SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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??–???
2002
[H.A.S.C. No. 107–28]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2003—H.R. 4546
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
FULL COMMITTEE HEARINGS
ON
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AUTHORIZATION AND OVERSIGHT
HEARING HELD
MARCH 14, 2002
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Seventh Congress
BOB STUMP, Arizona, Chairman
DUNCAN HUNTER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
HOWARD P. ''BUCK'' McKEON, California
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J.C. WATTS, Jr., Oklahoma
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee
WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
JIM RYUN, Kansas
BOB RILEY, Alabama
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico
KEN CALVERT, California
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
RANDY FORBES, Virginia
JEFF MILLER, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
IKE SKELTON, Missouri
JOHN SPRATT, Jr., South Carolina
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SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
LANE EVANS, Illinois
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
TOM ALLEN, Maine
VICTOR F. SNYDER, Arkansas
JIM TURNER, Texas
ADAM SMITH, Washington
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
JAMES H. MALONEY, Connecticut
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT BRADY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
MIKE THOMPSON, California
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
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RICK LARSEN, Washington
Robert S. Rangel, Staff Director
Christian Zur, Professional Staff Member
Jarrod Tisdell, Research Assistant
Alexis Lasselle, Staff Assistant
Daniel Hilton, Staff Assistant
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
HEARING
2002
HEARING:
Thursday, March 14, 2002, Fiscal Year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act—Regional Commanders-in-Chief, U.S. Space Command and U.S. Joint Forces Command
APPENDIX:
Thursday, March 14, 2002
THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2002
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FISCAL YEAR 2003 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—REGIONAL COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF, U.S.SPACE COMMAND AND U.S. JOINT FORCES COMMAND
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Forbes, Hon. Randy J., a Representative from Virginia, Committee on Armed Services
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services
Stump, Hon. Bob, a Representative from Arizona, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
WITNESSES
Eberhart, Gen. Ralph E., (USAF), Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Space Command
Kernan, Gen. William F., USA, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Joint Forces Command
APPENDIX
PREPARED STATEMENTS:
Eberhart, Gen. Ralph E.
Forbes, Hon. Randy J.
Kernan, Gen. William F.
Skelton, Hon. Ike
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Stump, Hon. Bob
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
[There were no Documents submitted for the Record.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:
Mr. Skelton
Mr. Tauscher
FISCAL YEAR 2003 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—REGIONAL COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF, U.S. SPACE COMMAND AND U.S. JOINT FORCES COMMAND
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Thursday, March 14, 2002.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:39 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Stump (chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB STUMP, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARIZONA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The CHAIRMAN. [Presiding.] The committee will please come to order.
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Today, the committee meets to receive testimony regarding the posture of military forces under the Commanders-in-Chief, U.S. Space Command and Joint Forces Command.
Both of these commands have critical homeland defense responsibilities and have been extraordinarily active since the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
General Eberhart, General Kernan, welcome this morning. We are very pleased to have you before the committee.
This hearing comes at a critical time with respect to how the Department of Defense will reorganize itself to cope with the new homeland defense responsibilities. Secretary Rumsfeld has outlined his proposal to establish a new Northern Command with primary responsibility for homeland security, which would have a far-reaching implications for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Joint Forces Command. While I understand this proposal is still in draft form, I hope we can gain a better understanding of what it will mean for your respective commands during our discussion this morning.
Since the events of last September, NORAD aircraft have been continuously flying in support of Operation Noble Eagle over the skies of America. However,the question of how long we can sustain this pace of operations and what impact it is having on our—the combat edge of the Air Force is very much on the mind the committee.
The hearing today is also timely with respect to the deployment of nearly 1,700 National Guard under the Title 10 status to the Nation's borders to assist federal law enforcement. While we understand this is to be a temporary mission, National Guardsmen have been performing similar law-enforcement support in Title 32 status for years.
General Kernan, the committee would like your insight on the mission that these soldiers will perform and how it fits into the larger civil support responsibilities of the Joint Forces Command.
With that, I would like to turn to the ranking member, Mr. Skelton, before we proceed.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Stump can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And let me begin by thanking both General Eberhart and General Kernan for being with us today.
Space Command and Joint Forces Command have provided tremendous support both to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Noble Eagle, and I hope both of you will convey our continued pride and appreciation to all the men and women who work in your commands for the very important and crucial service that they provide to our Nation.
It is particularly appropriate to have General Eberhart and General Kernan testifying together, as these two commands are the most affected by the proposed changes to the Unified Command Plan (UCP). As I understand the proposed plan, a new Northern Command would absorb the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or, as we call it, NORAD, of which General Eberhart is now the commander, and responsibility for a number of homeland defense functions currently executed by the Joint Forces Command.
Now I think the proposed Northern Command has some merit. I wish, however, that it had been undertaken after a completion of a comprehensive homeland security strategy that looked at all the elements, military and civilian alike, that go into providing a strong defense. I know you both cannot address this strategy concern, but I hope you will share with us your assessment of how the transition of your current homeland security functions would occur and what your commands would focus on under the new Unified Command Plan.
General Kernan, I hope that the new plan will allow Joint Forces Command to devote more efforts to the finding a joint concept of transformation. The services often mean different things, believe it or not. When you talk about this thing called transformation, I am encouraged by the efforts of Admiral Cebrowski's new office in the Pentagon. I look forward to hearing your plans for the training, experimentation, and professional military dedication that will make a joint concept of transformation more likely.
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I am also interested in hearing your views, General, on the challenges of sustaining our military forces in a time of global military operations. It seems likely that we will continue to undertake operations simultaneously in multiple theaters. As Joint Forces Command is a force provider for the regional commanders, it would be helpful to hear your views on the stresses placed on our troops by these missions and what changes you think might be necessary in end strength, that is number of troops, sailors, marines, airmen, for force structure to be better—to better meet these challenges.
Now, General Eberhart, I believe that any comprehensive effort to protect the homeland must include the protection of the U.S. critical infrastructure from computer network attack. Since October of 2000, Space Command has had primary responsibility for this particular protection. I hope you will address what you have accomplished in this vital area and what still remains to be done.
And, finally, the committee has been actively engaged in questions related to space policy, particularly in the implementation of recommendations of the space commission. It is critically important that we find the right organizational structures and oversight tools to ensure that space policy is soundly developed and executed. I hope that you will share with us your views from the Space Command of how implementation is proceeding and whether additional action is needed.
So, General Eberhart, General Kernan, thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
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The CHAIRMAN. General Eberhart, General Kernan, the entirety of your prepared statements will be printed into the record. If you care to summarize, we would appreciate it.
General Eberhart, the floor is yours.
STATEMENTS OF GENERAL RALPH E. EBERHART, USAF, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND AND GENERAL WILLIAM F. KERNAN, U.S. ARMY, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, UNITED STATES JOINT FORCES COMMAND
STATEMENT OF GENERAL RALPH E. EBERHART
General EBERHART. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is a pleasure to once again be with you and Mr. Skelton and distinguished members of this committee.
It is also a pleasure, obviously, to represent the men and women of NORAD and U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) today. As you know, they are the ones who do the heavy lifting out there. They are doing marvelous things for both Canada and the United States in their contributions to Nobel Eagle and Enduring Freedom.
As you said, I would like to submit my statement for the record and summarize here briefly to leave more time for questions and answers.
As we look to the contributions of both Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle, I would like to start with saying that we provide space capabilities, we provide support to General Tommy Franks and his Central Command (CENTCOM) command, in terms of weather communications, in terms of missile warning and battlespace characterization, and in terms of timing and navigation.
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In terms of weather, our bright young men and women have worked hard to devise ways so that we can give him more frequent and more accurate weather reports. Where, before this conflict, he would be getting that weather about on the hour every hour, we can do that in 30 minutes by the way we download the information at other sites and get that to the commanders in the field so they have the most current weather, not just the most current terrestrial weather, but also the most current space weather because we know space weather affects their operations, most significantly their communications capability.
