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HOMELAND DEFENSE: OLD FORCE STRUCTURES

FOR NEW MISSIONS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 29, 2003

Serial No. 108–48

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

CHRIS BELL, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, Senior Policy Advisor

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on April 29, 2003 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities Managing Team, U.S.

General Accounting Office; General Dennis J. Reimer, director, Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism;

Dr. James Jay Carafano, senior fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; and Michael Wermuth, senior policy analyst, Rand

Corp. ............................................................................................................... 67

McHale, Paul, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense;

Thomas F. Hall, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs;

and Lieutenant General Edward G. Anderson III, Deputy Commander,

U.S. Northern Command and Aerospace Defense Command ................... 5

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

Anderson, Lieutenant General Edward G., III, Deputy Commander, U.S.

Northern Command and Aerospace Defense Command, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 33

Carafano, Dr. James Jay, senior fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, prepared statement of ................................................. 102

Decker, Raymond, Director, Defense Capabilities Managing Team, U.S.

General Accounting Office, prepared statement of .................................... 71

Hall, Thomas F., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 24

McHale, Paul, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 8

Reimer, General Dennis J., director, Oklahoma City National Memorial

Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, prepared statement of ............ 92

Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress from the

State of Maryland, prepared statement of .................................................. 64

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Wermuth, Michael, senior policy analyst, Rand Corp., prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 114

(1)

HOMELAND DEFENSE: OLD FORCE

STRUCTURES FOR NEW MISSIONS?

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., in room

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, Murphy, Janklow and

Ruppersberger.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; R.

Nicholas Palarino, PhD, senior policy advisor; Robert A. Briggs,

clerk; Mackenzie Eaglen, intern; David Rapallo, minority counsel;

and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘Homeland Defense: Old Force Structures for New

Missions,’’ is called to order.

We fight abroad to be safe at home. Successful military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate an unmatched capacity

and a newfound willingness to confront emerging threats where

they nest, before they can migrate to our shores. But the battle

lines in the global war against terrorism reach far, from Kabul to

Cleveland, from Baghdad to Bridgeport. The threat demands a new

military posture on the home front as well.

Today we examine efforts to reform and restructure Department

of Defense [DOD], capabilities to defend the U.S. homeland and

support civil authorities in the event of terrorist attacks.

The cold war strategic pillar of containment, deterrence, reaction

and mutually assured destruction crumbled on September 11, 2001.

Since then, we have been building a new security paradigm, a

strategy that is proactive, preemptive and, when necessary, preemptive. Significant strides have been made to reshape and refocus

military capabilities to meet an uncertain world of lethal intentions

and unconventional capabilities overseas. But at home less has

been accomplished to clarify the structural, legal and fiscal implications of new military operations within the sovereign borders of the

States.

New strategic realities prompted the creation of the Northern

Command, or NORTHCOM, to unify all DOD homeland defense activities under one military authority; and the position of Assistant

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Secretary for Homeland Defense was created to coordinate all DOD

civil support functions.

These are important steps toward aligning Pentagon management with current missions. But below those top-level structures,

particularly in the National Guard and Reserve units trained in security operations, there has been little change in what many view

as an accelerating, unsustainable tempo of domestic taskings and

foreign deployments. Personnel and equipment used for homeland

defense missions are not available for war fighting tasks. Reserve

and Guard call-ups draw heavily from local first responder ranks,

degrading domestic readiness.

This apparent conflict between global security and homeland defense responsibilities strains a total force structure heavily reliant

on seamless integration of Reserve components and active duty

units.

The threat of terrorism demands new tactics abroad and new

modes of military vigilance at home. Missions and skills that were

scattered in secondary considerations in the cold war strategy must

now be as manned and ready as global force projection packages.

To train as they fight, military units have to practice on our streets

alongside civilian first responders. Equipment inoperability standards and communication channels have to be established before the

next attack is upon us.

So today we ask how military force structures, doctrine and

training are being transformed to integrate homeland defense and

civil support missions into a unified, sustainable defense posture.

Our witnesses all bring impressive experience and important insights to our discussion today. We appreciate their time, we appreciate their devotion to our country, and we look forward to their

testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, I would like to call on my colleague, Mr.

Murphy, to see if he has any statement to make.

I note for the record the vice chairman has come in. So let me

just call on the witnesses.

We have two excellent panels. Our first panel is the Honorable

Paul McHale, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, Department of Defense, former Member of Congress, a good

friend, and I will say one of the best Members of Congress when

he served here. So I think that the Department of Defense is

blessed to have you.

Mr. MCHALE. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Thomas F. Hall, Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Reserve Affairs, Department of Defense; and Lieutenant General Edward Anderson III, Deputy Commander, U.S. Northern

Command and Northern Aerospace Defense Command.

Gentlemen, as is our custom, we swear our witnesses in, so I

would ask you to rise.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I will note for the record that all three of our witnesses and an assistant have responded in the affirmative.

I am going to do our housekeeping part here and ask unanimous

consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to

place an opening statement in the record and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted

to include their written statement in the record; and without objection, so ordered.

We will—this is what we do in this committee. We have the clock

set for 5 minutes. We roll over for another 5, so you have technically 10 minutes. We would like you to finish somewhere between

that 5 and 10. If you get to 10, all hell breaks loose.

Then we would—with the number of Members here, we do 10-

minute questioning. We think that gets at—better getting the information we need. So we will just go in the order that I introduced

you.

Mr. McHale, welcome; you have the floor.

STATEMENTS OF PAUL MCHALE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF

DEFENSE FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE; THOMAS F. HALL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RESERVE AFFAIRS;

AND LIEUTENANT GENERAL EDWARD G. ANDERSON III, DEPUTY COMMANDER, U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND AND AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND

Mr. MCHALE. Thank you, sir.

Good afternoon. I truly am deeply honored to be here; and I want

to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind words a few moments

ago.

As noted, Mr. Chairman, I previously submitted my formal statement for the record. Rather than reading that in terms of its verbatim text, I will simply submit it for the record.

If I may, sir, with your consent, I will provide a brief opening

comment for the record.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

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Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, President Bush has said that the world changed on

September 11, 2001. We learned that a threat that gathers on the

other side of the Earth can strike our own cities and kill our own

citizens. It is an important lesson, one we must never forget.

Oceans no longer protect America from the dangers of this world.

We are protected by daily vigilance at home, and we will be protected by resolute and decisive action against threats abroad.

Secretary Wolfowitz echoed those comments when he said, perhaps even more pointedly, ‘‘as terrible as the attacks of September

the 11th were, we now know that terrorists are plotting still more

and greater catastrophes. We know they are seeking more terrible

weapons, chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons.’’

Congressman Shays, in your opening remarks you noted that we

fight abroad to be safe at home, and therefore at the outset we

should recognize that America’s first line of domestic defense really

begins overseas and results from the capabilities of our forward deployed forces. In that sense, Secretary Rumsfeld has correctly noted

that the annual homeland defense budget of the Department is

$380 billion.

After September 11, it was recognized that in order to ensure the

security of the American people it was necessary to create a new

geographic combatant command with the specific assigned mission

of defending the United States, our citizens, our territory and our

freedoms.

The mission of NORTHCOM is, ‘‘United States Northern Command conducts operations to deter, prevent and defeat threats and

aggression aimed at the United States, its territories and interests

within the assigned areas of responsibility; as directed by the

President or Secretary of Defense provides military assistance to

civil authorities, including consequence management operations.’’

NORTHCOM therefore has a mission statement that can be separated into two parts. Preceding the semicolon, the mission statement is one of war fighting. That is to physically defend the United

States of America.

The second part of the mission statement relates to civil support;

and that is, under extraordinary circumstances, when the Department of Defense has a unique capability or civilian officials are

overwhelmed by the task at hand, to provide to those civilian agencies, both State and Federal, with the lead civilian agency establishing the goals and the military providing the support to assist

those civilian agencies in addressing the mission at hand.

NORTHCOM’s force structure is unique among the combatant

commands. Very few forces are permanently assigned, although appropriate units have been identified for possible mission employment.

NORTHCOM’s Commander is Air Force General Ed Eberhardt.

He is located with his command at headquarters Peterson Air

Force Base.

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense is a

position that was newly created by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2003. I was privileged to be nominated for that position and 3 months ago confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

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During the intervening period of time, I have had the opportunity to visit virtually every major homeland defense command

within the United States. This is an extraordinary responsibility.

I am the first to fill it. The decisions that we make I have no doubt

will affect the nature of our homeland defense for many decades to

come.

We have, as one of our most important tasks, the responsibility

to establish an effective working relationship with the newly created Department of Homeland Security. That relationship will involve close coordination, joint training and exercises. The Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have

complementary missions and capabilities. We certainly welcome

the new Cabinet department as a full partner.

As we meet here today, a representative from my office, on behalf of the Department of Defense, is embedded within the operations center of the Department of Homeland Security. The cooperation that we are establishing is close and lasting.

The Department of Defense provides support to civilian agencies

basically under two circumstances: when we have a unique capability such as with regard to weapons of mass destruction and the response that we might be compelled to provide in the event of a terrorist attack that would employ that kind of capability, and when

civilian authorities are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task

at hand.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me close with a brief reference to the

role of the National Guard. The National Guard is a balanced force.

Historically, the National Guard has been dedicated primarily to

overseas warfighting missions in terms of their Title 10 responsibilities. In short, the National Guard has been a very substantial portion of our Nation’s strategic reserve.

We anticipate that in the years ahead that mission, that overseas

warfighting mission, will be retained. But that it will be enhanced

by additional homeland defense missions. Those missions may well

be accomplished in State status, to potentially in Title 32 status

which is when the National Guard is under the command and control of the Governor but the expenses are paid by the Department

of Defense, or in their full Title 10 role. They provide geographic

dispersion, a rapid response capability, an ability to defend critical

infrastructure throughout our Nation, and of course they have been

deeply involved in the establishment and the mission effectiveness

of the civil support teams, 32 of which defend our Nation today.

Abraham Lincoln said, as our cause is new, so must we think

and act anew. The President was right. The world changed on September 11. The Department of Defense is, for that reason, transforming its capabilities so that we will have effective responses to

any conceivable attack, first to defeat it, and then if necessary to

remediate it.

Mr. Chairman and Members, I can assure you that today, as always, America’s men and women in uniform stand ready to defend

our Nation against any threat at home or abroad.

Thank you.

Mr. TURNER [presiding]. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McHale follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Hall.

Mr. HALL. Chairman and distinguished Members, before I start

my statement, I would like to enter my written one in the record.

As a career Naval officer, it is great to be flanked by the Marine

Corps and the Army today at the table. I am delighted to be here

today to report on the progress in integrating the Reserve components into the Department’s overall homeland defense mission

area.

Defense of the homeland is a total force mission, with important

roles for both the Active and Reserve components. In addressing

this mission, the Department must balance requirements for homeland security with traditional warfighting requirements. To make

the best use of our military capabilities, Reserve component forces

are dual mission, for both wartime and domestic support missions.

I am pleased to report that, as of March 14, all 32 of our weapons of mass destruction civil support teams have been certified as

fully mission capable. As you know, these teams were established

to deploy rapidly, to assist local incident commanders in determining the nature and extent of an incident involving weapons of mass

destruction. These teams will provide expert technical advance on

WMD response operations and will help identify and support the

arrival of follow-on State response assets. Each team consists of 22

highly skilled, full-time members of the Army and Air National

Guard.

We are making significant progress in other areas. For example,

the Army Reserve has trained and equipped 28 chemical decontamination and recon elements to act in a civil support role. We

will continue to leverage the wartime capabilities of our Reserve

component forces for domestic missions in support of the lead Federal agency.

Above all, we must ensure that our domestic civil support forces,

particularly those in the Guard and Reserve, are readily accessible,

properly trained and equipped to perform this critical mission for

our citizens and interoperable within the Nation’s first responder

community.

Our goal is to support America’s fire, police, and emergency medical personnel as rapidly as possible with capabilities and tools that

complement and enhance their response, not duplicate it.

Today, as I left the Pentagon, we have over 223,000 National

Guard and Reserve men and women supporting our operations—

Northern Eagle, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. They are

flying air CAPs, performing force protection duties here in the

United States, flying refueling missions over Central Asia and are

on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, the response to Secretary Ridge’s request to the Governors to support Operation Liberty Shield, over 2,700 Army and

Air National Guardsmen were activated under State control to protect critical assets of national significance in their areas.

On little or no notice, America’s National Guard and Reserve

have been ready to roll. To this day, their enthusiasm for the global

war on terrorism remains high. They are in it for the long haul.

The bottom line is they are committed and capable warriors in this

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war on terrorism, and you should be justifiably proud of them. I

know I am.

That concludes my opening statement. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Anderson, General.

General ANDERSON. On behalf of General Eberhart, Commander

of North American Aerospace Defense Command and Commander

of the U.S. Northern Command, we thank you for this opportunity

to represent the outstanding young men and women of NORAD

and USNORTHCOM and to tell you about our efforts to protect

and defend our homeland.

I, too, would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide a

written statement for the record.

While I will devote the majority of my remarks to the U.S.

Northern Command, before I do I would like to take a moment to

just a say a few words about NORAD.

NORAD has proved to be a resilient organization that has adapted to counter ever-changing threats over the past 45 years. One of

the factors contributing to the success has been our relationship

with the Canadian armed forces, which today has never been

stronger. For Operation Noble Eagle, together we have flown over

29,000 sorties without incident. This includes fighters as well as

airborne early warning and tanker aircraft. With the Air Guard

and Reserves flying over 75 percent of our fighter and tanker sorties, we simply could not complete our mission without the men

and women of the Reserve component. NORAD remains ready to

defend against any aerospace threat.

USNORTHCOM is a product of transformation. Everything

about us, from our mission, to our organization, to the way we have

members of the National Guard and Coast Guard on our staff, reflects the way that the Department of Defense is moving toward

countering the threats of the 21st century.

Our missions are homeland defense and military assistance to

civil authorities. While these missions are not new, placing them

under a single command to ensure unity of command and unity of

effort with a unity of purpose is new.

USNORTHCOM is a U.S. unified combatant command. We have

all of the responsibilities and authorities of other combatant commands when it comes to national defense and protecting the interests of the United States and her allies in our area of responsibility.

However, one thing that makes us different from other combatant commands is that our homeland is in our area of responsibility.

