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1

37–315 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–27]

HEARING

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED

PROGRAMS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING

ON

BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND AND U.S. FORCES

KOREA

HEARING HELD

MARCH 7, 2007

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

DUNCAN HUNTER, California

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director

JULIE UNMACHT, Professional Staff Member

AILEEN ALEXANDER, Professional Staff Member

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Wednesday, March 7, 2007, Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense Authorization

Act—Budget Request from the U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces

Korea ..................................................................................................................... 1

APPENDIX:

Wednesday, March 7, 2007 ..................................................................................... 47

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2007

FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND AND U.S. FORCES

KOREA

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Hunter, Hon. Duncan, a Representative from California, Ranking Member,

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2

Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman, Committee

on Armed Services ................................................................................................ 1

WITNESSES

Bell, Gen. Burwell B., III, Commander, United Nations Command, Commander, Republic of Korea-United States Combined Forces Command, and

Commander, United States Forces Korea, U.S. Air Force ................................ 5

Fallon, Adm. William J., Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Navy ........ 3

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Bell, Gen. Burwell B., III ................................................................................. 88

Fallon, Adm. William J. ................................................................................... 51

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

[There were no Documents submitted.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. McIntyre ..................................................................................................... 133

Ms. Tauscher ..................................................................................................... 133

(1)

FISCAL YEAR 2008 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT—BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE U.S. PACIFIC

COMMAND AND U.S. FORCES KOREA

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, March 7, 2007.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 8:36 a.m., in room 2118,

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman of the

committee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. The Armed Services Committee will come to

order.

And we appreciate our witnesses being here so early. As I mentioned to each of them before, there is a joint session of Congress

at 11 o’clock with King Abdullah. And thank our members for

being with us so early.

Let me take this opportunity to welcome Admiral Fallon and

General Bell. It is certainly good to see each of you. And we first

thank you for your leadership and the role model that you are for

the troops, for the sailors and for all who are in your commands.

Also, Admiral Fallon, congratulations on your confirmation for

the new position as commander of the Central Command. And it

is one of 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. We do wish you success.

However, Admiral, before you leave the Pacific Command, we are

eager to hear from you and your cohort General Bell about your

commands and the handling of the broad range of security challenges in the Asia-Pacific area.

It is a very critical region, and yet we have been 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 we should be engaged on multiple fronts and ensuring that

our 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.

Our role in the Middle East is vital, but we must have a broader

focus. There must be a sophisticated and coordinated long-term

strategy for the Asia-Pacific region.

Just last week, China announced its biggest increase in defense

spending in five years. And in truth and fact, it is probably more

2

than what was made public. We would appreciate any thoughts you

might have on that.

China also recently conducted a successful antisatellite test

which left debris in orbit that could endanger satellites and spacecraft for years ahead.

At the same time, the potential for miscommunication and miscalculation in the Taiwan Strait continues to be high. Experts warn

that potential for conflict in the South China Sea is also great.

On the Korean Peninsula, the six-party talks have made some

progress. That is 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. watched a successful military coup last

year. We have worked to help the Philippines and Indonesia struggle against terrorism as well as throughout much of Southeast

Asia.

Moreover, our Administration has made very little progress on

the steps required by Congress to monitor the United States-India

nuclear deal to ensure the limits on India’s ability to make nuclear

weapons.

Now, we have been preoccupied in the Middle East, as you know,

and China and 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 the Pacific region. We must ensure that our level of strategic risk remains acceptable. Our own

actions may well influence the choices of actions of others.

Admiral Fallon, you made important progress on the United

States-China military exchanges.

There have been encouraging developments with the six-party

talks, General Bell, which is a very positive move.

So I hope that each of you will update us on the good work that

you and your troops and your sailors, your airmen and Marines are

doing throughout the entire region and share your thoughts with

us on what needs to be done more.

And before we ask you, gentlemen, to begin your testimony, I

will turn to my friend from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton, who is filling

in for Duncan Hunter this morning, the ranking member.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Honorable Duncan Hunter.

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry. I didn’t see—you are so small, I

didn’t——

Mr. HUNTER. I will fill in for Mr. Saxton.

The CHAIRMAN. You look a lot like him anyway. Thank you, Duncan.

Mr. SAXTON. As Jim Saxton, I will say Duncan Hunter is a really

great guy.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us this morning. I

want to associate myself with the chairman’s words about areas of

3

importance in this hearing. Let me just go over a couple that I

think need special comment.

One, the Philippines, especially the special forces activities that

we have, where we are undertaking advising and training of Philippine military forces. I think that has been an area that has lost

focus in this war against terrorism as a result of the heavy focus

on the war-fighting theaters.

Second, the situation in North Korea with respect—and your

comments about this deal, so-called action for action. Where do you

see the north going? And you might comment about the capability

especially of the South Korean military right now and its ability to

handle any operations by the north.

Last, China. This committee spent an enormous time working on

the China issue, analyzing China. Part of our own committee defense review that we turned out that had a force structure that was

greater than that recommended by the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), some of which the Administration is now following,

was, to some degree, a function of this analysis of China.

And especially 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 there are between 750 and 1,000 shortrange ballistic missiles right now.

And last, this shot that was made on January 11th 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 especially hit those three points in your testimony, we would certainly appreciate it.

Again, I want to join the chairman in thanking you for your appearance and for your service to our country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hunter.

Admiral Fallon.

STATEMENT OF ADM. WILLIAM J. FALLON, COMMANDER, U.S.

PACIFIC COMMAND, U.S. NAVY

Admiral FALLON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Hunter, Congressman Saxton, distinguished members of the committee, General

Bell, it is a great honor for me to be here in what I suspect will

be my final testimony as commander of Pacific Command

(PACOM), though I expect you will probably get another shot at me

here in a few weeks with a different hat, different responsibility.

But I would like to talk about Asia-Pacific today because I believe it is a region of absolutely vital importance to our 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 of the last year in promoting

our Nation and our interests in this vital region.

So it is a great opportunity for me to be back here to testify

about the force posture and readiness and on any questions you

might have regarding the 2008 budget.

4

I will tell you that my observation is that I continue to be optimistic about this region overall, although there are certainly some

concerns and we will get into some of those, I suspect.

Overall, this is a region that is growing in vitality. It is very dynamic. Populations are growing. Economies are booming. And the

amount of interaction between the nations there and between our

own country are increasing at a phenomenal rate.

It is 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 of this region.

Of course, there are some exceptions. We have had a couple of

events regarding the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

(DPRK), North Korea, this year—the volley of missiles that were

fired back in July and then the nuclear detonation of some sort

that occurred in October.

However, even that has tended to move back in the other direction with the apparent success that Ambassador Chris Hill has had

with the six-party talks here in recent weeks and the ongoing discussions in New York this week.

So I am optimistic, and even more so after two years in this job

than when I started. There are some 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.

The congressman mentioned a couple of setbacks for a democratic process this year in Thailand and Fiji, where military coups

have taken over the governments there.

It is noteworthy that there is no loss of life or bloodshed to date

in these events, but they are still discouraging because these are

countries that have worked with us very closely and have supported us in engagements in the region and around the world. So

it is disconcerting, to say the least, to see us trending in the other

direction.

Our forces in uniform have served with distinction, not only in

Afghanistan and Iraq but, as Congressman Hunter mentioned, in

the Philippines, where we have an ongoing assistance to the armed

forces of the Philippines in combating terrorists in the southern

areas of that country.

I have got to tell you 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 terrorists.

The Philippine armed forces, in an unprecedented operational

move, have actually stayed in the field since last August down in

Jolo, pursuing these folks. And there is really noticeable progress.

And I sense that as this progress in the field continues, there is

renewed enthusiasm throughout that country.

President Arroyo just signed within the last couple of days an

antiterrorist measure that has been discussed and debated for

many, many months, and so we see substantial progress there. And

this has been spearheaded by the efforts of several hundred of our

men and women who have been working very hard to make sure

this happens.

5

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 and air forces engaged

throughout the area with our partners and allies, continuing exercises and other activities to help build their capacity and to improve the relationships we have with 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

DPRK. Despite the six-party talks, their track record has been

spotty, to say the least.

And as already mentioned, the increasing defense budgets in

China and their growing military capability are something that we

have to keep an eye on. We have to work with them. As you know,

I am a strong advocate of continued engagement with the People’s

Republic of China (PRC), and I will be happy to take your questions on that one.

I want to thank you very much for your support, from our men

and women in uniform, and the opportunity to be here today. I look

forward to answering your questions. I have asked that my written

testimony be submitted for the official record. And I want to thank

you very much for this appearance.

Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Fallon can be found in the

Appendix on page 51.]

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Fallon, thank you very much.

And the written testimony of each of the witnesses will be placed

in the record without objection.

General Bell.

STATEMENT OF GEN. BURWELL B. BELL, III, COMMANDER,

UNITED NATIONS COMMAND, COMMANDER, REPUBLIC OF

KOREA-UNITED STATES COMBINED FORCES COMMAND, AND

COMMANDER, UNITED STATES FORCES KOREA, U.S. AIR

FORCE

General BELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Congressman Hunter, sir, it is good to see you again.

And all the distinguished members of the committee, it is my

personal pleasure to be back here in front of you again this year,

and I appreciate the opportunity.

For the record, I, too, would like to submit my 2007 posture

statement.

I have now commanded U.S. and combined forces in Korea for

more than a year and can report to you that the Republic of KoreaU.S. alliance is enduring and continues to function as a pillar of

national security and regional security in that area of the world.

Today we are working with our Korean partner to evolve the alliance to meet both nations’ 21st century security requirements

while strengthening our position in this vital U.S. national interest

area.

You know, for nearly 54 years our alliance has successfully deterred North Korean aggression, and we are all pleased with the

progress made in the latest round of the six-party talks, and we are

very hopeful for the future, as Admiral Fallon said.

6

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 objectives.

And obviously, as we have already said today, his highly 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 30 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

have been consulting with the Republic of Korea regarding alliance

transformation and the restationing of U.S. forces on the peninsula.

Recently, just several weeks ago, the United States and Republic

of Korea agreed to transition the operational command and control

of Korean military forces from the Combined Forces Command

headquarters back to the Korean military and to do that in the

year 2012.

This is a very important event, something that we have been

seeking to achieve throughout the history of this alliance, and

something now that we have a date to finally execute here in the

year 2012, so I am very proud of that.

It will result in the establishment of new U.S. independent and

supporting joint command. Obviously, the United States will retain

clear national command over all U.S. forces and personnel involved

in future military operations in the Republic of Korea.

Our force restationing, which I would like to address just quickly—the two enduring hubs south of Seoul will allow us to focus on

improving living and working conditions while also providing our

forces with greater tactical and operational flexibility.

The Republic of Korea has agreed to fund a majority of our restationing costs, including a significant majority of our new facility

construction.

To synchronize the contributions of both the ROK and the U.S.

in that restationing effort, our sustained access to several different

U.S. funding programs will be very important, including military

construction and commercial build-to-lease programs, and I appreciate your support in that.

In view of this, I do request your full support for our fiscal year

2008 military construction (MILCON) request—it is very small and

modest; it is small, it is 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-to-lease housing options for our service members and their families, thus enabling their move to these enduring hubs.

You know, only two percent of the U.S. active military is stationed in the Republic of Korea today. The other 98 percent is

somewhere else. The war over there ended 54 years ago.