When we turn to communications, it has been said that communications is the life blood of a military organization. It is probably the life blood of any organization. But if we look at a comparison of the bandwidth that we are using today in Enduring Freedom, it is essentially seven times the bandwidth that General Schwarzkopf and his troops used in Desert Storm.
And that is particularly noteworthy when you look at the number of people deployed in terms of Desert Storm versus Enduring Freedom. Each soldier, sailor, airman, marine has 322 times the bandwidth available to them because of how we have rearranged bandwidth, how we have reallocated it, how we have gotten commercial bandwidth on contract, and how we have instituted a Global Broadcasting System (GBS).
In many cases, this is using bandwidth smarter, and, in some cases, it is picking the pocket of other commanders-in-chief, moving bandwidth that they were using, and, then, finally, it is on contract again with our civilian providers and initiating this GBS, this Global Broadcasting System.
Let's turn now to missile warning. Our missile-warning program is based on the Defense Support Program. A constellation of satellites, the technology is really about three decades old. But, once again, bright young men and women have devised ways to use these sensors, so not only could we detect intet-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches, but we could also detect theater missiles being launched. We first did that, as you know, in Desert Storm.
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But we have also been able to use it in the Defense Support Program for what we call battlespace characterization. So, in fact, depending on the intensity and the length of the explosion, we are able to tell the commanders in the field, we are able to tell pilots if, in fact, they did get a secondary explosion, if they were successful in terms of their bomb-damage assessment. Very, very important.
And then finally, let's talk about GPS, the Global Positioning System. Again, a constellation of satellites in the sky that not only provides navigation but also allows us to make N bombs, precise bombs, and then also allows us to synchronize timing in terms of ensuring that everybody has the same time hack, if you will.
A lot of people forget that, in Desert Storm, we did not drop one GPS bomb. So GPS is fairly new in terms of the application. So, in Desert Storm, if we were going to put a precision weapon in target, we had to have good weather. We had to see the target in terms of electro-optical, or we had to be able to put a laser designator on it. So we had to see the target.
Now, with GPS and the joint direct attack munition (JDAM), we are able to bomb through the weather. Bomb through the weather. So that is very, very important and really expands the capabilities of our fielded forces.
Our young men and women at Schriever Air Force Base, as these birds come in view of Tommy Franks—here we have his responsibility, his area of responsibility (AOR)—they make sure those satellites are fine-tuned, and they provide the very best information to those who are relying on GPS, either for navigation or to put steel on target.
In fighter pilot terms, you cannot blame a bad bomb on GPS. If you have a bad bomb, it is for some other reason. It is not for the—because of the GPS system.
Let's turn now to Noble Eagle. We have flown over 19,000 sorties since September 11th in support of Noble Eagle. These sorties have been flown without incident or accident. In large measure, they have been flown by our citizen airmen, our militia, which speaks to how professional they are, how dedicated, how committed, how skilled they are, and not only those who fly but also those who support those who fly, in terms of the maintainers, the munitions people, and on and on, because it is certainly a team effort.
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But, in the long run, as the Chairman mentioned, this is not the right way to work this problem. The right way to work this problem in terms of air security is to start on the ground and in terms of steps we have taken and we will continue to take at our airports.
I know that is it is an inconvenience, but it is something that I think that this Nation, our citizens need to become accustomed to because it is certainly better than the alternative, the crisis that occurred on 11 September.
So, in terms of passenger baggage matching, in terms of the increased surveillance as you go through checkpoints, in terms of air marshals on board, in terms of secure cockpits, having the crews briefed differently, that they actively resist now if someone tries to take over the airplane, and I would also offer to you that almost every American citizen today on board those aircraft is an air marshal in one way or another. They are not going to go down that way again. ''Let's roll,'' I think, would be something that we would hear if that occurred again.
If you have to use us, we are out of good ideas. We are out of good ideas, and all we can do then is preclude something worse happening. But something bad is going to happen for sure. So you work this on the ground, and you work this with increased security on board our aircraft.
So, in sum, Mr. Chairman, that is what the marvelous young men and women in NORAD and USSPACECOM are doing to support Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom. It is a wonderful team—Canadian, American—soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines—Reservists, Guardsmen, civilians. And, increasingly, we are aided—and on our team, we have contractors who are just as dedicated as those who wear the uniform.
I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Eberhart can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General.
General Kernan.
STATEMENT OF GEN. WILLIAM F. KERNAN
General KERNAN. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Skelton, distinguished members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before you today. And thanks, also, for your staunch support to our military.
As you have already stated, after 11 September, our world changed dramatically, and the focus of the Joint Forces Command changed likewise. Our primary mission is supporting the global war on terrorism both at home and abroad, with one of the primary responsibilities, obviously, that of homeland defense.
That does not mean, by any means, that we have neglected our other responsibilities for which Joint Forces Command has been assigned. We are basically balancing three critical mission areas, that of protecting the homeland, sustaining the readiness of our force—that means everything from training to maintenance to homeland—I mean, to home-station training to provide trained and ready forces wherever they may be needed in support of the combatant commanders—and to continue the transformation of our military.
I will tell you that the selfless and tenacious efforts of the 1.1 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines assigned to Joint Forces Command will assure that we will not falter or fail in this mission.
As has been stated, we are the interim headquarters for command and control of land and maritime homeland security, and we will continue this mission until a permanent combatant command for homeland security is established.
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Now we do this in conjunction very closely with General Eberhart and NORAD. We do everything we can to ensure that we have a seamless and integrated effort, and I think there is an awful lot that has been accomplished in a very short period of time in that regard.
Collectively, both General Eberhart's command at NORAD and Joint Forces Command have the responsibility of putting together the implementation plan for this new combatant command for homeland security, Northern Command. Everything is well underway and is progressing very smoothly.
Execution of this homeland security mission is a total team effort, and daily we are doing things to improve the synchronization and integration from—everywhere from the local level, the state, the regional level, all the way up to the national level. It involves the National Guard, the Reserves, the Active Component, and the interagency arena.
A key aspect of this, quite obviously, is the development of the plans, the plans that will allow us to integrate our efforts from local through state to national level. One of the key things that we need there, obviously, is the fusion of the interagency arena so we can be much more responsive, coupled with the fusion of domestic information and international intelligence so we can do things from a—in a predictive way and posture ourselves to be a deterrent and prevent incidents like 11 September from occurring again.
You know, a shining example of our national commitment to homeland security is Joint Task Force Olympics. It is right now supporting the Paralympics that are ongoing in Utah. Obviously, this international event drew an awful lot of attention.
What oftentimes is not under—is not well appreciated was the integration and the synchronization that occurred from the total team. We had forces from 27 different states within the National Guard integrated with the active component and numerous federal agencies to provide a safe and secure environment for over a million people.
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That was commanded by an active—by a National Guard Brigadier, General J.D. Johnson, who, for the last 18 months, has done an absolutely magnificent job putting a team together that ensured a very safe, secure environment at a period of time when we were at a—potentially a heightened threat to our public.
As a Joint Force Provider, Joint Forces Command is supporting the worldwide war against terrorism, and we do that through trained and ready forces, and that is everything from professional military education, leader development, the joint training piece, as well as ensuring that we have the requisite forces when and where they are needed to provide to our combatant commanders.
This is a difficult task. Tracking readiness is a daily responsibility. We do not—we try to be as predictive as we can as to what forces will be required and when they will be required. We have a limitation on some of these forces. We call this high-demand, low-density forces. Many of them are supporting General Eberhart right now.
This is manageable right now, but those low-density forces are being stretched. We have got to ensure that we have got the right force with the right capability at the right time to meet our warfighting needs, and we have got to be able to sustain that readiness over the long haul.
Now we continue to press our efforts on transformation. We have a major experimentation exercise coming up called Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02)this summer from 15—from 24 July to 15 August. It is going to be out in the western training areas. This is a major experiment that we have been building on for two years.
It is on schedule, it fulfills a congressional intent, and it will meet our experimental objectives, despite the fact that we are going to continue supporting the global war on terrorism and providing forces for homeland security, not an insignificant challenge. We have had to re-scope that from some 30,000 people that were involved in that down to 13,000. But we are going to be able to accomplish everything that we set out to do.