For the first time since George Washington and the Continental

Army, the United States has a military command that focuses solely on homeland defense in support to homeland security,

USNORTHCOM.

Although we are a small command with very few permanently

assigned forces, we are confident we can get the forces we need to

do our mission. We have combatant command authority over a

standing joint force headquarters with two operational joint task

forces, one to support counterdrug activities and the other to support civil authorities for weapons of mass destruction consequence

management. However, through well-established procedures, we

can quickly draw upon the total force to expand our assigned forces

to respond to any contingency within our assigned area of responsibility.

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Since our stand-up on October 1, 2002, we have developed operational plans, exercised our capabilities with over 50 government

agencies, and provided real-world assistance to lead Federal agencies. We have supported the President’s attendance at the Asian

Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, the D.C. sniper investigation, the State of the Union Address, and the Shuttle Columbia

recovery operations as well as Operation Noble Eagle.

As we advance toward full operational capability we will continue to exercise with first responders, our National Guard and Reserve forces, and government agencies to ensure our Nation is

ready to respond to any and all threats.

We understand full operational capability is a moving target. We

know the threat and our mission will evolve over time, and we will

never be satisfied. We will always look for ways to be better prepared to protect our homeland.

We believe a key to homeland defense is actionable intelligence.

We want to work the front end of this problem. We are sharing intelligence and information with a variety of organizations to include local, State and Federal law enforcement organizations. A lot

of this is open intelligence and information that we get from the

Internet and other sources as part of our red teaming efforts. Our

challenge is to fuse this information, as the Secretary of Defense

says, to connect the dots into a threat picture upon which we can

act.

Our Combined Intelligence and Fusion Center is doing just that.

They are collating and analyzing data from many different government agencies and the intelligence community to attempt to provide us clear situational awareness on the threat so that we can

deter, prevent and defeat attacks against our Nation.

We are grateful for all Congress has done to support us in this

effort. With your continued help, our homeland will be safer tomorrow than it is today.

As the Secretary says, this is important business. There is no

more important mission than protecting the American people

where they live and work. I can assure you that the men and

women in USNORTHCOM are dedicated to accomplishing that

very important and critical mission. Thank you for your commitment to a strong defense, and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of General Anderson follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. I want to thank each of our panelists and also acknowledge that Mr. Janklow and Mr. Ruppersberger have joined

us. We will go then to a 5-minute round of questions. We will begin

with our Chairman, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to just start out by trying to visualize

USNORTHCOM. When I think of the other commands, it is easy

for me to envision, obviously, special forces. It is easy for me to envision a heavy armament. It is easy for me to visualize the use of

our Air Force and so on.

How is USNORTHCOM different? I mean, I kind of—in my own

mind, am I to visualize military—our Army fighting alongside policemen? I mean, that is kind of where I am trying to set the stage

for me here; and maybe, Lieutenant General, you could start us

out.

General ANDERSON. OK, sir.

Sir, there are two distinct differences in our command as you

look at the other combatants. One, as we mentioned earlier, is the

area of responsibility; and specifically the difference there, of

course, is the fact that our homeland is here. Now that sounds kind

of superficial, but in fact it is fairly significant. An example of that

is, when we talk about intelligence, one of the things that we need

in terms of providing situational awareness is the ability to fuse intelligence and law enforcement information; and then, once we are

able to fuse that, then it is the dissemination of that to a wide

spectrum of users that consist of folks from first responders all of

the way up to the President.

So that is one of the unique things that comes with having the

homeland in your area of responsibility.

But another area that is different for us in comparison with our

other combatant commanders is the fact that, as Secretary McHale

pointed out in his opening remarks, we have as a mission military

assistance to civil authorities, what we refer to as MACA, that no

other command has within its mission statement. The implications

of that extend quite a bit, but one of the key pieces to it, as you

might expect, is the fact that then necessitates that we must work

very, very closely with a number of folks in the interagency, whether they be other government agencies or nongovernment organizations, folks that we, probably, in the military have never had the

opportunity to work with before, and vice versa.

Mr. SHAYS. Given that I only have 5 minutes this first round,

and given the number of Members here, but—let me—maybe we

are still sorting this out. I don’t quite visualize how this process

works in practice. For instance, it is unlikely that you would see

a large number of people assault a community. They would be

much smaller, it strikes me.

But are we going to have our military personnel train side-byside with first responders and say we will work with the New York

Police Department and determine how we coordinate activities?

Will we train with them and so on? Maybe I could come to Secretary McHale as well on that issue. But maybe you could first respond.

General ANDERSON. OK. Yes.

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The answer to your question is, yes, we will; and we do that

through exercises. As we go through a variety of different scenarios

that we may have, it includes local first responders from all of the

way down from the police and fire all of the way up to include the

National Guard and those kind of folks. It is necessary. We feel as

though we have to do that.

But we will be—our forces will be provided in response to a request from a lead Federal agency. We will always, in the context

of military assistance to civil authorities, will always be supporting

a lead Federal agency.

And I will offer Secretary McHale a few moments.

Mr. MCHALE. Thank you, General.

Mr. Chairman, basically, USNORTHCOM’s mission is divided

into two component parts. First and foremost, General Eberhart is

a warfighter. With regard to the physical defense of the United

States of America, his protection of the U.S. air space and his defense against enemy threats within the maritime approaches to the

United States is a mission that is comparable to any other combatant commander. He will fight in the air to protect us. He will defend against enemy threats on the high seas as those threats approach the coast of the United States.

As General Anderson indicated, because the NORTHCOM AOR

includes within its geographic area the Constitutional framework of

the civil government of the United States, it is really on land that

the distinction is drawn between this combatant command and all

other combatant commands. We have a Constitution. We have a

representative republic. We have civilian institutions of government that make us the kind of country that we want to be, as opposed to a country in which the military would be disproportionately influential. We have a government based on civilian supremacy, and that does come into play in terms of the constraints on

the land activity of NORTHCOM.

In addition, we have made a policy decision as a Nation that our

border protection on land will be a civilian function, not a military

function. Now we provide military assistance to civilian authorities

as they defend our borders on land, but the protection of those land

borders is not fundamentally a military mission.

As indicated by the General, we provide civil support to a lead

Federal agency when a request is made. I know that we have at

least one member of this committee who is a former Governor. If

there is a disaster, the Governor in a given State can ask the President under the Stafford Act to declare a disaster or an emergency.

If that declaration is made, the Department of Defense may then

be instructed by the President and upon order of the Secretary of

Defense will deploy military forces to support a lead Federal agency, typically the Federal Emergency Management Agency, now

under the Department of Homeland Security.

So, basically, when it comes to NORTHCOM, we will protect our

Nation in the air and on the seas just like any other combatant

command. But subject to posse comitatus and the process that is

described in the Stafford Act, our activity in terms of civil support

is a supporting role on behalf of a lead Federal civilian agency.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

46

Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. First, Mr. Hall, the issue of the Reservists,

as far as their pay, the gap between their military salary and civilian. In the past, it really hasn’t been as much of a problem, because there haven’t been the call-ups that you have right now. I

would think down the road that is going to create an issue of lack

of recruitment if somehow it isn’t dealt with. Of course, cost is an

issue, and we have to deal with the issue of cost, and we understand that.

Do you think that the recent shift in the activation policy with

more reliance on Reservists will affect the recruiting and morale of

where we are now; and, if so, what would you recommend that we

do?

Mr. HALL. Let me address the first part of the pay and then the

second on the recruiting and retention very quickly.

We have been concerned about it, and we have taken a hard look

at the pay issue. We have done two surveys. We have gone twice,

in 2000 and 2002, asked the families: Have you suffered a pay loss

because of being mobilized? In fact, about 30 percent have. It has

been a small amount. You read many of the cases where it might

be a high-earning person, but the other 70 percent, in fact, have

held even, and about one-third of them almost in some cases doubled their pay.

So it is a smaller amount. We are concerned about that. We are

doing a pay and compensation study that we are going to complete

in August. We are looking at that as one of the many issues. But

right now we have not seen that as a large problem.

On the second part, I don’t think we know. After the Gulf war,

for about 2 or 3 years—at that time I was in command of the Naval

Reserve. We looked at it. We had a dip in recruiting and retention.

After about 3 to 4 years it came back. And I think the essential

issue on recruiting and retention is going to be if we are mobilizing

the same kinds of Reservists year after year.

Just sort of in closing, if you were in the Guard and Reserve over

the past 13 years, we have had eight mobilizations. What was your

opportunity to be mobilized once? It was about 56 percent. How

about mobilized twice? It is about 4 percent. How about three

times? About 1 percent.

But if you are in a specialty like civil affairs, mortuary affairs,

force protection and those, you might have been mobilized much

more than that. So I think we are going to have problems with employers and the Guardsmen and Reservists if we continue to mobilize the same group of people. So we have to look at how we are

going to restructure that.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I am not sure if I agree with your first answer, just based on my district and the complaints that I receive.

Normally, State and local governments are making up the gap a

lot of times, because you have police officers involved in the military police, or firefighters, but there are a lot that maybe work for

smaller businesses. I think it is something—I know Congressman

Lantos from California has a bill in to address this issue. But I

am—I know the issue is cost, and you have to look at that.

Mr. HALL. We are looking at that bill and will comment on that.

47

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I know you have a Governor and a mayor—

and I was a county executive—on this committee right now. The

issue of cooperation between Federal, State and local—before I ask

the question, I think that, from my experience in government and

that we have had probably the best cooperation between Federal,

State and local and military not only with respect to the war itself

but also with intelligence—the cooperation has been unprecedented. I think that is one reason why we haven’t had another September 11 incident on our shores.

But that doesn’t mean that—the interdiction is one of the most

important issues. I am still concerned a little bit about the cooperation and the ability between, let’s say, NORTHCOM and then a

Governor. That is easy for a Governor. You have a big snowstorm,

you can bring—the Governor declares an emergency, you can deal

with some issues.

But you have more with homeland security than meets the eye,

I guess; and the cooperation is what is going to make a difference.

A lot of leads—there is a lot of leads that might even be relevant

because of an intelligence point of view, with NORTHCOM can

come from local government, leads can come from the street. And

where do you see the cooperation between those State, Federal and

local and then——

First, where do you see that cooperation, and then in the event

that something happens, how long will it take to implement some

action when something occurs?

Mr. MCHALE. That is a very complex question and an important

one.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. That is why I asked it.

Mr. MCHALE. Let me just create a brief scenario how we would

envision forces and military and civilian responding to a given

event.

I, too, come out of local government. First job I ever had was on

the planning commission back in my hometown borough before I

ever ended up here in the Congress of the United States. If there

is a terrorist attack, my expectation is that the very first responders will likely be volunteers out of our hometown communities—the

volunteer firemen, the EMTs, the paramedics, perhaps part time

police officers in small communities, perhaps professionals in larger

communities. But these civilians at the local level will be the ones

who provide the immediate response. If it becomes clear that we

have, let’s say, a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, I think it is likely at that point that the Governor will

ask for the assistance of the National Guard, probably in State status, so you will have guardsmen flowing into that area as well.

If it does involve a chemical, biological or even radiological contaminant, it is likely that the civil support teams, the one in that

State would likely be deployed to do an assessment of the nature

of the contaminant.

Now I have described civilian capabilities at the local and State

level. I will envision that the State emergency management personnel in that jurisdiction would also respond. You are going to go

through a lot of layers of civilian and military personnel in State

status before you get to the Department of Defense.

48

At that point, if the civilians are overwhelmed or if in fact the

Guard in State status alone cannot handle the mission at hand, it

is likely a disaster would be declared by the President and likely

that the Secretary of Defense, in that extraordinary circumstance,

would order DOD forces to respond.

That means that we would have civilians and military, local,

State and Federal operating within the same area of responsibility.

Coordination is absolutely essential, and one of our goals within

the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense is to rigorously exercise, in a scenario-based setting, as we

are doing, for instance, in Exercise Determined Promise in Clark

County, Las Vegas, Nevada, in August, the colocation, communication and coordination of all of those capabilities.

Right now, for contingency planning, action officers within the

Department of Defense communicate routinely, often daily, with civilian counterparts, including those at the Department of Homeland Security, to make sure that all of those pieces of the response,

in as realistic peacetime training as we can have, prepare for an

actual operational deployment if a terrorist attack would occur.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. The concern, though, in the event there is

an event—you answered it as far as civilians getting involved, and

they need help right away, having to go through the Governor at

all times. When a local mayor or local county executive needs that

help because they are the first responders, that is what I am really

focusing on.

My time is up, so I can’t ask any more questions, but you can

answer.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With regard to the new role, being called upon for Reservists or

really other bases scattered around the country, I represent an

area in the Pittsburgh area where we have an air refueling wing,

we have an Army Reserve base, we have an Air Guard area. Looking at some of these groups that will be employed in some homeland defense readiness in any place in the country, what input are

you going to be having on some things as the BRAC decisions to

close some bases, or are you looking at some input on what is needed around the country so you can put information on that?

Mr. HALL. I can talk on the Guard and Reserve. I went through

BRAC 1991, 1993 and 1995 as Chief of Naval Reserve. It is absolutely critical with regard to the Guard and Reserve that they be

considered in the BRAC process.

So when this one started out of my office, I asked that representatives be on each and every team, so that when we look at bases,

both active and Reserve, around the country we think about the demographics of Guard members and Reservists who live there, and

if we close a facility that is an active facility for which you might

have Reserve personnel aboard, what is the effect of that.

So what I can tell you is we are members, part and parcel of all

of teams looking at that, based on my experience.

Mr. MURPHY. So even going with the NORTHCOM, you will be

looking at that and having some input on that as well, of what you

need to have in certain regions of the country as well?

49

Mr. HALL. Yes. And I would turn to my colleagues for that. But

within the Guard and Reserve context, yes.

Mr. MURPHY. Agreed?

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

The nature of warfare has changed. I think it is very clear, and

certainly the Secretary of Defense has correctly stated on any number of occasions, we have excess infrastructure within the Department of Defense and that the resources we put into the maintenance of that infrastructure has a negative effect on our

warfighting capabilities and Defense’s capabilities, including homeland defense. We now recognize that the nature of warfare has

changed. And so the fundamental principle remains true, that is,

we have to decrease the amount of infrastructure we currently possess, because it is more than we need.