It is time to end our one-year war zone rotational tours which

needlessly add to our high worldwide operational tempo while

handicapping our engagement opportunities with our longtime Korean ally.

7

So I am advocating three-year normal family-accompanied tours

for our small force in Korea. 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 am 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.

[The prepared statement of General Bell can be found in the Appendix on page 88.]

The CHAIRMAN. I thank members for joining us so early in the

morning. And we will remember we are under the five-minute rule,

and we are doing very well.

Admiral Fallon, let me ask you a quick question as well as comment on General Bell’s—and then call the other members.

There are present tensions in the Taiwan Strait and have been

for some time. What, if anything, is the Pacific Command currently

doing to defuse those tensions?

And, General Bell, I comment on your wanting to change the

one-year unaccompanied tour in Korea to the accompanied tour. In

25 words or less, if you could expand on that.

But, Admiral Fallon, please.

Admiral FALLON. Mr. Chairman, the situation in the Taiwan

Straits—my assessment is less tense than it was two years ago. At

the time that I was coming into this job, things were on the rise

and not particularly good.

I believe that improvements have been made. Some of this is the

business of the PRC and the leadership—Chen Shui-bian and his

government in Taiwan and their interaction.

But things that we have done from Pacific Command are to work

both sides of this equation—with Taiwan, to continue to support

them in their defensive capabilities, to encourage them to take

steps that actually enhance their ability to defend themselves

should there ever be any military aggression.

We have worked closely with them in assessing their needs and

strongly encouraging them to take steps that we think are actually

useful.

And I am very happy to report that our observation over the last

two years—and we are coming up on their next major exercise

cycle—has given us the feeling that they have gotten the message

and they are actively undertaking those measures that we think

would be very useful.

On the other side of the street with the PRC, we have actively

engaged with the military. I would make note of the fact that we

have in recent years, up until very recently, had very, very little

mil-to-mil interaction with these people.

Although the commercial and economic and political and almost

every dimension of the relations between the U.S. and the PRC

have been expanding exponentially, mil-to-mil had not. We are

moving forward.

This is challenging, though, for a lot of reasons, not least of

which is where we are coming from. But I think we have made

some progress there, and we are seeing openings.

8

I would highlight that within the past year we have had the

first-ever exercises between the military forces. They were modest.

It was just a search and rescue, primarily naval and air, that took

place in two segments, one off the coast of southern California near

San Diego and the other one in the East China Sea.

As we have this hearing under way today, there is another exercise going on in the Central Command region in the Indian Ocean

that involves the PRC and U.S. forces. It is being hosted by Pakistan. And this, to my knowledge, is the first-ever multilateral engagement.

So we see progress there. I think there is a lot of work to be

done. This goes day to day. But that is a summary of our activities,

sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I remember, two years ago several of

us were in China and the comments we received regarding Taiwan

and the Taiwan Straits were at that time rather disturbing. And

I am glad to see that your assessment is more of a positive one.

General Bell.

General BELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You know, sir, 37 years ago 2nd Lieutenant Bell showed up in

Germany and was assigned to a little outpost right on the border,

a cavalry unit—very theoretical, dangerous location, 100 Soviet and

other East European divisions right across from us, two 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 12 kilometers from the East-West German interzone

border.

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 rationalized

that, and then I moved to Korea 37 years later—36 years, now 37

years.

And I wonder why it is so different over there, why we add to

our operational tempo around the world by one-year rotations of

young people who have 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 endless rotations every year of permanent change-of-station costs and moving families all over the

United States to find the next location that their service member

is going to show up in.

And then I 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 weekends, they get to know each other, they

make lifelong friends, and we build the alliance one family at a

time—is all lost, because my service member, airman, Marines,

Army, et cetera, are sitting in the barracks lonely because they are

missing their family, because most of them are married. Over 60

percent of our military is married.

I believe it is time, 54 years after the armistice, and given the

very modern nature of the Republic of Korea—big universities,

10th largest economy in the world, 49 million people in a very modVerDate 22-MAR-2001 13:17 Sep 15, 2008 Jkt 037315 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-27\066000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
9

ern state—it is time for us to transition from a 1-year combat rotation mentality, which it is not over there, to a normal 3-year accompanied tour.

It would lower optempo for our military substantially. It would

give us an engagement opportunity. And it would do right by our

families. And so I am advocating it. And I think over time, sir, you

will see the costs amortize, if not even less than what it is costing

us now. And the Republic of Korea will help us do this.

Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Mr. Hunter.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On that point, General Bell, have you discussed this, in a formal

or informal way, with families of your personnel? If you are looking

at this thing as the husband goes off for one year, the wife goes

off for one year, and you are reunited after one year as opposed to

moving everybody but having a three-year stay in Korea, what are

their druthers?

General BELL. Thank you, Congressman.

The overwhelming majority—and I have sat down with many,

many families on this issue, because quite frankly, sir, we have

right now in Korea today about 5,000 family members. About 3,000

of them are authorized to be there.

Out of our 30,000-person force on the ground today, 10 percent

are authorized to bring their families. That is because they live in

locations that we have determined over the years are not dangerous locations. The other 90 percent are not authorized to bring

their families, so the people I have talked to are those who have

their families there now.

I have not talked to a single spouse—mostly ladies but, again,

there is some guys—not one that would not opt for an opportunity

for an overseas tour.

You know, the old notion of being in the military and seeing the

world, or the Navy and seeing the world, I guess—would trade the

opportunity to be with their family to close that one-year gap, to

be in, say, the Republic of Korea, have the chance for travel in

Asia, which the ten percent take advantage of now, engage with

Korean citizens, which they do now, the ten percent.

I have not had a single spouse that has told me they would not

like to do this. Sir, there are about 2,000 spouses there who have

come unauthorized. And when I say authorized, we authorize 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 there at her

own expense.

Mr. HUNTER. General, let me ask you, would that include,

though, times of heightened tension with respect to the emerging

nuclear weapons capability of North Korea? Do you think you

would have the same strong feedback that they want to be there,

that their families want to be there during times like that?

General BELL. Congressman, we are in the process of moving our

force from north of Seoul to well south of Seoul, so in terms of a

conventional threat, we are significantly moving out of the way, if

you will, while still on the peninsula. There are tensions there.

10

Mr. HUNTER. You are getting out from under the——

General BELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUNTER [continuing]. Fan of the North Korean artillery

tubes, right?

General BELL. Absolutely. But I would offer to you, again, from

experiences I have had, it is not unusual, and has not been in our

history, for families to be with their service members under the arc

of nuclear weapons.

We certainly did it in Europe for decades. And we accepted that

for a lot of reasons. I am not going to tell you it was all philanthropy. It was partly because the military in Europe was so large

that rotations were not something that made sense.

But given the nature of the North Korean military right now,

which has degraded over the last 15 years to 20 years, certainly

since the end of the Cold War, their conventional capability is not

to the level that it was 20 years ago. And I can detail that.

Their ability to shoot nuclear weapons down south is nonextant

right now. And I am very hopeful about the six-party talks. So we

are positioned right now, as we move the force south of Seoul, to

change the paradigm if we choose to. And I think it is healthy,

proper, and spouses want it.

Mr. HUNTER. Okay.

Just real briefly, Admiral Fallon and General Bell, the strong

points and the weak points of this deal, the North Korean deal.

And you might just describe it briefly for the members here, the

highlights of the deal itself.

Admiral FALLON. This is a work in progress, and I would say

that there is an awful lot of detail yet to be done. 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 the intention here or the agreement is that

we would get the North Koreans to stop their continued development of nuclear weapons. They have an ongoing process of extracting plutonium and turning that into weapons-grade material that

we would expect to see stopped.

My perspective on this is that there is substantial progress in

just getting that agreement, in getting the six parties to sit down

and to get North Korea to agree to move in this direction. I think

there is a lot more yet to be done, and I will let General Bell comment.

General BELL. Sir, the arrangement is—and I will just quickly

summarize it also—within 60 days, the North Koreans have agreed

to shut down their reactor which produces this plutonium. And so,

you know, we will watch that. And at the 60-day point, the thing

is supposed to be turned off. And that is something that we can

watch very closely.

At the same time, the North Koreans are supposed to allow the

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to begin to

return to North Korea to begin their inspections.

And then in the next phase of this, after 60 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

11

will begin, so you have got confidence-building measures going on

on both sides.

After 60 days, the agreement is that they will disable their

Yongbyon reactor so that it can’t be brought back online and their

other programs, while declaring all their programs, including the

plutonium reprocessing, potential highly enriched uranium programs, which is a matter of debate right now, et cetera.

And then based on that good effort by the North Koreans, the

other five parties and other interested nations will begin to provide

economic, humanitarian assistance, including a very large 950,000-

barrel deal 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 have, in almost every case, ultimately broken these agreements. So that is what we are all watching.

I think the good news is that this thing is phased in a way where

we are not going to be awakening one day to find out that we have

a bad deal, that we have done something—we have given them

something but we didn’t get in return what we expect. Those guarantees are in place, and I am very optimistic about the procedure.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Before I call Mr. Ortiz, let me suggest this subject to the approval of my friend from California, Mr. Hunter.

At the next hearing, because those in the front part of our area

here have been so faithful in coming, I am going to call on them

at the beginning of the next hearing, which I understand will be

European Command (EUCOM) and Joint Forces Command.

If that suits the gentleman from California, we will do that at

the next hearing.

Mr. Ortiz.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral Fallon, good to see you again, sir.

General Bell, welcome.

Admiral, I was just wondering, maybe you can describe and explain the risk and impact involved with using Army and Marine

Corps unit from within your command to support the war either in

Iraq or Afghanistan.

And how do the reset and readiness issues upon their return impact on your PACOM mission requirements and responsibilities? I

know we talk about readiness and we are stretched thin.

And if we were to have another conflict in that part of the world,

can you elaborate a little bit on that, how this is going to impact

on you and your command?

Admiral FALLON. The first comment I would make is that the

Asia-Pacific area is primarily a maritime and air region. That is

the bulk of the geography, and 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

forces.

The one area that we would watch very closely is General Bell

is in Korea. Although we are always on the alert because of the

historical unpredictability of the North Korean activities, we beVerDate 22-MAR-2001 13:17 Sep 15, 2008 Jkt 037315 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-27\066000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
12

lieve that today on the peninsula that—General Bell can address

this better than I—that the ROK 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 Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) 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 rotated others.

In the rest of the theater, it is primarily maritime and air, and

we are 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 is something that I watch very closely. The thing that I am

really attuned to is the rotation 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 rotations the wear and tear on our non-commissioned officers

(NCOs) and mid-grade officers, which is the critical leadership capabilities. I am watching these very closely.

But I feel fine. I feel okay. I am 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 and air forces, which have

not been particularly heavily tasked right now.

Mr. ORTIZ. Because one of the things that we are concerned with

is the lack of the Army, General Bell, prepositioning stock. How

does the readiness of the Army prepositioned stock affect your mission requirements and security responsibilities? Because we need

to look at the sustainability if we go into a conflict. How do you

stand on that?

General BELL. Congressman, I would tell you up front there is

great stress on the Army and the Marine Corps right now. I think

we all know that. These forces are highly committed.

