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S. HRG. 112–182 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PLANS AND PROGRAMS RELATING TO COUNTERTERRORISM, 

COUNTERNARCOTICS, AND BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND 

CAPABILITIES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 12, 2011 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services 

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Staff Director 

DAVID M. MORRISS, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina, Chairman 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PLANS AND PROGRAMS RELATING TO

COUNTERTERRORISM, COUNTERNARCOTICS, AND BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY

APRIL 12, 2011

Page 

Reid, Garry, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Combatting Terrorism .................................................................................. 4 

Schear, James A., Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations .............................................................. 12 

Wechsler, William F., Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats .............................................................................. 19 

(III) 

(1) 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PLANS AND PROGRAMS RELATING TO COUNTERTERRORISM, COUNTERNARCOTICS, AND 

BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING

THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room 

SR–232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Kay R. Hagan 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators Hagan, Brown, and 

Portman. 

Committee staff member present: Mary J. Kyle, legislative clerk. 

Majority staff members present: Madelyn R. Creedon, counsel; 

Richard W. Fieldhouse, professional staff member; Jessica L. Kingston, research assistant; Michael J. Kuiken, professional staff member; and Michael J. Noblet, professional staff member. 

Minority staff members present: Adam J. Barker, professional 

staff member; John W. Heath, Jr., minority investigative counsel; 

and Michael J. Sistak, research assistant. 

Staff assistants present: Kathleen A. Kulenkampff and Hannah 

I. Lloyd. 

Committee members’ assistants present: Tyler Stephens, assistant to Senator Chambliss; Charles Prosch, assistant to Senator 

Brown; Gordon Gray, assistant to Senator Portman; Dave Hanke, 

Grace Smitham, and Russ Thomasson, assistants to Senator 

Cornyn. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAY R. HAGAN, 

CHAIRMAN 

Senator HAGAN. The Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and 

Capabilities will now come to order. I appreciate my colleague the 

Ranking Member Senator Portman for also joining us, and our witnesses here today. 

This afternoon, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee is actually holding its first hearing of the 112th Congress and, as its name indicates, this subcommittee focuses on new 

and non-traditional threats to our security and on the capabilities 

we need to address those threats. This includes threats ranging 

from terrorism to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction 

2 

(WMD) to improvised explosive devices (IED). We also oversee the 

development and use of the spectrum of responses to these threats, 

from the most basic research to the most advanced technologies, 

and the policies and programs to counter these threats. 

Today we will examine the plans and programs of the Department of Defense (DOD) to counter a number of irregular threats 

that fall under the oversight of the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD–SOLIC), 

and Interdependent Capabilities, a very long mouthful, better 

known as ASD–SOLIC. 

Our witnesses this afternoon have responsibility for a wide range 

of issues and the subcommittee looks forward to hearing your views 

on current and emerging threats, as well as DOD’s plans and programs designed to respond to them. In particular, these include 

counterterrorism, building political partnership capacity, counternarcotics, stability operations, information operations, and security 

assistance programs. 

Mr. Garry Reid is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Special Operations and Combatting Terrorism and is currently the 

acting Assistant Secretary for SOLIC. In this position Mr. Reid has 

responsibility for DOD’s plans and programs for combatting terrorism, counterinsurgency, and other aspects of irregular warfare. 

Among these programs is the section 1206 train and equip program for building the counterterrorism and stability operations capabilities of partner foreign nations, which DOD and the Department of State (DOS) jointly manage under an innovative dual-key 

arrangement. Mr. Reid also oversees the development and employment of special operations capabilities as they relate to foreign internal defense, military information support, and other indirect approaches to countering transnational threats. 

The United States and our allies continue to be threatened by al 

Qaeda and other violent extremist organizations. As we have seen 

in recent years, this threat emanates not only from the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also from al Qaeda 

franchises in Yemen, Somalia, and northwest Africa. These groups 

have made clear their desire to strike western and U.S. targets. We 

must remain mindful of the potential for these groups to execute 

attacks with significant and destabilizing effects, often with limited 

planning and at a very low cost. The 2009 Christmas Day airliner 

bombing attempt over Detroit is a chilling reminder of that fact. 

The subcommittee looks forward to hearing of DOD’s efforts to 

counter these violent extremist groups, both indirectly through 

training, advising, informational and other means, and when necessary directly, through offensive military operations. 

Dr. James Schear is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense 

for Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations. Dr. Schear has 

responsibility for DOD’s role in global stabilization and reconstruction operations, foreign disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, 

and international peacekeeping. He also oversees DOD efforts to 

work with partner nations to improve security and governments in 

areas of current or potential conflict. These activities are an important part of our efforts to reduce threats to our security and that 

of our partners. 

3 

The activities overseen by Dr. Schear inherently involve other 

U.S. Government agencies and international partners, and I hope, 

Dr. Schear, that you will discuss DOD efforts as part of the broader 

U.S. whole-of-government approach to improve the stability and security of vulnerable populations and regions, thereby reducing the 

ability of violent extremist groups to take root, spread their message, recruit, and plan attacks against the United States and our 

allies. 

I hope, Dr. Schear, that you will also speak to U.S. contributions 

to United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping operations, such as the U.N. 

peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 

(DRC) in the form of military observers and staff officers. 

Mr. William Wechsler is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats. Among other 

things, Mr. Wechsler leads the development of DOD policies and 

plans to disrupt the flow of illegal narcotics, counter the threat 

from piracy, and interrupt the financing of violent extremist 

groups. In terms of that counternarcotics mission, one of the key 

authorities to provide assistance to domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies will expire at the end of this fiscal year. We 

look forward to hearing whether DOD intends to request an extension of this authority and whether any modifications are needed. 

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that disrupting 

the flow of money, the lifeblood of violent extremist organizations 

and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO), could have a 

substantial impact on their ability to recruit, sustain, and conduct 

operations. Confronting the formal and informal networks that 

move illicit goods requires a global effort involving interagency and 

international partners. We look forward to hearing from Mr. 

Wechsler regarding DOD’s efforts to identify and counter these networks and what more needs to be done as we move forward. 

I am proud to note that many of the DOD efforts we will discuss 

this afternoon are being carried out around the world by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF), many of whom I have to say call 

North Carolina home. As always, we owe them and their families 

a debt of gratitude for their sacrifice and service to our country. 

I’d like to now turn to my colleague and ranking member of this 

subcommittee, Senator Portman, for his opening remarks. Senator 

Portman. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROB PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate being 

here with you for our first hearing and I look forward to working 

with you and other members of the subcommittee on these critical 

issues. 

You just outlined some very difficult and complex challenges we 

face, our military faces, our Nation faces, and I join you in thanking these gentlemen for joining us and for your service and for the 

service of so many men and women who are today serving under 

you and serving in our military. 

The determined and increasingly adaptive foes we have out there 

continue to threaten our stability and safety of the world, of certainly American citizens, here at home and abroad. Again as Senator Hagan has outlined, we have huge challenges ahead of us. 

4 

At the same time, we have a huge fiscal challenge here in Washington. So as the world becomes more complex and more difficult, 

we’re also facing a looming fiscal crisis that all of us know needs 

to be addressed. If it’s not, it will only further complicate our ability to navigate some of these challenging issues that are raised 

today. 

So part of what I think we’ll look for in this subcommittee will 

be to ensure that the threats that are out there are being addressed, that the priorities of DOD are matched appropriately with 

those threats, and to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used 

in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. 

We’ve seen over the past couple of weeks and months that it’s 

difficult to predict what’s going on around the world. If anything, 

we’ve learned that it’s mostly unpredictable. I don’t think any of us 

here would have expected the Arab spring to have ushered in such 

big changes, going all the way from the eastern Mediterranean to 

North Africa and down the Arabian peninsula, over the past few 

months. These have enormous and I think lasting implications for 

our security interests in the area. 

Sustained U.S. engagement in my view will be required, particularly during this period of great transition, and terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda will be trying to take advantage of this as 

well. We need to ensure that they’re unable to establish new bases 

of operation. 

Closer to home, since we’re also talking about counternarcotics 

today, we have these TCOs that continue to expand their reach, 

multi-billion dollar networks, often expanding it ruthlessly, and affecting our citizens more and more. While the threat posed by these 

organizations is great, I think we have seen some successes. I 

would think the success in Colombia, for instance, in partnering 

with the United States has led to greater security, stability, and 

partnership with the Colombian people. So I think we know we can 

make a difference and we must. 

Madam Chair, I’ll be brief in my statement to get to the witnesses because we have some terrific knowledge here to be passed 

along to the committee and for the record. Again, I look forward 

to hearing what DOD views as the greatest threats facing our Nation, to ensure that we are aligned properly to address those 

threats, what you’re doing to counter them, and what you think in 

terms of our current resourcing and statutory authorities, are they 

sufficient to meet those threats. 

So again, thank you all for being here today. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Senator Portman. 

I know that our three witnesses have all submitted written testimony, so I would like to now call on you to share with us your comments today, and then we’ll have some questions. Mr. Reid, if you 

can begin. 

STATEMENT OF GARRY REID, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY 

OF DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS AND COMBATTING 

TERRORISM 

Mr. REID. Thank you, Chairman Hagan. I started my Special 

Forces career about 34 years ago on the rolling sand hills of your 

5 

beautiful State, which we referred to as ‘‘Pine Land,’’ and it’s a 

pleasure to be back here with you today; and with you, Senator 

Portman, as well. To the whole group here, thank you for inviting 

all of us here today to testify and for the opportunity to share with 

you the plans, policies, and programs we pursue to address these 

important security threats you both identified. 

In terms of the entire office, the responsibilities of the ASD– 

SOLIC, and Interdependent Capabilities span a wide range of issue 

areas, from counterterrorism and direct action to security assistance, humanitarian assistance, support to multinational peacekeeping operations, and countering narcotics trafficking. Each of us 

will speak to our own perspectives on the current and emerging 

threats from the vantage point of our respective portfolios, noting 

that these issues complement one another as we collectively work 

together to support our U.S. military forces and our national security policy to address these threats. 

As I’m sure you know, the Office of the ASD–SOLIC was established to provide senior civilian supervision of special operations 

activities and low intensity conflict, including oversight of special 

operations policy and resources. We are the principal civilian advisers to the Secretary of Defense on these matters and provide senior 

management for special operations and low intensity conflict within DOD. 

As a policy office, the responsibilities of the ASD–SOLIC are 

unique in that they include service secretary-like roles, such as 

providing overall supervision of the preparation and justification of 

special operations program and budget, while also including providing civilian oversight and supervisory responsibilities, such as 

developing policy and reviewing plans for the conduct of sensitive 

special operations and coordinating those activities within the 

interagency and overseeing their execution. 

As the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combatting Terrorism, I serve as the principal adviser 

to the ASD–SOLIC for DOD policies, plans, authorities, and resources related to special operations, irregular warfare, with special emphasis on counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, unconventional warfare (UW), sensitive special operations, and other activities as directed by the Secretary of Defense. 

In addition, I serve as the principal crisis manager for the Office 

of the ASD–SOLIC in response to international or domestic activities related to special operations and combatting terrorism. I was 

also recently assigned responsibility for overseeing DOD information operations and we’re integrating those activities into our 

SOLIC-wide portfolio. 

Within this broad set of responsibilities, one core mission of my 

office is to provide oversight of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which has grown significantly since 2001. Created 

by Congress in 1986, SOCOM is charged with responsibility to organize, train, and equip SOFs. These forces are a uniquely specialized component of our U.S. Armed Forces, trained to conduct operations, including counterterrorism, UW, direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, civil affairs, military information support operations, and counterproliferation of WMD, in areas 

under enemy control or politically sensitive environments. 

6 

My office works closely with Admiral Eric Olson, the commander 

of SOCOM and his staff, to ensure these forces have the equipment 

and resources they need to perform their demanding missions. 

Several key initiatives we are pursuing in fiscal year 2012 and 

building towards 2013 and beyond will enhance SOCOM’s flexibility and effectiveness. These include: modifying and expanding 

our heavy lift helicopter fleet, the MH–47 Golf; recapitalizing our 

medium-lift fleet, the MH–60, and the Kilo and Lima platform 

variants; increasing the total production of our tilt-rotor CV–22 Ospreys, which have proven themselves in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 

We have also been working with the command to recapitalize 

SOCOM’s Vietnam-era C–130 gunship fleet with newer C–130 Juliet models and to advance the nonstandard aviation program to 

deliver a variety of smaller aircraft that provide intra-theater lift 

capability. Through these and many other initiatives, we are ensuring our special operators have the tools they need to prevail in current and future conflicts. 

As Secretary Gates has mentioned on many occasions, America’s 

dominance in traditional warfighting has created powerful incentives for our adversaries to use alternative methods to counter U.S. 

influence and interests. For the foreseeable future, the most likely 

contingencies the United States will face involve what we term irregular warfare. 

Since 2006, our office has been central to the support of this strategic shift in DOD to improve capabilities and expand DOD capacity for irregular warfare. For example, we have issued guidance 

and implemented policy on irregular warfare capabilities. We sponsored and I led the DOD 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review team 

on irregular warfare. We’ve strengthened our conventional force capabilities for key enablers such as security force assistance, expanded our manned and unmanned aircraft systems for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance, and improved our 

counter-IED capabilities. 

We’ve also worked to enhance language and cultural focus within 

the general purpose forces, focused on building up regional expertise for Afghanistan and Pakistan in particular, as well as working 

across the Department to increase counterinsurgency, stability operations, and counterterrorism competency in our conventional 

forces. 

Another core mission that has grown demanding in the last several years is our role in providing oversight of DOD’s global operations against al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. I represent the Secretary of Defense on various working 

groups in the interagency and maintain active liaison with those 

agencies that have responsibility for national security policy as it 

relates to special operations and combatting terrorism. 

In line with the President’s and the Secretary’s priorities, a significant degree of our attention is providing oversight for sensitive 

operations. I oversee development of these operations and others 

for policies for CT, including combatting terrorism technology and 

capability development, and I assist, as you mentioned, Madam 

Chairman, with the administration and implementation of our section 1206 global train and equip authorities and our section 1208 

support to special operations authorities, both of which are imporVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
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tant tools in the CT fight and for which we appreciate this committee’s continued support. 

These are among the force development and policy activities that 

are brought to bear in executing the President’s and the Secretary’s 

priorities, including prevailing in today’s conflicts in Afghanistan 

and defeating al Qaeda and affiliated groups around the world. 

My office has provided extensive support on the counterterrorism 

and special operations and overall operational aspects of three administration-wide reviews of strategy towards Afghanistan and 

Pakistan. Our current assessment is that strategy is working and 

we believe we’ve constrained al Qaeda significantly in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and degraded their capability to plan 

and conduct operations externally. 

We’ve devoted considerable resources to bringing our U.S. and 

partner nations counterinsurgency capabilities to bear, and especially by working to rapidly field capabilities to support them, such 

as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), counter-IED, and increased rotary wing capabilities. 

Our efforts against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan have 

forced them to diversify into other regions. 

This network they have established is a broad syndicate of affiliate organizations in places such as the Arabian Peninsula, East 

Africa, and elsewhere, and these are of great concern to us as well. 

In the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda poses the most immediate 

terrorist threat to U.S. interests in the homeland outside Afghanistan-Pakistan. Accordingly, we are working closely with our Yemeni security partners to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in 

the Arabian Peninsula, deny them sanctuary, degrade their capability to plan, organize, and train for attacks against the U.S. 

Homeland and our interests. 

In East Africa, we’re supporting our regional partners to counter 

the terrorist threat posed by Al-Shabaab, an Islamic terrorist group 

with nationalist roots but global aspirations and visible alignments 

with al Qaeda core. Our approach recognizes that a U.S. military 

presence in this region would be counterproductive and we work 

very closely through the Somali Transitional Federal Government 

(TFG) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to 

counter Al-Shabaab, to provide the TFG, the Somali Government, 

with the time and space it needs to develop its own institutions, 

and to support the AMISOM mission of a peacekeeping and disengagement force in Somalia. 

Elsewhere in Africa, such as in Mali and other trans-Saharan 

countries, we’re working closely with security partners in these 

areas to counter the growing threat posed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. 

Just a last look around the world, in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has been and remains an important and capable military 

partner of the United States and they have worked aggressively 

with us to counter the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates in the 

region. Over the last 9 years our military efforts have successfully 

contained the threat posed by terrorist groups in the Philippines 

and prevented al Qaeda from strengthening their foothold in 

Southeast Asia. 

8 

Through their ability to execute high-end lethal strikes, as well 

as their competence in preventing festering problems from turning 

into far-reaching and expensive crises, our U.S. SOF have proven 

their immeasurable value for securing our national interests. The 

wars we have been engaged in over the last decade have amply 

demonstrated how much more valuable those critical skills and 

competencies will be in the future. 

We appreciate this committee’s continued support for our work to 

support these extraordinary men and women who undertake some 

of the Nation’s most demanding missions. Thank you again, 

Madam Chairman and Senator Portman, for your inviting us here 

today, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reid follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. GARRY REID

Chairman Hagan, Senator Portman, and members of the subcommittee, thank 

you for inviting us to testify at this hearing today and for the opportunity to share 

with you the core plans, policies, and programs we pursue to address global security 

threats. The missions of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, 

Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities ASD(SOLIC&IC) span a 

wide range of issue areas, from counterterrorism and direct action to security assistance and humanitarian assistance; from support to multinational peacekeeping operations to countering narcotics trafficking. We will each speak to our perspectives 

on current and emerging threats from the vantage point of our respective portfolios, 

noting that these issue areas complement one another as we collectively work to 

support U.S. military forces and address these threats. 

I. OUR MISSION

Special Operations Forces (SOF) are a uniquely specialized component of our U.S. 

Armed Forces trained to conduct operations, including counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, civil 

affairs, military information support operations, and counterproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, in areas under enemy control or in politically sensitive environments. Over the last half century, these forces have repeatedly proven their 

ability to act with speed, agility, and precision, making them an invaluable asset 

for national strategic missions of an extremely sensitive nature. Trained particularly 

to work by, with, and through local partners, at the same time SOF have historically executed the lion’s share of indirect and unconventional U.S. military missions, 

such as training and advising foreign militaries or providing support to civilian authorities abroad. 

Since September 11, the critical need for these core capabilities has increased exponentially. Furthermore, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, 

these skill sets can no longer be thought of as capabilities reserved for SOF but 

must also be inculcated in our conventional forces as well. Key trends shaping the 

future security environment, such as the growth and power of non-state actors, increasing instability in already fragile states, and lowered barriers for entry to develop and acquire advanced technologies, suggest that the skill sets that SOF bring 

to bear will likely continue to increase in importance for the foreseeable future. 

As mandated by section 138 of title 10, U.S.C., the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict ASD(SOLIC) 

was established to provide senior civilian supervision of special operations activities 

and low intensity conflict, including oversight of special operations policy and resources. We are the principal civilian advisors to the Secretary of Defense on special 

operations and low intensity conflict matters, and after the Deputy Secretary of Defense, provide senior management for special operations and low intensity conflict 

within the Department of Defense. As a policy office, the responsibilities of 

ASD(SOLIC) are unique in that they include Service Secretary-like roles, such as 

providing overall supervision of the preparation and justification of SOF programs 

and budget, while also including civilian oversight and supervisory responsibilities, 

such as developing policy and reviewing plans for the conduct of sensitive special 

operations, coordinating those activities within the interagency, and overseeing their 

execution. 

As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating 

Terrorism, I serve as the principal advisor to the ASD(SOLIC&IC) for DOD policies, 

9 

plans, authorities, and resources related to special operations and irregular warfare, 

with special emphasis on counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, unconventional warfare, sensitive special operations, and other activities as specified by the Secretary 

of Defense. In addition, I serve as the principal crisis manager for the Office of the 

ASD(SOLIC&IC) in response to international and/or domestic activities related to 

special operations and combating terrorism. I was also recently assigned responsibility for overseeing Department of Defense Information Operations. 

Special Operations Policy 

Within this broad set of responsibilities, one core mission of my office is to provide 

oversight of the Special Operations Command, which has grown significantly since 

2001. Created by Congress in 1986, SOCOM is charged with responsibilities to organize, train, and equip SOF, including those that comprise the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the Air Force Special Operations Command, Naval Special Warfare Command, and the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command. Each 

component ensures SOF are highly trained, properly equipped, and capable of rapid 

global deployment. In 2001, the Department of Defense gave SOCOM the mission 

to synchronize planning of the department’s global campaign against violent extremists. On average more than 12,000 SOF and support personnel are deployed around 

the world, with a significant majority assigned to the CENTCOM area of responsibility. Since 2006, we’ve increased the baseline budget for SOCOM by about 50 percent and in fiscal year 2012, SOCOM will grow by 2,209 military and civilian authorizations. We created five additional Special Forces Battalions and Civil Affairs 

and Psychological Operations/Military Information Support Operations units in 

order to provide additional support for SOF and the regular Army. 

Several key initiatives we are pursuing in fiscal year 2012 will enhance SOCOM’s 

flexibility and effectiveness. This year, the last of the originally planned 61 MH– 

47Gs began modification, and procurement of eight additional MH–47Gs is underway. As part of the recapitalization of MH–60 K/L platforms, SOCOM will also field 

the first of 72 planned MH–60M helicopters. We would like to bring the total production of the tilt-rotor CV–22, which provides long-range, high-speed infiltration, 

extraction, and resupply to Special Operations teams in hostile, denied, and politically sensitive areas, to 43 aircraft. We have also been working with the command 

to recapitalize SOCOM’s Vietnam-era AC–130 gunship fleet with AC–130J models. 

My office continues to play a critical role in advancing the Non-Standard Aviation 

Program and delivering a variety of smaller aircraft to provide intra-theater airlift 

capacity. A new Aviation Foreign Internal Defense program starts in fiscal year 

2012 to train, advise, and assist partner nations in a variety of special operations 

missions and capabilities. SOF Warrior line items consist of Small Arms and Weapons for SOF warfighters; SOF Visual Augmentation, Lasers and Sensor Systems to 

provide day and night visual augmentation systems for SOF troops; SOF Tactical 

Vehicles; and SOF Soldier Protection and Survival Systems that provide specialized 

equipment to improve survivability and mobility of SOF. To address shortfalls resulting from fielding new capabilities, a growing force structure, and aging infrastructure that was inherited without a future recapitalization budget, we are also 

making a significant investment in Military Construction (MILCON), raising the 

MILCON funding minimum from 4 to 6 percent to support this priority in future 

budgets. 

IW Capabilities 

America’s dominance in traditional warfighting has created powerful incentives 

for adversaries to use alternative methods to counter U.S. influence and interests. 

For the foreseeable future, the most likely contingencies the United States will face 

will involve irregular warfare. Since 2006, my office has also been principally involved in supporting the strategic shift within the Department to improve capabilities and expand DOD capacity for irregular warfare. 

The 2010 QDR aimed to rebalance U.S. military capabilities to emphasize flexibility of the force and investment in key enablers. My office has helped to implement this strategic shift by issuing directives and policy instructions, for example, 

on Irregular Warfare (IW), and by providing guidance on a range of issues from Security Force Assistance to counterinsurgency skills and training. We’ve also focused 

on implementing key QDR initiatives, such as strengthening and institutionalizing 

conventional force capabilities for Security Force Assistance; strengthening and expanding capabilities for training partner aviation forces; increasing the availability 

of Rotary Wing assets; expanding and modernizing the AC–130 fleet; expanding 

Manned and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for intelligence, surveillance and 

reconnaissance; and improving Counter-IED capabilities. We’ve also worked to enhance linguistic and cultural abilities, focusing on building regional expertise for AfVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
10 

ghanistan and Pakistan in particular, as well as worked across the Department to 

increase counterinsurgency, Stability Operations and counterterrorism competency 

and capacity in our conventional forces. 

Oversight of Combating Terrorism 

Another core mission that has grown more demanding in the last several years 

is our role in assisting the ASD(SOLIC&IC) in providing oversight of the Department’s global operations against al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. I represent the Secretary of Defense on various working groups in 

the interagency arena and maintain an active liaison with those agencies that have 

responsibility for national security policy as it relates to special operations and combating terrorism. In line with the President’s and Secretary’s priorities, as well as 

the unprecedented scale and scope of operations in which U.S. forces are involved, 

a significant degree of our attention is devoted to providing the oversight required 

for sensitive operations. 

