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NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION, AND LESSONS FROM SOUTHCOM AND

AFRICOM

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 28, 2010

Serial No. 111–124

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Chairman

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

JACKIE SPEIER, California

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

JUDY CHU, California

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANH ‘‘JOSEPH’’ CAO, Louisiana

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

RON STROMAN, Staff Director

MICHAEL MCCARTHY, Deputy Staff Director

CARLA HULTBERG, Chief Clerk

LARRY BRADY, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

PETER WELCH, Vermont

BILL FOSTER, Illinois

STEVE DRIEHAUS, Ohio

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

JUDY CHU, California

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri

ANDREW WRIGHT, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on July 28, 2010 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Pendleton, John, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office; James Schear, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Partnership Strategic and Stability Operations, U.S. Department of Defense; Thomas Countryman, Principal

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, U.S.

Department of State; and Susan Reichle, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,

U.S. Agency for International Development ............................................... 8

Countryman, Thomas ................................................................................ 46

Pendleton, John ......................................................................................... 8

Reichle, Susan ........................................................................................... 55

Schear, James ............................................................................................ 35

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Countryman, Thomas, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for

Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 48

Flake, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arizona,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 90

Pendleton, John, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ............... 10

Reichle, Susan, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy,

Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International

Development, prepared statement of .......................................................... 58

Schear, James, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Partnership

Strategic and Stability Operations, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 37

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 78, 84

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

(1)

NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION, AND LESSONS FROM

SOUTHCOM AND AFRICOM

WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John F.

Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Welch, Quigley, and Chu.

Staff present: Andy Wright, staff director; Talia Dubovi, counsel;

Boris Maguire, clerk; Thomas Alexander, minority counsel; Justin

LoFranco, minority clerk; Shang Yi, minority intern.

Mr. TIERNEY. I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here

today, and everyone else, as well. Mr. Flake is going to be here in

a little bit. Point of order on that, but he has asked us to go ahead

and proceed in his absence. Ordinarily we would not, except that

he has expressed that clearly, rather than hold all of you up, and

because we don’t know quite what the voting schedule is going to

be. I suspect we may find ourselves being interrupted at some

point, again with our regrets on that.

The Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs’

hearing entitled National Security: Interagency Collaboration and

Lessons from SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM is now in order.

I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking

member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements. Mr. Flake may certainly make his when he does get here,

if he wishes.

Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept open

for five business days so that all members of the subcommittee will

be allowed to submit a written statement for the record.

Again, without objection that is so ordered.

I want to again thank everybody for being here. This is a continuation of the oversight of the agencies that are charged with

protecting national security interests and their ability to communicate and collaborate with each other.

In 1945, following the end of World War II, President Truman

sent a message to Congress recommending the establishment of a

Department of Defense to combine and coordinate the different

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military branches in order to better face the challenges of the future. He wrote, ‘‘If there is ever going to be another global conflict,

our combat forces must work together in one team as they have

never been required to work together in the past.’’ He urged Congress to, ‘‘Take stock to discard obsolete organizational forms and

to provide for the future the soundest, the most effective, and the

most economical kind of structure for our armed forces in which

this most powerful Nation is capable.’’ Congress agreed, and in

1947 the President signed the National Security Act.

Similar words could be spoken today. The threats and challenges

currently facing our country are increasingly complex. Terrorism,

drug violence, piracy, human trafficking, and the potential for nuclear proliferation, just to name a few, cut across the traditional

lines between diplomacy, development, and defense.

As the problems become more multi-faceted, so, too, must our solutions. Terrorist and criminal organizations grow and flourish in

weak and unstable countries, and effectively countering these organizations requires more than military might. Justice sector reform,

police training, anti-corruption efforts, public health campaigns,

and economic development programs are all necessary to routing

out and neutralizing those who would do us harm.

The whole-of-government approach requires the skills and expertise of the full range of Federal agencies. Over the last two Congresses, this subcommittee has held numerous hearings that demonstrate how interconnected our government must be to effectively

promote and safeguard U.S. security interests.

In hearings covering topics ranging from transnational drug enterprises to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to emerging

technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles, we have heard from

witnesses representing the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, Commerce, and Justice, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development. Not one of these hearings would have presented a complete oversight picture without witnesses from multiple agencies.

Today we turn our attention to the Department of Defense’s regional combatant commands. Specifically, we will hear about the

results of two Government Accountability Office studies, one on the

U.S. Southern Command [SOUTHCOM], and the other on U.S. Africa Command [AFRICOM].

In 2008 the Department of Defense directed these two commands

to include interagency partners in their theater campaign and contingency plans, and both commands have worked to include interagency personnel within the commands, themselves. These experiences should prove instructive to continued interagency efforts

within the Federal Government.

There are two different levels at which we must examine this

issue. The first is mechanical. Are the correct systems and processes in place to facilitate interagency collaboration? We must ask

how the State Department’s bilateral structure can effectively coordinate with the Defense Department and USAID’s regional setups. We need to examine whether technological systems at different agencies can communicate with each other and whether each

agency is making its best effort to share information. We should

evaluate whether personnel of these agencies understand the culVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:11 May 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\64927.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tures and functions of the agencies and whether the right incentives exist to encourage collaboration. These basic issues have profound on-the-ground effects that, if not fully addressed, significantly undermine the United States’ missions abroad.

But we must also ask broader policy questions. As threats have

changed, the concept of national security has broadened. As a result, the Department of Defense has taken on an expanding role in

areas that have traditionally been allocated to the State Department and USAID, as well as others. We must work to find the

right balance between the agencies and make sure that funding

streams and personnel numbers reflect that balance. Failure to

strike the right balance has consequences.

For example, AFRICOM’s 2008 roll-out sent the message the that

military would take the lead on all U.S. activities in Africa, which

upset governments throughout the continent. We must ensure that

the right agency takes the lead on each effort, that diplomacy is led

by diplomats, that development projects are designed and implemented by development experts, and that military operations are

planned and coordinated by the military.

Over 60 years ago, President Truman foresaw the challenges

that confront us today. He argued that, ‘‘We should adopt the organizational structure best suited to fostering coordination between

the military and the remainder of the government.’’ I believe it is

time that we follow his advice.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Now, before we move on to our witnesses, I want

to note for the record that the process for receiving written statements for this hearing was, to be frank, unacceptable. Two of the

agencies here today submitted testimony only after hours yesterday. The other submitted testimony to us less than 4 hours ago.

And we still haven’t received testimony from the fourth agency.

We know that preparing testimonies is a burden on the agencies.

I understand that coordinating with the Office of Management and

Budget is challenging. But we don’t call these hearings lightly, and

we call them because there are important issues to be discussed.

Members need time to review those statements in advance to prepare for the hearings, and our staff does, as well.

We can’t have situations, as we did last night, where the subcommittee staff had to wait around for testimony that never came.

