is a great example of where a unilateral u s military response simply is both insufficient inappropriate let me also say well i hope you'll come out a bit more about this very informative article that you have the opportunity to talk obviously about iraq and afghanistan at the onset of this new year our military forces be again operating under a new paradigm in iraq with the security  situation on the ground that slowly improve due in large measure because of the success of the surge there is a picture for the way forward and i would suggest as well the new status of forces agreement that  you had somewhat of a hand in the secretary lays out what i believe is a very logical plan for the response we were duction of u s forces in iraq but in afghanistan i seem to believe that it's a much different situation a much different operating environment it's a poor nation a nation with a history of continuous violence the insurgency is a web of taliban al qaida narco c the enemy's tactics are growing in sophistication and lethality and here in washington we wait for the results of multiple strategic reviews and we focus on the pending deployment of additional u s forces and we make calls that land on largely deaf ears of our least some of our nato allies to do more and restrict less and we're not here to have a hearing on afghanistan  but we need to talk about what the path ahead may look like the visions between iraq and afghanistan may differ and what dictionary and both of those theaters may look like and third secretary picking up on the comments of his chairman of the president's three executive orders last week did make a decisive step did indeed sa certain message but i would argue has caused a great deal of uncertainty as to the way of head with respect to how do we detain and how do we interrogate and how can we ensure that terrorists relate released or transferred to another country don't reappear on the battlefield or in a position to attack americans or our allies where do we have terrorists that are deemed too dangerous to release or transfer to another country and if the judicial procedures that were established under the military commissions act are overturned will we at the end of the day have sufficient evidence and legal processes in place to continue to hold the most dangerous terrorists such as nine eleven mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed these are difficult questions whether you agree with the president's decisions or not i would hope could all agree we have to understand the ramifications and the path ahead and these are all things that i look forward to your comments on the secretary but most importantly with a final word of thanks for your appearance here today mr chairman opportunity to provide an overview of the challenges facing the department of defense and some of my priorities for the coming year in doing so i'm very mindful that the new administration has only been in place essentially for a week and newer changing policies will likely arise in the coming months later this spring i'll bring present president obama's defense budget and at that time we'll be better equipped to discuss the details of his vision for the department and thank you for your kind comments here at the outset of the hearing i assure you that none of you are any more surprised to see me back than i am i'm humbled by the president's faith in me and deeply honored to continue to lead the united states military and i want to thank this committee for your confidence in my leadership and your enduring support of our military my submitted testimony covers a range of issues north korea iran and proliferation russia and china wounded warrior care ground force expansion and stress on the force national guard nuclear stewardship defending space in cyber space and wartime procurement for the next few minutes though i would like to focus on afghanistan iraq and defense acquisition there is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is afghanistan as you know the united states is more on central asia in recent months president obama has made it clear that the afghan theater should be our top overseas military priority there are more than forty nations hundreds of n g o s universities development banks the united nations the european union nato and more involved in afghanistan all working to help a nation be set by crushing poverty a thriving drug trade fueling corruption a ruthless and resilient insurgency and violent extremists of many stripes not the least of which is al qaeda coordination of these international efforts has been to say the least difficult based on our past experience in afghanistan and applicable lessons from iraq their assessments underway that should provide an integrated way forward to achieve our goals as in iraq there is no purely military solution in afghanistan but it is also clear that we have not had enough troops to provide a baseline level of security in some of the most dangerous areas a vacuum that increasingly has been filled by the taliban that is why the united states is considering an increase in our military presence in conjunction with the dramatic increase in the size of the afghan security forces and also pressing forward on issues like improving civil military coordination and focusing efforts more on the district level while this will undoubtedly be a long and difficult fight we can attain what i believe should be among our strategic objectives and afghan people who do not provide a safe haven for al qaida reject the rule of the taliban and support the legitimate government that they elected in which they have a stake of course it is impossible to desegregate afghanistan and pakistan given the porous border between pakistan as a friend and partner and it is necessary for us to stay engaged and help wherever we can i assure you we will all continue to watch the situation in pakistan very closely as you know the status of forces agreement between the united states and iraq went into effect on january first the agreement calls for u s combat troops to be out of iraqi cities by the end of june and all troops out of iraq by the end of two thousand and eleven at the latest it balances the interests of both countries as we see the emergence of a sovereign iraq in full control of its territory for eventual actions in just a few days or another sign of progress the sofa marks an important step forward in the orderly drawdown of the american presence it is a watershed a firm indication that american and military involvement in iraq is winding down even so i would offer a few words of caution the violence has remained low there is still the potential for setbacks and there may be hard days ahead for our troops as our military presence decreases over time we should still expect to be involved in iraq on some level for many years to come assuming a sovereign iraq continues to seek our partnership the stability of iraq remains critical to the future of the middle east a region that multiple presidents of both political parties have considered vital to the national security of the united states as i have focused on the two wars these past two years i ended up punting a number of procurement decisions that i believe would be more appropriately handled by my successor in a new administration as luck would have it i am now the receiver of those punts and in this game there are no fair catches chief among institutional challenges facing the department is acquisitions broadly speaking how we acquire goods and services and manage the taxpayers money there are a host of issues that have led us to where we are starting with longstanding systemic problems entrenched attitudes throughout the government are particularly pronounced in the area of acquisition a risk averse culture lead to just process parochial interests excessive and changing requirements budget churn and instability and sometimes adversarial relationships within the department of defense and between defense and other parts of the government at the same time acquisition priorities have changed from defense secretary to defense secretary from administration to administration and from congress to congress making any sort of long term procurement strategy on which we can accurately base cost next to impossible add to all of this the difficulty in bringing on bringing in qualified senior acquisition officials over the past eight years for example the department of defense has operated with an average percentage of vacancies in the key acquisition positions ranging from thirteen percent in the army to forty three percent in the air force thus the situation we face today where a small set of expensive weapons programs has had repeated and unacceptable problems with requirements schedule cost and performance the list spans the services since the end of world war two there have been nearly  hundred thirty studies on these problems to little avail while there is no silver bullet i do believe we can make headway and we have already begun to address these issues first i believe that the two thousand and ten budget must make hard choices any necessary changes should and i believe must avoid across the board adjustments which inefficiently extend all programs we've begun to purchase systems that abhor efficient rates for the production lines and i believe we can combine budget stability in order rates that take advantage of economies of scale to lower costs over sue greater quantities of systems that represent the seventy five percent solution instead of smaller quantities of ninety nine percent exquisite systems while the military operations