i'm sure many will come to order and we appreciate our witnesses being here so early is mentioned to each of them before there is a to see each of you and first thank you for your leadership in the role model that you are for the troops for the sailors and for all who are in your command also and all found congratulations on your confirmation for the new position this commander of the central command in this when the most difficult jobs in the world and we wish you the very very best you have great credentials and the ability to do quite well there and we do wish you success however admiral before you leave the pacific command we're  going to hear from you and your cohorts general bell about your commands and the handling of the broad range of security challenges in the asia pacific area it's a very critical region and  concerned for some time that our involvement in iraq and the middle east has preoccupied us away from the region's specific landscape at a time when should we should be engaged on multiple fronts and ensuring their force posture will allow us to deter or confront any challenge that might emerge and hopefully that would not be the case but we must be prepared to roll in the middle east is vital but we must have a broader focus there must be a sophisticated corney long term strategy for the asia pacific region just last week china announced its biggest increase in defense spending in five years in truth in fact it's probably more than was what was made public would appreciate any thoughts you might have on that china also recently conducted a successful and satellite test which left debris in or would that could  endanger satellites and spacecraft for years ahead in the same time the potential for miscommunication miscalculation in the taiwan strait continues to be experts warn that potential conflict in the south china sea is also a great on the korean peninsula the six party talks are made some progress that's a plus yet there is as we all know a long way to go we need to ensure that our intelligence on north korea's nuclear program continues to be sound in thailand the u s wants a successful military coup last year we work to help the philippines in indonesia struggle against terrorism as well as throughout much of the southeast asia moreover our administrati progress on the steps required by congress to monitor the united states india nuclear deal to ensure the limits on india's realty to make nuclear weapons now we've been been preoccupied in the middle east  as you know and china others have been expanding their influence in latin america africa around the globe we need to consider who our friends and partners are in the days ahead we must maintain our focus on pacific region  must ensure there are a level of strategic risk remains acceptable our own actions may well influence the choices of actions of others you made important progress on the united states china military exchanges there have been  marines are doing throughout the entire region and sharing your thoughts with us on what needs to be done more and before we ask you gentlemen to begin your testimony we'll turn to my friend new jersey mr s  specially the special forces activities that we have we're undertaking advising and training of of philippine military forces i think that's been an area that's lost focus in this war against terrorism as a result of the heavy focus on the war fighting theaters secondly the this situation in north korea with respect and your comments about this deal the so called action for action what do you think what do you see the north going and you might comment about the capability especially of the south korean military right now and its its ability to handle any operations by the north than that recommended by the q t r some of which administration is now following which to some degree a function of this analysis of china and especially the the fact that china is arming what significance you see there with respect to their submarine production their tactical aircraft production this continued development of short range ballistic missiles i believe they're up there between seven hundred  fifty thousand short range slash ballistic missiles right now and lastly the shot that was made on january eleventh where they knocked a satellite out of space whether you think that this heralds a new military competition in space between the united states and china so if you could if you could especially hit those those three points in your testimony would certainly appreciate again i  thanks mr chairman mr hunter congressman saxton stinkers members of the committee general bill it's a great honor for me to be here in what i suspect will be my final testimony for as commander pacific command though i expect you probably get another shot of me here in a few weeks with the different hat different sponsibility but i'd like to talk about the asia pacific today because i believe it's a region of absolutely vital importan nation and to the world we have a lot of engagement going on our wonderful men and women in uniform and those civilians that support them have been at work for the last year and promoting our nations and our interests in this vital region so it's a great opportunity for me to be back here to testify about the force posture and readiness and on any question you might have regarding the weight budget i will tell you that my observation is that i continue to be optimistic about this region overall although there are certainly some concerns that we'll get into some of those i suspect overall this is a region that's growing in vitality it's very dynamic populations are growing  economies are booming and the amount of interaction between the nations there and between our own country increasing at a phenomenal rate it's very important to us and our future from a strategic standpoint as well as the day to  day economic activities in both countries in our country and all the countries this region of course there are some exceptions that we've had a couple of events regarding the d p r k north korea now this year the volley of missiles were fired longstanding frictions and historical animosities that you can't deny there is continuing unrest in some places but again all in all there has been progress congressman mentioned a couple of steps back for a democratic process this year in thailand in fiji where coups have military coups of taking over the governments there know where the that there's no loss of life or bloodshed to date in these events but they're still discouraging  because these are countries that have worked with us very closely and have supported us in in engagements in a region around the world it's so it's it's disconcerting to say the least to see us trending in the other direction our forces in uniform and serve  distinction not only in afghanistan and iraq but scars on her mentioned in the philippines where we have an ongoing assistance to the armed forces the philippines and combating terrorists in the southern areas of that country i've got to say that the results of the efforts of the philippine armed forces particularly in the last six months have been very encouraging with the assistance of our joint special operations task force down there  there has been considerable progress in capturing or eliminating a number of high profile terrorist the philippine armed forces in an unprecedented operational move have actually stayed in the field since last august down holo pursuing arroyo just signed that within the last couple of days any terrorist measure that's been discussed and debated for many many months and so we see substantial progress there and this is been spearheaded by the efforts of several hundred of our men and women who have been working very hard to make sure this happens i will tell you that we have continued despite the substantial amount of forces that have been committed to iraq and afghanistan because this is primarily a maritime and air theater in the pacific we have had generally our naval air forces engaged throughout the area with our partners and allies continuing exercises and other activities to help build their capacity and to prove the relationships we have of these people i believe that overall the threat of conflict in this region is low and continues to be that there are certainly concerns with the d p r k despite the six party talks their track record has been this body to say the least and as already mentioned the increasing defense budgets in china growing military capability are something that we have to keep an eye on we have to work with them as you know i'm a strong advocate of continue to engage with the with the p r c and i'll be happy to take your questions on them and i want to thank you very much for your support of our men and women in uniform the opportunity to be here today i look forward to answering your questions i ask to my written testimony be submitted for four officials for the official record and i want to thank you very much for this appearance jim thank you very much and the written testimony of each of the witnesses will be placed in the record without objection your own bill thank you very much mr chairman congressman hunter sir it's good to see you again and all the distinguished members of the committee it's my personal pleasure to be back here in front of you again this year and  appreciate the opportunity for the record i too would like smit my two thousand and seven posture statement i've now commanded u s and the combined forces in korea for more than a year and can report to you that the republic of korea u s alliance is enduring and continues to function as a pillar of national security and regional security in that area the world today we're working with our korean partner to evolve the alliance to meet both nations twenty first century security requirements  strengthening our position in this vital u s national interest area you know for nearly fifty four years our alliance has successfully deterred north korean aggression and we're all pleased with the progress made in the latest round of six party talks and we're very hopeful for the future said nonetheless as you would expect i remain cautious about north korea's long term intentions kim jong il has a history of manipulating the international community in an attempt to shape the political and military environment to meet his objective and obviously as we've already said today his probably provocative military actions this past year including unprecedented missile firings and the detonation of this nuclear device represent a continuing threat to international peace and security since its inception about thirty years ago the combined forces command which i lead has been the war fighting command of the republic of korea u s alliance for the past several years we've been consulting with the republic of korea regarding alliance transformation and the restating of u s forces on the peninsula recently just several weeks ago united states republic of korea agreed to transition the operational command of control of korean military forces from the combined forces command headquarters back to the korean military and to do that in the year two thousand and twelve this is a very important event something that we've been seeking to achieve throughout the history of this alliance and something now that we have a date defiantly executed here in the year two thousand and twelve so i'm very proud of that it will result in the establishment of the a new us independent and supporting joint command obviously the united states will retain clear national command over all u forces in personnel involved in future military operations in the republic of korea are force restaging which i'd like to address just quickly too and during hub south of seoul will allow us to focus on improving living and working conditions w providing our forces with greater tactical and operational flexibility the republic of korea has agreed to fund a majority of our restaging costs including a significant majority of our new facility construction to synchronize contributions of both iraq in the us in that restates in an effort are sustained access to several different u s funding programs will be very important