I also oversee development of special operations policies for counterterrorism, including combating terrorism technology and capabilities development, and assist 

with the administration of Section 1206 and 1208 authorities. One of our most important tools in the counterterrorism fight has been Section 1206 authority. This authority gives the Department the ability—with the concurrence of the Secretary of 

State—to quickly respond to build our partners’ capabilities to confront urgent and 

emerging terrorism threats and support those fighting alongside us in Coalition operations. Section 1208 authorities allow SOF to provide support (including training, 

funding, and equipment) to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups and individuals 

supporting or facilitating military operations to combat terrorism. Since its enactment in 2005, Section 1208 has been a critical authority for the war against al 

Qaeda and for counterterrorism and related counterinsurgency operations in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. We appreciate the committee’s continued support for both Section 

1206 and 1208. 

Information Operations 

Over the past year, DOD has performed an intensive review of the oversight and 

management of Information Operations (IO) and several capabilities which support 

IO, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO, formerly Psychological Operations). As a result of the Secretary’s directed study of the Department’s 

expenditures and management for IO, several changes have been made, including 

the consolidation of oversight and management of IO and MISO together within 

SOLIC. The Department also performed an exhaustive policy review of all MISO 

programs and activities to ensure these activities adhered to policy, were directly 

linked to military objectives, and were coordinated with the State Department at 

both the DOD and COCOM levels. As has been reflected in several reports this administration has submitted to Congress over the past year, Combatant Command 

IO programs and activities have matured over the past year enabling IO to be utilized a component of every recent military operation, to include Odyssey Dawn. 

Counter Terrorism Technical Support Office 

The Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO) operates as an interagency program office under the ASD(SOLIC&IC) to field rapid combating terrorism 

solutions. Working closely with over 100 Government Agencies, State, and local government, law enforcement organizations, and national first responders, CTTSO 

leverages technical expertise, operational objectives, and interagency sponsor funding. This collective approach to resource and information sharing positions the 

CTTSO to gather front line requirements that service multiple users—a distinct advantage in the combating terrorism community. 

II. ON THE GROUND

These force development and policy activities are brought to bear in executing the 

President’s and the Secretary’s priorities, including prevailing in today’s conflict in 

Afghanistan and defeating al Qaeda and affiliated groups around the world. 

Support to the Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy 

My office provided extensive support on the counterterrorism, special operations, 

and overall operational aspects of three major administration-wide reviews of strategy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. Upon taking office, President Obama committed tens of thousands of additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan, and an additional 

30,000 surge forces in December 2009, to support our core goal in the region: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda, to deny it safe haven in the region, and to 

prevent it from again threatening the United States and our allies. In Afghanistan, 

11 

the Taliban are still largely aligned with al Qaeda, and al Qaeda leadership still 

enjoys a sanctuary in adjacent Pakistan. Working with our interagency partners 

through a range of counterterrorism efforts, we believe we have constrained al 

Qaeda and their affiliated groups in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan 

and have significantly degraded their ability to plan and conduct operations 

throughout the theater. 

Our office has also been extensively involved in the Secretary’s effort to bring 

counterinsurgency capabilities to bear on the current Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. For example, the Department has made considerable efforts to improve Security Force Assistance capabilities, including adding 500 personnel to train-the-trainer units, in order to enable the effective transition of security responsibilities to host 

nation forces. We continue to work aggressively to implement the Secretary’s goal 

of fielding capabilities that support the counterinsurgency and irregular conflicts we 

are currently in, such as through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles programs, counter-Improvised Explosive Device capabilities, and increasing funding for rotary wing lift. 

We’ve also assisted the Joint Staff with the Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands program, 

an initiative that supports the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy by identifying, selecting, and training a cadre of counterinsurgency and regional experts to deploy to the 

region on a rotating basis, build strategic relationships with local partners, and enhance the capacity of local security institutions. 

Global SOF Engagement 

The al Qaeda core sanctuary in Pakistan is enabled and assisted by a broad network of affiliates, including facilitators, financiers, and training sites. The rise of 

these affiliate organizations in the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, and elsewhere 

are of great concern to us. 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) poses the most immediate terrorist 

threat to U.S. interests and the Homeland outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. 

Accordingly, we work closely with Yemeni security forces to disrupt, dismantle, and 

defeat AQAP in Yemen, deny them sanctuary, and degrade their ability to plan, organize and train for attacks against the U.S. Homeland and our interests. To 

counter this threat, the United States adopted a balanced approach that addresses 

both the short- to mid-term requirement to build Yemeni counterterrorist (CT) capacity and capability and the long-term requirement to address Yemen’s fundamental needs across the security, economic development, political, and social spectrums. 

The current unrest and political upheaval in Yemen have obviously forced us to 

look closely at our approach. We believe that the current protracted political issues 

are having an adverse impact on the security situation in Yemen. We’re monitoring 

the situation closely. As with every country, we regularly evaluate our assistance 

and CT cooperation to ensure it is being used appropriately and is as effective as 

possible. Our shared interest with the Yemeni Government in fighting terrorism, 

particularly defeating AQAP, goes beyond specific individuals. As such, our focus 

over the course of the last several years of daily contact with the Yemeni CT apparatus has been to professionalize their CT institutions, not to bolster individual personalities. 

In Somalia, we support our partners to counter the terrorist threat posed by alShabaab, an Islamic terrorist group with nationalist roots but global aspirations. 

The group shows increasing signs of affiliation with al Qaeda and has made significant public overtures to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda senior leadership. AlShabaab has also reached out to Somali diaspora groups around the world, asking 

many Somalis with western passports, like American Omar Hammami to join the 

jihad in Somalia. Al-Shabaab’s terrorist attacks against Uganda last July showed 

their desire to export terror across the region and threaten any country that dares 

to attack them. 

Countering al-Shabaab is not an easy task. Our interagency partners have proven 

particularly effective in tracking Somali individuals of concern and preventing them 

from staging attacks. Our policy recognizes that a U.S. military presence would be 

counter-productive so we work with and through the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to counter alShabaab and give the TFG the time and space it needs to develop viable institutions 

and security forces. The Department of State provides substantial financial support 

to AMISOM and this year, DOD began providing U.S. military trainers for Ugandan 

and Burundian predeployment training. In addition, SOF forces regularly conduct 

military-to-military exercises and training with Kenya, Uganda, and other regional 

partners. We have also provided substantial Section 1206 CT assistance to East African states. We continue to monitor al-Shabaab closely and employ our various 

tools to counter this threat. 

12 

The Philippines is an important and capable military partner of the United States 

and has worked aggressively with us to counter the threat from al Qaeda in the 

region. Over the last 9 years, our military’s efforts have successfully contained the 

threat posed by terrorist groups in the Philippines and prevented al Qaeda from establishing a foothold in South East Asia. Initiated in 2001, Operation Enduring 

Freedom-Philippines (OEF–P) is spearheaded by the Joint Special Operations Task 

Force-Philippines which works side by side with the Armed Forces of the Philippines to reduce the effectiveness of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the Abu Sayyaf 

Group (ASG) and deny these organizations the use of Philippine territory as a safe 

haven. OEF–P operations have been successful at hindering ASG/JI abilities to conduct terrorist operations and eliminating numerous key terrorist leaders. These activities also benefit the Philippines by facilitating a safe environment for numerous 

civic action projects, such as Dental Civil Action Programs and Medical Civil Action 

Programs, to provide Philippine people in remote areas much needed health care assistance. 

III. CLOSING

Through their ability to execute high-end lethal strikes, as well as their competence in preventing festering problems from turning into far-reaching and expensive crises, SOF have proven their immeasurable value for securing our national interests. The wars we have been engaged in over the last decade have amply demonstrated how much more critical those skills and competencies will be in the future. We appreciate the committee’s continued support for our work to support these 

extraordinary men and women who undertake some of the Nation’s most demanding 

missions. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Reid. You certainly have a lot 

to oversee for the special operations-combatting terrorism. 

Dr. Schear, if you can give us your opening statement, please. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES A. SCHEAR, PH.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR PARTNERSHIP STRATEGY 

AND STABILITY OPERATIONS 

Dr. SCHEAR. Thank you so much. Madam Chair, Senator 

Portman, thank you very much for the opportunity to join my colleagues here today to testify about SOLIC’s roles and responsibilities in countering transnational threats to peace and stability. I’d 

also like to underscore my appreciation for the unwavering support 

this committee provides to our dedicated service personnel in their 

performance of their diverse and often dangerous missions. 

Madam Chair, with your permission I’ll submit my full statement for the record. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. 

Dr. SCHEAR. Thank you. 

As the chief steward of SOLIC’s Office of Partnership Strategy 

and Stability Operations, ‘‘PSO’’ for short, I oversee a wide-ranging 

portfolio that spans both preventive, responsive, and partner-focused activities aimed at bolstering security and advancing U.S. interests in regions threatened by extremist violence and natural disasters. My written statement covers much of this ground in detail 

and I’d be happy to explicate any aspect of it that you wish, including U.N. peacekeeping, but in my brief prepared remarks I thought 

it might be most useful for me to highlight PSO’s coalition support 

activities, our work on foreign disaster relief, our Afghan-focused 

ministry of defense advisers program, and last but not least, our 

proposal for a new global security contingency fund, which is being 

advocated by Secretaries Clinton and Gates. 

In the area of coalition support, my team oversees and implements specialized authorities and appropriations that allow willing 

13 

and able international partners to deploy and operate with us, 

strengthening both our forces and our international legitimacy. In 

Afghanistan, for example, over 26 nations receive lift and 

sustainment support as they serve alongside the U.S. military. The 

importance of this assistance cannot be overstated. The prospect of 

operating with 26 fewer partners would dramatically change the 

complexion of our Afghan-focused efforts. 

With this support, our Services also benefit from deeper ties with 

26 foreign militaries that are now more capable. Most recently, we 

have also provided some logistics and support using our global lift 

and sustain authority to eligible partners operating with us under 

the rubric of Operation Unified Protector, which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Libya-focused operation. 

Our ability to forge effective coalitions is essential to spreading 

the burdens of global security, but it does involve some heavy lifting. For example, at one point we discovered internally that we 

really had no well-developed system for accepting a potential coalition partner’s offer, based upon a clear understanding of the likely 

costs and benefits of that partner’s participation. So our office created a review process to ensure proper consideration of such offers 

so that we could get the maximum return on our investment while 

also avoiding excessive commitments to partners whose capabilities 

did not match our combatant commander’s needs. 

We also have primary responsibility for oversight of our military’s humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. DOD is 

not the lead U.S. Government agency for foreign disaster relief. We 

operate in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), typically in high-end disasters that overwhelm the 

response capability of civilian relief providers. 

What this means is that when, say, an earthquake hits Haiti or 

a tsunami and earthquake hit Japan my team makes sure that our 

military capabilities are used appropriately and with proper authorization. Because we work on disasters in every region, we 

strive to ensure that the right people from our interagency community are involved, that our combatant commanders are appropriately linked with USAID, that they know what sort of support 

is permissible, and that they have sufficient funding and authorities to carry out their mission. 

To give you a better idea of our work, I’ll proffer up a few examples. When a typhoon hit the Philippines last October, U.S. Pacific 

Command’s (PACOM) helicopters were vital in transporting civilian 

assessment teams to survey hard-to-reach areas. More recently, in 

Japan we supported Secretary Gates and Admiral Willard in expediting approval for the use of our overseas humanitarian disaster 

and civic assistance account to fund our relief operations, and we 

fast-tracked arrangements to deploy U.S.-based urban search and 

rescue teams in support of our Japanese allies. 

Finally in the wake of the popular uprising in Libya we have assisted a range of DOS-led activities supporting the repatriation of 

foreign migrant workers fleeing the Qadhafi regime’s brutal crackdown. 

Madam Chair, I would be remiss if I failed to underscore our 

partner-focused contributions to the Afghan campaign. Both my 

colleagues and I invest much time and effort to ensure that U.S.- 

14 

trained and equipped indigenous forces can operate effectively and 

responsibly as we transition out, graceful transition out of Afghanistan. 

A key element of that effort is to strengthen Afghan security 

ministries in a way that sustains our tactical-level investment. For 

this reason, SOLIC launched the ministry of advisory defense program—ministry of defense advisor (MODA) program. Its mission is 

to generate high-quality, well-trained civilian experts who can establish lasting links to their partner ministries. MODA has been so 

successful that within 2 months after our first deployment of 17 advisers to Kabul, General Petraeus quickly challenged us to recruit, 

train, and deploy 100 more before the end of this year. 

MODA’s value added can be measured in very tangible, straightforward ways. As Napoleon once observed, an army marches on its 

stomach. When the Afghans last year were wrestling with the issue 

of how best to reorganize and upgrade their slaughterhouse, we 

dispatched an adviser from our Defense Commissary Agency to assist our Afghan partners in that effort. With his extensive background and skills, our field commanders report that he’s had an 

enormously positive impact. 

Madam Chair, I’ve discussed briefly the work that we do in support of ongoing operations. Our other main focus is on providing capabilities to prevent the onset of recurrence of conflict. We do this 

through our focus on stability operations across DOD, as well as on 

targeted programs and policies focused on partner capacity-building. Secretary Gates has rightfully made partner capacity-building 

a high priority for our Department. Doing so adroitly requires, 

however, that we successfully navigate what the Secretary has 

dubbed a patchwork of specialized authorities and funding sources, 

which has evolved for the most part in a very different security environment than the one we face today. 

My team is a kind of navigation aid for our combatant commanders and our regional offices in this effort. We’ve developed 

and maintain an online information repository about security cooperation tools that is used DOD-wide. 

We’re also working to better meet the challenges imposed upon 

us by today’s exceptionally volatile security environment, which 

leads me to my final point, regarding our proposal for a global security contingency fund. One of the key challenges we face is how 

to react to threats and opportunities that emerge within a given 

budget cycle and to recalibrate assistance as or when situations 

change on the ground. We are challenged not only by a multi-year 

planning, programming, and funding cycle, but also by interagency 

structures that are not as agile as they should be in the face of 

transnational threats that span the portfolios of multiple agencies. 

To address this challenge, Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates 

have launched a proposal for a pilot program called the global security contingency fund. If enacted by Congress, the two Departments 

would have a 3-year timeframe to demonstrate a new business 

model and provide a much-needed tool for responding to emergent 

challenges and opportunities. 

Under this fund, the DOS and DOD would literally work side by 

side to provide security assistance to foreign partners, including 

the military, interior, border, maritime, and counterterrorism secuVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
15 

rity forces of those countries and their governing institutions. This 

new fund could also provide assistance for justice sector, rule of 

law, and stabilization programs when the capacity of civilian agencies is challenged by conflict or instability. 

A key feature of the fund is that it would be operated by a small 

staff of DOS, DOD, and USAID employees working in the same office. That staff would be supplemented by experts from other U.S. 

Government agencies as appropriate. The fund would be used to 

meet requirements that both secretaries identify as critical and it 

would allow both Departments to provide targeted funding for that 

purpose. 

Perhaps most critical, the fund would give the U.S. Government 

a tool to be more responsive to challenging real-world situations. 

The United States is constantly striving to become more agile and 

smarter in how we create stronger partners in our common interests of building a more robust, sustainable security environment. 

We hope you will support this fund and look forward to continuing 

to work with you on its development and to addressing the security 

challenges we face today. 

Again, my thanks for this opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Schear follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. JAMES SCHEAR

Chairman Hagan, Senator Portman, and members of the subcommittee, thank 

you for the invitation to testify today about the global programs and capabilities 

Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations (PSO) brings to the Department of 

Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Government. 

I’ll begin by giving you a brief overview of our policy responsibilities, including 

both those that focus on supporting U.S. military operations as well as those designed to mitigate or prevent conflict that might otherwise draw in U.S. forces. I’ll 

then turn to one of the key capabilities we would like to have, the joint proposal 

by the Secretaries of Defense and State for a Global Security Contingency Fund, 

and another opportunity to enhance our capabilities. 

I. SUPPORT TO OPERATIONS

Like my colleagues, a key priority for my office is supporting ongoing military operations. Our work supports both kinetic and non-kinetic operations, including coalition support for U.S. operations, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and noncombatant evacuation operations, international peacekeeping operations, explosive 

ordnance disposal (EOD), and ministerial development in Afghanistan. 

In the area of coalition support to U.S. operations, my office oversees and implements specialized authorities and appropriations to allow willing and capable international partners to deploy and operate with us, strengthening both our forces and 

our international legitimacy. For example, over 26 nations received lift and 

sustainment support as they served alongside the U.S. military in Afghanistan. 

Needless to say, the prospect of operating with 26 fewer partners would change the 

complexion of the Afghanistan effort. It also has meant that the U.S. military has 

deeper ties with 26 militaries that are now much more capable. Most recently, we 

are also providing logistical support using Global Lift and Sustain authority to eligible partners operating with us under the rubric of Operation Unified Protector, 

NATO’s Libya-focused operation. 

The ability to build coalitions is essential to spreading the burden of global security. Our expertise not only ensures that funds are optimized to assist the needs 

of our partners, it also allows us to rationalize the provision of that assistance. For 

example, at one point, we had no agreed-upon system for saying ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ to 

partners offering to join the coalition. So, we sometimes had officials accepting a 

partner’s offer without understanding the costs and benefits of a given partner’s 

participation. Our office created a system to ensure proper review of such offers so 

that we could get the maximum return on our investment in coalition partners 

while also avoiding excessive commitments to partners whose capabilities did not 

match the combatant commander’s needs. 

16 

We have primary responsibility for the oversight of our military’s humanitarian 

assistance and disaster relief missions. U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID) leads the government’s response, so we are always in a supporting role. 

What that means in real terms is that when an earthquake hits Haiti or a tsunami 

hits Japan, my office makes sure that military assets are used appropriately and 

with proper authorization. We make sure that the U.S. military is prepared to be 

a ‘‘responder of last resort’’ when foreign disasters overwhelm the capacity of the 

host nation and international first-responders to manage. Because we work on disasters in every region, we are able to ensure that the right people from DOD are 

involved in the interagency process, that our combatant commanders are appropriately linked with USAID, they know what sort of support is permissible, and they 

have sufficient funding and authority to carry out their mission. While every disaster is different, our knowledge of what military assets have been helpful in various scenarios can be critical to quickly providing effective assistance. 

To give you a better idea of our work in this critical area, let me give you some 

examples. When a typhoon hit the Philippines last October, we were able to transport USAID’s assessment team in PACOM helicopters to survey hard-to-reach areas. 

This was critical to determining what the total US government response should be 

and what unique military assets should be provided. In Japan, we quickly worked 

with Admiral Willard’s team to get Secretary Gates’ approval to use Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) funds for assistance operations, including getting both Fairfax and Los Angeles civilian urban search and rescue 

teams’ heavy equipment on the ground within 72 hours. In Libya, in order to address stabilization concerns associated with democratizing governments in Egypt 

and Tunisia, we have assisted with the airlift of third country nationals. 

In addition to supporting ongoing operations, we also do the steady-state work 

with partners so that their militaries are better prepared to support their governments’ disaster response needs. Not only does this create real and lasting capabilities in partners, it also is an area where we can build relationships in some countries where other types of military engagement are not welcome. My team also is 

integrated into crisis action planning meetings to ensure lessons from previous disasters are learned and applied across the government. 

The same team that does this work also plans for and ensures the proper execution of military evacuations of Americans overseas. At the request of the Department of State, DOD assists in the evacuation of American citizens, allies, and thirdcountry partners from unstable and unsafe environments. Working with Crisis Operations at State, the Joint Staff, and regional desks, PSO maintains resident expertise DOD leadership requires, and PSO provides the crucial link between the two 

Departments. 

My office also provides policy advice on DOD support to U.N. and multinational 

peacekeeping operations, oversees the execution of peacekeeping support, and works 

with interagency partners to coordinate overall U.S. Government support for peacekeeping. For example, we work closely with the State Department as the joint manager of their Global Peace Operations Initiative to train and equip more foreign 

peacekeepers. Our Geographic Combatant Commanders are the implementers for 50 

percent of the program. We work with the State Department on providing U.S. officers to key positions at U.N. headquarters and in U.N. missions. We also provide 

critical expertise on realistic mandate goals so that U.N. missions can succeed. 

Another critical area of support to ongoing operations is our oversight and coordination of EOD policy and capacity across DOD. In addition, we provide policy and 

subject-matter expertise in support of DOD efforts to support civilian authorities 

preventing and disrupting attacks using explosives in the homeland. Recently, we 

worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Army (and General 

Counsel) to provide EOD expertise and to loan specialized equipment to FBI agents 

investigating a suspect in connection with a failed bomb attempt at a Martin Luther 

King, Jr. parade in Spokane, WA. This support to local authorities allowed Federal 

agents to safely secure the suspect in an otherwise unpredictable and extremely 

dangerous situation. 

Last, I want to point out a tool that we developed and fielded to Afghanistan. Like 

both of my colleagues here today, we are constantly trying to adapt to the urgent 

needs of our commanders in the field. In our case, we help address the need to build 

functioning Afghan security institutions so that the security forces we train can be 

sustained and remain effective. It became clear in Iraq and Afghanistan that we 

needed better tools to train these nascent security institutions. For that reason, we 

created the Ministry of Defense Advisors (MoDA) program. It is a way of generating 

high-quality, effective civilian advisors who establish lasting links to partner ministries. Some of the key features of the program are the 7 weeks of pre-deployment 

training, the ability to stay in Afghanistan from 1 to 2 years, the ability to provide 

17 

backfill personnel to home organizations when someone is deployed as an advisor, 

and the enduring ministry-to-ministry partnerships that are created because the 

program draws primarily from senior civil servants. Prior to MoDA, untrained military personnel or contractors did all of the U.S. Government’s advisory work at the 

Afghan Ministries of Defense and Interior. MoDA is the first program to provide realistic and useful training for ministerial advisors. It has been so successful that 

after the first 17 advisors served in Kabul for a couple of months, Lieutenant General Caldwell, head of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, asked to send some 

of his military advisors to the training and General Petreaus requested at least 100 

advisors before the end of the year. 

In all of our support to current operations there is a recurring theme of unique 

expertise and interagency collaboration. We support our warfighters with real tools, 

with expertise on how to use those tools, and by ensuring interagency agreement 

and alignment so that they and the U.S. Government can be most effective. 

II. SUPPORT TO PREVENTION

So far, I’ve discussed the work we do in support of ongoing operations. Our other 

main focus is on providing capabilities to prevent or recover from conflict. We do 

this both through our focus on stability operations capabilities across the Department and targeted programs and policies to build partner capacity. 

When it comes to Stability Operations, we are future oriented. It isn’t just Operation Iraqi Freedom redux—it’s broad ‘‘stabilization’’ in the sense of supporting civilian-led programs, targeting assistance that stimulates local economies, 

marginalizing violent extremists, preventing future conflict, and laying a foundation 

for longer term governance and capacity building. A critical enabler to this effort 

is the civilian-military working relationship across the interagency. While every office works on interagency collaboration, we focus on its necessity for successful stability operations from the strategic to the tactical level. We are focused on moving 

beyond coordination meetings, to coordinated interagency pre-deployment training 

and ensuring that our doctrine and concepts prepare our military personnel to be 

effective in interagency and multi-partner environments. For us, stability operations 

are both a part of preventing escalating conflict and a part of post-conflict recovery. 

In many cases, it also is critical to building a successful exit strategy for current 

conflicts. PSO’s stability operations experts worked closely with and advised Department of State counterparts who built the U.S. Government Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Afghanistan, which will usher in transition in its broadest sense, 

from military to civilian governance across all sectors. 