Our equipment stocks that have been rotated into the combat

zone are going through an extensive refit program, but they are in

the line to be refitted and they are not available for employment.

So there are a range of stresses.

I do want to point out from my foxhole, where I sit, that Admiral

Fallon is exactly right about the threats that we face in the Pacific

and specifically, from my perspective, in Korea. The Republic of

Korea military is extremely competent. They are a modern nation

with a modern military, modern battle command capabilities, and

very good equipment.

If you will, their opponent—hopefully they won’t always be opponents, but their opponent at the end of the Cold War lost their client states, Russia and China, in terms of resupplying the large

quantities of materiel and equipment.

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

Admiral 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, prepo stocks—we have one brigade prepo set in Korea,

APS, Army prepositioned stocks, brigade combat team. We have

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some other prepo, but that is the core of it. It has 100 percent of

its combat equipment. I inspect it pretty frequently, walk around

and look at it.

It is missing some trucks, I will tell you. Some numbers of trucks

and Humvees are not there. And none of the trucks and Humvees

in that prepo set are up-armored like we see in Iraq.

But the core combat equipment that we need for that fight is all

present. It has not been used by anyone. It has been sequestered

for Korea. And so there has been a real commitment to not get into

those prepo stocks and use them in this war effort.

So I think the Army has done a very good job of maintaining the

equipment and keeping it razor ready.

Sir, in the next two weeks we are going to draw a sample of that

stuff with a battalion coming over from the United States as part

of an exercise. We are going to drive it up to a range and we are

going to shoot it, and we are going to see what happens. And I will

be glad to report back to you on the results of that exercise. I am

pretty optimistic.

[The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]

Mr. ORTIZ. Well, thank you so much, and we hope to visit you

soon.

General BELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much.

General BELL. We look forward to it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Let me make mention of

the fact that the two gentlemen before us are rarities in our United

States military.

General Bell is on his second major command, having a major

command in Europe and now in Korea. And Admiral Fallon is leaving the Pacific Command to assume command of the Central Command. And what you are viewing here in front of us are two very,

very, unusual military Americans.

Mr. Saxton.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here with us this morning, and

thank you for your service to the country.

I would 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 established the Missile Defense

Agency to carry out this mission.

And quite frankly, I am not sure that the Missile Defense Agency

has adequately partnered with the services. And I guess I am

thinking specifically of the Navy. It seems to me like that partnership perhaps has not manifested itself as perhaps it was intended.

So let me just ask this. Can you please comment on PACOM’s

overall missile defense requirements and how these requirements

14

are being addressed by the services and by the Missile Defense

Agency?

Admiral Fallon, would you start that for us?

Admiral FALLON. Sure, 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 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 actually getting this missile they call the

Taepodong to actually function as we think it was designed.

It did not, and that failure—and that is the second one in as

many shots for them—is encouraging only in the sense that it is

one less thing to worry about.

However, going on the assumption that this thing—sooner or

later they may figure out how to make it fly correctly, we have 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 threatened 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 one country that has the potential to

threaten us—they have in being today an ability to launch shortand medium-range missiles that can cover the peninsula of Korea

as well as our close strategic ally, Japan.

They cannot reach this country, to the 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 that is in a place called Shariki in

northwestern Japan that is capable of very fine detection and

tracking of this missile.

There are also the Aegis-weapon-system-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 full time.

A combination of these two sensors would be helpful in responding to an alert, which—we still rely on our overhead systems for

an initial warning here. But these sensors we would expect would

pick up the missile and then track it as it heads up in its trajectory.

Another new development is the recent deployment of a seabased X-band radar. This is on a converted oil platform that is 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 at Northern Command (NORTHCOM), Admiral

Keating’s command, to provide the sensors.

As far as how we would deal with this system, there are groundbased interceptors, as you are aware, in the U.S. and there are also

15

some newly modified standard missiles on some of the Navy ships,

the Aegis ships, that are forward deployed in the Pacific to deal

with this.

So these pieces and the network that ties them together are new

this year. This is the first time we have actually had this complete

system arrayed and tested, and we did it in real time during these

missile shots back in July. So I think we have made a lot of

progress here.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, may I——

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Reyes.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to welcome the admiral.

And, General, thank you for being here.

And I want to yield my time to Ms. Castor, the gentlelady from

Florida.

Ms. CASTOR. Well, I thank my colleague very much.

And, Admiral, we look forward to welcoming you to Tampa when

you assume the command of Central Command.

The growing military transformation and investments of China

are of particular interest to our country. Could you give us an outline and a sketch of how much military-to-military contact there is

that will lend itself to the United States understanding the investments that the country of China is making?

And what do we know about where they are spending their

money? And what do we know about arms sales that appear to be

increasing, China’s arms sales to other nations across the globe?

Admiral FALLON. Sure, ma’am. I would be happy to. We have significantly upgraded the mil-to-mil relationship between the two

countries, but we are starting from virtually nil—long way to go.

We do not have the kind of exchanges that we normally enjoy with

the vast majority of nations, certainly, in the Asia-Pacific.

Things are very measured, and the process right now is one that

has a number of constraints on it. First of all, there is the existing

legislation of the 2000 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

which proscribes a long list of activities that would certainly bound

our engagement with the PRC.

And most of that, if I could summarize, is in the operational nature, so that we wouldn’t disclose operational capability. I think

that was clearly the intent of Congress when that legislation was

passed.

Nonetheless, there is still opportunity there to do a lot of work,

and we are trying to take advantage of that—as I mentioned previously the exercises that were done this year.

I have been over there three times in the past two years and

have 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 fixed statements.

Now, we have a long way to go. But what I have discovered is

that most of their people have no idea what it is like to work with

us. They don’t understand us. Most have never met any U.S. military personnel, not to mention a senior leader. And so they are

very interested, very eager, I think, at the working level to get

moving here.

16

We have a number of exchanges that are primarily school-related, war colleges and high-level delegations. There has been one initiative I think is pretty interesting in the past year.

We have had several now of midlevel officers—06s, 05s, 07s—

from both countries that have actually gone and spent a week or

two getting around and seeing things.

And these, I think, are really the most valuable, because these

are the people that are going to be the up and coming decision

makers in the future. And the old guys like us—we are here today

but probably not for too long.

The chairman was very kind describing the amount of service we

have had. I think that is a nice way of saying we are old guys who

have been around a long time, a couple of crotchety dinosaurs.

But the fact that we have been around and we have seen a lot

of things—and we recognize the need for continued engagement

here.

Now, the PRC is an interesting challenge for us. It is a country

that for many decades was clearly inwardly focused. It didn’t engage with the world.

We, from the U.S. standpoint back in the 1970’s, made an attempt to get them out of that shell, to get out and about and in

the world and to do things that are really more like the—probably

appropriate for a country that large, with that many people, and

the potential they have.

Over the past decades that has actually occurred, the military relationship being the 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

a 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 market.

Ms. CASTOR. I hate to interrupt you, but my time is short.

Admiral FALLON. Yes.

Ms. CASTOR. Do they appear to be particularly interested in investments in weapons systems or developing their ground forces?

Is there enough transparency or on your visits has it been apparent

to you that they are focusing on one area over other——

Admiral FALLON. In your initial question, you alluded to the fact

of the Chinese selling weapons and things to other people. We see

very, very little of that in the Asia-Pacific region. Their selling is

finished goods, economic, not military, activities.

They are importing weapons systems, primarily from Russia.

These are ready to use kind of state-of-the-art things, and we see

them doing that. It shouldn’t be surprising to me. They have got

money that is coming out of their ears.

They are sitting on the largest cash hoard in the world, and—

not surprising, because our observation is their military has a huge

way to go. Primarily defensive—they are growing in capabilities.

They clearly have been given a task, and that is 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

17

our capabilities. So we see a lot of work, like this antisatellite shot

that is, 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 I think we could spend an hour on this

topic. It is too complex.

But we see them evolving. I do not see them as particularly

threatening right now. We are certainly watching their capabilities,

and we would encourage them to be more open and more transparent.

We have had this theme repeatedly in our discussions. They

push back on it. They say, ‘‘Well, you know, we are telling you, we

are focusing, we are doing things on people.’’

But still, they are investing a lot of money in strategic systems

that don’t appear to be particularly defensive oriented. So I think

it is going to benefit from continued engagement, and that is probably our best opportunity to get them more into the open.

Ms. CASTOR. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady.

The gentleman from New York, Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, I join my colleagues in bidding you welcome and

thank you so much for your service.

Admiral, good luck in your next posting particularly.

General Bell, I was very heartened to hear your comments about

the question of the Korean unaccompanied tour. I have had the

chance to be there a couple of times, had Thanksgiving dinner up

on the DMZ, and it is an extraordinarily dangerous place.

But if you, as you very aptly describe, look at it in the larger context of things, the change you suggest makes a lot of sense. And

I just wanted to kind of put that out there.

I am going to switch back to Admiral Fallon and let him kind

of go a little bit more about China. The first question I would have

is—you are to be commended for your efforts to engage the Chinese, and it really has been a personal commitment by you.

I am wondering, number one, if you have had a chance to talk

to your successor, Admiral Keating, about that. Do you think he

will keep up that level of commitment?

And as to engagement, could you describe for us your perception

as to our engagement with China, if at all, on issues of nonproliferation and terrorism? And what is the level of cooperation

from your place that you see, or lack of cooperation there?

Admiral FALLON. Yes, sir. I talked to Tim Keating. He is anxious

to come out to the Pacific. We have had a number of discussions

and we have had a team briefing him on a lot of the details of this.

So clearly, great value here, and he recognizes that, and I expect

that he will continue to try to strengthen these relationships.

Regarding nonproliferation, yes, we have 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 sixparty talks—in which they have been instrumental, according to

Ambassador Hill, in moving these talks forward.

As the former staunchest ally of the DPRK, it has been very

heartening to see their engagement on these talks.

18

In regard to terrorism, it is a good subject. They are concerned

about terrorism within their own borders, particularly out in the

west with potential Muslim extremist activity in their western

provinces.

Regrettably, during my time I have not yet had the opportunity

to get out to that region of China to actually meet with their folks

out there and get an assessment of it, how they really react to it.

They have invited me to go, but I am just not going to—I am going

to run out of time here.

It has their attention. It is one of the areas, I think, that we can

find mutual ground in moving forward, and it would be a fruitful

area if Admiral Keating has the opportunity to pursue that.

Mr. MCHUGH. Well, maybe you can get the chance to mention

that to him, because it is a big, big problem. And obviously, we

would much rather have China more on our side than less.

General Bell, can you just describe what you believe the North

Korean perception is of the U.S. redeployment, the reduction of our

footprint? We are moving south. I feel pretty comfortable we know

why we are doing it, and there is a couple of different dimensions

to that.

But what kind of read do you think the North Koreans are getting? And what, if anything, are we trying to make so that they

don’t get the wrong read and make some really stupid decisions

based on a misinterpretation of what is going on there?

General BELL. Thank you, Congressman.

You know, trying to figure out what North Korea thinks is a bit

of a crapshoot. But I will tell you what I think they think. And I

study this a lot and I consider it a lot. It is obviously a very key

element of the equation of stability and security in that area of 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.

They know that and we know that, and that is why we are 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.

And I don’t think it matters where we are positioned in the Republic of Korea, whether along the DMZ or whether we are down

south.