including military construction and commercial commercial build the lease programs and i appreciate your support in that in of this i do request your full support for our f y o eight milk on request it's very small and modest it's it's small it's not even modest and also importantly our legislative request which is working its way through the staff now to adjust our commercial housing lease caps in korea so that they are more in tune with the current cost of living over there this will enable the army to actively solicit build the least housing options for our service members and their families th enabling their move to these enduring herb's you know me two percent of the u s active military a station in the republic of korea today the other ninety eight percent is somewhere else the war over there ended fifty four years ago it's time to end our one year no tours which needlessly add to our high worldwide operational tempo while handicapping our engagement opportunities with our longtime korean allies so i'm advocating three year normal family company tours for our small force and it is absolutely the right thing to do and i would appreciate your fiscal support for this as i pursue it in the department of defense i'm very proud of our dedicated american service members and civilians serving in the republic of korea i really do thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to your questions thank you very much thank you members for joining us or early in the morning and remember we're under the five minute rule and we're doing very present tensions in the taiwan strait and have been for some time what if anything is the pacific command currently doing to diffuse those tensions and cheryl mills comment on your wanting to situation in the taiwan straits my assessment is less tense than it was two years ago the time that i was coming into this job things were run a rise and not particularly good i believe that improvement taiwan to continue to support them and their defensive capabilities to encourage them to take steps that that actually hands their ability to defend themselves should there ever be any military aggression  work closely with them assessing there needs and strongly encouraging them to take steps that we think are actually useful and i'm very happy to report that our observations over the last two years and we're we're coming up on their next major exercise cycle has given us the feeling that they have got the message and they're actively undertaking those measures that we think would be very useful on the other side of the street with the p r c we have actively engaged with the military economic and political and almost every other dimension of relations between us and the p r c have been expanding exponentially milde mil had not we are moving forward this is challenging no for a lot of reasons not least of which is where we're coming from but i think we've made some progress there we're seeing openings i would highlight that within the past year we've had the first ever exercises between the military forces there modest just a search and rescue primarily naval air that took place  involves the p r c and u s forces being hosted by pakistan and this to my knowledge is the first ever multi lateral engagement so we see progress there i think there's a lot a lot of work to be done this goes day to day  germany and was assigned to a little outpost right on the border and a cavalry unit very theoretical dangerous location one hundred soviet and other east european divisions right across from us to soviet divisions physically right across from us and they all had nuclear weapons and the united states military authorized lieutenant bell to bring his brand new bride with him and my son was born in that little town twelve kilometers from the from the east west german and i look back on that as to why the united states would take that risk in the face of such a daunting enemy and i rationalize that and then i moved to korea thirty seven years later thirty six years now thirty seven and i wonder why it's so different over there why we add to our operational tempo around the world by one year rotations of young people who've already left their spouses and their kids for three or four times in iraq and afghanistan and i add a fifth time or a fourth time separating that family and causing hardships i add to the cost of these invalid rotations every year of the permit change of station cost and moving families all over the united states to find the next location at their service members going to show up in and then a look at the final debilitating piece of that and that is that the true engagement strategy that we could have with our republic of korea ally where families engage culturally and in partnership on the weekend they get to know each other make lifelong friends and we build the alliance one family to time is all lost because my service members air airmen marines army etc are sitting in the barracks lonely because they're missing their family because most of them are married over sixty percent of our military is married i believe it is time fifty five for years after the armistice and given the very modern nature of the republic of korea big universities temps large and calm in the world forty nine million people in a very modern state it's time for us to transition from a one year combat rotation mentality which it is not over there to a normal three year accompanied tour it would lower up tempo for our military substantially it would give us an engagement opportunity and it would do right by our families and so i'm advocating it and i think over time sir you'll see the cost amortizes if not if not or even less than what it's costing us now and the republic of korea will help us do this druthers thank you congressman the the overwhelming majority and i have sat down with many many families on this issue because quite frankly sir we have right now create today about five thousand family members about three thousand of them are authorized to be there out of our thirty thousand person force on the ground today ten percent are authorized to bring their families that's because they live in locations and we've determined over the years and are not dangerous locations the other ninety percent are not authorized to bring their families so the people i talk to are those who have their families there now i have not talked to a single spouse mostly ladies but again there are some guy not one that would not opt for an opportunity for an overseas tour the old notion of being in the military and seeing the world or the navy and seeing the world would trade the opportunity to be with their family to close that one year gap to  say the republic of korea have a chance for travel in asia which they did ten percent take advantage of now engage with korean citizens which they do now the ten percent i've not had a single spouse that has told me they would not like to do this there are about two thousand spouses there who have come an authoress and when i say authorized we also as a certain number to bring their spouses based on the facilities that we have available but that doesn't prevent a spouse from coming over same the same strong feedback that they want to be there with their families want to be there during times like that congressman we're in the process of moving our force from north of seoul to well south of seoul so in terms of a conventional threat again from experiences i've had it is not unusual and has not been in our history for families to be with their service members under the arc of nucular weapons we certainly did did it in europe for decades and we accepted that for a lot of reasons i'm not going to tell us all philanthropy it was partly because the military increase in europe was so large that rotations were not something that makes sense but given that the nature of the north korean military right now which has  degraded over the last fifteen to twenty years certainly since the in the cold war their conventional capability is not to the level that it was twenty years ago and i can detail that their ability to shoot nuclear weapons down south is non extant right  and general bell strong points in the weak points of this deal or the north korean deal  there is an agreement to address the ongoing nuclear development in north korea that over the following months is going to be laid out in some detail but our belief is that  material that we would expect to see stopped my perspective on this is that there is stansell progress in just getting that agreement and getting the six parties to sit down and to get north korea to to agree to move mr x and i think there's reactor which produces its plutonium and so you know we will watch the ad and at the six a point that thank supposed to be turned off and that's something that we can watch very closely at the same time the north koreans are supposed to allow the i to begin to return to north korea to begin their inspections and then in the next phase of this after sixty days the north and oh by the way the return on that is that some amount of fuel oil will be provided to the north koreans and some other processes will begin so you've got confidence building measures taken going on both sides after sixty days the agreement is that they will disable their young beyond reactor so that it can't be brought back online and there are other programs while the clearing they're all there programs including the plutonium reprocessing potential however if you're running programs which is a matter of debate right now cetera and then based on that good effort by the north deal on on oil for them to have for fuel so this is a strong agreement i am absolutely in favor of it its weakness is like any agreement with north korea in the past they've they have in almost every case ultimately broken these agreements so that's that's what we're all watching i think the good news is that this thing is phased in a way where we're not going to be awakening one day to find out that we have a bad deal that we've done something we've given them something but we didn't get in return what we expect those guarantees are in place and i'm very optimistic about the procedure thank you mr chairman thank you before stuart is let me s the first comment i would make is that the asia pacific area is primarily a maritime and air region that's the bulk of the geography and that our contingency plans are focused on that reality and the fact that we enjoy quite a bit of operational capability in those areas so we would put a preponderance of our response to any situation in the hands of our maritime and air force of the one area that we've watched very closely is general bells in korea although we are always on the alert because of the historical unpredictability of the north korean activities we believe that today on the put it that well can address this better than i that the iraq land forces are very capable of defending that nation should the north decide to attack we have part of our second army forces up near the d m z in position to support that defense but i think that the situation there is generally in good shape we have watched this very closely as we have taken units and put them over in iraq and afghanistan and rotate others in the rest of the inner it's primarily mare air time and and an air and we're well postured and we have demonstrated that within the past year with several significant exercises to make sure that we can respond to those kinds of crises so it's something i watch very closely the the thing that that i'm really had to do is location of the forces that are based here particularly those soldiers and marines  in hawaii alaska the west coast of the u s that are in the rotation and specifically within those are those rotations the wear and tear on our c e o s and mid grade officers which is critical leadership capabilities and watching these very closely but i feel i feel fine feel ok i'm not not concerned right now about our ability to respond to any likely contingency in the region given that we rely so heavily on our maritime air forces which have not been particularly heavily conflict how do you stand on that congressman i would tell you up front there