PSO also is incubating the DOD capability to sustain our train and equip investments through ministerial level capacity-building programs, specifically the relatively new Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI) and the MoDA program I 

mentioned earlier. DIRI supports the development of partner defense ministries 

through regular engagements with partner defense ministries that are aimed at 

identifying their capability gaps and then working to fill them. DIRI provides teams 

of subject matter experts to work with a partner nation on a periodic, sustained 

basis. For example, we will meet with a partner to identify the needs and establish 

a work plan. In one country we might be helping them with their first realistic strategic defense plan and in another it may be an effort to help them create a personnel system that tracks the specialties and training of personnel so they can be 

used to best effect. In all of these cases, both the goal of the work plan and the process of achieving it create new capabilities in partners which often have a multiplying effect on their overall military capacity. 

By contrast, MoDA supplies dedicated and experienced DOD civilians who can 

forge long-term professional relationships with their international defense-ministry 

counterparts in similar specialties. Again, MoDA sends senior defense civilians who 

are trained to be advisors. For example, when the Afghans were struggling with 

how best to feed their troops and how to run and organize a slaughter house, we 

were able to send out an advisor from the Defense Commissary Agency. With his 

extensive background and skills together with the advisor training, he was effective 

immediately in country. 

We’re a ‘‘solution provider’’ in other ways. Secretary Gates rightfully makes developing the capabilities of our partners a high priority for the Department. As he stated in our most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, ‘‘U.S. security is inextricably 

tied to the effectiveness of our efforts to help partners and allies build their own 

security capacity.’’ That said, DOD is attempting to execute the security cooperation 

mission with what the Secretary terms a ‘‘patchwork’’ of specialized legislative authorities and funding sources that evolved in a very different security environment. 

For the security cooperation planner at a geographic Combatant Command who will 

18 

serve for 1 to 2 years and then go back to more traditional military work, it is very 

challenging to understand the tools and funding available to work with our partners. Even once they have a good sense of the tools and funding, actually accessing 

those tools and funding for a given partner can take years. 

My office assists the combatant commanders and our regional office colleagues to 

navigate this patchwork. We also work on improving our planning efforts and strategies so that they include realistic requirements or clearly identified gaps in our 

ability to build dependable and effective partner militaries. To give you an example, 

under different leadership, this office identified a critical gap in our counter terrorism strategies and pursued what is now called the ‘‘1206’’ legislation. As you 

know, 1206 has been a vital tool in our counter terrorism and building partnership 

efforts. After working with Congress to establish the tool and its operations, it is 

now overseen by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Reid, in coordination with 

the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State, as part of our 

broader counter terrorism work. Today, we are working with the Joint Staff to create network-based information tools to track security cooperation activities in countries from the bottom-up. We have already implemented an online information repository about security cooperation tools that is used DOD-wide. We also are working to create an office to better evaluate the impact of our security cooperation tools. 

We are trying to fill new gaps that have emerged by creating new tools or improving 

existing tools. 

III. OPPORTUNITIES

This leads me to my final points, the opportunities we have today to enhance our 

capabilities. Let me mention one relatively simple fix and then discuss a more overarching tool we’d like to create. 

The simple fix I’d like to bring to your attention regards Humanitarian Mine Action. The goal of the DOD Humanitarian Mine Action program is to relieve human 

suffering and the adverse effects of landmines and explosive remnants of war on 

noncombatants while advancing the combatant commanders’ security cooperation 

strategies and U.S. national security objectives. Through the Humanitarian Mine 

Action Training Program, DOD executes ‘‘train-the-trainer’’ programs of instruction 

designed to develop international partners’ capabilities for a wide range of HMA activities including demining training. Over the past decade, we have seen a number 

of casualties and deaths linked to the improper storage of munitions. This is particularly distressing when it occurs in densely populated areas as we saw recently 

in Tanzania and Albania. Rather than use our programs solely to help clean up the 

ordnance once it has exploded and harmed innocent civilians, we would like to modestly include training on how to safely stockpile conventional munitions so we can 

work to prevent those disasters. To do this, no new funding is required as we can 

accomplish this mission within existing OHDACA funding. 

One of the key challenges we face is reacting to threats and opportunities that 

emerge within the budget cycle and recalibrating assistance as situations change on 

the ground. We are challenged not only by the lengthy budget cycle but also by an 

interagency structure that does not incentivize whole-of-government approaches, 

even though we know they are usually the most effective. The fact is that many of 

the security challenges we see today can most effectively be addressed if we improve 

partner governance, justice sector capacity, border security, and basic functioning. 

This requires civilians at DOD and the interagency working with the military as 

seamlessly as possible. 

We all recognize how important this is in Afghanistan to ultimately reaching our 

objectives and withdrawing from that war-torn nation leaving behind a government 

that can secure its borders, enforce the law, and serve the population. The concept 

transfers to other circumstances where a security situation may be ambiguous and 

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 

To address these needs and gaps, Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates developed a pilot program called the Global Security Contingency Fund. If enacted by 

Congress, the two Departments would have 3 years to demonstrate a new business 

model and provide a much-needed tool for responding to emergent challenges and 

opportunities. 

Under the Fund, the Departments of State and Defense would literally work sideby-side to provide security assistance to partner governments, including military, interior, border, maritime, and counterterrorism security forces, and their governing 

institutions. This new Fund also could provide assistance for the justice sector, rule 

of law, and stabilization when the capacity of civilian agencies is challenged by conflict or instability. A key feature of the Fund is that it would be operated by a small 

staff of State Department, USAID, and DOD employees working in the same office 

19 

and would be accountable to both Departments. That staff would be supplemented 

by other interagency experts depending on the requirements that need to be met. 

The Fund would be used to meet requirements both Secretaries identify as critical 

and allow both Departments to provide funding for the work agreed upon. Perhaps 

most critical, the Fund would give the U.S. Government a tool to be more effective 

in its assistance by allowing for within budget cycle commitments that are responsive to fluid real-world situations. 

IV. CONCLUSION

The United States is constantly striving to become more agile and smarter about 

how we create stronger partners and lasting security. This means having tools that 

are better adapted to today’s security environment and having a strong partner in 

Congress to ensure that the tools meet America’s needs. We hope that you will support the Fund and look forward to continuing to work with you to address today’s 

new security challenges and opportunities. Thank you, again for this opportunity to 

testify about the capabilities we provide, including those that focus on supporting 

U.S. operations and those designed to prevent the obligation of U.S. military forces 

and some of the key capabilities we would like to have. I look forward to your questions. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you, Dr. Schear. I do want to say to all 

of you that your written statements will be included in the record 

in full. 

Now, Mr. Wechsler, for your opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. WECHSLER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR COUNTERNARCOTICS AND 

GLOBAL THREATS 

Mr. WECHSLER. Thank you very much. I’ll try to be brief. 

Chairman Hagan, Senator Portman, like my colleagues, I really 

do appreciate the opportunity to be here. It’s quite an important 

subject on which you called this hearing. 

I want you to know that all of our efforts working together really 

do have a significant impact on our efforts in Afghanistan and 

where we confront other transnational threats. My job, as you 

noted, is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats. We support the national counterdrug 

control strategy and the national security strategy by providing assistance to local, State, Federal, and foreign agencies to confront 

the drug trade and narcoterrorism. 

DOD supports law enforcement through detection and monitoring of drug trafficking, sharing information, and helping countries build their own capacity. Our counternarcotics efforts are focused on maintaining force readiness through drug screening for 

the armed services and outreach to DOD families and their communities. 

I give Congress credit for having had the vision to recognize the 

important role DOD can and should play to counter the threat of 

drug trafficking. This was an initiative led by Congress in the late 

1980s and one that in many respects was visionary, considering the 

types of threats that we have confronted since then. 

The legislative authorities that you mentioned in your opening 

statement are absolutely critical to continuing this mission set for 

DOD. They have been adjusted slightly over the years as the threat 

itself has developed, and I look forward to working with you and 

your staff to continuing that progress in the years ahead. 

In Afghanistan, our efforts support the warfighter by building Afghan capacity through information-sharing. In many ways, counVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
20 

ternarcotics authorities and funding act as a bridge between law 

enforcement efforts and more traditional military operations. While 

DOD has traditionally provided military support to law enforcement activities going back years, in Afghanistan the expertise and 

authorities of our law enforcement partners are really supporting 

our military mission. This is quite critical because the reality is 

that we’re not going to win this war on the basis of legal authorities and expertise that exists within DOD alone. We’re only going 

to win this by bringing together the whole of government, all of our 

expertise, and doing what we can do in DOD to support our interagency partners. 

Narcotics account for a large proportion of Afghanistan’s economy 

and contribute to insecurity, corruption, poor governance, and stagnation of economic development. Approximately 84 percent of all 

Afghanistan’s poppy production is concentrated in the south and 

southwest provinces, areas under primary Taliban control. Our revised counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan is incorporated into 

the overall counterinsurgency strategy and places greater emphasis 

on interdiction efforts, those joint military-law enforcement operations, and on alternative livelihoods. 

Closer to home, as was mentioned by Senator Portman, Mexico 

continues to confront escalating drug-fueled violence, particularly 

along its northern border with the United States. Our counternarcotics support to Mexico is implemented primarily through U.S. 

Northern Command and includes subject matter exchanges, training, equipment, and information-sharing. Most of DOD cooperation 

with Mexico falls under our counternarcotics program. 

When I entered office we were spending very close to zero in this area and now we are allocating over $50 million every year in this 

area. I would consider this to be one of those emerging issues that 

you discussed. 

Central America as well continues to face an increasing pressure 

from drug trafficking and related violent crime, largely as a result 

of the progress that has been made by the governments of Mexico 

and Colombia in confronting these organizations. Colombia is a 

special case, as was mentioned by Senator Portman, in my mind 

indeed perhaps the greatest success of U.S. national security policy 

in the last 10 years, a bipartisan success, a very cost-effective success, a counterinsurgency success, and one from which I believe a 

great many important lessons can be drawn for our wider efforts 

around the world. 

I recently traveled to West Africa, another emerging area. to get 

a first-hand look at the region where weak governance is increasingly being exploited by drug traffickers as they target the lucrative and growing European market for cocaine. This trend has a 

number of important national security implications, such as undermining governance and stability in the region and providing a 

funding stream to western hemisphere criminal organizations that 

traffic drugs to the United States. This will be a subject for the G– 

8 under French leadership, after which the Lisbon Conference. 

We’re doing an awful lot more in this area compared to what we 

had been doing in years past. 

The globalization of the legitimate economy has benefited the illicit economy in many of the same ways. Today nearly every counVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
21 

try in the world now suffers to some degree from the illicit, illegal 

drug trade. Make no mistake, the drug trade is by far and away 

the largest illegal activity that happens around the world. Indeed, 

the networks that are built on the foundation of the drug trade 

around the world are the very same networks that all sorts of other 

transnational threats sit upon, use, and employ. We have to be able 

to go against this criminal nexus in order to go against the other 

aspects of the transnational crime. 

Indeed, we see this, the TCOs themselves, diversifying into other 

criminal activities. One of the issues that we need to work on together with you is the fact that our bureaucracies, our legal authorities, are all designed—many of them are designed on singleissue threats when in fact the threat that we’re facing around the 

world is a nexus of all these threats that come together. That’s 

what we see out there in the world and that’s what we have to 

build our bureaucracies and our legal authorities around. 

Our counternarcotics activities in DOD employ two principal 

force multipliers to make the best use of finite resources available, 

and we are aware of the finite resources that are available. We’re 

proud to say that I believe that if you go back over the decades in 

the DOD counternarcotics program what you’ll see is it’s one of the 

most cost-effective programs that we have. 

Our two principal force multipliers are: first and foremost, building partner capacity among our international partners, so we enhance their ability to work with their U.S. counterparts to maximize the value of taxpayer dollars as a force multiplier. 

Second, we stress intelligent and information-driven operations. 

Targeting based on cued intelligence is much more cost-effective 

than trying to patrol vast areas of air or maritime or other assets. 

Part of this queued intelligence is something we’re spending an 

awful lot more time on and hopefully will be able to talk about 

more today, our counter-threat finance efforts, because it’s the 

money, as you mentioned, Madam Chairman, that is really driving 

a lot of these transnational threats. 

It’s important to recognize, just to conclude, that when we discuss the transnational nature of this threat that does also include 

criminal activities that take place inside the United States as well. 

For instance, the influence of Mexican TCOs extends well beyond 

the Southwest border to cities across the country, including Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit. All of your constituencies are confronted by this threat. 

Unfortunately, coordination of domestic and international activities can be especially challenging inside the executive branch. Once 

again, here DOD can play an important supporting role to facilitate 

coordination and information-sharing throughout mechanisms such 

as a Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West, which I believe is really one of the best models of interagency coordination in 

the last couple of decades. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I welcome 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wechsler follows:] 

22 

PREPARED STATEMENT BY HON. WILLIAM F. WECHSLER

Chairman Hagan, Senator Portman, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the Department’s counternarcotics (CN) efforts alongside my colleagues Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) Reid and DASD Schear. I am convinced that the complementary efforts across Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities (SO/LIC&IC) are having a significant impact on our efforts in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan and on a wide range of other transnational threats around the world. 

Before discussing some of the latest trends we are seeing in the threat of 

transnational organized crime, I would like to provide you with a brief overview of 

our organization, strategy, budget, and programs. 

COUNTERNARCOTICS AND GLOBAL THREATS PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The Department of Defense (DOD) supports the administration’s National Drug 

Control Strategy by providing assistance to local, State, Federal, and foreign agencies to confront the drug trade and narco-terrorism. DOD support for law enforcement includes detecting and monitoring drug trafficking, sharing information, and 

helping countries build their capacity to confront drug trafficking. DOD counternarcotics efforts are also focused on maintaining force readiness through demand reduction programs for the armed services. 

Through its combatant commands, the military departments, and the defense 

agencies, DOD provides unique military platforms, personnel, systems, and capabilities that support Federal law enforcement agencies and foreign security forces involved in counternarcotics missions. The DOD counternarcotics mission targets 

those terrorist groups worldwide that use narcotics trafficking to support terrorist 

activities by deploying counternarcotics assets, in cooperation with foreign governments, in regions where terrorists benefit from illicit drug revenue or use drug 

smuggling systems. 

The Office of DASD for Counternarcotics and Global Threats (CN>) is the single focal point for DOD’s CN activities, reporting to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities 

and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The office of the DASD(CN>) was 

established to ensure that DOD develops and implements a focused counternarcotics 

program with clear priorities and measured results. Consistent with applicable laws, 

authorities, regulations, and funding, the office ensures that sufficient resources are 

allocated to the counternarcotics mission to achieve high-impact results. 

All DOD counternarcotics programs, with the exception of Active Duty military 

pay and Service operations tempo, are funded through the DOD Counternarcotics 

Central Transfer Account (CTA). The CTA was established by the fiscal year 1989 

Defense Appropriations Act and designed to allow for maximum flexibility to respond to ever-changing drug trafficking patterns. In fiscal year 2012, the Department has requested $1.16 billion for CN efforts through the CTA. Of this total, approximately 13 percent would go to support demand reduction, 20 percent to support 

domestic law enforcement assistance, 18 percent to support intelligence and technology programs, and 48 percent to support international counternarcotics activities. 

We take pride in our efforts to reduce drug abuse in the Armed Forces and Defense workforce and in providing outreach to DOD families and their communities. 

The DOD role in illegal drug demand reduction concentrates principally on eliminating drug abuse in the U.S. Armed Forces and Defense civilian workforce as well 

as reaching out to DOD families and their communities to reduce drug abuse. To 

address rising prescription drug abuse rates, DOD plans to implement recommendations from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for its Drug Demand Reduction 

Program to expand testing to include commonly abused prescription drugs, establish 

random unannounced drug testing in-theater, establish mobile collection teams, 

complete the prescription drug verification portal, and make drug prosecution statistics part of readiness reporting. The National Guard, acting under the authority of 

the State and territorial governors, also plays an especially important role through 

community outreach and helping at-risk youth resist drug-related temptation. These 

programs are consistent with the President’s National Drug Control Strategy, which 

points out: 

The demand for drugs can be further decreased by comprehensive, evidence-based prevention programs focused on the adolescent years, which 

science confirms is the peak period for substance use initiation and escalation into addiction. We have a shared responsibility to educate our young 

people about the risks of drug use, and we must do so not only at home, 

but also in schools, sports leagues, faith communities, places of work, and 

other settings and activities that attract youth. 

23 

We are in the final stages of developing a DOD Counternarcotics and Global 

Threats Strategy that will more clearly align our efforts with President’s National 

Security Strategy, the National Drug Control Strategy, as well as with the Quadrennial Defense Review’s four priority objectives: (1) Prevail in Today’s Wars, (2) Prevent and Deter Conflict, (3) Prepare to Defeat Adversaries and succeed in a wide 

range of contingencies, and (4) Preserve and Enhance the All-Volunteer Force. This 

Strategy will be based on national-level guidance and will establish an integrated 

set of strategic goals and objectives to address the national security implications of 

drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime and to help prioritize programs 

and activities. The Strategy will outline where Defense capabilities can be brought 

to bear in support of a whole-of-government approach to address this national security concern. I would welcome the opportunity to brief you or your staff on the Strategy as soon as it is made available. 

EFFORTS IN U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY

In Afghanistan, DOD’s counternarcotics efforts are focused on building Afghan capacity, through information sharing, training and equipping, and infrastructure. 

While DOD has provided military support, as needed, to counternarcotics law enforcement activities, in Afghanistan the opposite is also true. In Afghanistan, the 

expertise and authorities of our law enforcement partners also contributes to advancing essential national security objectives. While relatively little of the heroin 

produced in Afghanistan is ultimately bound for the United States today, U.S. law 

enforcement agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency have been at the forefront of our counternarcotics efforts in support of broader U.S. national security interests. 

Narcotics account for a large proportion of Afghanistan’s economy, and they contribute to insecurity, corruption, poor governance, and stagnation of economic development. It is essential to address the drug trade and its effects in order to conduct 

a successful counter-insurgency campaign. Approximately 84 percent of all Afghanistan’s poppy production is concentrated in the south and southwestern provinces. 

These areas are primarily controlled by the Taliban, which benefits financially from 

this trade. 

Building on what worked in Colombia, while recognizing regional differences, our 

revised counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan emphasizes support for a ‘‘wholeof-government’’ approach that is incorporated into the overall stabilization strategy 

and places greater emphasis on interdiction and agriculture and rural development. 

In 2010, Afghan National Security Forces conducted approximately 300 operations 

supported by DOD, primarily in the south. These operations led to the destruction 

of approximately 55 tons of opium, 2 tons of morphine, 12 tons of heroin, 74 tons 

of hashish, 34 tons of chemicals used to produce heroin, and numerous weapons and 

munitions. In Pakistan and Central Asia, DOD counternarcotics activities focus on 

containing the flow of narcotics emanating from Afghanistan by supporting improved border security and interdiction capacity and improved information sharing. 

CN>’s efforts in the region complement other SO/LIC&IC activities to support 

the warfighter. In many ways, CN authorities and funding act as a bridge between 

law enforcement efforts and more traditional military operations. For instance, 

CN> programs also support counter-narcoterrorism training provided by U.S. 

Special Operations Forces in the region that directly support counter-terrorism (CT) 

and counterinsurgency (COIN) objectives. In fiscal year 2009, CN> provided 

counternarcotics-funded helicopters in support of broader CT/COIN objectives in 

Pakistan. CN> also joins the Department of Homeland Security (CBP/ICE) in 

providing critical support for Operation Global Shield, a World Customs Organization (WCO) effort to combat the illicit transport and use of precursor chemicals by 

terrorist and other criminal organizations some of which are used to manufacture 

improvised explosive devices (IEDs). 

Where Partnership Strategy and Security Operations’ Ministry of Defense Advisors (MODA) program provides support to the Ministry of Defense, CN> efforts 

are focused on building capacity of law enforcement units within the Ministry of Interior such as the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA), the National 

Interdiction Unit (NIU), the Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU), and Aviation Interdiction Unit (AIU). 

CN efforts in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility complement 

counter-terrorism, DOD’s partnership strategy, and stability operations. All three of 

these pillars need to be coordinated for greater effect. Often, as in the case of Pakistan, CN efforts allow DOD to establish a base for follow-on CT/COIN and stability 

operations. In 2006, CN funding was used to begin building-up Pakistan’s border security forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas region based on the 

24 

amount of drugs transiting this region headed to the Makron Coast from Afghanistan. The drug trade is inherently associated with creating instability and is often 

a localized funding source for insurgent and criminal groups. 

CN> coordinates with SO/CT on 1206 reporting requirements. This annual review of CT funding by CN experts helps to eliminate overlaps and identify areas 

for improved coordination. Leveraging the expertise of the Counter-Narcoterrorism 

Technology Program Office and its relationship with CN>, SO/CT was able to 

procure a utility aircraft for Yemeni security forces with Section 1206 funding at 

the end of fiscal year 2010. 

Emerging Threats 

Closer to home, Mexico continues to confront escalating drug-fueled violence particularly along its northern border with the U.S. Gunmen associated with drug trafficking organizations routinely carry out sophisticated attacks against Mexican law 

enforcement and military personnel. The Department of Defense’s counternarcotics 

support to Mexico is implemented primarily through U.S. Northern Command 

(NORTHCOM)and includes training, equipment, and information sharing as well as 

indirect support to units of the Mexican armed forces with counter-narcoterrorism 

missions. We are also working with U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and 

NORTHCOM to develop a joint security effort in the border region of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Most of DOD’s cooperation with Mexico falls under the Department’s counternarcotics program, and we expect to allocate approximately $51 million in fiscal year 2011 to support Mexico. This allocation is a dramatic increase 

from previous funding levels for Mexico. Before 2009, for example, funding for Mexico was closer to $3 million a year. 

Central America continues to face increasing pressure from drug trafficking and 

related violent crime, largely as a result of the progress that has been made by the 

Governments of Mexico and Colombia in confronting these organizations. A Congressional Research Service report published this March illustrated this graphically by 

mentioning that, despite the incredible drug-fueled violence in Mexico, the homicide 

rate per 100,000 inhabitants for all Central American nations is significantly higher 

(with the exception of Costa Rica). These trends are directly attributable to illicit 

trafficking of all forms of contraband such as drugs, weapons, bulk cash, counterfeit 

and stolen goods, and persons. These law enforcement issues have important ramifications for the national security of Mexico, the Nations of Central America, and 

the United States. The Central American Citizen Security Partnership, announced 

by President Obama in El Salvador last month, seeks to ‘‘address the social and economic forces that drive young people toward criminality.’’ The implication for DOD 

is that we will work even harder to broaden and deepen our interagency and international partnership approach and take a holistic view of security. As always, DOD 

will play a supporting role to the overall strategy, led by the White House and the 

State Department, avoiding any over-emphasis on military responses. 

I recently traveled to West Africa to get a first-hand look at a region where weak 

governance is increasingly being exploited by drug traffickers as they target the lucrative and growing European market for cocaine. This trend has a number of important national security implications, such as undermining governance and stability in the region and providing a funding stream to Western Hemisphere criminal 

organizations that traffic drugs to the United States. 

Drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime have become a truly global 

phenomenon. The globalization of the legitimate economy has benefitted the illicit 

economy in many of the same ways. Today, nearly every country in the world now 

suffers to some degree from illegal drug consumption, production, or drug-related 

corruption and violence. Where once DOD’s counternarcotics efforts were focused in 

the Western Hemisphere, today we are supporting counternarcotics activities worldwide—most notably in Afghanistan and with its neighbors, but also in places such 

as West Africa and Central and Southeast Asia. 

Transnational criminal organizations (TCO), are becoming increasingly networked 

as they form relationships with each other and at times with insurgent or terrorist 

groups. These relationships range from tactical, episodic interactions at one end of 

the spectrum, to full narcoterrorism on the other. This ‘‘threat networking’’ also undermines legitimate institutions in ways that create opportunities for other threats. 

TCOs are increasingly diversifying into other forms of criminal activity in order to 

spread risk and maximize potential profit. In some regions, for example, drug trafficking TCOs also engage in kidnapping, armed robbery, extortion, financial crime 

and other activities. 

It is important to note that DOD counternarcotics support activities are carried 

out at the request of and in coordination with U.S. or foreign law enforcement officials. DOD support includes training, equipment, information sharing, communications, intelligence analysis, and other cooperation. I give Congress the credit for 

25 

having had the vision to recognize the important role DOD can and should play to 

counter the threat of drug trafficking, and particularly in supporting broader law 

enforcement efforts. 