As long as the United States makes a commitment to the Republic of Korea, as long as our alliance remains solid and sound, the

North Koreans are going to have to deal with the United States

and the Republic of Korea.

As long as the friends in the neighborhood—China, Russia, certainly Japan—are concentric in our global view of North Korea, I

think they will be concerned that they will have to deal with all

those parties. And that is why—the strength of the six-party talks.

So I am not concerned for a second about the movement of our

forces south or our force draw down. Our principal capability dayto-day is our air and naval capacity.

We have an extremely capable air component right now that has

not only very capable and robust forces on the runways in South

19

Korea but also in the area, whether it is Japan, Guam, Hawaii, or

on carrier decks.

I think North Korea is very sensitive to that air capability. They

watch us. They have got radars up that take a look at what we are

up to. Every time we bring a B–52 from Guam and do practice

bombing in the Republic of Korea to hone our skills, they know it

flies by, and they come up on the net.

So I think the move south is appropriate and it is proper. I know

it is. We have got a very good Republic of Korea military. They are

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 of months that there is such hope

for the future that this probably is all appropriate. Us moving

south, being a little less visible, not being in the lead so much I

think is very appropriate. And we will keep an eye on it as we go

forward, but I am relatively optimistic, Congressman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Dr. Snyder.

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Bell, the discussion about going for the one-year unaccompanied to the three-year accompanied—we are still early in this

year, but time goes by pretty rapidly.

If there are specific legislative changes that we need—or maybe

you have already given that to somebody on the 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 is anything we

can do in this defense bill, then we need to get it done.

Is it fair to say that the 2,000 or so that are there on their own

volition take some kind of financial hit by having moved themselves there? The 2,000 spouses that are not authorized, I assume

that—are they flying—are there perhaps additional expenses because they are unauthorized they would not have otherwise?

General BELL. That is a great question. And just let me tell you

who has the authorities. One, I can adjust the accompanied tour

rates—the accompanied tour rates—any time I want to. What I

can’t adjust are the tour lengths.

And so, for example, if I chose unilaterally tomorrow to say to

those spouses who followed their service members there unauthorized, ‘‘You are now authorized,’’ I could do that. And by the way,

Congressman, it is my intention to do that.

I hold in great regard these young people who, in spite of our inability to take care of them fully with a 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 and our post exchanges (PXs) et

cetera—allow those who are, quote, not authorized access on a socalled space-available basis.

And overall—and I have 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 that

has got a young baby who is not authorized is still being seen in

our hospital on a space-available basis.

20

So I am optimistic I can make change pretty quick to accommodate those who are there and to grandfather them and bring them

into the family.

Dr. SNYDER. Well, if there are specific legislative things that we

need to consider, then the sooner that we get those, the better.

General BELL. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Dr. SNYDER. Admiral Fallon, I wanted to ask, some years ago,

the Government Accountability Office (GAO) did a very comprehensive study on hardship postings, and they sent people out to China

and Africa posts. And their conclusion was that there was really a

lot of incentives in the State Department personnel policies that resulted in the wrong people being put into 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 Iraq is that

when the President announced his plan for an increase in troops

in Iraq simultaneously with an increase in provincial reconstruction teams, that the secretary of state had to ask Secretary Gates

to provide about 130 of the 138 additional people because she

couldn’t get people to volunteer to go, or didn’t have the right mix.

I was discussing this with a high-ranking military officer who—

I said, ‘‘It seems like to me the metaphor is that the military is like

the great offensive line. It is just the quarterback is only coming

in every other play.’’

And he said, ‘‘No, that is not the metaphor. The metaphor is we

are the great offensive line. It is just instead of sending in football

players, they are sending in really enthusiastic soccer players, and

that is not the game that is being played.’’

And so my question is: As you said earlier, the threat of conflict

is low in the Pacific Command, and you are 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 the

national security mission of this Nation?

We talk about that our national security is not just military. You

are an 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 is in Iraq or other

places. What is your view of that now?

Admiral FALLON. If you will allow me to confine my comments

to the Asia-Pacific and maybe give me a buy till next month or

whenever we have the next hearing on CENTCOM, I am really,

really pleased.

I will tell you this quite honestly and quite up front, because I

have heard all the stories and, frankly, had some mixed experiences in the past. But we have made progress in the Asia-Pacific

specifically, I think, due to the good relationships we have had with

the interagency.

We work very closely with our Department of State in each of the

countries in the region. We have had incredible help from the

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in

helping to grow capabilities and set conditions in particularly developing countries.

21

I could start and spend an hour here ticking off our successes,

I believe, in Indonesia, in the Philippines, for example, and other

countries.

We work very closely in countries that are challenged—Nepal

comes to mind—an insurgency for a decade now. The country has

been torn up. They are kind of moving forward and fingers crossed

that they might be able to get out of this.

And in Sri Lanka, ongoing civil war for decades now; we are

doing our best to try to help them in each of these areas.

I would highlight an area of high interest to our country, and

that is maritime security, particularly in the narrow waterways

like the Strait of Malacca, where we have worked very closely with

the neighboring countries—Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, for example, and Thailand—to help them grow the conditions—most of

this activity is moving forward because of a close working relationship with other agencies through our embassies. So from my Pacific

perspective, I think things are really good.

Now, if I could defer judgment, I know that we are putting a

huge demand signal on our country to help out in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I would like to address that maybe next time.

Dr. SNYDER. Absolutely. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, Admiral Fallon and General Bell, 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 Bell, give me an idea—maybe it is

in your testimony; I haven’t had a chance to read it. But give me

an idea of the North Korean air force, where it is today compared

to ten years ago, if it has made any progress in building up the air

force.

And then I have a couple more questions.

General BELL. Thank you, Congressman.

The North Korean air force is what I would call a legacy air

force. They got most of their aircraft during the Cold War. They

don’t make any new aircraft. They do overhaul. They are not getting new aircraft from any of their traditional suppliers. And so

they are making do with what they have.

These aircraft are capable. The large majority are the kind of aircraft that you would anticipate them to insert special operations

forces in the south. They do have a very large special operating

force capability. They do have intercept fighters that are relatively

modern from the Cold War era.

I can tell you that they don’t train to the levels that our Air

Force or Navy or certainly the Republic of Korea train. The levels

of flying hours to be ready are about ten percent of what you would

see in our Air Force or our Navy.

So I am not overly concerned about the ability of the North Korean air force to be a factor. Having said that, it is a large air force.

It is capable. They have got real bombs and 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.

22

Mr. JONES. General and Admiral, the reason I asked that, last

week we had Secretary Wynne, and General Moseley was here, and

there are many of us in Congress in both parties that are extremely concerned about the debt of this Nation—obviously, the

debt of this Nation that continues to climb by the moment. We are

borrowing money from China right now to pay for the war in Iraq.

Many of us are concerned that you in the military and all parts

of the services are probably—from time to time, we will be asking—you have probably already been asked—to make some adjustments in your priorities. Just like today, in one of the magazines,

it says, ‘‘White House seeks to delay joint strike fighter to pay for

troop buildup.’’

My question was—and I guess it 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 am not even really talking specifically

about Iraq; I want to make that clear—then what is going to happen ten years down the road?

Maybe not so much concern about North Korea and their air

force, but my question to General Moseley and also to Secretary

Wynne 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 are 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 are going to have to do it anyway.

And the answer to me was that if this scenario with this debt—

and let me throw back in the war in 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 give the military what it

needs, then we might not have the supremacy that we have today.

Is this of any concern—I am not asking you to get involved about

budget debates in Washington, D.C., but those of you who are the

professionals that those of us who have not been in the military

look to 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 of.

Admiral FALLON. Congressman, I will take a shot at that.

I would approach that by looking at myself and my experience

and 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 in my testimony. I believe it is low threat. I believe we have

the capabilities today to overmatch any threat today and for the

foreseeable future.

But of course, we are sensitive to the trends as we move ahead.

I think that the biggest challenge is probably fiscal right now and

over to you as experts in the financial world here of budgets and

spending.

But it seems to me that as we develop new capabilities—and I

look at maritime and air as the principal items here; they are bigticket items. You mentioned Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). These are

capabilities that appear to extend our ability to overmatch into the

future.

23

The rate at which these are acquired, the efficiencies, if you

would, of the systems acquisition of these, are probably the issue

that would be at risk. I believe that we are okay today. I think that

the things that are under development 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 me in the near future, but in the business

and fiscal reality and good stewardship, I think that is the real

challenge.

So if you drag these things out—you know the history better

than I—they cost more, they take longer and so forth. But the

threat is, I believe, in a situation today where that is really not the

main issue. The main issue is how much we spend and how early.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. Ms. Davis of California.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. 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 Bell, 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 unauthorized, even for 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 they

have there and whether or not that is 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.

General BELL. Ma’am, I would just offer also we have a very—

you know, acronyms—we have a very good NEO plan, noncombatant evacuation process, so that as we look at the situation with the

potential threat that we can evacuate not only our spouses and

families but also American citizens and those who are affiliated

with the United States pretty quickly from the Republic of Korea.

We would do this by air. We have practiced this. It is part of our

exercise regimen. Everybody has signed up. We have a way of

knowing where everybody is. We are in close 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. In fact, just next week when I get

back we are 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 is right, and I want to overcome that pretty quickly. So I appreciate your support, ma’am.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

And, Admiral Fallon, we know the work that you have done

working with China and to encourage the transparency there.

There was a recent article about the opaqueness of the defense

budget in China.

24

And I wonder if you have any additional thoughts, if you have

given maybe a to-do list to Admiral Keating as he comes in, and

how best to push that transparency. And is there something that

we need to do in terms of our transparency as well that would encourage them to do the same?

Admiral FALLON. I think maintaining a consistent line along

these areas—they have a system, of course. Their system of government does not encourage the kind of openness that we enjoy here

and in many countries.

I believe that as they get exposed to what goes on in the outer

world, they are learning, for example, in the commercial and economic world and the financial world that the requirements, if you

would, of doing business in that environment worldwide demands

that they be more open and transparent in things.

The military is a tougher nut to crack. This is the long arm of

the government. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the primary instrument of state power. My assessment is that it is, again,

still pretty much focused on internal control and maintaining stability within that country.

And there is certainly no history whatsoever of the kind of things

that we would like to see. We have got a long way to go. We have

got to keep chipping away at it.

I had a very interesting discussion with the Chinese defense minister last year on this subject. It went on for quite a while. He felt

very strongly, and stated so, that we were—it was not our business

to meddle in their affairs, it was their business, and he 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 the envelope each time.

That is what I have done. I have asked to do new things and see

different people and more things, to try to get a little deeper.

At the same time, we have tried to do the same thing here. There

is a lot of suspicion and distrust, and it has grown up for a lot of

years. It is going to be a challenge to dispel. I think we just have

to keep at it, step by step, look at things.

As you here in the Congress identify areas that you would like

us to pursue, we would be happy to do that. So I think it is just

a matter of just taking it a step at a time and keep moving. Thank

you.

Ms. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. May I have a minute or two?

I wanted to just ask about other perceptions in the region regarding our force realignment. What kind of feedback have you gotten

from them?

Admiral FALLON. I think this is really a good story. We have

looked at this from a regional perspective. We have a lot of balls

in the air. General Bell has mentioned the ongoing realignment on

the Korean peninsula to pull back from the DMZ.