is great stress on the our i mean the marine corps right now i think we all know that these forces are highly committed our qui stocks that have been rotated in the combat zone are going through an extensive refit program but they're in the line to be refitted and they're not available for employment so there are a range of stresses i do want to point out from my fox over i capabilities and very good equipment if you will their opponent hopefully we won't always be opponents but your opponent at the end of the cold war lost their client states russia and china in terms  resupplying large quantities of material on the quitman the exercise program that they had in those days is no longer conducted so north korea is quite isolated with respect to their ability to generate combat power so i have the same confidence fallon does that our air and naval forces in conjunction with the republic of korea army are much more than a match for the north korean army now pretty postdocs we have one brigade pre post set in korea a p s army prepositioned stocks brigade combat team we have some other people but that's the core of it it has one hundred percent of its combat equipment i inspect it pretty frequently walk around and look at it it's missing some trucks i will tell you about  some numbers of trucks and humvees are not there and none of the trucks in humvees and at pre post set up armored like we see in iraq but the core combat equipment that we need for that fight is all present it is not being used by anyone it has been during the next two weeks we're going to draw a sample of that stuff with a battalion coming over from the united states as part of an exercise to drive it up to a range and we're going to shoot it we're going to see what happens and i'll be glad to report back to the on the on the results of that exercise  i'd like to i'd like to just focus for a minute on one of the major threats that comes from the area and that is the nuclear threat delivered by  intercontinental ballistic missiles it concerns me that we don't seem to be moving forward as fast as we might given the seriousness of this threat and let me just say right up front that we collectively established the missile defense agency because we thought that likely all of the services had something to offer so we chose not to turn this mission over to one service but a missile defense agency to carry out this mission and quite frankly i'm not sure that the missile defense agency is this has adequately partner d with the services and i guess i'm thinking specifically of the navy it seems to me like that that partnership perhaps has not manifest itself as perhaps it was intended so let me just ask this can you please comment comes over all the missile defense requirements and how these requirements are being addressed by the services and by the missile defense agency admiral fallon would you start that  force congressman first if i could allow me to give you the perspective from honolulu is that we have made significant strides this year in missile defense for the nation  no doubt that this was spurred by the activity in north korea which if there's one aspect of this is that it forced us to really pay attention to the details of what we might do if the north koreans for example were successful in an actually getting this missile they call that we call the taepodong they call the taepodong two that actually functioned as we think it was designed it did not and that failure and that's the second one and in as many shots for them as encouraging only in the sense that it's one less thing to worry about however going on assumption that this thing sooner or later they may figure out how to make it fly correctly  we've got to be prepared and what we discovered was that we needed to really refocus our attention to the pieces of the chain in which we would be able to detect and then do something about these missiles if they threaten the u s so if i could walk through with you where we are today first of all at the front end of the situation and that would be looking at north korea which is the the one country that has the potential to threaten us they have in being today an ability to launch short and medium range missiles that can cover the peninsula of korea as well as our our closest ally japan they cannot reach this country so best of our knowledge but if there were to be a missile launch coming out of north korea that would be detected today by a combination of sensors first a recently deployed x band radar spy radar equipped u s navy ships and now japanese naval ships of the maritime self defense force that are on station and equipped with a modified spy radar to actually detect and work very effectively against these missiles and those ships are being upgraded and deployed we have a significant number already out there in the pacific fulltime a combination of these two sensors would be helpful in responding to an alert which we still rely on our overhead systems for for an initial warning here but these sensors we'd expect would pick up the missile and and then track it as it heads up in its trajectory another new development is the  recent deployment of a ship sea based xpand radar the zone i converted oil platform that's actually now on station near the aleutians this is a much larger sensor than the one in japan and it has an ability to detect and track incoming missiles should they be headed for the u s this is linked into the national defense system with a node in hawaii and back north com that are forward deployed in the pacific to deal with this so these pieces and the network that ties them together are relatives are new this year this is the first time we've actually had this this complete system arrayed and tested and we did it growing military transformation and investments of china are of particular interest to our country could you give us an outline in a sketch how much military to military contact there is that will lend itself to to the united states understanding the investments that the country of china is making and what do we know about where they're spending their money  significantly upgraded the mil to mil relationship between the two countries but we're starting from virtually nil a long way to go we do not have the kind of exchanges that we normally enjoyed with the vast majority of nations certainly in asia pacific things are very measured and the process right now is is one that has a number of constraints on it first of all there is the  summarize is in the operational nature so that we wouldn't disclose operational gave the i think that was clearly intent of congress when that legislation was passed nonetheless other still opportunity there to do to do a lot of work and we're trying to take advantage of that so i mentioned  previously the exercises that were done this year i've been over there three times in the past two years and found that each time i was exposed to more activities and got to see more things and engage in more useful and realistic dialogue with the leaders as opposed to just notes and fix statements that we have a long way to go but what i've discovered is that most of their people have no idea what it's like to work with us they don't understand this most have never met any u s military personnel not to mention a senior leader and so they're very interested very eager i think at the working level to get get moving here we have a number of exchanges that are primarily school related our work colleges and and high level delegations there has been one initiative i think it's pretty interesting in the past year we've had several now of mid level officers six's zero five zero seven from both countries that have actually gone and spent a week or two getting around seeing things and these i think it is really the most valuable because these are the people who are going to be the up and coming decision makers in the future all guys like us were here today but probably not for too long german was very kind describing the amount of service we've had i think that's a nice way of saying we're all guys been around a long time a couple of crotchety dinosaurs but the fact we've been around we've seen a lot of things and we recognize the need for continue to engage with the p r c is an interesting challenge for us that's a country that for many decades was it was clearly inwardly focused it didn't engage with the world  e from the u s standpoint back in the seventy's made an attempt to get them out of that shell to get out and about and in the world and doing do things that are really more like probably appropriate for a country that large that many people in this thing potentially have over the several past decades that's actually occurred the military relationship being a laggard there but as china comes out of its shell and begins to engage there are aspects of this that we would like such as their huge economic impetus to our nation and the tremendous good that we benefit from in terms of low prices and multitude of goods the asian nations benefit immensely by the growth of china economically because the countries around the periphery get to sell things into the chinese domestic i hate to interrupt you but my time is short do they appear to be particularly interested in investments in weapons  developing their ground forces is there enough transparency on your visit has it been apparent to you that they are focusing on one area over others in your initial question you alluded to the fact the chinese selling  weapons and things other people that we see very very little of that in the asia pacific region they're selling is finished goods economic not military activities they are importing weapons systems primarily from  russia these are ready to make ready to ready kind of state of the art things and we see them doing that it shouldn't be surprising to me they've got money that is coming out their ears are sitting on the largest cash ward in the world and not surprising because our observation is their military has a huge way to go primarily defense of their growing and capabilities they clearly haven't given a task that's to to be able to take care of a taiwan situation and they know that since we  are pledged to help taiwan defend itself that they will need to counter our capabilities so we see a lot of work like this and the satellite shot that i think clearly designed to counter our capabilities that said they have a long way to go their ground forces in particular are defensively oriented and focused and they are trying to grow these forces so we can spend an hour on this topic is too complex but we see them a valving i do not see them  as particularly threatening right now we are certainly watching your capabilities and we would encourage them to be more open more transparent we've had this theme repeatedly in our in our discussions they push back on it they say well you know where we're telling we're focusing we're doing things on people but still they're investing a lot of money in strategic systems that don't appear to be particularly defensive or so i think it's going to benefit from continued engagement and that's probably our best opportunity to to get them nor into the open bell i was i was very heartened to hear your comments about the question of the korea on an unaccompanied tour i've had the chance to be there a couple of times i had thanksgiving dinner up on the d m z and it is an extraordinarily dangerous place but if you as you very aptly described look at it in the larger context of things the change you suggested makes a lot of sense and i just wanted to kind of put that out there i'm going to switch ba fallon let him kind of go a little bit more about china first question i would have is you're to be commended for your efforts to engage the chinese and it really has been a personal commitment  by you i'm wondering when i'm alone if you've had a chance to talk to your successor admiral keating about that do you think he'll keep up that level of commitment and as to engagement could you describe for us your great value here and he recognizes that and i did expect that he will continue to try to strengthen these relationships regarding nonproliferation yes we've had discussions here