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25–574 PDF 2006

S. HRG. 109–236

STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION: BUILDING

PEACE IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 16, 2005

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin

BARBARA BOXER, California

BILL NELSON, Florida

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois

KENNETH A. MYERS, Jr., Staff Director

ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Democratic Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

Page

Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared statement . 44

Henry, Hon. Ryan, Principal Deputy, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense

for Policy, Department of Defense, Washington, DC ........................................ 12

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14

Response to question submitted for the record by Senator Lugar ............... 45

Kunder, Hon. James R., Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East,

USAID, Washington, DC ..................................................................................... 18

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21

Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening statement ........... 1

Pascual, Hon. Carlos, Ambassador, Coordinator for the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization, Department of State, Washington, DC ........................ 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

Sharp, LTG Walter, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff, Department of Defense, Washington, DC ...................................................................... 16

Responses to questions submitted for the record by Senator Lugar ............ 45

(III)

(1)

STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION:

BUILDING PEACE IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m., in room

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Lugar,

chairman of the committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Lugar and Chafee.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR, U.S.

SENATOR FROM INDIANA

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee is called to order. The committee meets today to continue our examination of how the United States can improve its capacity to undertake stabilization and reconstruction missions

abroad.

Over the years, we have observed our Government cobble together plans, people, and projects to respond to post-conflict situations in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere. The

efforts of those engaged have been valiant, but these emergencies

have been complex and time sensitive.

Our ad hoc approach has been inadequate to deliver the necessary capabilities to deal speedily and efficiently with complex

emergencies. In an age of terrorism, it is especially important we

be prepared to undertake these missions, because we have seen

how terrorists can exploit nations afflicted by lawlessness and desperate circumstances. They seek out such places to establish training camps, recruit new members, and tap into a global black market in weapons technology.

In 2003, this committee organized a distinguished Policy Advisory Group made up of U.S. Government officials and outside experts to give members advice on how to strengthen our ability to

plan and to implement these post-conflict missions. After much

study, it was clear that we needed a well-organized and strongly

led civilian partner to work with the military in complex emergencies. And it was our judgment that the State Department was

best positioned to lead this effort.

As a result of our deliberations, I introduced, with Senators

Biden and Hagel, the Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian

Management Act of 2004, and this committee passed it unaniVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:00 Jan 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 963502.SEN SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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mously. That bill is included, with some modifications, as title VII

in Senate bill 600, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2006

and 2007, which is now on the Senate Calendar.

The bill puts the State Department at the center of the civilian

reconstruction and stabilization effort, while coordination between

State and Defense would continue at the NSC level. The executive

branch already has moved to implement elements of our bill. Indeed, an Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization was organized

at the State Department last July. The new Office is conducting a

governmentwide inventory of the civilian assets that might be

available for stabilization and reconstruction tasks.

It is also pursuing an idea, proposed in our bill, of a rapid response corps to greatly reduce the time required to mobilize postconflict stabilization personnel. It will work closely with the Secretary of State to assist in the coordination of policy and in developing cooperative arrangements with foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations.

President Bush said last month that this new State Department

Office would be dedicated to, quote ‘‘helping the world’s newest democracies make the transition to peace, freedom, and a market

economy,’’ end of quote from the President.

I am hopeful that the Office will develop the concept of a 250-

person active duty corps that is contained in the legislation we presented. In Army terms, that is less than a small battalion of welltrained people—a modest but vigorous force multiplier that would

greatly improve our Nation’s stabilization capacity.

This corps of civilians could be composed of State Department

and USAID employees as well as former military personnel who

have the experience and the technical skills to manage stabilization

and reconstruction tasks in a hostile environment.

At her confirmation hearings earlier this year, Secretary Rice expressed enthusiastic support for enhancing standing civilian capacity to respond to post-conflict situations. In answer to one of my

questions, she said, and I quote, ‘‘Creating a strong U.S. Government stabilization and reconstruction capacity is an administration

national security priority,’’ end of quote from the Secretary.

She asserted that, quote ‘‘experience has shown that we must

have the capacity to manage two to three stabilization and reconstruction operations concurrently. That means [we need] staff in

Washington and in the field to manage and deliver quality programs,’’ end of quote.

Secretary Rice is working to make the State Department an effective interagency leader in post-conflict operations. I consider this

new mission to be one of the most important long-term defenses

that the State Department can mount against future acts of terrorism.

We are pleased today to welcome a panel of experienced and distinguished witnesses. Ambassador Carlos Pascual is testifying before the committee for the first time in his new job as State Department Coordinator for Reconstruction and Development. He has

stayed in close contact with our committee during his tenure, and

we appreciate his willingness to exchange ideas and to brief us on

plans.

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Mr. James Kunder is USAID’s Assistant Administrator for Asia

and the Near East. In addition to his work at USAID, he was a

valuable participant in the committee’s Policy Advisory Group process, which examined stabilization and reconstruction issues 2 years

ago.

Also joining us are Mr. Ryan Henry, the Deputy Under Secretary

of Defense for Policy, and LTG Walter Sharp, Director of Strategic

Plans and Policy for the Joint Staff. Any discussion of how we

should organize the building of peace in a hostile environment

must take strong account of Defense Department expertise and insight. We are grateful to all of our witnesses for coming this morning, and we look forward to an important discussion.

If Senator Biden arrives, I will call upon him for an opening

statement if he wishes to present one. And we will call upon each

of the witnesses for their statements, which we will hear in full before commencing questions from the panel of Senators, who I hope

will join me during the course of our hearing.

Let me mention that the statements should be in this order.

First of all, Ambassador Pascual, and then second, Mr. Henry, and

then third, General Sharp, who I understand has verbal remarks,

no written message—but, nevertheless, we welcome his comments

in any form—and then Mr. Kunder.

Let me just say at the outset that all of the prepared statements

will be placed in the record in full, so you need not ask permission

for that to occur. It will.

And you may proceed in any way you wish to summarize, but do

not truncate unduly. This is a panel that is meant to be heard, not

simply to be questioned, because the information that you impart,

not only to Senators, but through this hearing to the general public, is very much welcome.

I call now upon my friend, Ambassador Pascual, with whom I

have enjoyed wonderful association during his tenure in the

Ukraine and in various other places. And we thank you for your

taking on these new responsibilities.

Ambassador.

STATEMENT OF HON. CARLOS PASCUAL, AMBASSADOR, COORDINATOR FOR THE OFFICE OF RECONSTRUCTION AND STABILIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC

Ambassador PASCUAL. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I

appreciate very much having this opportunity to address you this

morning to discuss what I consider to be one of the greatest national security challenges of our time, the management of conflict.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Biden and

the members of the appropriations committees in the House and

the Senate for the $7.7 million in funding that the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization received in the fiscal

year 2005 emergency supplemental. And your efforts in that were

absolutely crucial in securing that funding for us. Thank you.

These funds are really essential to build our core functions, and

they are going to be put to use immediately for some of our projects

in Sudan. I am very pleased to be here today with Under Secretary

Ryan Henry, with General Skip Sharp, with assistant administrator Jim Kunder.

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Managing conflict is too great a challenge and too complex a task

for one office alone. It must be a joint effort coordinated across our

Government. And seated here with me, Mr. Chairman, are three of

our key partners.

As this committee has recognized, the management of conflict requires a paradigm shift in the way we think about international relations.

The 20th century’s premise that the struggle between strong

powers principally threatens security and stability, and that international security is driven by rational actors scrutinizing one another was turned on its head on September 11.

On that morning, we saw one of the poorest countries in the

world become the base of operations for the deadliest external

strike the United States has faced in its history. It made us fundamentally reexamine our assumptions about national security.

One constant in this world is that voids will be filled. In the absence of legitimate governance, those voids will be filled with terrorism, organized crime, weapons proliferation, trafficking, and

other threats to our national interest.

There is no moment of greater challenge and risk than when

countries emerge from conflict or civil strife. It simply is not

enough, as you said, Mr. Chairman, to rely on ad-hoc responses.

We have no choice but to adapt and develop new tools to meet

the challenges of today. It was in this context that the Office of the

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization was created last

year.

We have been charged with creating a joint operations capability

within the U.S. Government to prevent or prepare for conflict. This

truly has been a bipartisan governmentwide initiative.

I would like to thank Chairman Lugar and Senator Biden for

your leadership on this issue. It has provided a foundation on

which we have been able to build. You and your staff have been

stalwart proponents, of building stronger stabilization and reconstruction capabilities. The administration appreciates your commitment and your leadership on these issues.

In the executive branch, S/CRS has been fortunate to receive tremendous support from the President, Secretary Rice, as you very

adequately and appropriately quoted, and Dr. Hadley. We have received resounding support from national security principals and

from our colleagues in the combatant commands.

In April 2004, the National Security Council approved the

creation of the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and

Stabilization. In December, we went back to update them on our

progress, and they unanimously reaffirmed their support for

S/CRS, and approved the direction in which our operating models

have developed.

S/CRS is a unique office. It is a State Department Office with

interagency responsibilities. Responding to conflict with unity of effort is broader than the mandate of any one agency.

This mission can require peacekeeping, coordination with military operations, peace negotiations, political transformation, civilian police functions, support for the rule of law, and economic and

humanitarian assistance. In light of the breadth of agency responVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:00 Jan 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 963502.SEN SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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sibilities, we must focus on ensuring a common U.S. Government

voice and not a collection of individual agency responses.

The State Department is charged with implementing the President’s foreign policy agenda in coordination with the NSC. And as

such, NSC principals unanimously agreed with the recommendations that this committee has put forward to establish S/CRS in the

State Department.

Our mandate must consider the full spectrum of conflict. Sustainable peace requires more than stabilization. We need to help

people take ownership of the transition, so that they can change

the very fabric of their societies and redefine governing structures

that foster freedom, inclusiveness, and reconciliation. It requires

uprooting the ills that led to conflict in the first place. These are

complicated tasks and we cannot succeed if our only means of responding is crisis.

We need to understand how we can prevent conflict, or if that

is not impossible, we must be able to prepare in advance to respond

more effectively.

We are improving our early warning capabilities and linking

early warning to early response. We are developing better planning

capabilities, such as a common template for civilian agencies in the

military for stabilization and reconstruction planning.

