Support Teams) CERF-Ps, JTF (Joint Task Force) civil support, that we can bring together in support of a lead civilian agency, probably FEMA, to address the consequences of an attack involving weapons of mass destruction. What we need is more field training of those forces.
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Last Thursday the deputy secretary of Defense established an unprecedented policy within the Department that we must be prepared, as a matter of mission requirement, to respond to multiple near-simultaneous terrorism attacks within our country involving weapons of mass destruction. We have identified the capabilities to do that, and consistent with the funding requirement articulated by Admiral Keating, we now have to get those forces out into the field. We are in a challenging training environment, brought together as a unit under Admiral Keating's command and control; we can ensure, as a result of that training, that they are not only identified, but truly prepared for those high-end catastrophic missions. We can execute those missions today, but with more field training, we could do the job a little bit better.
Mr. SAXTON. With regard to—let me ask Admiral Keating, what is your—what is the leap between your—Northern Command and FEMA when there is an incident?
Admiral KEATING. We are in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Mr. SAXTON. And General Blum 's folks would then work for you?
Admiral KEATING. If—they might, but not in all cases. If they remain in Title 32 status, they are working for the Governor of the affected State.
Mr. SAXTON. But if they were federalized?
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Admiral KEATING. They do come under the operation and control of Northern Command; yes, sir.
Secretary MCHALE. But bear in mind what we talked about earlier. The new command relationship that has been set up and implemented in the last year would allow Admiral Keating, the Secretary of Defense, the affected Governor, to pick one individual who would be dual-hatted. And so in Title 32 status, as we have done on several occasions, the same officer would command the Title 32 forces and be responsive to the Governor while he commanded the Title 10 forces and would be responsive to Admiral Keating.
Mr. SAXTON. DOD's 2003 report to Congress on the Department's role in supporting homeland security describes command and control of the national guard assets in time of incident response, and it is a fairly vague—in fairly vague terms. Does that trouble you?
Secretary MCHALE. It did then; less so now because of the process I just described. The historic role of the national guard is to be responsive to the Chief Executive of the State. Now, the Secretary of Defense has the authority to change that by moving those national guard forces into Title 10 status. But for a variety of reasons, including Posse Comitatus, we think it maintains maximum capability and flexibility to keep them in Title 32, under command and control of the Governor.
So what we have to ensure is unity of effort even though we don't have unity of command. And when that report was written, we had not yet amended Title 32 in the manner that was advocated by Representative Gibbons, and we had not yet come up with the concept of dual-hatting a single officer to command both Title 32 national guard forces and Title 10 capabilities in the same area.
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So when we look back on that vague language from 2003, it did bother me then. We clearly had an unmet requirement to clarify a process for unified command and control, while maintaining the authority of the Governor and the President of the United States. That dual-hatting, we believe, has done that.
Mr. SAXTON. Earlier today, I think it was General Blum mentioned that the three of you have worked out personal relationships and the system among you that seems to work pretty well. Given the vagueness of this language, and given the fact that you will each have a successor someday, do we need to clear up this language?
Secretary MCHALE. In future documents, including the strategy that is about to go to the Secretary of Defense, we do clarify that. We bring much greater fidelity to that command and control relationship so that, as is the case in almost every area, including air defense that Mr. Kline referenced earlier, a lot has changed in the last 3 years, including command and control relationships, where we believe that the forces of the national guard can be integrated in support of, but distinct from, NORTHCOM's course of action by having that single guard officer excercising command and control over both the guard and Title 10 capabilities.
At Sea Island, Georgia for the G–8 summit, we had a national guard officer, General Nasbeth, who was in command and control of U.S. Navy ships in Title 10 status under Admiral Keating. It was the largest Navy in the history of the national guard.
We have been able to bring together unity of effort in a way that preserves the Governor's historic and independent command and control over his guard forces.
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Mr. SAXTON. Are there any relationships that exist where you are working to make sure that the right kind of relationship exists and provide the level of protection that the American citizens deserve that still need work?
Secretary MCHALE. Yes. We are about to take a significant step forward in terms of the command and control of maritime forces under NORTHCOM's—under Admiral Keating's authority. The command and control system that had previously existed was rapidly developed shortly after September the 11th. It reflected the climate in which that command and control relationship was established. Admiral Keating, working closely, diligently, with the U.S. Navy, has worked out a command and control relationship that is clearly superior to the one that we have; however, I believe that our goal should be to ultimately bring to NORTHCOM the same maritime warfighting authorities that we associate with all other geographic combatant commanders, so that maritime assets—ships and airplanes and other assets—would be transferred to the combatant commander's authority as required by the mission, with a chain of command that would as closely as possible reflect the commander relationships that exist in other geographic combatant commands.
So we are taking a major step toward that end-state, but we are not yet there.
Mr. SAXTON. In December we enacted some new legislation that reformed the intelligence community, and it contained several provisions that affect homeland defense planning. At the broader level, the creation of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center within that office adds an entity to the planning equation. Has that relationship with the Department of Homeland Defense matured; and, if so, can you talk a little bit about it?