have become very joint and impressively so budget and procurement decisions remain overwhelmingly service centric to address a given risk we may have to invest more in the future oriented program of one service and less and that of another service particularly when both programs were conceived with the same threat in mind we must freeze requirements on programs that contract award and write contracts that incentivize proper behavior i believe that many programs that cost more than anticipated are built on inadequate initial foundations i believe the department should seek increased competition the use of prototypes and competitive prototyping and ensure technology maturity so that our programs are ready for the next phases of development and finally we must restore the defenses acquisition team i look forward to working with the congress to establish a necessary consensus on the need to have adequate personnel capacity in all elements of the acquisition process this is no small task and will require much work in the months ahead which brings me to a few final thoughts i've spent the better part of the last two years focus on the wars we're fighting today and making sure that the pentagon is doing everything possible to ensure that america's fighting men and women are supported in battle and properly cared for when they return home efforts to put the bureaucracy on a war footing have in my view revealed underlying flaws in institutional priorities cultural preferences and reward structures of america's defense establishment a set of institutions largely arranged to plan for future wars to prepare for a short war but not to wage a protracted war the challenge we face is how well we can institutionalize that your regular capabilities again and means to support troops in the theater that have been for the most part developed out of hoke and funded outside the base budget this requires that we close the yawning gap between the way the defense establishment supports current operations and the way it prepares for future conventional threats are wartime needs must have an institutional home and enthusiastic constituencies and regular budgeting and procurement process our procurement and preparation for conventional scenarios must in turn be driven more by the actual capabilities of potential adversaries and last by what is technologically feasible given unlimited time and resources as i mentioned president obama will present this but his budget later this spring the one thing we have known for many months is that the spigot of defense spending opened by on nine eleven is closing with two major campaigns ongoing the economic crisis and resulting budget pressures will force hard choices on the department of defense but for all the difficulties we face i believe the moment also presents an opportunity one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats america faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead we will not be able to do everything by everything and while we have spoken at length about these issues i believe now is the time to take action i promise you that as long as i remain in this post i will focus on creating a united defense strategy a unified defense strategy that determines our budget priorities this after all is about more than just dollars it goes to the heart of our national security i will need help from the other stakeholders from industry and from you the members of congress it is one thing to speak broadly about the need for budget discipline and acquisition reform it is quite another to make tough choices about specific weapons systems and defense priorities based soley on national interests and then to stick to those decisions over time the president and i need your help as all of us together do what is best for america the whole in making those decisions i have no illusions at all that this will be solved while i am at the pentagon ind if i am somewhat successful on the institutional side the benefits of these changes may not be visible for years my hope however is to draw a line and to begin to make systemic progress to put the department on a glide path for future success i look forward to working with each of you to gain your insight and recommendations along the way once more i thank you for all you've done to support the department of defense and the men and women wearing our nation's uniform thank you mr chairman i look forward to your questions up here within a matter of them two or three weeks perhaps a little longer and i am best as best i can understand we would be looking toward the f y ten budget coming up some somewhere near the end of march that's go review no sometimes very difficult to talk about roles and missions we had a panel that worked on that issue and in the able leadership of jim cooper in this last year and i hope that there will come the end in being a substantial afghanistan have to be more near term and more modest i would define success in afghanistan as a situation in afghanistan where it is no longer a source of terrorist threat or extremists threat to the united states or our friends or allies much has to be done to create that kind of an end state but i believe that we should be very cautious and having very long term very idealistic  aspirations in afghanistan and rather focus on what we think we actually can accomplish within the next three to five years thank ms mchugh would you like to ask a question to mr chairman given the interest of other members situation in iraq for what i believe you described as the potential for setbacks and i think i hope we can all agree that's still a very tenuous situation and very dangerous one outgoing embassador crocker talked about the dangers of drawl in my opening comments i talked about the sofa talks about the timeframe for redeployments that has been and bedded in that and i happen to believe after talking to general petraeus and other military leaders that it's a it's an achievable objective just last week our new president met with the military leaders and talked about the sixteen month timeframe with draw for withdrawal and we're we're looking at eight months roughly differential what worries me most secretary is that those kinds of redeployment decisions maybe based on not military imperatives but political imperatives i was hoping today you might fill in the blanks a bit about what the directive was to the military leadership as to the sixteen month timeframe are we asking them to look at it as a potential assessing the downsides of that or if this was an order that said simply i want out in sixteen months how do we do it what can you tell us about that decision in that timeframe what we're preparing for the president are in response to his request are several options and beginning with  sixteen month completion of the current mission and transition to an advise and consent or an advise and advisory and assistance role we are developing other options as well  and i have tried to do this in a way with the president's agreement that ensures that he hears directly from each of the commanders each of his senior military commanders so he will have and he obviously will hear from the chairman and myself he has been firm and saying he wants a responsible withdrawal and one that is safe for our troops and and we are laying out with each of the options we will present to him our view each of the commanders views of the risks associated with that timeline so i think that i think he has entirely properly asked a range of options including the sixteen month we will give him that he has asked for more information on some of our assumptions he's asked for more analysis in certain areas but i think this is a very thorough and a  very real process i don't think words that i don't think anybody associated with it in the department of defense feels like we're going through the motions that a decision has already been made and i think that the president will  will listen to the commanders and i think we'll come out in a good place on this oh nine is a is a year that is actually fraught with both opportunity and risk and there are the opposite sides of the same coin and the respect of the really for elections that will be held the provincial elections this fall the in a few days the district and subdistrict elections this summer in june the referendum on the sofa and at the end of july and then the national elections at the end of the year if we make it through those elections then the prospects i think for an enduring domestic peace in iraq are substantially enhanced and i think that and we'll see how these elections go clearly successful prevention elections that in which the sunni participate having boycotted several years ago will be a big step forward so we'll we'll measure the risk as we go along but these are the kinds of issues that we're laying out in front of the president then and i can assume that  you have a reasonable level of confidence that this will be a military not a political base decision it's no secret that our new president opposes seargent that he said in his judgment it would make matters worse not better there is no sin and perhaps making misjudgements but i truly worry that we would squander the great progress that our men and women in uniform have made president as the commander in chief but i will tell you mr mchugh i am completely confident that the president will make a decision based soley on what he believes is in the best interest of the united states thank you very much mr chairman last week i'm going to ask one more if i may last week the president signed three rather controversial executive