We are developing more effective tools for coordination of a crisis

response in Washington and in the field. We are putting in place

mechanisms to facilitate communication between first responders

and policymakers so that decisionmakers receive grounded truth

and timely information, and so those on the front lines receive

guidance on priorities and objectives.

To build these capabilities, the administration has requested $124.1 million in the fiscal year 2006 budget. This includes $24.1

million to support core office functions, training, and exercises. The

Department’s full personnel request would support initial development of an active response corps within the Department. The administration is requesting $100 million for a conflict response fund, which would serve as a flexible account to quickly

channel resources into programs, thereby speeding response and

impact.

This will also give us time within the administration and Congress to identify longer term funding. I want to stress, Mr. Chairman, my commitment to work closely with Congress and this committee on the use of this fund.

In addition, the administration is seeking a transfer authority,

which my colleagues from the Department of Defense will further

describe, that would be subject to determinations by the Secretaries

of State and Defense and would allow the State Department to

draw down up to $200 million for stabilization and reconstruction

activities from the Department of Defense budget.

These resources are fundamental to achieving impact on the

ground. The sooner we can get programs started that allow people

to see conditions improve for their families and country, the better

the chance we have of helping a country get on the right trajectory

to stability and peace.

The legislative effort launched by this committee has galvanized

support and attention. Your legislation is very much in line with

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the administration’s efforts, as you have just outlined, Mr. Chairman.

We fully support your initiative to authorize a conflict response

fund with flexible authorities, so it can be used rapidly and to authorize additional personnel management flexibility.

The chairman and Senator Biden’s proposals call for a response

corps from State and USAID, as well as a response readiness reserve. We, indeed, must develop the capacity to manage crisis response as well as to deploy to the field.

The operating concepts we propose will allow for improved central Washington management through staffing of my Office, the

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. They provide for

a rapid diplomatic response capability through an active response

corps and a standby corps that can back up first responders.

We are developing ways to strengthen existing contract response

mechanisms. We will fill gaps by creating what we have called a

Global Skills Network that draws on NGO, private sector, think

tank, and university capabilities. An operational database will

catalog U.S. Government capabilities.

Looking to the longer term, we are working with Joint Forces

Command on a study to assess the cost effectiveness of reserve

models that will result in alternatives that we will discuss with

this committee and we will seek your views.

The skills and resources we are requesting are not just investments for the future. They are needed right now, most urgently in

Sudan.

In close coordination with the NSC, the Department’s Africa Bureau, USAID, and the Department of Defense, we are pulling together a unified U.S. Government strategy for Sudan, and the implementation of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, as well as advancing peace in Darfur and to bring that conflict to an end.

We are working with the Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau on

Cuba to develop a framework for United States strategy for the immediate period after Fidel Castro’s death. We have been working

with the Department’s Africa Bureau on conflict prevention and

mitigation strategies in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Just a month ago, we cohosted a policy exercise that pulled together the interagency community and international participants

from the European Union, the United Nations, and other partners

to strengthen planning for the DRC’s upcoming election.

If we can better coordinate U.S. resources and can better leverage the capabilities of the international community, the private

sector, and nongovernmental organizations, we stand a better

chance of effecting the dynamics on the ground and ever critical

transitions after a conflict.

To put this into perspective, in the case of Iraq, by changing the

dynamics enough to allow us to just withdraw one division 1 month

earlier, we would be able to save $1.2 billion. We save hundreds

of millions by allowing peacekeepers to end operations sooner if we

can get on the ground more quickly and more effectively.

Funding the types of initiatives S/CRS is developing is not only

an investment in peace and democracy, it saves money. Even more

importantly, it saves lives by removing our troops from harm’s way.

We owe it to our troops, to the American people, to our national

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prestige, to those around the world who struggle to emerge from

conflict, to improve our capabilities.

We appreciate the resources you are providing through the supplemental, and we hope that you will continue to support our efforts. Thank you for your attention and I will be happy to answer

your questions.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Pascual follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR CARLOS PASCUAL, COORDINATOR FOR THE

OFFICE OF RECONSTRUCTION AND STABILIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today to share with you our progress and to support the President’s FY 2006

budget request for the Department of State and to discuss with you the elements

related to stabilization and reconstruction. I am particularly pleased to be here so

I can thank you, Chairman Lugar and Senator Biden, for your leadership on this

issue. I’d also like to recognize the support from Chairman Dreier and Congressman

Farr who have supported the development of this Office.

Over the past 15 years, the United States has been involved in 17 significant stabilization and reconstruction operations. Since the cold war there have been 41 stabilization and reconstruction programs that have been carried out internationally.

This isn’t just an engagement like Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s also an issue of Haiti

and Mozambique and Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo and Coˆte d’Ivoire and Liberia

and Sierra Leone and East Timor and Nicaragua, and the list goes on.

The task of dealing with and managing conflict, as well as addressing post-conflict

responses, has become a mainstream part of our foreign policy challenges today. The

question before us now is whether we should improve the way we organize ourselves

to address foreign policy challenges head on, or continue the ad-hoc approach that

has characterized our efforts in the past. The administration and many others agree

that a more coherent approach would allow us to achieve the kinds of results that

support our national interests, that help save lives and that are consistent with

American values.

If we do not address this challenge, the costs are also clear. Failed or failing

states become voids that will be filled with terrorism, with trade in narcotics, trafficking in people, and with other illegal activities that in the end, inevitably, become

a threat to our national interests. The countries where al-Qaida had established its

base were Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan; it is not a coincidence that they were

failed states, where there was a void, where those with some money who could influence leaders could establish a base of illegal operations. What we face today is a

question of how we stand up to this national security challenge.

CREATION OF S/CRS

It was in that context that administration created the Office of the Coordinator

for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), specifically with the mandate to lead,

coordinate, and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for post-conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in

transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a sustainable path toward

peace, democracy, and a market economy. This mission statement has several key

elements.

First, we are focusing on prevention of conflict, where we can, because the costs

of prevention are always less than intervention.

Second, we stress the word ‘‘institutionalize’’ in the development of U.S. Government capacity, so we can learn from prior experiences and not respond in an adhoc way to each new crisis.

Third, if we must respond to conflict, we need to have the goal of putting that

country on a path toward being a sustainable and peaceful democracy and marketoriented state. We must place such a goal at the forefront of our planning and engagement. It is much more difficult to get onto the correct vector 6 months or a year

and a half down the road than it is at the beginning. So those choices that we make

at the outset are absolutely crucial.

Before I describe the plans for our Office in greater detail, let me first outline a

few important assumptions. We are working on the basis that we need to have the

capacity to concurrently manage two to three stabilization and reconstruction operVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:00 Jan 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 963502.SEN SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ations at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, history and experience since the

end of the cold war have taught us this is the case.

Further, for stabilization and reconstruction operations to succeed, they generally

require a longer term involvement, usually on the order of 5 to 10 years. It requires

effective long-term management through regular institutional mechanisms, but as

part of a cohesive USG strategy. The S/CRS coordination role will cease as normal

state and civilian operations take hold. Therefore if an agency is going to be working

on a program in year seven, they must be involved in the design from the beginning

to ensure program continuity and accountability.

Post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization cannot be the effort of just one office.

Our Government cannot undertake a responsibility which is so broad and so deep,

that covers so many different potential countries over so many years, without recognizing there must be a centralized office that leads, coordinates, and is a center

point for joint operations.

However, this central point cannot be a substitute for those other successful capabilities that already exist throughout the Government. Therefore, one of the goals

for our Office is to make recommendations within the policy and budget development processes as appropriate to support the capabilities required across the USG—

to meet reconstruction and stabilization challenges. Another requirement is to engage with the military, international partners, and nongovernmental organizations,

and the private sector to develop their capacities and to coordinate with them in

planning operations.

STATUS OF OFFICE

S/CRS was mandated by a decision taken by National Security Council Principals

in April 2004. The Office was established in July 2004. Eight positions and $536,000

were reprogrammed in FY 2004 with congressional support. The FY 2005 supplemental request included funding for S/CRS to continue building this capability in

advance of the FY 2006 budget request. With the support of this committee, especially Chairman Lugar and Senator Biden, as well as the support of many members

including, Chairman Cochran, Chairman McConnell, Senator Leahy, Chairman

Wolf, and Congressman Farr, we received $7.7 million in the enacted FY 2005 supplemental. This funding will allow us to provide reconstruction and stabilization

management support for Sudan including coordinating the United States efforts underway to implement the Sudan peace agreement and assistance to Darfur. This

funding, however, will not be sufficient to solidify the Office’s staffing or provide for

a civilian rapid response capacity.

Using nonreimbursable details, we have 35 staff in what is an interagency office

in the State Department. We have staff from the State Department, USAID, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, Joint Forces Command, the Corps

of Engineers, Department of the Treasury, and the Intelligence Community. This

has been essential to create a capability that not only provides a range of skills,

but gives us the capacity to reach back to individual agencies for support.

We have established a Policy Coordinating Committee on stabilization and reconstruction. We have eight interagency working groups that have been created to address: Transitional security; rule of law; democracy and governance; infrastructure;

economic and social well-being; humanitarian issues; management; and monitoring

and resources.

We have established extremely strong connections with our colleagues in the military, especially with Regional Commanders. There has been no greater supporter of

the concept of developing a strong civilian stabilization and reconstruction capability

than our uniformed military. What we have heard at every single combatant command is that soldiers have been increasingly pushed to take up responsibilities that

they were not trained to do. The military wants to work with us so that civilians

can deploy with them to undertake civilian activities, allowing our Armed Forces to

concentrate on those activities for which they should be responsible. We need to

have a partnership—a partnership in planning that begins at the outset and is

interlinked all the way through training, exercises, and finally the process of stabilization and reconstruction.

From this modest base, the task that we face is to institutionalize an even broader

and stronger capability in our Government, so that we really address conflict management and conflict responses as a national security priority. This will require

dedicated management resources and new models of operations that must be built

and supported. This is what our budget request supports.

FUNCTIONS OF S/CRS

S/CRS will pursue five core functions:

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• Monitor and Plan: Identify states and regions of greatest risk and importance,

and lead U.S. planning focused on these priorities to avert crises, when possible,

to prepare for them as necessary. Integrate planning and exercises with the

military.

• Prepare Skills and Resources: Establish and manage an interagency capability

to deploy personnel and resources in an immediate surge response and the capacity to sustain assistance until traditional support mechanisms can operate

effectively. Civilian response corps and standby civilian capabilities will be developed.