There is another stage being set, another series of events in connection with the operational control of the forces and the future of

Combined Forces Command. General Bell can address that.

But as we look at events in Korea, I am also focused on Japan—

just concluded a strategic discussion with that country—has agreed

25

to solidify our alliance, which is, as you know, longstanding and

critically important to Northeast Asia.

An aspect of that will have us remove some of our forces from

the southern part of Okinawa. There are many gives and takes

here, puts and takes.

The Japanese government has undertaken a very substantial financial investment of the six billion dollar range to make adjustments on Okinawa, to build us another air field so that we can

move out of the congested and encroached south.

We are going to take some Marines and move them to Guam.

With your help, we intend to build facilities there to accommodate

those Marines. The lay down of forces, then, would give us Marines

on Okinawa, Guam and Hawaii, and I think that positions us pretty well for that force—naval forces, stronghold in Hawaii, Guam,

in Japan. I think that distribution is good.

Air Force is Guam, Kadena, Korea, Hawaii. I think we are pretty

well laid out across the area, and we are happy with the progress.

It is going to take a lot of years, no small investment——

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, thank you, sir.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks.

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Admiral Fallon and General Bell and those with

you. I always want to remind each of you how grateful this country

is and future generations will be to the courage and commitment

that you have shown for human freedom.

Having said that, Admiral Fallon, you know, I want to set you

apart here and especially applaud you, just coming off commanding

PACOM and, you know, it has got to be a tremendous personal affirmation to you, sir, to have managed the defense activities of

roughly 60 percent of the world’s population.

And I am sure that you are going to be used greatly in the future, and I appreciate you very, very much.

Having said that, to both of you, you know, there is a lot of people that are not in favor of missile defense in this country. And one

of the prime arguments that they make is that somehow the warfighters themselves have no need for the deterrent and the defense

capabilities, the benefits, of missile defense.

Now, I know that Mr. Saxton has 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?

Admiral FALLON. Sir, I will start.

There are threats and capabilities in the hands of potential adversaries that I believe we must consider, and we must have in our

military capability package a means to neutralize 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 am sure, would like to talk about Korea. But I look

at Japan within the range of North Korea.

We look at challenges with Iran. They can’t reach this country,

but they can certainly reach our forces in the Middle East, for example. So it is in our interest in protecting our people and doing

the best for them that we address these issues.

26

And so I think it is appropriate that we continue to work on our

sensors and our tracking and our ability to have a counter to these,

either active or passive. I think it is the right thing to do.

General BELL. Congressman, I would like to follow up. I can’t tell

you how important I think this issue of missile defense is to the

Nation.

I happened to be a bit under the gun back during Desert Storm—

missile attacks every night—and saw the terror of it all. They

weren’t very accurate in those days, although terribly we did suffer

some number of casualties from the interballistic missile attacks.

But as time goes on and as mechanisms for accuracy have improved, these systems, whether they are theater short range, intermediate range, the kind that, say, from North Korea could reach

Guam or Hawaii or whatever, or even intercontinental, which could

reach our Nation, we have to have a layered approach to deal with

these, both defensive and, I might add, offensive. They have got to

come from somewhere, and we ought to be able to do something

about that as well.

So as we move into the 21st century, deep into the 21st century,

this is going to be a growing issue. We have said for decades that

some day rogue states will have the ability to launch a few missiles

at us. And, sir, we are looking at that almost today. I wouldn’t say

that necessarily the United States is threatened today, but certainly U.S. troops are threatened today. I have got 800 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—it

is a very important part of the total approach to this very serious

problem.

Mr. FRANKS. Well, it is hard to really add a whole lot to that,

General. I mean, your answer, I think, obviously not only reflects

my own perspective but I think one that the whole country needs

to understand.

There is a sense that we already have missile defense in this

country. And as you know, we are not there yet. And I am very

concerned. In a world where nuclear weapons are not only prevalent, they are becoming ubiquitous.

And it just seems to me—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, a

robust—I mean, like a rogue state doing something that, you know,

is almost unthinkable.

I suppose if that ever occurs, this debate would change pretty

profoundly. But you know, I often steal the quote that, ‘‘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 and support the existing funding?

I am out of time.

Mr. TAYLOR. Ten words or less, Admiral.

27

Admiral FALLON. It is important that we be able to counter these

capabilities. The rate and amount of which the funding is something that you will have to deal with up here, sir.

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Larsen.

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral Fallon, thanks for your service. Good to see you a couple

months ago in Hawaii.

A quick question first on military-to-military. Can you just give

the committee some perspective on the number of exchanges with

China in 2006 versus the number that we plan in 2007?

Admiral FALLON. There is a small increase in 2007. There is a

structural challenge here that I would highlight, and that is that

within the PRC they are organized to have one office in Beijing

deal with the entire range of mil-to-mil interaction.

And that makes life very challenging, because the hours in the

day and the speed with which they deal with things severely constrains this.

So with other countries, other relationships, this is all spread out

and delegated to different levels. It doesn’t happen yet in the PRC,

so there is an annual discussion between the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and their counterparts in the PRC that set

up this agenda, but it is not vastly increased from the previous

year.

Mr. LARSEN. All right. But you did say Admiral Keating is being

briefed and we can expect Admiral Keating—we can ask him ourselves, I suppose, at some point. We can expect Admiral Keating

to continue the mil-to-mil efforts?

Admiral FALLON. I would encourage you to ask Admiral Keating.

From my perspective, I have certainly encouraged this and indicated to him that——

Mr. LARSEN. Got it. All right. Last summer, a few of us met with

General Guo, and he tried to make a case to us for proposed

changes to the fiscal year 2000 NDAA mil-to-mil restrictions, and

we let him know that he was wearing a uniform, and if he needed

to make a case for that, he needed to talk to our folks wearing uniforms, that we would take the best advice from our uniformed

folks.

Based on your testimony at page 19, you seemed to indicate

thought 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 recommended changes to those restrictions.

Would that be accurate?

Admiral FALLON. I would say that today we have been able to

do the range of engagements that we think are appropriate, that

are doable within the constraints of the 2000 NDAA. If we get to

the point where we see an opportunity to move this thing forward,

I would be happy to propose that to OSD and then take it over

here, you know, with their permission.

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. I think it is an important message for us but

also an important message for our Chinese counterparts to hear,

that perhaps they need to take more steps than they have.

As well, we had a chance to talk to General Cao when we were

there, the defense minister. We pushed him to invite the United

28

States to observer status to the next Chinese-Russian exercises,

and we were very politely offered tea, I think would be a nice way

to put it.

But I would just ask, would you continue to encourage us to push

China to invite the U.S. at least to observer status to any further

China-Russian exercises?

Admiral FALLON. Oh, sure. I think it is another step in the move

to greater transparency. I would personally much rather actually

engage in things than just watching, but you have got to start

somewhere, and——

Mr. LARSEN. One step at a time.

Admiral FALLON [continuing]. That would be a good step in the

right direction.

Mr. LARSEN. And then two quick things here. Actually, it was

last month, another high-ranking official was in town from China

to have a discussion about a few things, and we had a chance to

meet with him.

I guess my impression is that he did not seem to fully appreciate

the impact of the anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) test on the U.S. or

on the rest of the world. And he, in fact, went so far as to call our

concerns about space debris baseless, as it was interpreted to us,

that is, I should point out.

We took the opportunity 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 was talking to and see if they need to

reassess their evaluation of the impact of space debris.

How would you characterize the Chinese response to the world’s

response to their ASAT test? And have you seen any changes in it

in the last month?

Admiral FALLON. I think this demonstrates that there is a long

way to go, not at all to denigrate China and her progress in becoming a significantly contributing member of the world body here.

But the response to this seemed to me a little bit of Mutt and

Jeff, right hand, left hand, who knew what about whatever seemed

to me an issue. It didn’t seem very sophisticated or demonstrate

the kind of understanding that might be appropriate here.

So they have taken steps to get more in tune with the kind of

things that most of the other countries in the world do, and it indicates there is still some work to do here.

Mr. LARSEN. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral and General,

for coming to help us out today.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Conaway of Texas.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for being here.

General Bell, I wasn’t here during your oral presentation, and

you may have already covered all this, but if you wouldn’t mind

walking us through the realignment strategies as well as the wartime transfer, wartime control, operational control and the impact

that the ROK’s burden-sharing with us. I think your testimony

said that it is 41 percent getting to 50 percent. Just kind of a general step-through.

We have a chart that shows a significant reduction under something labeled ‘‘future’’ of presence in South Korea, so if you could

walk us through that, I would appreciate it.

29

General BELL. Thank you very much, Congressman. I will do it

real quick. You know, normally it would take two hours or three

hours, and I am not sure I would do it correctly.

But there are a couple of building blocks. One is that we are at

54 years after this war ended. And instead of a deprived, war-ravaged country, the Republic of Korea is a first country world economic power and a major military power, and a great ally of the

United States, and a committed ally of the United States.

I mean, these are overarching realities. They fought with us in

Vietnam. They deployed to Desert Storm. They are in Operation

Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and they are in Operation Enduring Freedom

(OEF). They are just dispatching nearly 400 service members to

southern Lebanon to help stabilize that area of the world.

So they are helping us enormously, and this alliance is important

to the United States, not the least of which is 25 percent of world

trade flows through Northeast Asia. So the management of this alliance is something that is vital to both us and the Republic of

Korea.

Now, given the current situation, the old-line command and 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 when war breaks out, I am supposed to command their

army. It makes no sense.

I want to command our army. We are not going to give up command and control of U.S. forces ever. That is not going to happen.

But we ought to move into what we call doctrinally a supporting

to supported relationship, working in partnership with the Republic of Korea in combat in a way that makes sense operationally.

And we know how to do that, so we have agree to move to that

new paradigm in the year 2012. We are excited about it. It makes

sense. It gives them a better sense of their sovereignty and self-reliance on themselves while solidifying the alliance into the 21st

century. So that is one.

Two, realigning on the peninsula makes sense. Part of it is because they want us to move out of Seoul. We have got a lot of acreage in downtown Seoul that is valuable to them.

Plus, to be honest with you, sir, it is a symbol of a bygone era

of occupation—not the United States occupying, but other occupiers—and a less visible profile by military forces in the capital city

of the Republic of Korea would benefit both nations.

So we have all agreed—and they have agreed to fund that. They

are going to spend billions and billions of dollars helping us move.

They are going to shoulder the majority of the burden of doing this.

Now, that is going to happen. That is all agreed to.

The other piece that we are 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, non-personnel—in

other words, not my salary, but the logistics, the maintenance,

some of our building programs, et cetera.

And we think equitable is 50–50, so if it costs me $2 of appropriated funds to station forces in Korea, they ought to pay $1. That

is the philosophy. In the negotiations over the past several years,

we have not approached that number with our ally.

30

Last year, they covered about 38 percent of our non-personnel

stationing costs, and we feel that that number is below the expectation of equality and equity.

This year, the year that we are in, they have agreed to fund 41

percent. So that is an improvement. I will tell you, we have to continue to negotiate with our ally until a 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 us the rationale that we need

to stay over there.

Yes, sir.

Mr. CONAWAY. In the time left, could you talk about why it takes

up to 2012 to shift operational control?