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As part of the Millennium Challenge, one of the things we are looking at doing is furthering the development and ultimately the validation of a standing Joint Force Headquarters. This is a key priority for the Chairman and for the Secretary of Defense.
This organization—ideally, what it is going to do is enable us to get out of the ad hoc nature of how we command and control Joint Forces today, and it will allow us to be much more responsive, improve interoperability, and ultimately operational effectiveness, and it is going to lead to a much more coherent joint operation.
Additionally, we are developing a number of command and control communications and computer prototype systems out there for potential rapid fielding to support both the war on terrorism and homeland security, and we have got some pretty exciting things right now that we are getting ready to provide to Tommy Franks and Central Command and some things that we are working for homeland security so that we can integrate everything from the state level to the national level, recognizing that we are going to have different systems out there, some of them secure, some of them non-secure, but we have got to be able to synchronize the efforts of everybody involved in homeland security.
Another contribution to transformation is our efforts to integrate the legacy systems, those systems that we have to use today to fight on the battlefield. We are going to continue to transform, we are going to continue to bring new systems on board, but we have got to be able to make sure that we can integrate them with our legacy systems. And we also have to do that with our international allies.
As we look to the future, I can tell you we are doing everything we can to accelerate transformation. We are not waiting. We are pressing forward. Some of this does take some time. A lot of it takes validation of concepts and systems to ensure that we are introducing into the force the right capability.
At the same time that we transform, however, we have got to make sure that we balance that objective with improving readiness and protecting the quality of life of our troops and their families, and that is a large part of our business today.
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I would also like to take this opportunity as a North American Treaty Organization (NATO) commander to recognize NATO's efforts on the war on terrorism. You know, the alliance took a historic step when they invoked Article 5 and they operationalized Article 5 with the introduction of NATO airborne warning and control systems (AWACS) here in support of Noble Eagle. Plus, the allied contributions in Afghanistan are tangible examples of their solidarity and commitment to the United States and to this war on terrorism.
Mr. Chairman, a lot of work lies ahead, but I assure you we are going to get this right. We have the national will, we have got the resolve and dedication of our troops, and we have got congressional support. Unquestionably, we will succeed.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your—this opportunity, and I look forward to the committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of General Kernan can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General Kernan.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Let me ask, General Kernan, since you are the force provider for some 80 percent of our military's general purpose forces, are you in a position to give us your educated judgment on need for additional forces for each of the four services?
I must tell you that both the Secretary and the Army Chief of Staff have testified that they want 40,000 additional soldiers in the Army. I understand also that the Air Force has requested 6,000 more. I understand that the Marines have requested 2,400 more and that the Navy has requested 3,000 more.
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Do you have a judgment or a recommendation you can give this committee?
General KERNAN. Well, sir, as you point out, we are busy, and we are busier than we have ever been, and we have significantly downsized over the last 10 years. Now we have increased tremendously our operational capabilities and the effectiveness and the precision in which we can employ forces.
But there is still a limitation as to how broadly you can spread the force that we have today. I think the Secretary of Defense did—made a very prudent decision sometime back when he made the decision not to downsize, to hold it where we got it right now.
We are stretched. It is manageable right now, but we are stretched.
Mr. SKELTON. General, you are not answering my question.
General KERNAN. As far as the numbers, sir?
Mr. SKELTON. Yes, sir.
General KERNAN. I would have to support the service chiefs. They have done the analysis and the assessment as to what was required. I know they—like you said, the Army has asked for 40,000. The Marines, I think, got 2,800 that they have asked for.
Mr. SKELTON. Twenty-four hundred.
General KERNAN. Yes, sir. So I support wholeheartedly what the service chiefs have asked for in the way of additional capability.
Mr. SKELTON. Can you testify to the fact that a good number of the troops, not all of them, obviously, are just getting worn out?
General KERNAN. They are tired, sir, and we are doing the—I think the subordinate commanders are doing a magnificent job of rotating those forces through the various things that we have got to do in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East. We have got to be able to do that to keep them fresh and to keep them trained. But they are getting tired. Yes, sir.
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Mr. SKELTON. One last quick question along this line. Are our special forces the right size, or should we increase their size?
General KERNAN. I think that is one of those things that is going to require some additional analysis coming out of this. Right now, this Special Forces Group has been augmented by 19th and 20th Special Forces Group. It is required the augmentation of the National Guard forces to enable them to do their job.
If this were to continue, I would have to defer really to U.S. Special Operations Command Charlie Holland and to the Army Major Command (MACOM) there. But, right now, like I said, I think they are doing a magnificent job, but it does require the National Guard to augment them.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you so much.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Thornberry.
Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I appreciate both of you being here. I believe that the areas under your responsibility are some of the most important for the future of our military and, thus, our country.
And I am going to have a lot more questions than I have time for, and I may need to submit some for the record.
Let me start, General Eberhart. The Space Commission recommendations last year included a number of organizational changes, but they also included some things dealing with the people's side. For example, we are—they suggest that we ought to have a lot more professsional military education (PME) on space at every level of the military and do more to develop a cadre of very knowledgeable people in space, and that is one of the orders, actually, that came out with Secretary Rumsfeld.
In our bill last year, we required the Air Force to create a separate career field for space, to try to make sure that it is an attractive place for somebody because of its importance. Can you tell us a little bit on how the people side of this is going to try to get and keep—which is the hard part—top-quality folks?
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General EBERHART. Yes, sir. We have been working hard before that, before we received the bill actually, beginning last spring, and, obviously, the bill accelerated now our efforts. But to ensure that we had the right cadre of space professionals in terms of both education and training. Also, so that they stayed in the space arena, the space career field, more so than they do today.
It does not mean that they do not have an opportunity to broaden, it does not mean that other people do not have an opportunity to come into the career field, but that you truly have that cadre of experienced expertise that you need, in my view, to ensure that we properly leverage space in the years ahead.
We have had all the stakeholders involved from our most junior people to our most senior, and not just officers, but also it is very important that we do this for our enlisted force and for our civilian force because, as I said earlier, this is a total team effort.
And I hate to draw the analogy, but the best analogy that I can give you is to make that career field more like what we have had in the pilot career field all these years, and we have looked at a variety of different examples, all the way from the nuclear Navy, Rickover's nuclear Navy, which was referenced, as you know, in the Space Commission report, to how we do functional areas today in the Air Force.
And we think the right answer is more akin, more aligned with how we manage our pilot force today so that we have that cadre of experience, that they are always going back for requalification, retraining, and moving up from co-pilot to pilot to instructor pilot to flight lead, and their credentials are always being renewed and certified. Very, very important.
So I think that we are running with this. We still have a ways to go. What I am excited about is the fact that the rank and file, the people who are going grow up and do this are excited about it also, which tells me what the true value is.
Mr. THORNBERRY. I would just add that I think you are going to have to keep watching it, though, because, to a certain extent, it is countercultural to the pilots and other things.
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Let me ask you about one other area right quick. I am concerned that we do not do a good job as a government at integrating what is going on in space in the civilian side, the commercial side, and the military side.
For example, it has been brought to my attention that there is a number of commercially produced images of what is going on in Afghanistan which we do not take advantage of. We may buy it. We may lock it away somewhere. But maybe we just do not have the capability to get it to where it needs to go. But some people believe it could be enormously beneficial.
Another example that concerns me is, in the President's budget, he wants to do a lot more research into nuclear power that may be available for space exploration and developing new kinds of radiotheral generators (RTGs). You always—one thinks of that primarily for deep-space exploration, but there may be some military capabilities.
We talked to the Air Force about it. They said, ''Do not bother us with that. We can do all we need with existing solar power.'' You know, ''Do not clutter our mind.''
It bothers me a little that we seem so narrowly focused on what we are doing now that we are not looking at mass at the commercial sector and trying to get the most out of all of that together.
General EBERHART. First of all, at the macro level, if you will, twice a year, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the head of the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the commander of Air Force Space—U.S. Space get together in a partnership meeting to see if there are ways that we can better leverage our activities to get more bang for the buck, if you will, to be better stewards of the American taxpayers' dollars.