In light of the global war on terrorism and the homeland defense

requirements that have emerged since September 11th, 2001, we

have to choose wisely in terms of which portions of that infrastructure should be privatized, which portions we should retain. Clearly,

the homeland defense mission is seriously considered when we look

at that infrastructure and determine what to let go and what to

keep.

Mr. MURPHY. Let me give you a scenario, General. Let’s say

there is word that a train has been commandeered by unknown elements. We believe it is hijacked by some unfriendlies and they are

in a rural area headed toward a city at a high speed, has several

cars on that train that may have various gases which can be poisonous if they erupt into a populated area. Walk me through in

terms of what happens from the local police up to where you might

be involved in this and noting that it might only be about 15 minutes to half an hour to take action.

General ANDERSON. Well, sir, as you correctly point out, the local

responders will be the ones who will be first informed of this; and,

to be perfectly honest with you, our first information may come to

us over CNN or some such means as that. But as soon as we see

that happen and happening, the first thing we are going to do is

call the TAG in your State and say, what is going on and what is

it that—support that you may need?

At the same time, we will be alerting our Joint Task Force Civil

Support that there is the possibility of this kind of an event that

is going to occur, which may require WMD consequence management’s assistance and the expertise that we have there, if requested, though.

Mr. MURPHY. Let’s go through this request, because there may

not be a lot of time. Let’s say options are derailing this train, stopping the engine through other manners, which local police and firemen don’t have the opportunity to do. Would you see yourself in

some situation where you have to start taking some action or be

ready—helicopters in the air, I don’t know what that might be—

or will it be set up that you have to follow this chain each time,

because you will have only minutes?

Mr. HALL. There is an exception that does not require verbal approval from the Secretary of Defense, and that is an immediate response action by a local commander. So if there is a local base in

the area or something such as that, he or she, they do have the

50

authority to be able to respond. If life or limb is at risk or the safety of DOD or there is a large calamity that is going to occur, they

can respond immediately under the conditions that are laid out to

provide some level of support now. Whether or not it would be a

helicopter to shoot at a train or something like that more than likely would not fall into that category.

Mr. MURPHY. I think that is essential, that, as you know, that

part of dealing with hijackers is making sure they may not meet

their target and their involvement in secrecy, not letting people

know. It is important to know that you have enough options in

your tool belt that can you take action to be preemptive when needed to or be prepared to defend at that particular moment.

Mr. MCHALE. Congressman, what you are describing is a domestic counterterrorism responsibility, where the local police are unable to defeat the threat as it is emerging.

This goes back to the comments that I made to Congressman

Shays a little bit earlier. Because NORTHCOM’s land responsibility is colocated with the civilian government of the United States

of America, the policy decision under the Constitution has been

made that the responsibility to defeat that threat will rest primarily on the shoulders of a lead Federal law enforcement agency.

If the local police cannot deal with that train, it will become clear

pretty quickly; and at that point the FBI, not the Department of

Defense, will take on the domestic counterterrorism role of physically interdicting and defeating that threat. Consistent with our

Constitutional form of government and the Posse Comitatus Act,

we can provide assistance to the FBI.

But, as you speak today, looking for an assurance that an enemy

threat will be defeated under that circumstance, the lead in that

effort will be taken by the FBI. And I can tell you, just from personal awareness, the FBI’s exceptional capabilities—the FBI does

train to that mission and does have a rapid response capability

that we would support, but they would lead.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. McHale, looking at your written statement, on

page 10 you talk about six operational goals that U.S. forces must

have in addressing the issue of terrorism; and one of them interests

me. It states, ‘‘Deny enemies sanctuary by developing capabilities

for persistent surveillance, tracking and rapid engagement.’’

Previous to September 11, if we had looked at our military forces

and looked at surveillance, rapid engagement, we might have

looked at things that were traditionally military targets and—for

example, is there a submarine off the coast of the United States.

Now that our potential threats have shifted and the form in which

they may come, in reading a statement like that you have the issue

of balance both of our Constitutional rights and also making certain that we are not doing the wrong things, such as searching 85-

year-old grandmothers traveling with their grandchildren about

ready to get on a plane.

Can you elaborate some on—I mean, obviously, there has been

some analysis as to what the need is for their capabilities—what

type of surveillance tracking and engagement is being undertaken

in context to what the potential threat is. Can you give us some

background on that?

51

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir. Surveillance really falls into two categories, from both a military and a Constitutional perspective. The

defining line is whether that surveillance is external to the United

States or is internal to the United States.

I don’t have a copy of my formal statement in front of me, but

just very briefly let me tell you that the Department of Defense

would take the lead role in terms of continuing surveillance when

that surveillance is external to the United States and designed to

identify, deter, and defeat an act of foreign aggression or a national

security threat. So we are developing, as rapidly as we can, the capability to establish platforms for surveillance that, with significant loitering time, will enable us to literally see threats that are

approaching the United States either on the sea or within the air.

With regard to surveillance as it may take place lawfully within

the United States, that type of surveillance is subject to both Constitutional and statutory constraints. The Department of Defense is

subject to the Posse Comitatus Act. So in terms of surveillance the

Department of Defense role, if any, would be to—lawfully to support a lead Federal law enforcement agency. Where, for instance,

we might make available to a lead Federal law enforcement agency

for the proper and lawful use of that equipment, DOD property

that would give to, for instance, the FBI, an air platform that

would allow the FBI or perhaps the border patrol to maintain aerial surveillance for civilian law enforcement purposes of a particular piece of terrain.

But the Department of Defense would not be engaged in surveillance of that type in a direct way. We do not have that authority.

We are prohibited from domestic law enforcement by the Posse

Comitatus Act. So once you come ashore, our only relationship to

surveillance is to provide assistance to a lead Federal law enforcement agency in its lawful activities.

Mr. TURNER. General, in your comments on page 6, talking about

intelligence with USNORTHCOM’s challenges, you state that, ‘‘Another shared challenge is to overcome cultural and procedural differences among the DOD and other Departments for information

that is collected, categorized, classified, analyzed and disseminated.’’ Could you elaborate—because you don’t in your comments—as to what some of these cultural and procedural differences are?

General ANDERSON. Well, sir, as I mentioned in my opening remarks also, the fact is that we are now faced with a situation

where we have to fuse law enforcement information with intelligence. In the past when we have been associated with EUCOM

or SOCOM or something such as that, we were not faced with the

law enforcement information issue, if you will; and so, to protect

the privacy of citizens and all of that kind of thing, we have got

to make sure that all of our processes are in place to accommodate

that.

What we have done to do that is we do, for example, have a representative from the FBI on our staff who assists us in working

with the FBI and with the Joint Terrorism Task Force that they

have established there at the FBI. And then we have an intelligence oversight committee that is embedded within our intelligence center who is constantly reviewing the information that we

52

are receiving to make sure that we are not exceeding any of the

laws or regulations that we must abide by.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Janklow.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

If I could, I would like to preface my question with a comment.

Let’s get back on this train that is headed toward the town. The

reality of the situation is, but for someone who just assumes command on their own, the train is going to go into town and be blown

up. Because people are going to be debating, is this the sheriff’s

issue, or is it the police chief’s issue? Is it the highway patrol issue,

or is it the State DCI issue? Is it an FBI question, or is it an ATF

question? Do we call the homeland security? Do we call FEMA? Do

we call the White House? Who in the world do we call?

Meanwhile, the train is rolling down the tracks; and it is, frankly, not going to be stopped by anybody unless someone—and I

think the reality is there is no base commander in America that

on their own is going to decide this is a military situation and I

am going to rush out there with all of the people in uniform to deal

with it.

Fortunately, we have never had to deal with terrorism in this

country before, and we don’t know how to do it, and we are learning. We can learn from people like the Israelis who have been subjected to it for a great deal of time. There are other countries where

it has taken place, to lesser extents, on a continuous basis. But we

don’t know how to deal with it yet.

The military works because there is one commander in chief.

There was a chain of command all of the way down to me when

I was a private in the Marine Corps. I knew all of the way up and

down the ladder how it worked.

So does everybody in the military. There are 18,000 law enforcement units in America. It doesn’t work. You don’t even have the

ability to communicate with them. Some of you are on high band,

some are on low band; some are on UHF. Correct? Some are on

VHF. Some are on 150, some are on 450, some are on 700, some

are on 800, some are on 900, and unless you want to talk Simplex

in most places, you don’t even have the ability to talk to each other

because you don’t have trunk systems. This is unbelievable. We

don’t have homeland security; we have conversation going on in

America. And look, I love you people. I mean it. You are doing a

heck of a job. But what is it that we can do to facilitate really getting something done to protect—am I wrong with my scenario? As

this train goes down the track who is in charge? We can’t just say

civilian authorities. Who is it? Is it the police chief? Is it the sheriff? Is it the fire chief? Is it the mayor? Is it the chairman of the

county commissioners? Is it the Governor? Who is it? Who is it?

And we don’t know. Do any of you know?

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir, I think we do.

Mr. JANKLOW. OK. Good. Now, the train’s moving, so we’ve got

to have an answer.

Mr. MCHALE. Call the FBI.

Mr. JANKLOW. Pardon?

Mr. MCHALE. Call the FBI.

53

Mr. JANKLOW. And it’s 7 o’clock at night in North Dakota and

you get a recording and then someone answers in Minneapolis.

Now what do you do? And they are going to activate a team from

where?

Mr. MCHALE. And that goes to the heart of your question, we

know who is responsible. The question is, are they operationally capable to respond; and I’m not prepared to answer on behalf of the

FBI. But I can tell you——

Mr. JANKLOW. But the train is moving, sir. What do they do right

now, today?

Mr. MCHALE. Today the response would be provided by the lead

Federal law enforcement agency. That’s the FBI. The Department

of Defense would be standing by to provide whatever support that

lead Federal law enforcement agency required to accomplish its

mission. What you describe is a very difficult circumstance involving a remote area, a rural area that may tax significantly the operational capabilities of the lead Federal law enforcement agency.

But we have made a decision within our Nation that law enforcement, including domestic counterterrorism, is a civilian responsibility.

Mr. JANKLOW. In light of the existing world today?

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. JANKLOW. Is that a good decision?

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir, it is.

Mr. JANKLOW. Do we need to sort out the jurisdiction better?

Mr. MCHALE. I think we need to make sure the operational capabilities match in a proper way the assignment of responsibilities.

We are the kind of nation we are because civilian law enforcement

is carried out by a law enforcement agency. Our military works extremely well, but we train primarily to deter and defeat enemy attacks overseas or those that are approaching the United States.

Just as a quick aside, when I left the Congress for 2 years I

taught the Federalist Papers, and one of the concerns of our founders, and contrary to my expectation, there was always a concern

about a large standing army.

Mr. JANKLOW. Agree.

Mr. McHale. I was worried that might be a fear that military

values would be imposed at the point of a bayonet. That in fact was

not the principal concern. The principal concern was that along the

frontier, if the military took the lead, it would become indispensable to the physical security of society and that by the embrace

of the civilian population the military as the savior of the civilian

population would become too powerful and that military values

would be imposed upon our Constitutional system of government.

That remains a legitimate concern if we back away from the

founding principle, which is civilian supremacy and civilian law enforcement.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. McHale, we’re going to go for a second round

of questions for 5 minutes. We will begin that with our chairman,

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There is so much we could focus in on. I don’t know if I want

to spend time having this be a hearing on the overutilization of

your service, but I want to state what I’m sensing, that I really

54

never really focused on, but it’s logical to me. I mean, we’ve basically had law since 1878 that said the military are prohibited from

direct involvement in law enforcement activities, arrests, searches

and seizures, and so on. We have put exceptions in that in the

cases of say drug interdiction and so on. We are all pretty much

united that’s the way we want to continue.

What I’m first trying to get a handle on is, is this command of

USNORTHCOM. Should I view it the same as I would view any

other command in terms of how we train our troops? Not yet on

its mission, but how we train our troops. If you are stationed at

USNORTHCOM, do you still fly a plane the same way? Do you

still—are you still onboard a ship doing the same things? But then,

is it different when it’s land based, for Army in particular, I gather? And then, is the training different? And then, if someone leaves

USNORTHCOM, have they basically been put down a path that

makes them not all that useful if we need to bring them into Iraq?

So, General, maybe you could start me out.

General ANDERSON. OK, sir. A couple of things I guess is to look

at it from an operational and a tactical level, if I may. And if I can

start down at the tactical level, boots on ground kind of a point

there. Some of the missions that we have within USNORTHCOM,

and to be more specific the civil disturbance mission is an example,

where we have forces which are earmarked to perform a civil disturbance mission. Those folks—but that’s not their only mission.

They have that mission as well as other missions. They are on alert

to be deployed within a specified time to any location at the direction of the President. And they do undergo some specific training

associated with that mission. The same thing with our Quick Reaction Forces and our Rapid Reaction Forces. But they are basically

extensions of their military skills for the most part. So it’s very

what we refer to as situationally dependent, depending upon where

it is they are going. For example, if they have to go to protect some

critical infrastructure, then they have to have the knowledge of the

location and the situation and that kind of thing, but they are employing basic military skills under a command and control architecture.

Now, from an operational point of view, at our headquarters, for

example, what we use is we use the same military planning principles that are used in EUCOM and CENTCOM and every other

command headquarters, because it’s proven to be successful and it

has application to the homeland defense mission area as well.

So if an officer leaves Northern Command and moves to EUCOM

or moves to the Joint Staff in the Pentagon or whatever, there is

no retraining that is going to be necessary for that individual.

I hope that answers your question, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. But the enemy is both what we would view conventional as well as nonconventional. What makes it a little bit more

unique here is the mission that then also, given the standing practice since 1878, you do have to call the FBI first. And I would think

the answer to your question is, right now it’s not going to be satisfactory; and if you are in a rural area and you call them, you are

not going to get the kind of response and so on.

Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, I would hesitate to say that because I really don’t know how robust the FBI’s capabilities are, and

55

I would not want to assume nor communicate to our enemies that

the FBI might be limited in terms of its reach and response time

because it may well be that the FBI is fully prepared to respond

throughout the United States in a timely and effective manner.

Mr. SHAYS. It just sounded, though, if I could, that when the

Governor was asking this question he speaks with some authority

that you might get a recording. And so——

Mr. MCHALE. Obviously, I’m not in a position to respond to that.