It is a matter of congressional prerogatives, and also a basic question of courtesy to our staff. So if the problem is with OMB, I would

appreciate that discretely after the meeting somebody come up and

tell me that with respect to your agency OMB was the problem and

we will take care of it there. If the problem rests with you or your

agency, I expect that you will correct that and that we won’t have

a repeat of this situation in the future. Thank you.

Now we are going to receive testimony from the witnesses. What

I will do is introduce all of you at the outset, as some of you are

familiar with it, and then we will proceed to go from my left to

right in statements.

Mr. John Pendleton is the Director of Force Structure and Defense Planning Issues in the Government Accountability Office, Defense Capabilities and Management Team. His current portfolio includes ballistic missile defense, nuclear requirements, global military posture, interagency collaboration, stability operations, as well

as reviews of Army and Navy conventional force structure plans.

In one of his recent projects for this subcommittee, he oversaw a

review of the efforts to establish the Africa Command. Mr. Pendleton also serves as GAO’s strategic planner for defense issues. He

holds a business degree from the University of Kentucky. He has

attended national security courses at Syracuse, National Defense

University, Naval Post-Graduate School, and Army Command and

General Staff College.

Dr. James Schear is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations at the Department of Defense, where he advises the Department’s leadership on

matters pertaining to stabilization and reconstruction operations,

foreign disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, international

peacekeeping efforts, and noncombatant evacuations.

Prior to assuming his current duties, Dr. Schear served as the

Director of Research at the National Defense University’s Institute

for National Strategic Studies, and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs. He

assisted the United Nations with planning for the implementation

of the Gulf War cease-fire resolutions, and served as an advisor to

the leadership of U.N. missions in Cambodia and former Yugoslavia. For his efforts during the Kosovo Crisis, Dr. Schear received

the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

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During 2007 he also served as a principal member of the Afghanistan Study Group.

He holds a B.A. from American University, an M.A. from Johns

Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mr. Thomas Countryman is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. He is a career member

of the Senior Foreign Policy Service and began his career as a consular and political officer in Belgrade. He later served as the political military officer at the American Embassy in Cairo during the

first Gulf War and as a liaison with the U.N. Special Commission

investigating Iraq’s weapons program.

Afterward, he served as Director of the State Department’s Office

of South-Central European Affairs and the Minister-Counselor for

Political Affairs at the American Embassy in Rome. He has also

served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Athens,

Greece, and as the Foreign Policy Advisor to General James

Conway, the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Mr. Countryman received the Presidential Meritorious Service

Citation in 2007 and the Superior Honor Award for each of his assignments in Rome and Athens. He graduated from Washington

University in St. Louis and studied at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Ms. Susan Reichle is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator

for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S.

Agency for International Development. Ms. Reichle is a career Senior Foreign Service Officer who has served in Haiti, Nicaragua, and

Russia as a Democracy Officer specializing in conflict and transition issues.

She recently served as the Mission Director at the U.S. Embassy

in Colombia, where she was part of one of the largest country

teams in the world. For her service, Ms. Reichle received several

awards from the Colombian Government, recognizing USAID’s contribution under her leadership.

She holds an M.A. from the National War College at the National Defense University, two additional Master’s degrees from the

University of Pennsylvania, and she received her B.A. from James

Madison University.

Again, thank all of you for being witnesses here today and for

sharing your substantial expertise.

In addition to the witnesses on the panel before us, the subcommittee has invited a written statement for the record from Ms.

Mariko Silver, the Acting Assistant Secretary for International Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. She is unable to attend today’s hearing, but we are grateful for her written testimony,

which will be put into the hearing record by unanimous consent.

It is the policy of the subcommittee to have all of the witnesses

testifying before it to be sworn in, so I ask you to please stand and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. All of the panelists have answered in the affirmative.

Your written statements in full will be put on the record, so I ask

if you can to try to keep your opening remarks to about 5 minutes.

8

You are all familiar with the light system here. It is green when

it is a go, it is yellow when you get about a minute to go, and gets

red when the floor opens and you all drop through. [Laughter.]

We appreciate your testimony today.

Mr. Pendleton, if you would, please.

STATEMENTS OF JOHN PENDLETON, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; JAMES SCHEAR, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PARTNERSHIP STRATEGIC AND STABILITY OPERATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; THOMAS COUNTRYMAN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL-MILITARY AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE; AND SUSAN REICHLE,

SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S.

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

STATEMENT OF JOHN PENDLETON

Mr. PENDLETON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to testify about emerging lessons from our work at AFRICOM and

SOUTHCOM. I will briefly summarize the reports we issue today

in the context of interagency collaboration, as well as provide some

preliminary information from our ongoing work on counter-piracy

efforts, work you also requested.

While both AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM have to be prepared for

traditional military operations, these are not their focus. Day-today, both conduct a variety of activities, from fighting drugs to civil

affairs projects like building schools and drilling water wells. They

also have to be prepared to respond to disasters like the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti. Because such activities are not strictly military operations, they must work closely with other organizations like State and AID.

You will recall that the last time I testified before you I discussed some of the issues DOD faced in creating AFRICOM, including concerns inside the U.S. Government that getting DOD more

involved in Africa would blur the lines between defense, diplomacy,

and development. You asked us to look beyond the macro perceptions and fears to focus on the actual activities being conducted and

the challenges being encountered on the ground.

In sum, we found a command that is maturing, one that has

made progress but still has issues to overcome in leveraging relationships with other organizations. For instance, some AFRICOM

activities could have unintended consequences or waste scarce resources, such as a planned musical caravan in Senegal.

AFRICOM’s task force in Djibouti built a school that was later

found dilapidated, among other cultural missteps.

But AFRICOM has also had notable success stories, as described

in our report. My team observed a large pandemic response exercise in Uganda that was actually headed up by an AID official who

was assigned to AFRICOM headquarters. This and other activities

like the Africa Partnership Station that promotes maritime security through activities coordinated with State, AID, and DHS are

examples of positive interagency collaboration.

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Our ongoing work on counter-piracy efforts in the Horn of Africa

region also underscores the importance of interagency collaboration. Consensus exists that the piracy problem emanates from the

ungoverned spaces of Somalia, which is in AFRICOM’s area of responsibility.

But it is far from clear how the U.S. Government plans to address that. Prevention and interdiction efforts have shifted pirate

attacks, but the problem is becoming more diffuse as the attacks

are happening farther and farther from shore.

The National Security Council developed an action plan in 2008

to provide an over-arching strategy for countering piracy; however,

the plan doesn’t assign specific responsibilities, so it is unclear who

is in charge of things like strategic communications, cutting off pirate revenue, and making sure captured pirates get prosecuted.

Our full report on counter-piracy efforts will be published later this

year, and it will detail these and other findings.

While AFRICOM is a relatively new command, SOUTHCOM has

been in the interagency business for a long time and is widely regarded as good at it. The collaboration necessary to fight drug trafficking has given SOUTHCOM more than 20 years of experience in

working with diplomatic, development, and law enforcement agencies. During our review, we heard many positive comments about

how well the command involves other agencies in its planning and

works with them during operations.