We have started things like looking at communications, looking at satellite communications, how we can better utilize what NASA has in terms of satellite communications and the NRO has and what we have. So I think we are working hard here.
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Another area that we are working on now is reusable launch vehicles.
So it is not to say that we could not have done it better, we cannot do it better now, but there is this relationship, there is this partnership that—where I think that we will do better in terms of bringing the different factions together, if you will.
Now that still does not answer your commercial question, but I can tell you that every war-game that we play, we bring commercial space to the table because it is very, very important. It is different than any other medium in terms of how the commercial entities might play and how they might be affected.
So, whether it was Schriever 2001 or the upcoming 2002, in all the buildup to this, there are commercial providers sitting at the table to see this is what—to say, ''This is what we could provide'' or ''This is how that might affect us.'' So we are trying to bring all that together.
To your specific question, as you know, for a while, we were buying up all imagery of Afghanistan and Pakistan. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) was doing that. But, as you know and as we have discussed in this committee time and time again, one of the big challenges is the tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination (TPED), you know, the processing, exploitation, and dissemination of that imagery.
Now, frankly, the commercial market has not unfolded, the business case has not been there to provide what we thought they were going to be able to provide five years ago, but NIMA has a plan in how we can better leverage commercial imagery. The commanders-in-chief through SWF, Senior Warfighters Forum, has endorsed that. So we think we understand the way ahead.
But, actually, there is not enough of that there right now to provide what we need. That is not to say that it will not, it cannot. And I am a big supporter of this because I would like to get what we can from commercial and then focus our military assets on other things. So I—so we clearly agree in terms of the way ahead.
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Finally, to your RTG question, RTG right now has application in terms of the exploration of deep space, as you know, where solar cells will not work. It does not have enough power in that technology today to provide the power we need in lower space orbits. That is not to say that they will not develop that and refine that over time, and if they do, I will be a strong supporter of that.
But, right now, it does not have enough power to do what we knew—we do in our orbits. But it is the only thing that provides the capability for power in deep space and deep space exploration, like the Cassini that NASA launched in 1997.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank both of the generals for being here.
General Kernan, in your remarks, you talk about the Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams, how it really witnessed in our society sort of an ebb and flow. We have gone from first the thought that it could never happen here with regard to anthrax or a terrorist attack to it is going to happen everywhere, and it is going to happen five minutes from now.
And I regret to say that I am beginning to sense that sense of denial again that it cannot happen. I think it is the fact that whoever sent the anthrax-laced letters is still out there. I believe our Nation would very much like to have produced a bloody scalp, but we have not done so, which leads me to believe that guy is still out there.
I am troubled by the fact that the Administration continues to ask for only 32 of those teams, and my friend from Pennsylvania and I have had this conversation a number of times. It is hard for someone from a populous state to understand a state where, I believe, we only have five cities of over 50,000 people and half of our cities are 10,000 people or less.
Being that, these small towns have very low budgets, and because they have very low budgets, they tend to have an extremely high turnover of policemen and firemen at the core of your police force and your fire force, which makes it in my mind all that much more important that there be a Civil Support Team in every state, going back to your second point, of the importance of Civil Support Teams, to provide a constant training force to go around to these small towns and small cities and train that constantly rotating number of people in what to do in the event of a weapon of mass destruction.
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How do we get the message out there so that they will think it is important for one for every state because, as this guy with the anthrax letters showed, I think it is going to be—the next attack is going to occur any number of places simultaneously, and I just do not believe the governor of State X is going to send his team over to State Y if he suspects at the very least that his state could be next to be attacked.
And I do think it becomes a perfect role for the National Guard where you can have people who could spend their whole careers getting expertised in this one field and taking that expertise out and training the firefighters, training the policemen of these small town units and these—in many instances, small town volunteers, and having the—not only expertise but the equipment they need to respond.
How are we going to get the message out that we need 50 of them, sir?
General KERNAN. Sir, I think the message is getting out. I will tell you I am also very impressed with the collaboration and the willingness of many of the governors to share this very important resource.
As you know, they funded 32. We have 26 of them that are certified right now by the Secretary of Defense. I have gone out and personally seen these Civil Support Teams, a very small group, 22 people, primarily designed to assess, advise, and to assist in providing the necessary support to a weapon-of-mass-destruction incident or a high-yield explosive type incident that may occur in the state.
They are very limited. They are only 22 people. They have 14 different specialties on those 22-person teams. They require a minimum of 15 people to be available to really have a coherent capability when they come in.
Right now, an awful lot of this is being done through sharing of resources. We did that, for instance, in Joint Task Force (JTF) Olympics. There were five different states that rotated Civil Support Teams through Utah to support that.
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We have recognized that we do have a limitation as to that capability. We have looked at what we can provide within the active component. You may be aware we have Joint Task Force Civil Support in Norfolk commanded by a promotable Brigadier General Jerry Grizzle who came out of the National Guard who—he—who himself has an awful lot of experience in Oklahoma City.
We have built that up and augmented that from within Joint Forces Command from about 36 people to 164 after 11 September because we need to have a responsive capability to go whenever and wherever it is needed, and we recognize that some of these states do not have a Civil Support Team, so we are trying to figure out what we can do to augment them and have them on a very compressed time line to fill that void.
It is going to be one of these things where—I know the goal a while back was to have one in every state and territory. What is resourced right now is 32. Where we go from here, I think, is—an awful lot is going to be based on what the requirements of the government are and the responsibilities of the national government is to provide that capability.
All—is it a threat? Absolutely. I tell you the real key to success here is the first responders, though. That Civil Support Team out there, that 22-person element, is just a coordination and a command and control entity, and that is all it does. It does not have—it has some limited diagnostic capability, but it cannot do anything to help mitigate the situation—mitigate the effects of the situation. That is going to require the first responders within the state, whatever else is available regionally, and then last, of course, that what the active component would tow into the game.
This is a real threat, and it is becoming more of a threat daily, and we have people who are willing to use chemicals, biological, and other types of weapon systems out there to inflict significant casualties on our people. We have got to be prepared. We back up the first responders from the National Guard and then last the active component with the capability of that we have to provide that capability on the battlefield. There is a limitation even there.
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Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Hostettler.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Generals, for being here.
General Eberhart, I have a question for you as a result of your opening statement and statement—your written statement. You brought up the issue of what we have done to make the skies safer with regard to commercial transportation, and you mentioned that if you are called into action, then we will have lost all our options.
Could you go into briefly what happened on September 11th when the fourth plane was—when it was determined that the fourth plane may, in fact, be in question to do something in our Nation's capital. What was the actions that were contemplated?
General EBERHART. At that time, the authority was passed, if we believed that, in fact, it constituted a threat to people on the ground, that we could take action to shoot it down.
The decision was made rather than to go out and try to meet this airplane to stay over New York City and Washington, D.C., in case, if we left it uncovered, there was another airplane coming. So had we seen it continue toward one of those metropolitan areas or we were sure it was going to another metropolitan area, be it Baltimore or whatever, we would have engaged the airplane and shot it down.
Obviously, we are always hoping—and we do not do that until the last minute because we were hoping that, as those braves souls attempted, that maybe they regained control of the aircraft or that the skyjackers changed their mind. So we do not want to do this prematurely, and we want to see a hostile act, and we want to see it pose a threat.
So we take this action after a lot of deliberation and to ensure that we have no other option. But we were prepared and we would have been able to shoot that aircraft down had we needed to.
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Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I just remind the committee of this. It is an issue that is really out of this committee's jurisdiction, even though, I think, the vast majority of members on this committee voted for the Aviation Security Act that contained a provision that will allow our commercial pilots to be armed. The Administration and the airlines would have permitted it essentially.
And in your statement, General, you say that measures such as new passenger bagging screening procedures, heightened terminal security, hardened cockpits, and more air marshals are our first and best defense. You could not include in there the fact that our pilots—our commercial pilots, many of whom have—were trained in our armed forces, are not going to be permitted now to be fully capably armed because of a decision made by this Administration, and there are a lot of concerns that our Administration has.