and i would say in two areas the  issue of nuclear weapons certainly has the attention of the chinese and their efforts in the six party talks which they've been instrumental record you know master hill in in moving these talks forward as the former staunchest ally of the d p r k it's been very heartening to see their engagement on these talks in regard to terrorism that's a good subject they're concerned about terrorism within their own borders to clear out of the west with potential was an extremist activity in our western provinces regrettably during my time i have not yet had the opportunity to get out of that region of china and actually meet with their what you believe the north korean perception is of the u s redeployment the reduction of our footprint we're moving south i feel pretty comfortable we know why we're doing it and there's a couple of different imagines that but look at a read do you think the north koreans are getting and what if anything are we trying to get try to make so that they don't get the wrong worried and make some really stupid decisions based on a misinterpretation of what's going on there that thank you congressman that's you know trying to figure out what north korea thinks is a bit of a crapshoot but i'll tell you what i think they think and i study this a lot and i consider it a lot it's obviously a very key element of the equation of stability and security and that are the world you know first and foremost the north koreans clearly want security for themselves they want to know that their regime is not being threatened and we are the biggest threat to their regime and they know that and we know that and that's why we're there  to deter any provocative acts by the north koreans or even potential attack on the south or the neighbors and so you know one of the things that they are afraid of is us are us and i don't think it matters where we're positioned in the republic of korea whether along the d m z or whether we're down south as long as united states makes a commitment to the republic of korea as long as our alliance remains solid in sound the north koreans are going to have to deal with the united states and the republic of korea as long as our friends in the neighborhood china russia certainly japan are concentric in the in our in our global view north korea i think they will be concerned that they will have to deal with all those parties and that's why the strength of the six party talks so i'm not concerned for a second about the movement of our forces south or our force drawdown our principal capability day to day is our air naval capacity we have an extremely capable air component right now that has not only very capable and robust forces on the on the runways in south korea but also in the area whether it's japan guam hawaii or on carrier decks i think a north korea is very sensitive to that air capability they watch us they've got radars up take a look at what we're up to every time we bring a b republic of korea military they're quite capable the north koreans will continue to try to divide our alliance if they see it in their interest but i think in the last couple much that there is such hope for the future that this probably is all appropriate moving south being a little less visible not being in the lead so much i think is very appropriate and we'll keep an eye on it as we go forward but i am very relatively optimistic congressman thank is still early in this year but time goes by pretty rapidly of their specific legislative changes that we need or maybe you've already given the the some been a committee but the sooner we know what kind of details we would have to have and if your seniors are signing off on that and if there's any do in this defense bill that we need to get to get it done is it fair to say that the two thousand or so that are there on their own volition take some kind of financial hit by by having moved themselves they're the two thousand spouses that are not rate the company to a rates any time i want to when i can just is or the torah links and so for example if i chose unilaterally tomorrow to say to those spouses who follow their service members there unauthorized  you are now authorized i could do that and by the way congressman it's my intention to do that i'm holding great regard these young people who in spite of our inability to take care of them fully with the full range of services follow their service members around the world so that they can have a united family now to be honest with you our service structure our medical our dental our commissaries in our etc allow those who are quote not authorized actually asked on a so called space available basis and overall i've looked at this very closely we are doing a darn good job of accommodating those who are not authorized in all of our service arenas so therefore a spouse a lady has got a young baby who's not authorized is still being seen in our hospital on a space available i'm optimistic can make change pretty quick to accommodate those who are there and a grandfather and bring them into the into the family well if there's if there are specific legislative things that we need to consider and the sooner that we get those the but i'm sure appreciate amazon i want to ask some years ago i got involved with the g a o did a very comprehensive study on hardship postings and and they sent people out to china and africa folks and their conclusion was that there was really a lot of incentives in the state department  personnel policies that did not result in the wrong people being put in the slots at these hardship posts around the country in terms of lacking language skills and things like that one of the things that came out recently here about  additional people because she couldn't get people to volunteer to go or didn't have the right right right mix i was discussing this with a high ranking military officer who i said i'd like to meet a metaphor is that the enthusiastic soccer players and that's not the game is being played and so my question is how do you see as you said earlier the threat of conflict is low in the pacific command and you're going to central command how do you see the relationship now in terms of what other government agencies could or should be doing to better further than the national security the mission of of of this nation we talk about the that our national security is not just military you are the important part of it but that we keep hearing problems about other government agencies not being able to do the kind of things that we think they ought to do whether it's in iraq or other places what's your view of that now if you'll allow me to confine my comments to the asia pacific and maybe give me a good bye till next month or whatever you we have the next year and i'm really really pleased i'll tell you this quite honestly quite upfront because i've heard all the stories and frankly had some mixed experiences in the past but we've made progress in the asia pacific specifically i think due to the good relationships we've had with the inner agency we work very closely with our department of state  they're kind of moving forward and fingers crossed that they might be able to have this ongoing civil war or for decades now we're doing our best to try to help them in each of these areas i would highlight an area of high interest to to our country and that's maritime security particularly in the narrow waterways like the strait of malacca where we've worked very closely with the neighborhood neighboring countries malaysia indonesia singapore for example in thailand to help them grow mr chairman and admiral fallon and they all thank you very much for your service to our nation and i wanted to ask just two or three questions the first admiral or general dale how would you give me an idea mavis in your testimony and had a chance to read it but give me an idea of the air force the north korean air force where it is today compared to ten years ago has made any progress in building war they don't make any new aircraft they do overhaul they are not getting new aircraft from their traditional suppliers and so they're making do with what they have these aircraft are capable the large majority are are the kind of aircraft that you would dissipate to insert special operations forces in the south they do have a very large special operating force capability they do have intercept fighters are relatively modern from the cold war era i can tell you that they don't train to the levels that are air force or navy or certainly the republic of korea train the levels of flying hours be ready are about ten percent of what you would see in our air force or our navy so i'm not overly concerned about the ability of the north korean air force to be a factor having said that it's a large air force it's capable they've got real bombs and real real stuff and you ought not to underestimate your opponent but we can deal with the north korean air force quickly and decisively and it will cease to be a factor fairly quickly general and admiral the reason i asked that last week we had when general mosley was here and there many of us in congress and both parties that are extremely concerned about the death of this nation obviously the debt of this nation that continues to climb by the moment we borrow money from china right now and that to pay for the war in iraq many of us are concerned that you in the military in all parts of the services or probably from time to time will be asking probably already been asked to make some adjustments in your priorities what's important just like today and one of the magazines is this white house seeks to delay joint strike fighter to pay for troop buildup my question was and i guess is a question to you as well my concern is if this nation does not get a handle on this spending that is out of control and i'm not you're really talking specifically about iraq will make that clear then what's going to happen ten years down the road maybe not so much concerned about north korea and their air force but my question to general moseley and also to secretary when was this right now there is no question we are the best but if our situation with this economy goes flat if the debt of this nation cannot be dealt with adequately then you're going to have to continue with your budgets to make adjustments that you probably don't want to make because of national security reasons but you're going to have to do it anyway and the answer to me was that if this is an area with this debt and let me throw it back in the war iraq the cost of the war in iraq that in five to ten years if this country does not get a handle on the debt of this nation so we can get the military of what it needs then we might not have the supremacy that we have today is this of any concern elias can get involved about budget debates in washington but those of you who are the professional that does of us who have not been in the military look for the very best advice i am very concerned that we are getting ourselves into a situation where we might not be able to dig out  i'll take a shot at that i would approach that by looking at myself and my experience in this region of the asia pacific which as we look to the long term has the potential probably to provide challenges for us i look at it today as not an immediate threat i mentioned that earlier my testimony i believe it's a low threat i believe we have the capabilities today to overmatch any any threat today and for the forseeable future but of course we're sensitive to the to the trends as we move ahead i think that the bravest challenge is probably fiscal right now and over to you as  experts in the financial world hear of budgets and spending but it seems to me that as we develop new capabilities and look at maritime air as the principal items here they're big ticket items you mentioned j if you would of the systems acquisition of these are probably the issues that i believe that we are ok today i think that the things that are under development are put us in what appear to be good shape for the future the rate at which we acquire these things is not an immediate concern for a threat to be in the near future but in the business of fiscal reality