In 2008, SOUTHCOM developed a non-traditional organizational

structure with non-DOD civilians in prominent roles. Other commands, including AFRICOM, have followed suit. However, after the

earthquake struck Haiti earlier this year, SOUTHCOM struggled

to make its structure work for the large-scale operation that followed. SOUTHCOM’s headquarters structure lacked depth in its logistics staff, among other issues. The headquarters needed to

quickly add hundreds of personnel, and the unusual structure complicated matters.

As a result, SOUTHCOM went back to a traditional military

structure virtually overnight and has kept this structure since,

while it studies how to balance day-to-day operations with the potential for a large-scale contingency.

In our reports issued today we have made multiple recommendations to address the challenges I have described at both AFRICOM

and SOUTHCOM. Encouragingly, Mr. Chairman, DOD agreed with

our findings and recommendations and plans to take steps to address it.

Thank you. That concludes my remarks. I look forward to taking

any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pendleton follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Pendleton.

Dr. Schear.

STATEMENT OF JAMES SCHEAR

Dr. SCHEAR. Chairman Tierney, members of the committee, I am

very grateful for this opportunity to join colleagues from the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development in offering our perspectives on interagency collaboration within the U.S. combatant commands.

I would also like to take this occasion to commend the Government Accountability Office for its two very cogent, well-argued reports that serve as the focus of today’s hearings.

To briefly summarize my prepared remarks, Mr. Chairman, I

think everyone here would agree that interagency collaboration is

hugely important, in particular for my department, the Department of Defense. My boss, Secretary Gates, has observed that the

lines separating war, peace, diplomacy, and development have become more blurred, sir, I believe you underscored that same theme,

and no longer fit the neat organizational charts of the 20th Century.

All the various stakeholders working in the international arena,

military and civilian, government and private, have to learn to

stretch outside their comfort zones to work together and achieve results.

I think Secretary Gates’ point underscores an absolute reality,

which is we have enormous incentives to collaborate, but we also

face management challenges that remain very complex, both in

terms of marshaling the necessary human and budgetary resources

and aligning our capacities, our differing capacities, in a complementary way.

Given these challenges, I would like to offer a few guidelines that

I think could be part of a more comprehensive road map to building

a better future in this important area.

First of all, interagency coordination at the Combatant Command, COCOM, level needs to be tailored to the distinctive needs

of the region. There is no ‘‘one size fits all formula’’ for scripting

the whole-of-government coordination effort. Different missions,

ranging from disaster relief and humanitarian assistance and foreign consequence management, all the way to counter-terrorism

and security force assistance, require different mixes of interagency

participation and different roles and missions, different leading and

supporting elements need to be included in that mix.

Second, planning can be a vital instrument for forging greater

interagency coordination. Our regional commands develop campaign and contingency plans pursuant to DOD guidance, and they

place strong emphasis on incorporating interagency perspectives.

We on the DOD side through the commands also benefit from

greater access and influence over the development of USAID regional development plans and the State Department’s country level

mission strategic and resource plans. The planning instruments are

very useful. They need to be worked in tandem.

Third guideline: effective interagency coordination is human capital intensive. The integration of non-DOD perspectives at the combatant command level through embedded or liaison personnel can

36

both inform and influence the perspectives of our own service personnel at all levels, especially when it comes to understanding the

socio-cultural landscape of the countries. But again, the job of

aligning the supply of and demand for such talent is not to be

taken lightly. It is a very difficult challenge.

Guideline No. 4: interagency coordination should always be supportive and harmonize with longstanding civil and military authorities. As Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, a former AFRICOM deputy, just recently emphasized, AFRICOM is a test platform for

helping the military as an institution to better understand its role

in supporting diplomacy and development.

Fifth, there is the issue of unintended consequences, and we

must be careful to avoid those. I concur with my colleague from

GAO on that point. Interagency coordination at the command level

is not a substitute for coordination at the Washington or country

team levels, but rather a complement to the overall process.

Finally, the sixth guideline: we should not discourage innovative

approaches to engagement. We have a strong stake in encouraging

our commands to experiment with new organizational models that

better integrate efforts with our civilian partners, even though we

may be accepting a certain amount of friction as the commands

learn how to do this better.

Those are the six points I would like to emphasize. I am certainly

prepared to give specific reactions on the analysis of SOUTHCOM

and Operation Unified Response, as well as AFRICOM and its diverse challenges, but I see, sir, I am running out of time so I will

curtail my remarks.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Schear follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. Countryman.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS COUNTRYMAN

Mr. COUNTRYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of

the committee, for inviting the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs

to share State’s perspectives on AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM. We

are very happy to be with these two colleagues, who are constant

partners of Assistant Secretary Shapiro and the rest of our team

in working on security assistance, policy, and reform.

In my 20 years of working with DOD in various capacities, I

must say I have never seen a better level of communication and cooperation between Defense and State than I see today. This is not

just led from the top by Secretaries Clinton and Gates, but it extends through all levels of both organizations and has been nurtured by our common experience on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the State Department lead on strategic policy issues with

DOD, my Bureau has been intimately involved in the standup of

AFRICOM and the transformation of SOUTHCOM into an interagency oriented organization. We co-chaired working groups with

the Africa and Western Hemisphere Bureaus to help guide OSD on

the impact of these changes to our institutional relationships, as

well as to our regional policies.

State still needs to work out some complex issues with DOD concerning AFRICOM’s mission and activities, but the combatant command is still young and is rapidly gaining experience and strength.

After General Ward took command, AFRICOM welcomed our

input and developed a mission statement that aligns its military

operations in unambiguous support of U.S. foreign policy.

One of our active Ambassadors serves as the deputy to the commander for civil-military activities, an unprecedented role that ensures high-level participation in AFRICOM’s plans and partnering

activities. And we have placed an additional, by the end of this

year, 11 Foreign Service Officers to serve as POLADs, foreign policy advisors, or in the directorates of the commands.

We already see great success at the operational level. Within

State, I lead the diplomatic efforts to combat piracy off the coast

of Somalia, which AFRICOM has strongly supported. We worked

together with AFRICOM on the African Partnership Station, and

also their African maritime law enforcement partnership, which

are developing our partner’s maritime and legal enforcement capabilities.

While AFRICOM was forming, SOUTHCOM was reforming. Arguably, SOUTHCOM’s interagency focus has been more forward

leaning than the typical geographic command as they look to support State- and AID-led activities in rule of law, counter-narcotics,

disaster relief, and humanitarian assistance. SOUTHCOM also

turned the State POLAD into a civilian deputy to the commander,

giving him responsibility over strategic planning, security cooperation, public affairs, strategic communications, and outreach to

NGO’s and business.

Again, we have 11 Foreign Service Officers by this fall assigned

to SOUTHCOM. Their interagency outreach and cooperation was

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critical to SOUTHCOM’s ability to respond to Haiti’s devastating

earthquake.