But, General, if you could just—you were not able to include that, but you are still—there is still an action item that your command may be responsible for doing something similar to what was contemplated on September 11th, are you not? You still—that is still a possibility.
General EBERHART. Regrettably, I am afraid that is always going to be a possibility now. We redefined it on 9/11, and we now train for that. We have established the procedures for that. We exercise for that, hoping that that would never happen. But hope is not a good strategy.
Mr. HOSTETTLER. Sure, sure. Well, I hope that our Administration may in the future change their mind about the decision they made with regard to allowing our pilots to be armed so that you can—we can add one more possibility to the chance that this type of action will not be necessary.
And, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for going on a little bit of a tangent, but I just wanted us to all realize that that is the statement, that is the testimony that we received today in this committee that that is still a possibility, that that was contemplated on September 11th, and the Congress had acted in this area, and we have tried to equip our pilots with every possible tool to keep the skies safe and to keep passengers safe and to not have to make the general make such a decision in the future.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome, gentlemen. We appreciate all your efforts. I know these are tough and trying times in particular on the homeland side of defense.
I have got a question for each of you.
First, General Eberhart, as you—as I think you are aware, Secretary Rumsfeld intends to propose that there be a change to the current Unified Command Plan and it would place NORAD under a new Unified Command for homeland defense.
Last month, we were visited by a group of Canadian senators who voiced concern over the wisdom of this proposal and the lack—and concern over lack of consultation on the matter with Canada. Can you inform the committee on the state of discussions with the government of Canada and whether Canada officially supports this new arrangement?
General EBERHART. First of all, I believe that there is a slight correction that needs to be made in terms of NORAD's relationship with NORTHCOM. It is yet to be determined whether it would be subordinate or the commander of NORTHCOM would be dual-hatted as the commander of NORTHCOM and the commander of NORAD.
The issue gets to the heart of your concern and their concern, is that it is difficult to take a bi-national command and make it subordinate to a national command, and that is one of the Canadians' primary concerns, if you will.
So the Canadians right now are reviewing at all levels in their government, military, their civilian leadership, in their house whether or not—parliament in this case—whether or not they want to stay just with the NORAD relationship or whether they want to expand this relationship beyond air to include land and maritime.
So I believe that if they make the decision to go with land and maritime in addition to air, then you will see a command structure in NORTHCOM much like you see in NORAD today, and they will be a full-fledged partner, and NORAD will then become part of NORTHCOM.
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If they decide, ''No. No, thank you. We are not interested in expanding this relationship. At least not now,'' then I think you will see a relationship where this commander like I am right now—I am dual-hatted as U.S. Space and NORAD. This commander will be dual-hatted as NORTHCOM and NORAD. So they will be on a level playing field, if you will, and a bi-national command will not be subordinate.
I can tell you that we have been talking to our military partners all along. I cannot—I do not know for sure how the State Department has been interacting, although I know they have. And then I cannot tell you how those entities inside the Canadian government have been talking to their legislators. I do not know that, sir, but I know that we have been talking. We have included our Canadian partners, as we have looked at the possibilities for this new command.
Mr. REYES. Thank you.
Has there been any outreach to the Mexican military on our southern border in terms of—and I fully recognize that Mexico is—does not have the resources in terms of its military, but has there been any attempt to consult with the Mexicans on some of these issues? I know that in terms of the maritime threat, they have been helpful in the past.
General EBERHART. As far as I know, there have not been any specific formal discussions or proposals. My belief is that eventually you are going to do this hemispherically. We need to do it with our neighbors to truly be effective. It is just not a question of if. It is a question of when and how long this takes.
But I am not aware of any specific approaches to the Mexican military or to their political leaders on this issue. Now maybe State has done it, but, as you know, we work closely with them, as you said, and—knows this much better than I do, but our Customs, our Drug Enforcement Agency—we work with the Customs down in the Southwest to support them.
And so we have relationships at certain levels, certain entities, but, in terms of the Mexican air force and the U.S. Air Force, there is not much of a relationship because there is not much capability there, as you know.
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Mr. REYES. Right. Yes. Thank you.
Which gives me an entree into the question I wanted to ask you, General Kernan. The National Guard has done a great job in assisting our border, ports of entry, and working protection of the airports, and all of these many things.
The recent announcement by Secretary Rumsfeld that creates a six months' agreement with deployment of up to, I think, 1,700 additional National Guard personnel and deploys them to assist Customs and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the border region, there is one point of controversy.
There are several but one that I would like your comments on, and that is the issue of putting these men and women in these situations, and at least it has been brought to my attention that there are some concerns that they are precluded from carrying arms. So I would like your thoughts on that since a decision has been made that they will not be armed.
And, second, when we talk about arming a National Guard person, we normally think about an M16, which does not fit well with the mission of working alongside law-enforcement agencies, protection at the airports, and those kinds of things. Has any thought been given to going to sidearms so that they would still be armed but it would not be a situation where it would have to be an M16?
And it is not so much from the visual impact that I am concerned about. It is more from the efficiency and effectiveness. If they are going to be helping Customs, INS, in secondary or primary, looking through trunks and those kinds of things, then it is important that they be given, I think, the opportunity if they are going to be armed to carry a sidearm.
So that is kind of the two questions that I have for you.
General KERNAN. Yes, sir. As you point out, this request did originate from Department of Treasury and Department of Justice to support the Border Patrol, INS, and Customs, while they went and recruited additional people that we required to make our borders more safe.
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It was their request that the soldiers not be armed. They did not feel that they were going to put them in a situation which would require them to perform law-enforcement type operations, and they, in a memorandum of agreement between the two agencies, Treasury and Justice, and then the Department of Defense spelled out the fact that they would be responsible for a safe and secure environment for our soldiers who would assist them in doing those kinds of administrative and other logistical and support things necessary to—for them to do their job.
And it has been controversial. Obviously, if we place soldiers in a situation where they are asked to perform law-enforcement type responsibilities or duties, you want to make sure that they can protect themselves. We have looked at the M16 versus the sidearm, the nine-millimeter.
There is a limitation there, quite honestly. The primary personal weapon of a soldier and that which a soldier is trained with is an M16. Selectively, we then train people for nine-millimeter, the use of a handgun, and that takes some additional training. Most of these people come from across the National Guard, and they have been federalized, and this was both a legal and a policy consideration that went into them being federalized because of the federal mission.
Basically, in answer to your question, they are not asked right now to do law enforcement. They have not been asked to be armed. We asked Forces Command and their subordinate commands to assess where these people are going to be employed and to coordinate directly with Border Patrol, Customs, and INS as to their duties and responsibilities.
If there is any change in that, obviously, we would have to go back and readdress whether they would be armed, and if so, what type of munition would they carry, and I would ideally like it to be a nine-millimeter. But then we have to look at are these people trained to use a nine-millimeter.
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Does that answer all your questions, sir?
Mr. REYES. Yeah. The only other thing that comes to my mind is—is there any thought being given to studying the issue because, you know, the events of 9/11 have dramatically redefined not our—just our security but how we use our personnel, and it would seem to me that if we are going to rely on the National Guard—and some of these people are law-enforcement people that are also National Guard individuals, but—
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
Do you want to answer the question, General?
Mr. REYES. Well, I just wanted to know if there was any plan being—or anything—any thought being given to study that.
General KERNAN. Absolutely. We have been assessing that. That goes back to what I suggested in my opening remarks about looking at total missionary analysis for homeland security and developing the integrated and nested plans, everything from that being done at local level all the way up to national level, and then what kind—what can we use—how can we use technology to improve our sensors, our diagnostic things, and those kinds of devices to make our borders more safe, our airports more safe.
So, yes, we are looking at this, and we are doing it in conjunction with the federal and state authorities.
Mr. REYES. Thank you, General.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Eberhart, it was mentioned by the Chairman and in your testimony—on the air cap that is presently being performed throughout the United States and Canada. How long can we realistically keep this on, not, obviously, from the men's perspective, but also the equipment?