• Mobilize and Deploy: Coordinate the deployment of U.S. resources and implementation of programs in cooperation with international and local partners to

accelerate transitions from conflict to peace.

• Leverage International Resources: Work with international organizations, international financial institutions, individual states, and NGOs to harmonize approaches, coordinate planning, accelerate deployment of assets, and increase the

interoperability of personnel and equipment in multilateral operations.

• Learn from Experience: Incorporate best practices and lessons learned into functional changes in training, planning, exercises, and operational capabilities that

support improved performance.

In undertaking these functions, S/CRS will not duplicate missions of USAID or

other implementing agencies. However, resources are required to fill critical management gaps; necessary functions that are not currently being performed.

BUDGET REQUEST

The President is seeking funding in the FY 2006 budget request to establish the

Office and begin to prepare the capacities we need to respond to conflict in a comprehensive, integrated, and effective way. The FY 2006 budget includes $24.1 million in State Operations funds for S/CRS operations and to support the creation of

an Active Response Corps in the Department of State. The FY 2006 request also

includes $100 million in a Conflict Response Fund that will allow the State Department to rapidly initiate programs in failed or failing states when the window of opportunity is open widest and while longer term funding sources are identified.

This first phase request focuses on building core leadership, coordination, and response capabilities in the Department of State and providing baseline funding to

support rapid field responses essential to creating positive dynamics for successful

R&S operations.

As we learn lessons from this phase on operational requirements and resource

needs, we will factor these lessons into redefining our operational models and future

requests to make them effective. We will consult with the Congress throughout this

process.

PERSONNEL RESOURCES REQUIREMENTS

We have learned the importance of having an effective capacity to mobilize and

deploy in both Washington and overseas and have the people that are necessary to

be able to do that. It takes training, planning, exercises, and effective mechanisms

for deployment. In the model that we propose, we have analyzed the capabilities

that we need inside of the Government, the capabilities that we need in our external

partners, and the resources that are necessary to make this all work and operate

together. While we will utilize the skills and resources of existing programs and personnel to plan and respond, there are additional resources needed to make those

work effectively and to speed response efforts.

• Washington Management—S/CRS Staff: To lead and coordinate USG efforts requires a dedicated core staff. S/CRS will play this role and act as a force multiplier. S/CRS will facilitate the planning and the monitoring process; coordinate

the management in Washington and create a capacity for coordination in the

field; take the leadership role in outreach to the international community; develop an institutional memory by extracting lessons learned and injecting that

back into our operations.

This staff would have the following specific ongoing responsibilities:

• Build and maintain skills and capabilities necessary for rapid response.

• Develop and manage a response corps.

• Develop deployment capabilities and rosters.

• Develop deployment mechanisms with the military.

• Develop and lead the interagency processes for planning and response.

• Develop templates for response efforts, processes, metrics, and reporting.

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• Lead the interagency process to monitoring instability—focus attention on risks

of instability. • Manage planning, exercises, and relationships with the military. • Develop and oversee programs for training of specific skills. • Create and maintain a lessons-learned capacity—systematically institutionalize

lessons in our operations. • Lead crisis prevention exercises. • Manage resources through tracking, reporting, and financial controls. • Serve as a focal point within the U.S. Government to engage other countries

and international organizations on stabilization and reconstruction.

During management of a conflict response S/CRS staff would:

• Establish an interagency management group with regional and functional skills

to provide leadership and integration of effort. • Develop the strategic framework for response. • Synchronize and integrate interagency efforts. • Monitor and report. • Form the core of teams deployed to the field to help develop the overall strategy. • Deploy to bolster planning capacity at Regional Combatant Command. • Deploy with military. • Lead initial assessments in the field and support the embassy, if one is in place.

• Manage surge from State and other agencies and private sector.

Our budget request supports 54 positions for S/CRS. To add additional needed capabilities we would continue to have detailees from other agencies with a goal of

80 people total. This is a fairly modest-sized staff considering the requirements.

• Active Response Corps (ARC): The Department needs the capability to quickly establish or increase a diplomatic presence on the ground.

The FY 2006 budget request proposes to develop a corps of 100 people within the

State Department, both Foreign and Civil Service employees with a mix of skills—

political, economic, diplomatic security, administrative, law enforcement—so we can

increase the presence in an embassy that has been drawn down, or establish a diplomatic operation, by turning to a pretrained group of people. This pre-identified

group of people would first participate in a training and exercise program. They

would then be placed in jobs in regional and functional bureaus but with the understanding that if a team for first-responders and deployments is required, the ARC

would be the team that you could turn to. Graduates will form a cadre of standby

capabilities within the Department.

Ongoing Responsibilities of ARC members:

—From Management Bureaus, to:

• Develop and manage reserves.

• Develop new management platforms for interoperability and deployment support.

• Provide emergency field support.

—From Regional Bureaus, to:

• Identify and monitor countries at risk of instability.

• Engage in conflict prevention strategies.

• Provide crisis response surge capacity for backstopping.

—From Functional Bureaus, to:

• Engage in coordinating development of peace building capacity.

• Leverage international engagement.

• Facilitate civil-military coordination on broad issues.

During an operation, members of the ARC would be:

• First responders:

—Deploying when the State Department must establish a transitional or postconflict ground operation, such as an interim embassy or U.S. office.

•Diplomats:

—Tying assistance to overall foreign policy objectives.

—Engaging with local leaders.

—Assessing needs and making recommendations.

—Coordinating with the international community on policy and strategy.

—Managing the influx of technical personnel.

• Surge Capacity to rapidly fill gaps, such as:

—Staffing the Washington management team.

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—Participating in the planning group at military command.

—Deploying with the military into the field.

—Serving as the liaison with international organizations and NGOs on the

ground.

—Advising on transitional economic policies.

I encourage the Congress to fully support the requested personnel resources that

will enable us to identify people from within the Department to start developing this

cadre of employees.

• Technical Corps: We will also need to, in the future, develop an additional cadre

of technical specialists outside of the Department of State we could quickly tap

and put in the field, specialists who could design an activity and be available

to actually then oversee and supervise that activity over time.

PROGRAM DELIVERY RESOURCES REQUIRED

In addition to having the people that are necessary to manage and monitor and

ensure that there is an effective response, there is a requirement to mobilize and

deploy quickly. Our planning efforts will synchronize key programs through a range

of government mechanisms and in partnership with international actors. However,

we need to have both rapid mechanisms for initiating programs as well as rapidly

deployable people to perform the technical assistance and other services on the

ground. We need to have sufficient prepositioned global funding mechanisms (such

as indefinite quantity contracts) in a range of key areas such as transitional security, the rule of law, infrastructure, humanitarian transition, economics, governance

and participation, so we do not have to start the contracting process and the competition during a crisis, delaying our response. In cases where it is particularly important to have a common doctrine and common training, we need to do that in advance.

In order to do that, we must have resources to make sure that those mechanisms

are in place with firms, with individuals, with NGOs, with think-thanks, with universities and resources to train individuals as necessary. We have also begun analysis of whether it would make sense to have something in the civilian world that

is akin to the military reserve which could include different skills that might extend

the base of constabulary police, judges, civil administrators, city planners, economists, and other skills. We will assess whether it’s more cost effective to obtain

those skills through a reserve or through a contract or other roster mechanism.

To be able to mobilize such resources quickly, we have proposed a $100 million

Conflict Response Fund that will support initial program activities in a crisis situation to provide the administration with an immediate source of funding to respond

to a crisis and to provide the administration and the Congress additional time to

address longer term requirements.

To use the fund, the Secretary of State would need to determine that a post-conflict response is in our national interest, consulting with the Congress and sending

notifications when resources from the fund are required. Such an account would

fund programs that promote stability, advance the rule of law, facilitate transitional

governance and political legitimacy, and address immediate social and economic

needs. These programs’ funds would normally be spent in the course of a post-conflict response. The difference in making them available quickly is that they would:

—Influence the dynamic and viability of post-conflict operations.

—Maximize impact of USG interagency instruments.

—Leverage matching international responses.

—Allows time to seek other funding mechanisms for long-term through regular

budget processes.

LEGISLATION AND AUTHORITIES

We have first looked at what we can do now with existing authorities and mechanisms and then reviewed what additional authorities and mechanisms would not be

helpful. The administration’s Foreign Relations Authorization Act request for fiscal

years 2006 and 2007 contains authorities required to provide this flexibility and we

hope the Congress acts favorably on our request. We look forward to working with

the Congress toward enactment of legislation that meets the administration’s needs.

We need very much the personnel flexibilities requested by the administration so

that we have additional tools for hiring people under a variety of mechanisms for

temporary or quick response work as well as flexible authorities requested for the

Conflict Response Fund contained within the FY 2006 budget request.

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CONCLUSION

We have incorporated lessons learned from a range of post conflict operations into

the development of our Office. What we have learned is that there is a need for

management resources and authority to lead a coordinated response. From the military we have taken the lesson of joint operations, planning, exercises, and a capacity

to coordinate them all. By having key staff identified in advance, able to play these

management roles, able to plan, to exercise, to train, to put in place the kind of advance mechanisms that I have discussed and, with some resources, actually get

them into the field quickly, we can save lives, save money, and advance our international prestige.

To give you an example, consider the $124 million that is called for in the FY

2006 request. If we are able as a result of getting into the field more quickly, at

a critical moment, and to affect the dynamics in the course of a stabilization operation, and as a result take just one Army division out of the field 1 month earlier,

we would save the taxpayers $1.2 billion, according to the Pentagon. If we can end

an international peacekeeping operation 6 months earlier, net savings could amount

to hundreds of millions, depending on the size and nature of that peacekeeping operation. Not only is investment in the S/CRS initiative a necessary thing to do from

a policy perspective, it will, in the end, save us money and quite possibly lives.

Thank you for allowing me to explain this key initiative in the President’s FY

2006 budget request for the Department of State. I welcome the opportunity to answer your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ambassador Pascual.

The CHAIRMAN. I call now upon Mr. Henry for his testimony.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. RYAN HENRY, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY,

OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to appear

before you and your committee today with Ambassador Pascual,

and my colleagues from both the Joint Staff and the U.S. Agency

for International Development. And I have submitted a statement

for the record, and would like to take you up on your offer to summarize some key points.