We continue to work with all the combatant commands, to align

their vast resources and capabilities behind policies and activities

led by the State Department and other civilian agencies, including

rule of law development, military assistance, and others. In the

vast majority of cases it is not a problem, but, of course, as you see

in the GAO study, there are times when foreign and defense policies and approaches do not rapidly and cleanly mesh. This doesn’t

alarm me; I am rather used to it. I might be more worried if our

cultures were so identical that we agreed on everything instantly.

What we try to insure is that misinformation is not the cause of

any misalignment in our policy approaches. We are doing all we

can to encourage full and free exchange of information between the

Department and combatant commands at all levels.

A key aspect is exchange tours, providing opportunities for State

and DOD officers to fill positions in the other organizations. We

have expanded the POLAD program from 20 officers 5 years ago

to more than 80 today, and we look forward to signing a new MOU

with the Defense Department that will set a new goal of exchanging 110 officers in each direction each year.

As Dr. Schear said, this is not a substitute, but it is a facilitator

of interagency cooperation.

I will stop here, Mr. Chairman, and again thank you for the opportunity.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Countryman follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much.

Ms. Reichle.

STATEMENT OF SUSAN REICHLE

Ms. REICHLE. Chairman Tierney, distinguished members of this

committee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here this afternoon

for this hearing with members who I collaborate on a daily basis

with in the Department of State and Department of Defense, and

also to really commend the work that the GAO has done. It is really outstanding to see the amount of work that went into a very intense review.

The purpose of my remarks is two-fold: first, to explain why we

in the development community believe that an integrated U.S. Government approach to crisis prevention, humanitarian response, and

instability is critical; and, second, to outline the steps that we have

taken in the U.S. Agency for International Development to make

such collaboration possible.

Within the three D’s national security construct of diplomacy, development, and defense, USAID’s collaboration with the Departments of State and Defense is essential to promoting and protecting national security. While the civ-mil relationship actually

stretches back to the 1960’s, it took on new urgency following major

disasters.

USAID posted its first Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance Advisor to PACOM back in 1994 at the request of the PACOM commander because of a cyclone that struck Bangladesh and the response. An OFDA advisor in a similar situation was assigned to

SOUTHCOM following Hurricane Mitch, the response in 1998. And

by 2008, USAID OFDA had advisors in each of the combatant commands, and I think that really represents, obviously, the ramp-up

and the importance that we saw in coordinating with the combatant commands.

Soon after September 11th, the Agency also made a decision to

significantly enhance its ability to influence the COCOMs. Although USAID’s Senior Foreign Service Corps was shrinking actually at the time, USAID’s leadership recognized the importance of

creating new senior development advisor positions, SDAs, in each

of the COCOMs. These were envisioned as officers who could address the nexus between defense and development required in addressing a range of issues.

Around this same time, the Agency recognized the importance of

establishing an Office of Military Affairs. As this Military Affairs

office began to staff up in 2006, one of its primary responsibilities

was strengthening coordination between the COCOMs, USAID regional bureaus, and our missions around the world. As a result of

these advances in recent years to strengthen civ-mil coordination,

we are better placed to share lessons learned and leverage interagency expertise to further national security and improve development outcomes.

DOD’s SOUTHCOM and Africa Command are two excellent examples of this partnership. I had the opportunity to witness firsthand the important role of SOUTHCOM in promoting interagency

coordination while serving as the USAID Mission Director in Colombia. The Embassy’s integrated approach was fully supported by

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SOUTHCOM as we collectively worked across the interagency to

tackle Colombia’s illicit narcotics production and trafficking.

The interagency coordination was supplemented by a close working relationship within the entire interagency, but, most importantly, with our Colombian counterparts on a clear-hold-build strategy, to regain territory controlled by the Revolutionary Armed

Forces of Colombia, often known as the FARC.

The statistics are impressive and it really demonstrates the impact of an integrated approach supported at all levels. Since 2002,

kidnappings, homicides, and terrorist attacks decreased by 90, 45,

and 71 percent respectively nationwide, and development indicators significantly increased.

The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th is another example of critical importance of interagency collaboration. The response effort represents the most broadly and deeply integrated humanitarian operation abroad in U.S. history. The Haiti earthquake

response was built upon years of investing in developing existing

processes for USAID-DOD collaboration. As the USAID administrator’s coordinator of the Haiti disaster response effort, I can personally attest to the intense coordination that took place between

SOUTHCOM and USAID in response to this earthquake, and I am

happy to describe that in much more detail.

AFRICOM provides another example where strong interagency

partnership from its inception has advanced U.S. national security

interests. We support and emphasize this crucial core function of

AFRICOM in the interagency. At the same time, there are many

other areas where USAID and AFRICOM work closely and effectively together.

Perhaps the best example of USAID’s affect upon the command,

and I can talk extensively about how we were involved in the

AFRICOM development, but there is one example I would like to

share with you today that I think really does capture the essence

of our relationship.

We had a representative in AFRICOM’s humanitarian assistance

office who helped reshape the provision of AFRICOM’s assistance

to be more effective. Her efforts were actually recognized when she

won an award from the American Foreign Service Association for

her contributions to dialog about the Defense Department programs in the area of women’s health; therefore, she was able to

help them strategically use their expertise in AFRICOM in a way

that better served our overall national security interest.

While USAID has had to adopt new approaches to deal with stabilization activities, DOD has also begun to adopt many key approaches used by USAID. For example, the concepts of sustainability and capacity building are becoming central themes of DOD’s

efforts worldwide.

We still have a lot of work to do in this area but, in short, we

all need to work together, as no one agency has the tools, resources, or approaches to deal alone with the emerging threats.

In conclusion, we have made tremendous progress and we have

learned valuable lessons over these recent years, where I think

each of our institutions have built up these capabilities, and this

only reaffirms our commitment to continue interagency collaboration.

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Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Reichle follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony.

We have sort of a basic premise. It seems that everybody is pretty much in agreement that an integrated approach is a good thing,

and we have talked about that in the past, but I keep going back

to what troubles me. Maybe I am the only one it troubles, but I

really would appreciate your efforts to help me work through it.

If we are going to have an integrated approach, why is the

United States leading with the Department of Defense in charge as

opposed to leading with diplomacy, having the Department of State

or somebody else leading this integrated effort so that it then could

bring in whatever agency might be appropriate, USAID, the military, Customs, whatever, and then put together their particular

team.

I mean, you have to establish priorities. You have to have leadership that clearly defines the mission, and they will change, as Mr.

Pendleton says, depending on what country you are in, what area

you are in, which agencies from the United States or the international community might you want to involve, what indigenous

groups or NGO’s.

Including them all in the planning seems to be a good idea. Having constant transparency and sharing of information, communication, that all seems to be fine. Willingness to share responsibility,

sometimes more difficult than others on that, but important. And

enough personnel that has training and is up to the task and is up

in numbers to get the job done and align all the capacities in complementary ways.

That is all great, but why is the Department of Defense the lead

on this in non-contingency operation areas? I understand if we are

in Afghanistan. I understand if we are in Iraq. But when we are

going into a region like Africa or South America or some place like

that where the United States is going out there, why are we leading with our fist as opposed with the diplomatic area and putting

a different group in charge to do the same type of interagency planning?