orders with respect to detention with respect to interrogation and such and is new press secretary said i want to quote the president believes that what we did today will enhance the security of the american people that love lives up to our values as american people the secretary  the very honest without debating the objectives of those orders and i think there was a pretty widespread agreement that indeed we should do what we can to close guantanamo across the board nevertheless and as a sixteen year member now seventeen you're a member of this committee and as a four year member of the intelligence committee i'm hard pressed to understand how on certain breeds security and for whatever one might think of the objectives of the president's executive orders it seems to me that the question will result for the moment is we have uncertainty and i was wondering if you could help us and help me to better understand for example if we were to pick up a high value target out of pakistan out of afghanistan or any other place on the globe to morrow we would have a reasonable way by which to detain these individuals by which to interrogate these individuals and what the path is between now and the time time frame by which the president has said that guantanamo will close we can disagree and debate as to the former administration's policies in these regards but they were policy they did have a way to detain individuals they did have a process to interrogate them they did have a process to bring them to trial what does the path ahead look like what if for example to morrow we pick up osama bin laden in a cave somewhere in the file wherever it may be what does moral bring as the lead up for a year from now in the closing of that facility in cuba i think i think  targets the reality is our special forces have been detaining al qaida and other insurgents for some period of time and observing the army field manual and their interrogation techniques and i don't think that they felt that they've been inhibited from getting the information that they could get out of these detainees with respect to guantanamo my view is i guess i would make two points i think if we did not have a deadline first of all let me concede your point there are some very difficult decisions i had with respect to guantanamo but i believe that if we did not have a deadline we would kick that can down the that endlessly and i think that a way my experience in making anything work of the department of defense is the only way i get anything done is by putting a deadline on it and making people understand that the deadline is meaningful and i think the only way we'll come to grips with some of the tough decisions that have to be made with respect to guantanamo is by having a deadline that then forces the rest of us to turn to and figure out solutions to some of these problems a number of the number of the detainees at guantanamo perhaps seventy are people that we are prepared to return to their home countries or other countries that would take them and put them through some sort of rehabilitation  process others will have to be sorted through in terms of whether they might be tried in article three courts whether they might be tried under the uniform code of military justice or whether they might be still tried under the military commissions or some kind of modification to the military commissions or something else but those are the issues that i think we have to take on i think one of the toughest issues that we all are going to have to face is what about whatever the relatively small number is who probably cannot be brought to trial and yet are quite open about saying that if they're released they will find ways to kill americans and we're going to have to come to grips with that but i think the other side of the coin is that the united states is in an ideological struggle with these extremists and and i think that that the announcement of the decision to close guantanamo  has been an important strategic communications for the united states and the response of the europeans their statements to the effect that some of them that they would perhaps be willing to take some of these date detainees their reaction elsewhere in the world i think creates opportunities for us so i know that having a deadline is a concern to some people but frankly as as i put it somebody the other day without it we just keep kicking that can of worms down the road and i think we need to come to grips with it and deal with it if i may to close mr chairman the secretary with respect to let's categorize them as the hardcore the clique shaikh mohammed's and others that it is likely that we will have an alternative road to prosecution that will not include bringing the most dangerous of the dangerous to our to our own shores and then in a place where we don't repeat the i think mistakes of after the first world trade center bombing trying people in american civil courts that divulge the kinds of intelligence information that clearly endured to the benefit of those who wish the worst for this country is not a fair statement i think that what happens to the hardcore who cannot be tried is one of the issues that that the executive order lays out needs to be addressed and resolved over the course of the next year well let me say i wish you the best in that and i don't make any apologies for the fact that many of us are concerned about what that alternative path may may may take and that i would been far more comfortable with this decision had we had those decisions in place before ordering the closure but i appreciate your perspective on it as always mr secretary thank you so much for your leadership and for your willingness to serve we deeply appreciate that and with with my gratitude i thank the gentleman let me recapitulate very very quickly there are five categories of detainees in guantanamo category number one those that we are willing to turn loose now and there's a problem in who will accept them or if they went back to their country of origin they might well meet with serious trouble torture or worse category two three and four would be those categories for which they may be tried in a court martial military court martial second in a federal court in the united states third before the commission such as the commission that is now in existence the fifth category is the one where you have the hardcore those that you know full well will go back and fight americans and our coalition partners and what do you do with them you can in you don't have evidence at hand to actually try them under the first of the previous three trial categories that's a serious problem that i suppose legally they can be held as prisoners of war as long as there is an ongoing war which of course in my opinion will be a generational thing more am i correct  planning and involving combatant commander requirements and operational planning maybe you can give the comedian all review for now and i think that  i think that's where the greatest of the reset equipment is in the army and in the and in the national guard and and so i would say the principal responsibility rests with the with the secretary of the army and what do you believe the problem of the fans rowley's or should be in public diplomacy and well i think that there gauri is geographically that i would that i would refer to one is where we are actively engaged in military activities and combat such as in iraq and afghanistan where strategic communications and information operations are an integral part of the military operations and in terms of identifying the al qaida threat insurgents are at what we're trying to accomplish with our with our partners and allies and so on there is the strategic communications aspect also in other places where al qaida has metastasized whether it's north africa and places like that but it seems to me that on a global basis and outside of the special operations and combat operations arenas the principal lead in strategic communications ought to lie with the department of state  and and they ought to be the ones who formulate the principal themes of u s strategic communications in dealing with the rest of the world and going back thought or not i've heard that a number of times i may have even used it once or twice i figure i don't know whether that's a true statement or not but i do know one thing if you took all of the foreign service officers in the world they would not be enough people to staff one carrier strike group thank you for your service mr secretary thank you mature as chairman i might just just for the record correct on your first category of detainees they would not be all that would be turned loose but rather people who would be transferred to other governments and where we would have certain expectations in terms of monitoring or rehabilitation programs and so on thank you for that clarification there is almost in texas thank you mr chairman mr terry i want to actually continue along the line in some areas you referred to in this new or at least dimension of warfare and i want to use as an example an incident that was written about in this current issue of military review not because it's the only incident but because it's been talked about publicly and i can ask you about it some of our special operations folks with some iraqi special operations folks conducted an operation against a jam death squad in iraq and our folks were good there was a shoot t we didn't lose anybody there were several of the jam folks who were killed but before our folks could get back to base their already appeared on the internet photographs and