The Department of Defense strongly supports the Office of the

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization within the State

Department and its mission to mobilize capabilities for stabilization and reconstruction for operations abroad.

As our National Defense Strategy and National Military Strategy

make clear, some of the most significant threats to our national interests in the early 21st century will stem from instabilities, extremism, terrorism, and criminality that is generated within weak

states.

The experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq, of Liberia and Haiti,

during the first term of this administration and other—and places

elsewhere have reinforced that addressing the threats requires a

comprehensive government approach to both stabilization and reconstruction.

The Department of Defense has a key role to play in establishing

a secure environment. But the expertise of other U.S. Government

departments and agencies in promoting essential services, the rule

of law, the development of civil society and elected governments,

and the institution of a market-based economy is essential in establishing a stable-nation state.

S/CRS will play a critical role in coordinating the work across all

departments and agencies within the Government, and the Department of Defense stands ready to respond positively.

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The ability of S/CRS to coordinate our Government’s response

and mobilize civilian capabilities quickly will save lives and treasure.

Preventing conflict and rapidly establishing a sustainable peace

after conflict are critical objectives. Because the Department of Defense understands the need for early measures to prevent problems

from becoming crises, and crises from becoming conflicts, we have

provided a significant amount of support already to S/CRS.

We have six personnel as liaison and expert advisors to the Coordinator. We have arranged participation in multiple conferences,

seminars, trainings, and most especially, military exercises on the

behalf of S/CRS.

We have funded a feasibility study on the development of a civilian response force. We are offering support to S/CRS’s planning efforts. And we have provided advice and assistance to the development of different operational concepts that might be used by the

Coordinator.

We are funding model-based predictive tools to identify to states

of concern, and we have sponsored a legislative proposal and a defense authorization bill to help State fill the civilian deployment

gap until S/CRS and the State Department are able to do so.

I would also like to take a moment to highlight DOD’s legislative

proposal in support of S/CRS and the issue of funding the Coordinator generally.

The Department of Defense strongly supports the President’s

budget for both State and S/CRS, and so they can continue the capability—developing capabilities for reconstruction and stabilization.

In the near term, DOD would like to help S/CRS fill the gap in

its ability to deploy in a crisis. The administration’s recommended

section 1204 of the defense authorization bill proposes to fill this

gap by offering a transfer authority in drawdown of up to $200 million for goods, services, and additional funding for S/CRS when

they need to deploy. And I would urge the committee to support the

State and S/CRS budgets in full.

We are hoping the Senate Armed Services Committee, under

Chairman Warner, will also support the inclusion of our recommended section 1204 to enable the deployment of the Coordinator’s activities.

The main goal of DOD’s support to S/CRS is to integrate civilian

and military efforts across the spectrum of peace and conflict. In

addition to the ongoing support already mentioned, DOD plans on

focusing the integration of civilian and military efforts in three

broad areas—training and exercising, planning and operational

needs. And I will discuss these briefly.

Joint training and education ensures that the civilian and military personnel who deploy to the field have common operating assumptions and understand how to work together.

Similarly, the purposes of joint exercises is to provide the civilian

and military personnel an opportunity to test what they have

learned before they deploy. Joint planning helps identify civilian

and military roles and responsibilities and ensure that the civilian

and military personnel know what to expect from their counterparts when they are deployed.

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The main challenge here is in developing a robust civilian planning capability that is comparable and compatible with the current

military planning process.

Achieving jointness in the area of operational needs requires

comprehensively addressing the current shortfall in trained and

deployable civilians for reconstruction and stabilization in missions

abroad.

This will require expanding the current mechanisms and, in

some cases, establishing new ones. For instance, there is an abundance of untapped talent in State and local governments and nonprofit and private sectors.

S/CRS and DOD have already begun working together toward

jointness and training and exercising, planning and the development of operational needs. But there is still much work to be done.

It will require the full funding of the President’s budget this year

and in future years.

The establishment of S/CRS is a first critical step to transforming the way our Government addresses the pressing security

requirements and responds to the stabilization and reconstruction

missions around the world.

We cannot realize this vision of the committee and the President

in championing S/CRS without continued backing from the Hill. I

appreciate the opportunity to speak to you and look forward to your

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Henry follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. RYAN HENRY, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY, OFFICE OF THE

UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, WASH- INGTON, DC

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before

you today with Ambassador Carlos Pascual, the Coordinator for Reconstruction and

Stabilization at the State Department, as well as my colleagues from the Joint Staff

and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Ambassador Pascual and his staff have done an excellent job in standing up the

new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) to lead,

coordinate, and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for post-major conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies

in transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a sustainable path toward

peace, democracy, and a market economy.

In the coming years, the work of S/CRS will be critical to achieving U.S. national

security goals. As the National Security Strategy and the National Military Strategy

make clear, some of the most significant threats to U.S. national interests in the

early 21st century stem from the instabilities, extremism, terrorism, and criminality

generated within weak states.

Because of the centrality of these threats in the war on terrorism, DOD is working diligently to make stability operations a core competency of our Armed Forces.

However, as the experiences of Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere demonstrate, the

military can not accomplish these missions alone.

Efforts must be made to build the capacity of our partners abroad and augment

the ability of civilian components of the USG to respond rapidly and effectively. The

ability to mobilize civilian resources quickly is as important as the ability to mobilize military resources in achieving U.S. national security goals.

DOD SUPPORT TO S/CRS TO DATE

DOD is strongly committed to supporting S/CRS in its efforts to increase civilian

capacity to respond to stabilization and reconstruction missions around the world.

The ability of civilian components of the USG to prevent conflict and/or establish

a sustainable peace will save lives and money by either obviating the need for military force in the first place or helping our troops come home more quickly.

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Since the establishment of S/CRS in July 2004, DOD has provided a significant

amount of support to S/CRS, including:

• Sending five to six liaisons at a given time to S/CRS.

• Inviting S/CRS to participate in innumerable conferences, seminars, training

classes, and exercises.

• Funding a feasibility study on development of a ‘‘Civilian Response Force.’’

• Offering support to S/CRS planning efforts.

• Providing advice and assistance to the development of S/CRS operational concepts to coordinate USG efforts at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

• Sponsoring section 1204 legislative proposal to allow DOD to help State fill the

‘‘civilian deployment gap’’ until S/CRS is able to do so.

Many of these activities are ongoing. Of particular concern, however, is DOD’s

section 1204 legislative proposal in the National Defense Authorization bill, which

would allow DOD to help State fill the ‘‘civilian deployment gap.’’

SECTION 1204 LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL

The Department of Defense’s section 1204 legislative proposal to support S/CRS

has not been included in either the House or Senate FY 2006 defense authorization

bills. The proposal would allow the DOD to transfer up to $200 million in goods,

services, sand funding to S/CRS through FY 2006. DOD goods, services, and funding

would bridge a gap in the S/CRS’s near-term ability to deploy quickly to a crisis.

Existing DOD authorities do not have enough flexibility to support civilian partners. For example, under the Economy Act, DOD can only use items from existing

stocks to support activities that it has that authority to do itself. Drawdown is slow

and prohibits the transfer of funds or the ability to contract—both vital for stabilization and reconstruction operations. I urge you to include this provision in the authorization bill during upcoming floor consideration.

CURRENT FOCUS OF DOD SUPPORT TO S/CRS

The main goal of DOD support to S/CRS is to integrate civilian and military efforts across the spectrum of peace and conflict. Achieving this goal requires civilian

and military personnel to train together, plan together, and operate together. Hence

DOD efforts in support of S/CRS are focused on three areas: Training and Exercising, Planning, and Operational Needs.

TRAINING AND EXERCISING

The Armed Forces of the United States are the best in the world because they

continuously go through cycles of training, exercising, and operating. Achieving the

same skill level on the civilian side of the USG will require similar repetitive cycles

of training, exercising, and operating.

As a first step, the Department of Defense has opened the doors of its educational

institutions to S/CRS and invited them to multiple exercises. DOD is also participating in S/CRS efforts to create training opportunities, such as the new course on

stabilization and reconstruction that the Foreign Service Institute has developed.

The goal is for DOD and S/CRS to train and exercise jointly—with the DOD learning from S/CRS and S/CRS learning from DOD. Joint training and education ensures that civilians and military deployed in the field have common operating assumptions and understand how to work together. Joint exercising gives civilians and

military personnel the opportunity to test what they’ve learned before they are deployed.

The Department of Defense would like to expand joint training and exercising

with S/CRS and other civilian components of the USG. The main limiting factor for

S/CRS is time and funding. S/CRS has a total staff of approximately 35 persons with

a heavy workload and day-to-day responsibilities that often preclude long-term

training for themselves and the development of training opportunities for others.

PLANNING

Building a robust planning capability in S/CRS and other civilian components of

the USG is critical to ensuring future success in stabilization and reconstruction

missions. This is a large and important task which will involve not only education

and training, but also the creation of new structures.

The Department of Defense realizes the critical nature of this task and is working

to (1) help S/CRS develop a planning capability and (2) integrate S/CRS and other

civilian components of the USG, as appropriate, into the DOD planning process.

S/CRS staff have made progress in this area. They have begun to develop a strategic

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planning template and are learning about the military planning process. There is

much work to do. There is a shared desire to move forward.

OPERATIONAL NEEDS

The Department of Defense has identified the lack of trained and deployable civilians as a critical limiting factor in the ability of the USG to conduct stabilization

and reconstruction missions abroad. Full funding of the Department of State and

S/CRS in FY 2006 would allow it to develop an Active Response Corps consisting

of 100 personnel from within the State Department. They are also looking at expanding contract mechanisms and putting together a USG database of civilians

within the USG.

This is a good start, but a more robust mechanism may be needed. At the request

of S/CRS, DOD is funding a feasibility study for S/CRS on the establishment of a

‘‘Civilian Response Corps’’ managed by a civilian department or agency. The study

is assessing the requirements and costs of various options contracts, rosters, reserves, and combinations thereof—for providing a standby civilian capacity for deployments.

The study is still being worked on, but there are a few conclusions that can be

drawn from previous experience:

(1) Regular training and exercising of a civilian corps is just as important as

with a military reserve. ‘‘Pick-up’’ games rarely work well.

(2) There is an abundance of untapped talent in State and local governments,

and the nonprofit and private sectors.

(3) Contract mechanisms may be sufficient for some skill sets, but not all (i.e.

transitional security).