General BELL. Yes, sir. Well, 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 they will be in the lead and we will be in the 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 have estimated it would take three years to train in a cyclical

way so that we have great confidence that we could successfully

deter an attack and, if an attack came, defeat it. So I need three

years. Well, this is 2007, so that is, minimum, 2010.

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 have agreed to 2012. I think that is reasonable—a little bit

later than I would have preferred, but we have got a date. It makes

sense to everybody, and everyone is happy with it.

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General BELL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, General.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr.

Courtney.

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank Admiral Fallon and General Bell for your

service and your testimony today.

And we wish you, again, all the best wishes we can with your

new posting, Admiral Fallon.

I wanted to follow up on your testimony regarding your reassuring words that the threat where you have been in command is

something that you feel confident in and that we have under control.

And looking at the staff reports and your testimony, I mean, obviously, I think we have that confidence today because of the size

of our fleet and that we are able to sort of meet the projections that

the Quadrennial Defense Review set forth in terms of our surface

ships and submarine fleet.

But obviously, it is not a static situation today because you are

moving a number of submarines over to the Pacific by 2010. According to the staff notes, there will be 31 submarines that are

there. And again, with the existing size of the fleet today, that is

obviously a number that falls within an acceptable plan.

31

I guess the question is, though—and I am learning this quickly

here—is that the decisions we are making in the Congress today

are not about today; they are about a long time down the road. And

the fleet that you are using today is one that was built 20 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 20

years hence, I mean, you just try and do the math and see how we

are going to maintain 31 submarines in the Pacific when the fleet

shrinks some time in the 2020’s down to 40 submarines.

I mean, do you have any concern about whether or not the sort

of confidence level that you have here today is really, 15 years, 20

years down the road, going to be something that we can feel without any concern?

Admiral FALLON. Congressman, in my view, we weigh off risks.

We look at the realities we face today. We have got a war in the

Middle East that requires an enormous amount of money and other

resources. This is primarily 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.

Now, we have on the books new classes of ships, for example, in

the areas in which you have high interest, I believe, that are very

capable, we think, at 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 higher confidence, but enough confidence today.

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 tradeoffs.

The key thing is that we continue to make investments to have

capabilities that we could then expand rapidly if we need them in

the future.

Mr. COURTNEY. And I appreciate that answer. I mean, that is

helpful. I mean, as I said, though, I mean, obviously, we are not

always dealing in a static situation right now. And certainly, one

of the things that is not static is the rate of increase in the Chinese

navy.

And you started to address, I think, Congresswoman Castor’s

question on that issue, and, I mean, what is going on?

Admiral FALLON. The big picture, I believe, is that this is a country that was focused inwardly, is now looking externally, because

it has a 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 is another dynamic, and that is this huge amount of cash

that they are getting courtesy of our investments in their products,

and I would expect that it shouldn’t be a shock that they would invest a substantial amount in their military, since it is decidedly not

modern.

32

They are working on lots of new things, and new classes of ships

are one. We are watching this closely. These are a concern. 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.

Mr. COURTNEY. Well, that is obviously the goal which we all

want to see happen. I mean, one of—the unfortunate thing is their

cash position has been strengthened by our debt financing, which

Congressman Jones talked about, and that is obviously something

we have to address here.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Courtney.

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia,

Mr. Gingrey.

Dr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral Fallon, it was great to see you recently at PACOM with

CODEL Bartlett, Bordallo, et al. We enjoyed that very much.

General Bell, we didn’t quite make it to Korea. We just ran out

of time in that five-day trip.

Thank you both for your great service to the country.

There have been some questions already concerning what the

plans are in regard to Korea. General Bell, you addressed that.

Also, the plans in regard to Japan; and we discussed that at length

with Admiral Fallon when we met several months ago in theater.

My question for both of you, though, is: We get a lot of concerns

expressed about things—assets, men and equipment—being diverted to Central Command. And of course, Admiral Fallon, you

will be there soon in charge of that operation, Iraqi and Enduring

Freedom. And what has the cost been in regards to transferring assets?

And I would specifically ask how has that affected the Pacific

Command and, of course, General Bell, your area of operation in

particular. I know maybe 3,000 or 4,000 troops have been transferred maybe one and a half years ago, two years ago, from Korea

of the 37,000 we had to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

You have an area of responsibility, as you point out to us—

300,000 personnel, 51 percent of the Earth’s surface—granted, a lot

of it is water, but it is 60 percent of the world’s population. And

how many countries—you really have a tremendous area of responsibility.

Tell us the effects of any transfers that have had to occur.

Admiral FALLON. Yes, sir. The fact that there is 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 think quite capable of

meeting any challenge in the foreseeable future. And in fact, we

have been adding to that capability.

The example I would illustrate is the recent deployment of—the

first F–22 deployment out of the United States currently ongoing

33

in the western Pacific—a tremendous capability with these aircraft.

Upgrades to our ships and so forth—and so we are in good shape

on that side.

We are watching, as General Bell indicated earlier—watching

closely the impact of things like prepositioned material, land-oriented, land-centric things. General Bell would be happy, I am sure,

to address the situation on the peninsula.

But from the rest of the Pacific, I think we are in good shape.

The risk is acceptable based on my perception of the threats or potential threats that we face. And we are going to watch it closely.

And I guess in my new responsibilities, I will have to explain to

my counterparts why we need all these things and make sure we

use them. But over to General Bell.

General BELL. Thank you, Congressman.

You know, when I go to bed at night, I think about a lot of

things. One of them is what if at midnight tonight I get a call and

say, ‘‘Well, it just didn’t work, there is 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 are very hopeful for the future,

but they could. And what does that mean about the United States’

ability to reinforce Korea and other places in the Pacific? And how

is that affected by ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and

other commitments in the world?

And you know, it is a daunting challenge for our military. We are

committed heavily in that area of the world. I go back, however,

to my earlier comments that I am extremely confident in the Republic of Korea military.

I can tell you, sir, I have been in this business a long time, and

I have looked at a lot of militaries around the world. In fact, it may

be most of them. Like Admiral Fallon, being dinosaurs as we are,

we have been around for a while.

And this is one good military capability that the Republic of

Korea has. This is something to celebrate, a success for a partnership, an alliance partnership over a long period of time, that moved

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.

Certainly, the Republic of Korea citizenry can take a lot of credit

because they picked themselves up by their bootstraps and have

done what they have done. It is a marvelous example of what we

are trying to accomplish elsewhere in the world.

Having said that, the air and naval power that is made available

to me in the Pacific region is adequate to meet our war needs. If

we needed ground forces, we would be challenged right now.

But my assessments and war gaming are that we have the forces

available in concert, in partnership, with the Republic of Korea to

do what we need to do on the Korean peninsula.

Dr. GINGREY. Thank you, General.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes Admiral Sestak.

Mr. SESTAK. Admiral, General, thanks for the time.

The question that was just asked—a few years ago there was a

redoing of a series of war plans, including yours, General—much

more reliance upon air power.

34

Is the result of your confidence—or because of that, is that why

you feel confident in what you said about that we can handle this

contingency despite Iraq because of that change to the focus upon

air power?

General BELL. I could tell you from a career perspective, most of

my optimism about our deterrence capability and our ability to

fight rests with the continuing improvement of the Republic of

Korea military. We are an alliance.

I do today command the Republic of Korea military in war time,

and so I am deeply engaged with Korean military leaders every

day, and we train with them every day. So a lot of this is, again,

a success story. We are in partnership.

And not to forget, we still have our United Nations command,

which I command——

Mr. SESTAK. Yes, sir, but I guess my question is—my understanding is the reliance upon air power and that we have those

forces ready—and so my question is do you have—have we filled

that request out for the types of munitions that should be used by

the air power for the hard and deeply buried target (HDBT) and

the others?

How does that stack up to the change in the war plans of a few

years ago? Have you been able to get that enormous request that

you wanted filled?

General BELL. No doubt that the air power that we can bring to

bear today is radically different than what it was 20 years ago,

most of it a function of precision munitions and standoff capability

of the aircraft, so that they don’t have to——

Mr. SESTAK. Have you been able to get the munitions that that

war plane called for?

General BELL. We have the munitions that we need for a number

of days. I 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 aerial

munitions——

Mr. SESTAK. Has your request been filled, then, for your request

for munitions?

General BELL. I am sorry, sir?

Mr. SESTAK. Has that request that you have submitted——

General BELL. Yes, it is part——

Mr. SESTAK [continuing]. Has that been filled?

General BELL [continuing]. Of my integrated priority list, and the

Department of Defense is quite aware of how I see these requirements. Yes, sir.

Mr. SESTAK. So it has not been met.

General BELL. If we have a war and it goes the way I expect it

to—and again, be careful of expectations, because the enemy gets

a vote—I am confident we have the munitions now that we need.

Mr. SESTAK. A couple days. So my next question is if it is good

enough for a couple days, and this is a sudden war—30 miles from

Seoul to the DMZ—the readiness of our National Guard is what it

is, and the readiness of Army is what it is.

35

What is it after a couple days if things don’t go and you run out

of these munitions? Is that a more major concern in view of Iraq

and what it has upon the hold of our and the status of our Army

and where they are, if a few days is important?

General BELL. The Republic of Korea has 500,000 men under

arms today fundamentally capable of defending their capital. They

are active duty. They have a three-million-man reserve.

Mr. SESTAK. 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?

General BELL. I believe we are at a point with the Republic of

Korea, as we change our command relationships, where we are

going to review the allocation of U.S. forces against the enemy as

we know it and given the capability of the Republic of Korea military. So we will change.

Mr. SESTAK. The reason I am asking is we are about to increase

the Army by 92,000 troops, as well as the Marine Corps. But if you

are saying those forces really aren’t needed because the Air Force

can handle it, and we have such great reliance upon the ROK, are

those 92,000 troops then needed?

Because this is one of the two major contingencies for ground

forces we plan upon.

General BELL. I think those forces are exceptionally needed, and

even more potentially. United States’ worldwide interests are not

just against postulated war plans. There are many threats to our

interests worldwide that would require the allocation of ground

forces, not only North Korea.

So I am absolutely supportive of that increase and think it may

not be quite enough.

Mr. SESTAK. Thank you.

Admiral, could I ask a question? Since 1996, China—ever since

that time that we had the missiles rain down either side of Taiwan,

and we deployed Aegis cruisers there, every year since then, they

have done an exercise—not before, but ever since then—of increasing breadth and increasing depth, not dissimilar, some say, to 1967

after the Israeli war, the Egyptians did, leading to the 1973—out

of an exercise, a sudden thrust.

How do you plan on—I mean, is that a concern of ours? Do we

actually deploy extra forces out there during those periods of time

of the exercises?

Admiral FALLON. We certainly watch the activity of the PRC.

And I think, Congressman, that the reality today is that we would

expect to see the Chinese increase their exercise program as they

grow their capabilities and the means to fund those, and they recognize a need to step up from the level at which they had been operating.

Without going into the details, which we could certainly do in a

closed hearing if you wanted to pursue the inner workings of the

contingency plans, we watch and adjust our activities, I think, appropriately in the face of what we see as potential threats.

Mr. TAYLOR. Admirals, we are going to have to cut you all off.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr.

Wilson.

36

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, Admiral and General, for your service. I have

had the privilege of visiting with your troops in Hawaii, strategically important Guam, and Korea. And every time I have visited,

I have been so impressed by the young people protecting our country.