DOD counternarcotics activities employ two principal ‘‘force multipliers’’ to make 

the best use of finite resources available. These are particularly important in the 

current fiscal environment. First, we emphasize networked partnership, both with 

other countries and among U.S. institutions. Through building capacity among our 

international partners, we enhance their ability to work with their U.S. counterparts and maximize the value of taxpayer dollars. 

Second, we stress intelligence and information-driven operations. For example, 

DOD increasingly provides detection, monitoring, and law enforcement ‘‘end game’’ 

support, based on ‘‘cued’’ intelligence. Such targeting is more cost-effective than trying to patrol vast areas with limited air, maritime, or other assets. 

It is important to recognize that when we discuss the transnational nature of this 

threat, this includes criminal activities that take place outside as well as within the 

United States. For instance, the influence of Mexican TCOs extends well beyond the 

Southwest border to cities across the country such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit. 

Unfortunately, coordination of domestic and international activities can be especially challenging. Such coordination is, however, also increasingly important in an 

age when criminal globalization, threat networking, and diversification are making 

distance and borders less important. In this regard, DOD can play an important role 

in facilitating coordination and information sharing through mechanisms such as 

Joint Task Force-North in El Paso and Joint Interagency Task Force-South in Key 

West—both of which are models of interagency and international cooperation. 

CONCLUSION

The transnational illicit drug trade is a multi-faceted national security concern for 

the United States. The drug trade is a powerful corrosive force that weakens the 

rule of law in affected countries, preventing governments from effectively addressing 

other transnational threats, such as terrorism, insurgency, organized crime, weapons trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, and piracy. Many of the global and regional terrorists who threaten interests of the United States finance their 

activities with the proceeds from narcotics trafficking. The inability of many nations 

to police themselves effectively and to work with their neighbors to ensure regional 

security represents a challenge to global security. Extremists and international 

criminal networks frequently exploit local geographical, political, or social conditions 

to establish safe havens from which they can operate with impunity. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I welcome your questions and comments. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, 

and Mr. Wechsler. 

We will now have 8 minutes to do questions. Mr. Wechsler, 

counter-threat finance activities, which you’ve just been discussing, 

fall into your portfolio. I understand that your office has been active in setting up threat finance cells in Afghanistan and Iraq. A 

number of administration officials have indicated, however, that 

the most significant source of money funding terrorism comes from 

our Gulf States. What is your organization doing to identify and 

counter the flow of money from these nations? I hear there’s actually some points of the year called the ‘‘funding season.’’ 

Mr. WECHSLER. You’re indeed correct, Madam Chairman. One of 

the challenges in this area is exactly what you said, that the fundraising networks are global in nature. So when we create mechanisms to facilitate coordination in Iraq and in Afghanistan, those 

aren’t enough. We need to go outside of those areas to really deal 

with it. 

It’s very important to recognize the work that we have done inside those war zones in order to collect the right kind of information, in order to bring it together, to map the networks, to identify 

the key nodes, and then, most importantly, to identify the key aspect of U.S. power that is most relevant for attacking that particular node. Sometimes it may be military activities—our friends 

26 

in the Special Forces. Sometimes it will be a law enforcement operation. Sometimes it will be a host country law enforcement operation. Sometimes it will be an influence operation. Sometimes a 

Treasury designation. Sometimes diplomatic activity. 

We have to have the mechanisms that can make those decisions, 

and that’s what we’re building up in the war zones. 

Outside the war zones, you take one of these action arms completely off the table as far as DOD, so we need to rely on our interagency partners. But even there, there are roles that DOD can do 

because, in some cases our interagency partners, according to the 

tasks that they’ve been given by Congress, don’t necessarily see it 

directly in their interest. 

Just as an example, the folks at the Drug Enforcement Agency 

(DEA) do an absolutely fantastic job at meeting their mission of 

keeping drugs out of the United States. Very little of the drugs that 

come out of Afghanistan and go through the Gulf and are part of 

those networks that end up funding our enemies come to the 

United States. So if you just look at their mission set, they 

wouldn’t have a lot of people in the Gulf. Indeed, when I went out 

there last January they had, DEA, had one person in Cairo that 

covers 14 countries and the Gulf. 

So what we said is: We have a mission and we need your authorities. So what they have done, the Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement and, most recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have gotten together and come up with a plan to have greater 

staffing in the Gulf, so that they can use their authorities to go 

after these financial networks with those host countries. We in 

DOD can support them with resources, but also with planning and 

analytical skills. So that’s how we go about dealing with that problem. 

Senator HAGAN. Do you actually pay the Treasury for their personnel and providing them with intelligence? 

Mr. WECHSLER. We do, not in providing them directly with intelligence, but we do make sure that we can provide the kind of resources that are necessary, whether that is physical space in buildings and in computers and those kind of tools that they use. In 

some cases we provide resources for TDY and travel and efforts 

like that. There are limitations on exactly what we’re able to pay 

for legally and we don’t go across those lines. But we want to make 

sure that in this relatively small amount of money that we can provide, which is hugely cost-effective for us to have Treasury as part 

of the war effort, that that’s not the reason why we fail in this 

area. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Reid, let me ask you a question on Afghanistan counterterrorism operations. According to published reports, the tempo of 

counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan by U.S. and the Afghan 

SOFs has increased dramatically in recent months and demonstrated significant results. General Rodriguez stated that the Afghan people are playing an interestingly important role in the success of these operations by helping to provide significantly more 

tips because they see the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) 

out among them more than they ever had because of the increase 

in the number. 

27 

Do you agree with General Rodriguez that the increased presence 

of ANSF has resulted in better intelligence because the population 

is more likely to come forward with information? 

Mr. REID. Thank you, Madam Chair. In short, yes, I do agree 

with that assessment, and we are into a period now where it’s logical we would see an increase in the pace of activity, given our uplift in forces as the President authorized in the last review and the 

weather, climate factors in Afghanistan in the so-called spring and 

summer fighting season kicking off. So there is a logical increase. 

With respect to the support of the population, again fundamental 

to our strategy is to put the Afghan forces in the lead. As we build 

toward a responsible transition, we will see more and more of Afghan forces in the lead. That does engender greater support by the 

local populace. We see this in our village stability operations, in 

our Afghan Local Police (ALP) Program, which has taken off rapidly, is building up beyond 5,000 forces that are involved in the 

ALP. It’s a village security, non-Kabul-driven local governance, 

local security apparatus that fits in with the ANSF in the big picture, but on the village level it is their own actions to push back 

on Taliban influence. This creates an information network. It creates an operational capacity that spreads the reach of the Afghan 

National Army and the Afghan National Police to achieve this 

exact effect, which is a shifting of public sentiment towards an 

anti-Taliban position that is vital to the success in the counterinsurgency. 

Senator HAGAN. I was in Afghanistan in January and had an opportunity to go to the training center there for the ANSF and was 

quite impressed with the group that we saw. 

There’s also reportedly 85 percent, I think what you’re talking 

about, of counterterrorism operations that take place without a 

shot being fired. In light of disagreement between NATO and the 

Afghan Government over civilian casualties, what actions have 

been taken by the counterterrorism forces to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan? Do you believe it is accurate to say that 85 

percent of these counterterrorism operations are conducted successfully without a shot being fired? 

Mr. REID. That’s true, and I believe that came across at a briefing and we went back and said, is that a footnote anecdote or is 

that supportable? The facts are—and it’s a difference, and I’m sure 

in previous times—you’ve been down at Fort Bragg and seen the 

counterterrorism demonstrations with the explosions and the 

breaching and everything. It’s still a very valuable skill. 

But what we have learned in this war, and particularly in these 

type of operations, is just going out there and calling them out is 

effective, and that’s what you’ve seen. That’s what we talk about, 

without shots being fired. 

It’s also been optimized in Afghanistan by the use of the Afghan 

forces as well, so now they have their own folks calling them out. 

They know what happens if they don’t come out, so they tend to 

do that. 

With respect to civilian casualties, clearly just a horrible, horrible incident when it does occur. We’ve taken many steps to minimize this with our strike policies, our call for fire policies, our 

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28 

fare, and among the population, that I would say we will never 

completely eliminate, but the target control, fire control systems, 

have been strengthened to the point where we have greatly reduced them, and we will continue to do so. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. Senator Portman. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you for your testimony, gentlemen. You raise so many 

issues and there are lots to get further information on. I would say 

that, based on your responses to the chair’s questions, your two 

worlds kind of coincide on the issue of counter-drug programs and 

narcotics, because I assume you would agree that not just with regard to the Taliban, but generally with regard to terrorist groups, 

narcotics often plays a role in terms of the funding. 

Do you have any sense of what part of the Taliban’s resources, 

for instance, come from the trafficking of narcotics? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Senator, I’ve seen a lot of estimates that try to 

get to those exact percentages and I wouldn’t stand behind any of 

them. But what I can say is that it is without question that a very 

significant proportion of the Taliban’s resources come from the narcotics trade and various elements of the narcotics trade. Sometimes 

it is direct involvement. Sometimes it is taxing it. Sometimes it is 

facilitating it. Sometimes it’s using the drug trafficking organizations themselves as mechanisms to move people, IEDs, other materials, into war zones. There is a mutually supportive relationship 

in many places that requires us to take down those networks. 

Senator PORTMAN. The Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction tells us that we have spent as American taxpayers $1.5 

billion between 2002 and last year on counterdrug activities in Afghanistan alone, $1.5 billion. This year’s budget request from the 

President I see includes nearly $400 million in the overseas contingency operations area for these same efforts. 

You’ve talked a little about this, but what’s our objective and is 

it working? That’s a lot of money and there’s still a lot of trafficking. 

Mr. WECHSLER. Yes. The objective is—there are short-term objectives and long-term objectives. The long-term objectives are counternarcotics objectives, that we want to return Afghanistan to what 

it was in the 70s when it was not the world’s leading source of 

opium. 

The short-term objectives, though, are integrated into our 

counterinsurgency objectives, and those are not counternarcotics 

for counternarcotics’ sake directed, but they are counternarcotics in 

order to help break the nexus of the Taliban and the drug trafficking organizations. It’s interdiction-related and it’s also to support the individual farmers. 

You may recall that a couple of years ago the U.S. Government— 

mostly DOS, not DOD—spent an awful lot of money on eradication 

programs. What we’ve done is we’ve halted those efforts and said 

that if there are going to be eradication programs, they’re going to 

be governor, local governor-led eradication programs, because what 

we found is that in many cases those were not only not productive, 

but they were counterproductive. What you ended up doing was 

making enemies out of all the farmers that have lost their liveliVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
29 

hood, not impacted the Taliban’s finance, and just created more recruits for them. 

So what we are doing instead of targeting the farmers, we’re targeting the illicit networks behind the Taliban and the drug trafficking organizations. To that respect, they have been quite effective. Just a couple of things—and they’ve really been effective in 

this year as the capacities that we built over time, including Afghan capacities, it must be stressed, have really come into, working 

together with our military capacities. 

So in 2010, for instance, ANSF conducted 298 DOD-supported 

CN interdiction operations. The majority of these operations were 

in the south, resulting in the destruction of 56 tons of opium, 2 

tons of morphine, 11 tons of heroin, and 74 tons of hashish. These 

are incredible numbers. It’s an amazing amount, and every one of 

those are things that are taken away from our enemy, and we’re 

starting to see evidence that it is having an effect on them at a 

strategic level. 

Senator PORTMAN. I would just make an editorial comment. You 

talked earlier about your work and it’s very important and I appreciate what you do, Mr. Wechsler. But you focused all on the supply 

side and not on the demand side, and you should take credit for 

some of the work that the Guard, the Reserves, and some of your 

active duty are doing on the demand side, too. Ultimately that’s 

going to be the way to get at this in my view. So tons of narcotics 

we’re talking about apprehending or finding in the Taliban context, 

that’s terrific news. I hope they’re not all back next year. As long 

as there’s a market that seems to materialize. I understand most 

of that opium goes to Europe, but in terms of what you do here in 

this country I think it’s incredibly important vis-a-vis Mexico and 

other problems. So add your demand side accolades to what your 

team is doing. 

Just quickly on U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). You 

talked about the interagency coordination and you talked about Colombia as being an example. You said that you thought that what 

I said about it earlier was accurate, that it’s an example where 

something worked. Can I ask you something a little off DOD’s 

radar screen, but something very topical for us. Recently General 

Fraser, SOUTHCOM commander, talked about the potential tradeopening agreement with Colombia as ‘‘a very positive, beneficial aspect for our cooperation because of the growing capacity to support 

the capabilities of the armed forces and law enforcement.’’ Do you 

see a connection between us finally agreeing with Colombia and 

moving forward on this trade-opening agreement, which as you 

know was negotiated with President Uribe 41⁄2 years ago, as being 

beneficial to I guess all of your objectives with regard to fighting 

the narcotics trade in Colombia and with regard to the other geopolitical benefits of a strong ally in Latin America? 

Mr. WECHSLER. I do indeed, Senator. It’s important to recognize 

how far Colombia has come. I remember I was working at the 

White House at the end of the Clinton administration. I’ll always 

remember this number: In 1999 two-thirds of the Colombian public 

believed that the FARC was going to take Bogota. That’s incredible. Two-thirds of the people in Afghanistan do not believe that 

30 

the Taliban is going to take Kabul right now. That’s where Colombia was. 

In 10 years time, they have gone from a major exporter of insecurity in the region to a major exporter of security in the region, helping the Mexicans, and helping their Central American partners. 

They have a new government that still has a war that they’re fighting. That must be stressed. It has not been won yet. There’s been 

great progress, but it’s not been won. 

They are looking to the United States to try to understand what 

the relationship continues to be, and a key part of that relationship 

is going to be the free trade agreement. 

Senator PORTMAN. Do you think it would strengthen President 

Santos’ hand vis-a-vis the FARC and other illicit organizations operating in Colombia? 

Mr. WECHSLER. I think it will strengthen the hand of President 

Santos and everybody else who, in Colombia, who is talking about 

a strong Colombian-U.S. relationship. 

Senator PORTMAN. I don’t know how much time I have, Madam 

Chairman. My clock’s not working, which is really a dangerous 

thing for a Senator. 

Senator HAGAN. One more question. 

Senator PORTMAN. Dr. Schear, thank you for your testimony. You 

talked about coalition-building. I loved your quote. You said it requires some heavy lifting, literally and figuratively, right? So we do 

have some capabilities that other countries don’t have. 

We hear a lot about the close air support in Libya, for instance, 

being essential to continuing to make progress and that when we 

pulled out and NATO took the lead we lost some of that capability. 

How do you respond to that? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Sir, I wouldn’t dispute the point, but I would probably defer to my colleagues who are more in the—— 

Senator PORTMAN. You’re the coalitions guy, though. 

Dr. SCHEAR. I’m the coalitions guy, and we’re seized with the opportunity to build coalitions to find the best fit. In a case such as 

Libya, as you quite rightly infer, there are a range of missions and 

missions like close air support probably are somewhat more on the 

high end of capacity and issues of discriminating targets from surrounding civilian areas is a big challenge. 

Senator PORTMAN. Just quickly, a follow-on question. Japan: Are 

we doing everything that we can be doing and have we responded 

to everything the Japanese have asked us to do? 

Dr. SCHEAR. We have made an enormously positive contribution 

to the response to a very complex situation, which continues to unfold, I have to say. The Fukushima Daiichi reactor facility is stabilizing, but I would say Japan has certainly got a ways to go before 

we can put that fully behind them. 

Senator PORTMAN. Do you feel like we’re responding to the requests from the Japanese Government? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Yes, we are. We have an incredible team out there, 

U.S. Forces Japan supported by PACOM, with more than 20 ships 

and 14,000 service personnel engaged, with many aircraft providing lift into the areas. Our foreign consequence management capabilities are being deployed out there for both training and direct 

response purposes. 

31 

Senator PORTMAN. Our UAVs are being used, I understand? 

Dr. SCHEAR. UAVs are part of the repertoire. We’re also conscious of the fact we have a force protection requirement, given the 

numbers of service personnel and American citizens in the Honshu, 

northern areas of Japan. So we’re very cognizant of that. 

But I would say thus far we’ve been doing a fairly strong response in a very positive way, sir. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator HAGAN. Senator Brown. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

When I went to Afghanistan I was amazed. A quarter mile outside the forward operating base you have farmers with poppy 

plants right there, and we’re flying over them every single day. 

They’re up waving at us. The whole eradication thing, I get it, but 

the cost-benefit analysis—we lose a farmer, and the amount of 

money that’s being derived, just the numbers that you just said of 

the actual product that we’ve destroyed, it’s mind-boggling. 

I mean, I’m hopeful that there’s a way to strike a good balance 

so we don’t have to have our pilots flying out and seeing all the 

poppy plants that are just there and the farmers waving at us. 

That being said, I wanted to shift gears a little bit, because that 

was kind of the nature of what the chairman and the ranking 

member were talking about. But according to Iranian state-owned 

press—and this will be to Mr. Reid—the commander of the Islamic 

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) indicated that the IRGC units 

in his mission would undergo a structural change or reform to 

align with recent regional developments. Have you noticed or anticipate a change in regional strategy to take advantage of the instability in the region? 

Mr. REID. I think the details of a good response to you, Senator, 

would probably be better in a closed conversation. 

Senator BROWN. Great. Let’s do that, then. We’ll make a point 

to do that. 

Mr. REID. Yes, sir. 

Senator BROWN. So noted. Thank you. 

I’ll just then follow up. What’s your assessment then—and it can 

be to Dr. Schear as well. There’s been a lot of investment in training and equipping of Iraqi special operations forces. These forces 

have been effective in planning and carrying out operations against 

al Qaeda in Iraq. What’s your assessment on the capability of the 

Iraqi SOF and how will this significant progress be affected if all 

the U.S. military forces are withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the 

year? 

Mr. REID. We think the Iraqi special forces were an early sign 

of our success in training the Iraqi military and they were very responsive and engaged from early on in the conflict. The organizations have matured over the years and they are currently and have 

been for some time now sufficiently planning, leading, and conducting effective counterterrorism operations in Iraq, albeit however with continued U.S. support. 

Looking forward, of course, some details to be filled in about next 

year in Iraq and what our capabilities will be, but I can say that 

we are planning an Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq that will 

have room within that for advising and assisting and equipping 

32 

functions, as other security cooperation offices do, and we will build 

upon that as a basis for continued assistance and oversight of Iraqi 

capabilities, including the SOFs. 

Senator BROWN. So do you think the Iraqi Government will request a limited presence beyond next year aside from that? 

Mr. REID. I think it’s to be determined what President Maliki 

will ask for. We hear reports and discussions of different things 

being considered, but I think that remains to be seen, Senator. 

Senator BROWN. If we in fact leave altogether, what do you think 

the likelihood of them to be able to maintain stability is? Low, medium, high? Do you have any sense on that? 

Mr. REID. Well, I think the evidence is they’re currently doing 

the bulk of the security and we’re confident that they can shoulder 

the load going forward. But again, we do intend to have a robust 

security cooperation office in U.S. Embassy Baghdad. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Wechsler, the National Guard plays an important role in the conduct of DOD counterdrug activities. How is 

the National Guard being utilized in ongoing and planned DOD 

counterdrug programs, number one? Number two, any additional 

requests for authority in terms of rules of engagement, or rules of 

interdiction at all? 

Mr. WECHSLER. The National Guard has done an extremely good 

job through the State plan process at supporting State and local 

law enforcement under the direction of the governors. I don’t foresee any change in legal authorities required because they do have 

the legal authorities to provide that support. 

What I am hopeful for is as we develop—as the Department of 

Justice and the Department of Homeland Security develop greater 

mechanisms and strategies to combat the efforts inside the United 

States that I was discussing previously that relate to the threats 

that are outside the United States, that our National Guard efforts 

can be increasingly deployed against those problem sets. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Reid, I have a question about Somalia that 

I think is probably a closed session one as well, if we could maybe 

deal with that at some point and I’ll have Bo on my staff connect 

with you. But talking about al Qaeda’s ability to use 21st century 

technology to spread its message and recruit terrorist candidates, 

what’s DOD doing to counter that propaganda effort? Not only 

that, but other organizations. What are you trying to do to that 

kind of combat? 

Mr. REID. Thank you, Senator. We do have a wide range of programs in this area in DOD. We work very closely with our DOS 

colleagues and their global strategic communications effort. I agree 

with you, the details of some of those we should probably talk 

about in a closed session. 

Senator BROWN. Great, great. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator HAGAN. Senator Brown, Senator Portman and I both are 

interested in having a closed session. So when you look at the title 

of this committee, being the ‘‘Emerging Threats and Capabilities,’’ 

I think we obviously will ask for a closed session, and we’ll try to 

schedule that together. 

I might ask a few more questions and then Senator Portman. I 

want to go back to Libya. Mr. Reid, how would you characterize the 

33 

situation in Libya? Given your responsibilities for unconventional 

warfare, have you had any involvement in assessing the training 

and equipping requirements of the Libyan rebels? Just sort of a series of questions and thoughts on Libya. 

Mr. REID. I’ll take the first part. It’s a little bit easier to talk 

open here, just based on my own experience and assessment. Obviously, as an opposition movement they are dealing with an uphill 

battle with a longstanding oppressive regime that makes little distinctions about attacking civilians, civilian targets. So a very difficult situation for any opposition. 

Again just speaking in the abstract, they have some advantages 

based on the geography of the situation and they have shown great 

strength and motivation as a group. Difficult for them. Again, if 

you look at this in the context of history, you would probably have 

wanted to start off with a much longer lead of developing your uprising. This sort of was spontaneous to some extent based on events 

in the region. So I think that clearly posed some challenges for the 

group. 

With respect to the details of things, of course, as a Defense official and working with our special operations, clearly we have no 

U.S. forces on the ground in Libya and the strength of the U.S. 

support to the opposition, as noted by Senator Portman, was 

through the air and now continued by our NATO partners. 

I would just go back and say, with respect to the differences in 

U.S. air power and that posed by the current effort, not to take 

anything away from our NATO partners, but we’ve been saying for 

quite a while the reason our enemies seek to avoid direct confrontation is because of the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. military 

and I think that’s what you saw happening. I wouldn’t recommend 

anybody mess with the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Air Force in that 

type of environment, because their capabilities are clearly overpowering and precise. 

Going forward, obviously we have some nascent engagements on 

the diplomatic side. The United States continues to support the 

NATO effort, and what you see on a day-to-day basis is a back and 

forth now where neither side seems to be able to dominate the 

other. There’s been a shifting back and forth between Ajdabiya and 

Misurata. Brega in the middle seems to be a balance point. When 

the rebels—when the opposition gets the Brega, the government 

kind of gets on its heels, and then they regroup and come back. It’s 

just a day-by-day situation right now. 

Senator HAGAN. There’s been discussion about arming the rebels 

or not arming the rebels. Certainly I think a lot of people are concerned about exactly who the rebels are. What are your thoughts 

on that? 

Mr. REID. I think that’s a great point, and we would always have 

to be careful in any situation that we knew upfront clearly who 

we’re dealing with, and it has been much discussed by the Secretary of State and others that we’re in that process right now of 

trying to get a further understanding before we take further steps. 

Senator HAGAN. Mr. Wechsler, on counter-piracy efforts off Somalia: Despite a significant and concerted international effort 

which includes various U.S. agencies and the U.S. military, piracy 

in the northwestern Indian Ocean and the approaches to the vital 

34 

sea lanes through the Gulf of Aden continues largely unabated. The 

tragic deaths of the four Americans recently aboard the sailing vessel Quest was yet another vivid reminder of how dangerous these 

waters have become and the need to find ways to bring the piracy 

under control and hopefully defeat it. 

We’re interested in your assessment of the overall counter-piracy 

efforts to date and what changes you think are necessary in our 

policies and approaches to better drive the pirates out of business? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Sure, thank you. The solution set for this problem—first I want to say, your characterization of the problem is exactly correct. It’s been growing and left unabated it will continue 

to grow. 

Senator HAGAN. How many ships are under hold right now, do 

you know? 