But I do want to be cautious that we not say anything today that

would imply a deficiency in terms of the FBI’s ability to respond.

Mr. SHAYS. Is this your part of the equation—is this what you

have to verify? Is this what you have to—in your capacity? So

while you don’t want to convey that, you can’t tell me candidly with

all certainty that we have it all together yet?

Mr. MCHALE. I can’t with regard to crisis management. It’s separated in two parts. The scenario you described is what’s called crisis management, before the device or the explosion takes place,

how fast can we get there to stop it. If it’s domestic

counterterrorism, that’s the FBI. And I really don’t know enough

about the FBI’s capabilities nor would it be appropriate for me to

comment on those capabilities. But if, God forbid, the enemy attack

were tactically successful—we would ultimately defeat that terrorist threat. But if in a given instance the attack were to be successful, we within the Department of Defense and NORTHCOM in particular through its Joint Task Force for Civil Support have substantial robust capabilities to respond to multiple simultaneous

WMD attacks throughout the entire Nation. And so if it does explode and if the contaminant is released, we do have the capability

within the military, we train to it, we concentrate the right kinds

of specialties in those units, and we are prepared to respond nationwide in consequence management, as opposed to crisis management, which is a civilian law enforcement function.

Mr. SHAYS. I just would conclude by saying to you that—and put

on the record, this committee is somewhat unique as well as your

command, because while we don’t appropriate and we don’t authorize legislative language, we do look at programs and operations and

so on of the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the

Department of Homeland Security. And we are really the only committee I think of in Congress that has that jurisdiction, which is

a very important jurisdiction because it is a unified, that we all

need to get all of those parts working together.

So we look forward to working with you, and maybe some of this

will be done off the record or behind closed doors. But I do think

the crisis management is one that we obviously are concerned with,

too.

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. You know, this is an evolving progress and,

again, the purpose of the committee to raise the issues. And hopefully we can recommend or have influence on where we are going

to be. And I want to get back on that train to an extent, because

basically you answered the question about who is in charge, and

you call the FBI. But what really happens in this crisis situation

56

is that you always need to be prepared. Well, if you are going to

be prepared, you need resources, you need training, and you need

money really to be able to do the things that we need to do in the

event that there is a crisis like is explained and using the train as

an example. So, but from a local level when this occurs, it can

occur at 3 a.m., urban, rural, suburban, whatever. The process I

think and the teamwork for all levels—because we are all here as

one country, and we want to make it happen as quickly as we can,

and we don’t want to go through the bureaucracy of having the

mayor having to call the Governor and the Governor gets whatever.

And that’s where I think the training resources need to be there,

and it really begs the issue. We give resources to our military to

go to war; we need the resources here.

Now, the one area that I’m a little concerned about is the area

of the Coast Guard. And the Coast Guard, who has a lot of responsibilities, drug interdiction, the inspections and our waterways, but

now they have a larger role in homeland security. And I’m wondering, what do you feel that the Coast Guard might need—if you can

answer that question—and where do you see their role, increasing

or decreasing in some areas, in order to be able to fulfill their mission of homeland security? Who wants to get that one?

Mr. HALL. I can chat a little bit about the Coast Guard Reserve.

I have talked to the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and as you

know, the Coast Guard Reserve was about 12,000, it was reduced

to around 8,000. And with the increased demands they have on

port security units, cargo, boarding ships, it has been his position

that they need to grow. And I think the current figure is 10,000,

and he’s been looking at about 1,000 a year or so. It was a view

that they needed more end strength, which they are programming,

because they have an increased role in trying to board and look at

the cargo containers, port security, integrate properly with the

Navy and the harbor defense.

So from my lane, the Coast Guard Reserve portion, that’s what

they are growing to, and I think it’s currently up from 8 to 10 and

possibly growing more.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. OK. You’re talking manpower now. But

how about their role as far as—and working with I assume in the

event that there is some issues, that they would be dealing a lot

more closely with you?

Mr. MCHALE. Congressman, I think I can address that. The first

thing we should recognize is that in the absence of a wartime footing the Coast Guard is an agency that falls under the Department

of Homeland Security, not the Department of Defense. The traditional relationship——

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. That might be better off now; they might

get more resources that way.

Mr. MCHALE. Well, obviously they were never under the Department of Defense. They went from one civilian agency to another.

However, your basic point is absolutely valid, and that is in an age

of terrorism during an ongoing global war against terrorism it is

vitally important that the Coast Guard and the Department of Defense be fully integrated to provide an in-depth, integrated maritime defense for the United States of America. The Coast Guard is

under the Department of Homeland Security and has police power

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out to 12 nautical miles. Beyond 12 nautical miles, out to about 24

nautical miles, they have lesser thwart but still authority that allows them to establish a maritime homeland security defense in

depth. I am convinced, however, that there is a very significant role

for the Navy Reserve and the Navy to play in defeating the approaching enemy threat, including an asymmetric terrorist inspired

weapon of mass destruction, well beyond the blue water in which

the Coast Guard traditionally defends the United States. And so

the key is to make sure that the Coast Guard defenses that go out

approximately 12 nautical miles are integrated into a Navy defense

that goes out much further.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. There is one other issue, and that’s the

issue of intelligence, too.

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I think one of the biggest responsibilities

for the Coast Guard is the ports and the cargo that’s coming in.

Now, there’s technology out there where you can inspect, and yet

you don’t want to slow down the ships or the ships won’t come in

with the cargo.

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. So there’s a lot of issues there. But it’s that

sharing of the intelligence at the port where the cargo starts to

come into our country and then the technology that’s needed once

it comes into the port.

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. How do you see that and sharing of intelligence?

Mr. MCHALE. That is vitally important. It is our first line of defense. And I’ve had the opportunity to attend General Eberhart’s

intelligence briefings out of Colorado Springs, and I’ve expressed to

the General and to others my belief that General Eberhart’s area

of interest in terms of intel is worldwide. He needs to look out well

beyond his own AOR to pick up information and analysis of raw

intel so that he can anticipate the enemy threat long before it approaches his AOR. And that intel requirement, as you correctly

point out, extends back into his AOR, not only to the port and the

Coast Guard, but beyond that in terms of the sharing of information with civilian law enforcement authorities.

Looking at the pipeline from the opposite end, if a weapon of

mass destruction is to be brought by the enemy into the United

States, I think a terrorist organization is likely to bring to the

United States in advance of the weapon itself a receiving party, a

cell, to—to use Marine Corps terminology, to prep the DLZ. They

are not going to bring in a weapon of mass destruction cold; they

are going to have a team of terrorists in the United States ready

to receive that weapon and operationally deploy it. Therefore, it’s

entirely possible that our first indication of a threat from overseas

will be gathered by a civil law enforcement agency in the United

States which becomes aware of that embedded terrorist cell.

And so from an overseas collection analysis to a sharing of information lawfully with civilian law enforcement agencies, we have to

have a transparency that allows everyone who has an interest in

homeland defense to have legitimate access to the information they

need. And the President’s proposed Terrorist Threat Integration

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Center [TTIC], as proposed in his State of the Union Address, will

ultimately achieve that purpose.

General ANDERSON. Sir, I prefer that we don’t leave here with

you having the idea that the Navy and the Coast Guard are not

cooperating, because that is not true. The Coast Guard, as you

know, has the lead for port security and if they need assistance

then they come to the Department of Defense and ask for assistance, as they did for support of Operation Iraq Freedom. And although I cannot in this venue give you the operational technicalities of what it was that the Navy provided them, the Navy provided them support in order to be able to assist them to do their

mission.

At the same time there is currently a Maritime Homeland Defense Working Group that has been meeting for several months

which is addressing courses of action to be able to develop a command and control scheme, if you will, to be able to address that

seam that was talked to between the Coast Guard and the Navy.

Four courses of action have been developed. They are being war

gamed and will be recommended. And then there is also right at

this moment a jointly manned Navy-Coast Guard Maritime Surveillance Center down in the Norfolk area which is looking at those

things that are coming in and out of here.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. I think that cooperation is good. I didn’t

mean to say that at all. It is very good. It’s just that the resources

aren’t there to do as much as we need in the homeland.

General ANDERSON. They would like to do more, no question

about it.

Mr. TURNER. We will return to our train engineer, Mr. Murphy.

Mr. MURPHY. I’m going to switch to a different mode here.

First, let me ask again about Reservists. As people are being deployed overseas, tell me how you work now into the mix of decisions about who remains home, about what kind of decisions are

made. I know when I talk to our local Reservists and Guard they

geared up for Iraq or Kuwait, but not necessarily for what jobs

were needed to do at home. I’m assuming this is an evolving process, and I wonder if you could just elaborate on that for a moment,

on what evolution is taking place on their homeland duties for

those decisions made of who goes, who stays.

Mr. HALL. Well, I can talk a bit about the demobilization. I participated in the mobilization of all of our Reservists for Iraq, and

it was based upon requirements. And when the combatant commander came in with the requirements for the forces, those flowed

through, and the decision of whether it would be active or reserve

was made and then within the reserve capabilities that existed

which particular type of units. So the decisions were based upon

the capabilities. We also looked at things like the BIDS group

which had particular capabilities and, should all of those be deployed, what would that leave for the United States.

So there was a conscious decision throughout to take a look at

both the active and the reserve and the requirements, and, when

you made that decision, what residual amount of capability did you

have left. And, of course, we only touched about 20 percent of our

entire guard and reserve in this mobilization. So there was resident

still 80 percent in the United States. And so we looked at not from

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each State we took them out of, but the capability. And that’s how

we went about in a very methodical way of that process and each

time asked what capability did that leave us, what have we deployed, and, in the overall posture, what does that mean.

Mr. MURPHY. OK. Good. Now let me turn back to an issue, and

it has particular concern to me because on September 11 the county executive for Allegheny County in the Pittsburgh region received

a call from the flight tower at Pittsburgh International Airport, and

the conversation went something like this: We are going to abandon the tower at Pittsburgh Airport. We have—are radar tracking

a plane that’s flying erratically. We don’t know what it was. It

turned out to be United Flight 93. It is headed this way. You have

to make some decisions on what you need to do to evacuate this

county and city facilities. We will call back if something new develops. That was the call.

Now, we all know we have come a long way since then. But it

hits us particularly—because I know this plane flew over my district. And when I hear the conversations that took place between

the emergency responders and others on this, that the people on

board that plane were making conscious decisions not to do anything yet while it was still over the populated area in southwestern

Pennsylvania. And so the policemen, the firemen, the EMS, the

hospitals in my district oftentimes ask me, what would we do if

something happened again. And I wonder if you can give me some

information whatever can be shared now, but certainly along the

lines of, if not then, perhaps another time, of helping the local

emergency responders to understand about the communications

network and the action network, but particularly communications.

I’m sure you’ve replayed this scenario at other times: What would

we do if it happened again? And I wonder if you can give some reassurance to those emergency responders of the kind of changes

that you’ve made and what they can anticipate in terms of other

training and facilities in the future.

General ANDERSON. Sir, if I could, I would like to address that

from a NORAD perspective, because I think that’s probably appropriate. As you might imagine, back on September 11 it was a different story, but since then certainly it has changed considerably.

And one of the things that has changed has been our linkage with

the FAA. The FAA would immediately be aware of what that situation is, I would expect, in the tower because of the communication

between those folks and probably even the President of FAA. They

immediately go to Cheyenne Mountain where we have our command and control apparatus there for air warning and so on and

so forth. And then it goes from there into the national authorities.

And if there is a CAP, a Combat Air Patrol, that’s in the vicinity,

we may very well hit—point him in that direction to wherever that

plane is. If there is not a CAP and it appears as though this aircraft is a hostile activity or a takeover of some sort, then we will

scramble an aircraft. Whether or not it will be able to get there in

time is a time-distance problem obviously. But to hopefully give

some folks some comfort we exercise this constantly. As a matter

of fact, as recently as last Thursday I was involved where we actually had aircraft up, simulating hijacked aircraft, where we actually scrambled fighters, where we were actually talking to the peoVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:30 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89353.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ple on the ground, to the people in the State Department, so on

and so forth. And it was a multiple scenario issue—in other words,

multiple events going on at the same time—one of which was a hijack. We do this frequently to make sure that all of the communications, all of the procedures, and all of that are in place to be able

to address the problem and not let us have a repeat of September

11.

Mr. MURPHY. I would hope that those things in the future could

also include—and again I’d like to talk to you about some things

so the local emergency responders are aware, at what levels they

can be made aware. I understand there’s other security issues that

are involved here, too. But these are the folks who come to me frequently who really have a lot of questions, and I hope you will be

able to meet with them sometime. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. McHale, I want to return back to your six operational goals for the Department of Defense that you have identified with the U.S. forces and to this Congress: Deny enemy sanctuary by developing capabilities for persistent surveillance, tracking, and rapid engagement.

You did an excellent job of describing the differentiation between

external and internal to the United States, and the limitations and

the Constitutional limitations of the Department of Defense taking

any actions internal to the United States and also making a distinction between foreign aggression and issues of national security.

And I want to get back to that distinction, because that’s the one

that I find really interesting. As we discussed the issue that, previous to September 11, what we would have looked at for surveillance and tracking would have been traditionally military type targets. Now, when you talk about the broader issue of national security, I would like some additional discussion as to what you mean

by denying enemy sanctuary by developing capabilities for persistence surveillance, tracking, and rapid engagement. And focus, if

you will, because it seems to be an area that you are more comfortable with, on the issue of external to United States because

that will have less Constitutional restrictions.

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir. I’m limited somewhat in terms of the detail that I can provide in open setting. But with the extraordinary

global tracking capabilities that we now have, it is possible for the

United States to, first, identify a potential threat, let’s say in terms

of an aircraft or a ship, and then maintain real-time continuous

surveillance of that enemy platform over an extended period of

time. And so when I talk about tying enemy sanctuary by developing capabilities for persistent surveillance, tracking, and rapid engagement, I think it’s entirely within the reach of evolving technology that we could identify a ship associated with a terrorist organization and maintain worldwide surveillance of that ship in

order to guarantee that it would not pose an immediate threat to

the United States of America.