I will give everybody a shot at that. We will start with Mr. Pendleton and work right across the board.

Mr. PENDLETON. I am not sure DOD is in charge literally. I think

the fact that the Department of Defense swamps other agencies

sometimes gives that perception. AFRICOM is 2 years old, and

they already have 4,400 people assigned. Many of those are back

in Italy and Germany doing planning.

But even after that we found that a lot of the supporting plans,

things that would be at the country level, for example, are not

done. That is where a lot of the coordination needs to occur, because all those different organizations have different approaches to

planning. DOD tends to take a very broad look. There is a theater

campaign plan in place. But the underlying plans are not there,

and that is where a lot of that coordination has to happen.

I don’t want to compare SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM too much

directly because they are different. SOUTHCOM has been around

a lot longer, for one thing. But they have 30 objectives in their theater campaign plan, 22 of which are led by agencies other than

DOD. So you see, I think, a different level of maturity.

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Mr. TIERNEY. I guess my problem is what is this a military theater campaign for? We are not attacking Africa. We are not going

in on a military basis to be an empire, or at least that is the general perception. But when you put Department of Defense in

charge of putting together this interagency or whole-of-government

team, certainly the appearance is you see this as some sort of a

military campaign and everybody else just fits in somewhere along

the line.

Dr. Schear, what is your perspective on that?

Dr. SCHEAR. Sir, I take your point that certainly in terms of both

public perceptions and the centrality of the service delivery platform, if you will, that the fact that it is a DOD-led organization

raises genuine questions. And that does cause us to be very careful,

especially in what I would say are economy of force theaters, to ensure that everything we say and do supports the notion that we are

a supporting, not a leading, organization in there.

Sir, quite frankly the problem we face is an overwhelming desire

to be prepared for all contingencies. I will give you exactly the example that confronts us today in Haiti. Up to January 11th,

SOUTHCOM, which is about 800 headquarters staff, had very few

boots on the ground anywhere, operational boots on the ground,

anywhere in its area of responsibility. Three to 4 weeks later it is

up to 26,000 deployed in Haiti. That was a major stress test, to put

it mildly, for the command. And the command, as GAO has reported, really had to make some major adjustments to cover shortfalls.

Now, the policy prescription I draw from that is that we should

not have the 600-pound gorilla, if you will, man-powered up for all

contingencies on the high end. The problem we face, though, is the

balance between the steady state daily engagement in an economy

of force theater versus these big plus-ups, and it is organizationally

and, in terms of mission performance—people expect us to succeed

at our mission—it is a big challenge to balance that. But that is

not to gainsay your point.

Mr. TIERNEY. I think that begs the question. I understand what

you are saying. It begs the basic question, sure, but if somebody

else were in charge they could still call on the military to scale

itself up and address that issue as part of an overall plan and a

contingency plan for a larger operation and for going into a particular situation. But I hear what you are saying. I just think that it

begs the question of why are we leading with our fist, why are we

putting that in.

Whatever you say about wanting to make it look like you are

supporting and not leading, you can’t sell that to most people who

see the way that we have structured this, the way it has been set

up, and the way that we are operating it, so it just gets there.

I am going to come back to Mr. Countryman and Ms. Reichle,

just in fairness to my colleagues who are here. I will give them

their 5 minutes and we will do another cycle on that if I could.

Mr. Quigley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am reading the analysis of the GAO report released today. I am

struck with this: AFRICOM’s Army component stated that the

greatest challenge to creating positive conditions in Africa is ensurVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:11 May 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\64927.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ing that U.S. Defense efforts remain synchronized. If plans are not

coordinated, their efforts could have unintended consequences such

as the potential for Africans to perceive the U.S. military as trying

to influence public opinion in a region sensitive to the military’s

presence.

I am curious if you see evidence of this so far, and, without taking it to an extreme, I am hoping this isn’t the weaker distant

cousin of what one professor calls the accidental gorilla syndrome,

that our presence creates problems that overwhelm and create

greater problems than we tried to solve.

Mr. PENDLETON. I think that points to two things. One is the

lack of the supporting plans for the components. If you get below

the Africa Command, each of the services, the Special Operations

Command, have their own headquarters. There is also a joint task

force in Djibouti. So the first thing DOD needs to do is make sure

they know what each other is doing.

Then there is the question of, in some of these very complicated,

potentially controversial activities, like there is a Web site that

tries to provide objective information, news information. People are

sensitive to that, and that requires very, very careful coordination,

then, outside the Department. So it is a multi-layered problem.

Our report talks about the need to fill in that planning, but there

are a couple of places where it can, I think, go wrong.

Dr. SCHEAR. Sir, I think I would just add to the point that the

service that is provided does carry with it an obligation to make

sure that we are appropriately postured in a supporting role. Now,

the perceptions may vary considerably from country to country. If

we, DOD, do something that has an unintended consequence, that

is not sustainable—if we build a school which has no teachers in

it 6 months or a year from now, or a road that leads to nowhere,

or, you know, we drill a well that costs five times what it would

cost a civilian relief provider—we are not doing our job. And we

would take, I think, absolute guidance from the experts who know

when and how we should perform these activities.

Now, in Capital X or Capital Y my guess is the U.S. Embassy

country team is somewhat more visible in terms of U.S. presence

than a combatant commander, say, in Miami or in Honolulu or

Stuttgart, but I grant that, in terms of the operational level between the strategic Washington level and the tactical country level,

there is this operational level which DOD inhabits. We try very

much to inhabit it with other partners, and it is driven by operational concerns: the phone that rings in the morning and we have

to go do a must-do mission.

Sorry for rambling, sir.

Mr. COUNTRYMAN. Yes, sir. A couple comments. Perhaps having

to work for the first time with the military, I like to tell them that

there are two fantastic assets that working with the military can

bring to an American embassy. First, that our military is creative

and action oriented, and, second, that it can, depending upon the

purpose, bring forward far greater resources of money and personnel than other civilian agencies are capable of doing. Neither of

those is an unmixed blessing.

The energy and the creativeness is usually welcome. It has to be

tempered with the realistic assessment of whether, to take the exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:11 May 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\KATIES\DOCS\64927.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ample of AFRICOM, whether this particular creative idea that has

some people and some resources behind it is appropriate in this

particular country environment. There, the challenge is always to

make sure that communication is flowing adequately between the

Ambassador and his or her country team and the people in

AFRICOM and Stuttgart or in a component command of AFRICOM

who are working on that creative idea.

The vast majority of cases it works well, communication is flowing. You can find a couple of cases, and I believe they are mentioned in the GAO report, where that coordination was not sufficient in advance. I think we are getting to resolve those issues.

If I could, I will follow that thought with a response to the chairman’s question that I don’t believe all the action is in the regional

combatant commands. Again, having led a large embassy overseas,

we like to say and we truly believed that an embassy-country team

is the place where the interagency process really works, because we

are small enough, we know each other, we trust each other, we can

integrate the roles of the different agencies represented in an embassy into an effective interagency process. And country by country

we have well-integrated and well-understood plans that the Ambassador leads on behalf of the U.S. Government.