CONCLUSION

The strategic environment has changed and the USG must keep pace if it hopes

to accomplish its national security objectives and win the war on terror. Establishing S/CRS is a critical first step to transforming the way the USG responds to

stabilization and reconstruction missions around the world. It is important to continue transforming the USG to meet the challenges of war, instability, and peace.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Henry, for coming this morning.

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate your mention of Chairman Warner.

I would mention we would want to share the full hearing record

with the chairman, with Senator Levin, the distinguished ranking

member, and other members of the Armed Services Committee, because they share our interest in what we are talking about today.

Mr. HENRY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. General Sharp. Can we—may we have your

thoughts this morning?

STATEMENT OF LTG WALTER SHARP, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC

PLANS AND POLICY, JOINT STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, WASHINGTON, DC

General SHARP. Good morning, sir. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. And I also appreciate the opportunity to appear before you

today to discuss this very important initiative. As you know the

primary purpose of our military is to win our Nation’s wars.

With the support of Congress we have had some major successes

during the last 4 years of sustained combat operations. However,

those of us in uniform are acutely aware of the limits of traditional

military power.

Enhancing our post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction capabilities is important in our ability to be able to prevail. General

Myers, General Pace, and the combatant commanders are committed to helping build the civilian capacity to plan and execute future stabilization and reconstruction operations.

17

We believe stabilization and reconstruction operations need to

become a core competency of all departments of our Government.

Our experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere have made it

clear that our military cannot accomplish this mission alone.

In addition to building the capacity of our partners overseas, we

must enhance the ability of all departments of our Government to

rapidly plan and respond to a crisis. Only then can we bring to

bear all elements of national power in a coordinated fashion.

Taking on crises in this manner will allow us to more rapidly

and effectively stop or avert or lessen the depth and breadth of any

problems and contingencies, and most importantly save both military and civilian lives and money.

Developing this capacity takes leadership and organization. With

the help of this committee and many others, we believe Ambassador Pascual is providing the right leadership and building the

right organization.

S/CRS is developing a cadre of deployable people who have skills

in the following areas that we think are critical. First, security—

both from developing the police and also the military side. Second,

rule of law—developing the country’s judicial and penal capabilities. Third, an infrastructure—developing a country’s electrical,

fuel, and sanitation systems. Fourth, in the economic and social

welfare areas—helping a country to develop jobs and health services. Fifth, humanitarian—making sure that food and shelter is

available. And, sixth, governance—helping to establish the ability

of a country to govern and to conduct elections.

This effort is focused on three capabilities that are particularly

important for stabilization and reconstruction operations. The first

required capability for stabilization and reconstruction is planning.

All agencies in the U.S. Government need to have the types of deliberate and crisis planning capabilities possessed by our combative

commanders, joint task force commanders, and the joint staff.

Ambassador Pascual and Administrator Natsios have made good

progress not only in developing their planning processes but in integrating them with the military here in Washington and out with

our combatant commanders.

I would also like to add that Admiral Giambastiani and Joint

Forces Command have taken a very active role in this endeavor.

The second required capability is to be able to rapidly mobilize

and deploy properly trained civilians when a crisis arises. Ambassador Pascual and his staff have come up with some innovative

ideas of how to accomplish this, including the active reserve corps

and several expanded contracting mechanisms that will allow us to

quickly build up, then sustain, our capability for stabilization and

reconstruction.

DOD has considerable experience with mobilizing and deploying

Reserve forces in time of crisis. And we have provided lessons

learned and other assistance as required. There is more work to be

done, but we believe we are definitely on the right track.

The third necessary capability is to exercise these planning and

execution functions. This is essential to ensure that planning, mobilization, and deployment mechanisms are sufficiently well developed and integrated with all other agencies to include the Department of Defense. Here, again, good progress has been made.

18

Both S/CRS and USAID has spent considerable time ensuring

that stabilization and reconstruction operations are featured in all

future combatant command exercises.

The necessary training to prepare personnel for these exercises

is being put into place as well. In fact, two officers from my staff

are attending the new Foreign Service Institute course on stabilization and reconstruction this week.

As I stated earlier, we are committed to helping our civilian

counterparts succeed. I have highlighted many of the actions that

have taken—that we have taken to assist Ambassador Pascual and

his organization.

The chairman, General Myers, also joins with Ryan Henry in requesting that Congress include the President’s section 1204 in the

fiscal year 2006 defense authorization bill. This proposal would allow DOD to transfer up to $200 million in

equipment services and money to S/CRS during fiscal year 2006

and greatly improve Ambassador Pascual’s ability to rapidly deploy

in a crisis.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the President has charged us with

a task of improving the responsiveness of our Government to help

nations emerging from tyranny and war. I believe we had made

good progress toward building that kind of robust organization that

can plan, mobilize, and deploy at a pace equal to the military and

provide assistance the President has called for.

Many challenges remain. However, with the continual help of

this committee and Congress as a whole, we can succeed. Mr.

Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I look forward to your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, General Sharp, for your

testimony.

I would like to call now on Mr. Kunder. And I have already recognized the wonderful contribution you have made to our group as

we began to think about this legislation and the whole area. It is

great to welcome you back today.

STATEMENT OF THE HON. JAMES R. KUNDER, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR ASIA AND THE NEAR EAST, U.S. AGENCY

FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. KUNDER. Thank you, sir. I consider the service on that advisory group one of the high points of my career and very much appreciated the opportunity to do that.

I just want to make four points quickly. I appreciate your telling

us we do not have to be too economical with our words, but we

should be economical.

First, I would like to say that we unequivocally and strongly support the Office that Carlos is leading at the Department of State.

We think this is exactly the right tool at exactly the right time to

organize the overall U.S. Government effort and to make it more

effective in crisis response.

I had the opportunity to open the USAID mission in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the Taliban fell, and previously I had the opportunity to serve as Director of USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster

Assistance, so I have some experience in crisis response, having

worked in Somalia, Bosnia, southern Sudan, and other places. And,

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while what we are discussing may appear to be an abstract government organization issue, I want to endorse very much what Ambassador Pascual said about the urgency of moving forward, because

in the field, the inefficiencies in response, or the slowness in response, is translated into broken bodies and starving children. So

the urgency in the real world is quite intense that we get these

kind of reforms done.

I would also agree very much with what Mr. Henry has said

about the costs in terms of our own soldiers’ lives and, of course,

our own children’s lives, if we allow these unstable spots to fester

on the face of the earth. So we very strongly endorse what Carlos

is doing.

We also want to note that we think the President and Secretary

of State’s choice of Ambassador Pascual was inspired. We are proud

of the fact that he has served in USAID, as well as the State Department, so we think he has enormous breadth of experience and

a unique perspective. In general, we think that the Office of Crisis

Response and Stabilization is exactly the right tool.

The second point I would like to make is that we, at USAID, are

trying to organize in response to the impetus that the committee

has provided and the President has provided. Administrator

Natsios, when he took over the job as USAID Administrator, created a new bureau called the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and

Humanitarian Assistance, to link together the various elements

that General Sharp was just talking about, recognizing that humanitarian response, governance, and crisis response are all critical.

Subsequent to the creation of Ambassador Pascual’s Office, we

are looking at reorganizing again in direct response, so that we can

provide the kinds of teams that he will need to deploy and the capacity that he will need when he gives the signal to send our U.S.

Government joint forces forward.

We have also created a new Office of Military Affairs at USAID.

In the real world, we are dealing with our military colleagues on

a daily basis in the provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan,

in the field in Iraq, and in many other places. But we completely

agree that we need to do more joint training and more joint planning.

So, under the overall umbrella that Ambassador Pascual is putting together here, we are trying to establish these direct civilian/

military linkages to be more effective in the field.

The third point I would make—and hence the charts up here and

charts appended to my statement—is that, in addition to structural

change, we are trying to do serious operational research in the

process that we are engaged in. This is something we are doing in

conjunction with Ambassador Pascual’s Office and in cooperation

with our military colleagues.

The U.S. Government needs to understand better exactly what to

do when we have a crisis. We are looking not just at after nations

have fallen apart, but we are looking at countries that are beginning to show the signs of instability and trying to generate resources so that a penny spent now saves the taxpayer a dollar

later.

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Across the area that I am honored to manage, we not only are

looking at Afghanistan reconstruction and Iraq reconstruction, but

we are also looking at Nepal, and we are looking at fraying of the

social order in Bangladesh, and we are looking at Sri Lanka, and

we are looking at continued instability in Mindanao in the Philippines. These charts look at questions about how we can direct the

sources of instability, government effectiveness versus government

legitimacy, delivery of social services but delivery of social services

in socially acceptable ways. How do we engage the active Muslim

communities in these places, who agree with us on many questions

of child survival and maternal well-being—how do we mobilize

them as assets, rather than enemies?

This kind of operational research, which I just touch on with

these charts, is, I think, a rich area for us all to work together on.

The fourth point I would touch on in closing is the question of

resources and manpower. I thought one of the most important findings to come out of the policy advisory group that you initiated, and

which you cited earlier, is the fact that we have to have some bodies to do this. I have reported to the committee before—and I am

not here specifically to talk about USAID; I am here as part of the

interagency team—but USAID, from a high point of about 9,000

employees during the Vietnam war, because of policy decisions

made during the nineties is down to about 2,100 officers worldwide.

We simply, at some point, need the bodies to get out in the field.

So we strongly endorse Ambassador Pascual’s call for the conflict

response fund, the $100 million fund, and also the establishment

of some standing capacity so that we can get the right folks out to

the field.

I was listening closely to General Sharp’s comments about the

kinds of capacities we need. We completely agree with that. Right

now, within the U.S. Government, we know that in every crisis

there is likely to be a need for demobilizing fighters. In any one of

these crises, informal forces—militia forces, guerrilla forces, warlord forces—are constituted. We need to demobilize those fighters

and reintegrate them into civilian life.

Yet we do not have a dedicated capacity anywhere in the U.S.

Government, a cadre of technical experts, who know how to do that

well.

And in closing, sir, I would like to thank the committee and the

Senate and the Congress for their support for beginning to turn

this around. We have gotten authority from the Congress to increase our hiring at USAID by a couple hundred. It is not enough,

but it is very much welcome. We have brought one of our new

classes of ‘‘new entry professionals’’ to this hearing. If I could ask

the chairman’s indulgence, we have a group of them standing in

the back of the room, who are coming up for their first congressional hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. Please stand.