Additionally, if we were to identify let’s say a ship that might be

a threat to the United States, and if through evolving technology

we were to maintain situational awareness of where it was located

all the time, and should it pass into an area that posed a serious

threat to the United States, again, utilizing foreseeable technology,

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it might be possible to deploy and operationally use remote sensing

capabilities that would enable us to determine with a high degree

of probability whether or not that ship had aboard a weapon of

mass destruction. I think there is great potential for the further development of remote sensing capabilities related to weapons of

mass destruction so that we could in the first instance be aware

of a threat and in the second instance confirm whether or not that

threat involved the likely use of weapons of mass destruction. I

frankly would hope that in the not too distant future we would be

able to deploy sensor rays that would allow us to detect from varying distances of standoff whether or not a particular ship approached our coastline with a weapon of mass destruction.

And so we have to maintain the ability to defeat hostile nation

states and traditional maritime threats, but I think one of the primary traffics now assigned to NORTHCOM and to my office in conjunction with many others is to develop the technology and operationally employ the technology that will allow us to defeat not

only hostile nation states but terrorist organizations and asymmetric WMD threats.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Janklow.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much.

If I could, let’s talk about communication for a minute, the technology itself. The reality of the situation is, is that given the way

spectrums have been allocated in this country, the existing authorities of the FCC, and some statutes, we have an incredible hodgepodge. The military used to have that problem. If I’m remembering

the Grenada invasion, there was actually a captain or major who

received an award because he tried to call in an air strike and

couldn’t, so he used his AT&T credit card from a pay telephone,

called the 82nd Airborne, who patched him through to the Pentagon, and put him through to an AWACS, and he called in a strike.

In Iraq the first time or Kuwait, and this time, all your military—all our military can talk to each other real-time all the time.

Our civilians don’t have this capability. In the States, the feds are

on different frequencies and can’t even always talk to each other,

be they the Interior Department authorities, the Bureau of Indian

Affairs, the FBI, the Forest Service, the State authorities can’t talk

to each other, and very few of them can communicate real-time all

the time with the feds. What will it take for—is it—what should

we do to fix it? Because, you know, when you talk about after the

fact and crisis management I don’t question after the fact we have

phenomenal ability in this country, and you are all going to do a

great job. I mean, because we can bring a lot of resources together

very quickly to fix things. It’s the crisis management I’m worried

about. And we can’t stop everything. But to the extent that we can,

we have to, or at least have to try to do it. And communication is

a key to this, and it’s a big key in crisis management. I mean, I’ve

been involved in it with a community that was totally destroyed,

and we had to actually go out and buy a radio system and fly it

in and just hand them out to people so we could all get on the same

frequency between the feds, the States, the locals, and the others

so we could communicate with each other.

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The same is true when a forest is on fire. All the Federal firefighters that fly in can’t talk to the State firefighters because they

are on different frequencies.

How do we fix—what is it—I think only Congress can fix this.

What should we do to fix it? Or will it fix itself, or can you guys

fix it without us? And I’m looking at you, Secretary McHale, but

I will ask you all, from you, General, to all three of you. How do

we fix the problem? There can’t be a bigger—I mean, when we

were looking for a sniper in America, or snipers, we didn’t know

if these were foreign terrorists or locals. And look at the problems

there were with all of those law enforcement agencies and all the

different jurisdictions and States over who was boss. And the fact

that they get together to collocate, coordinate, and communicate is

not really the way to run a crisis.

Mr. MCHALE. Sir, I think when you were in the Marine Corps,

and I know when I was in the Marine Corps——

Mr. JANKLOW. It was so long ago.

Mr. MCHALE. Within the dim recesses of our memory.

Mr. SHAYS. A little bonding going on here?

Mr. MCHALE. A little bit. Semper fi.

You train as you are going to fight, and I believe that we have

to make the training for homeland defense missions as close to

operational reality, as intense, as demanding, as difficult as we can

make it in a training environment. That’s——

Mr. JANKLOW. And you’re great at that. I mean, when Payne

Stewart’s airplane took off from Florida it crashed in my State. We

knew real-time all the time from the FAA, from the Defense Department, from the Air Traffic Control, all of them were in sync on

it literally as it followed it through the sky. The Kentucky National

Guard, the Iowa National Guard, the North Dakota National

Guard, the Air Force were all with that airplane all the time trying

to determine where it was going to come down. And, that’s great.

But what I’m talking about is the communication side. How do we

fix the ability to grab a radio and talk to each other?

General ANDERSON. Sir, if I could. I mean, if you look at the military and where we are today, and you alluded to what it was in

Grenada and now what it is today, and we look to see how was it

that we were able to achieve that, it was through standards. It was

interoperability standards. We didn’t go out and buy everybody the

same radio. We took the radios that existed and made sure that

they were compatible and as technologically available to be done.

And I think you will find in the panel that’s after this one General

Reimer will talk to you about that.

Mr. JANKLOW. General, should we mandate that by law?

General ANDERSON. Sir, that’s an option.

Mr. JANKLOW. Will that fix the problem?

General ANDERSON. It may, but it will take time. We’re going to

have to be patient. And it will take money.

Mr. MCHALE. And I would encourage you—4 or 5 years ago I

would have been as deeply concerned as you are. I just met recently with the Virginia CST, their Civil Support Team, Title 32

status National Guard, and I peppered them with the same questions that you’re presenting to us. Technology now does empower

interoperability of communications. And I said to the CST, look,

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when you roll in on a site, and the police and the firefighters and

EMTs and the paramedics and the HAZMAT folks are already

there, are you going to be able to talk to them? And as best they

could explain it to a government major, they took me into their

comm center, and they showed me how they would be able to communicate with all of those diverse entities that 5 years ago I would

have been very doubtful that they would be able to do that.

Mr. JANKLOW. And if they didn’t have a comm center, they

couldn’t do it?

Mr. MCHALE. Yes, sir. That’s correct.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. For closing comments, we will turn to

our ranking member, Mr. Ruppersberger, and Chairman Shays.

We’ll start with Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Just I would like to introduce for the record

a written statement. I’m not going to read it.

Mr. TURNER. We’ll make certain that it’s part of the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I don’t want to get into in any great

depth; I just want to have a sense of it. A chemical or biological

attack—excuse me, a chemical or a nuclear attack, do the personnel that know how to neutralize these weapons of mass destruction, do they come out of—General, out of your operation? Is this

a USNORTHCOM operation, or is this something totally separate

that you kind of hire?

General ANDERSON. Sir, Render Safe is a very, very classified

subject that I would rather talk to you off line on, if I may, please.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

Mr. MCHALE. Mr. Chairman, I would simply note very quickly

for the record that there are exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act

with regard to weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough. OK. Thanks.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We want to thank the panelists, and ask if there are any of them

that have any additional statements or any additional response to

a question that you would like to add to the record at this time.

If not, we thank you very much. And we will turn to our second

panel, which includes General Reimer, the director, Oklahoma City

National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism; Mr.

Raymond Decker, Director, Defense Capabilities Management

Team, U.S. General Accounting Office; and Dr. James Jay

Carafano, senior fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Mr. Michael Wermuth, senior policy analyst, RAND Corp.

If you would all come forward.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TURNER. Let the record reflect that you all responded in the

affirmative.

We are going to begin by asking each of you to make a 5-minute

statement. And we will begin with Mr. Decker.

STATEMENTS OF RAYMOND DECKER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE

CAPABILITIES MANAGING TEAM, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; GENERAL DENNIS J. REIMER, DIRECTOR, OKLAHOMA CITY NATIONAL MEMORIAL INSTITUTE FOR THE PREVENTION OF TERRORISM; DR. JAMES JAY CARAFANO, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS; AND MICHAEL WERMUTH, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST, RAND CORP.

Mr. DECKER. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today the demands

being placed on the Department of Defense in a post-September 11,

2001 environment.

The Department’s primary mission is to deter or prevent aggression abroad and fight to win if these measures fail. This has been

accomplished through military presence and power projection overseas, and, as we have witnessed recently in Iraq and Afghanistan,

our military forces have conducted major sustained and successful

combat operation. However, since the events of September 11,

2001, our Federal Government’s view of the defense of the U.S. territory has dramatically changed. This special emphasis has required the Department of Defense to adjust its strategic and operVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:30 Nov 05, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89353.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ational focus to encompass not only the traditional military concerns posed by hostile states overseas, but also the asymmetric

threats directed at our homeland by terrorist groups.

Last year at the request of this subcommittee we initiated a review of the domestic military missions performed by the Department and their impact on the Department’s ability to meet all of

its mission requirements.

We will issue our report to you later this spring. However, my

testimony today is based on our preliminary observations from this

review. I will briefly comment on three key areas: The primary differences between military and nonmilitary, or civil, support missions conducted by the Department; whether current defense organizational structure, plans, and forces are adequate to support

DOD’s domestic missions; and the impact of domestic missions on

military personnel tempo.

First, I will cover the military and nonmilitary missions. In general terms—and I think this was elaborated by Congressman

McHale and General Anderson—the military missions are those

primary warfighting functions DOD performs in defense of the Nation and at the direction of the Commander in Chief, the President.

Recent combat operations in Iraq are a good example of the military’s primary purpose. Conversely, in nonmilitary missions or support missions to civil authorities, DOD provides military forces or

capabilities in support of another agency. For instance, the recovery assistance provided by the Pentagon at the request of FEMA

after a natural crisis such as a hurricane or flood is a support mission to civil authorities.

DOD evaluates all requests by U.S. civil authorities for military

assistance against six established criteria, including legality,

lethality, cost, and impact on readiness to base its decision. During

fiscal years 2001 and 2002, the Department supported over 230

missions requested by civil authorities such as fighting wildfires in

the West, providing post-September 11 recovery assistance to New

York and Virginia, and supporting the last Presidential inauguration.

Although established DOD guidance with a formal decisionmaking process exists for military support to civil authorities, the

use of military combat forces such as U.S. fighter aircraft patrolling

the skies of America after the attacks of September 11 leads into

my comments on whether DOD has the organizational structure,

plans, and forces to support the heightened domestic military missions.

As you are aware, DOD has taken two positive steps to organize

its efforts in the homeland defense role within the larger domain

of homeland security. First, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of

Defense for Homeland Defense, Mr. McHale’s office, was recently

created to provide leadership and supervision of all DOD’s domestic

missions. Second, the U.S. Northern Command located in Colorado

Springs was recently established to provide long-term planning and

execution for domestic air, sea, and land missions. It will be fully

operational the first of October this year. During our official visit

to U.S. Northern Command last week, it was clear that General

Eberhart and his battle staff are dedicated and committed as they

tackle their new duties in homeland defense.

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Although these two organizational initiatives are important, it is

premature to evaluate the effectiveness of these organizations to

address their new missions at this time. We have noted that the

U.S. Northern Command completed its campaign plan in October

2002 for domestic military missions that will guide the forces performing these missions. However, the plan was developed prior to

the January 2003 issuance of a Federal Bureau of Investigation national terrorism threat assessment and may need to be reviewed to

ensure all threat aspects are appropriately considered.

Additionally, there are indications that the U.S. military forces

may not be adequately structured for some current domestic missions and military readiness may become eroded as a result. For

example, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the President

deployed fighter aircraft to protect U.S. cities as well as military

police units to enhance installation security across the Nation

under Operation Noble Eagle. While all units and personnel have

performed their homeland defense duties superbly, in some cases

the assigned tasks were not the primary mission of these affected

units or personnel; therefore, this condition highlights a potential

imbalance between current force structure mix and future requirements. Although these specifically focused missions were deemed

necessary, the military readiness of the assigned forces over time

may decline due to the limited training value derived from these

missions and the reduced opportunities to conduct other required

combat-oriented training during the period.

My final comments are directed at personnel tempo or the

amount of time a service member spends away from home while

deployed. Clearly, the current overseas and domestic missions are

stressing U.S. military personnel in this area. For example, from

September 2001 through December 2002, the number of Air Force

personnel exceeding the personnel tempo threshold of 182 days—

which is approximately one half a year—away from home rose from

2,100 to about 8,300. The number of personnel exceeding the personnel tempo threshold of 220 days away—which is 60 percent of

a year—rose from 1,600 to 22,000. Army data also revealed a similar serious trend during the same period. Exceeding the threshold

on a sustained basis may indicate inadequacy in the force structure

or mix of forces for the current level of operations and could lead

to retention problems later if military members leave the service

because personnel tempo was too high. To prevent significant nearterm attrition from the military force DOD has used stop loss authority to prohibit service members affected by the order from leaving the service. All four services have stop loss orders that are currently being used.

Officials from the four services who manage the implementation

of these orders caution that these are for short-term use and designed to maintain unit level military readiness for overseas combat and domestic missions. Moreover, the officials added that the

orders are not intended as a long-term solution to address

mismatches or shortfalls in capabilities or requirements or as a

substitute for the routine recruiting, induction, and training of new

members.

In closing, Department of Defense has initiated several important measures to accomplish its homeland defense mission, but

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needs to address concerns over the impact of this emerging issue

on force structure and personnel tempo. Like a baseball team that

is used to playing games at home and then away, the Pentagon

must now balance its ability to play both at home and away simultaneously, and review its approach to continue fielding the best

team for years to come.

Mr. Chairman, that completes my statement.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Decker.

General Reimer.

General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Mr. Chairman and

distinguished members of the subcommittee. I have submitted a

statement for the record, and would ask that be accepted. I would

just like to summarize that statement if I could.

I am the director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of

Terrorism and have been that since April 2000. Prior to that, I

served 37 years in the U.S. Army and retired in 1999 as Chief of

Staff of the U.S. Army.

I would like to talk just a little bit about MIPT in terms of what

we do and then broaden it a little it bit. MIPT is the third component of the National Memorial in Oklahoma City. And the family

members and survivors felt very strongly about having an organization that looked to the future to try to prevent what happened

on April 19, 1995 from happening again. And that is our charter

and that is what we do.

Because of that charter, our focus is on the first responder community. We have been supported by Congress through four different appropriations, which we deeply appreciate. Primarily, we

concentrate on five different areas. First is a research program to

provide the emergency responders the technology they need to do

their job better. One of our projects, Project Responder, is very enthusiastically supported by the Department of Homeland Security

and I think has the potential to be the cornerstone for a research

development test and evaluation program that needs to be established for the emergency responder community.

We have also been involved in training exercises, have supported

Dark Winter, one of the co-sponsors of Dark Winter. We took Dark

Winter and did a state exercise in Oklahoma called Sooner Spring,

which we distributed to all 50 States under Governor Keating’s signature and we will look at the runaway train scenario because I

think that type of scenario is the thing policymakers need to think

about.