Now, that is a different level of planning than you see at

CENTCOM or AFRICOM. It is a different level of planning than

you see in State. But, in fact, if we are doing our job well, the

CENTCOM regional plan should represent well the insights of the

planning that is done country team by country team across the continent. That same should be true of the bureau by bureau regional

plans produced in State as a summation of the country planning

process that is done in each embassy.

So if you focus on a continent at a time, it is very easy to see

or to say that AFRICOM has the lead rather than civilian agencies.

If you look one country at a time, I think you might not have the

same perception.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for your comments. I am going to move

on to Ms. Chu. But I am telling you, that was, and I don’t mean

this in a disrespectful way, a lot of bureaucratic talk, but it is what

it is. It can’t be several different things and everybody can’t be

doing the same thing, but you are telling us it is happening differently, but I will get back to it when it is my turn.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I agree. I just want to say, and I

thank you for your indulgence, it is what the public there perceives

it to be.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK.

Ms. Chu, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. CHU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Pendleton, you say in your report that the Haiti response revealed weaknesses in SOUTHCOM’s organizational structure, and

you give a couple of examples, but could you talk in more detail

about that? And especially in how it affected the victims of Haiti.

Mr. PENDLETON. You know, we didn’t find any evidence that it

actually affected the victims. We thought it was instructive,

though, because in 2008 the transformation of SOUTHCOM’s headquarters away from the military’s J-structure where they have J–

1 personnel, J–2 intelligence, and the like, was one of DOD’s top

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transformation priorities. It was viewed as this was the way of the

future. We were going to put interagency personnel in critical jobs

and kind of change the way these COCOMs operated.

When the earthquake happened and the relatively small headquarters in Miami there had to go to 24-hour-day, 7-day-a-week operations, not only did they not have the people to man watch; they

didn’t have enough specialists in things like logistics and other

things, and so they had to literally overnight revert back to a J

structure because they brought 500 people in to help and they

managed to make it work, but we thought it important.

Now, I also appreciate one of the comments made earlier. That

doesn’t necessarily mean they need to come back with a 1,500-person staff just in case something like that happens. What they need

to do is look at the kinds of things they do day-to-day and then

have a plan to augment the staff in case an emergency happens.

But we found no evidence that it had an impact on the ground.

Ms. CHU. Ms. Reichle.

Ms. REICHLE. Thank you very much. I just wanted to make a

couple comments, because I was the USAID Administrator’s point

person on the Haiti relief effort, and it was very interesting and

really useful to see that the GAO found it had no implication, because for our people, who were the lead agency, with the supporting agency being DOD or other interagency players, whether they

were in an interagency sort of function within SOUTHCOM or they

switched to a J code, as we actually ramped up in SOUTHCOM it

had absolutely no impact.

I think, getting to your question about what was the impact most

importantly on the ground and the people we served, I think we

can be very confident that did not have an impact on the people

who were clearly in desperate need.

I just wanted to take an opportunity to address a couple of the

questions that were mentioned earlier by the chairman, as well as

Congressman Quigley.

Mr. TIERNEY. I don’t want to interrupt you, but I will. I am going

to give you an opportunity to do that, so if Ms. Chu has a different

direction she wants to go in, I want to give her the opportunity to

utilize her 5 minutes and then have you answer my question on

different time.

Ms. REICHLE. OK.

Ms. CHU. Yes. I wanted to followup on that, because you are saying that there was somewhat of a delay, though, because the personnel wasn’t there to perform those particular functions, so was

there an issue in that could have affected the victims?

Mr. PENDLETON. Yes. I was involved when we did the work with

the military response after Katrina, so I had some experience in

hearing about this, and I actually went down myself to Miami to

hear about this.

They acted fairly decisively. They were only a few days in when

they realized that they just didn’t have the people, and it was a

fairly, I think, bold stroke to go back, even though they knew people like folks from the GAO might bring it up in a report or something, because it had been changed to great fanfare. But I think

there was a realization that there was a mission to do and they

needed to shift.

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Also, it is important to note they brought 500 people in, people

from NORTHCOM and other places. Unlike Katrina, where there

was some delay where things were sorted out, we did not find that

in this case, ma’am.

Ms. CHU. That is comforting to know, then.

Mr. PENDLETON. Yes.

Ms. CHU. Also, in your testimony you outline three key practices

for successful interagency collaboration: developing and implementing over-arching strategies for addressing national security issues;

creating mechanisms to facilitate coordination among agencies; and

training personnel with interagency expertise. But the list doesn’t

include sharing information. Do you believe information sharing is

important?

Mr. PENDLETON. Absolutely. Back in September we did a broader

report, which I would be happy to provide to you, that looked

across the government, dozens of our reports, and we bring up information sharing in that. That was mainly for brevity. Absolutely,

information sharing is important. We were just picking the areas

that we thought were most critical here.

Information sharing in terms of planning I think is very, very

important so that the organizations know what each other is planning. You don’t want to get in a situation where you are just deconflicting or people are showing up and you are not quite sure

why, or having to train people in the local culture, or whatever.

That comes back to planning, not only sharing information but

planning, as well.

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. Chu.

Mr. Welch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. WELCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What is the budget for SOUTHCOM?

Dr. SCHEAR. We will have to take that and get back to you, sir.

Mr. WELCH. Any idea? Round numbers?

Dr. SCHEAR. Not immediately. No.

Mr. WELCH. What is the budget for AFRICOM?

Mr. PENDLETON. We know that. About 300 million.

Mr. WELCH. You said 300 million?

Mr. PENDLETON. About 300 million. That does not include the

joint task force in Djibouti.

Mr. WELCH. And how much is it for AFRICOM?

Mr. PENDLETON. About 300 million.

Mr. WELCH. SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM are about the same?

Mr. PENDLETON. SOUTHCOM is a little smaller.

Mr. WELCH. So for 300 million we have about 800 personnel deployed in AFRICOM?

Mr. PENDLETON. They are at the headquarters in Stuttgart and

with some back in an intel center in the U.K.

Mr. WELCH. And what discussion and consideration do you have

about the presence of military-related force that is doing, in some

cases, humanitarian work, and how that affects the host country

where the work is being done, in terms of their perception of what

our agenda is? Mr. Pendleton, we will start with you.

Mr. PENDLETON. We did a report for the subcommittee back in

April talking about the efforts of the Combined Joint Task Force

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Horn of Africa down in Djibouti, and that did provide some examples of mis-steps.

Mr. WELCH. Like what?

Mr. PENDLETON. For example, there were plans to have a medical event, but the local people were nomadic and there wasn’t

enough notice given. There were veterinary events that would have

required driving cattle and other livestock a long distance. I mean,

there are successes, too. I don’t want that to drive everything.

Mr. WELCH. But what would you say is our mission in Djibouti,

the AFRICOM mission? What is it that we will seek to get done

there?