Mr. WECHSLER. I don’t know, but we can get you the answer to 

that, because it does change from time to time. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

As of today (April 12, 2011), 26 vessels are currently being held—25 of them for 

ransom—along with 542 crewmembers. 

Mr. WECHSLER. The solution will not be found on sea. The solution to this problem, as has almost always historically been the 

case for piracy, will take place on land. The area that the pirates 

cover would not effectively be patrolled by all of the ships of all of 

the navies of all of the countries of the world, it is that vast. It cannot be patrolled in this way. 

But that is not to say that there aren’t more things that can be 

done at sea. One of the clearest conclusions from the last couple of 

years about this is that the ships that abide by all of the best practices and then those who go beyond the best practices, they are the 

ones that are not successfully pirated. 

Indeed, one of the most controversial elements is the suggestion 

that many have made inside the United States that all these ships 

carry armed personnel on them to protect themselves against pirates. We see consistently that those with armed personnel on side, 

not military personnel but privately held armed personnel, do not 

get pirated. Then of course, if you combine that with other best 

practices, such as traveling fast, traveling high, traveling in bad 

weather, having citadels that can protect you and control the ship 

and have radio equipment, having barbed wire on the sides, if you 

follow these practices you are not taken has been our history. 

Senator HAGAN. What was the part about the bad weather? I’m 

sorry? 

Mr. WECHSLER. The pirates are in small ships that cannot sail 

in bad weather. So if you are in a large ship and can go in bad 

weather, you successfully avoid pirates. 

But there’s a whole series of these practices, and the vast majority of ships that are taken are not abiding by these practices. So 

that is the number one thing that we can do on the water. 

Senator HAGAN. Thank you. Senator Portman. 

Senator PORTMAN. Mr. Reid, I don’t want to get you in trouble, 

so I’m sure you’ll monitor yourself here. I just have to follow up on 

your Libya comment and the fact that we do have certain capabilities that other countries don’t have, including our NATO allies, as 

much as we appreciate them. Close air support was something I 

35 

asked about earlier. Forgetting the decision to engage, once we did 

engage it seems like our close air support, A–10s, AC–130s, our 

ability to, as you say, inflict damage in a way that makes our enemies concerned about taking us on, that was largely lost, as I understand it, when the command was shifted to NATO. Is that accurate? 

Mr. REID. I apologize, Senator. I’m not sure I understood the 

question. 

Senator PORTMAN. Well, my question is whether those unique capabilities that our Air Force has as compared to France and Britain 

and other NATO partners—it seems to me that was lost, that capability, when the command shifted. Is that accurate? 

Mr. REID. I apologize again, but I think I’m out of facts here for 

you. 

Senator PORTMAN. That’s fine. I don’t want to put you in a situation, I really don’t. But this is the concern that has been expressed 

by many of us, that once you engage in order to continue to make 

progress you have to continue to have that capability you talked 

about earlier, and it seems as though our NATO allies have not 

been able to make the same progress, and in fact there have been 

some reversals. Today I’m understanding once again there is some 

threat to some of the cities that the rebels previously had held. 

So anyway, I won’t push you on it except to say that that’s something that I think ought to be a subject for your group and others 

to look at. 

Can I ask you about your thoughts on how what’s going on, the 

upheaval, the Arab spring, from again the eastern Med all the way 

around North Africa and certainly the Arabian Peninsula, how 

that’s affected our fight against terrorism, specifically al Qaeda? 

Has it made it more difficult for us? Do you see any evidence of 

al Qaeda taking advantage of the situation? I guess specifically, in 

Libya, do you see al Qaeda taking advantage of the anti-Qadhafi 

efforts that are underway? 

Mr. REID. Thank you, Senator. I think it’s a great question and 

one that we have considered in many different fora. What’s most 

remarkable to me about the situation which you’re referring to is 

that al Qaeda has not found this to be a springboard to increased 

resonance. I think it was Denis McDonough that said this in a 

speech, that al Qaeda’s number two, Zawahiri, spent time in prison, exiled from his homeland, dedicated his entire life to changing 

the government in Egypt, and what he was incapable of doing the 

popular uprising did in a very unorganized manner in a period of 

weeks, less than a month. 

It’s a very powerful statement to consider, and what it points to 

is the inability of the al Qaeda narrative to resonate anywhere, including where we might have feared it would resonate the most, 

which is in Arab countries, and the facts don’t support that. Al 

Qaeda has not found the uprising in the Middle East or in Africa 

to be a springboard into anything and they are largely on the sidelines, which is good. 

Of course, with instability comes opportunity. As a special operator myself, I know that, and they know that as well and they certainly would like to try. You can see signs, and we can give you 

36 

details in a separate session, but you can see efforts they make, 

and we can pick up on this. But they’re largely ineffective. 

The Libya question can probably be more precisely scoped dealing with the free access to weaponry than is the case with Qadhafi’s losing control of certain weapons and material, and that has 

concerned us and there are some separate activities to deal with 

those as well. 

But throughout the region there is a great concern about this 

very question, and again none of these countries want an al Qaedadominated society or an al Qaeda-dominated government, and I 

think that’s what you see happening. 

Now again, as you mentioned, Senator, no one can predict from 

day to day, week to week, what’s happening with some of these 

places. But I think it’s fair to say thus far this has not created a 

wellspring of pro-al Qaeda sentiment in any of the locations, and 

in fact the opposite being the case, that the forces of democracy and 

self-determination are much more powerful in these places where 

this has played out. 

Senator PORTMAN. Yemen is a place where there’s a lot of concern right now, specifically concern about al Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula taking advantage of that unrest. But even there, you 

don’t see al Qaeda making gains? 

Mr. REID. Certainly in the remote areas they’ve had some tactical success, and I think you could attribute much of that to the 

diversion of military capabilities to Sana’a in the role of regime 

protection, which is certainly a cause of concern for us. It’s also reflective of the problems that we are trying to deal with in Yemen, 

which is extending the sufficiency and the mandate of the Sana’abased security forces in the provinces, the opposite direction. 

So as much as we have tried to work with the Yemeni armed 

forces to establish a greater foothold in the tribal regions, we were 

not to that point when this particular scenario developed. So I 

think you see some shifting back. But I predict they would be 

short-lived gains and when they get through this political crisis— 

and there will be some resolution at some point—we believe again 

that the will of the security forces and the will of the population 

of the Yemeni people is against a strong al Qaeda presence. 

They certainly have exploited the safe haven areas, the very remote regions, much similar in ways to what you see in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, they have never been fully controlled by a central government, and they certainly are opportunistic right now. But I believe that the security mechanism will get 

its feet back under it when we get through this political crisis that 

they’re going through right now. 

Senator PORTMAN. That was a positive assessment; I appreciate 

it. I hope that you’re right in terms of Yemen. 

In terms of Pakistan and Afghanistan, there has been very little 

positive news. Yet we do hear some rumors about rifts developing 

between the leadership in Pakistan, Taliban leadership particularly, and the fighters who are actually in the fight in Afghanistan. 

I don’t know if you can comment on this in the open record, but 

there is a report this morning, for instance, that 15 members of the 

Taliban, including an alleged provincial leader, defected to the AfVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
37 

ghan Government in the Kandahar Province. I don’t know if you’re 

aware of those reports or if you think they’re accurate or not. 

My bigger question would be, is this a trend? Do you see the possibility of more defections, and do you see that, again this rumored 

delinkage between some of the leadership between Pakistan and 

fighters on the ground? 

Mr. REID. I’d say two things about that. First of all, as we mentioned earlier, they are just now beginning to feel the full weight 

of the fully resourced counterinsurgency campaign that the President committed to last year as we brought our forces in over the 

winter and as we intensified our effort to expand the ANSF. The 

Taliban is really right now—here we are in April—feeling what the 

summer’s going to look like and it’s not going to be a pleasant summer. 

There will be violence in Afghanistan over the summer and there 

will be—— 

Senator PORTMAN. You don’t expect the normal resurgence that 

happens in the summer? 

Mr. REID. No, I do not, based on the resourcing and the forces 

there. I think the signals you’re seeing of reintegration, reconciliation movements within these populations of Taliban is exactly the 

effect that we intend to create, and we’ve opened up those opportunities. We’ve expanded the security forces, trying to bring people 

over to the other side. 

Recall too, the history of 2001. We didn’t defeat the Taliban in 

Afghanistan through total overwhelming firepower. We created a 

situation where those fighters realized that it was not productive 

to be on the losing side and they changed sides, and many of them 

fled across the border. Many of them stayed and took up the other 

side. So there is a reconcilable population that we know about. It’s 

clearly there, and we’re appealing to it and you’re starting to see 

these shifts. As the strategy plays out over the summer, I believe 

you’ll see more of that and we will be on track, as General 

Petraeus recently testified and Secretary Flournoy, with this transition process that we’re involved in right now. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you. 

My time’s expired, but I want to thank all three of you and I look 

forward to further conversations. 

Senator HAGAN. I might ask one or two questions, and also if you 

have any more Senator Portman. 

On the DRC, during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing regarding AFRICOM last week, General Ham indicated that 

his command has had limited success in working with the security 

forces in the DRC. He cited issues of vetting, human rights abuses, 

and the absence of a plan for sustained engagement. I would like 

to have any of you who would want to speak on this question have 

an opportunity to answer, as you all have unique areas and tools 

to engage in a place like the DRC. How could the United States 

build a strong and enduring engagement strategy in this country, 

or is it better not to engage in a country like the DRC because of 

corruption and other longstanding issues? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Madam Chair, you’re absolutely right. It’s a major 

challenge, both conceptually and practically. The armed forces of 

the DRC include a range of formerly warring rebel groups and disVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00041 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
38 

parate factions. Trying to integrate them and right-size that organization and subject it to legitimate command and control is a big 

challenge, and I underscore General Ham’s frustrations. He’s reflecting on behalf of AFRICOM that this has proved a challenge, 

both with respect to gaining full partnerships with the government, 

working effectively with other countries, including within the U.N. 

grouping that has certain security duties, especially in the east, 

and finding out what the best fit would be in terms of both funding 

and authorities to achieve a desirable effect. 

This is pushing a big boulder up a hill, quite frankly. DRC is a 

huge country, riven by violence since the mid-1990s. 

Senator HAGAN. So much of that directed against women. 

Dr. SCHEAR. Absolutely. This has been a very intense focus for 

our interagency colleagues writ large, and finding the best mix of 

training, understanding both the culture and the operational imperatives which gives rise to such awful violence is part of it, and 

then figuring out exactly what level of training could be delivered, 

imparted, if you will, to Congolese service personnel and their institutional overseers, is a huge challenge. 

I can’t offer you any panaceas or any solutions here, other than 

to say it’s a source of very active concern for us. 

Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid or Mr. Wechsler? 

Mr. REID. I would just add, and actually borrow off of Dr. 

Schear’s opening comments, because if it came to me and my office 

to deploy special operators to the Congo for a short-term engagement we would immediately start looking at authorities and resources, and that’s what we do. What I have is really confined into 

support to special operations and support to counterterrorism. 

What Jim talked about opening up here with the global contingency fund is a perfect example, as he just talked about, where this 

isn’t all just a Defense problem, we need multiple vectors of security assistance, reform applications to a DRC situation. To do that 

effectively, we need a flexible authority to work within and not 

something that’s boxed into a very tight requirement, that’s only 

good for that year of execution, and these other things. 

This is why we’re all jealous of Will here with the 1004 authority. It’s multi-year, you can do other things with it. We’d love to 

have something like that to deal with these kinds of problems. 

So, not making any excuse, we can do certain things on the margins anywhere in the world and, given the right factors, we can 

surge into anything. But we know—and I’ve been on many deployments into Africa—where we get in there and get it wrong, it’s not 

going to fix anything. 

It isn’t always led with special operators or it isn’t always led 

with military forces, but a really tight package of the right mix of 

interagency. I think that’s where we are with this other authority. 

Thank you. 

Mr. WECHSLER. I’d just add one thing. It’s a little outside my 

lane, but, given the other conversations that you’ve had; I was at 

the National Security Council working on peacekeeping operations 

when late President Kabila was marching down from Kisingani to 

take out the Mobutu regime. The Mobutu regime was one of the 

more brutal in the world at the time and we were very happy for 

that to go. 

39 

But at the same time, what happened since wasn’t a period of 

happiness for the people in that area. As we encounter these volatile regions of the world, we always need to remember that just 

getting rid of somebody bad isn’t the end of the story, and we have 

to make sure that we, as Secretary Reid was talking about, understand who we’re dealing with on the other side and what the next 

steps are before we take action. 

Senator HAGAN. I want to follow up on the pooled fund initiative 

and have a couple of questions on that. Are you confident—this is 

for whomever again wants to answer this. Are you confident that 

DOS is committed to making this initiative work jointly? Do you 

have any concerns that the joint arrangement would be too unwieldy? Are there benefits to having a joint arrangement that offset 

the procedural challenges of implementing this program jointly? 

Then do you have any concern that this initiative is too much of 

a militarization of foreign policy? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Madam Chair, by way of a quick set of responses, 

we think the pooled initiative actually is a good blending of the two 

Departments’ equities. It reflects the DOS’s overall leading role in 

the provision of foreign assistance, but it would be well lashed up 

with DOD’s special concerns about security and defense policy, especially in volatile transnational threat-riven areas. So we think it 

would be a good balance. 

We think this proposal would help us in a very agile fashion respond to emergent challenges within a budget year of execution. 

We are not proposing to expand the amount of resources going into 

countries that are already claiming very large amounts of U.S. foreign assistance, but it would help us navigate between and among 

funding streams in an agile way. 

We think, further, it would incentivize interagency cooperation. 

If we have a joint team working together in a top-down fashion, we 

wouldn’t be just depending on nominations coming up the chain 

and taking a fair amount of time to work themselves out. We would 

reflect the top-level priorities, but we would seek the advice and 

the input of the field both at the embassy country team and at the 

combatant commands. 

So it wouldn’t just be the 3,000-mile screwdriver. We would be 

looking for input. But we think that, because both secretaries and 

their leadership teams are committed, that we have a good chance. 

We absolutely believe the DOS is strongly behind this. It will be 

a work in progress. We’ll have to give you updates, if we’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity to start this pilot, to work 

with Members of Congress on an energetic engagement so we can 

consult with you and get feedback. 

But generally speaking, I think we would view this as a very 

good opportunity to show how we can work collegially with another 

very important department. 

Thank you. 

Senator HAGAN. I had one other question and then I’ll turn it 

over to Senator Portman. That is, you mentioned, Dr. Schear, about 

the humanitarian aid to Haiti during the earthquake and then obviously Japan. What is going on in Haiti right now? How involved 

are we? 

40 

Dr. SCHEAR. SOUTHCOM continues to have a coordination cell 

there resident. Very keenly aware that Haiti, with its large displaced population still living essentially in tent cities in and around 

Port au Prince, is very vulnerable. 

Senator HAGAN. I did have an opportunity to go there recently. 

Dr. SCHEAR. So you’ve seen. 

Senator HAGAN. About 800,000 people in these tent cities. 

Dr. SCHEAR. Yes. 

Senator HAGAN. It was an incredible sight to see. 

Dr. SCHEAR. Tragically, we’d have to say that more than a year 

after the earthquake Haiti is getting back to abnormal. This is not 

a situation which would enable that country to withstand another 

major hurricane hit. We were very fortunate in the last season that 

we didn’t have such a direct hit. But we’re very concerned about 

it. 

Our USAID colleagues continue to be engaged. We nudge them 

along occasionally on specific areas. But the key issue is government rebuilding, and this is an internal challenge for the Haitians. 

The tragedy was that the Government of Haiti took a huge hit with 

that earthquake, and getting them back in the wake of an election 

finally, with a result that we hope will lend itself to further development, would get that country back on its feet. 

I continue to be impressed, as I suspect you were too, by the ingenuity and creativity of individual Haitians. It’s just remarkable 

how well they can cope. But as a society and certainly as a government, they’ve had big challenges. So we remain attentive to their 

needs and are watching very carefully to ensure that we can react 

in an expeditious way if there’s a further natural disaster. 

Senator HAGAN. Senator Portman. 

Senator PORTMAN. I promise this will be my last round and we’ll 

let you guys go. 

On this idea of the global security contingency fund, it’s certainly 

something we might be willing to take a look at. As I said at the 

outset, we are working today within very different budget constraints even than a few years ago. The deficit is 10 times bigger 

than it was 4 years ago, if you think about that, and we must adjust accordingly. So it’s our ability to project force and it’s our ability to play an active role even where we’re not directly involved as 

a military, but where the DOS, USAID, and others are involved. 

So as you’re talking about this contingency fund I assume you’re 

talking about taking funds out of other areas, both DOD and DOS. 

Of course, DOS would say that DOD has all the money, which I 

used to hear at the Office of Management and Budget quite a bit. 

But what is your proposal there, Dr. Schear? Where do the funds 

come from? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Under the terms of the proposal that we’re putting 

forward, we would be requesting $50 million in actually DOS appropriation and transfer authority for both Departments to transfer 

up to an additional $450 million to cover urgent needs. Now, given your background, you well know that $450 million 

would be a very large lift indeed, certainly for State, and I will say 

also for DOD in the current budget climate. This is not a proposal 

which is designed to spend a lot of money. We are not going to try 

and spend up to any given threshold. It’s just to meet emergent reVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
41 

quirements in a way that we think could actually promote cost efficiencies. If we can transfer money across funding streams in a way 

that better targets a specific potential need, we don’t have to come 

for niche authorities in special cases or to otherwise find less optimal ways to fund something. 

But we will be looking hard within our own Defense-wide funding for available resources as and when emergent needs come up. 

This is clearly something on our radar. Our Secretary, our Comptroller and policy offices are all scrutinizing this very carefully. 

Senator PORTMAN. I’m sure they are, given the Secretary’s commitment to finding additional savings in the area of tens of billions 

of dollars. This is less than that, but it’s also—if you want a little 

unsolicited advice, that’s going to be worth what you pay for it, it 

has to be, because there are efficiencies specifically that DOS and 

DOD are now expending funds that would not have to be spent because of the ability to coordinate better and to be more preventive 

perhaps and more involved in, as the Secretary talks about, soft 

power from the DOD perspective. 

So we’ll be eager to see the request, but also the analysis as to 

what its impact would be on the budgets going forward. 

Quickly with regard to Mexico, obviously a huge concern here in 

this country, as it should be. I think—Mr. Wechsler, about 35,000 

people or so have now died just in the Calderon administration 

time period, and the brutality of the cartels is breathtaking. 

My question is, what is your assessment? I think I heard ear- lier—Dr. Schear, did you say we are spending $50 million a year, 

or Mr. Wechsler? How much are we spending? Is that the actual 

total amount of our expenditures, including some of the funding 

that’s going through other channels than the DOS? Is it working, 

and what are we doing that’s effective and what should we be 

doing that we’re not doing? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Any discussion of Mexico has to begin, Senator, 

with an acknowledgment of the real strength and commitment of 

the Calderon administration in taking on this fight and taking the 

fight to the TCOs in a way that hadn’t been done previously. There 

are elements of the fight that they’ve been doing that have been 

quite successful and there are elements of their fight that have 

been less successful, as President Calderon himself says quite 

clearly. 

The U.S. Government writ large effort has been under the 

Merida Initiative, designed at the end of the Bush administration 

to do a 3-year DOS-led, $1.3 billion program for Mexican support. 

I should note that it differs in one important respect from Plan Colombia, that in Plan Colombia it was a fully whole-of-government 

integrated plan, including DOD as a support organization. This 

was not the case with Merida. So our efforts that we are doing, 

which was the $50 million that I was referring to, are being designed to complement these efforts that are DOS-led. 

Everything that DOD does, which is not in any way the lead for 

the U.S. Government, nor should it be, is done at the request of 

the Mexican Government. That’s important to stress. We do absolutely nothing that is not at the request of the Mexican Government. A great deal of the work that we do are supporting civilian 

agencies as well as military organizations. 

42 

Senator PORTMAN. On the funding for a second, adding these 

numbers together, it looks like we’re talking roughly $500 million 

when you add the DOD 50 plus roughly a third of the 1.3. Is that 

roughly what we’re spending annually during this time period of 

the Merida commitment? 

Mr. WECHSLER. There is a commitment—to be very blunt about 

it, the first 2 years of the Merida commitment, DOS was unable 

to expend the money during those years at a high enough level. So 

this year the President has, and the Secretary of State, have committed to delivering $500 million of DOS Merida funds in this calendar year, which will be a wonderfully helpful thing for the Mexicans. 

At the same time, what we have done in these efficiencies efforts 

that you describe is try to scrub as much of our CN accounts and 

to close down programs that are not unsuccessful, but are just less 

high on the priority list, in order to shift money towards Mexico, 

and doing that in this year and going forward across the Future 

Years Defense Program. Indeed, when I took on this job one of my 

very first meetings was to have a budget meeting, and I decided 

that we were only spending $3 million out of our budget on Mexico 

and that the U.S. Government as a whole was spending very little 

on the area of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala and 

Belize, which is a really—— 

Senator PORTMAN. Northern triangle. 

Mr. WECHSLER. Exactly. So we put forward a proposal to increase the amount of money, and Congress thus far has approved 

it, to increase the amount of money that we were spending in that 

area, because that seemed to be an underresourced area. 

Senator PORTMAN. By the way, in that area apparently incredible 

violence. One of your commanders recently said that outside of a 

war zone it was the most dangerous place he can imagine. 

Is that all about traffickers fighting for position coming up from 

further in the south? Or what is it about the northern triangle area 

that has become so dangerous? 

Mr. WECHSLER. It’s a lack of full government control. 

Senator PORTMAN. This would be parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Southern Mexico, I take it? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Exactly. It is in part a problem of those countries 

themselves and their security control over there. But what they are 

also being affected by is the Mexican TCOs that are moving south. 

The Zetas, which are the most violent of and have really moved the 

overall level of violence to a great degree, abetted by the other 

TCOs in Mexico, they have moved south into Guatemala and are 

contributing to the spike in violence that we see there as well. 

In part they’re doing that as a result of the success that President Calderon has had, but in part it’s also just moving to get 

greater control over different legs in the value-added change from 

the farmer to our streets in America. 

Senator PORTMAN. How about Panama? Where does Panama fit 

in this? We also are working on a trade-opening agreement with 

Panama, and it has been a great partner on security and I understand they have a good cooperative arrangement with us at every 

level, including DOD. 

43 

Mr. WECHSLER. They do indeed, although it needs to be said that 

they’re not—they have challenges themselves, challenges that we 

need to work with them on. But there is a great level of cooperation 

to work on those challenges, particularly in individual areas. 

Senator PORTMAN. Can I get you on the record on that tradeopening agreement also? Would that help by establishing a better 

commercial relationship with Panama to strengthen their hand in 

dealing with narcotraffickers and others who might use that as a 

financial haven? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Anything that would help, that would encourage, 

as this would, to encourage the Panamanians to make further improvements on their anti-money-laundering regime and their ability to go after the money, which is one of the predominant challenges that exists in that country. 

Senator PORTMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, and Mr. Wechsler, thank 

you so much for your testimony today, your preparation, the job 

that you’re doing. I know that these are very difficult times for so 

many places around the world and I really do appreciate what 

you’re doing. 

I do want to say that we’re going to keep the record open for any 

colleagues that may have questions for the record, until the close 

of business day on Friday. Also, we will be having a closed session 

and staff will coordinate that schedule with you. 

With that, this subcommittee meeting is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR KAY R. HAGAN

DOD POLICY ON BUILDING PARTNER CAPACITY

1. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, and Mr. Wechsler, a number of the 

emerging, transnational threats the United States now faces are rooted in states 

with weak governments or under-governed spaces, such as Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere, whose governments lack sufficient capacity to exercise governance and provide security throughout their territory. While security assistance has 

traditionally been a Department of State (DOS) function through such programs as 

Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and the International Military Education and 

Training (IMET) program, in the last several years the Department of Defense 

(DOD) has sought, and Congress has provided, a number of new authorities for 

building our partners’ capacities to meet threats within their territories. Given the 

nature of the extremist threats emerging in a number of weak states, how important in your view are efforts to build the capacities of partner nations to provide 

security and conduct counterterrorism and stabilization operations? 