We have an outreach program primarily focused on a library and

a Web page to try and inform the American people of the complex

issues involved with domestic terrorism. We, unfortunately, in

Oklahoma have too many people who have felt the direct effects of

domestic terrorism, but fortunately they are willing to share their

experiences and they were very helpful in reaching out to the victims in September 11, and I think that association still remains

very strong.

Oklahoma City is a great place for a conference. It’s a neutral

forum area. We are located somewhat in the middle of the United

States. But more importantly, as we bring people together in Oklahoma City and talk about the issues involved with domestic terrorism, everyone leaves a little stronger, more committed, more convinced about the importance of the job they are doing because of

the National Memorial.

And then last is what I call flagship program, it’s basically to tie

the first responders through the use of the Internet share best

practices and lessons learned. There are a lot of good best practices

that exist out there, but they are not shared with others, and so

information sharing becomes very important. And the idea, if you

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can share this best practice with others, then everybody gets a little bit better.

We can also share lessons learned. We produced a volume called

Oklahoma City: Seven Years Later, which captures the lessons

learned from Oklahoma City many of you have talked about already, and we will make that available to everybody; in fact, we

have already sent that out to every mayor in the United States and

it has been downloaded 17,000 times from our Web site, so it is

very much available. But we think that by sharing these lessons

learned that everybody will get better, and I maintain that’s the

best way for the Nation to get the best return on our investment.

The issue we are dealing with today is a complex issue. And just

as Secretary McHale said, President Lincoln indicated we need to

do some fresh thinking. The sentence before that, he said: There

are—the occasion is filled with great difficulty, and we must rise

to the occasion. He was absolutely right on both of those accounts.

I think the key to this problem is partnership. It’s a partnership

amongst the Federal, State, and the local levels of government; it’s

a partnership amongst the private and the public sector; and it’s

a partnership between the military and civilian responder community. And since the purpose of this committee is looking at the latter, I will confine most of my remaining remarks to that.

I believe the National Guard is the key in terms of military support. I think the military does a great job in terms of military support to civilian authority, but I think in this particular area we

need ‘‘to think anew and act anew’’ in solving this problem. The

reason I believe the National Guard is key is there is a historical

precedent. If you go back to the very beginning in the 1600’s, the

National Guard was established to protect the settlers in the communities. They have had this historical mission of protecting the

United States. They have the flexibility, the flexibility to operate

under Title X in a Federal control status or in a Title 32, under

State controls which gives them an awful lot of flexibility on issues

such as posse comitatus. They also have a Guard Net 21, which basically ties together through fiberoptics capabilities most of the

United States. And somebody told me and I believe this to be true,

at least probably in the high 90 percentile, every person in the

United States lives within 50 miles of an armory. So an armory

could become the center of the activity.

It was already mentioned by Chairman Shays in his opening remarks we need to train the way we are going to fight. We have to

fight differently in this war against terrorism, and we need to train

differently or else we are not going to be able to operate effectively

when the time comes. So it’s very important we figure out how we

are going to provide military support to civilian authorities when

we have a terrorist act. And we know that any terrorist attack will

require military support.

Finally, I would say that there is a group of people outside of the

Beltway that I call the community of the willing, who are working

on this problem. And I think part of what we need to do is to leverage those efforts, tie them together in a meaningful way, and see

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if we can’t pick some low-hanging fruit here which I think can

jumpstart this effort in a very meaningful way.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to testify in front of

you, and I appreciate your interest in this particular area.

[The prepared statement of General Reimer follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you, General.

Dr. Carafano.

Dr. CARAFANO. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

members of the committee for inviting me here to speak today. I

have submitted a statement for the record, and I would just like

to summarize if I may just three points from that. The first deals

from my own experience. I’m trained as a historian, and I thought

it was of great interest when the debate over the establishment of

the Homeland Security Department came up and the references

that were made to the National Security Act of 1947 that created

the Defense Department, and I think indeed that analogy is indeed

apt.

But what I think people tend to forget is that the national security architecture that we used to fight the cold war was not cut

from whole cloth. It really took a decade. I mean, if you look at between the years 1947 to 1957, the experimentation, trial and error,

get it right, get it wrong, to really figure out how we were going

to fight the cold war. I mean, that’s when all the principle instruments were really invented, deterrence, NATO, security assistance,

and the things we weren’t going to do, like robust civil defense.

And so I think there is a real lesson there, is that we are really

at the beginning of the process. And now is not just the right time

to hold this hearing, but it’s the key time because it’s—this is going

to be an evolving architecture and now is exactly the time to get

it right, because the architecture that we set up today will be the

one that will exist for generations to come.

The second point I would like to make is that the questions that

you asked and a lot of the discussions about organization and force

structures and methods, and I think all that is very important, but

what I think is equally important if not more important is strategy

and strategic guidance, because I really do think that strategy and

strategic guidance guide the Department of Defense, and they’re

what’s required for turning the ship. In my analysis of this current

strategic direction, it is fine if you think the status quo is adequate.

But if you think the status quo for DOD’s current direction is inadequate, then I think we also need to think in terms of the strategy

and strategic guidance that’s required to turn the ship in a different direction.

The last point I want to make and I think is really the most important, is that as you look at DOD’s role in Homeland Security,

I really think what’s most efficient and effective is if that role is

considered and given new direction in a very holistic way, and in

two respects. One is as part of the overall national response—and

I just don’t mean Federal response, because Homeland Security

really requires a national response network that includes the State,

local, and Federal Governments. So the DOD’s role needs to be always—when we’re looking forward, needs to be placed in context

of what we are expecting from the rest of the national response

system and also in terms of DOD’s overall missions, both offense

and defense. So as we change one part, as we decide what our future role of the National Guard is going to be in Homeland Security, we really need to think of that in the context of what do we

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want the National Guard to do in all aspects of security as we

think over the long term.

And with those comments, I look forward to your questions, and

again I thank you for inviting me.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Carafano follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Wermuth.

Mr. WERMUTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished

members.

I am going to focus my remarks today primarily on my work as

the executive project director of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of

Mass Destruction.

Mr. TURNER. All in one breath.

Mr. WERMUTH. All in one breath. Also known as the Gilmore

Commission, a creation of the Congress now in its 5th year, having

submitted four reports to the President and the Congress, with

some major policy recommendations; it will submit its fifth and

presumably final report in December of this year.

In my testimony, I go into considerable detail about the catalog

of statutory authority for the use of the military domestically, but

it really is important and the previous panel noted the distinctions

between the two principal areas of the military mission with respect to the homeland, the homeland defense mission, which really

is principally a Department of Defense responsibility to protect the

homeland against invasion, and the military support to civil authorities. Those statutes, the authorities that provide that ability

of the military to do that, really are based in the Constitution, as

I’ve noted in my testimony. Certainly the Stafford Act’s already

been mentioned, but of course the insurrection statutes, the expansion of authorities that were originally designed for counterdrug activities have now been expended to include terrorist operations.

There is some very special authority in a couple of statutes that I

mentioned in my testimony, particularly 10 U.S. Code 382, and 18

U.S. Code 831, that allow the military to be used in some very nontraditional ways even inside the homeland.

So the issue here is not whether there is sufficient authority.

One of the big issues of course is that authority is not very well

understood generally throughout the country in what the military

can legally do and how posse comitatus still provides perhaps some

measure of a constraint. But the simple fact is the exceptions that

have been provided to posse comitatus for use of the military inside

the homeland have not made posse comitatus meaningless, as the

Congress acknowledged in the Homeland Security Act last year,

but there is certainly plenty of authority there for using the military in a number of ways, both for the homeland defense mission,

purely military mission, and for providing military support to civil

authorities.

In that regard, I won’t use my time in my opening remarks, but

I would hope to get on Congressman Murphy’s train in the question

and answer session and maybe give you a couple of additional insights or clarifications on that scenario.

Certainly we need to do a better job of educating people throughout the country on what the military can and can’t do, and particularly how you get to the military. It’s important for all of us to understand that a mayor or a Governor can’t just walk down to the

local Title X military installation and ask the military to do things.

There is an appropriate process to do that. That process is now up

through a Governor to the Secretary of Homeland Security and

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then over to the Department of Defense when we are talking about

military support to civil authorities. That process is not necessary

in the homeland defense mission, but there are issues involving

structures and plans and training and exercises that I’ve talked

about at some length in my written testimony.

Let me echo what others have said before about the National

Guard. The Gilmore Commission in several reports culminating

with recapitulation of those and an expansion of those in its fourth

report has suggested that we really can and should do more with

the National Guard. And you heard the three different areas for

use of the National Guard in its purely State status; that means

no Federal funds, that it is under the authority of the Governor to

do things with the Guard in its State militia hat, if you will. The

Title 32 piece, which is Federal funding, and those have manifested

themselves a couple of times recently, certainly right after September 11 with security at the airports and more recently under Liberty Shield for protection of critical infrastructure for the Federal

Government piece, and then of course bringing them in to a Title

X status to do things under the national command authority, normal Title X responsibilities.

But the fact is there may very well be some additional authority.

Certainly under Title 32 there are adjutant generals out there who

believe that they don’t even have the authority to use Federal

funds to train for certain Homeland Security missions because they

don’t see them, or their lawyers don’t see them as being directly

related to their potential Title 10 missions for which Title 32 funds

are normally provided. So there certainly ought to be clarification

to allow them to do that.

The Gilmore Commission, as you will see from my testimony, has

proposed perhaps some additional structures and formalizing relationships that would allow the National Guard to be used not in

the purely command and control sense but in a new coordination

regime that would allow the National Guard to respond to requests

from the Department of Defense through U.S. Northern Command

maybe even on a multi-state basis to provide assistance when Title

X forces may not be indicated or where, as Dennie Reimer said, the

Guard provides some additional flexibility that the Title 10 component might not provide.

So I’ve gone through a lot of those in my written testimony, and

would be happy to answer any questions related to those and other

parts of my testimony in the followup question and answer period.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wermuth follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Wermuth.

We will go then to a round of 5-minute questions, beginning with

our chairman Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Looking, Mr. Decker, at your comments, does the panel all agree

that when we look at this command, that it has the traditional

military role and then the asymmetrical threat of Homeland Security defense by terrorist groups? Is this the only command in our

government that has this asymmetrical responsibility?

Dr. CARAFANO. Congressman.

Mr. SHAYS. You have a loud voice, but I also want you to talk

through the mic as well.

Dr. CARAFANO. Right. I actually would argue that is not a good

framework to use. I think actually if you look at the combatant

command responsibilities, we ought to look at the commonalities as

opposed to the differences. Even in Operation Iraqi Freedom, for

example, you saw a commander in a theater who had critical infrastructure issues, intelligence and early warning issues, could conceivably have had civilian consequence management issues. So in

actuality I think in the future of warfare all the combatant commands are going to see similar—are going to have missions that

cut across what we call the National Homeland Security Strategy,

the six major mission areas. And so I think that we would be better

off to move toward a framework that looked at the military’s requirement to meet each of those mission areas. And, yes, it’s going

to be somewhat different for each of the combatant commands, but

I actually think it’s going to be a common thread throughout the

regional combatant command.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just followup. Does someone else want to respond to that as well?

General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is a command

that has asymmetric responsibilities. I think it is somewhat similar

to SOCOM when we set that up in some ways. But SOCOM certainly doesn’t have the asymmetrical responsibilities that Northern

Command has, plus SOCOM has their own forces assigned. So

there is very much a uniqueness as far as I am concerned about

Northern Command and its mission and its structure.

Mr. WERMUTH. I am going to get on Congressman’s Murphy’s

train here for a minute.

One of the two twists from the previous testimony—and it is related to this question, perhaps not in 15 minutes, perhaps not in

30 minutes—but there are some things that this committee should

consider that can’t be discussed in this session that have some

asymmetry to them and that fall outside the purview of the U.S.

Northern Command that this committee and others of the Congress

would certainly know about but may want to consider in this particular context.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Decker, do you want to respond?

Mr. DECKER. Sir, I think the only thing unique about the other

combatant commands is, as General Anderson said, the territory

that they are protecting, which is the homeland. But the issue of

traditional versus asymmetric threat, that is global.

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Mr. SHAYS. OK. I am unclear as to whether there needs to be a

distinction between homeland defense and homeland security. Tell

me why there is a distinction. Is it important?

Mr. WERMUTH. The national strategy, in trying to describe homeland security in the military context, describes the military role in

homeland security at large as two subcomponents, homeland defense. That is the distinction that we draw between those terms.

The homeland security term is a broader term. Homeland defense is a subset of it that is a military mission. Military support

to civil authorities is the other piece of the military mission. Those

two together tend to describe the military’s role in the broader

term, homeland security.

Mr. SHAYS. Someone else want to respond to that? Then I’m

going to followup with a question.

General REIMER. Mr. Chairman, I am with you on this issue. I

don’t know that there is a distinction. The people that I talk to in

Oklahoma don’t understand the distinction between homeland security and homeland defense.

Mr. DECKER. Mr. Chairman, I guess it was August 2001 Mr.

Wermuth and myself and some others spoke to an audience at the

Army War College—this is pre September 11. There was a debate

at that time about the use of the term homeland security versus

homeland defense. There was a perception that the American public may not like the use of the term homeland security when talking about Pentagon activities, and I sensed—and maybe, Mike, you

can comment—that there was a sensitivity from the military of the

perception if homeland security was part of their mission.

Mr. WERMUTH. I think that is exactly right, and Ray and I have

had these exchanges in front of a number of other panels. Definitions are important. If we are going to make the distinction, we

need to make it clearly; and I happen to think the national strategy went a long way in trying to draw the distinction between the

two and making the homeland security term much more broad and

encompassing State and local actions, the role of the private sector,

the role of the Federal Government.

If the appropriate term for that purely military mission is homeland defense, it’s as good a one as I know of. We need to start using

those terms consistently and clearly and not intertwining them

somehow or using them synonymously, because we are now very

careful in the work that we do, and we are doing some work in this

context for the Department of Homeland Security to keep those

terms very, very distinguishable, one being the larger, one being

more just the purely military mission.

Mr. SHAYS. I know my time has run out. Dr. Carafano, you made

this in your statement, so maybe you can respond as well.

Dr. CARAFANO. Yes, Congressman. I do have the subject in my

prepared statement, so I won’t repeat what is in there, just to try

to briefly summarize.