Mr. KUNDER. This is part of their training in understanding the

importance of the Congress to our work.

The CHAIRMAN. Right.

Mr. KUNDER. These are the kind of folks with graduate degrees

who will help rejuvenate some of us gray-haired folks who have

been working in this area.

21

So with that, I would just close again with our strong endorsement of Ambassador Pascual’s role and the criticality of sustained

support and resources for what he is doing.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kunder follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES KINDER, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR ASIA AND

THE NEAR EAST, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is an honor to appear before you

again today. I especially welcome the opportunity to testify on the new Office of the

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department (S/CRS)

and its role as part of our national security architecture. We, at USAID, appreciate

the committee’s strong interest in, and support for, improving the U.S. Government’s crisis response capability, and the sustained leadership shown by the chairman, Senator Biden, and other members of the committee.

Clearly, one of the central lessons of 9/11 is the critical importance of weak and

failing states. The pathologies that emerge from fragile and failed states readily

spread across porous boundaries and potentially affect entire regions with crime,

drugs, disease, trafficking, and environmental degradation, as well as economic deterioration and political instability. These states may also be the scenes of largescale refugee or internal displacement, and can spawn widespread human rights

abuses.

As the National Security Strategy states, we need to bring to bear the whole

range of tools that are at our disposal—in the domains of defense, diplomacy, and

development—and apply them in a much more consistent, coherent, and coordinated

fashion. The President meant this in a general sense and as a fundamental prerequisite to a more effective foreign policy in a period of instability. But the coordination imperative also applies, specifically, in the case of failing and failed states

where military, diplomatic, and development endeavors must be brought to bear

synergistically.

Failed and failing states are both the incubators of terrorism and the sanctuary

for terrorists. It was no mere coincidence that the Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan

served as al-Qaida’s training and staging redoubts. As the National Security Strategy document succinctly puts it: ‘‘America is now threatened less by conquering

states than by failing ones.’’ Regions far away, we now know by painful experience,

are not immune from the consequences that arise from state failure on other continents. This became all too obvious to this country the morning of September 11,

2001.

Over the last 15 years, USAID has been involved in six major post-conflict and

stabilization projects, including Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Liberia, Afghanistan, and

Iraq. We have also been significantly involved in a variety of others, including Cambodia, Mozambique, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Colombia, and East Timor. As these lists indicate, the problem is not limited to any

one region of the world, nor is state failure a transient phenomenon. USAID brings

unique strengths that it has gathered from over 50 years of humanitarian and postconflict interventions. In a 2001 study, our Bureau of Policy and Program Coordination found, incredibly, that two-thirds of the 80 countries, where we were present,

had experienced violent conflict over the previous 5 years.

As this committee has noted in previous deliberations, the USG’s approach to

dealing with failing and failed states has, historically, been ad hoc and reactive. All

too often, senior policymakers have become seriously engaged only at the point

when the situation has deteriorated to such a point that continued inaction has become unacceptable as a matter of national security or morality. Stated differently,

we have historically tended to engage ourselves at the point where our interventions

are most urgent and least promising. Because failed and failing states feature

prominently in the Global War on Terror, we must be more proactive and strategic

in our response.

The President’s initiative in establishing the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) is an important component in addressing this most important national security problem. USAID believes S/CRS can play a significant role as part

of the new foreign policy apparatus required to meet the challenges we now face.

S/CRS can help ‘‘fill the gap’’ in meeting some of the shortcomings we have experienced in dealing with failed and failing states over the past decade and a half, and

in better coordinating the civilian response to crisis, as well as the civil-military

strategies, plans, and responses essential to successful stabilization operations.

22

1This document has been retained in the permanent record of the hearing and also can be

viewed at the Web site: www.usaid.gov/policy/2005lfragilelstateslstrategy.pdf.

As a standing office, S/CRS can help monitor states that are prone to fragility and

bring high-level attention to problems as they develop. This can help us take steps

necessary to shore up weak states. In the event of failures we cannot prevent,

S/CRS can also help us design strategies that ensure a timely, effective USG response. In other words, the existence of S/CRS will allow for timelier interventions

that can either prevent or mitigate a crisis. This will help avoid situations, as in

Somalia, where matters degenerated to such an extent that our only effective alternative was the application of force. In brief, S/CRS will enable us to act in a more

proactive manner and with a greater array of tools.

S/CRS can play an important role in coordinating with partners in other countries

and international organizations to pool the necessary resources to deal more effectively with states in crisis. It can play the same indispensable coordinating role

among a range of departments and offices in the USG, ensuring that the particular

expertise and value-added of each USG agency is reinforcing the overall USG effort.

For these reasons, USAID is a strong supporter of the S/CRS architecture and has

been providing staff and resources to assist the Office in getting up and running.

USAID has seconded 7 senior staff from the Agency to further CRS’s work, and we

intend to continue providing staff support to bolster its capacity in key leadership

areas. We also believe Ambassador Pascual to be an inspired choice to lead S/CRS. We

are proud that, among the many contributions he has made to our Nation, he initially came from the ranks of USAID. His extraordinary breadth of experience and

perspective, and his analytical and leadership qualities, make him an ideal person

for the unifying and innovating role in which the President and Secretary of State

have asked him to serve.

USAID’s work in fragile and failing states will be guided by its new Fragile States

Strategy.1 With assistance to weak states now at the center of the national security

agenda, USAID has undertaken an extensive reassessment of how to improve the

effectiveness of its response to the unique challenges posed by fragile states. The

strategy identifies three central goals: Improving the analysis and monitoring of

fragile states; focusing programs on the causes of fragility; and improving internal

business practices to facilitate a rapid and effective response. The strategy is based

on the understanding that close coordination among the range of USG agencies is

essential, which is why we believe S/CRS has such a crucial role to play.

It should be noted that the efforts to improve stabilization and reconstruction capacity in the United States have parallels internationally, as well. USAID’s sister

agency in Great Britain, the Department for International Development (DFID), has

also put forward a fragile-states strategy that closely parallels our own. Fragile and

failing states were also on the agenda of a Development Assistance Committee

(DAC) meeting of the OECD in February. This gathering brought together some 100

heads of donor organizations, Western development officials, and representatives

from developing countries and afforded both DFID and USAID the opportunity to

unveil their respective strategies.

Recognizing that USAID must adapt its structures and functions to the current

challenges our Nation faces, Administrator Natsios has made a number of innovative internal changes, both preceding the establishment of S/CRS and in sync with

the new office. For example, upon assuming office, the Administrator established

the new Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, structurally

linking the Agency’s response to the disparate elements often encountered in failed

or failing states: Humanitarian needs; conflict within society; and democracy and

governance issues. Within this new Bureau, Mr. Natsios created the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, with the specific mission of tracking failing states

and impelling responses to prevent full-scale state failure.

As we implement our Fragile States Strategy we are now pursuing further organizational changes within USAID so that we can meet the Agency’s new mandate

under the President’s National Security Strategy. This includes organizing to interface effectively with S/CRS, across the range of USAID’s response capabilities. We

are concurrently perfecting an agencywide response platform that links rapid postconflict humanitarian and stabilization activities with immediate planning for

longer term recovery. We view this linkage as the real value-added USAID brings

to the USG’s reconstruction and stabilization arsenal. USAID management recognizes that we need to stop the instability when states fail—to ‘‘staunch the bleeding,’’ if you will—but we also need, simultaneously, to sow the seeds for long-term

reconstruction and development. In military terms, we need to take the steps that

will allow our troops to come home as soon as possible, but we also need to initiate

23

the long-term development that will help ensure they will not be called back to the

same country several years later. We are developing a standard structure and system for standing up and operating a complex emergency task force that can become

operational as quickly as USAID’s Response Management Teams (RMTs) for natural

disasters, then transition rapidly to a reconstruction and development platform. Our

initial efforts at such a task force configuration in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Asian

tsunami have taught us useful lessons, on which we are building.

The President and Secretary Rice have emphasized the centrality of democracy

and freedom, both to our national security and to development in general. Democracy and human freedom contribute to stability and prevent state collapse, and further, when states are rebuilding, democratic, inclusive governance must be incorporated into the reconstruction process. Without strong democratic systems in place,

reconstruction efforts are left in jeopardy. Democracy, rule of law, and good governance are the key elements of USAID’s Democracy Strategy that are needed to ensure the success of reconstruction efforts in fragile and failing states.

The spread of democracy is central to our national security. As the President has

said, new challenges arise from ‘‘terror networks’’ that are aided by ‘‘outlaw regimes’’ or live at the intersection of failed states, poverty, chaos, and despair. It

should now be clear that the advance of democracy leads to peace, because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors and because ‘‘in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of

liberty.’’

Good governance, founded on democratic principles, is our best hope of meeting

those challenges before they become threats. USAID has established, as a core goal,

‘‘the transition to, and consolidation of democracy and good governance throughout

the world.’’ To reach that goal, we focus on three objectives: Expand political freedom and competition; promote justice and human rights through rule of law; and

strengthen democratic and accountable governance. USAID programs are implemented by a democracy corps of over 400 democracy and governance officers who

serve in over 80 country and regional missions, and who are managing $1.2 billion

in program resources in 2005 support the administration’s initiative.

USAID is dedicated to ensuring that its resources carry out the vision of the

President, and ultimately the American people, by supporting the development of

prosperous democratic partners for the United States around the world. Two recent

examples of USAID’s efforts in post-conflict democracy building include:

Iraq: USAID played a key role in supporting the Iraqi election process as well as

helping to build democratic institutions in a country that was misruled with an iron

fist for generations. USAID helped mobilize thousands of Iraqi election staff, many

hundred Iraqi civil society organizations, and helped Iraqi and international organizations to field domestic election observers, deliver voter education, and implement

conflict mitigation programs. With USAID support, over 220 core election monitors

were trained, and with additional European Union support, in turn trained as many

as 12,000 domestic monitors. One indicator of election success was the higher than

anticipated voter turnout. But most importantly, the 275-member Iraqi National Assembly (INA)—with 25 percent female representation—was elected to govern the

country, draft a new constitution, and provide for a national referendum on the constitution and subsequently a constitutional government.