and good stewardship i think it's that's the real challenge so if you drag these things  you know the history better than i it's they cost more they take longer and so forth but the threat is i believe in a situation today where that's really not the main issue the main issue is how much we spend and how  thank you thank you mr chairman to you admiral fallon and general bell thank you for being here and good luck on your new mission we wish you the best general bow i just wanted to commend you and encourage you  in your concern to allow families to accompany service members in south korea i had an experience during the vietnam war in japan and i know how important that was to us and certainly to allow families who can go on authorized even the two year period could be very helpful and really encourage a lot of families to do that i think part of the concern of course is the mission  that that they have there and whether or not that's one that would work in that situation and you seem to have made that assessment and i certainly would encourage you to get the feedback from the folks there  our spouses and families but also a met american citizens and those who are affiliated with the united states pretty quickly from the republic of korea we do this by air we practiced this it's part of our regiment everybody signed up we have a way of knowing where everybody is we're in post partnership with the embassy to make sure we know where the nonmilitary folks are it is a big deal for us to be able to execute a neo operation noncombatant evacuation operation and fact just next week when i get back we're going to go through another neo evacuation operation so we do what is right to protect our citizens but keeping them at arm's length another one year away is not what's right and i want to overcome that pretty quickly so i appreciate your support ma'am thank you and i will fail and we know the work that you've done working with china and to encourage the transparency there there was a recent article about the opaqueness of the defense budget in china and i wonder if that would encourage them to do the same i think maintaining a consistent line along these these areas they have  world they are learning for example in the commercial and economic world financial world that the requirements if you will of doing business in that environment worldwide demands that they be more open and   maintaining stability within that country and there's certainly no history whatsoever of the kind of things that we would like to see we've got a long way to go we've got to keep chipping away at it i've had had a very interesting discussion with  the defense minister last year on this subject that went on for quite a while i felt very strongly that we were it was not our business to meddle in their their affairs that was their business and  gave me lots of examples of their intention to spend money on their people which they have done nonetheless we have to keep at it and i think that by as we have these exchanges we basically push push the envelope each time that's what i've done i've asked to do new things and see different people more things to try to get a little deeper at the same time we've tried to do the same thing here  there's a lot of suspicion and distrust that's grown up for a lot of years it's going to be a challenge to dispell i think we just have to keep at it step by step look at things as you here in the congress identifiers that you'd like us to pursue we'd be happy to do that so  think it's just a matter of just taking a step at a time thank you thank you thank you chairman i may have a minute or two i wanted to ask about other perceptions in the region we guarding our force realignment what kind of feedback have you gotten from them i think this is really a good story we've we've looked at this from a regional perspective we have a lot of balls in the air general bells mentioned the ongoing realignment on the korean peninsula to pull back also focused on japan this just concluded strategic discussion with that country has agreed to solidify our alliance which is as you know longstanding and critically important northeast asia and aspect of that will have investment of six billion dollars range to make adjustments on okinawa to build us another airfield so that we can move out of the congested encroached south we're going to take some marines move them to guam with your help  recommend recognize the gentleman from arizona mr price well thank you mr chairman and thank you admiral fallon general bill those with you always want to remind each of you how grateful this country is in  you know it's got to be a tremendous personal affirmation to you sir to have managed the defense activities of roughly sixty percent of the world's population and i'm sure that you can be used greatly in the future and i appreciate you very very much having said that to both of you you know there's a lot of people who are not in favor of missile defense in this country and one of the prine arguments that they make is that somehow the war fighters themselves have no need for the deterrent in the defense capabilities the benefits of missile defense i know that mr sections already touched on this but can you give us some sense of what you think the benefits of a robust layered missile defense system represents both to not only this country but to the war fighters themselves astarte there are threats and capabilities in the hands or defeat those threats because they could directly threaten our forces and actually the majority of the missile threat today is in the short and medium range so these could potentially certainly general bell i'm sure might talk about korea but i look at japan within the range of north korea we look at challenges with iran and they can't reach this country but they can certainly reach our forces in the middle east for example so it's in our interest in protecting our people and doing the best for them that we address these issues and so i think it's appropriate that we continue to work on our sensors and our tracking and our ability to have a counter to these either active i think it's the right thing to do i'd like to follow up i can't tell you how important i think this issue of missile defense is to the nation are for i happen to be a bit under the gun back during desert storm of missile attacks every night and saw the t error of it all they weren't very accurate in those days although terribly we did suffer some number of casualties from the other ballistic missile attacks but as time goes on and as mechanisms for accuracy have improved these systems whether they are theatre short range intermediate range the kind that say from north korea could reach guam or a wire or whatever or even intercontinental which could reach our nation have got to have a we have to have a layered approach to deal with these both defensive and i'm often they've got to come from somewhere and we ought to be able to do something about that as well so as we move into the twenty first century deeper and twenty first century this is going to be a growing issue we've said for decades that some day rogue states will have the ability to launch a few missiles at us and so we're looking at that almost today i wouldn't say that necessarily the united states is threatened today but certainly u s troops are for threat today i've got eight hundred of these missiles pointed at u s troops right now in south korea so i would support vigorously a robust approach to theater ballistic missile defense layered defense intercontinental ballistic mis very important part of the total approach to this very serious problem well that's it's hard to really add a whole lot to that general meaning your answer i think is obviously not only reflects my own perspective but i think one that the whole country needs to understand there's a there's a sense that we already have missile defense in this country and as you know we're not there yet and i'm very concerned in a world where nuclear weapons are not only prevalent they're becoming ubiquitous and  do seems to me good and i would ask your response is it not important that we not only support full funding of the current missile defense systems but that we if anything work toward even more ground based interceptors for the sake of protecting this nation against the very potential that you mentioned you know robust i mean like a rogue state to doing something that you know is almost unthinkable i suppose if that ever occurs this debate will change pretty profoundly but you know i've often steal the quote if we build it they will not come and given our situation in the world is it not important to the defense of this country to have those systems any support the existing funding china in two thousand and six versus the number that we plan in two thousand and seven there's a small increase in two thousand and seven there's a structural challenge year that i would highlight and that that he was wearing a uniform and if you need to make a case for that he needed to talk to our folks wearing uniforms that we would take the best advice from our our uniformed folks based on your testimony page nineteen you seem to indicate that  though there may have been there may have been some steps that in transparency and reciprocity there have not been enough steps for you or others to make any sort of change recommend recommended changes to those restrictions that be accurate we see an opportunity to move this thing forward i'd be happy to propose that to do it and take it over here with their permission i think it's an important message for us but also an important message for chinese counterparts to hear that perhaps say they need they need to take more steps and i have as well we had a chance to talk to general sow we were there the defense minister we pushed him for to invite the united states to an observer status to the next chinese russian exercises and and were very politely offered tea i think would be to put it but i would just i would just ask would you would you continue to encourage us to push china to invite the u s lisa to serve a status and any further china russian exercises last year i think it's another step in  quick things here a couple actually is last month another high ranking official is in town from china to have a discussion about a few things and we were had a chance to meet with him i guess my impression is that he did not seem baseless as it was interpreted to us that as i should point out we took the opportunity to at that point to explain to him at least from our perspective more about space debris and he may want to go back to the people he is talking to say they need to reassess their valuation of the impact of space debris how would you how would you characterize the chinese response to the world's response to the race that test and have you seen any changes in the sophisticated or demonstrate the kind of understanding that might be appropriate here so they've taken steps to get more into the kind of things that most of the other countries in the world do and it indicates there's still some work to do forty one percent getting to fifty percent just kind of a general step through the we've got a chart of ours that show a significant reduction under some something label future presence in south korea so if you get you very much congressman i'll do it real quick it's normally would take two or three hours and i'm not sure i'd do it correctly but there are a couple of building blocks one is that we're at fifty four years after this war ended and instead of a deprive the war ravaged country the republic of korea is a first country world economic power and a major military power and a great ally the united states and in a committed ally the united states i mean these are overarching realities they fought with us this alliance has important night states not the least of which is twenty five percent of world trade flows through northeast asia so the management of this alliance or something it is vital to both us and the republic of korea now given given the current situation that the  old line commanding control relationships that came out of the korean war just don't make sense for today here we are with