Mr. REID, Dr. SCHEAR, and Mr. WECHSLER. In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States’ safety and security are likely to emanate from 

states that cannot adequately govern themselves or secure their own territory. Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time. The United States recognizes that the security sectors of at-risk 

countries are really systems of systems tying together the military, the police, the 

justice system, and other governance and oversight mechanisms. As such, building 

a partner’s overall governance and security capacity is a shared responsibility across 

multiple agencies and departments of the U.S. Government, including DOD—and 

one that requires flexible, responsive tools that provide incentives for cooperation. 

In particular, section 1206 train and equip authority, and sections 1004, 1033, and 

other DOD counternarcotics authorities continue to be critical tools to meet DOD’s 

building partner capacity needs. 

In fiscal year 2012, the administration is seeking a new authority called the Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) to respond more effectively to emergent challenges and opportunities such as these. The GSCF would allow DOD and DOS to 

provide assistance to security forces as well as rule of law, judicial sector, and stabilization assistance when civilians are challenged by a lack of security, and where 

44 

the provision of assistance can help prevent instability, or advance regional security. 

Programs under this fund would be jointly formulated by the DOS and DOD and 

would require approval by both Departments prior to implementation. Through the 

GSCF, we aim to combine the strengths of both Departments, and to call upon the 

expertise of the U.S. Agency for International Development and other departments 

and agencies to devise the most effective assistance programs possible to meet a 

particular strategic need. 

2. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Shear, and Mr. Wechsler, do you believe that 

building the capacity of foreign security forces is a core function of DOD? 

Mr. REID, Dr. SCHEAR, and Mr. WECHSLER. Yes. Arguably the most important 

military component in overseas operations is not the fighting we do ourselves, but 

how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern themselves. 

The standing up and mentoring of indigenous army and police—once the province 

of Special Operations Forces (SOF)—is now a key mission for the military as a 

whole. As the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) concluded, the United 

States is likely to face future scenarios requiring a similar tool kit of capabilities 

as that being implemented in current operations, albeit on a smaller scale. In these 

situations, the effectiveness and credibility of the United States will only be as good 

as the effectiveness, credibility, and sustainability of its local partners. This strategic reality demands that the U.S. Government get better at building partner capacity—helping other countries defend themselves or, if necessary, fight alongside 

U.S. forces by providing partner forces with equipment, training, or other forms of 

support. 

The President and Secretary of Defense have directed Combatant Commanders to 

address security challenges in their regions, and DOD assigns to them responsibilities that require building partner capacity. Such efforts also can generate substantial dividends for U.S. security outside major warfighting venues. In Colombia, for 

example, a robust U.S. capacity-building effort, backed by bipartisan congressional 

support, has weakened antigovernment insurgents, helped free captive Americans, 

and promoted stability in our own hemisphere. In turn, Colombia is partnering with 

the United States to provide training to other countries; with cultural advantages 

they are also effective at capacity building. 

Improving how the United States builds partner capacity is an essential national 

security requirement that will endure for the foreseeable future. This is a cost-effective effort that requires focused, efficient, predictable funding and adequate authorities to provide the right training and equipment at the right time to the right partner nation’s forces. When DOD applies its resources to build partner capacity in a 

manner that complements the efforts of the State Department and other interagency counterparts, experience has demonstrated that this is a valuable return on 

investment for the American taxpayer and a worthwhile mission for DOD. Given the 

importance of this issue to the United States and its partners and allies, the solution requires a whole-of-government approach. 

3. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, and Mr. Wechsler, what should be the 

respective roles of DOD and DOS in building partner capacities? 

Mr. REID, Dr. SCHEAR, and Mr. WECHSLER. One of the most important lessons of 

the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win: 

economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal 

reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and 

equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and 

more—these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success. 

For this reason, building a partner’s overall governance and security capacity is a 

shared responsibility across multiple agencies and departments of the U.S. national 

security apparatus—and one that requires flexible, responsive tools that provide incentives for cooperation. Our execution of and any government decision regarding 

building partner capacity should reinforce DOS’s leading role in crafting and conducting U.S. foreign policy, including the provision of foreign assistance, of which 

building security capacity is a key part. Proper coordination procedures ensure that 

urgent requirements for military capacity building do not undermine the United 

States’ overarching foreign policy priorities. 

That said, DOD brings important expertise and capability for building partner capacity, such as building up the operational capacity of partner nations by training 

and equipping troops and mentoring them in the field, building the institutional capacity of ministries of defense, and providing military-unique support for counternarcotics. 

Consistent with DOD and DOS’s shared responsibility to build partner capacity, 

for fiscal year 2012, DOD and DOS propose to create a GSCF that would provide 

45 

security and rule of law assistance when civilians are challenged by a lack of security, and where the provision of such assistance could help prevent instability, or 

advance regional security. The GSCF would create a more robust capability to respond to crises, emergent challenges, and new opportunities across a range of assistance types to a range of entities in the security sector. This proposal also would 

pilot a new business model for addressing security challenges by incentivizing collaboration and multiplying the effectiveness of U.S. Government security sector capabilities. Programs under this fund would be jointly formulated by DOS and DOD 

and would require approval by both departments prior to implementation. 

4. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, and Mr. Wechsler, in your view, are 

there areas where DOD has an advantage over DOS in delivering capacity-building 

assistance? 

Mr. REID, Dr. SCHEAR, and Mr. WECHSLER. We should continue to reinforce DOS’s 

lead role in crafting and conducting U.S. foreign policy, including foreign assistance, 

of which building security capacity is a key part. Proper coordination and concurrence procedures ensure that urgent security capacity building requirements do not 

undermine the United States’ overarching foreign policy priorities. 

That said, DOD has an advantage over DOS in providing certain capacity-building 

assistance, such as building the operational capacity of partner nations by training 

and equipping troops and mentoring them in the field, building the institutional capacity of ministries of defense, and providing military-unique support for counternarcotics. DOD should take a lead role, subject to the procedures noted above, in 

building partner security capacity in areas such as disrupting and defeating 

transnational threats, supporting self-defense, and contributing to coalition operations, although DOD should continue to draw upon DOS and other departments 

and agencies’ expertise to support and synchronize such building partner capacity 

efforts. 

The DOD–DOS fiscal year 2012 proposal to create a GSCF could help both departments, with the input of all relevant U.S. departments and agencies, develop innovative, effective assistance programs to provide assistance across multiple security 

sectors and implement such programs by leveraging the expertise of relevant U.S. 

departments and agencies. 

5. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, Dr. Schear, and Mr. Wechsler, are there areas where 

DOS should take the lead with DOD in support? 

Mr. REID, Dr. SCHEAR, and Mr. WECHSLER. Our execution of, and any government 

decision regarding, building partner capacity should reinforce the DOS’s leading role 

in crafting and conducting U.S. foreign policy, including the provision of foreign assistance, of which building security capacity is a key part. Proper coordination procedures ensure that urgent requirements for military capacity building do not undermine the United States’ overarching foreign policy priorities. 

DOS should continue to lead in efforts to build partner capacity in a number of 

areas, such as improving governance, bolstering development, strengthening legitimate and effective public safety and justice, and promoting universal values, although DOS should continue to draw upon DOD and other departments and agencies’ expertise to support and synchronize such building partner capacity efforts. 

We also need to move beyond the old debates about what is in DOD’s ‘‘lane,’’ what 

is in DOS’s ‘‘lane,’’ and so on. Instead, we should focus on the mission as a whole 

and how the U.S. Government can best achieve our national objectives—how we can 

most effectively leverage existing capabilities, resources, and expertise to achieve 

those objectives, while simultaneously seeking new and more effective ways to build 

partner capacity in the longer term. 

Again, the DOD-DOS proposal to create a GSCF in fiscal year 2012 would provide 

the two departments with the flexibility to leverage the expertise of DOS, DOD, or 

any other U.S. department or agency to provide a certain type of assistance. 

SECTION 1206 TRAIN-AND-EQUIP PROGRAM

6. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, in response to DOD’s request for additional authority 

to respond to urgent and emerging security threats from ungoverned spaces, Congress established in 2006 the section 1206 train-and-equip program as a pilot program. The 1206 program currently allows the Secretary of Defense, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, to spend up to $350 million per year to build the 

capacity of partner nations’ military forces to conduct counterterrorism operations 

or to conduct stability operations in conjunction with U.S. forces. What is your asVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
46 

sessment of the section 1206 dual-key process requiring joint DOS and DOD approval of programs? 

Mr. REID. Program development and collaboration in the field between the Chief 

of Mission and the combatant commander is the first step in a rigorous inter-departmental process to target our section 1206 assistance toward appropriate military 

units within a country. This collaboration is continued between DOD and DOS in 

Washington. We have established a process where each regional and functional office in DOS and DOD prioritizes projects according to that office’s expertise. This 

‘‘wisdom of crowds’’ approach ensures the highest priority proposals rise to the top, 

while giving both sides a veto if particular projects run counter to particular mission 

objectives. 

We believe the dual-key process makes section 1206 programs stronger and more 

effective and has yielded significant dividends in the form of high-quality programs. 

7. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, how well is that DOD–DOS coordination working? 

Mr. REID. We believe the dual-key process makes section 1206 programs stronger 

and more effective, and has yielded significant dividends in the form of high-quality 

programs. The process is not without occasional friction, but the vast majority of 

section 1206 programs are formulated and approved without contention. 

8. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, is this a model for other security assistance programs in your view? 

Mr. REID. Yes. Section 1206 has proven to be an effective authority for conducting 

security cooperation in response to a changed security environment in the wake of 

September 11. The dual-key concurrence mechanism is a particularly important feature of section 1206 that drives deliberate coordination between departments in the 

executive branch, optimizing the value of our assistance programs to foreign partners. The lessons we’ve learned through our experience in developing, vetting, and 

implementing section 1206 programs help us as we look for ways to improve our 

support to partners in combating terrorism and contributing to multinational stability operations efforts. These lessons are also relevant as the administration looks 

to develop new security sector assistance tools to address emerging problems that 

bear on U.S. security, such as the GSCF. Although the GSCF differs from section 

1206 in its top-down driven project nomination and broad focus on security sector 

issues writ large, it builds on the fundamental principle of joint formulation and 

concurrence reflected in section 1206. 

9. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, some foreign policy experts have criticized the DOD 

section 1206 train-and-equip program as duplicating existing DOS security assistance authorities such as FMF and contributing to a militarization of U.S. foreign 

policy. How do you respond to the criticism that DOD’s section 1206 authority duplicates traditional DOS authorities like the FMF program? 

Mr. REID. The FMF program is a critical tool for executing our foreign policy; it 

is key to improving bilateral relationships, encouraging behavior in the U.S. interest, increasing access and influence, and building capacity where host-nation and 

U.S. interests align. Because many countries rely on FMF as a major resource for 

their military procurement budgets, the allocation of these resources is affected by 

host-nation preferences and political engagement. Secretary Gates has argued consistently for increased funding for Title 22 programs—including FMF—because our 

diplomats need additional resources to advance U.S. interests. Such funding, however, does not address all the combatant commanders’ need for tools to build capable, reliable, and interoperable partners as they prepare for—and seek to minimize 

the necessity for—high priority missions in their areas of responsibility (AORs). 

On the other hand, we use the section 1206 authority as a responsive and agile 

tool to meet urgent and emergent threats and opportunities to build tangible partner capacity. It is not viewed as a political tool to satisfy the desires of foreign governments, but rather as a strategic way to address critical counterterrorism needs 

as identified by the U.S. Government inside current budget cycles. There has been 

no attempt to ensure that all regions are provided assistance under this authority— 

or that all elements of a foreign military are provided with equipment. To the contrary, section 1206 programs are targeted at countries—and particular military 

units within countries-where focused training and equipment will have the most significant impact in achieving the objectives of the section 1206 authority. Building 

partner capacity meets a vital and enduring military requirement and we have been 

careful to avoid using section 1206 as a tool of international politics precisely because military rather than political needs define the appropriateness of funding particular activities. 

47 

10. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, what safeguards are built into the 1206 program 

to prevent such duplication? 

Mr. REID. Each program proposal is jointly formulated by DOD and DOS representatives in the field, and the submissions must describe why the identified requirement should not be addressed using traditional security assistance tools. Upon 

receipt of the proposals, they are reviewed and evaluated by regional and functional 

offices across both Departments; a critical part of that evaluation is a determination 

of whether the use of other tools—such as FMF, counternarcotics, or cooperative 

threat reduction authorities—are more appropriate for a particular requirement. 

This ‘‘wisdom of crowds’’ approach ensures the highest priority proposals rise to 

the top, while giving both sides a veto if particular projects run counter to particular 

mission objectives. The process culminates with the approval by the Secretary of Defense and the concurrence of the Secretary of State. 

11. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, the 1206 program was designed to provide a more 

flexible means to respond to emerging threats that may not have been anticipated 

as part of the budget preparation cycle. Yet, our ability to deliver equipment still 

lags behind, often taking 12 to 18 months after a 1206 assistance program is proposed, vetted, and approved. How successful has the 1206 program been in delivering equipment and training in response to emerging threats in a timelier manner 

than traditional security assistance under FMF? 

Mr. REID. The flexibility of the section 1206 authority comes from the speed and 

agility of its decisionmaking cycle. Each and every section 1206 program is identified, vetted, and executed in a single fiscal year. Put more simply, the authority allows the U.S. Government to act in months rather than years. 

In addition, we are always looking for ways to improve delivery timelines. Based 

on lessons learned from previous years, and best practices established though the 

provision of equipment under other DOD authorities, we notified Congress earlier 

this year of our intent to use $12 million in fiscal year 2011 section 1206 funding 

to ensure section 1206 equipment is delivered as quickly as possible. Specifically, 

these funds will be used in section 1206 programs to provide pre-shipment consolidation and premium transportation services in order to help expedite the provision 

of section 1206 equipment to recipient units. 

12. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, what remains the main impediment under the 1206 

program to delivering equipment when it is needed? 

Mr. REID. Meeting urgent and emerging requirements within the existing contracting system and on the acquisition timelines of the defense industrial base can 

be challenging. We continue to work with our partners in the acquisition and contract community to find ways to expedite the provision of section 1206 equipment. 

We are working to increase the speed, agility, and responsiveness of the FMS system. One such initiative is to recapitalize the Special Defense Acquisition Fund 

(SDAF) to reduce the amount of time that partner countries have to wait to receive 

urgently needed defense articles. Initially authorized in 1981, the fund provides the 

DOD with a means to procure defense articles in anticipation of their future transfer to foreign countries and international organizations. The DOD will use the fund 

to purchase items that have long procurement lead-times and will likely be needed 

by partner countries during future contingencies. The SDAF will allow the U.S. Government to deliver the urgently needed items in less time than would otherwise be 

possible. In addition, the fund will help to maintain the readiness of U.S. forces 

since it will reduce the need to divert critical assets from U.S. service inventories 

to fulfill urgent foreign requirements. The administration is requesting obligation 

authorization from Congress to recapitalize the fund beginning in fiscal year 2012. 

13. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, one criticism of the section 1206 train-and-equip 

program is that assistance is provided to address emerging threats without sufficient assurances that the program will be sustained over time. Because the vast majority of 1206 programs are with lower income countries, sustainment of these programs may have to be incorporated into FMF funding plans for subsequent years. 

How do you address concerns over the sustainment of 1206 programs if the recipient 

country lacks the resources to sustain the programs on its own? 

Mr. REID. We have articulated a clear approach to sustainment in the past: Section 1206 authority could be used to begin critical programs, after which we would 

work with host nations to identify national funds or, failing that, include 

sustainment requirements in FMF requests. Our annual guidance, issued jointly by 

DOD and DOS to our combatant commands and embassies, stipulates that Security 

Assistance Officers and the U.S. Embassy Country Teams identify the appropriate 

approach for sustainment in each country. We have at times reduced proposed proVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
48 

grams when the size of the request would be difficult for the host nation to sustain. 

We also seek to mitigate risk-of-sustainment problems by including in section 1206 

programs 2-year spare parts packages and training to operate and sustain equipment, including train-the-trainer support. This approach supports effective nearterm use of the equipment and also helps minimize out-year costs. For longer-term 

funding, this approach relies either on the host nation to commit funds or on Congress appropriating the administration’s FMF funding requests. 

14. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, once a 1206 program has provided equipment or 

training in response to an emerging threat, when should that security assistance be 

handed off to more traditional security assistance programs like FMF? 

Mr. REID. We have articulated a clear approach to sustainment in the past: Section 1206 authority could be used to begin critical programs, after which we would 

work with host nations to identify national funds or, failing that, include 

sustainment requirements in FMF requests. Our annual guidance, issued jointly by 

DOD and DOS to our combatant commands and embassies, stipulates that Security 

Assistance Officers and the U.S. Embassy Country Teams identify the appropriate 

approach for sustainment in each country. We have at times reduced proposed programs when the size of the request would be difficult for the host nation to sustain. 

We also seek to mitigate risk-of-sustainment problems by including in section 1206 

programs 2-year spare parts packages and training to operate and sustain equipment, including train-the-trainer support. This approach supports effective nearterm use of the equipment and also helps minimize out-year costs. For longer-term 

funding, this approach relies either on the host nation to commit funds or on Congress appropriating the administration’s full FMF funding request. 

15. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, what criteria do you use to determine when a program should graduate out of the section 1206 program? 

Mr. REID. We use section 1206 authority to begin critical programs, after which 

time we work with host nations to identify national funds or, failing that, include 

sustainment requirements in FMF requests. This means we usually do not provide 

section 1206 to build a specific capacity for more than 3 years. Such a window of 

time allows us to work with host nations to identify national funds or, failing that, 

include sustainment requirements in FMF requests. Although the urgency of a particular threat may alter this calculus, we understand the view of Congress—and this 

committee in particular—is that section 1206 is not a substitute for traditional security assistance authorities such as FMF. 

16. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, has DOD developed plans for monitoring the outcomes of these projects, as recommended by a 2010 Government Accountability Office study? 

Mr. REID. Yes. As more section 1206 programs reach maturity, DOD is initiating 

a more formal assessment effort. Such an effort will be built on information collected in the program proposal process, which includes baseline information, expected program milestones, and quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure the 

program’s effectiveness. As a first step in assessing section 1206 programs, DOD 

contracted for the RAND Corporation to identify key stakeholders, their roles, and 

sources of data in support of a comprehensive assessment of the programs. Part of 

this step involves determining DOD’s capacity to implement an integrated assessment framework developed by RAND’s National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) 

in 2009. This integrated framework includes preparatory elements, such as developing assessment guidance, designing processes, and providing training, as well as 

the actual conduct of assessments and the analysis of their results. The capacity to 

implement such a framework includes, for example, stakeholders at every level of 

a program who have access to data that would support assessments, guidance to establish processes and to govern the conduct of assessments, and the assessment 

skills possessed by personnel within the stakeholder organizations. Determining this 

capacity will enable the development of a framework to assess specific programmatic 

efforts within the section 1206. This study is near completion, and its conclusions 

will provide a foundation for a more comprehensive assessment of individual programs from across different fiscal years that DOD intends to begin in late fiscal 

year 2011. 

PERSONNEL SUPPORT TO UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS

17. Senator HAGAN. Dr. Schear, today, the United States has military officers 

serving within the United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Liberia, 

49 

and a few other peacekeeping missions. Many of our partners in NATO also have 

officers deployed in support of these missions. Can you discuss the pros and cons 

of these personnel contributions? 

Dr. SCHEAR. The primary benefit of current U.S. military contributions is the ability to improve the operational effectiveness and management of their missions by 

filling key staff positions, and the resulting insight into the mission that U.S. military participation provides for U.S. Government policymakers. When evaluating 

whether or not to provide staff officers to a U.N. peacekeeping operation, the primary criteria include whether the country involved is a U.S. Government policy priority, and whether the position to be filled can affect the operational effectiveness 

and management of the mission. 

The challenge to U.S. participation is the potential strain on high demand/low 

density skill sets required for staff officers (i.e., intelligence, logistics, civil affairs 

(CA), et cetera) and ensuring adequate force protection for military personnel. The 

use of both Active Duty and Reserve component personnel helps to alleviate the 

strain on specific skill sets while providing a broader pool of candidates. The Department ensures that adequate force-protection (secure housing, availability of 

sidearms, etc.) and appropriate legal (Status of Forces Agreements or comparable 

legal safeguards) measures are in place to protect U.S. military personnel assigned 

to U.N. missions. 

18. Senator HAGAN. Dr. Schear, what would be the pros and cons of the United 

States providing additional contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions? 

Dr. SCHEAR. Providing additional contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions 

would provide a number of benefits. 

• Increased U.S. contributions would provide additional expertise and capabilities in support of U.N. peacekeeping missions, help ensure the success 

of the mission, and support stability in the affected country or region. For 

those missions of particular interest to the United States, successful peacekeeping operations reduce the risk of costlier U.S. involvement in the event 

of renewed or continued conflict. 

• Increased U.S. contributions would also send a political message both to 

host nations and U.N. member states that the United States values and 

supports international peacekeeping. With respect to the specific peacekeeping mission, the increased contributions would indicate that the United 

States views that mission as a priority. 

• Increased U.S. contributions could also encourage other nations to contribute (or increase their contributions) to peacekeeping operations. 

Any decision to increase U.S. contributions—specifically in terms of U.S. military 

personnel—must take into account, however, the impact on the force. The U.S. military is stretched thin from extensive deployments over the past decade. U.S. military personnel need time off from multiple deployments, and the demand for some 

skill sets typically exceeds the available capacity. The provision of large numbers 

of U.S. personnel will be unfeasible in the near future in light of the existing operational demands. However, the United States can continue to place U.S. officers in 

key staff positions that can help improve the performance of the mission, and can 

look to opportunities where U.S. forces can contribute to the success of peacekeeping 

missions in other ways (such as U.S. support for MINUSTAH in the wake of the 

Haiti earthquake). 

19. Senator HAGAN. Dr. Schear, what would be the pros and cons of personnel 

contributions to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo? 

Dr. SCHEAR. The United States has two military personnel deployed to the U.N. 

Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), one deployed to Kinshasa, and one deployed to Goma. Both are military intelligence officers serving in the mission G2 (information) division. These two officers are filling 

a critical demand, for which U.S. assistance was specifically requested. The most 

significant benefit of these officers’ presence is their positive impact on the way the 

mission collects, organizes, and analyzes information, and their ability to draw on 

analytical support from AFRICOM as appropriate. Improving the mission’s information capabilities supports the mission’s operational and strategic planning, particularly regarding MONUSCO efforts to counter the Lord’s Resistance Army. 

Increasing the U.S. military contributions to MONUSCO could improve the mission’s operational capacity and would be in line with U.S. Government policy priorities in the region. The MONUSCO military staff currently has a full complement 

of officers, but DOD would consider positions that come available (when countries 

50 

decide that they will no longer fill certain positions) in areas such as planning, operations, logistics, CA and military justice. 

The challenge to U.S. participation is the potential strain on high demand/low 

density skill sets required for staff officers (i.e., intelligence, logistics, CA, et cetera), 

and ensuring adequate force protection for military personnel. Additionally, certain 

positions in this mission require French language capability, which limits the number of potential candidates within the U.S. military. The MONUSCO area of responsibility is a particularly challenging environment for force protection given the periodic attacks on MONUSCO troops, and sensitivities regarding the carrying of sidearms (sidearms are not allowed in many areas in Kinshasa and Goma). However, 

MONUSCO has implemented thorough security procedures to ensure the safety of 

its officers, and DOD reviews the specific security concerns at each duty location to 

ensure appropriate force-protection measures are in place. 

INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT FOR INDIRECT ACTIVITIES

20. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, some observers contend that the national intelligence agencies focus their assistance on SOFs in Afghanistan engaged in direct action, or kill/capture operations, against terrorists and insurgents. As a consequence, 

it is alleged, general purpose forces and SOFs engaged in indirect activities including foreign internal defense and population protection, like village stability operations, receive less intelligence support. Do you believe the Intelligence Community 

(IC) is adequately focused on supporting both direct and indirect lines of operation 

in Afghanistan and elsewhere? 