Afghanistan: USAID has helped Afghanistan move toward the promise of democracy, stability, and peace. The staging of the Loya Jirga national assembly in summer 2002, only months after the fall of the Taliban regime, owes much to logistical

support provided by USAID. The USG was the largest and earliest donor. USAID

provided $151.2 million, including logistical support for the Afghan Transitional Authority to convene the delegates responsible for ratifying the new Afghan Constitution. USAID also supported the October 2004 Presidential elections, when Afghans

elected Hamid Karzai. USAID today is deeply involved in helping to prepare for parliamentary elections currently scheduled for September 2005—helping Afghans

build a legitimate state with institutions that promote good governance and the rule

of law.

An important element of our restructuring for stabilization and reconstruction efforts is a more formal linkage with the U.S. Department of Defense at the operational level. Although we have traditionally maintained a military liaison unit in

USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), and while we work closely

with military units in Afghanistan, Iraq, in the tsunami response, and in many

other locales, Administrator Natsios has directed that we establish improved planning and liaison structures. In response to his directive, USAID has now created

a Military Policy Board, and a new Office of Military Affairs. The Military Policy

Board oversees the policy interface with DOD, including personnel and training actions. The new Office of Military Affairs will manage and facilitate USAID’s dayVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:00 Jan 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 963502.SEN SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
24

to-day work with DOD, prioritizing and managing training, conferences and exercises, planning, communications and operations with the military when crises arise.

The USAID links with S/CRS, our strengthened crisis response platform, and new

Office of Military Affairs will significantly increase USAID’s stabilization and reconstruction capabilities. We believe these changes will make us a more useful partner

to Ambassador Pascual and his team, as he takes on the challenges he faces, including the need for a coordinated USG plan and response, the imperative for additional, flexible resources, and the requirement for filling in the gaps that still exist

within the USG response system.

In closing, I would like to bring to the committee’s attention two areas of policy

and operational research in which USAID is active, and which we hope will contribute to the topic we are discussing today: Building peace in hostile environments.

As part of the development of USAID’s Fragile States Strategy mentioned earlier,

we are pursuing ongoing work to examine fragile states—failing, failed, or recovering states—and what steps the USG can take to assist them. Our work attempts

to disaggregate the causal factors for fragility, broadly arrayed as issues of effectiveness and issues of legitimacy. We then align resources against these factors. The

attached chart reviews our approach to fragile states.

A second area of operational research, shared with S/CRS, is in the area of refining the post-conflict task framework, and carefully delineating and sequencing the

required tasks, when a nation does slip into crisis. The second attached chart, prepared for our Iraq program, serves as a brief indicator of how a ‘‘menu’’ of task options is transformed into a reconstruction strategy. By carefully examining the task

framework, we believe we can contribute to the USG’s efforts to identify programmatic and organizational gaps in the overall stabilization and reconstruction

system.

USAID applauds the committee’s staunch support for S/CRS and the stabilization

and reconstruction response systems needed to meet our national security objectives. I am prepared to answer any questions the committee may have.

25

26

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much for that strong testimony. Likewise for introduction of your new associates. That is so

important in understanding this.

Let me just begin the questioning. We will have a 10-minute

round, and I have a lot of questions. So I hope we will have opportunities to raise those during the course of the time.

I would just mention for those who come into this subject, sort

of in midstream, that without oversimplifying what we are talking

about, it is the fact that there has been perhaps a long American

27

tradition of going out into the world and fighting battles successfully and, having done so with satisfaction that the right side has

won, withdrawing, coming home, and retiring.

And one can argue historically how well or how poorly that all

has worked, but obviously we are in a new cycle of understanding

of this. Afghanistan in the late eighties is a case in point. Suddenly

we did withdraw from Afghanistan. We withdrew from Pakistan.

We, in essence, came home. But not everything continued well in

Afghanistan.

And as we now know, the al-Qaida encampments began training

persons who attacked us here in the United States, not in Afghanistan. Americans have wondered what happened in the meanwhile.

Now, essentially we went back to Afghanistan, but the thought

on this occasion was that perhaps we should work carefully with

the Afghans on a government structure there that would be very

helpful for all the people of that country, but, likewise, helpful for

ourselves and for the rest of the world, so that there would not be

a reconstitution of al-Qaida or an incubator for terrorism in the

country.

That is a big commitment, as you have pointed out, a daunting

challenge, Afghanistan, all by itself. And you can say, ‘‘Well, surely,

there must be talented Americans that can be found somewhere in

the country to supplement the role of our fighters, who are still

working their way through the rest of al-Qaida or the Taliban or

so forth,’’ and there are. But the point of our exercise now is to

identify these professionals and maybe others that are an auxiliary,

who can be helpful to them permanently. Just as we could not have

envisioned precisely the outcome in Afghanistan, we have an even

more daunting challenge working with our allies in Iraq.

And as you have pointed out, Mr. Kunder, we have even taken

a look at Nepal and various other countries that you mentioned,

not from the standpoint that we are going in full force to reorganize their governments, but rather as you said, as preventive medicine, where there are requests for help and stability.

Now, since our policy in Afghanistan has been one of dynamically

fostering democracy, and we all rejoice in the extraordinary number of manifestations of that in the last 24 months of time. Sometimes, along with democracy, if there has been a very severe dictatorship or autocracy problem, there comes a certain amount of instability as new institutions take hold, as requests come for assistance that may, or may not, be forthcoming if we are not prepared.

In other words, the very dynamism of our foreign policy, hoping

that people can be free as the President suggested in his inaugural

address, right out here on the Capitol steps, almost denotes a certain degree of instability, albeit creative and hopeful as it may be.

So this is the reason why the Departments of Defense and State,

USAID, and others have come together. I salute this as a manifestation of the best of American government.

So, frequently, there are press accounts of disputes, of people

pushing for turf. That even happens with congressional committees, worrying about jurisdiction and so forth. But this is a pretty

broad subject. We are talking about an imbalance—about military

people, about State Department professionals, but also people who

have experience, maybe in business and banking and education

28

and political systems and health and education—all of these things

really do not come under any committee or any department of our

Government.

So this requires an enormous amount of cooperation and sharing.

That has been manifested by this panel this morning, and I salute

that.

Well, let me commence questioning with you, Ambassador

Pascual, by getting down to the nitty-gritty of the problem. The executive branch has requested $24 million for fiscal year 2006 for

the Office and $100 million for an emergency fund. That is funding

that members of this committee fully authorized, but other Members of Congress do not yet understand the complexity of the problem. And so as a result, the emergency supplemental fell far short

of the request, and some reports indicated that the House of Representative’s mark is thus far a very low figure for the 2006 funding.

Now, describe to us what will be the impact of this very modest

funding if those rumors or reports were to continue into actuality,

if you cannot get the full $100 million for the emergency fund.

What is that going to mean about the capability of your Office to

be ready for a crisis situation?

Ambassador PASCUAL. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

Thank you for highlighting these issues, for highlighting the importance of the coordination among the interagency community as you

have stated; and, indeed, for highlighting what Secretary Rice has

really called the need for transformational diplomacy, of diplomacy

that can actually affect changes and differences on the ground. And

your question on resources really cuts to the core of the capacity

of the United States to have a real and effective transformational

diplomacy throughout the world.

One of the things that I have learned from my military colleagues is that if we want to be effective on the other side of a conflict, if we want to be able to respond when the theater demands

us to respond is that we have to have the capacity ahead of time

to plan, to prepare, to prepare skills and resources, to organize ourselves in advance.

And it is exactly these kinds of issues that are going to be affected if we do not get the types of resources that we are seeking.

It is also going to affect our capacity to deploy.

Let me be more specific. There are certainly things that we will

be able to do as a result of the limited resources we have received

so far, and if we do receive a lower level of resources, I think it

is important to be frank about that. We are very—working very

hard to improve our Washington management capabilities.

I do believe that we will be able to manage one post-conflict response out of Washington with a lower level of resources, but it will

be out of Washington. We will improve our planning capabilities.

We are committed to that. We think that is essential.

We believe—we will continue to improve our coordination with

the military. We will be able to develop a better cataloging of contractual capabilities.

What we will not be able to do is to develop an active response

corps that establishes the kind of standby capabilities that allows

us to move into the field effectively and quickly. It will affect our

29

ability to develop this kind of civilian reserve that all of us have

underscored as absolutely critical to have, to have that type of

transformational skill that is necessary to affect a conflict early in

the process, so that we can influence the dynamic.

It will affect our capacity to deploy resources to the field quickly.

It will affect our ability to conduct extensive exercises that allow

us to really sharpen the capacity to work effectively in the field and

work through issues in advance.

And, quite frankly, it would also affect our ability to regularize

our staff. Presently, we have about 45 people working on these

issues. Most of those people are there on temporary arrangements

and details, so it is fantastic that the U.S. Government has brought

itself together to do this, but unfortunately it creates transition and

turnover. And if what we want to do is institutionalize the capability, we have to have people who are consistent and regular.

So, in effect, Mr. Chairman, what happens if we get those lower

resources is that it relegates us to better planning in Washington.

It really cripples our capability to make a difference where it

counts on the ground, in the field, where we need to effect the dynamics of change.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much for that response.

I want to recognize now, Senator Chafee, who has joined us in

the hearing. I call upon him for his comments and questions.

Senator CHAFEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, gentlemen.

In Rhode Island, we have a number of Liberians that have fled

the violence and chaos of Liberia, and frequently they suggest to

us, ‘‘It would be good if we could go back and help with any reconstruction in our home country.’’ Is there any apparatus for including people that have fled their home countries in going back and

helping rebuild?

Mr. KUNDER. Sir, I think we recognize very much the importance

of expatriate communities with special language skills, with special

contacts, and so forth. In Afghanistan, for example, both the

United States Government and the U.N. system established programs, specifically, to try to get diaspora Afghans back in the country. We have regular outreach meetings to expatriate communities

that might be interested in investing in their countries and so

forth.

It is a complex area, because, frankly, there are sometimes complex dynamics between those who have fled, been forced to flee,

and those who have stayed. And so that those who return sometimes—there are just complex dynamics. I should leave it at that.

But, in general, we recognize the extraordinary value added of

expatriate communities, and we have specifically tried to target

them as assets for reconstruction.

Senator CHAFEE. And you indicated it has worked in Afghanistan

in reaching out to Afghans around the world to come back. That

has been the experience there?