this great capable country and somehow one more breaks out i'm supposed to command their army thr no sense i want to command our army we're not going to give up commanding control of u s forces ever that's not going to happen but we ought to move and do what we call doctrinally a supporting to support a relationship working in partnership with republic of korea in combat in a way that makes sense operationally and we know how to do that so we've agreed to move to that new paradigm in the year two thousand and twelve work cited about it it makes sense it gives them a better sense of their sovereignty visible profile by military forces in the capital city of the republic of korea would benefit both nations so we've all agreed and they've agreed to fund that they're going to spend billions and billions of dollars helping us move they're going to shoulder the giardia of the burden of doing this now that's going to happen that's all agreed to the other piece that we're not fully there yet on is annual burden sharing we have asked our ally to shoulder what we call an equitable amount of the annual stationing costs not personnel numbers not my salary but the logistics the maintenance some of our building programs etc and we think equitable is fifty fifty so if it cost me two bucks of appropriated funds to station forces in korea they ought to pay a dollar that's the philosophy in the in negotiations over the past several years we not approach that number with our allies last year they covered about thirty eight percent of our non personnel stationed cost and we feel that that number is below the expectation of a quality in equity this year the year they were and they've agreed to fund forty one percent so that's an improvement i will tell you we have to continue to go share with our allies until end point comes where we believe it is fully equitable and that they are sharing the costs in a way that makes sense to us to give to give us the rush now that we need to stay over there yes or the time left could you talk about why it takes two thousand and twelve to shift operational control yes or this is a we will first there are some real issues we need to train repeatedly in a new doctrinal way so that we are certain that should war break out that this will work to standards you just can't decide one afternoon i know you appreciate this that it's that they will be in the lead and will be in a supporting role we have to go through an extensive headquarters realignment process then we have to organize ourselves and then we have to train sir i'm guesstimating it would take three years to train in a cyclical way so we have great confidence that we could successfully deter an attack in an attack aimed defeat so i need three years well this is two thousand and seven so that's minimum two thousand and ten and in negotiations they asked for a little bit longer because there are some things they want to buy before we do this and so we've agreed to two thousand and twelve i think that reasonable a little bit later than i would have preferred testimony today and we wish you again all the best wishes we can with your new posting and admiral fallon i want to follow up on your testimony regarding your reassuring words that the threat where you've been in command is not something that you feel confident and that we have under control and looking at the staff reports in your testimony i mean obviously i think we have that confidence today because of the size of our fleet and that we're able to sort of meet the projections that the quadrennial defense review set forth in terms of our surface ships and submarine fleet but it obviously it's not a static today because you're moving a number of submarines over to the pacific by two thousand and ten according to the staff notes will be thirty one submarines that are there and again with the existing size of the fleet today that's obviously a number that falls within an acceptable plan i guess the question is though and i'm learning this quickly here is that the decisions we're making in the congress today are not about today they're about a long time down the road and the fleet that you're using today was one that was built twenty years ago and clearly with the president's budget and the number of ships and submarines that are included in it looking down that road twenty years hence i mean just try and do the math and see how we're going to maintain thirty one submarines in the pacific fleet shrinks sometime in the two thousand and twenty is down to forty submarines do you have any concern about whether or not the sort of confidence level that you have here today is really fifteen twenty years down the road going to going to be something that we can feel without any concern  view we weigh off risks we look at the realities we face today we've got a war in the middle east that to require an enormous amount of money and other resources this is primarily a land and so we have  put the spending in that direction i believe we are quite capable of meeting any requirements in the asia pacific and in other places in the world today with our existing force structure we have on the on the  books new classes of ships for example in the area in which you you have high interest i believe that are very capable we think that looking to the future to meet future threats now the numbers of those today appear adequate to today's threats if that changes in the future the fact that we do have these newer classes maybe not in the numbers that you might like to give you a higher confidence but enough confidence today that the ability to have those and to crank up those building programs if required in the future i believe is a reasonable hedge against where we are and so you make these trade offs the key thing is that we continue to make investments to have capabilities that we could then expand rapidly if we needed in the future and i appreciate that answer and that's helpful i mean as i said i mean obviously we're not always dealing in a static situation right now and certainly one of the things that's not static is the rate of increase in the chinese navy and you started to address i think congresswoman caster question on that issue and i mean what's going on the big picture i believe is that there's a country that was focused inwardly is now looking  because it has much greater global interest it requires huge amounts of energy resources and other raw materials to continue to drive this economic engine and it realizes that these things are not inside the borders  that they are under other folks control there's another dynamic and that's this huge amount of cash that they're getting courtesy of our investments and their products and and i would expect it shouldn't be a shock that they would substantial and amount of their military since it is decidedly not modern they are working on lots of new things and new classes of ships are wanted we're watching this closely these are our concerns we would like to have them work in concert with us to look at a future in which they are helping to provide security and stability versus the flip side of that so we watch it carefully we look to make sure that we have an ability to counter any threat that could turn against us and we continue to encourage them to work with us as we move to the future while that's obviously the goal which we all want to see happen and i mean one of the unfortunate thing is their cash position has been strengthened by our debt financing which congressm been some questions already concerning what the plans are in regard to korea but general bill you address that also the plans in regard to japan and we discuss that at length w area of operation in particular i know a number of maybe three or four thousand troops have been transferred maybe a year and a half ago two years ago from korea of the thirty seven thousand we had to operation iraqi freedom  you have an area of responsibility as you point out to us three hundred thousand personnel fifty one percent of the earth's surface granted a lot of it is water but it's sixty percent of the world's a lot of water and a lot of air maritime air centric those forces have not been nearly as impacted by the combat operations in the middle east as our ground forces so we retain substantial capability we currently on in the western pacific a tremendous capability with these these aircraft upgrades to our ships and so forth and so we're in good shape on that side we are watching bill indicated earlier watching closely the impact of things like preposition materials land oriented land centric things about going to be happy to address the situation on the peninsula but from the rest of the pacific i think we're in good shape the risk is acceptable based on my but over to general thank you congressman you know when i when i go to bed at night i think about a lot of things one is what if midnight tonight i get a call and say well it just didn't work there's an attack going on because the north koreans are positioned where if they chose to  they could have a very short notice attack we don't anticipate that and we're very hopeful for the future but they could and what does it mean about the united states ability to reinforce korea and other places in the pacific and how has that affected by ongoing operations in  iraq afghanistan and other commitments in the world and you know it's a daunting challenge for our military we are committed heavily in that area the world i go back to my earlier comments that i am extremely confident in the republic of korea military  i can tell you the news business a long time and i've looked at a lot of militaries around the world in fact it may be most of them i am a felon being dinosaurs as we are we've been around for a while and this is one good military capability that the republican agree has this is something to celebrate success for a partnership an alliance partnership over a long period of time that move the country from a war torn third world poverty stricken  disaster to one of the great countries of the world today and the united states can take a great deal of credit for that sort of the republic of korea citizenry can take a lot of credit because they picked themselves up by their  bootstraps and done what they've done it's a marvelous example of what we're trying to accomplish elsewhere in the world i haven't said at the air and naval power that is made available to me in the pacific region is adequate to meet our war needs if we including yours general much more reliance upon air power is the result of your confidence is because of that is that why you feel confident in what you said that we can handle this contingency despite iraq because of that changed the focus upon air power republic of korea military and more time and so i am deeply engaged with the korean military leaders every day and we train with them every day so a lot of this is again a success story where in partnership and not to forget we still have our united nation have we filled that request out for the types of munitions that should be used by the airpower for the h d p t targets and the others how is that stack up to the change in the war plans a few years ago have you been able to get that enormous request that you wanted filled no doubt that the air power that we can bring to bear today is radically different than what it was twenty years ago most of it a function or procedure munitions and standoff capability of the aircraft so that they don't have to you have to have you been able to get the munitions that that war plan called for we have the munitions that we need for a number of days wouldn't go beyond that in this session i will tell you that beyond a number of days if those kinds of munitions were still required we would have to bring them forward from the states and the supplies that we need would have to be refurbished and so i am not totally comfortable with the if the if we have a war and it goes the way i expect it to and again you'd be careful of expectations because the enemy gets a vote i am confident we have the munitions now that we need couple day so my next question is if it's good enough for a couple days you know this is a sudden war thirty miles from sold to the