Mr. REID. Yes. Over the last several years, the Department has worked to drastically increase intelligence support to warfighters across the board. In response to 

combat commanders’ requests for greater numbers of data-collecting systems, the 

Department created the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task 

Force to rapidly field ISR platforms. Through such efforts, the Department has expanded Predator/Reaper orbits and upgraded the capabilities of our airborne ISR 

systems, making a dramatic impact on the battlefield. Over the past year, the IC 

has also provided significant support to the surge of troops to Afghanistan through 

Attack the IED Network (AtN) capabilities, addressing the leading cause of casualties to U.S. and coalition partners. These capabilities include adding a significant 

number of intelligence analyst, C–IED enablers, and Persistent Surveillance systems to enable both general purpose and special operating forces understand and 

attack IED networks. 

As mobilizing the local population in rural areas for village stability operations 

has become an increasingly critical element of our strategy in Afghanistan, the IC 

has also put greater emphasis on developing a comprehensive understanding of the 

socio-cultural environments within which terrorist networks and insurgent forces 

operate. Stability Operations Information Centers in Afghanistan are now generating comprehensive District Assessment reports and the ISR Task Force and the 

U.S. Central Command are working to develop an integrated information sharing 

environment to support indirect lines of operation in Afghanistan. In March 2010, 

USD(I) commissioned the Intelligence Task Force of the Defense Science Board to 

evaluate how intelligence can most effectively support counterinsurgency operations. 

The Board is currently compiling its findings and recommendations and is scheduled 

to complete its work by the end of calendar year 2011. 

SOMALIA

21. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid and Dr. Shear, during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 7, General Carter Ham, the Commander 

of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), suggested that DOD needed to take a more 

regional approach to address the threat emanating from Somalia. This would seem 

to indicate that more work should be done with Somalia’s neighbors—Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti—and perhaps with the sub-regional governments in Somalia. If 

General Ham approached your office indicating that he needed more support to 

counter the growing terrorist threat in Somalia, what tools and authorities would 

you propose using to help him address the situation through a regional framework? 

Mr. REID and Dr. SCHEAR. General Ham has already begun to pursue a number 

of promising initiatives, utilizing various tools and resources for the challenges he 

faces. For capacity building, section 1206, complemented by smaller programs such 

as IMET and the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP) allow 

AFRICOM to build regional CT capabilities and relationships with key leaders in 

the international CT community. Section 1208 provides resources for U.S.-partner 

51 

combined CT operations. AFRICOM is also increasing its operational collaboration 

with regional partners to monitor and counter terrorist threats. Persistent relationships with regional governments, complemented by episodic mil-mil engagements 

(e.g., Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)) have helped develop a level of 

interoperability that is improving our ability to jointly combat terrorism. Finally, 

AFRICOM, OSD, and the Joint Staff continue to work with State and other interagency partners to develop an integrated CT strategy that coordinates and leverages 

our various CT authorities and resources in East Africa. AFRICOM has begun assisting the State Department with identifying its security assistance priorities, and 

the Command recently began supporting State-led training for the African Union 

Mission in Somalia. 

22. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid and Dr. Schear, Somalia is a unique problem set 

as it is a failed state. Is DOD’s security assistance program equipped to address the 

threats emanating from Somalia? 

Mr. REID and Dr. SCHEAR. Our security assistance authorities are not ideal for 

addressing threats emanating from failed states. Most of our security assistance 

tools require us to work with national military forces, which is not possible in a 

failed state that the U.S. Government does not recognize as a sovereign nation. 

Given these challenges, we take a regional approach to countering the threats 

emanating from Somalia. Section 1206 authority allows us to build CT capacity in 

East African states to prevent the threat from spilling out of Somalia. The section 

1208 authority is available for working with regional partners to conduct U.S.-led 

CT operations. Other authorities, such as JCET and IMET, allow us to build relationships with East African CT authorities. The State Department’s Peacekeeping 

Operations funding is somewhat more flexible and can be used to support Somalia’s 

Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Where appropriate, DOD advises and coordinates with State on these programs assisting entities, including the African 

Union Mission in Somalia and the TFG, inside Somalia. Finally, we’re increasingly 

collaborating with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, which have different 

security assistance authorities, to support Somaliland and other subnational entities. 

MILITARY INFORMATION SUPPORT OPERATIONS

23. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, al Qaeda and affiliated violent extremist groups 

work hard to appeal to local populations. The composition and size of these groups 

in comparison to the U.S. Government permits them to make and implement policy 

decisions very quickly. Do you believe DOD and other agencies within the U.S. Government are appropriately organized to respond effectively to the messaging and influence efforts of al Qaeda and other affiliated terrorist groups? 

Mr. REID. DOD MISO and influence programs and activities are tailored for each 

audience they address. Depending upon the unit or the organization being supported, MISO units are trained to develop activities and products to influence the 

behavior of a single individual or larger target audience. DOD adjusts its MISO 

units in size and composition to the operation they must support based on approved 

DOD programs and coordinated with the Interagency as required. 

24. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, what do you believe is the appropriate role for Military Information Support Teams (MIST) in relation to these activities? 

Mr. REID. A MIST supports the achievement of military objectives in both war 

and peace while working together with a country team and Chief of Mission in any 

country where it works. While a MIST often works from the U.S. Embassy, its role 

therein is to support the achievement of objectives laid out by the combatant command and its subordinate component commands. There are many instances in which 

MISTs work collaboratively with the Embassy staff because mission objectives overlap. 

SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES IN SUPPORT OF COUNTRY TEAMS

25. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, I understand that U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) deploys personnel to work with country teams in many priority 

countries where we are not in a shooting conflict, but rather trying to stop the 

spread of extremist ideology. Please describe the value you believe these special operations personnel bring to the work of country teams. What is done to make sure 

the goals of special operations personnel deployed to these countries are aligned 

with those of the ambassadors they are working with? 

52 

Mr. REID. DOD, including SOCOM, leverages long-established processes and 

mechanisms for planning, de-confliction, and partnered efforts to enhance mutually 

supporting objectives with our interagency partners. DOD extensively coordinates 

its efforts to combat terrorism with the National Security Staff, Chiefs of Mission, 

Chiefs of Station, relevant departments and agencies, and field activities to enable 

the broadest interagency collaboration consistent with maintaining the security of 

our efforts. We recognize that this is a constant process that requires regular and 

routine interface at multiple levels within the respective organizations. We have 

made wide use of the Joint-Interagency Task Force model to bring our interagency 

colleagues into a collaborative planning and execution forum, and vigilantly look for 

ways to share best practices and make adjustments to the process. 

26. Senator HAGAN. Mr. Reid, given the high demand for special operations personnel around the world, how is the decision made by SOCOM and the Geographic 

Combatant Commanders (GCC) to deploy a special operations team to a certain 

country and is that decision reevaluated over time? 

Mr. REID. The decision to deploy special operations personnel in support of country teams around the world is the result of collaborative process undertaken between GCCs, country teams, SOCOM, and DOD. Based on the President’s National 

Security Strategy and the Secretary of Defense’s National Defense Strategy and 

Guidance for Employment of the Force, the GCC draft Theater Campaign Plans to 

accomplish U.S. policy goals and regional/country objectives. GCCs develop requests 

for forces to conduct engagements in support of their regional strategy, which are 

submitted to the Joint Staff for validation. The Joint Staff assesses each request 

against priority countries and strategic risks, and then tasks SOCOM with developing sourcing solutions for validated requirements which are ultimately approved 

by the Secretary and published annually in the Department-wide Global Force Management Allocation Plan. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JACK REED

BUILDING PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY—NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

27. Senator REED. Mr. Reid and Dr. Schear, over the past 5 years, DOD has constituted a capability to train-and-equip foreign militaries. Correspondingly, the 

DOS’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has a 

number of programs targeted at capacity building of their national law enforcement 

partners, but much of this capacity building is done by contractors. DOD has expressed interest in engaging with national law enforcement units focused on 

counterterrorism, but, with the exception of counternarcotics training, legal constraints prevent DOD from engaging in this activity. Do you believe there should 

be more emphasis on building the capacity of our partner’s national law enforcement entities? 

Mr. REID and Dr. SCHEAR. Yes. One of the most important lessons from our experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere has been the decisive role reconstruction, 

development, and governance plays in any meaningful, long-term success. We need 

partners and allies who can effectively secure their own borders, work with us to 

address transnational threats like terrorism, and provide legitimate and effective security and governance to their populations. 

Although we only play a supporting role to the lead law enforcement agencies, we 

anticipate requirements to build the capacity of partner nations’ law enforcement 

entities will continue to increase, and we should improve interagency planning, coordination, and capacity to meet such requirements. DOD Counternarcotics programs have developed a successful model for supporting international law enforcement partners in cooperation with DOS/INL, Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and key agencies such as the Drug Enforcement 

Agency (DEA) and FBI. 

Again, the DOD–DOS proposal to create a GSCF in fiscal year 2012 could yield 

more effective programs for building law enforcement capacity and integrating law 

enforcement capacity in a broader security sector framework in a given country. The 

GSCF would provide the two departments with the flexibility to leverage the expertise of DOS, DOD, or any other U.S. department or agency to provide assistance for 

militaries and other security forces as well as rule of law, judicial sector, and stabilization assistance when civilians are challenged by a lack of security. The GSCF 

would create a more robust capability to respond to crises, emergent challenges, and 

new opportunities across a range of assistance types to a range of entities in the 

security sector. This proposal also would pilot a new business model for addressing 

53 

security challenges by incentivizing collaboration and multiplying the effectiveness 

of U.S. Government security sector investments. 

28. Senator REED. Mr. Reid and Dr. Schear, what is your view of giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or DEA the mandate and funding to engage in 

these sorts of activities? Should DOD be engaged in this mission? 

Mr. REID and Dr. SCHEAR. Building a partner’s overall governance and security 

capacity is a shared responsibility across multiple agencies and departments of the 

U.S. Government—and one that requires flexible, responsive tools that provide incentives for cooperation. Indeed one of the most important lessons of the wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more— 

these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success. 

Currently DOD cooperates with DEA and FBI (and other departments and agencies) to help build partner capacity for counternarcotics, and with FBI for 

counterterrorism and counter-WMD programs. Although we only play a supporting 

role to the lead law enforcement agencies, we anticipate requirements to build the 

capacity of partner nations’ law enforcement entities will continue to increase, and 

we should improve interagency planning, coordination, and capacity to meet such 

requirements. DOD should absolutely remain engaged in this activity, and we support additional funding for the DOS, which also provides funding for law enforcement and judicial sector programs executed by DOJ, DHS, and other departments 

and agencies. 

29. Senator REED. Mr. Reid and Dr. Schear, what is DOD’s view of this missing 

capacity to train law enforcement/gendarmerie training capability? Are there specific areas where DOD is interested in engaging? 

Mr. REID and Dr. SCHEAR. Building local capacity for law enforcement is critical 

for transitioning from counterinsurgency and counter terrorism operations to law 

enforcement activities. As such, our own government’s civilian capacity to assist developing nations is critical to advancing U.S. security interests. Other agencies must 

be given the resources needed to engage effectively around the globe. DOD’s efforts 

need to be complemented by other agencies with different core competencies to assist developing partners as they create effective and accountable government institutions. 

Although we only play a supporting role to the lead law enforcement agencies, we 

anticipate requirements to build the capacity of partner nations’ law enforcement 

entities including gendarmerie will continue to increase, and we should improve 

interagency planning, coordination, and capacity to meet such requirements. DOD 

Counternarcotics programs have developed a successful model for providing training, equipping, and other support to international law enforcement partners (including foreign police, border guards, coast guards, etc.) in cooperation with DOS/INL, 

DOJ, DHS, and key agencies such as DEA and FBI. 

30. Senator REED. Mr. Reid, the previous Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, Mike Vickers, advocated for DOD to support more robustly other departments and agencies of government in countering the 

message of violent extremists through information operations and strategic communications programs. How do you foresee DOD increasing its support of DOS and/ 

or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)? 

Mr. REID. The global media environment we are now in makes cooperation and 

collaboration among different departments and agencies critical to ensure consistency and efficacy of the U.S. global message. DOD supports these interagency strategic communication efforts by making our capabilities available to support other 

departments and agencies and by maintaining operational transparency. DOD 

maintains unique capabilities to reach audiences in denied areas, as well as to promulgate information that supports military objectives and, where appropriate, that 

contributes to the communication strategies of the larger U.S. Government. DOD information activities, such as MISO and public affairs, are coordinated with other 

agencies as appropriate. When executed outside areas of military conflict, these activities undergo review by the country teams, which include CIA and State Department representatives. DOD also works closely with State’s Office of the Coordinator 

for Counterterrorism and Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and supports the 

newly established Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. 

54 

31. Senator REED. Mr. Reid, do you believe DOD has the authority for expanded 

support operations? 

Mr. REID. Yes, our extant authorities, which allow us to ensure regional stability 

and security through our combatant commands, grant authority to provide expanded 

support where and when required. We will continue to leverage long-established 

processes and mechanisms for planning, de-confliction, and partnered efforts to enhance mutually supporting objectives with our interagency partners. 

INFORMATION OPERATIONS

32. Senator REED. Mr. Reid, I want to ask about information operations. In your 

view, has DOD done enough to explain the measures of effectiveness for these programs? 

Mr. REID. DOD’s efforts to develop measures of effectiveness have not, in the past, 

received the level of effort necessary, and we are taking steps to correct that. One 

of the missions of the re-organized Joint IO Warfare Center will be to develop these 

assessments in support of COCOM missions. We also work closely with other departments and agencies that are challenged with developing measures of effectiveness for their own information programs. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS

SPECIAL OPERATIONS ACTIVITIES

33. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, section 167, title 10, U.S.C. defines 10 activities 

as special operations activities insofar as each relates to special operations. While 

there is a catchall proviso listed as well, designating such other activities, as may 

be specified by the President or the Secretary of Defense as special operations activities, given the 2006 realignment of all Reserve Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations (PSYOP)/MISO forces from SOCOM where they supported both the general 

purpose force and SOFs, to the U.S. Army Reserve Command (USARC), where they 

now primarily support the general purpose force. Should CA and PSYOP have remained on this list of special operations activities? 

Mr. REID. The 2006 realignment migrated Reserve component U.S. Civil Affairs 

and Psychological Operations (USACAPOC) forces from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) to the USARC. It did not change longstanding force apportionment, training, and operational support relationships. U.S. Army Reserve 

(USAR) CA Brigades and PSYOP/Military Information Support to Operations 

(MISO) Groups and Companies continue to support general purpose force Corps, 

Joint Task Forces, and Brigade Combat Teams (BCT). USAR CA Battalions continue to support General Purpose Force (GPF) Divisions as well as each Special 

Forces Group. The USAR PSYOP/MISO force now provides exclusive support to the 

GPF, while the active Component PSYOP/MISO force continues to support GPF and 

SOF. 

Over the course of our engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the responsibilities 

of general purpose forces for population-centric operations have expanded. Accordingly, CA units now provide significant support to both special and conventional operations at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Nevertheless, CA can be 

considered a special operations activity when Active component Civil Affairs Forces 

assigned to USASOC are conducting special operations as section 167, title 10, 

U.S.C. suggests. 

34. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, given this change of command and control, how 

do you reconcile the fact that Reserve component CA and PSYOP/MISO soldiers continue to perform what is technically defined as a Special Operations activities without commensurate authorities, training, equipping, or funding every time they deploy in support of combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa? 

What can be done to clarify this statutory discrepancy? 

Mr. REID. As section 167, title 10, U.S.C. suggests, CA and PSYOP/MISO are special operations activities insofar as they relate to special operations. Reserve component CA and PSYOP/MISO are not SOFs, so there is no discrepancy. 

Nevertheless, the majority of Army CA and PSYOP/MISO forces are Reserve component forces and have operated in direct support of general purpose forces during 

full spectrum operations. In acknowledgement of this fact, the Secretary of the 

Army (Office of the Assistant Secretary Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs) 

is conducting analysis of options to address responsibilities for the training and 

equipping of CA forces. These options include possible amendment of Title 10 

55 

U.S.C., section 3013(c) to add lead agent responsibility for both CA and Military 

Government to the Secretary of the Army’s enumerated responsibilities. This analysis seeks to alleviate the burden on the special operations community to perform 

operational responsibilities for GPF CA that would normally be performed by a 

Service headquarters. 

The Army’s review of CA is being carried over into the SOCOM (the Joint Proponent for MISO) discussions regarding the PSYOP/MISO force. As SOCOM looks 

at efficiencies and the future role of MISO, it is working to determine the most effective method for providing continued whole-of-DOD support. ASD(SO/LIC), in 

partnership with SOCOM, expects to produce a comprehensive MISO report over 

the coming year that provides a strategy proposal for the future MISO force. 

CIVIL AFFAIRS CAPACITY

35. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, in your written statement to the committee you 

mention creating additional CA and PSYOP/MISO units in order to provide additional support for SOFs and the regular Army. While Active and Reserve component 

CA and PSYOP/MISO forces are certainly in high demand with lower than average 

dwell times, TRADOC has clearly documented gaps—language skills, cultural acumen, functional specialty, and planning expertise—in CA capabilities that remain 

unresolved today. When coupled with a lack of habitual relationships with BCTs 

and SOFs alike, is creating additional CA and PSYOP/MISO capacity the proper 

way to solve a capability shortfall? 

Mr. REID. The current operational tempo to support requirements in the 

CENTCOM Area of Operations has impacted sustainment of CA existing habitual, 

regionally-oriented relationships with BCTs and SOF. DOD has recognized this 

problem and has invested substantially in CA growth over the past several years 

in order to address some of these gaps. Army CA is programmed to grow to 187 CA 

companies (25 SOF, 30 Active component (AC), 132 Reserve Component (RC)) by fiscal year 2013; up from 76 CA companies (6 SOF, 70 RC) in fiscal year 2006. This 

increased CA capacity will regenerate and enhance these habitual relationships 

with BCTs and Special Operations units, thus improving the capability shortfalls 

described. Additionally, a SOCOM/JFCOM co-sponsored Capabilities Based Assessment of CA identified similar gaps at the operational and strategic level. Detailed 

solution recommendations are being forwarded for consideration to the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army. 

The same language and cultural concerns have been cited for the Active component (AC) PSYOP/MISO support to SOF and the combatant commands. As such, the 

SOCOM Commander has proposed an internal adjustment to reorganize the AC 

MISO force, the details of which are still under consideration within DOD. 

36. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, would embedding CA within Army BCTs help 

resolve some or all of these capabilities gaps while also conserving resources during 

an era of increasingly constrained budgets? 

Mr. REID. While we may gain tactical and operational benefit from assigning CA 

companies to BCTs, there are currently not enough CA companies in the current 

force structure to make this possible. By contrast, the assignment of General Purpose Force CA Battalions and their organic companies from the newly authorized 

Active component 85th CA Brigade to the respective Army Service components of 

the geographic combatant commands allows greater operational flexibility for the 

combatant command commander and the Army Service component commander to 

allocate CA forces to accomplish Theater Security Cooperation and civil military engagement missions. 

37. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, in these tight financial times where we seek 

efficiencies wherever we can find them, is creating additional CA and PSYOP/MISO 

force structure the best use of taxpayer funds? 

Mr. REID. Ineffective governance can create areas of instability for terrorists and 

insurgents to exploit and for violent ideologies to spread. Assessments of the future 

security environment demand that the United States retain and enhance capabilities for succeeding against these kinds of challenges. Current programmed growth 

within DOD’s CA and MISO communities has been based on existing non-OIF/OEF 

requirements to support the execution of each Combatant Command’s Theater Security Cooperation Plans. Current and already programmed CA force structure posses 

sufficient capacity to meet requirements for execution of current Theater Security 

Cooperation Plan requirements. 

56 

38. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, in your view, is CA an Army or a SOF capability? 

Mr. REID. CA is a capability that supports both conventional and SOF. As part 

of DOD’s overall rebalancing effort, the responsibilities of conventional forces for 

population-centric operations have greatly expanded. General Purpose Forces’ access 

to and integration with CA units is an important part of that overall strategic shift. 

Between fiscal years 2001 and 2015, the CA community will have grown from 5,149 

manpower authorizations to 11,702 personnel. This investment includes a significant growth within the Active component, both for General Purpose Forces and 

SOF, from 208 manpower authorizations in fiscal year 2001 to 3,224 authorizations 

in fiscal year 2015. SOCOM and the Army are currently undertaking an examination of this evolution to determine if CA has moved beyond a purely SOF capability. 

The results of this examination will properly align the CA force to continue to provide the required support to both communities. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS/MILITARY INFORMATION SUPPORT OPERATIONS

39. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, given the importance of PSYOP and Information Operations and the well-publicized challenges we have in executing these responsibilities in comparison to al Qaeda, the fact that we have not selected a 

PSYOP/MISO officer as a general officer and empowered him/her to lead our information efforts overseas puzzles me. Special Forces are a critical enabler and they 

have general officer billets. Would not the selection of someone who has devoted his/ 

her life to the profession of persuading, informing, and/or influencing foreign target 

audiences overseas assist us in improving our performance in this critical aspect of 

our efforts overseas? 

Mr. REID. The MISO community remains small and segmented by component 

within the Army, which houses the majority of MISO forces. Though still an exception, the Army recently promoted an information operations officer to brigadier general. This officer commanded the first Information Operations Command and now 

serves in the U.S. Cyber Command as an operations officer. In addition, the 

SOCOM Commander has submitted a Force Design Update requesting the establishment of a MISO Command. As the request is processed through the Army Force 

Management process, the Army will decide if a general officer is appropriate to lead 

this new command. 

40. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, why are there no general officer billets in 

PSYOP/MISO? 

Mr. REID. The MISO community remains small and segmented by component 

within the Army, which houses the majority of MISO forces. Though still an exception, the Army recently promoted an Information Operations officer to Brigadier 

General. This officer commanded the first Information Operations Command and 

now serves in the U.S. Cyber Command as an operations officer. In addition, the 

SOCOM Commander has submitted a Force Design Update requesting the establishment of a MISOC. As the request is processed through the Army Force Management process, the Army will decide if a general officer is appropriate to lead this 

new command. 

INFORMATION DOMINANCE

41. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Reid, shortly after their most recent attempts to cripple international commerce by bringing down a commercial aircraft enroute to 

America, al Qaeda was publishing their efforts worldwide via their English-language online magazine, Inspire. Too recent a change in strategy to have received 

much attention yet, this dangerous new pronouncement is noteworthy precisely because it was made publicly. More importantly, al Qaeda used this forum to announce a marked shift from historically accepted terrorist dynamics to a clear-cut 

strategy of attrition designed to economically cripple the west. 

‘‘Moving away from the expensive and carefully coordinated attacks of September 

11 on New York and the 7/7 London bombs, al Qaeda in Yemen says it is now going 

to focus on smaller, cheaper strikes in an effort to bleed the enemy to death through 

a strategy of a thousand cuts. One article enlightens readers on how two Nokia mobiles, two HP printers, cheap explosives and 3 months’ work for a team of less than 

six, has forced Barack Obama to frantically pump dollars into airport security, further weakening the American economy. The publication says the technical knowhow of making parcel bombs will be disseminated to militants in countries with 

looser security restrictions than in Yemen. Is al Qaeda’s dominance in the informaVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
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tion arena an emerging threat to our collective national security? If so, given the 

statutory and regulatory limitations on U.S. strategic communications efforts, how 

can we counter their efforts in this domain? 

Mr. REID. The information domain is global in scope and our enemies will attempt 

to use this domain to achieve a comparative advantage. DOD cannot be the sole responder to violent extremist activity in this domain, and hence we work diligently 

with DOS and the IC to combat the spread of propaganda, including the information 

in Inspire magazine. It is also important that we not bring more attention to these 

efforts simply by reacting to every piece of information that becomes available. 

Doing so can inadvertently provide such announcements with a wider audience. It 

may be appropriate to review and, where necessary, update statutes written for a 

time when information was not as readily and instantly available. 