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I mean, a lot of the equipment that is being utilized today is—has some age on it, and I imagine that the number of hours—you mentioned 19,000 hours of flight time. It also has to have an impact on the reliability of that equipment and, you know, obviously, future issues down the road, and so I—I will just leave it to you to answer that question.
General EBERHART. It would be difficult to tell you a finite date that we would need to stop doing this, but it certainly, as you said, takes its toll in terms of operation tempo, in terms of personnel tempo, in terms of how many people we have to mobilize to do this, citizen soldiers we take away from their full-time jobs. It has a cost in terms of not only spare parts and fuel, but also wear and tear on airplanes, eating up the flight hours that they have been certified for.
My view is that, if we thought this was the right thing to do and it was the necessary thing to protect this Nation, we can do it forever, if we needed to. However, as I said, I believe the way to tackle this problem is on the ground and security in the airplanes.
So I believe that we will be able to reorient our combat air patrols in such a way where it will not be such a burden in terms of operations tempo, personnel tempo, and using these airplanes in ways that cause them to lose their life earlier. And we are in the process of studying that and making a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you.
One other question. I wanted to carry on what Mr. Thornberry was talking about, recognizing now space as, I guess, the ultimate high ground, and we discussed this the other day.
Today, with the satellites now that we really depend upon, not only for GPS but for surveillance and other uses, getting into outer space today, as you know, is extremely expensive.
We have not gone very far in this country in coming up with alternative launch vehicles. We have really not done a very good job of coming up with the technology of a reusable launch vehicle. I am hoping that NASA and the Air Force can work together to come up with that type of launch vehicle.
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From what you say, you know, the Air Force may need to get into outer space on demand, to fix, say, a satellite that you may find absolutely important, which you probably cannot do today in a very rapid rate, and to make space exploration cheaper for NASA and for scientific endeavors.
Any comment on that?
General EBERHART. Sir, as you have seen and paraphrased from my statement, I am a strong believer in reusable launch vehicles. I believe that the decision that was made in 1994 was the right decision to have NASA look at reusables and to have the Department of Defense via the Air Force look at expendable launch vehicles.
Now we have a way ahead in terms of expendable launch vehicles. We will launch the first in those series this year, but the way ahead in terms of reusable launch vehicles is not clear.
Dan Goldin, before he left the position and now with the support of Sean O'Keefe, we have had all the stakeholders involved in a 120-day reusable launch vehicle study, and it is not if we are going to proceed but how we are going to proceed, obviously, with—given—assuming the support of the Administration and the Congress.
But I believe for all the reasons that you have cited and those in my opening statement that we have to get serious about reusable launch vehicles, and we have to do it because of the flexibility it provides, also because it will drive down the cost in the longer term. So I am bullish about reusable launch vehicles.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.
Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
General Kernan, I wanted to ask you several questions in my five minutes, if I might, about jointness.
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The first one is in your written statement—and I will just read this two sentences—you say, ''Transformation is more than just experimentation, the interoperability of current and future systems, or some new technology. Enhancing jointness, that is the way our forces train to interact and fight the enemy, is a critical aspect of transformation.''
Do you consider the level of joint training today adequate, and what kind of letter grade would you give it—A, B, C, D, F?
General KERNAN. I would give it about a B-minus right now bottom line up front on joint training. I have spent my whole life in the operational arena. I am one of these people who believe that you can never get enough training. The more we can do, the better. It improves leader development.
But we have made a remarkable amount of progress in the last three or four years with the emphasis on joint training, and the facility that we have built at Suffolk that enables us to do the integrated joint training mostly through simulation that we have never been able to do before has paid tremendous dividends.
I give it a B-minus, sir.
Dr. SNYDER. Which still implies we have got some ways to go.
General KERNAN. Oh, yes, sir.
Dr. SNYDER. Yeah.
Also in your statement, you say that—referring to the Operation—ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom, you say it is replete with many lessons.
First of all, a process question. What mechanism is there set up for an evaluation of incidents occurring that would be an indication of perhaps a lack of jointness, friendly fire incidents or no communication or mistargeting?
And then, second, give me two or three or four examples of some of the lessons learned from Operation Enduring Freedom.
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General KERNAN. Sure. I think one of the things we do—we continue to assess ourselves, even in combat, and we continue to train. I am providing mobile training teams on a routine basis to all the Commanders-in-Chief (CINCs) but in particular Tommy Franks down there in Central Command.
We have been helping with them. We have been helping to try to ascertain what we can do better and what kind of new emerging concepts may be able to allow us to be more effective on the battlefield. Some of the things that we come away with is sort of reinforcement of those blinding flashes of the obvious—fusion of intelligence.
Making sure that we have access to all the intelligence necessary and to be able to bring this down and quickly analyze it and disseminate it is one of the things that we need to improve on. We are doing much better, but we have got to leverage technology, and we have got to open up some of the pipes and then look at how we develop a fusion system that enables us to bring all that together and then disseminate it out.
The interagency arena. Right now, we are doing over in Afghanistan and other places—doing more than just bringing the military element of power to bear against our adversary. We are trying to leverage everything—the diplomatic, the economic, being culturally aware or sensitive to the environment, and how can we influence things in our favor. All of that, that fusion of the interagency, has resulted in us putting together interagency coordination groups.
Dr. SNYDER. Do you get a list of—going back to my question about process for evaluation and how you come up with your lessons learned, do you get a list of incidents reported to you, ''We think there are—these are problem areas. These are problem incidents. We are not sure what caused them,'' or is it just people kind of sitting around the table talking? I mean—
General KERNAN. No, we get them to come up periodically. For instance, when we had some of the challenges with the close air support beats. We were looking at do we have a systemic problem there, do we have a procedural problem, was it a technological problem. So we immediately assess that and brought that in.
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The Secretary of Defense under General McCarthy has put together a team to look at this. Central Command has their own lessons learned analysis. So we are—this is a continuous process, and we are feeding information—being fed information all the time.
In fact, I am sending a team over here in just a few weeks to look at what we can learn from them in light of what we know we are doing in transformation and make sure we are focusing on the right things.
Dr. SNYDER. In view of your letter grade of a B-minus—and I assume everyone's goal is to get us to an A-plus or, you know, what—I was never an A-plus student, so I would not know what that is like, but is there resistance within the services to your efforts or whoever efforts they are to enhancing and increasing the training and the time commitment, resources commitment to moving us from a B-minus to an A?
General KERNAN. No resistance whatsoever, Congressman. None. If anything, the limitation right now is on time and the number of people I can—I have to be able to support them all.
My operational tempo for joint training is off the scope. But it is probably within balance right now, given the worldwide operations that we have going on. But I will tell you everybody has embraced it.
My limitation is the ability to get around and support everybody currently.
Dr. SNYDER. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Schrock.
Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me welcome you both and thank you all and your folks for what you do in this—these rather uncertain times, and to say I am privileged to have the headquarters of Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in the district I represent, and I am very happy about that.
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Before I ask my question, let me identify myself a little bit with what Dr. Snyder said and the General about the jointness, and I know General Kernan is a huge advocate of jointness, and I personally think the more purple we become, the better for our services, the better for our country, and the better for our budget, and the sooner that happens, I think, the better.
I want to talk about Northern Command for just a second, General Kernan. In 1999, the Unified Command Plan tasked JFCOM with responsibility of planning and executing the military assistance to civil authorities for consequence management for weapons of mass destruction inside the U.S.
Recently, the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) testified that the mission is to be transferred to new U.S. Northern Command, and I am just wondering how will this new assignment improve on the current command responsibilities, and is there a risk that the Department of Defense (DOD) might be unable to execute this mission—the civil support mission during this period of transition?
General KERNAN. The last part of your question first, sir. No, we will continue to do this. We will do a very formal battle handoff, if you would like, once this decision is made and the new command has stood up that has responsibility for homeland security.
Based on what we learned from what we—on transformation about the importance of jointness, interagency involvement, and the fusion of what is required to do this effectively, we stood up a provisional Joint Task Force for Homeland Security. We embedded in it Joint Task Force Civil Support and JTF-6, which does our counterdrug mission.