d m z the readiness of our national guard is what it is and the readiness of army is what it is what is it after a couple days if things don't go when you run out of these munitions is that a more major concern in view of iraq and what it's has had upon the hold of our own and the that us of our army and where they are important the republic of korea has half a million men under arms today under mentally capable of defending their capital their active duty they've got a three million man reserve would it be unfair to say then that once the war is over that those forces that you normally had in the war plan aren't going to be needed any longer because of this confidence you have i believe we're at a point with republic of korea as we change our command relationships where we will i know we are where we are going to review the allocation of u s forces against the enemy as we know it and given the capability republic of korea military so we have seen is we're about to increase the army by ninety thousand and ninety two thousand troops as well as the marine corps but if you're saying those forces really aren't needed because the air force can handle it and we have such great reliance upon the or ok are those ninety two thousand troops then needed because this is one of the two major contingencies for ground forces we plan upon i think those forces are exceptionally needed and even more potentially united states world wide interests are not just a ever since that time that we had the missiles rained down either side of taiwan and we deployed teaches cruises there everest every year since then they had done an exercise not before but ever since and of increasing breath and increasing depth not the similar some say a nine hundred sixty seven after the israeli war they did the egyptians did leading to the seventy three out of an exercise thrust how do you plan on is that a concern of ours do we actually deploy extra forces out there during those periods of that we would expect to see the chinese increase their exercise program as they grow their capabilities and means to fund those and they recognize the need to step up from the level of which they have been operating had the privilege of visiting with your troops in hawaii strategically important guam and korea and every time i have visited i've been so impressed by the young people protecting our country are about the same age we have seen india come from a virtual enemy state to one of our greatest allies could you review for us the military exercises other indications of military military cooperation yes or be happy to india is one of the bright spots i think in the region a significant change in focus and direction of our relationship with the do been a couple  times to meet with union leaders and i sense a similar sharing of a desire to move us forward there have been a number of exercises increasing in complex city over the last couple of years and the plans are to continue in the same direction there have been there's a naval exercise model bar that has been going on that's been up to glue the aircraft carriers this past year there are land exercises small but growing indian forces have been to the s to hawaii and the mainland a couple of times this year we will continue these as it as it makes sense and as we find physically appropriate but there's little doubt in my mind this directions improving there's another dimension here that's very significant for the first time that i can remember the needs of actually made an acquisition of u s hardware and that's the u s s trent one of our expeditionary ships which is  in the process of being transferred to the indian navy and along with that a purchase of some helicopters to help outfit it this is a first got a landmark watershed event there's a lot of interest in future development a lot of concern i'll tell you in  historic anxiety i think about this because there hasn't any track record they've been getting most of their stuff for decades from the russians from the old soviet empire and so this is a new thing for them they're kind of looking for us to see how we how we treat them and how we react i think it's an opportunity for us to be more interactive and that's one of the things we've discovered as we've done these exercises now since they're using equipment from different  that there are some challenges here and we could make this better to future so lots of opportunities but i'd say another indication of cooperation is the u s india civilian nucular agreement i believe this promotes nonproliferation because india now would separate it military and civilian nuclear programs have you been working with their government in regard to that i think it's a very significant strategic step forward to gain the confidence of the indian people that we in the u s value highly value our relationship with this country and the potential for other things is great to huge country more than billion people strategic location and as i face my new challenges in the middle east i'm very me again people our age would think of that as a totalitarian state which now is a free market democracy a nation that has sent troops to work with the coalition forces in iraq and afghanistan have you worked with the military of mughal e a congressman this is a really good success story it's a small country a number of people two million people but very large covers a big area strategically tween russia and china so interesting challenges but they've chosen to as you say opt for a democratic process they have a very small military they are interested in helping out in areas that make a lot of stats like peacekeeping they don't foresee they don't see a big threat to themselves externally and so they are taking their relatively small military and training it and we're helping them to train them to do things for the un for example at a peacekeeping role they are iraq we've got over a hundred troops there have been there for several years now given us great support and we're working with them we have a good exercise program and in fact this summer expect to they have all volunteered to host an exercise called conquest which is  primarily a peacekeeping force in the drill which will involve a lot of countries so it's a really good news story thank you very much to the gentleman from you thank you very much mr chairman and again it's nice to see you admiral fallon you are very good friend of the pacific area and of course general bill as well i thank you both for your testimony today and also thank you admiral for your services commander of the united states pacific command the pacific command area of responsibility has been very challenging lately and you have displayed exemplary ability to manage  address the challenges that confront our national security interests in the region our military posture in the region has much stronger because of your leadership and lastly i want to thank you for your work to support the negotiation  bilateral agreement between the united states and japan to realign the forces in the pacific rim including the relocation of u s marines from okinawa to guam i think some of my colleagues have alluded to this and you spoke briefly to it earlier can you please describe your thoughts on how this agreement has and will strengthen the diplomatic and the national security relationship the united states enjoys with the government of guam or the government of japan and can you provide before this committee where you believe the agreement is at this time i understand that the japanese diet has yet to approve the funding for this project and i just like to get your idea of where we are today if you could help us with that congresswoman thank you first of all at the high level it's a very strong reaffirmation of the strategic alignment of our two countries to provide for mutual support in northeast asia and in the north pacific region longstanding security commitment that we have to japan and that reaffirmation is very very valuable i think is a signal to people with not only the region particularly those countries the details of this have go along several lines first to upgrade the interaction between our forces we have been in japan with bases and forces we have done exercises but the amount of integration of the forces operational activities together has has not been as great as i might have expected prior to getting into this job that's increasing and that's a really good i can give examples in missile defense cooperation air defense cooperation in japan the japan japanese home islands as examples regarding the force structure bahraini people to be able to do the things we think are necessary without having to go to get international agreements that's a tremendous advantage there are some other issues too you know there's been a lot of discontent particularly in southern okinawa about our presence there have been there for many decades but as the population of okinawa japanese population is increased encroachments is growing around these facilities and as we've seen in many places of the world it's become a problem so part of this arrangement will be to move a lot of our forces out of that area that's heavily congested and to put them in other places while being one the specifics of the funding are that the diet has not yet passed resolutions to provide for the funding there's been a commitment to make sure this happens so i think things are in place planning is underway they're getting a sense of what needs to be done and how much expect this will go forward i have high confidence this is going to go forward so there would be no chance then of making the agreement i think the chance of that is very very small because thank you as you know and both countries i want to thank you again for your services as commander of the pacific command and of course to congratulate you on your new you could tell me there were unconfirmed reports recently of the russians selling missiles to iran do you have any knowledge of this i don't have to have any detail i'll probably be focused on that  but do you generally have any knowledge of this i do not congressman i've read these reports but i have not looked into it personally is this something each of you then are willing to follow up on to see if if they are confirming now that may affect our answer thank you sir we obviously would have great concern and interest in that also understand russians are selling some marines to the iranian navy into the chinese navy what do you know about that and is this a concern  now it's a concern of course to see the flip ration of these systems there diesel submarines they're different than ours they're generally short range and would be used i believe in close in coastal waters but clearly  deal with these things if we ever have to thank you sir i know earlier in my absence and i apologize i had to step out for another commitment and came back but there's a question of leave ask about chinese navy and is there any focus at all in concern with regard to the build up of the chinese navy in our our sense of readiness or dealing with their strategy their strategic forces that's you're in the maritime area the we watch very closely pacific fleet  commander and structure keep an eye on this they are growing in capability in numbers and in the modern modern upgrades to their fleet we watch very closely again we're trying to get the chinese  d areas at sea and in the air when we will get in close proximity to one another you recall that back in two thousand and one we had this collision between a chinese fighter and one of our p three hundred sarah craft i'd like to have that not happen again and i think one of the ways to do that is to set in place a structure of expected activity should our forces engage we got a start on that this year with the maritime domain that exercise also did include  aircraft and will continue to push this area and another question the russians on no also apparently selling this issue thirty jet fighters to chinese concerns is something you're monitoring again more more modern equipment the question is what do you what are they going to use it for chinese are also developing their own indigenous programs i got a chance to see one