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Secretary MCHALE. Yes, sir. That relationship was built on the preexisting relationship of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. The President proposed TTIC in his State of the Union Address several years ago, and TTIC became an operating reality upon which the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center, was built.
The difference is this: The Terrorist Threat Integration Center was seen as a fusion center, an all-source fusion center of relevant intelligence. I begin each day with an intelligence briefing, and I receive a great deal of information each morning from the NCTC. The difference between the NCTC and TTIC is a strategic operational planning requirement has now been tasked to the NCTC, in addition to the fusion requirement. They have a strategic operational planning mission that complements and builds upon the preexisting fusion of all-source intelligence. And our relationship has been excellent. The information that I receive each morning not only from that source, but from other collection capabilities, provides me with the kind of information that the Department requires to support homeland defense missions.
And last, we are right now selecting an individual from my office who will go to work full time at the NCTC in order to ensure the kind of connectivity between the NCTC and our shop, and indeed, more broadly, the Office of the Secretary of Defense—but we have, by similar connectivity that I described earlier, at the Homeland Security operation center.
Mr. SAXTON. I see. The legislation also requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop an incident response and command and control system that interacts with first responders. In talking a little bit about that, how will you ensure that such systems are compatible with DOD and national guard systems?
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Secretary MCHALE. As I mentioned earlier, the Department of Defense has a distinct statutory chain of command that has been unaffected by the developing and assigned authorities of the Department of Homeland Security. When Admiral Keating commands forces, for instance, in a civil support mission on behalf of or in support of FEMA, nonetheless, even though FEMA has the lead, even though DHS has a lead and we are there to be assistance, the military command and control of Admiral Keating's forces remains with him, the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States.
Under the new National Response Plan which was published quite recently, and under the National Incident Management System that supports the National Response Plan, we now have a comprehensive planning process that assigns to all of the Federal agencies the appropriate roles that they are to play as part of that greater effort. DOD's role in the National Response Plan is to provide assistance, upon request, to a lead Federal agency, normally FEMA; we do it, for instance, with hurricanes; we would do it, for instance, in a catastrophic attack. But the command and control remains separate from the DHS effort. The military command and control, those who tell those soldiers to do what they must do in support of FEMA, are exclusively men and women in uniform. The command and control of military forces is vested in the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the gentleman who is seated to my right, no one else.
Mr. SAXTON. Well, thank you very much. Great answers. You are doing a great job.
Secretary MCHALE. Thank you, sir.
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Mr. SAXTON. We appreciate very much the level of dedication that you all three bring to this subject. We are going to have some votes in a few minutes, I think Mr. LoBiondo may have another question, and Mr. Langevin has some questions. Why don't you go ahead. When the buzzers go off, we will wrap it up.
Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Keating, you may be aware that the 177th Fighter Wing is in my district, a 24-hour air defense alert site, and I think they are just doing a magnificent job. I don't know if we have another facility that is as strategically placed as they are anywhere in the country.
I am sure that we can all agree that air defense is a vital part of our Homeland Security and vital to the national security. But I am concerned, though, that the air defense mission is not in the future year's defense plan past 2007. Can you shed any light on when you will be issuing requirements in this area?
Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir, I can. I would point out, you are exactly right—the 177th, it has been brought to my attention by several Members of Congress that they think their particular air station is also strategically located, so it is going to be an interesting series of decisions made by the BRAC Commission.
You are correct in identifying a funding challenge for the Department for us to continue to provide the air defenses that we have since the 11th of September. We are engaged with the Air Force through the Department to determine the appropriate funding authorities for the continuation of that mission.
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I don't have an answer for you. As it becomes apparent to us at Northern Command how our requirement will be satisfied, I will make sure you know that answer as soon as I have it, sir. But it is an unfunded requirement. I have not yet been relieved of the mission, so there will be some accommodation made within the Department.
Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you.
Secretary MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say briefly, our chairman recognizes that strategy of mission air defense is likely to continue into the foreseeable future. The funding currently is provided independently of homeland defense spending. It is $1.2 billion, and it reflected an approach to that mission requirement in which the mission requirement was seen as an emergency response to September 11th. I think what you will see, both in terms of policy and funding is what began as an emergency response will be an ongoing requirement with appropriate funding.
Mr. SAXTON. Admiral, this is probably not the place to have a discussion about—not a good place for us to be advocating for an outcome of BRAC, and I won't do that, but I would just say that with regard to Mr. LoBiondo's F–16 wing, it is hard for me to visualize a place in the country that would be more strategically well located than a location close to New York City and close to Washington D.C..
Admiral KEATING. Yes, sir.
Mr. SAXTON. We are pretty proud of the job that the New Jersey National Guard has done in manning that wing, and we are obviously hopeful that it will prove to be a strategic location.
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Mr. Larsen.
Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I disagree with the chairman. I think it is always a good time to talk about BRAC. I won't do it now.
Admiral Keating, I apologize we weren't able to get together with you on Monday.
Admiral KEATING. Sure.