a story line about what happened and they had removed the weapons from the jam folks they had rearranged the bodies so it looked like they were prying when they were shot and the story line was americans broke into a mosque and killed these poorer rocky's while they were praying that all happened was out on the internet within forty five minutes to an hour picked up then by wire services and american and iraqi media of course before we had anything to say about it as a matter of fact understand our response didn't come till three days later and it had to be a pentagon press conference this was before your time but but but the importance of having a media op or press communications element to every operation we can and especially i'm interested in your views about the speed with which we deal with those issues if we've got to wait for something go up the chain of command and get approved by this that and the other folks we will never keep up with these folks who were guard this  element of warfare in some people's minds they say they think that's the primary element in the biz ical results or second i see a quote here from david kilcullen who says information side of al qaida is operation is primary the physical is merely a tool to achieve a propaganda result seems like we're going to be always behind if we don't have decision making at a lower level with the speed that's necessary to respond first of all in iraq i think we do have the have devolved the decision making in terms of being able to respond to some of these things to lower levels but the reality is you know we we often speak disparagingly about our adversaries but the reality is that when it comes to strategic communications they are very twenty first century and they are far more agile than we are they tend to be able to operate inside our decision curve and this is a big problem for us i will tell you that i think it's an even bigger problem for us in afghanistan and one of the problems there is when when there are let's take the usual case where the alabam have use civilians as shields or mingled among them and and civilians are killed in the course of a coalition operation that information is all out on the internet and very widely distributed and our approach in the past has been well it's actually been very american well let's go figure out what the facts are and then we'll decide what to do and the guidance that what i told president karzai the last time i saw him early last winter and early this winter and what and what my guidance to general mckiernan was we got to reverse the way we do this the instant we believe there may have been civilian casualties we have to be out there and instead of arguing how many there were or whether there they were whether there were any we need to say if there were innocent civilian casualties then we deeply regret this and we will make appropriate amends then go investigate it then find out the facts and if we need to do something for some additional people fine and if we've overpaid somebody or paid somebody we shouldn't that's the price of strategic communications in my view but we need to be out there faster than the taliban in characterizing these incidents and and so as i say i think the problem actually is worse in afghanistan certainly than now than it is in iraq now and it's something that i know general mckiernan and others are really working hard on to to increase our nation where steel mills are shutting down well no the price of steel has really tanked in the past few months we've gone from probably paying way too much to the very reasonable price of the nine hundred sixty three million that congress authorizing appropriated i told only ten million has been put under contract i would ask you to encourage your acquisition folks to take advantage of these low prices and i would also point out to you that if there is something in the code that is keeping our nation from taking advantage of low steel prices low aluminum prices low copper prices commodities that just a year ago was very reasonable now things we're going to need for the next generation of  do we both been around this town for a while the beginning of any effort is always very expensive whether it's mine resistant vehicles the tail end of that run we always get our best bargains i am frustrated that the army installations for a great many soldiers who are going into iraq and afghanistan the first time they see an m rap is either in kuwait or when just delivered to their base in afghanistan or iraq and i'm afraid that we are needlessly losing troopers to non combat accidents that could be avoided with the proper training given the fact that we have manufacturers that are tail end of that run that i think would be willing to make some decent prices on these vehicles i would again ask you  your acquisition folks let's find a way that we can take advantage of the situation get these vehicles to the training installations where they need it and do it in a way that not always the best with the troopers but at the best value for the taxpayer and if you have time capability with intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance platforms we need to get some of those to places like twenty nine palms and to fort polk and places like that so that the first time that i talian commander actually has trains with a real predator or a real reaper or something like that is not when he's in theater having just basically done a simulator before that so i think getting these kinds of capabilities which frankly i have been pushing to the theater as fast as possible now that we have reached a critical mass on the numbers particularly on m wraps i think getting i think getting them to the training facilities is important because you have put your finger on a real problem these are amazing vehicles but they are hard to drive and and we've we've suffered needless casualties among our troopers because of them about on the on the o p twenty six i realize i'm catching you cold with this is most of this been authorized appropriated realize this reluctance within the navy to say well you know you haven't funded the whole ship yet let me in my book nine hundred sixty million dollars is one heck of a down payment and a heck of a statement by congress saying that we're going to build this year and  it really frustrating given the fact the steel mills are shutting in our country that someone isn't taking advantage of these prices getting this moving i will look into it i'm not aware of the specifics i will say we i don't think that there's a  problem in the law as we i don't want to step off into a debate about the f twenty two but one of the things we have used the advanced procurement money for that the congress authorized was to buy the titanium for all full by part a lot of the f twenty two because if we the new administration decides not to buy the f twenty two there are a lot of other airframes we can use that titanium for leslie what do you anticipate your ship building requests will be because again i think you've done a great job but i've sat here for many years and here in mr previous administration they would say they wanted to three hundred  thirteen ship navy but only asked for seven ships a year real life as you have thirty years that only gets you to a two hundred ten ship fleet and so i would hope that this administration is going to take the steps to actually get to a three hundred thirteen ship navy mr chairman as well i just had a quick question is along the lines of some of the specifics that that we get involved in one of them on sea power we've got a bunch of aircraft carriers but if they don't have any planes to go on top of them they're not quite as effective and i guess we're running out of f a teens we've got the joint strike fighter coming along but it still isn't there does it make sense to pick up some f a teens in a multi year or two so that we've got so we're not up with three aircraft carriers with no planes on the decks and have you what about that question or that problem i'll have to check out and get back to you for the record but my impression is that the navy is interested in looking into doing that thank you very much  future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as those that were involved in today  how do you envision institutionalizing a counterinsurgency focus within the department and it's a subset of that question can you elaborate on the closeness with which ensure that you have the all the necessary parts support from us to make that happen first of all stratus i would say that i think there are two approaches stance to institutionalizing what we have learned in iraq and afghanistan so we don't forget again as we did after vietnam the first of these is is putting the kind of leadership in place that gets it and is prepared to fight for it and and i'm enough of an old kremlinology that i believe in putting the right people in the right places so i think general casey is providing good leadership up in this odierno in and baghdad an army officer can outlast one or two people he doesn't disagree with that's a lot harder to outlast five or six and so i think first of all institutionalize ation comes with having leadership that believes in the importance of what we're doing second with respect to institutionalization is figuring out the way to build institutional capability within the department of defense and which to fight and wage current wars right now the as i indicated in my opening statement one of the lessons learned is the department of defense is very good at at preparing plans for wars it's very good at