Mr. PENDLETON. Countering violent extremism. It started as a

counter-terrorism task force.

Mr. WELCH. And what are the concrete things we do with

AFRICOM?

Mr. PENDLETON. It is about 60 percent civil affairs activities now:

building schools, drilling wells, that kind of thing. In our report in

April, we recommended to the Department that there be some serious consideration given to the mission of the Task Force in

Djibouti.

Mr. WELCH. And your recommendation would be that if there is

consideration given to the mission, what should be the conclusion,

based on your experience?

Mr. PENDLETON. I would leave it to the Department to decide

how they want to use their Joint Task Force, but that is a non-doctrinal type of organization—sorry to fall into jargon there, but you

don’t typically have a joint task force that lasts for a long time.

I would like to allow other folks to talk about this as well, if you

don’t mind, but when you are doing 60 percent civil affairs and

that is being led by the military, that is, I think, fraught with peril,

honestly. And it is not inexpensive. It is $230 million or so to keep

the base open there, and about $80 million a year for the Task

Force, itself. So we just pressed the Department to think about,

along with State and others, what is the best role for that Task

Force.

Mr. WELCH. OK. Dr. Schear? Thank you.

Dr. SCHEAR. Thank you, sir. JTF HOA, as you know, is quite

closely connected in terms of both its presence, its mission, its ability to promote access to this region. It is very closely connected to

our campaign against violent extremism in that part of Africa. For

a definitive read, I think—and I would defer to colleagues at the

embassies within the countries that are covered under JTF HOA’s

area of responsibility, as well as to our counter-terrorism colleagues. I think we would have to bring their perspectives to bear

into this very complex discussion.

Humanitarian and civic assistance projects are a means to an

end, and I will plead guilty that we are very instrumental in our

approach. We have to meet sustainability and effectiveness criteria.

If we are throwing money——

Mr. WELCH. With all due respect, I actually don’t understand

what you just said. If what we are talking about is humanitarian

assistance that is going to be, let’s say, a school——

Dr. SCHEAR. Yes.

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Mr. WELCH [continuing]. If you are living in that village where

the school is to be built, do you have some questions when the people who are building the school show up in military uniforms,

armed, versus Peace Corps style volunteers who show up unarmed

and with some equipment?

Dr. SCHEAR. There may be questions. I think that would depend

on——

Mr. WELCH. There may be?

Dr. SCHEAR. It will depend on the civil military socio-culture

within the country affected whether a local person views that as

abnormal or not, sir. I am not——

Mr. WELCH. You don’t have a conclusion about that?

Dr. SCHEAR. I don’t have a definitive conclusion. I think it would

depend very much on civil military relations within the affected

country.

Mr. WELCH. OK. Ms. Reichle, how about you?

Ms. REICHLE. Thank you. I think in these environments it is

really critical that we work together to make sure that our presence is actually much more in the background, because it is about

developing the local capacity.

Mr. WELCH. That would suggest a light footprint.

Ms. REICHLE. Exactly. And I think that is one of the things that

we have tried to do in our integrated approach. In my testimony

I try to highlight, after my 4 years in Colombia, very much as we

were working across the board of DOD, Department of State,

USAID, and other interagency players, that we were in the background, and the most important thing is that the host country, as

well as the change agents within the local society, were out in

front. And so you are absolutely correct: it does make a difference

whether or not we show up and whether we are in uniforms or

whether we show up at all.

Mr. WELCH. Yes. I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Welch is color blind. He has a tendency not to see the red.

What I want to do is I want to go around again. Stick around.

I am going to go around again. We are going to get as far into another round as we can, and then we will break so you don’t have

to come back afterwards.

I am sort of stunned at the willingness of the Department of

State and USAID and all those people to just let DOD take away

what always used to be civilian capacity on here. It looks like we

have hollowed out State, we have hollowed out USAID, and we

built up the Department of Defense.

So if you go into a country and you tell them that you want to

help them with the development and you want to help them with

the rule of law, their capacity for governance, civil society, all these

things that we think we want, that used to be our way of diplomatically telling a country that we want to get in there and help

them.

Now we go in and say, we are here to help, here is our military.

These guys with guns are coming in because really it is a counterterrorism operation. We see this whole thing as we are in there for

our own self-interest to protect us against the fact that maybe terror will establish a root here or something. It is a whole different

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message. And who shows up wearing what uniform should matter

to us.

One thing is the culture of the places where you are going, but

it should matter to us, our culture. Our culture is not to be a military organization that goes out there and starts jumping into all

these countries and saying we are going to do this military operation because it is us we are worried about. There is a place for

that, but I don’t think it is in the lead of going in there. That is

the fundamental question I keep trying to get back to.

I know, Dr. Schear, you say you could make it work. Of course

you could make it work. The question is: should we make that

work or should we make the proper model work so that if your goal

is to have a whole government thing put the right people in charge

of it, and whatever the role for the military is, it is. You probably

wouldn’t need a base the size of the one you have in Germany and

a base the size of the one you have in Djibouti. How many Department of Defense military and civilian employees in AFRICOM? And

what is their ratio compared to all of the employees?

Dr. SCHEAR. I believe, sir, there are about 1,500 in the

AFRICOM command. I don’t know how the sizing was done, perhaps related to over 50 countries in the area of responsibility, as

distinct from SOUTHCOM, which is about 30. But I can’t give you

a definitive answer.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, we have had that at previous hearings, overwhelming number of Department of Defense personnel versus personnel from any place else. Overwhelming. And that is why they

are out there jumping around into everything and why they show

up to do all the civil society stuff and the building, the development, the rule of law. Wrong team, wrong place, wrong approach.

We have to decide what we should be talking about here. We will

probably have other hearings about it. Why aren’t we building up

the capacity for the people to go in there and do all those things

non-militarily so that you have the military really playing the supporting role that, Doctor, you are saying you want appear that you

are doing that, but, in fact, you are not doing that because, by attrition, the Department of Defense has had to stand up and do all

of this because we, Congress, the White House, other policymakers

and like that have hollowed out every other competing interest that

could be doing it.

And then it is just self-fulfilling prophecy at that. Keep building

up the one that is taking the action and narrowing down the ones

that aren’t. So that is, I guess, the fundamental point I was trying

to make at the beginning, not that you are doing something nefarious or you are a bad person for doing it or the Department of Defense is bad. They are filling a gap, and they just keep reinforcing

that filling instead of somebody saying, Wait a minute, is that

what we want to do?

I will tell you from my travels, my involvement with other government people in different countries, they think we are trying to

just go over there with the military and put a foothold in there and

it is all about us and we don’t give a Fig Newton for any of their

concerns or any of their needs, and that is why we get involved in

so many of these conflicts in such a bad way that things just fall

apart.

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So that is all I really want to say about that.

Your testimony, both written and here today, has been helpful

for me to try to coalesce those ideas, but I do want your ideas, if

you would, at some point. I am perfectly willing to take them afterwards in writing. How are we going to buildup that capacity, nonmilitary capacity, to get the things done that we need to do to

reach out to these countries to address the needs that they have

because we want to help them, not because we want to set up yet

another counter-terrorism foundation?