And, Admiral Fallon, I have been particularly pleased as the cochairman of the India Caucus, the developing strategic relationship

and alliance that we have with India. And the three of us are about

the same age; we have seen India evolve from a virtual enemy

state to one of our greatest allies.

Could you review for us the military exercises, other indications

of military cooperation?

Admiral FALLON. Yes, sir, I would be happy to.

India is one of the bright spots, I think, in the region—significant

change in focus and direction of our relationship with the two.

I have been a couple times to meet with the Indian leaders, and

I sense a similar sharing of desire to move us forward. There have

been a number of exercises, increasing in complexity, over the last

couple of years, and the plans are to continue in the same direction.

There is a naval exercise, Malabar, that has been going on. That

included aircraft carriers this past year. There are land exercises,

small but growing. Indian forces have been to the U.S., to Hawaii,

and the mainland a couple of times this year.

We will continue these as it makes sense and as we find fiscally

appropriate. But there is little doubt in my mind this direction is

improving.

There is another dimension here that is very significant. For the

first time that I can remember, the Indians have actually made an

acquisition of U.S. hardware, and that is the ex-USS Trenton, 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. It is kind of a landmark, a watershed event. There

is a lot of interest in future development—a lot of concern, I will

tell you, in India, historic anxiety, I think, about this because there

isn’t any track record. They have 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 are kind of looking

for us to see how we treat them and how we react. I think it is

an opportunity for us to be more interoperable. That is one of the

things we have discovered as we have done these exercises.

Since they are using equipment from different places, there is

some challenges here, and we could make this better in the future.

So lots of opportunities, is what I would say.

Mr. WILSON. Another indication of cooperation is the U.S.-India

civilian nuclear argument. I believe this promotes nonproliferation

because India now will separate its military and civilian nuclear

programs.

Have you been working with their government in regard to that?

Admiral FALLON. I think it is a very significant strategic step forward to gain the confidence of the Indian people that we in the

37

U.S. highly value a relationship with this country. And the potential for other things is great.

It is a huge country, more than a billion people, strategic location. And as I face my new challenges in the Middle East, I am

very sensitive of the fact that India has a lot of interest in the

same area. And there may be some possibilities here that would be

helpful in this new region, too.

Mr. WILSON. Another success story has been the Republic of

Mongolia. It is extraordinary to 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 Mongolia?

Admiral FALLON. Yes, sir, Congressman. This is a really good

success story. It is a small country in number of people, two million

people, but very large, covers a big area, strategically between Russia and China, so interesting challenges.

But they have 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 sense, like peacekeeping.

They don’t see a big threat to themselves externally, and so they

are taking their relatively small military and training it, and we

are helping them to train them to do things for the U.N., for example, in a peacekeeping role.

They are in Iraq. They have got over 100 troops there. They have

been there for several years now, giving us great support. And we

are working with them. We have a good exercise program.

And in fact, this summer they have volunteered to host an exercise called Conquest, which is primarily a peacekeeping reinforcement drill which will involve a lot of countries. So it is a really

good news story.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Guam,

Ms. Bordallo.

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And again, it is nice to see you, Admiral Fallon. You are a very

good friend of the Pacific area, and of course, General Bell as well.

I thank you both for your testimony today, and also thank you, Admiral, for your service as 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

and address the challenges that confront our national security interests in the region. Our military posture in the region is much

stronger because of your leadership.

And last, I want to thank you for your work to support the negotiation of the 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?

38

And can you provide for 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 would just like to get your idea of where we are today, if

you could help us with that.

Admiral FALLON. Sure, Congresswoman. Thank you.

First of all, at the high level, it is 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.

The longstanding security commitment that we have to Japan—

and that reaffirmation is very valuable, I think, as a signal to the

people not only of the region but particularly in both countries.

The details of this 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 not been as great as I might have expected prior to

getting into this job. That is increasing, and that is really good. I

could give you examples in missile defense cooperation and air defense cooperation in Japan, Japanese home islands, as examples.

Regarding the force structure of our Marines particularly, as we

look at the future and assess the optimum location of our forces,

as you are well aware, Guam plays a large role in our plans. We

have been there before. Things ebb and flow. But we see the strategic value of Guam.

And most importantly, it is U.S. territory. It is a place where we

have the freedom of action for our own people, with and by our own

people, to be able to do the things we think are necessary without

having to go to get international agreements. That is a tremendous

advantage.

There are some other issues, too. You know there has been a lot

of discontent, particularly in southern Okinawa, about our presence

there. We have been there for many decades, but as the Japanese

population of Okinawa has increased, encroachment has grown

around these facilities, and as we have seen in many places of the

world, it has become a problem.

So part of this arrangement will be to move a lot of our forces

out of that area that is heavily congested and put them in other

places, Guam being one.

The specifics of the funding are that the diet has not yet passed

the resolutions to provide for the funding. There has been a visit

by a Japanese diet delegation very recently to Guam to get their

assessment. I assume that is——

Ms. BORDALLO. And there will be in the future.

Admiral FALLON [continuing]. That is a precursor to their movement forward of their diet.

The prime minister, Mr. Abe, has stated his firm commitment to

make sure this happens. So I think things are in place. Planning

is under way. They are getting a sense of what needs to be done

and how much. And I expect this will go forward. I have high confidence this is going to go forward.

Ms. BORDALLO. So there would be no chance, then, of anybody reneging on the agreement.

39

Admiral FALLON. I think the chance of that is very, very small

indeed, because——

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Admiral, and——

Admiral FALLON [continuing]. It is in the interest of both countries.

Ms. BORDALLO [continuing]. I want to thank you again for your

services as commander of the Pacific Command and, of course, to

congratulate you on your new command. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes the gentleman from North

Carolina, Mr. McIntyre.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, gentlemen, for your service to our country.

Admiral Fallon, I wanted to ask you, or you, General Bell—but

if you could tell me—there were unconfirmed reports recently of

the Russians selling missiles to Iran. Do you have any knowledge

of this?

Admiral FALLON. I don’t have any detail. I will probably be focused on that pretty intently very soon.

Mr. MCINTYRE. And, General, do you have any knowledge of

this?

General BELL. I do not, Congressman. I have read these reports

but I have not looked into it personally.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. Is this something each of you, then, are

willing to follow up on to see if they are confirmed and how that

may affect our interest? Each of you would be willing to make that

commitment, is that correct?

You will, General?

And, Admiral, you said you will be following up on your new position, is that correct? All right.

Admiral FALLON. I will check that, and I will be back here next

month. I would be happy to answer.

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 133.]

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, sir. We obviously would have great

concern and interest in that.

Also, I understand Russians are selling submarines to the Iranian navy and to the Chinese navy. What do you know about that?

And is this a concern?

Admiral FALLON. The Russians have sold—and this is not new—

three Kilo class, as we call them, submarines to the Iranians, and

several of these to the Chinese. There is a buy that is in progress

now.

It is a concern, of course, to see the proliferation of these systems. They are diesel submarines. They are different than ours.

They are generally short range and would be used, I believe, in

close-in coastal waters. But clearly, we prefer that these kind of

things not be proliferated around the world.

We will keep an eye on them and make sure that we are doing

diligence here to ensure we have the capability to operate and detect and deal with these things if we ever have to.

Mr. MCINTYRE. 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 was a question,

40

I believe, asked about the Chinese navy. And is there any focus at

all and concern with regard to the buildup of the Chinese navy and

our sense of readiness or dealing with their strategy, their strategic

forces?

Admiral FALLON. Sure. In the maritime area, we watch very

closely the Pacific fleet and its commander and structure, keep an

eye on this. They are growing in capability and numbers and modern upgrades to their fleet. We watch it very closely.

Again, we are trying to get the Chinese to engage with us so that

we have a better understanding of where they are going and what

they are up to. One of my priorities is to push for an agreement

in expectations in areas at sea and in the air, when we will get in

close proximity to one another.

You recall that back in 2001 we had this collision between the

Chinese fighter and one of our P–3 reconnaissance aircraft.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Yes, sir.

Admiral FALLON. I would 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 in the maritime domain. That

exercise also did include aircraft. And we will continue to push this

area.

Mr. MCINTYRE. All right. And another question on—the Russians, I know, also are apparently selling the Su–30 jet fighters to

the Chinese. Is this a concern? Is this something you are monitoring?

Admiral FALLON. Again, more modern equipment—the question

is what are they going to use it for. The 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 have 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 can convince them that it is in the interest of

both countries that we work together and be very transparent and

open with what we do.

I think the Russians are selling these things not just to China

but other countries of the world because there is a lucrative market

for them. It is a way for them to get cash into their economy. And

it is one of the few capabilities that is actually available to them

in the export markets.

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Chairman, I think we did that within our time.

I appreciate you gentlemen’s answers and your service.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.

Admiral, I am 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 of the National Guard and reserve

come to mind.

And so I was wondering, within your Pacific Command, what

sort of needs have arisen as a result of the effort in Iraq and Afghanistan? What sort of equipment shortages do you have that

need to be addressed?

And that would sure also go to General Bell, but I will start with

you, Admiral.

41

Admiral FALLON. Congressman, no major needs that are being

unfilled.

As I review our desirements, if you would, to put into the system

in terms of needs out here, all of my priority items are very specific

operational things that—some are classified, but they are 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 unmet equipment

needs right now.

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, let me be specific. Do you have no need for

engineering equipment? Do you have no need for generators? Do

you have no need for tents? Let’s go down the list.

Admiral FALLON. I am sure that there are things that our Army

forces in the Pacific and the Marines out there would love to have.

But I believe that we have the equipment that we need today to

respond to any contingencies we have.

I guess in my dealing with the things that I believe we have to

face, recognizing that we have a war on and that the priority for

our people and our equipment is right now in the Middle East, I

have been taking as acceptable risk some of the things that are

maybe not immediately available, with the expectation that if

something changes and there is a threat in the Pacific that appears

to be an overriding concern, that we would get back or ask 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 used up and

not replaced.

And the fact that these forces then are put into rotation and they

are going to be called on in short order—I think if we needed to

do something right now, we could muster the appropriate materiel

and do that.

Of course, we would like to have new things. We would 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 immediate fill of

some of this equipment that they have borrowed, if you would, out

of prepo and other places to go to the war, knowing that the stuff

that we would like to have back is probably upgraded things,

newer materials.

The fact that the Humvees we have are not the up-armored—and

so instead of demanding that we replace all these things now, we

have agreed to defer these until such time as we can get the newer

equipment.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. For the record, I would be curious, since I am

convinced that we are going to need to replace every Humvee in

any potential combat zone with something like an Mine Resistant

Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, for the record, I would like to

know how many Humvees are in Korea.

[The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]

General BELL. How many are what to Korea, sir?

Mr. TAYLOR. In Korea, in South Korea.

General BELL. Well, I can tell you how many—well, I have to be

careful here on classification. But I can tell you that the Humvees

42

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 is important.

Now, we would not necessarily face the kind of, you know, improvised explosive device (IED) threat you see in Afghanistan and Iraq

right now, but to go into combat with soft-skinned wheeled vehicles

is not something I would prefer to do.

So the answer is both in my prepo stocks over there and for the

one maneuver brigade that I have from the Second Infantry Division, these Humvees—and, for that matter, sir, our tactical trucks,

the larger trucks, two and a half-ton family of tactical 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 wheeled vehicles was based on a more linear type

battlefield, where we had a secure rear area and blah, blah, blah.