preparing and perhaps waging short wars but it has very little capability to wage long wars and so all of the really significant achievements that we have had in terms of trying to protect our soldiers whether it's m wraps or additional i f r capability or even the counter i e d organization all had to be done outside the regular bureaucracy of the department of defense through special past forces or organizations created by the secretary so we have to figure out a way how can we inside the department inside the bureaucracy have parallel capabilities of people and institutions that are committed to waging the wars we're in as well as planning for wars we might be in in the future with respect to fusion of intelligence and and the military i'll just share with you the first time i was in baghdad with the iraq study group  september of two thousand and six i spent about an hour or so with our chief of station and i said so how's the cooperation with the military and he rather candidly said oh sir you can't believe how much better it is than when you were director the truth of the matter is there has been a revolution in the cooperation between the military and intelligence in iraq and now in afghanistan and in a fit and a fusion for operational activities between intelligence and the military that i think is unique in the history of warfare and frankly this is another thing that i think needs to be institutionalized so we don't forget about it finally in terms of what we need that that you all might provide i think that to this point the congress has been very generous when we have come up here with a need whether it's am rap psoriasis our or money for caring for our wounded warriors you all have provided what we have asked and often more as we prepare the final part of the own nine supplemental and the ten budget i'm sure there will be capabilities and needs that we identify that we will be coming back to you for gentleman from virginia many words thank you mr chairman and the secretary thank you for being here i want to echo what the chairman said in appreciating your article in foreign affairs especially when you talked about setting priorities and in many members of this committee that spoken with have a difficulty a difficult time sometime understanding how the pentagon sets its priorities and especially with the navy how it sets those proteins what calculus is used and what those priorities are specifically i'm concerned that many officials have said that the three hundred thirteen ship navy is really an aspiration and sort of some changes in the way business is done it can't realistically we can't get there admiral mccall as you know recently has said that the service cannot afford to buy the ships an aircraft it needs we know three major priorities a backlog of shipyard maintenance hundred percent need that we have we no shortage of naval aviation aircraft hundred percent need and we know serious trouble the navy ship building budget one hundred percent need the question i have for you is as to the decision to move a carrier from norfolk to maplewood admiral robert thomas the director of navy strategy and policy decision who wrote the strategic dispersal analysis that was used as the primary basis of making that recommendation has specifically stated that no one not you not secretary maybe no one asked him to quantify the probability of risk that something would happen that would justify having to move that carrier down there and my question is don't you feel that it's a critical aspect of making those kind of decisions when we're setting our priorities today to at least ask the question about the probability of risk that we're trying to avoid and if we're not asking those kind of questions how do we have much confidence that we're making the proper allocations when we have such limited resources i think that asking for an evaluation of the risk is certainly legitimate i do know we have two home ports for aircraft carriers on the west coast i do worry about everything being concentrated in one on the east coast which does receive a lot of hurricanes we had an aircraft carrier and mayport until the john f kennedy was decommissioned but i am absolutely confident that this issue first of all it's six or seven years in the offing and i am absolutely confident that this issue in the kinds of questions you're asking  are certain to be reviewed by a new navy secretary and i will review them as well thank you for that but i just i want to point out that i think it's imperative we ask those kind of questions before we make the decisions and secondly when you ask admiral thomas who wrote the plan again you should be the person to ask if you ask and he would tell you that the risk was so small that it was less than the ten percent risk and they're the kind of questions i think we just need to ask before we're spending upwards of a billion dollars when we have so many other priorities that we have to have so i just ask you to perhaps ask that question and get in the calculus and with that i'd like to yield to the gentleman from new york well to the secretary would you like to respond to the gentleman from virginia before i make a couple a comment please go ahead i want to revisit just very briefly the very lucid description i mean that sincerely that our distinguished chairman made with respect to the category categories of our of our potential detainees our detainees in fact what concerns me is the un certainly that has been created here boumediene decision extended the right of habeas to all of these prisoners the added on certainly it seems to me in the absence of being able to find nations that will accept these fifty sixty however many  eligible detainees for release suggests that the possibility of their release by the courts into the united states is dramatically increased the other thing i would i would suggest to you mr mr chairman and respectfully ms secretary the fact of the matter is our legal authority is i understand them are clearly defined with respect to holding people taking taken on the battlefield in iraq and afghanistan i mentioned the possibility of picking up some of bin laden in pakistan and for a very purposeful reason and that is i would suggest our legal authorities  pakistan are far less certain and i think again that uncertainty suggests that we need to have a policy in place in a plan without a policy doesn't meet that objective uncertainty as we have right now is not tantamount to increase security so you may wish to comment on that but i think the underscoring of the message is we have to begin to establish these policies agree with or not that the bush administration had in place so that we can be assured that bad people won't be released in the united states an equally important when we take high value targets dangerous people off the what we would consider battlefield be in iraq afghanistan be it in djibouti be it in africa pakistan to keep america safe and i would hope you'd agree with that and the only comment that i would make is that i can't imagine a situation in which the detainees at guantanamo who were considered a danger to the people of the united states would simply be released here i would say i respect that mr secretary and i also know that according to d o d statistics we have in excess of ten percent who are deemed safe and have returned to the battlefield so there is no certainty thank you thank you m marry and make it clear in my this description is none of them would be returned or allowed to be released here in american least that's according to the information i ha not been there before which calls for substantial navies not just for american but for friends and allies is the specter of the piracy in different parts world particularly along the horn of africa snyder thank you mr chairman thank you mr secretary for being here i appreciate your service i recall last year we had a very good discussion here with you and secretary rice and if if chairman skelton advice you and secretary clinton and continue that discussion about interagency issues i hope you will take advantage of that because i think those are very important long term issues i have several questions i want to ask and i'm going to err on the side of brevity if you will err on the side of brevity in your answers first of all the issue we whether we're talking about a sixteen month withdrawal or iraqi forces meeting it moving into certain areas any place that u s forces in iraq the issue of who protects our p r t is a president do you think that issue has been adequately solved or is that an ongoing discussion about also consolidate our p r t s and the civilian side of the of the presence in iraq so that the two would be stationed together and our forces would be in a position to continue to protect the civilian element including the p r t as we had the as you come up last year president bush attached a signing statement to defense bill mr skelton received assurances from secretary england at that time that that part of the defense would comply with everything that was in the defense bill it was their intent to do so is it fair to say that your intent is to follow the fence bill as it was written and that we don't have to worry about sections of it being ignored certainly not from my standpoint thank you what has that the issue has come up in your in this unique position secretary gates as you have often been in your life the issue has come up about the the t to let us know i'm going to do this is a question for the record if you think that it's been a problem in that part of the events where political appointees who