We will continue to do that until Northern Command or who—whatever this command is called has that mission, at which time I would envision that that entire provisional command plus civil support and counter drugs would migrate to the new command. So it should be seamless and transparent to the Nation.
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Mr. SCHROCK. Okay. Thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes.
Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, too, would like to add my appreciation to both of you for the fine job that you are doing. I know you have heard it a lot, but we just cannot say it enough, and we thank you very much.
And, General Kernan, two of your principal responsibilities are in joint experimentation and joint training. I just wondered if you could comment on the value that these functions have added to—in particular to the near-term global war on terrorism.
General KERNAN. Yes, sir, I can.
As you know, we have only had this mission a little over two years, and in that very short period of time, Admiral Gehman before me was instrumental in putting together an organization that focused on joint experimentation and the transformation piece.
We now have a campaign plan. We have a process. We have a whole series of experiments that we are getting ready to conduct on a major level. We have already done 14 limited objective experiments.
So there is an awful lot been done in a very short period of time, and we have done this in partnership with the combatant commanders and the service chiefs. We have embedded their service experiments in those that apply to the joint experiments that we are doing.
Quite fortuitously, last May, we partnered with Central Command and Southern and Special Operations Command primarily as a rehearsal and validation experiment leading up to Millennium Challenge in which basically framed a scenario that was at the upper—it was an upper-end small-scale contingency operation that had regional implications if it went bad.
It had to do with state-sponsored terrorism. It had to do with some rogues. It had to do with some of the potential weapons of mass destruction being used.
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Interestingly enough, what we are doing right now in Enduring Freedom has a lot to do with what we learned coming out of that. We have got right now a very fast-tracked system to where we put together a joint en route planning mission rehearsal system which gives us real time intelligence on the move, gives us the ability to have video, voice, whiteboard, you know, the John Madden approach to being able to diagnose what it is you are doing and disseminate it down to the lowest level commander that needs that information, and we can do this on the move.
This was a byproduct of what we have been working on within Millennium Challenge 2002. Tommy Franks wants it right now. I have built one of them. I built it for Millennium Challenge, but he wants it right now, and operationally he should probably have it, but I have got to look at how I can build another one for Millennium Challenge.
The fusion of information and how we are going about doing that, the interagency efforts, all of those kinds of things, the ability to protect information working very closely with Eberhart in space—and we have put together a cell that allows us to leverage the modeling and the information that is available to us with space so we can apply it operationally in the field. So this has been an ongoing collaborative effort, and a tremendous amount has been accomplished in a very short period of time.
Mr. FORBES. Thank you, General.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hayes.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, gentlemen.
General Kernan, recently, you have served at the epicenter of the universe, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Pope Air Force Base. Now Congressman Schrock is not in the room, so I am not personally taking issue with him and Congressman Forbes about moving to Norfolk, but are you doing okay having left us down there?
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General KERNAN. They are taking good care of me, Congressman.
Mr. HAYES. Good.
In all seriousness, thanks for what you are doing. As you well know, you are and can even be more proud of our men and women in Afghanistan that I witnessed now General Gary Harrell in front of the command central when I was there at Baghram.
But having said that, speak for a moment, if you will, both of you, General Eberhart as well—we have some of our finest men and women who are providing the necessary service with security at airports and borders. This is important. At the same time, I think we are underutilizing as we move forward successfully in our war against terrorism these extremely capable and talented individuals.
What sort of internal discussions or suggestions are you all working with that would help us bring our soldiers back into the armed forces and replace their very capable services in the security forces?
General KERNAN. Well, one of the things we have got to do, obviously, is we have got to build up the necessary capability and the critical infrastructure to ensure it is properly protected. Whether that is done through technology or whether that is done through increased physical security has got to be first of all ascertained.
How do we get those people back? The sooner we can stand up a capability where it does not require the military to do it, the better. We have got people that right now can fill a void. They are proud to do it. They are making a difference. They know that they are providing a safe and secure environment.
They have a primary mission, however, to fight and win our Nation's war. A part of that is, obviously, doing some of the things they are doing right now. But those are collateral to their primary responsibilities.
Nothing is free. As you take away from one part of it and use those people out of role, so to speak, that has an impact on operational tempo and personnel tempo that affects the rest of the force. We have got to keep everything within balance.
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So the sooner we can ascertain what is going to be required in the way of additional physical security or technological security for our critical infrastructure, the better it is going to be on relieving the force from the responsibilities of doing that today.
General EBERHART. Sir, I would just hit the high points General Kernan just said. We have to make sure that we identify, train, and certify their replacements so it is standardized and we have the right people doing the security of our airports.
And that is the beauty of using soldiers or anybody from the armed forces. We know they are trained. We know they are certified. We know it is standardized across the United States of America.
Second, as General Kernan said, I am convinced that we can better use technology to take the place of some of this manpower. So, as we move ahead, we have to look for ways to leverage technology to make our airports even safer.
Mr. HAYES. Thank you.
And just as a further report from the front, in conversation with Chairman Karzai, I asked him—and we talked specifically about Fort Bragg, and, certainly, it carries over to all the fine men and women from every installation we have—and I said, ''What is the message that I can take home'' and his message was, ''Tell the people at Fort Bragg and America that you have saved us from hell.'' And that is what we have done.
Amazingly, every country we visited said without equivocation, ''The military success that you have achieved here exceeds any expectation that we ever had, and we are tremendously grateful for what you have done.''
Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
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Gentlemen, thank you very much for your service to your country.
During the Kosovo conflict, I was sitting in a hotel room in Vienna, Austria, with 10 other members of Congress, three members of the Russian Duma, and a personal representative of Slobodan Milosevic. Five days later, the G-8 used the framework agreement which we developed for ending the Kosovo conflict to end that conflict.
One of the members of the Russian Duma was Vladimir Lukin who was the ambassador here at the end of Bush one, the beginning of the Clinton Administration. He was at that time the Chairman of their international relations—foreign relations committee, whatever they called it in the Duma. Now I think he is Chairman of his party, a very senior member of the Russian Duma.
He sat a very angry man for two days with his arms folded looking at the ceiling. He said at one point, ''You stood on us. Now why should we help you?'' He was referring to the Clinton Administration's policy of telling Russia, you know, ''Do not bother. We are big enough to handle this on our own.'' You may remember that that conflict ended only when Russia joined the G-7 to become the G-8 to help end that conflict.
The comment he made that I want to make reference to was that he said—after his statement that ''You stood on us. Now why should we help you?'' he said, ''If we really wanted to hurt you with no fear of retaliation, we would launch submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM). If it came from the ocean, it would not be certain who it came from. We would detonate a nuclear weapon high above your country and shut down your power grid and your communications for six months or so.''
The third-ranking Communist was there—Alexander, I believe, his name is—and he smiled and made the observation, ''If one weapon would not do it, we have some spears, like about 10,000.''
Now the softest part of all of our infrastructure are our satellites, unless they have been hardened. It is my understanding that a burst above the atmosphere producing a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) would take out all of the satellites that were line of sight. This would be pumped up, and the other satellites would deteriorate very quickly so that, even if you could launch new ones, they would live a very short period of time.
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My question is were an enemy to do that—and it does not have to be just Russia now because there are lots of enemies that can lob a—an atomic weapon above the atmosphere and set it off, and if there is any wish to take out our space assets, it does not matter where in the world they do that, by the way. Above North Korea will work just fine, thank you. How much of our space assets will remain with a high-altitude EMP?
General EBERHART. Sir, if we could go back to the beginning of your story, I take issue with a couple of things the Russians said. First of all, if they launched one, we are going to know it, and we are going to know from whence it came.
Mr. BARTLETT. I am sure we would, sir, but his observation was that if it came from the ocean—
General EBERHART. We are still going to know. We are still going to know where it came from.
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, we would, but we would not for sure know from whom it came since they are now selling submarines to other people.
General EBERHART. We would know. We would know.
Second, in terms of—our most near and dear satellites are, in fact, hardened, so it just depends on where they are in relationship to this burst.