And now we see, in modern warfare, that that guarantee of a secure rear area is just not something we can count on.

So we have got to upgrade our ground equipment so that our

supporting equipment has the capacity of some of our combat

equipment to survive in this non-contiguous battle space.

So I will tell you, Congressman, your concerns about this equipment—I share those concerns, not only with respect to the ability

to generate forces out of the United States, but also the kinds of

equipment we have, given the realities of modern warfare.

Having said that, I am really confident in the Republic of Korea

army. Really. And I am very confident in our air and naval power.

And all the work I have 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 we are seriously worried

about some of those issues.

Mr. TAYLOR. General, the last number that I had heard was that

the North Koreans had approximately 100,000 people in their special forces. Is that still fairly accurate?

General BELL. That is a little high, but the number I would

share with you here today is around 80,000. And I am very concerned about their special forces.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. I have always noticed—I hate to use the word

‘‘impressed,’’ but I have certainly taken notice in our foe’s ability

to wreak havoc with a minimal amount of money.

Given that the Humvee has been shown to be particularly susceptible to land mines, and that our enemies obviously talk to each

other over the Internet and potential enemies talk to each other

over the Internet, I have now become convinced that up-armoring

Humvees is not the solution, that we need to go to replacing

Humvees with something like an MRAP or better.

So with that in mind, what would be the number of vehicles in

Korea that would need replacing? And I am also not a fan of requirement. I think the Army in particular has caused themselves

a lot of troubles with these artificial requirement numbers.

When you take 10 percent of the total force and say that is all

I need to replace, and we end up finding it is not 10 percent, it is

really 100 percent, let’s get to that sooner rather than later.

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So what are the number of Humvees that you have on the Korean peninsula?

General BELL. Again, sir, I would say it goes beyond Humvees.

It is the family of tactical trucks. I would be really focused on that.

Mr. TAYLOR. So what are the number of vehicles?

General BELL. This number that I would share with you today

is for the force we have on the ground today, not the force that we

might want to bring in. Somewhere less than 1,000 of these platforms.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. General, the other thing—and this is going

back about 18 months to 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 meals ready to eat (MRE)

stocks—and for good reason, but obviously, a huge demand on the

stocks.

And I remember thinking, ‘‘Gee, what if the North Koreans act

up about now?’’ What are your stocks for things like MREs, for

things like generators?

You know, just the basic things that are going to happen in a

conventional conflict, when your electricity goes out, the water

quits running, can’t necessarily count on the supply ships being as

timely as they were before. What are your normally prepositioned

stock—what is your timeline?

General BELL. I want to be just a bit cautious because of classification, but I require a minimum of 15 days of supply of Class 1.

Class 1 is food. I have those stocks on hand now on the peninsula

for the force I have on hand.

And the prepo of Class 1, mostly MREs but there are some other

prepackaged foods, in the Pacific region under Admiral Fallon’s

command right now significantly go beyond that. So Class 1 is not

something I am concerned about for the force I have on the ground

today, much.

Class 3 fuel, which is one of these basics—I am very confident

in our Class 3 stocks on the peninsula and in the region.

The two stocks that are more fragile are Class 5 and Class 7.

Five, of course, is ammunition. Conventional ammo I am very confident in. On the peninsula we have probably more than we will

consume.

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 7 is what you have been talking about. Those are major

end items of equipment. Whether it is a tank or whether it is a

Humvee, that is a Class 7 item.

And again, I think of all the classes of supply that we have in

the military today, the Class 7 stocks are under the most stress because of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only from a modernization perspective, like you said, but just a refit perspective,

and the long lines that we have in our depots 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

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to generate that today, and 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 confident in the Republic of Korea army. And I know the

North Korean army very well. I have studied them.

And it would not be wise for the North Koreans to attempt an

adventure in the Republic of Korea with the capability of the ROK

military and our air and naval power. And I have got a range of

confidence that is very high, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. The equipment concerns that you have, are they addressed in this year’s Department of Defense request?

General BELL. They are, absolutely. And my integrated priority

list, absolutely.

Mr. TAYLOR. If a conventional war were to break out on the Korean peninsula, you would not be coming to this committee a year

from now saying oops, I got caught flat-footed because of what was

going on in Iraq and Afghanistan?

General BELL. It is not my expectation that I would come to this

committee a year from now and tell you I got caught flat-footed at

all. I have enormous confidence in the Republic of Korea army.

Mr. TAYLOR. Last question, and I will use some examples. We have spent, I guess off the top of my head, $500 million to build

a base in Manta, Ecuador up to American standards. Apparently

we are being asked to give it back to the Ecuadorians.

You probably spent some of your career in Panama. We spent a

lot of money on housing and other important needs—turned that

over around the year 2000.

I agree with your desire to be able to bring the families over to

Korea. I think that makes perfect sense. But there is obviously a

price tag associated with even our half of the MILCON.

My question is given the example of Ecuador, given the example

of Panama, what sort of guarantees can we get from the Korean

government that we are not just going to build something to turn

it over in three years to five years?

General BELL. It really boils down to interests of both nations

and the strength of the alliance, not just U.S. stationing in South

Korea.

But why do we have a mutual security alliance with the Republic

of Korea or, for that matter, one with Japan or other nations in the

area? And how enduring are those alliances?

And when we look at the region, and when we talk to our

friends—the Republic of Korea, the Japanese, even some emerging

partners, hopefully China, et cetera—it is clear to us that not only

are we welcome and wanted in that area of 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 solved.

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 the Republic of Korea, as they

have been with us, deep into the future, certainly throughout this

century and beyond.

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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 am very

confident that, one, we would not be wasting money.

Second, a great deal of our stationing costs there are paid for by

the Republic of Korea, as we are seeing the case in Japan as well.

As long as they are willing to continue to offer us their good economic engine to encourage us to have forces stationed there, I believe that we will continue to see that the majority of our stationing costs are covered by our ally.

And our building costs in the future will be significantly paid for

by our ally as well. Sir, we will have costs. I 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

I am confident that they will do that in the future.

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral Sestak, do you have a need for a second

round?

Mr. SESTAK. Just a couple quick ones.

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.

Mr. SESTAK. General or Admiral, when you talk about——

Mr. TAYLOR. Admiral, if I may interrupt, you have got exactly

four minutes under the House rules.

Mr. SESTAK. All right.

If I might ask, the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

(ISR) assets for the early warning, are they sufficient? Have they

changed since Iraq has begun, Admiral?

Admiral FALLON. ISR, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance

assets, are high demand, no doubt about it. There is a huge investment in these assets in Iraq. We look at, in my theater, day to day,

to see how we are doing.

We have agreed to move a lot of these assets to Central Command right now. I think that we are okay in this theater. I would

like to have some of these assets back on a day-to-day basis. But

given where we are at this day, we found that risk to be acceptable.

If it changes tomorrow, I will be the first in line to go to

CENTCOM and ask—or ask the chairman to get some of these

back. But right now, I think we are okay.

Mr. SESTAK. Admiral, also, or General—I think it is in your theater, Admiral—the ballistic missile defense (BMD), the afloat portion that had come out there but—I understand the interest in ballistic missile defense.

But don’t we have an afloat radar out there that is not quite seaworthy, the one that will go up in——

Admiral FALLON. Are you referring to the X-band——

Mr. SESTAK. Yes, sir.

Admiral FALLON [continuing]. Platform? They have had some

challenges. This is a development program, BMD. It is not really

mine, although it has been operating in our theater.

I believe that it is being shaken down, and I don’t want to speak

for BMD. We have watched with interest as it comes along.

Mr. SESTAK. This is really their area.

Admiral FALLON. But we are not totally dependent on this system. It is very helpful, but we have in place our afloat systems,

Aegis systems, and this X-band radar that is now land-based in

Japan that is——

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Mr. SESTAK. Forward Based X-Band Transportable Radar (FBX–

T)?

Admiral FALLON. Yes, that is correct, FBX–T.

Mr. SESTAK. And my next is dry dock. Do we have a dry dock

in Guam for the submarines, or, if not, are we planning on putting

one there so they can enhance its readiness rather than going back

to Hawaii?

Admiral FALLON. That is a good question. There is a dock. We

have not used it. To the best of my knowledge, again, it is really

a fleet question. We will have to get——

Mr. SESTAK. But it is a significant difference from the first couple

boats, right, not having a dry—is it something that the Navy may

be looking at?

Admiral FALLON. We are looking at it. The Navy is looking at it.

And one of the realities is, as these first submarines went out

there—is to kind of see what we know and what we don’t know.

And I think the Navy will make their future deployment decisions and repair decisions based on what they learn from these

early deployments.

Mr. SESTAK. Thanks for your time.

And, Admiral, thanks for a lot during my career. I very much appreciate it. There is no one better in the Navy that could go to

CENTCOM or—just no one better in the Navy. Thank you, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. The committee stands adjourned.

I want to thank our witnesses.

Admiral FALLON. Thank you, sir.

[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

MARCH 7, 2007

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MCINTYRE

Mr. MCINTYRE. There were unconfirmed reports recently of the Russians selling

missiles to Iran. Do you have any knowledge of this?

Admiral FALLON and General BELL. Questions regarding Russian missile sales to

Iran and how this may affect our interests can best be addressed by U.S. European

Command (EUCOM) rather than by USFK since our focus is on Korea and issues

related to the theater. However, after consultation with EUCOM, we have been advised of the following:

In late November 2005, Russian and Iran negotiated a contract for 29 TOR-Mi

surface-to-air missiles for $700 million. Russian officials announced in January 2007

that all of the Tor-Mi had been delivered to Iran. Iranian officials announced the

successful local testing of the Tor-Mi in February 2007.

Press reports indicate that Syria intended to sell Iran 10 PANTSIR-S1 surfaceto-air missile systems, part of a block of 50 PANTSIR-S’s Syria contracted from Russia. Russian officials denied allegations they were selling PANTSIR-S1 to Iran using

Syria as an intermediary.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER

Ms. TAUSCHER. Do you believe there are sufficient numbers of PATRIOT PAC–

3 interceptors currently available in the PACOM/USFK AOR, or are additional capabilities needed?

Admiral FALLON. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the

committee files.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. Also, do you believe that there are sufficient numbers of Aegis

BMD-capable ships and Standard Missile-3 interceptors currently available in theater, or are additional capabilities needed?

Admiral FALLON. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the

committee files.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. Do you believe there are sufficient numbers of PATRIOT PAC–

3 interceptors currently available in the PACOM/USFK AOR, or are additional capabilities needed?

General BELL. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the committee files.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. Also, do you believe that there are sufficient numbers of Aegis

BMD-capable ships and Standard Missile-3 interceptors currently available in theater, or are additional capabilities needed?

General BELL. There are insufficient numbers of Aegis BMD-Capable ships or

Standard Missile-3 interceptors to solely address the entire ballistic missile threat

in the PACOM AOR. However, the United States cannot rely on ‘‘Active Defense’’

alone to counter the growing Ballistic Missile threat in the Pacific. We must increase our Joint capabilities to counter the ballistic missile threat in the Pacific utilizing all four pillars of missile defense (Active Defense, Attack Operations, Passive

Defense, and C4I) in order to pace and counter the growing Ballistic Missile threat.

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