And then, based on that, how do we restructure AFRICOM or

SOUTHCOM, not that we want to do away with AFRICOM or

SOUTHCOM. We want to lead them to their supporting role. So

what would replace them in the lead role on this? If you would all

do that, I would be extremely appreciative.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Ms. Reichle, do you want to comment now on that?

Ms. REICHLE. If I may start. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, because

I think you are raising a really critical issue that we have dealt

with at the field level at lots of different levels, and it is something

that our agency has been intensely focused on.

Given that the USAID is smaller than the Marine Corps band,

I think a lot of what you are illustrating here is that it is perception. Even though USAID was the lead agency on the disaster relief effort for Haiti, obviously we had many more boots on the

ground with our colleagues in DOD, which we very much appreciated, in a supporting function, but whether it was the media or

the press you would have thought that DOD——

Mr. TIERNEY. But you were the lead agency by designation of

SOUTHCOM?

Ms. REICHLE. No. We were the lead agency because under the

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 that authorization is delegated to

the President. The President, since 1961, has always made USAID

the lead——

Mr. TIERNEY. Then we have a real perception issue.

Ms. REICHLE. Sorry?

Mr. TIERNEY. Then we have a real serious perception issue here.

Ms. REICHLE. Absolutely. We have a perception issue, as well as

we have a resource issue. While USAID, and with the support of

Congress, has been able to staff up additional 500 Foreign Service

Officers through our development leadership initiative over the last

several years, it is, frankly, not enough, obviously.

Mr. TIERNEY. Not even close.

Ms. REICHLE. And in order for us to really play a lead role, as

you are defining, as we are defining, as the President is defining

that USAID is the premier development agency in the world, that

requires resources.

Mr. TIERNEY. Used to be. Used to be and needs to get there

again.

I will leave you with this thought on that, too. I would like to

know, subsequently, how many contractors are involved in

AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM and what are they doing and what

are their pay schedules relative to that of the people that are on

our team, please.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Welch, do you have further questions?

Mr. WELCH. No.

Mr. TIERNEY. You don’t? I cut you off and you don’t have questions? Thank you for your indulgence on that.

Are we leaving anything unasked that you really believe we

ought to have for information? I will give each of you an opportunity to do that.

Mr. Countryman.

Mr. COUNTRYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity

to make just a couple comments on the last few excellent questions.

First, in terms of ceding to DOD State responsibilities, it is not

in my nature and it is, believe me, not in the nature of the Department of State to do so. Dr. Schear’s office and I are engaged weekly

in a robust dialog about the proper division of security assistance

authorities and processes between State and Defense. The difference is that a few years ago it was not robust, it was a nasty,

mean-spirited conversation. Today it is a respectful and robust conversation. And we don’t cede anything.

The second point I would like to make is that we have attempted

to outline how we believe interagency process needs to work at

three levels: at the policy level in Washington, and the characterization of that Dr. Schear made in his written statement I subscribe to fully; at the regional level, which involves not only the

very high visibility of AFRICOM but the very low visibility regional

bureaus of both State and AID, and there is more consonance

among the regional strategies of those three than readily meets the

eye because one of them is more visible in terms of resources and

in terms of a public affairs mission that the other two agencies

can’t match.

And finally, at the country level where you can find examples of

coordination among the interagency at the country level led by the

Ambassador to be less than perfect, but you will find many more

where it is working well and it is fully consonant with the policy

direction at the national level and at the regional level.

Finally, if GAO did not go into the question of adequacy of resources for various agencies, I am reluctant to do so, as well. We

are, however, in a situation where we need to do whole-of-government planning on national security strategy, and security, as we all

agree, is much broader than military. We have to have a national

security strategy combined among many different departments, not

only the three represented here.

We don’t have a national security budget. We have separate

agency budgets. Rather than fight that particular windmill of

changing the entire way that budgets are done by the administration and the Congress, which are deeply rooted in history, I am a

little more realistic, and I think all of us have to be realistic.

We will do our work within the parameters that are given us,

and I appreciate the opportunity only to touch on this issue. Another day, another time, and a better expert than me. We would

look very much forward to the opportunity to talk about the adequacy of resources and the integration across agencies of our national security goals in a budget framework.

Thank you so much.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Well, we do have to have that discussion about the adequacy of resources, and we have had several discussions in hearings here moving in that direction.

I will just tell you, I will feel a lot more comfortable and believe

it more firmly when AFRICOM isn’t the one that is doing all this

work with the military persons at the top and your State people

as sort of the subordinate officers.

When you flip that around, then I will feel more comfortable and

think we are going about it the right way. That is what I hear all

the time. You may disagree, but security is one aspect and interest

of ours, but there is a lot of security that comes from having countries be firm and stable and developed and on their own. It isn’t

always about we have to get an outpost some place to worry about

counter-terrorism or something.

That is the message we are sending: that it is all driven by our

national security interests as opposed to the health and welfare

and strength and stability of other countries who then maybe we

wouldn’t have to worry about something happening on that. If that

is the case, then a little more focus on what you are doing for them

as opposed to the military aspect of it would help.

I know that you are all somewhat comfortable, I guess, with running around under the military leadership on that or whatever. I

am just not sure that it is healthy for us on that.

Anybody else want to comment? Dr. Schear.

Dr. SCHEAR. Sir, I would just emphasize that in the situations

you are talking about our Embassy Chief of Mission has an absolute say on what goes on. So, again, in terms of lead and supporting roles, I grant there is a visibility issue, sir, and in terms of

what I draw from your remarks as a prescription, which is more

resources for State and AID, I fully, fully concur with that.

Mr. TIERNEY. I suspect you would.

Dr. SCHEAR. I would also ask that thought be given to the difference between and among combatant commands in places like the

UCOM AOR, PACOM, and CENTCOM. We face different environments and a need, in particular, for access. In fact, I would point

to Djibouti as a case within AFRICOM, but that is a critical important access hub for us for Central Command, and so we have

actually——

Mr. TIERNEY. A military base.

Dr. SCHEAR. Yes.

Mr. TIERNEY. Sure. I think we are not making the distinction.

The military has to do what you have to do for your military purposes on that. That may not necessarily be true that is as significant for the whole-of-government approach on that. It may or may

not be.

But nobody is saying here that there is not a military perspective

to this; it is a question—and you can’t raise it—you want to be in

a supportive role, be in a supportive role. You say that the Ambassador participates, great, but it should be the military that is participating in the overall planning, as opposed to somebody else participating. But I think we have beat that horse pretty much to

death by now.

Thank you. I appreciate all of your testimony and all of the information that you provide for us, as you are so willing to do.

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With unanimous consent, there being no objection, Mr. Flake’s

opening statement will be entered onto the record in its entirety.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Jeff Flake follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Again, thank you all very, very much. I appreciate

your being here.

This meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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