CIVIL AFFAIRS IN QDR STRATEGY

42. Senator CHAMBLISS. Dr. Schear, the 2010 QDR reinforced the focus on stability operations as an integral and co-equal element of full spectrum operations. As 

such, the role of CA forces as subject-matter experts for key stability tasks was elevated in two directives included in the Rebalancing-the-Force section of the QDR 

and identified as enhancements to the capabilities of the U.S. Armed Forces. The 

first directive—expand CA capacity—provides resources and potential, creates opportunity, and presents challenges. The second directive—‘‘increase counterinsurgency, stability operations, and counterterrorism competency in general purpose forces’’—is an important implied task for CA that presents its own opportunities and challenges. How do you reconcile the elevated status of stability operations, 

and by extension the importance of CA, within the 2010 QDR with the well-documented current gaps in CA capabilities? Do we have the forces we need in this area, 

or is this an area we still need to grow? 

Dr. SCHEAR. SOCOM and the Army have determined that current and already 

programmed CA force structure possess sufficient capacity to meet the requirements 

of current operations within CENTCOM AOR and the COCOM generated demand 

signal for execution of current Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) requirements. 

The capability shortfalls within the CA force are being addressed in detail by the 

respective services and SOCOM and solution sets are being provided through the 

CA Capabilities Based Assessment. Implementation of those solutions, by the services, will eliminate much of the existing capability gaps. The Department has the 

correct force capacity to meet current requirements, and should resist the temptation to create a ‘‘new capability or increase capacity’’ when simply enhancing capabilities within current force structure, through additional, enhanced, or new training; structure and manning updates; and progressive equipping coupled with continued evolution of the roles, missions, and responsibilities of the current CA force, will 

suffice. 

COUNTERNARCOTICS AND GLOBAL THREATS

43. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Wechsler, regarding the threat of Transnational 

Criminal Organizations (TCO), you comment in your written statement that, ‘‘ It is 

important to recognize that when we discuss the transnational nature of this threat, 

this includes criminal activities that take place outside as well as within the United 

States. For instance, the influence of Mexican TCOs extends well beyond the southwest border to cities across the country such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit. Unfortunately, coordination of domestic and international activities can be especially 

challenging.’’ You go on to comment that, ‘‘DOD can play an important role in facilitating coordination and information sharing through mechanisms such as Joint 

Task Force-North in El Paso and Joint Interagency Task Force-South in Key West— 

both of which are models of interagency and international cooperation. This issue 

of information sharing has always concerned me because too often there have been 

unnecessary barriers to organizations within the U.S. Government receiving information crucial to their mission that another organization in the U.S. Government 

already has. My question for you regarding this issue is, are there barriers that are 

unnecessary, and are you able to give and receive information with domestic agencies and across DOD and the IC that you need to in order to best accomplish your 

mission, and for the other agencies involved to best accomplish their mission? 

Mr. WECHSLER. DOD develops, analyzes, and shares counternarcotics-related information to the full extent permitted by law with other U.S. Federal partners, as 

well as with State and local authorities and foreign counterparts, utilizing a flexible 

web of agreements and task forces. This may include DOD providing information 

58 

to other U.S. agencies, which then share the information with third parties under 

those agencies’ legal authorities and arrangements. Generally speaking, these arrangements work well, in part because U.S. and foreign authorities have been cooperating against transnational drug trafficking for many years. The DOD counternarcotics program supports several activities to facilitate information-sharing, including (but not limited to): 

• Anti-Drug Network, which provides classified computer links among Federal and State law enforcement agencies, as well as secure but unclassified 

connections among Federal, State, local, regional, tribal and foreign drug 

trafficking interdiction mission partners; 

• Intelligence and information analysis and dissemination training programs; 

• Multi-discipline intelligence analysis and linguistic support to other agencies; 

• The Joint Narcotics Analysis Center in Afghanistan; 

• Tactical Analysis Teams (TATs) supporting U.S. Embassies in 18 countries; and 

• Cooperating Nations Information Exchange System (CNIES) enabling 

graphical display of sanitized aerial and maritime radar tracking information among U.S. and foreign partners. 

44. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Wechsler, is there any assistance that Congress may 

be able to provide? 

Mr. WECHSLER. I appreciate the question, Senator, and the longstanding support 

the Congress has provided for the Department’s counternarcotics efforts. In the current challenging fiscal environment, we understand that we are constantly competing for finite Federal resources and believe we are providing excellent value for 

the American taxpayer. 

More specifically, several of the Department’s key counternarcotics authorities 

will expire at the end of fiscal year 2011. These authorities include: (1) Section 1004 

of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of Fiscal Year 1991, as amended, 

our foundational authority to provide critical counterdrug support to State, local, 

Federal, and foreign law enforcement partners; (2) Section 1021 of the NDAA of Fiscal Year 2005, as amended, which authorizes support for Colombia’s unified 

counterdrug and counterterrorism campaign; and (3) Section 1022 of the NDAA of 

Fiscal Year 2004, as amended, which allows counterdrug funds to be used to support 

counterterrorism activities worldwide. Over the years, these authorities have been 

critical to the progress we have made in detecting and monitoring drug trafficking 

through the Caribbean and building counternarcotics capacity in Colombia and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Sections 1004 and 1022 are particularly important to our efforts to confront narcotics production and trafficking in Afghanistan— 

a key source of revenue for the Taliban. We look forward to working with the committee to ensure these unique and flexible tools are reauthorized in the NDAA for 

Fiscal Year 2012. 

COUNTERNARCOTICS

45. Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Wechsler, the twin border cities of Ciudad Juarez and 

El Paso, TX, are a primary crossing point for drugs smuggled into the United 

States. Control of drug routes in Chihuahua, the State along New Mexico and West 

Texas where Juarez is located, is vital to the continued growth of drug cartel operations. In recent testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Admiral 

Winnefeld, Commander, U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), stated that: 

‘‘criminal groups have killed more than 35,000 people since December 2006.’’ While 

some experts believe that drug violence will remain a significant problem on both 

sides of the border for years to come, other U.S. authorities now believe, based on 

information from confidential informants with direct ties to Mexican drug gangs and 

other intelligence, that Mexico’s most powerful kingpin—Joaquin ‘‘El Chapo’’ 

Guzman—and the Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico’s drug war, edging out the rival 

Juarez gang for control over the coveted trafficking routes through Juarez. While 

that is one assessment, what is your assessment of the status of the drug war between these rival drug cartels and, more to the point, what else can we do to help 

stem the flow of drugs, people, weapons, and money across our southern border? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Ciudad Juarez has suffered especially high rates of violence in 

part because it is contested among several TCOs, principally the Sinaloa Cartel, the 

Juarez Cartel (aka Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization) and the Zetas as well as 

less-sophisticated actors such as the Barrio Azteca gang. I would hesitate to say who 

59 

is winning or losing this struggle, except to make the point that all Mexicans ultimately lose, not only when criminal organizations fight one another but also if any 

criminal organization is able to gain effective dominance over an area. I therefore 

applaud the courageous efforts of the Mexican authorities to build rule of law 

throughout the country, including in some of the most difficult locations. 

The United States should certainly do more, in my opinion, to provide training, 

equipment, and information to help Mexican efforts. In particular, the United States 

can share some of its experience, and that of other countries, in coordinating all aspects of national power (including law enforcement, defense, intelligence, judicial, 

and economic development efforts) to build campaigns to dismantle transnationallynetworked adversaries. In doing so, however, U.S. authorities are careful to bear in 

mind that the situations in places like Ciudad Juarez are very different from places 

where the United States has been more directly involved. We must, therefore, adapt 

lessons learned elsewhere, not try to adopt them outright. The United States should 

also redouble its efforts to reduce the flow of both firearms and drug money from 

the United States to Mexico, as well as to diminish U.S. consumption of illegal 

drugs. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JOHN CORNYN

MEXICO

46. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Wechsler, in your prepared testimony, you note that 

DOD, SOUTHCOM, and NORTHCOM are working to develop a joint security effort 

in the border region of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Please provide further details on this effort. 

Mr. WECHSLER. Starting in 2009, DOD realized that as Colombia and Mexico 

brought more effective pressure on TCOs, the TCOs would disperse into even more 

vulnerable countries in Central America. Powerful TCOs interact with less sophisticated, but large-scale, street and prison gangs, some of which maintain international networks, including in the United States. An estimated 96 percent of cocaine that departs South America for the United States first arrives in Central 

America, before continuing through Mexico. Although Central American countries 

differ significantly, weak rule of law and severe social inequality can engender environments in which TCOs can operate with varying degrees of ‘‘impunity.’’ Violence 

in the region, which has long been high, has increased dramatically in recent years. 

DOD, therefore, worked with authorities from Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, as 

well as from several U.S. agencies, to design a set of programs that are starting in 

2011. In the meanwhile, the U.S. and Central American Governments launched 

broader security cooperation efforts, notably the Central American Regional Security 

Initiative (CARSI), which the DOD counternarcotics program complements. The 

goals of the U.S.-fostered effort are to help Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize strengthen governmental control over remote border regions, improve land, sea, and air domain awareness and response capabilities and support regional security cooperation 

efforts. The program puts a particular emphasis on helping the three countries improve controls over their littoral waters, where most drug trafficking takes place. 

Support includes patrol boats, night vision equipment, communications equipment, 

maritime sensors, and associated training. DOD will also provide infrastructure support in Guatemala and Belize. Specifically, the DOD counternarcotics Mexico-Guatemala-Belize Border Region Program helps: 

• Improve regional border (including airspace and maritime) security 

through training, equipment, information sharing, and infrastructure; 

• Enhance drug smuggling interdiction capacity and capabilities by helping 

improve mobility and training for partner country interdiction forces, including for combined operations with the United States and/or each other; 

• Improve regional sea, air, and land domain awareness by developing intelligence, command, and control capabilities to integrate maritime and air 

operations. This emphasizes leveraging Joint Interagency Task Force-South 

operations; and 

• Foster partnerships, including complementing the Merida Initiative and 

CARSI. 

47. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Wechsler, what disparities have you found between the 

current counter-trafficking approaches and capabilities of NORTHCOM and 

SOUTHCOM? 

Mr. WECHSLER. NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM’s respective geographic areas of 

responsibility are very different in nature, since NORTHCOM covers the United 

60 

States, as well as Mexico, the Bahamas, and Canada, while SOUTHCOM covers 31 

fellow American countries and 10 territories. DOD’s counternarcotics (CN) and related support to law enforcement agencies within the United States are governed 

by significantly different legal authorities, as well as policy directives, as compared 

to DOD’s security cooperation with foreign countries. Nevertheless, NORTHCOM 

and SOUTHCOM work very closely with each other to ensure that no ‘‘seam’’ 

emerges between their efforts, highlighted by implementation of a special Mexico, 

Guatemala, Belize Border Region counternarcotics program (see question #46.) 

NORTHCOM’s role in supporting the CN efforts of U.S. Federal, state and local 

law enforcement agencies is carried out principally via Joint Task Force-North (JTFNorth). JTF-North provides active duty military support to law enforcement agencies to detect, monitor and support the interdiction of suspected transnational 

threats within and along the approaches to the continental United States. This includes fusing and disseminating intelligence, contributing to a common operational 

picture, coordinating support to other agencies, and supporting NORTHCOM’s cooperation with Mexico. Support mission categories include: operational, intelligence, 

engineering and training. (The National Guard also provides support to counterdrug 

law enforcement in the United States. See question #58.) NORTHCOM’s roles in 

supporting Mexican security forces’ counterdrug efforts include training, equipment, 

and information sharing, and concentrate on helping Mexican forces improve their 

tactical and operational proficiency, as well as their air mobility, maritime law enforcement, communications, and reconnaissance capacities. This includes an emphasis on intelligence-driven and interagency operations as well as incorporating principles of respect for human rights. (See question #46) 

SOUTHCOM’s efforts against drug trafficking and associated transnational crime 

span a much greater geographic range, and vary greatly in intensity from country 

to country. Some countries, such as Colombia and Peru, continue to make admirable 

efforts to suppress drug production and trafficking, while other countries’ efforts 

(such as those of Venezuela) have been disappointing in recent years. SOUTHCOM 

(and its component Joint Interagency Task Force-South) conduct substantial missions to detect and monitor drug trafficking, as well as to support law enforcement 

interdiction of smuggling. Counterdrug Forward Operating Locations in the Netherlands Antilles and El Salvador provide critical support in these efforts. SOUTHCOM 

information-sharing programs include the CNIES which shares radar track information among participating countries, and the TAT program, which provides DOD 

counterdrug intelligence analysts to support U.S. Embassies abroad. SOUTHCOM 

counternarcotics partner capacity building efforts include training in areas such as 

special operations, riverine and maritime operations, leadership, maintenance, planning and other areas. SOUTHCOM provides infrastructure and equipment to a variety of countries in the Americas for counternarcotics purposes. Other categories of 

support to U.S. and foreign counterdrug efforts in SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility include airlift, engineering, and communications. 

48. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Wechsler, in your testimony, you also state that DOD’s 

counternarcotics program expects to allocate approximately $51 million in fiscal 

year 2011 to support Mexico, representing a dramatic increase over previous funding levels, which were closer to $3 million per year prior to 2009. Please elaborate 

on what this additional funding will be used for. 

Mr. WECHSLER. DOD CN support to Mexican security forces includes training, 

equipment, infrastructure, and information sharing and concentrates on helping 

Mexican forces improve their tactical and operational proficiency, as well as their 

air mobility, maritime law enforcement, communications, and reconnaissance capacities. DOD CN support includes an emphasis on intelligence-driven and interagency 

operations as well as incorporating principles of respect for human rights. 

Training examples include: air operations, safety, resources management, maintenance, and mission planning; helicopter pilot training (including at an expanded 

school in Colombia); transnational/regional security issues; rule of law, human 

rights, and discipline of military operations; tactics for urban and night operations; 

counter-improvised explosive device techniques; force protection during operations, 

as well as at staging and garrison locations; logistics/resources management; maritime, littoral, riverine, and amphibious operations, communications and planning; 

ship maintenance and repair; search-and-rescue, medical and lifesaving; non-commissioned officer leadership; intelligence and operational planning; and unmanned 

aerial systems employment. 

Equipment provided includes: aircraft avionics, sensor upgrades, maintenance 

consumables, spare parts; helicopter repair and mission system upgrades; aviation 

and surface night vision devices; non-intrusive cargo inspection detectors; unattended ground sensor systems; tactical, secure, GPS-equipped hand-held and vehiVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:55 Jan 05, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 Y:\BORAWSKI\DOCS\71959.TXT JUNE PsN: JUNEB
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cle-mounted radios; point-to-point communications network consisting of microwave 

links, towers, encryption equipment, and associated components; and maritime automated information system transponders. 

DOD CN operates or supports U.S. intelligence, radar, communications, computer 

network, transportation, counterdrug detection and monitoring, training, technology 

development, liaison, headquarters support, and related activities, portions of which 

may be considered indirect support to Mexico. This includes the work of Joint Task 

Force-North, which supports U.S. drug law enforcement agencies in the United 

States. 

SOMALIA

49. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, some analysts speculate that successfully denying 

al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan and Pakistan might simply result in a relocation and reorganization of al Qaeda leadership. In your prepared testimony, you 

note al-Shabaab’s increasing affiliation with al Qaeda. Reports indicate that alShabaab now controls much of southern and central Somalia. Please elaborate on 

the nature and scope of this threat and on al Qaeda’s influence in the region. 

Mr. REID. The relationship between al-Shabaab and al Qaeda is complicated. We 

see increasing connections between al-Shabaab and al Qaeda’s Pakistan-based leadership, but also divisions between al-Shabaab and the remnants of the al Qaeda in 

East Africa cell. Parts of al-Shabaab are committed to international terrorism while 

other parts are regionally-aligned, clan-based militias that have been co-opted or coerced into al-Shabaab’s ranks. Regardless of the specifics of the organizational relationship between al-Shabaab and al Qaeda, we’re very concerned about al-Shabaab’s 

increasing interest in external attacks and desire to leverage Somali diaspora communities. 

We also remain concerned that if al-Shabaab were to take over Somalia, al Qaeda 

could try to use it as a safe haven and staging base in a key strategic area of the 

world. An al-Shabaab-led Somalia would also pose a regional threat and perpetuate 

the instability and humanitarian crises that have wracked the region for the past 

2 decades. 

50. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, what factors make Somalia a particularly attractive place for al Qaeda to operate? 

Mr. REID. Somalia’s lack of governance and relatively sparse population make it 

appealing as a safe haven. However, Somalis’ historic distrust of outsiders could undermine al Qaeda’s ability to hide among the population. Its location along key shipping routes could make Somalia a key staging area for transnational terrorist attacks. But its long coast line could also allow the U.S. and allied nations to conduct 

sea-based CT operations virtually anywhere in Somalia. We continue to work with 

our interagency partners to create some governance and security capacity in Somalia, bolster the ability of neighboring countries to counter the threat, and prevent 

al Qaeda from establishing a strong foothold there. 

51. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, in your opinion, if al Qaeda is effectively denied 

safe haven in Afghanistan and Pakistan, what is the likelihood that they would relocate their leadership to Somalia? 

Mr. REID. There are a number of places where al Qaeda could relocate, including 

Somalia. However, it would take al Qaeda some time to establish the same operational infrastructure there and to effectively hide among a population that has traditionally been very resistant to outsiders. I defer to my colleagues in the IC for a 

more thorough assessment of the likelihood of al Qaeda relocating its leadership to 

Somalia. 

LIBYA

52. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, Colonel Moammar Qadhafi recently promised to 

carry out terrorist attacks against civilian ships and airliners. If Qadhafi is allowed 

to remain in power, do you believe he will make good on these threats? 

Mr. REID. In the complex security environment we are in, we cannot afford to discount any leader’s threats. Colonel Qaddafi has a history of conducting terrorist attacks against Western states and could do so again. 

53. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, al Qaeda and its affiliates have found safe havens 

around the world in failed or failing states. If the situation in Libya becomes a protracted stalemate between Qadhafi and rebel forces, what is the likelihood that al 

62 

Qaeda or a like-minded terrorist organization will establish itself somewhere in 

Libya? 

Mr. REID. Although we continue to monitor the actions of al Qaeda and affiliated 

groups in Libya, the generally reformist, pro-democracy orientation of the opposition 

movement is at odds with the aims of al Qaeda. Further, for all of its shortcomings, 

the Qaddafi regime has proven effective in countering al Qaeda and affiliated 

groups. Far more concerning is the possibility that al Qaeda and its affiliates will 

exploit the current instability to obtain advanced Libyan military weaponry, such 

as surface-to-air missiles. 

AL QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

54. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, the anti-government movement in Yemen to force 

President Saleh from power has further destabilized that country. At the same time, 

al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) remains a serious threat and has recently demonstrated its intent and its capabilities. What is your assessment of the 

current anti-government movement in Yemen and its impact on AQAP’s reach, operations, and capabilities? 

Mr. REID. The political instability in Yemen has allowed AQAP to increase its operating space and to make some tactical gains in the tribal areas—in several cases 

seizing and holding territory now outside of Republic of Yemen Government control. 

Despite AQAP’s limited gains, it remains distant from, and largely counter to, the 

current anti-government movement in Yemen. AQAP has not made any significant 

gains in the urban areas nor has it been able to translate this into a broader strategic success in Yemen or beyond. 

55. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, although AQAP primarily targeted western interests in Yemen, its attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner in 

2009 and the failed October 2010 parcel plot indicates that it has international aspirations. What is your assessment of al Qaeda’s current goals and objectives? 

Mr. REID. AQAP is intensely focused on conducting a near-term attack against the 

United States, and poses an immediate terrorist threat to U.S. interests and the 

Homeland. The Christmas Day bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and 

the failed package bombing attempt in October 2010 are the more recent attempts 

by al Qaeda to attack the U.S. Homeland. Despite recent setbacks, al Qaeda and 

its affiliate AQAP are still actively plotting attacks, with the principal aim of successfully striking the U.S. Homeland. 

The rise of these affiliate organizations in the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere 

is of great concern, and highlights the importance of not only disrupting al Qaeda’s 

attacks against the United States and our allies and partners, but also countering 

al Qaeda’s ideology, messaging, and resonance as well. Hence, both are administration priorities. 

LASHKAR-E-TAYYIBA

56. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, PACOM Commander Admiral Robert Willard testified before this committee that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) has ‘‘spread their influence internationally and are no longer solely focused in South Asia and on India.’’ 

He went on to say that LeT has declared jihad on America and has even carried 

out attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. What is your assessment of the threat 

LeT poses to the United States and our interests? 

Mr. REID. Since its inception in the late 1980s, LeT has focused its efforts primarily on combating India over the contested Jammu and Kashmir regions. Like 

other militant groups however, there is evidence that LeT has broadened its interests and could represent an emerging threat to the West, particularly in Europe, 

as well as the broader South Asia region. At this time however, we do not fully understand the extent of the network’s aspirations. 

Regarding LeT’s activities against Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, we assess that 

these activities are likely done to gain both tactical experience and legitimacy, to 

forge relationships with key insurgent groups there, and to meet the group’s goal 

of defending Islam from perceived Western aggression. LeT’s presence in Afghanistan has not gone unnoticed. COMISAF is fully aware of the LeT threat and is addressing it proportionately and responsibly. The DOD continues to monitor LeT’s potential for expanded operations that may target the U.S. and our interests. We will 

continue to address this potential threat as it presents itself and will remain supportive of broader U.S. Government efforts to examine and combat LeT. 

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57. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Reid, what is the current relationship between LeT and 

the Government of Pakistan as a whole, between LeT and Pakistan’s military, and 

between LeT and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence? 

Mr. REID. Pakistan continues to view India as its greatest security threat and, 

given India’s military dominance in the region, may view militant groups, like LeT 

as useful proxies to bridge the military capability gap between it and its eastern 

neighbor. There are widespread allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence may maintain a limited relationship with elements of LeT to both, provide 

Pakistan with an asymmetric capability which would offset the aforementioned 

gaps, and to moderate LeT’s activities. However, our insight into the details of the 

alleged relationship is minimal and often fraught with contradictory information. 

NATIONAL GUARD JOINT COUNTER-DRUG TASK FORCES

58. Senator CORNYN. Mr. Wechsler, the NDAA for Fiscal Year 1989 authorizes the 

National Guard to provide support to law enforcement counter-drug operations. The 

Texas National Guard Joint Counter-Drug Task Force (JCDTF) has provided support to local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies for over 21 years, and 

it does extremely important work along the Texas-Mexico border. Although the 

Texas-Mexico border is over 1,250 miles long, comprising about 65 percent of the 

overall U.S.-Mexico land border, the Texas National Guard JCDTF receives only 10 

percent of the Federal budget for Counterdrug State Plans. In spite of this, the 

Texas National Guard JCDTF’s operations have resulted in over $54 billion in assisted seizures. In your opinion, how important are the National Guard’s JCDTF 

programs, and what critical capabilities do they bring to the table to help our Nation counter illicit trafficking? 

Mr. WECHSLER. Helping protect the U.S. border region with Mexico is my top domestic priority, both with respect to National Guard programs and Title 10 military 

support to law enforcement agencies, since the border region is the principal theater 

through which illegal drugs enter our country. We have to recognize, however, that 

TCOs operate throughout the United States and that the worst violence associated 

with such crime is generally not concentrated in the border region. In fact, criminals 

with ties to Mexican TCOs operate in an estimated 235 U.S. cities. In view of these 

realities, the need to put scarce resources toward the greatest threat, and the need 

to measure the effects of our efforts, the National Guard Counterdrug Program has 

developed a Threat Based Resourcing Plan to support law enforcement counternarcotics operations in all States. 

I consider each State’s JCDTF to be extremely important. In fact, the States can 

support one another in part through the networkable body of capabilities the National Guard Counterdrug Program provides from DOD’s authorized mission list. 

How each State Governor meets specific capability needs in counternarcotics activities varies considerably, and flexibility as a hallmark of the National Guard 

Counterdrug Program. 

The authorized mission categories for the National Guard Counterdrug Program 

are: 

1. Program management; 

2. Technical support (subcategories include: linguist support, investigative case 

and analyst support, operational/investigative case support, communications 

support, engineer support, and subsurface diver support); 

3. General support (including cannabis suppression and transportation); 

4. Reconnaissance/observation (ground and aerial); and 

5. Illegal drug demand reduction support. 

[Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.] 

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