really should be replaced by other political appointees have managed to interject themselves into the permanent workforce would you respond t for the record please share the issue in afghanistan one very specific issue as we talk about what's going on now and additional u s forces coming in is what do we do with the poppy crop and i know that one of the suggestions being discussed is spraying poppies and i'm one of those who has great concerns if it's u s personnel and u s equipment that were to be involved in the spring of the poppy crop i think that has a lot of ramifications for our relationship with the afghan people bad things can happen what are your thoughts right now about the possibility of u s troops being the people that were actually trying to destroy a crop of poppies i think certainly as any kind of coherent strategy or being down on an organized base u s troops are not involved in and destroying the crops what they have been authorized to do and where both the nato defense ministers last december and i in a change of rules of engagement a few weeks ago what we have done is at the request of the afghan government where we have evidence that a specific drug lord or a lab is being used by the taliban or supports the taliban directly we have the authority to go after the drug lord and the lab but not the crops i would tell you my personal opinion crop eradication without having crop substitution in advance recruits taliban you can't go in and destroy a man's crop and giving nothing to replace it with or no cash with which to live until the next crop season and not expect him and his sons to work for the taliban our allies are opposed to spraying president karzai as opposed to spring my view is the likelihood of any significant spring program is pretty remote at this point i would think that a loyal could figure out a way of something to do with a set commodity prices for wheat or something to solve that problem and i appreciate i appreciate your comment the last thing i want to ask about it more as a comment is the issue that you talked about at length in your report about acquisition reform and it seems like we have the same problem the congressional side if it gets punted down the road we all talk about it maybe one of the issues that we need to think about is maybe we all need to be doing it together more from the beginning you all try to do things we all talk about it but maybe it's going to we're going to have to have more of a commitment the kind of try to work along together at least informally because it seems like we've of debating a eight hundred billion dollars plus stimulus bill can you give any rationale as to why the department of defense did not take it bandage  more more advantage of the opportunity in that package for military construction dollars it looks woefully small in comparison to some of the things you probably could have asked was there a reason why d o d did not do that and then the guidelines we were given were that the projects needed to be those where the work could actually began the money be spent within six months or so as we looked at it we gave we we did come up with a pretty robust list that included additional work on military hospitals  situations where a lot of the preliminary work it already been done or construction was underway and could be accelerated barracks clinics and childcare centers so we actually did provide a multi billion dollar lift to the white house i would tell you and i've had many conversations with chairman edwards of that of the milk on committee i am very interested  over time and making a substantial new investment in our military hospitals here in the united states and particular early on large consolidated military posts i think that as we've focused on wounded warriors and so on we also need to focus on the soldiers sailors marines and airmen who are stationed stateside in these large bases and sometimes the difficulty they have in getting access to  high quality health care and i think that this is an area where we can make a contribution in a number of different ways but but most of those are long term kinds of projects and and the environmental impact statements and other things that are required make them long lead time issues i'm specifically talking about some of the bracket issues you know we have a two thousand and eleven deadline for implementation and it looks like some of the brac moves may be forced into a position where they may have to be phased in after ask for some extension of time to just like looks like we may have missed a window to have completed a lot of these construction projects prior to that two thousand and eleven and one other question you talked about punting and now being the receiver you talked a little bit about the tanker program earlier and you said you know basically once the procurement folks are confirmed and back in place what kind of timeframe you know do you think we're talking about once they're in place getting this project up and running again i would hope that we could get this process going by early spring and do you have any idea how long the are the process is going to take think that what we have had in mind as a planning number is probably sometime i hope soon after the first of next year the are several programs like the f twenty two the digi one one thousand future combat systems and missile defense that all of been talked about on the chopping block you're going to be asked to help prioritize some of these projects and programs can you let us in on what your thought process there is going to be in regards to you talked about the spigot being turned off but how are you going to determine what programs are scaled back or lemonade i haven't gotten into the specific programs yet but in meeting with the senior defense leadership the philosophical approach that i have outlined to them is that i believe as i said in the foreign affairs article that the most likely kind of conflict we will face in the years to come will be a a spectrum of conflict from complex hydra hybrid kinds of conflict down to  a guy with an a k forty seven or basic counterinsurgency some of our adversaries are now in a position to be able to buy from near peers the kinds of high end technology that we might not have expected to encounter unless we were and a conflict with one of those near peers for example some of the air defense systems so they and the broad philosophical approach that i have outlined is i want us to look for systems that have the maximum possible flexibility across the broadest possible range of conflict in other words i want stuff that is usable in a number of different kinds of environments  including potentially high end as well as low end and i also want to be willing to go for low end technology for example some of the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platforms we're putting into afghanistan but that broad philosophical approach is the that's the underpinning to whatever analysis i will carry out you're calling mr smith at some point for the record would you give us some examples of the type of systems of which you speak on the end that could be used continuity that we haven't really appreciate your service and that decision just two things i want to touch on you had mentioned in answer to a question the fusion between the intelligence community and the d o d in iraq and also in afghanistan and i completely agree the system that has been set up there is working amazingly well and i think is an excellent model for inner agency cooperation i give particular credit to journal mcchrystal for having a lot to do with pulling that together but i know others who are involved would simply suggest that that that would be a great model for some other areas where we needed our agency cooperation specifically as i understand it strategic communications was raised earlier there are so many different players involved in that in our government finding a way to get them to work together more carefully could improve that and i'm also very interested in the economic development piece of counterinsurgency again many different agencies involved on the state department and in the developing world are concerned the degree to which the department of defense is getting involved in that i think it's fine but we have to try to pull all those pieces together and i would just say that that's that's an excellent model to work off of the one question i have is on afghanistan and specifically nato has role and how we can work towards more cooperation and coordination and i think you would agree that there's been a lot of disparate opinions and missions in terms of our european allies and that we could get more out of the resources that are being implemented and we could do more to get everybody on the same page and i just want to hear a little from you about how we're going to get our allies and us closer to working better together on the afghanistan challenge i think that the our allies can help us in three ways  first as obviously additional military forces preferably without caviare national caviar there's some indication from public statements and other things that we've heard that some of our allies in fact are prepared to be responsive to a request from our new president for additional help frankly i don't think the numbers will be huge but but i think they are prepared to do some more the second area in which they can really help us is in civilian trainers both for the police and the army but also on the whole seville civil sector of society around of law and so on governance and so on and then the third area is