of those aircraft when i was in china last year they've also had a joint development program with the pakistanis again what we would like to do is to get the chinese to engage with us so we have to convince them that it's in the interest of both countries that we work together and be very transparent open with what we do i think the russians are selling these things not just to china but other countries in the world because it's a lucrative market for them it's a way for them to get  curious i have concerns that this congress has not been made fully aware of the total cost of the war in iraq for example the equipment needs in the national guard and reserve come to mind and so i was wondering within your pacific command what sort of needs ever arisen as a result of the effort in iraq and afghanistan what sort of equipment shortages do as i review our desire ment's if you would to put into the system in terms of needs out here we have some of my all of my priority items are very specific operational things that some are classified but they're they're designed to make sure that we have capabilities to deal with things that we think might be a problem in the potential for conflict later on i don't really have any significant unfunded or or unmet liquid in the learning to be specific you have no need for engineering equipment you have no need for generators you have no need for tanks i'm sorry  but i believe that we have the equipment that we need today to respond to any contingencies we have i guess in my in my dealing with the things that i believe we have to face recognizing that we have a war on and that's a priority for our people and our equipment is right now in the middle east i have been taken as acceptable risk some of the things that are maybe not immediately available with the expectation that if something changes and there's a threat in the pacific that appears to be an overriding concern that we would we would get back or asked to get back some of these things the biggest problem i see is the rotation of our forces the fact that you have people that go out they use their equipment it needs to be repaired and maintained some things are are are used up and not replaced and the fact that these forces then are put in a rotation they're going to be called in  short order i think if we needed to do something right now we could muster the appropriate material to do that of course we'd like to have new things we'd like to have things replaced one of the things we haven't done is put a big demand system on the army in particular for an immediate fill of some of this equipment that they borrowed if you would now to prepare and other places to go to the war and knowing that the stuff that we'd like to have back is probably upgraded things newer materials the fact that w what to chris are in korea in south korea in south korea as well i i can tell you how many i'm going to be careful here on classification but i can tell you that the humvees that we have in korea are not of the variety that i would want to go to war with i want up armored humvees i think it's important now we would not necessarily face that kind of you know i e d threat you see in afghanistan or iraq right now but to go into trucks the larger trucks dusun it to have time for family of that go vehicles i believe they and the stocks in the united states have to go through a significant refit over the next years to get them to a capacity where they will survive in combat better than we have today our notion of the wheeled vehicles was based on a more linear type battlefield where we had a secure rear area and body blah blah and now we see in modern more fair that that guarantee of a secure area is just not something counted so we've got a grade our ground equipment so that our supporting equipment has the capacity as sop some of our combat equipment to survive in  noncontiguous battle space so so i will tell you congressman your your concerns about this equipment i share those concerns not only with respect to the ability to generate forces at the united states but also the kinds of equipment we have given the realities of modern warfare having said that i'm really confident republic of korea army really and i'm very confident in our air and naval power and all the work i've done gives me a lot of confidence that we have a very potent capacity to defeat the north koreans but your concerns are spot on and they ought to be and we're seriously worried about some of those issues you know the last number that i heard was that the north koreans had approximately one hundred thousand people in the special forces are still fairly accurate just a little high but the number i would share with you here today is around eighty thousand and i'm very concerned about their special forces i've always noticed  use the word impressed but i've certainly taken notice that our in our photos ability to recap with a minimal amount of money given that th home has been shown to be particularly susceptible to landmines and that our enemies obviously talk to each other over the internet and potential enemies talk to each other over the internet i've now become convinced that up ar the solution that we need to go to replace some of these with something like an m rap or better so with that in mind what would be the number of vehicles in korea that would be that would need  replacing and i'm also not a fan of requirement i think the army in particular is causing selves a lot of troubles with these artificial requirement numbers when you take ten percent of the total force as a that's all i need to replace and we're not finding it's not ten percent it's really one hundred percent let's get to that sooner rather than later so what are the number of humvees that you have on the can it's korean peninsula again sir i would say it goes beyond humvees to the family a tactical truck so i would be really focused on that so one of the notice of this number that i would share with you today is for the force we have on the ground that is not the force that we might want to bring in in some less than a thousand of these platforms so the other thing it in this is going back about eighteen months of the storm that hit the mississippi gulf coast one of the things that hit me given what happened in my area the reports i was getting out of the new orleans area what was obviously a huge demand on the m r e stocks and for good but obviously a huge demand on the stocks and i remember thinking gee what if the north koreans act up about now what or what are your stocks for things like him or use for things like generators you know just the basic things that that are going to happen in a conventional conflict when you're like tricity goes out the water quick to run and can't you can't necessarily count on the supply ships being as time as they were before what do you normally pre position stock which you time i want to be just a bit cautious because a classic case but require a minimum of fifteen days of supply of class one class want to have those stocks on hand now on the peninsula for the force i have on hand and the people class one mostly  are some other prepackaged foods in the pacific region under admiral fallon's command right now significantly go beyond that so class one is not something i'm concerned about for the force i have on the ground today five of course is ammunition conventional ammo and very competent on the financial we have probably more than wilkinson but some of the other type more modern munitions particularly aerial delivery munitions and others are the kinds of stocks that i would like to see increased in our inventory both in the region and in the united states class seven is what you've been talking about those are major indict him equipment whether that's a tank or whether it's a humvee that's a class seven item and again and again i think of all the classes of supply that we have in the military today the class stocks are only the most stressed because of the war in iraq and afghanistan not only from modernization perspective like you said but just a refit perspective and the long lines that we have in our depos to get this stuff brought back up to standards and so again while i don't anticipate needing that equipment in korea if i did need it it would be difficult for the united states to generate that today and they would we would have to work very hard to meet requirements if they went beyond my expectations having said that i would tell you again congressman i am extremely competent in the republic of korea army and i know the north korean army very well i've studied them and it would it would not be wise for the north koreans to attempt a and a venture in the republic of korea with the capability  iraq military and our air and naval power and i got a range of confidence it is very high for the equipment concerns that you have for they addressed in this year's department of defense request they are absolutely in my and my integrated priority list absolutely if if if a conventional war were to break out in the korean peninsula you would not be coming to this committee a year from now say and hopes i got caught career army last question you know you some examples we have spent i guess off the top of my head five hundred million to build a base that man to ecuador up to american standards apparently we're being asked to give it back to the ecuadorians we probably spent some of your career in panama always spent a lot of mout money on housing and other important needs turn that over around the year two thousand i agree with your desire to be able to bring the families over to korea i think that makes perfect sense but there's obviously a price tag associated that even our half of the milk on the question is given the example of a kid or give an example of panama what sort of guarantees can we get from the korean government that we're not just going to build something to turn it over in three to five years it really the world as a stabilizing force but that that welcoming and wanting will continue into the future even if the confrontation between north korea and the partners in the region south korea leading those even if that were to be saw those nations want the united states to be an enduring partner with them i am very confident and i say for the record that it is my full expectation that the united states will be asked to remain as a reliable and trusted ally with their public of korea as they have been with us deep into the future certainly throughout this century and beyond and i see no potential at all for the republic of korea to ask us to leave anywhere in the future that i can envision so i'm very confident that one we would not be wasting money second great deal of our stationing cost there are paid for by the republic of korea as indication japan is well as long as they're willing to continue to offer us a good economic engine to encourage us to have forces stationed there i believe that we will continue to see that the majority of our station costs are covered by our ally in our building cost in the future will be significantly paid for by our allies well sure we'll have costs will come to this committee and ask for help but we have a reliable and trusted ally they are paying for our stationing in a significant way now and  if i may interrupt you've got exactly four minutes under the house rules if i might ask the ins are assets for the early warning are they sufficient have they changed since iraq speak advice i asked our intelligence surveillance reconnaissance assets are high demand no doubt about it there is a huge investment of these assets in iraq we look at  theatre day to day to see how we're doing we have agreed to move a lot of these assets to central command right now i think that we're ok in this theater i'd like to have some of these assets back on a day to day basis but we have given where we are this day we found that risk to be acceptable if it changes tomorrow i'll be the first in line to go to sent job and asked the chairman to get some of these back but right thanks for a lot during my career i very much appreciate it there's no one better in the navy that could go to centcom or just know when they're in the navy thank you sir