Mr. LARSEN. But at least making the time we will try to do it again. Do you anticipate a similar Operation Winter Freeze, perhaps in the northeast. I notice Winter Freeze has been a focus on the northeast border, but going the northwest with Blaine being the third busiest port of crossing, DHS set up a new northern border air wing and the IBET concept started there as well.
Admiral KEATING. Congressman, I am unaware of an active plan to do that. It is a great idea and I will keep you posted.
Mr. LARSEN. Let me explain maybe, if I may, why it is a good idea. Very quickly, I will ask Secretary McHale, do you have the 2010 Olympics file, or is that somebody else? In 2010, Vancouver will be handling the winter Olympics 20 miles from our northern border and the transportation issues I am dealing with on the Transportation Committee, the security issues will not stop at the northern border. Of course, they will spill over into the U.S. side. So I am wondering, is that on your radar yet, and, if not, let me put it on your radar?
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Secretary MCHALE. It is on our radar, though we appreciate the reinforcement of that recognition. International sporting events are a subcategory of responsibilities assigned to my office. Moreover, I travelled recently to Canada with Admiral Keating's chief of staff, General Reese, to discuss cross border cooperation on homeland defense in civil support missions with the Canadians. We are in the early stages of that evolving relationship.
We recognize that, for instance, not only does security cross the border, but that we as allies, friends, need to be prepared to respond to a WMD attack in Seattle. We need to be prepared to support one another, should there be a similar attack in Vancouver.
So while it is my hope that I am long gone by then, my successor in this office will have that responsibility, and we will be focused upon it.
Mr. LARSEN. I would like to have, maybe, have you come in and brief me on where you are headed in that, with regard to the Olympics?
Secretary MCHALE. Yes.
Mr. LARSEN. I am working with our governor and then General Lowenberg as well, who both wears the hat of adjutant general and emergency management in Washington State, and he has taken the lead on the security side for Washington State.
Secretary MCHALE. I would just mention briefly, we have a great relationship between our office and the adjutant general in Washington, Tim Lowenberg. Tim happens to be the Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Adjutants General, so I am meet with him quarterly on just these kinds of issues.
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Mr. LARSEN. Great. General Blum, back to the question about reset costs. In your testimony, you talked about $850 million, reset costs of approximately $850 million annually will result in the total reset resourcing requirement for approximately $2.55 billion for those 3 years. Is that a number that you are getting, that you expect, that you want or that you need?
General BLUM. I hope, Congressman, it is all of those, all of the above. Hope is not a course of action, so I have reasonable assurances from the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army that if the Army gets what it requested in its supplemental needs that 2.5 billion will be a portion apportioned to the national guard for that purpose over the next 3 years.
It doesn't take care of all the reset needs, but it certainly takes care of those immediate needs over the next 3 years. The rest will be addressed over the normal budget cycle, probably out to 11, before that is totally accomplished.
Mr. LARSEN. You said here in your testimony, 855 million in reset costs were included in the 2005 supplemental, the bill we are debating right now on the floor, and then you are looking at possibly another 850 over the next 2 years, 2006 and 2007. That 855 million number, does that—I mean, that anticipates, obviously, folks coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and other missions and getting the reset—given the fact that 850 is also anticipated for 2006 and 2007, I mean, are we anticipating the same number of our national guard folks being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to come back for resetting costs?
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General BLUM. No.
Mr. SAXTON. General, before you go, would you try to make this real concise, because we need to get to Mr. Langevin one more time.
General BLUM. Sure, I will be as concise as I can. Secretary of Army agrees with our planning assumptions, agrees with our physical needs and is committed to delivering those as part of the Army's portion of the supplemental, and he said so in his testimony to the Senate last week. So I am confident that he will be a man of his word.
Mr. LARSEN. Okay. I will follow up with you on the specifics. Thank you.
Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Saxton.
Secretary McHale, if I could just go back to you about the issues of the dual hat, I followed you up to the point where the Title 32—sorry. Who has been charged with controlling both Title 10 and Title 32 forces, ultimately to whom is that person answering? Is it the governor or is it to the Secretary?
Secretary MCHALE. When he issues an order to his national guard forces in Title 32 status, he is responsible to the governor. When he orders active duty United States Marines to execute a mission, he is responsible to Admiral Keating. It does require some careful attention to detail on the part of that officer, and we will have specialized training and do have specialized training for those officers so they can distinguish when they are acting in their Title 32 role and when they are acting in their Title 10 status. What I ought to mention is that the authority to do that was provided by statute.
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The statute was created in the different context, but it is clearly applicable to the purpose and the function for which we have utilized it. So the answer is both, if he is ordering Title 32 national guard forces to execute a mission related to critical infrastructure protection, he is responsible to the governor. If he is ordering soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen to execute a Title 10 mission as directed by Admiral Keating, he is responsible through Admiral Keating to the President of the United States.
Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Thank you for the answer.
Thank you.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Secretary, Admiral, General, thank you very much for being with us today. We appreciate it very much, and we appreciate the fact that some of you made some really dramatic changes in your plans so you could be here with us here today, and we have noted that and we appreciate it very much. Thanks again for being here, and we look forward to working with you going forward.
[Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]