the financial contribution in helping to cover the cost of the rap and and accelerating expansion of the afghan national army and police do you sense a willingness to do that do you think that there is opening here with a new administration on our side to try to get some of that cooperation because i know you've been very pointed and asking for that help and i appreciate that but hasn't yet come do you think there's a reason that we can have more success now i think that i think that having that with the advent of a new president i think there are some new and also on the follow up on mr snyder's question on the poppy eradication and support during the couple of trips that i've made over there however there are there are some within our government that a given a slightly different answer that seem to be more supportive now i've also said spoken with general jones about this he gave the exact same answer that you gave i just to make sure you're confident that everybody including the ambassador of this on the same page about how we proceed with that very important issue while the drug enforcement agency and those it is working with do have a different mission and their mission is to bring about a significant reduction in the in the narcotics growth now i'm not sure  frankly where it stands now on the eradication issue the reality that we face is that ninety eight percent of the poppies in afghanistan now are grown in seven provinces and they happen to be the ones where the security is the worst so  had the nature of the problem has has changed i think and one of the things that's been interesting is in that some of the provinces where there was poppy growth even though it wasn't a huge problem good governance has led to the of the poppy crop in those provinces and that's why there's been this concentration principally in r c south and that is obviously i think a much better approach to moving them off of the dependency on poppy is to give them an alternative as you said thank you mr chairman  guard son served in the military three in the national guard to serve in iraq i have a great interest in the national guard and i'm very proud of what the national guard is doing and has done i've never been prouder of my former unit the two eighteenth's for gade sort of four year and completed last year training afghan police and army units so i know the extraordinary capabilities of our national guard and their dedication and their appreciation of serving but  as we look ahead with the new administration can you give us a view as to whether the guard and national guard and the reserves will be used as an operational force is they have for the past six years  will they revert back to the historical role role as a strategic reserve sir i think that that they will continue to serve as an operational reserve we need  them they have particular skill sets that we're very short of in the regular force however i think that our obligation to them is to continue with our programs that will get us back to the one year deployed five years dwell time at home i think that my sense from talking to guardsmen is that they have welcomed  for the most part the opportunity to serve and and feel good about the contribution that they have made so i foresee keeping them as an operational reserve one other aspect of keeping them as an operational reserve is that for the first time as we backfill and and reequip the guard we are equipping them with the same materiel the same equipment that we're giving the active force so that instead of receiving sort of second hand clothes second hand equipment if you will they are going to receive the same level of technology the same kind of equipment that the active force has and i think that it had that in its own right will probably contribute to morale on the part of the national guard because they will be seen they will see themselves as an egg integral element of the entire national security team and on my visits nine times to iraq sometimes to afghanistan i agree with you and then visiting with guard members upon return they are very very grateful and proud of their service and indeed with the increased of operational tempo and the blurring of the lines of distinction between guard reserve active do use believe that there should be a relook at the compensation package which is different between the guard reserve and then active duty forces i certainly am willing to take a look at that this is the first time that somebody has raised the insolation issue with me so perhaps we can get some particulars from you and in terms of their concerns so we can look at it and part of the compensation  persons who've been deployed for a period of time and so i look forward to working with you on that additionally this circumstance and afghanistan you recently changed the rules of engagement relative to  terrorist drug lords what has prompted that change and then what has been the response by our nato allies actually the change in the rules of engagement started with our nato allies and and a a request by general mckiernan for the authority to be able to and general craddock for the authority for nato forces to be able to go after some of these drug lords and and these labs that are providing the funding for the taliban the nato defense ministers in december agreed unanimously to a request from the afghan government for help along these lines when when we could show that there was a link between the drug lord and or the lab and the taliban so what i when i when i came time as as those nato are always were being put in place some of our own people thought that our our s rules of engagement were not as forthcoming as what nato had approved and so there was a need to go back and clean that up so that the u s only forces had the same authorities as the as the nato forces thank you saying the gentleman from new jersey mr andrews thank you mr chairman thank you mr secretary for your patience today in for your exemplary service to our country in today's statement you say that i'm quoting there is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is afghanistan and in your foreign affairs article i think you're probably referring to afghanistan although it's a broader reference when you write where possible what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance economic programs that spur development and efforts to address the grievances among the disconnected from whom terrorists recruit it will take the patient accumulation of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies i think that's incredibly well said what tools do you think this committee could provide you with in the bill that we do each year that would help you win those quiet victories that accumulate over time within our jurisdiction governing the conduct of the department that you lead what tools do you presently lack and how would we provide them to you there are there are perhaps sir some specific areas where we could use additional help but but to tell you the truth the real deficiency that that the whole of government approach that i described in that article  requires are principally in other departments and principally in the department of state usa but also creating an expeditionary capability in the department of agriculture and commerce and trade and these are the places that have the expertise that that bring those quiet victories that that i was talking about we we also don't have a way i've talked about the difficulty of coordinating all the different civilian organizations and various organizations that are active in afghanistan one huge opportunity that i think we haven't figured out how used to the maximum extent possible something that i feel strongly about is the number of universities we have that are at work  afghanistan and agriculture and various other places a lot of our land grant universities have people there but how do we how do we harness that with the u s government efforts and usa id and so on so i think it's more on the civilian side of the u s government where we lack the capacity to bring all of the tools of national power to bear this committee and and and your counterparts in the senate have ever really given the department of the s of what we need if you weren't burdened by the burdens of jurisdiction and with no disrespect intended to those who run these other departments and agencies what changes in the p r t structure would you make to make them more effective in the field in afghanistan in particular well principal it would be the addition of civilian expertise particularly in afghanistan of some considerable percentage of  ts are actually staffed by people from the department of defense often many of them from the national guard i recall a visit to host province in afghanistan about a year ago where i believe we had two people that we met that were not d employees or military personnel they're doing a very good job but it was almost by accident because there was some agricultural skill sets that that the soldiers had that i think purely more by accident than anything else but i will tell you that our p r t leaders the brigade commanders who work with the p r t is will tell you that even a handful of civilians pay huge dividends for their expertise which the kinds of things they do every day they are a huge value added but we would certainly to the extent that we can encourage you and secretary clinton and secretary vilsack and others to work together and do that because i think that your remarks are so  insightful and so welcome and we thank you for delivering them may be of interest though the sagarin those the national