I struggle to find the utility of distinguishing between homeland

security and homeland defense. When you will look at it at the end

of the day, homeland defense is responsible for defending the

United States against invasion. Well, what is the likelihood we are

going to be invaded? I mean, other than missile defense, there is

virtually no real threat today that falls into that category. So in a

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sense when you look at the things we are asking the military to

do, they are all essentially homeland security missions.

I don’t think the distinction is useful or well understood, and I

go back to my statement that I think that the six critical functions

lined out in the national security strategy define requirements that

need to be met. So I think that it is a much more constructive way

to look at missions because then you ask the question of what capability does each Federal entity need to be to satisfy these six mission requirements, not a question of is this homeland defense or

homeland security?

I think the legal qualifications are really quite clear, and there

is no reason to add terms that essentially obfuscate the debate. I

will agree with Mike that there is a serious education campaign

that needs to be undertaken in the United States for people to

clearly understand what the different legal issues are, but that is

very different from needing to create a new word which doesn’t

help you understand them any better.

Mr. SHAYS. I wish you guys would agree a little more on this.

OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Again, we are going through the exercise,

and we just need to pull it all together. That is what we are here

about.

Would you say that coordinating the exercise and training for the

range of activities that really NORTHCOM is going to be responsible for is going to be the hardest challenge and then coordinating

that with the State and local? We get right back to the same issue

on every question almost. But that is—but what is the end game?

What recommendations will you have, very simplistic term, to get

to where we need to be?

General REIMER. What I would say, Congressman, is my first

recommendation is that we have to go through those exercises.

Those exercises have to be at all levels. They have to deal with the

policy issues so the decisionmakers are exposed to the scenario you

talked about in the first session.

Those are not easy issues. There are not easy answers to these

issues. You have to go through that to learn from that experience

and get a feel for the type of decisions the decisionmakers are going

to have to make.

I remember watching Dark Winter—and we had a pretty good

panel. Senator Nunn played the President. He kept saying, ‘‘tell me

the worst case.’’ The experts couldn’t tell him the worst case because they didn’t know where the smallpox started. Unless you can

tell the point of origin, you can’t determine who has been affected

and how fast it is going to spread. So those are the issues that

come out of those particular policy sessions.

I think the issue now in homeland security is how do we marry

the training capabilities of the military, which I think are the best

in the world, with what we need in the emergency responder community, which are basically run through the Office of Domestic

Preparedness as a part of the Department of Homeland Security

right now. I think there is a great opportunity there to use military

expertise, primarily the National Guard, to establish the front-end

analysis of this training program that just has to be.

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Policemen are very well trained in being policemen. Firemen are

very well trained in being firemen. But how do we bring them together and work together in terms of responding to a terrorist attack where we know that the first few minutes are going to save

lives? That to me is where the military can bring this together and

have an interdepartmental training program that allows them to

do that. I think we have to be able to leverage what homeland security is going to do with what the Northern Command and Department of Defense is going to do in order to get this training program where it needs to be.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, if I can comment as well. I believe that the exercises and training are probably one of the most important issues

that the Northern Command and Mr. McHale have to address. But

I think the primary issue, which is one step above there, gets back

to this issue that was not fully addressed earlier, and that is information sharing.

Information is the lifeblood of any organization and is the key

element of all decisionmaking, and without that piece being better

addressed through a lot of different approaches your exercises and

your training will be of limited value. The exercises, as someone

said—it should reflect reality. You should train as hard as you expect a real world situation to happen.

The information or intelligence that flows through that condition,

that problem set, is key to successful outcomes with all parties that

have to work together. My sense is—and I think Governor Ridge

said it. He said the biggest challenge he has now as the Secretary

of Department of Homeland Security is breaking this thing called

information sharing, which I would challenge, and we are actually

doing work for the committee on this.

It is really an interesting paradox. Information sharing versus

information superiority and why organizations do not share is at

the root cause of why information does not go across boundaries to

help the common good.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. You are right. The need to know.

But terrorism is a different arena. I mean, you are not talking

about corruption. You are not talking about a Mafia—well, al

Qaeda in a worldwide type situation.

But the other issue, too—and I want your opinion on this. It is

not only gaining that information and sharing it, but it is the analysis.

Mr. DECKER. I would say that analysis is probably the most important—assuming that you have the right data access, part of the

entire process of information handling, processing and dissemination.

But here is a thought. Admiral Loy, when he was the Commandant of the Coast Guard, before he left, put out a paper which

we have read and analyzed; and the Office of Naval Intelligence,

in conjunction with the Coast Guard, is actually doing a test bed

on this. It is called maritime domain awareness.

I would suggest to you that Northern Command, one of the most

important elements that they need, which they do not have, is this

situational awareness of the Federal, State, local, and perhaps the

private sector, but data coming in from government and nongovernment sources, which gives the command and his staff a sense of

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what is happening across the Nation in areas that perhaps might

represent some threatening situations and at times key submissions from the intelligence and law enforcement community of

known or heightened threat categories. Then from that quick analysis discerning what does it mean and doing some quick analysis,

as compared to long-term analysis, which other parts of the government are going to be doing through the TTIC and the Homeland

Security Department, the FBI’s counterterrorism division and others.

So if I were, you know, General Eberhardt, I would recommend

looking at information, situational awareness as being one of those

fundamental enablers that he will use to make better decisions

that then can support real world as well as exercise scenarios.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. General Reimer, one of the things that I appreciate

about your comments and your focus, specifically in raising the

issue of Oklahoma, is that it really underscores your statements

about homeland security being a process; and it is a process that

we need to go through, regardless of issues of foreign threats, because they are the types of things that we ought to be doing anyway, because there will always be evil people. There will always be

people that could be a threat. In looking at homeland security,

there are some things that it would behoove us to undertake, regardless of whether or not we are currently under any specific

threat from any foreign group.

Recognizing that we won’t always think of everything and that

we won’t always be able to prevent everything, I would love for

each of you—and, General Reimer, I am going to start with you—

if you would give us your thought of what you think is the No. 1

issue of concern to you. What is the No. 1 thing that is bugging

you or in your craw that you know right now we are not doing well,

or that should be done? What is the No. 1 thing that is troubling

you?

General REIMER. Well, that is a very good question, Mr. Chairman. I guess it is a difficult part to say the No. 1 thing. I am probably going to be a little bit all over the map sheet with my answer.

But I think prior to September 11 the feeling of the average American was that terrorism is something that happens over there. We

are protected by two big oceans and friendly borders with the north

and south, and it is not going to affect us.

As we get further away from September 11, I am not sure we are

not slipping back into that same mode; and I think really what we

have to do is to change the culture here in American society to understand that we are under threat and that we are very vulnerable.

The vulnerability is based upon the thing that makes our country

great, the freedoms and the liberties that we all enjoy. We are a

very open society. We have to be. That is our way of life. That is

our economic engine.

So I guess the thing that I worry about most is how do we get

the right balance between protecting the people of the United

States and protecting the liberties and the rights that have made

this country what it is today. If we go too far to one side, we are

going to screw up the other, and it is not going to be the country

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that you and I love. So we have to make sure that we get that

right.

I think we have to adjust to the fact that terrorism is here. It

is a long-term effect. It is not something that is going to be solved

tomorrow, this year. It is going to take us a long time to eradicate

terrorism. And I think eradication of terrorism is the right goal. We

can’t live with 50 percent, terrorism reduced by 50 percent, because

it still affects the way of life. So I think we have to go at it and

we have to stay for the long run.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Decker.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, based on about 5 years of work that GAO has

done—and a lot of it for this committee and for the House and Senate Armed Services and others—it is clear to me that perhaps the

support to the first responder community, State and local level, is

not happening the way that I probably would have thought it

would play out after September 11.

I remember testifying before this committee pre-September 11

about the number of Federal agencies involved in combating terrorism. At that time, it was over 40. The budget was $13 billion. And

we were asking, you know, are we better prepared today than we

were a year ago? And this is pre-September 11. And no one really

could tell us on the Executive side if we were.

Now I see a huge amount of funding going into combating terrorism, homeland security. And, again, I think there is concerns about

some of the issues that were raised today: Are the State and local

activities at the level of preparedness and with the commonality of

command and control for incident response? Is the Nation, the

populus aware of what their role and responsibility is should a

smallpox Dark Winter scenario break out?

I mean, I have heard Governor Ridge talk about everyone should

have a little first aid kit prepared, set up, and a communication,

you know, thing within the family and so on. What I haven’t heard

happen within the State level organizations, if Scenario A happens

in Richmond, VA, what will happen as a result of that so that

every person within a 50-mile radius will know what their individual role and responsibility is and how do you do that responsibly?

This is the part that is missing. I am waiting for message two—

the public announcement that Governor Ridge makes to the Nation

about how to get prepared. I need the next step.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Dr. CARAFANO. If I was a half-decent terrorist, I would realize by

now that the only way I am going to get America’s attention is to

ratchet up the cost. And if I can’t get a nuclear weapon, I can’t get

a deadly plague, so I would be thinking about what can I do to either inflict casualties or psychological damage. I would be looking

at things—what I call weapons of mass destruction, in other words,

combining different kinds of attack in one attack, like a critical infrastructure, and some other kind of things together, to kind of

ratchet up, maybe doing some several of them simultaneously.

I would look at using new weapons that haven’t been used before

like SHORAD weapons, MANPADS, RPG7s and things like that,

looking at threats I could launch off covert maritime platforms like

UAVs or even potentially someday underwater UAVs. I mean,

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things that we are not psychologically prepared for and things—

and also critical infrastructure attacks, like going after chemical

plants, things that can either get me a lot more casualties without

having to have a nuke or a deadly virus or things that can get

America’s attention by attacking in some new way. So that is what

I would be worried about.

Mr. WERMUTH. I would be hard pressed to state the No. 1 problem, but I would suggest that a fundamental problem here is communications, not communications equipment, but the way we communicate and what we communicate, how we communicate among

Federal agencies, how we communicate Federal to State to local

and back up that chain and, most importantly, how we communicate about all of this with the American people.

We are vulnerable. As Denny Reimer has noted, that is what

makes us uniquely American. But we need to talk to the American

people about those issues, that we can’t protect them against everything, and talk as governments across the board about what we can

and can’t do.

Denny Reimer used the term ‘‘striking the appropriate balance.’’

What is it we want to communicate to the American people about

what they should be concerned about? You can go back and look

at the anthrax attacks. We had done an abysmal job of talking to

the American people before those attacks occurred about cause and

effect. We really haven’t done a good job of communicating the

smallpox threat. All of that was based on a fear that we would

cause panic in the American people if we did talk to them

straightforwardly about what these threats are.

Some of us believe that is not true, that the American people can

take information and process it and understand it, and if we talked

straight to the American people and suggest that we will never be

able to defend against everything, even if we spent the entire

wealth of the Nation trying to do that, we probably wouldn’t do it.

Look at the Israel example of how much effort and expense they

have put into trying to defend, and it is just not perfect.

We need to come to that realization, tell the American people

that, tell them what we are doing to try to prevent, prepare, respond and recover across these four major areas, but suggest that

we can’t do everything. But we can do things better in coordination.

We can do things better with the resources, and it is not—the answer is not always just money, it really is resources across a broad

spectrum.

But start to be straightforward about how we tell this story and

not be reacting or responding to every time somebody has a fear

about something that we go out and buy 350 million doses of the

next vaccines.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

First, Mr. Wermuth, I think I totally agree with you. I know I

totally agree with you, that you tell the American people the truth

and they will have you do the right thing. I learned that with the

Patriot Act. Because all of a sudden there was real opposition to

it. And I thought there wasn’t a sense of why we needed to do it.

When I was able to explain why we needed to do it, I think there

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was a recognition that there is logic then. We treat the American

people like adults, we will get adult responses.

I am having a hard time understanding how USNORTHCOM integrates with the Department of Homeland Security. I would like

you all to tell me what your perception is of how that happens.

Mr. WERMUTH. Again, there is some significant background to

that in my written testimony. But I would suggest to you that

NORTHCOM, in the first instance, does not coordinate directly

with the Department of Homeland Security. You had the person at

the table today as the designated representative of the Secretary

of Defense that really is first and foremost the connection with the

Department of Defense to the Department of Homeland Security.

That is Paul McHale in his new Assistant Secretary of Defense hat.

As you get down into operational issues, certainly there will be

some coordination and direct exchange of information and training

and exercises and all of those other things. But if you look at how

requests for military support to civil authorities flows, it is going

to come from a locality up through a State to the Department of

a Homeland Security, and then a request, not an order, comes over

to the Department of Defense for the Secretary’s consideration. And

that will be evaluated against criteria that are reflected here in the

written testimony and a determination made about what kind of

support will be given. And then, through the normal process, those,

you know, determinations would be made and orders go out the

way they usually do through the mechanism of the joint staff to

U.S. Northern Command for an execution of a mission.

But the nexus really has to be the direct coordination between

DHS and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, primarily in the

hat of Paul McHale.

Dr. CARAFANO. Congressman, I share your concern that—I am

not sure what the answer to the question is. I do have some deep

concerns. One is the area of training. There does need to be some

kind of formal training relationship. Because what homeland security does in terms of multi-echelon training, NORTHCOM needs to

be able to do in multi-echelon training. They need to be able to

walk through that step by step.

In a broader area, I think the research and development efforts

need to be harmonized on a much greater scale and the joint experimentation efforts, not just in terms of NORTHCOM requirements but in many areas. For example, the Deepwater Program

and the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship Program. Those development

efforts ought to be hand in hand.

So I think that is an issue that needs to be addressed. There

needs to be some real synergy there, in a more formal way than

there is now.

The one recommendation I have is I think NORTHCOM ought to

be deeply involved in the command and control of the military support to civilian authority mission. I think logic training there is

that—not necessarily that NORTHCOM needs to do that. I mean,

the Department of the Army has been doing it forever and doing

it just fine. But I think the great advantage to having

NORTHCOM being involved on a day-to-day basis would be—is

that on a day-to-day basis the people of NORTHCOM would work

with the people that they—if something really big happened and

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they had to work with the DCOs and State and Federal people,

that they would know those people. They talk to them every day.

So if there was a way in which the kind of the day-to-day working relationship was there, that would serve them very well in a

crisis thing. It wouldn’t be the first time that they ever talked to

the guy on the phone.