Mr. BARTLETT. Those are the Milstar, and there are, what, two of them?
General EBERHART. There are three now, sir.
Mr. BARTLETT. Three now. Okay.
General EBERHART. And there will be a larger constellation over time, as we also replace Milstar with the follow-ons. But we are very concerned about that possibility.
I think, once again, the best way to preclude that is through deterrance. First of all, that country knows that we know who would be responsible, and our reaction would be unacceptable to that country, whatever that reaction would be, whether it was conventional or whether it was another reaction. But that does concern us.
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But I believe that any country who did that would realize that it is going to affect them, too. It may not affect them to the degree it would affect us, but it would affect them. And I would prefer not to go into any more detail in any open session, but we do—we are concerned about that.
That is why we are convinced—that is why we come to you and—when we ask for the—our most near and dear satellites, we ask for those to be hardened against this possibility so that we can still use them, if someone was crazy enough to do that.
Mr. BARTLETT. —that might give you some indication into the Soviet and now Russian mindset as to a potential response.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentlemen from Connecticut, Mr. Larson.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here and for your service. We appreciate it.
I had an opportunity to go to the Coronado in San Diego and look at the network center of warfare there, and one of the issues that was raised is really the ability of people and sometimes those at higher levels to really trust in what they see and the importance of developing that culture.
Can you comment on that and how, in fact, you maybe have seen instances during the war now that have really impacted on that? How do we bring, I guess, everybody up to speed and to that level of trust in technology?
General KERNAN. I think we trust it. I think our biggest challenge, especially for those of us who did not get raised with the computer—
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. —generations.
[Laughter.]
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General KERNAN. I knew what you were referring to. Some of us are dinosaurs, and some of us look at this thing like a stunned mullet.
But I will tell you one of the things that I am continually impressed with, especially with the joint experimentation—we go out there, and there we really express ourselves, and we try to figure out what we can do, and you see these young people, and they are doing four and five things simultaneously, and they are able to take a laptop computer, look at imagery that is being provided by a Predator feed, couple that with maps and other information that comes from the intelligence or space community, doing chat room with—at the same time that they are talking off a video and collaborating with somebody, and they are comfortable with it. This is going to change the manner in which we do things.
The younger people are much more comfortable with it and much more willing to embrace it. I think we trust it, though. We just—the older people have to learn how to use it, and probably the best way we can learn to use it is through the younger people who are more comfortable with it and have grown up with the computer.
But the computer—the networking of the computer is giving us a tremendous combat multiplier we have never had before. Now protecting it and being able to leverage it and deny other people the use of it is also very important.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And are you feeling that we are on a track to be able particularly to defend it?
General KERNAN. To be able to what?
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. To defend it. Obviously, if—
General KERNAN. We work—
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. —we lose it, we are—
General KERNAN. Absolutely. We work this all the time, not only making sure that viruses do not go in, but building the firewalls and protecting the communications pipes and all the architecture that support this. We are all involved in that, all the unified commanders and the services, in doing everything we can to protect our systems.
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Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And—
General KERNAN. That is one of the goals that the Chairman has given—I mean the Secretary of Defense has given us, protect that, protect space, give us unhindered access to it, and deny out adversaries the use of it.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. And are we integrating the network along the services so that we really can communicate with one another? I know that the Navy has its system, the Army has its system.
General KERNAN. Yes.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. How—what really is our vision for how that will work eventually? And I am sure that there are some constraints in having one system.
General KERNAN. Well, we assist in that. We are sort of the traffic cop, if you would like, in this acquisition business and through the Joint Requirements Oversight Council where all the service vice chiefs and the vice chairmen sit, we also sit there, and we have identified key performance parameters that address jointness.
We have information exchange criteria that is mandated. The standards are very prescribed. Everybody must comply with them. If they do not, they have to go back and fix it.
So we look at that, and we—and throughout all the milestone reviews now, we have—we determine whether or not these systems are truly joint and will be interoperable with the other services. So we are doing much much better on that.
Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Mr. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And, General Kernan, I regret that I was delayed earlier and did not hear all the questions, but I did read your statement and I was particularly impressed and want to give you a report in regard to National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams.
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From my community, we have a number of National Guardsmen up here now in training, and they report to me that it is just excellent, and I look forward to visiting the armory when they return home and backing them up, and that will mean so much to homeland defense. And so congratulations on that.
And I, again, was delayed, and I apologize, but an issue very important to me that I want to ask you about, and that is the committee is aware that the DOD general counsel has not provided a full written legal opinion examining whether the deployment of National Guardsmen in Title 10 status to assist the INS and the Customs service is permitted under the Posse Comitatus Act.
Do you believe that the tasks the National Guardsmen will be performing on the border warrant such a formal legal opinion?
General KERNAN. Sir, I do know that a legal opinion was done by the general counsel. I am not familiar as to where it went. This was very carefully reviewed with both policy and legal.
Some of the considerations that went into the movement of Title 32 to Title 10 had to do with the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act to make sure that we could protect these people because—when they are in this extended activity duty situation, the fact that Title 32 was primarily used for training.
There was an interpretation that goes all the way back really when we started using air marshals, and Mr. Rehnquist made a determination at that particular time that detailing military to federal agencies to do federal functions was not in violation of Posse Comitatus.
The other issue, of course, was that both Department of Justice and Department of Treasury initially said there would be no requirement to do any law-enforcement type activities and there was no requirement for arming.
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So it really became an issue of being able to provide for the soldiers involved in this support and their families, to protect their employment, and also to ensure that they were readily responsive based on funding.
I have not seen the legal review. I know the general counsel did one, but I am at a loss to say where it went, sir.
Mr. WILSON. And I have had people who are assigned for that duty, and they are very enthusiastic and honored to be serving, but if I could get a copy of—on the opinion on whatever legal background, it would be very helpful.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
General KERNAN. Okay, sir. We will see what we can do.
Mr. WILSON. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Akin? No questions?
The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you very much.
Let me again thank each of you, number one, for your testimony, but most important for your service. We were—we are blessed to have you.
In front of you is a blank check signed by this committee and you may purchase your number one priority with that blank check.
General Eberhart, what would you buy?
General EBERHART. Sir, my goal would be to keep the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program on track.
I talked earlier about the Defense Support Program and how we use it in terms of detecting ICBM launches, in terms of detecting theater launches, in terms of technical intelligence so that we can build the databases that allow us to type missiles and identify missiles and also that we will have the increased capability in terms of battlespace characterization to see all the way to the ground, to see actually mortar fire and things like that with this type of system. This will redefine the information that the commanders of all levels will have, if it comes from a heat source.
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We have had some problems with the program. There is plenty of blame to go around in terms of the contractor and the Department of Defense. We are in the process of setting that right now, and Mr. Aldridge will present that program to the appropriate committees.
But it is not a question of whether we need this. It is not a question of whether we can back off of these requirements. It is a question of when and how we achieve those. So we need your support of this Space-Based Infrared System.
Mr. SKELTON. Thank you.
General Kernan?
General KERNAN. That is a very—
Mr. SKELTON. A blank check is in front of you.
General KERNAN. I know. That is a very difficult question. I saw you smiling as you asked it because you knew it was almost impossible to answer without addressing the fact that ideally we would like to have balance.
I guess if the check was to be written out, from my perspective, it would have to be written out to Readiness, Readiness in an overall category that dressed the right troops with the right equipment and the right training and the right pay and the necessary enablers to do their Nation's mission.
These young people are willing to do anything. They need to be properly trained, and they need to be properly equipped to do it, and there has to be the right numbers. So it is one of those all-encompassing responses, I guess, and I would have to put it under Readiness rather than one particular program because there is—there are no silver bullets.
We need it everywhere, but we have got a good balanced program right now, and thanks to your all's support, we are moving forward very rapidly and, at the same time, being able to do things in both Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom that is going to ensure the safety and security of the country.
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Mr. SKELTON. Certainly appreciate it. Thank you.
The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other questions?
If not, gentlemen, thank you very much.
General EBERHART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General KERNAN. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.
[Whereupon, at 11:14 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]