guard troops particularly from missouri are helping a great deal in the area of agriculture and spent thanksgiving with them and there's a staff sergeant part of the national guard and that is a full professor at the university missouri school of agriculture as one of the just so missouri wins this franks please thank you mr chairman and thank you secretary gates for being here i think you have a very challenging job transitioning from one administration and one commander in chief to another because of the divergent views between different administrations and presidents and i i want you know i mar that i think you were a tremendous leader in the previous previous administration and i thought you were very effective in advocating for the european missile defense site so i guess i have to ask you what advice would you give the new president on the european side and what in your opinion are these the implications for strategic partnerships in poland and the czech republic of the importance of missile defense for for europe and in particular a layered defense so i think we need to start with the reality of what our what our nato allies have supported and what they have indicated they would do as i indicated in my testimony this morning before the senate i think that that up in parallel with that there are perhaps now some new opportunities in terms of trying to persuade the russians to participate with us and this program that would clearly please the europeans please please our nato allies and frankly i think the russians in my conversations with president putin and in other conversations that have we've had with their military i think they're actually if you put the politics aside there's actually some interest in this so my hope would be that we could we need to remember where where the alliance is but i think there are also some opportunities in terms of reassuring the russians with respect to the sites in europe but at the same time perhaps getting them to partner with us they've indicated interest in things like the joint data a joint data center in moscow joint use of radars  i think part of their problem is that they have a different perspective on how soon the iran and iranians can have a missile of enough range to reach russia and most of western europe and frankly i think their intelligence is just bad because i think our view is that they could have a missile with that kind of range in two or three years the russians talk in terms of ten or fifteen years and i just think that's wrong when i think this is a critically important distinction because  know the big thing about european site is it potentially has the ability to devalue an iranian nuclear program if it is brought online soon enough and i think that's a critical consideration for the world and your testimony used to stage one of the greatest dangers that we face in the toxic mix of rogue nations is terrorist groups and nuclear chemical cooler biologic weapons in a north korea and iran represent uniquely vexing challenges in this regard and of course i couldn't agree with you more for nearly two decades western strategy on the iran nuclear issue is as emphasized the denial of supply and you mentioned other potential nonmilitary ways that you suggest a new administration should attempt to blunt aranesp power so my question is this is what we what we have not done in the last decade what do we plan to do in the next two or three years to turn this around in other words what have we not done that we should have done and what do we plan to do in the next two or three years to turn around and if we find three years from now that iran has just gain more time and more fully to fully develop their capability perhaps even to the point where they have become a nuclear power which i think is a profound threat to the human family what will we do the well first of all i think that there are still opportunities available to us and what what we really require is for the iranian government to determine of its own accord that pursuing nuclear weapons are not in their own national security interest one way to do that is to make it and make it an extremely costly program for them i think that the sanctions that we have put in place both internationally and and and unilaterally and in bilateral partnership with some of our partner nations have had a real impact in iran and i will tell you that that that impact has been magnified dramatically by the drop in the price of oil from one hundred forty dollars barrel to forty dollars a barrel it has just magnified the impact of those sanctions and they have serious internal economic problems but i think we also need to talk to the talk about what are the consequences for iran security if they spark a nuclear arms race in the middle east what if other countries surrounding them decide that they also must have nuclear weapons i think under congress would support what steps u s and china take to demonstrate the desire for for continued military military exchanges and that mil to mil relationship which seems to be cut short a little bit by the chinese response i think that we have some real opportunities when i we just opened a direct hotline between myself and my chinese counterpart about six months ago that we agreed to when i was in china  a little over a year ago i think that we have we have had a number of military officers visit china we've started a strategic dialogue for the first time talking about strategic intentions and kind of where we're headed this was something that i had proposed when i visited there as well reflecting back on the value and an importance of the dialogue we had with the soviet union during the salt talks have we had a better understanding of how each other thinks about these strategic issues then maybe we can avoid mistakes and miscalculations so those things are going forward i think here is another place where a new new administration here a fresh start perhaps creates opportunities to reopen the aperture if you will on military to military contacts there's no they've made their point about the arms sales to taiwan they warned me about it when we went there they knew that it was going to happen and it's just it's just a matter of getting past that and on to the longer term interests of both states and i think even well i think both both opinions are reflected in their white in the peelers white paper criticism of it but also a discussion about the military to military relationship  with the us on that on that point one issue you discuss was a cyber security inside the cyber infrastructure and not to not to point fingers but it seems to me that the damage the damage to relations between two countries u s and china would be greater than the damage than the greater than the damage caused by cyber attacks against u s cyber infrastructure that seems to be my view if that's your view as well and if you could talk about the deity's attitude to these intrusions and and then for the record back to us about concrete efforts we're doing to doing to address that i would say though in the context of the range of weapon systems and capabilities that we've been talking about here today in my view of the men and sort of questions about high tech my view is one of the highest priorities that we need to focus on going forward and that we'll be working with the committee on is the need to strengthen our cyber capabilities and particularly our defensive capabilities increasingly we're seeing pilate forces involved in military operations other than war such as the peacekeeping operations operations i think that's conceivable i think that the engagement of china and u n peacekeeping operations in the kind of multinational anti piracy activities off the coast of africa this about an r p a perhaps early spring and and then maybe decision by by early next year late last year responded to a letter from members of congress about your views regarding the buyer dual by concept of the casey ex saying that i don't administration as well no no split by on the case this is not an issue that that i have had the opportunity discuss with with the new administration i will tell you that i think that the idea of a split by is an absolutely terrible idea and a very recognized for two minutes and you're gone go ahead thank you mr chairman secretary gates thank you for being with us today and congratulations on your reappointment we are glad to have you on board wanted to refer back to your foreign affairs article where you stated that we mustn't be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as those united states are in today and i was wondering how do you envision institutionalizing a counterinsurgency focus within the department of defense and what do you think you need from congress to ensure the united states has all the necessary military and soft power in order to achieve these objectives well i think i think to err two ways first of all by appointing the right people to positions where they can institute allies the thinking about counterinsurgency and low end or irregular warfare if you will but second i think that we need to there is there is strong institutional and bureaucratic support in the services and elsewhere for the long term conventional and strategic capabilities we need to figure out how to build within the structure of the services and the department of defense and general the structural capacity to be able to to wage war on a current basis where we settle for seventy five percent solutions in a matter of a matter of months or weeks rather than a long lead time so i think it's both personnel and it's structure