So it would make a lot of sense to get NORTHCOM involved in

the military support to civilian authority business on a day-to-day

basis, even though they are really there just to respond, you know,

for the big one.

General REIMER. The formal coordination has already been discussed on. It really occurs between the Department of Defense and

the Department of Homeland Security; and Northern Command

does not deal directly, at least in my understanding, with the Department of Homeland Security.

They do participate in training exercises. For example, in the

Top Off series of exercises that is run by the Office of Domestic

Preparedness, NORTHCOM will have elements there as observers

and get the benefit of that.

I know many of the leaders in Northern Command. They are

smart folks; and they will use informal coordination methods to

keep track of large cities—New York City, Washington, DC. Those

that they think are must vulnerable—and establish some informal

coordination methods so if they are called upon to support them

they won’t be starting with a blank sheet of paper.

I would hope that we can find a system, and I think it is easy

to find such system, that would allow us to do a better coordination

job than what I think is being done right now.

Mr. DECKER. Chairman, I think the briefing paper I have seen

that the Northern Command uses, I thought was very useful. It divided the missions that they would respond to into three categories—I think it is in Mike’s paper as well—extraordinary, emergency and temporary.

Temporary would be your civil support missions. You know,

where they are helping with a forest fire perhaps or an inauguration. Forest fire maybe more into the emergency, and you are getting into maybe the support for counternarcotics missions. Then

those really dramatic issues where you might have a maritime

threat that is coming into a harbor, a missile perhaps, airplane,

hostile aircraft would be in your extraordinary area.

I think the command, my sense, would have to be—they would

have to look at those different types of scenarios and come up with

a scheme because—for coordination. Some things are not going to

bubble up from the local, State level. They are going to come across

the transom from the Federal or national level or even the international level, yet they have impact on State and local activities,

and vice versa. There are going to be issues that come within our

borders that come up to their awareness through the Department

of Homeland Security and through all of those pipes that are coming into the command.

Through exercises and training you can really refine the coordination process and the decision process that has to be almost second nature to deal with some of these situations.

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When Representative Murphy brought up the train scenario,

Mike and I were just kibitzing a little bit earlier; and he said, well,

you know, the Governor could call out the National Guard, have

them drive out an M–1 tank and put it on the track.

That might be a deterrent. It might stop that train if it is going

into a built-up area and has a toxic cargo that could be very problematic.

I mean, these types of situations, I would submit to you, should

be thought through, so that you could come up with a solution

maybe in 10 minutes, as compared to trying to contact the FBI and

work through a bureaucratic, you know, tree of phone calls. So perhaps that is part of the challenge Northern Command would have,

is thinking outside of the box when they think about the full array

of capabilities that are inherent in this country yet still do not violate the laws and the Constitution.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Ruppersberger.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Keep talking communication. We have a

situation that I think that works right now in law enforcement.

That is the strike force concept and the concept where you have—

there may be different disciplines. You have narcotics strike forces,

you have organized crime, white collar crime strike forces, different

disciplines that are work together. They develop relationships, and

they develop trust.

What is your opinion about that type of concept, about what we

are talking about here? You know, a terrorism strike force? I like

to call it hometown security, because that is what it is about—

homeland, whatever, but hometown security. When you have the

disciplines from the Federal, from NORTHCOM all of the way to

the local level. So in the event that there is a crisis—and what we

are talking about with terrorism is crisis, and how we are going to

stop it, probably more than anything, is intelligence. And that is

all part of the strike force concept, also.

What is your opinion about that? That works. That has worked.

General REIMER. I think that concept is a good concept, Congressman. I think in some States you have a Joint Terrorism Task

Force. In many States I think you have a joint terrorism task force.

I think the problem that you have—or the challenge that you have,

anyway—is that you don’t have a lot of extra policemen or extra

firemen to put in that kind of joint task force. So if you take a cop

off the beat and put him in there, you are paying a price somewhere else.

I think it is a matter of resources. When something happens, you

are going to require many more, and that is the fundamental training that I am also talking about, is that to handle a September 11

experience or Murrah Building bombing experience, it takes the

whole police force, the whole fire force. It takes a lot of outside

help. How do we bring them together as smoothly and efficiently

as we possible can?

But I think anything that you can do in terms of planning to

work yourself through some of the tough issues that you have

talked about this afternoon, I think that is something that we

ought to be doing.

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Mr. WERMUTH. We talked about it a while back, Congressman,

in one of the earlier Gilmore Commission reports. But certainly the

task force or strike force idea is a commendable one.

I would offer to you as a model, within what is now being referred to as the Los Angeles operational area, that they do in fact

have a group that really is primarily State and local, but it brings

the Feds in as well, the representatives of the joint terrorism task

force. It is a multi-jurisdictional entity that would form the basis

for even launching operations, but they are a planning and a preparedness and a training and an exercise group that also can provide the basis for a command structure and actually be that strike

force, if you will, if there is an event. It is a good model for the

rest of the Nation, and Secretary Ridge visited it last week because

he thought it was important enough to see what they were doing.

Mr. DECKER. Sir, let me approach your question just slightly different. That is, if you look at a spectrum of threats that are affecting or could potentially affect this country from a homeland security perspective, that should be the genesis of, one, your information fusion that has to happen; and that would be an all-source

type fusion. When we were out at Northern Command last week,

we got a brief from the J2, the intelligence office department; and

they showed us a diagram, an unclassified diagram, in which they

are taking information about—this is part of their mission, the

counternarcotics role that JTF6 down in El Paso is doing and that

piece.

They are also looking at cyber when there is a lot of unusual activity that is affecting the country. They are looking at missile

launches that may happen overseas that have impact here. They

are looking at a wide range of threats. So that is going to be accepted universally, that if you are a Governor, you are a mayor, you

are the President, you have to look at the totality of all of those

things that could impact you.

Now what I do see happening with these joint terrorism strike

forces is that there is a preoccupation with criminality. They are

focused on people that are breaking the law, narcotics people that

are committing crimes that are maybe involving components of

weapons of mass destruction, not terrorists. There are terrorists

and others. There are cyber people that are doing pernicious

things. In that group you should have your health expert who can

perhaps see something that may have a biological element that is

going to be important.

And what about someone who understands chemical plants and

those issues which you might have an improvised situation, where

it could be either an accident or a man-made, but you have a detonation at a chemical facility, you don’t care really who did it and

how it happened initially, but you have to respond? I don’t see that

type of synergism happening across the government in all of the

different areas and layers to then have a better response capability.

Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. I don’t have an additional question, but I did want

to make a comment about something that Dr. Carafano said. You

were talking about that once these agencies begin to communicate

and have relationships with each other and a known, if you will,

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hierarchy as to how to address these issues that will also have an

additional benefit.

Well, Mr. Ruppersberger had indicated that he was a county administrator and that we had a mayor and a Governor who were

also serving on this committee.

I was the mayor for the city of Dayton, and we are one of the

few cities that actually had weapons of mass destruction terrorist

attack exercises prior to September 11. Attorney General John

Ashcroft came where we did a mock exercise, as if a chemical attack had occurred at our basketball arena, shutting down portions

of a major interstate, working together with the Federal agencies,

the county, the State and the city, including representatives from

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which obviously is a significant

interest in the community.

When September 11 happened, it was so important that we had

those exercises because we didn’t run around as a community saying to ourselves, who is in charge, or what agency should we get

in touch with. People knew already who was at various agencies,

who was in charge, who was going to be in charge of what activities, all of the way down to what streets were going to be closed,

what buildings were going to be protected, so that emergency

equipment knew what ways they could or could not go.

It had a tremendous impact on our community, because it lowered the stress for everyone as they went about trying to think

what types of responses that we would have to do, as they also

went about the issue that the whole country faced, which was,

what is next. People were able to go about their jobs. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and all of the Federal and local agencies

were coordinating.

So, Dr. Carafano, I think you are obviously correct that getting

people to work together on these topics, it is not just that they

might know what they are facing more, but they will get to know

each other and get to know how the agencies work together.

Dr. CARAFANO. If I can just comment on that. I think the biggest

bang for the buck—I mean, the real center of gravity to really making huge steps forward is integrated multi-echelon training, where

local, State and Federal agencies train together; and it has to be

a system which is relatively turnkey, in other words, that, you

know, a mayor can walk out of his office, do this training and go

back.

It is not something that requires a long lead time, a lot of external stuff. It is something you can roll in, these guys can plug in,

they can do this training. It is something that has to have a very

robust lessons learned and best practices system, which just doesn’t

feed back into the communities but feeds into the research and development and the requirements process, both in—at the—in some

respects with the community and State level but also at the Federal level, both through the homeland defense and the Defense Department, so we are buying the right things and we are fielding the

right forces to meet the gaps that local and State communities

have in providing national security to the people.

So that is where I think the—I mean, if we learned any lessons

from the training renaissance at the military—or the renaissance

of military capabilities that we gained in the 1980’s, a lot of that

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was gained through a multi-echelon training system, that you not

just trained these people but gave us insights into what our shortfalls were. In some cases, smart guys came up with patches to

make it work in the short term; in some cases, some scientists

went out and created the widget that solved the problem.

That is why when we went to war in 1991 we were a much better Army than we were in 1980, because the lessons learned from

that training system were plowed back in to make the military better to respond to the requirements that we foresaw down the road.

Mr. TURNER. Very good.

Any other comments? Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. When I look back over the last 4 years one of the

most valuable events and even committee hearings that we had

was the tabletop done in Stratford, where we brought in 200 people. I am absolutely convinced, and I think this committee is going

to want to weigh in a bit more, that I think those tabletops are essential. I know they are not inexpensive, but you bring 200 people

together and they figure out how to interact with each other.

I guess the one area—I am not going to ask for an answer to the

question, but I don’t know how feasible it is for USNORTHCOM to

be training with all of the different levels of government and all of

the different States and all of the different communities, yet I

know that they have to do it.

I guess maybe the tabletop is one of the ways that they can at

least know how they interact. But, you know, visualizing the Army

fighting alongside the police to get into a building, I am just not

sure is—you know, I just don’t know. It is going to be interesting

for us to try to sort that out.

General REIMER. Can I comment on that?

Because I think you are absolutely right. I think the tabletop is

the best return on investment that we can get right now, and giving decisionmakers experience at going through some of these complex issues and knowing what is involved and the tradeoffs that

are involved is invaluable. I think that they are relatively inexpensive compared to what we are going to put into this program. You

can run one for less than $100,000, I think——

Mr. SHAYS. I think the one in Connecticut was $25,000. It was

tremendous.

General REIMER. And we know how to do that.

I think, as far as NORTHCOM is concerned, one of the things

I would suggest that we look at and why I keep pushing the National Guard is because I think you can really run an advisory or

coordination system, starting with Northern Command, through

the two CANUSA armies, the Continental U.S. armies that still

exist in the U.S. Army, one on the west, one on the east. Then they

have tentacles down to all 50 States through the State area command which could then tie this whole program together where it

is not all Northern Command supervising 50 States as such but

you are using a chain of command that already exists.

That is not entirely clean, because Northern Command does not

have control over the National Guard unless they are in Title 10,

so why I say we have to think anew. We have to think our way

through some of that.

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There is also this issue of you have local first responders who are

part of the National Guard units. But at the very minimum we

ought to figure out how not to deploy first responders to Guard and

air bases in Germany when we got a mission back here in the

United States.

So I think there is some fresh thinking that can be done. There

is a little bit of restructuring that probably needs to be done. But

I don’t think it is a massive overhaul.

The big issue is a policy issue. What is homeland defense? What

does homeland security really mean? What is the role of the Department of Defense? That is the tough problem that you all and

others in Washington are going to have to wrestle with. But that

has got to be solved.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there anyone in the audience still here from

USNORTHCOM? Anyone?

That is too bad.

Mr. DECKER. Mr. Chairman, can I make one comment on that?

I think there is one issue that Northern Command could use to its

benefit to help them on this outreach in doing tabletop exercises;

technology.

There are so many interactive capabilities now that with a module and with certain and very simple technology at these different

States you could do tabletops focussed on command and control,

the decisionmaking part, and replicate it every month across the

Nation and do that with tremendous efficiency and cost savings.

Kids are playing games in countries now, playing the same game

in different countries at the same time, and I can’t imagine that

we as a Nation couldn’t figure out how to do that with 50 States

and a couple of territories in a way that would make sense.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this. Right now, would it be more the

responsibility of someone from USNORTHCOM to initiate the tabletop or someone from the Department of Homeland Security?

Who should be taking the initiative?

I am also beginning to think like we have two different groups

and we have two—you don’t have ownership.

General REIMER. For the emergnecy responders, it is the Department of Homeland Security that has to initiate that; and Northern

Command would be an observer.

Mr. SHAYS. That makes sense.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it.

Mr. TURNER. We want to thank our panelists and ask if they

have any additional comments or any responses that they want to

provide to questions.

Mr. WERMUTH. I have one that might be a suggestion for next

steps for your subcommittee. It was first recognized in the National

Strategy for Homeland Security. It was legislated in the Homeland

Security Act of 2002 by the Congress. It has now been directed, by

virtue of Homeland Security Presidential Directive No. 5, the creation of a national response plan, in the execution piece of that, the

National Incident Management System. The Department of Homeland Security has the responsibility to do that, to develop that plan

and its related incident management system—national, not Federal

like the old Federal response plan that FEMA had.

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It is going to be much broader. It needs to be all inclusive. It

needs to address some of these issues like training and exercises

and how all of that fits together and how the States and localities

and the private sector and, yes, even perhaps the media and the

American people have a role in all of that.

That process is unfolding. But in just a few short weeks, perhaps

a couple of months, there will be more clarity about what the national response plan looks like and what the framework is for the

National Incident Management System.

Mr. SHAYS. Could the chairman just—are you suggesting that

maybe they are not working as quickly as they should or are you

trying to make the committee aware that this is a work in process?

Mr. WERMUTH. I think they are working fast and furious to develop both of those pieces. So there is—but it would be—I would

think it would be useful to this committee to bring representatives

of the Department up here perhaps, if not in the summer certainly

in the early fall, and get the full laydown on how that plan is and

the national management incident system is unfolding.

Mr. SHAYS. That is a helpful suggestion. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Any other comments from members of the panel?

I want to thank you for participating in this and also thank Chairman Shays for his leadership on this topic. Thank you.

We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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