Mr. KUNDER. Certainly—I think I can speak for the other organizations as well—certainly at USAID the investors, the technical

consultants, the counterparts that we work with in every country

in crisis include some significant component of the expatriate community. So in Iraq, we have got a lot of Iraqi Americans working

30

for us here in Washington and in Baghdad. In Kabul, we have got

Afghan Americans working for us, so it is very much a part of the

United States Government response.

Senator CHAFEE. Yes, sir.

Ambassador PASCUAL. If I might add to that a little bit? One of

the things that has been very important is the extent to which

communities organize themselves in the United States, and we can

engage with them in a systematic and organized way.

It creates a greater capability, in fact, to be able to work with

those groups and mobilize their skills. Certainly, one of the strongest examples that we have seen of that throughout the world is

with the Armenian-American community, which has played a very

important and strong role in the development and reconstruction of

Armenia.

We are currently looking at how we can, in fact, mobilize this

type of diaspora capability in Sudan. And there are tremendous—

in fact, there are very large numbers of Sudanese professionals

who are now starting to go back to southern Sudan, and, hopefully,

to northern Sudan to bring a different perspective and skills and

capabilities there.

We are looking at ways in which we can regularize the process

of tapping those skills and capabilities. Inevitably, as Mr. Kunder

said, you have to have a country-specific response that has the

right political mix. But, in fact, if we can find a way to generalize

those—the tapping of those capabilities, it will be to the good.

And if you have some suggestions for us on groups that we might

contact relative to Liberia, we would certainly be glad to do so and

follow up on that suggestion.

Senator CHAFEE. Great.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Chafee.

Ambassador, let me just underline a point you made and ask you

to elaborate some more. In his May 18 address, President Bush

cited the creation of a new active response corps, to be, as he

quoted ‘‘on-call.’’ And my question would be: Is this to be a reserve

corps, an active duty corps, or how does it fit with what we were

calling for in our report as a response readiness corps with an active duty and a reserve component?

For example, we had suggested 250 people in the active duty

component, but a much larger reserve of citizens, some retired military, some former government officials, some just talented people

in our communities, who, in the same capacity as in the military

can be called up to serve their country on various occasions where

those particular talents are involved.

Describe, if you can, more explicitly, what you envision. Even,

granted, we have talked about the constraints, the finance here,

and the need to flesh this out, so that you have that. But in the

best of all worlds and you have got the money, how does this work

in your judgment?

Ambassador PASCUAL. Thank you. Let me put this in context of

three types of capabilities that we believe are essential to produce

an effective response on the ground. One is leadership and coordination in Washington; a second is to have the diplomatic and technical leadership and design capabilities that can be deployed to the

31

ground; and, third, the skills and capabilities that are absolutely

essential to be able to implement programs and make them work.

And so we need to have staffing for all three parts of that. The

first portion of that component is led by my Office. It plays a core

leadership and coordination role in Washington and brings together

the interagency community.

In order to have diplomatic and technical leadership on the

ground, we must have, as you exactly suggested in your bill, to—

the capability of deploying diplomats and technical specialists in a

rapid response group that is able to engage from the outset in

many of the core civilian functions that are fundamental to our diplomatic efforts, such as negotiations on peace agreements, the development of political arrangements on the ground, the development of transitional strategies, as well as the design of some of the

key programs that are fundamental and necessary to promote

change and security and stability—as General Sharp said, in particular, some of those programs that are necessary in transitional

security.

The active response corps is specifically targeted for that purpose. What we are seeking to have in the State Department is a

group of 100 active response diplomats. They would train first in

a program through my Office. They would participate in regular exercises. They would generally work in teams of about 33 people

each.

The intent is to have a mix of individuals with political and economic and diplomatic security, and administrative skills. And what

they would be able to do is create—go out to the field and create

the foundation for diplomatic operation if it does not exist; or if an

embassy has been drawn down significantly or needs technical support in certain specific areas that they would be able to provide

that.

In those moments when those individuals are not deployed, they

would work in Washington in either regional or functional bureaus

on issues related to conflict and conflict response. Some of this

might include early warning activities. It may be developing the reserve mechanisms that we have been establishing. It may be working on relations with our international partners. It may be working

on—with individual bureaus on specific conflict activities that they

need to be able to address.

So, in effect, what we are looking at is a mechanism of having

individuals that are proactively addressing the questions of conflict

and stabilization, and they work in Washington, are trained and

prepared, and then are able to go out in any of those circumstances

that are necessary.

I would just stress that in addition to this, it is still absolutely

crucial to have that capability of the implementation of programs

on the ground. And that is exactly where your reserve concept

comes into play, as was also underscored by members of this panel

here.

And in order to achieve that, what we are doing immediately is

looking at how we expand the contractual capabilities that we

have, because we have those authorities. But if we are going to create a separate type of reserve mechanism that is akin to what the

military has, that will require new authorities, new mechanisms,

32

and so we are jointly studying that with Joint Forces Command,

so that if we come back with proposals that we can demonstrate

to you that it is the most cost-effective way of getting the job done.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is very helpful, and it leads to a question I would like to pose to Mr. Henry and General Sharp. And it

is along these lines. If you were to try to design the ideal civilian

counterpart as a partner to the military in stabilization reconstruction, what would the organization look like and how would you describe the possibilities for joint training and planning that would

be most useful to bring that about?

Mr. HENRY. I will go ahead and begin, and then turn it over to

General Sharp.

One of the things is we, in the Department of Defense, consider

ourselves a learning organization and adaptability is a—the coin of

the realm. No conflict we go into is like the last one. There’s always

lessons learned to be taken from it, so I think a key attribute needs

to be adaptability.

What we would suggest is to put together a structure that looks

compatible based on the lessons learned that we have had over the

last several conflicts, and areas where we needed to get in a capability like S/CRS will provide, and then the next step we would

take is both train and exercise to it. And we think that one of the

things that makes us such a potent fighting force is our ability to

exercise in as realistic a scenario as possible.

And that is one of the things we really look forward to in the establishment of S/CRS, and we have already started to take advantage of that, is integrating that in with our exercise program. And

one of the things—adaptations we have made now is that we look

at every exercise we do and see where we are doing stability ops

and making sure that that is a key element of the exercise objectives; from there, to be able to learn and iterate more and then to

adapt as we see real world situations. But to go in with something

that is too static, locked in concrete is an approach we think works

to the disadvantage of what the real world circumstances might

prevent—present us with.

The CHAIRMAN. General.

General SHARP. Sir, just a couple of things to add to that. First

off, I think that it is important to note that we, as the U.S. Government, I think, really have made progress. As Ambassador Pascual

says, we have a ways to go, but we have made progress.

I was in Haiti for 6 months during the mid-1990s when the military went in and tried to help stand up a government and develop

a police corps and run elections. I mean we had some other help,

but it was mostly on our own down there.

I saw a marked difference when I was in Bosnia from 2000 to

2001, where the Embassy was more robust. USAID had great folks

there doing it on the ground, but I guess my—what I saw is we

were not really well coordinated. We had individual stovepipe organizations that did not have a common overall set of objectives or

goals and coordinating mechanisms to be able to move forward.

And you move forward then to Afghanistan, and I think we made

great progress in Afghanistan. If you look at what the provisional

reconstruction teams, the PRTs are doing, which I think we have

24 or 25 throughout the country right now, how those are working

33

together to pull all elements of not only our power together, but to

try to pull the Afghan Government together. And it is making tremendous progress there.

The other thing we learned, I think, really in Afghanistan is the

importance of—at the command level properly integrating and coordinating. What Ambassador Khalilzad and Dave Barno, General

Dave Barno at the time, were able to pull together for a joint command center, sharing intelligence, sharing strategic goals, the military believes is really a model of how to do that. And I think we

learned from there to—what General Casey and Ambassador

Negroponte have been able to do in Iraq, again sharing a lot of

abilities to go through there.

The U.S. Government, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, have a set

of strategies with specific objectives and goals that each one of the

departments are measuring themselves, working together and coordinating as it goes through. So I think there has been progress

made.

When you look, specifically, at what sorts of skills do we need

within these organizations that we are talking about today—I

mean I talked through some of the very specific ones from police

and governance and rule of law, et cetera, but I also believe that

within those there needs to be some skills specifically in language

and cultural awareness. I mean, every country that we will go into

will be different, both from a language perspective, but probably

just as importantly is the culture, as to what that country is used

to as far as these structures and how we can help them develop

those that have come down.

Ryan and everybody else has talked about the ability to plan.

We, of course, in the military think that that is very important,

and we put a lot of time into that. We all completely understand

that the plan changes, as we say in the military, as soon as you

cross the line of departure, but you have a plan to base off of, a

plan to adjust from.

I think the next important is the individuals in it that understand the capabilities of other organizations within our Government and other international organizations. Now, we in the military in the mid-1980s, thanks a lot to the Congress, have really

learned the importance of jointness and the ability to understand

other military capabilities. The Goldwater-Nichols really helped us

along that way.

I think that it might be smart to take a look at that from an

interagency perspective of the whole U.S. Government. You know,

should senior, or should people as they come up in State or USAID

or the military, be required to spend time in other organizations in

order to be able to use those skills, so that when we have to deploy

to conflict, we all understand each other.

Continual education, I think, is very important, again of very

great importance in the military, to take young officers, and all the

way up through the line, to be able to continue to educate them as

we go through.

And I think the last one I will just hit on is the importance of

having individuals that understand we are a nation at war, that

we, as a people, I believe, have the responsibility to all participate

in one way or another of winning that war. And these types of orVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:00 Jan 23, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 963502.SEN SFORELA1 PsN: SFORELA1
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ganizations are an excellent opportunity to have individuals who

understand the importance of selfless service, understand the importance of being part of something that is larger than themself,

to go out and help other people. So I guess those are the type of

characteristics that I think are important for this organization.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much, General. I think you

have made some profoundly important points. And I will not repeat

all of them, but I made notes as you proceeded. There is a big difference between our interventions, in which you were involved, in

Haiti and Bosnia—but what is our understanding in our own Government of what is required—what are the lessons learned from all

this? I noted the point that you made about people who understand

what all of the agencies of our Government might do, and likewise

what our allies, what other countries, may contribute. This is

knowledge that does not come particularly easily, but it requires

assignments across Agencies that are not, I suppose, more typical

in the Defense Department and in State and elsewhere—learning

of what others are doing in our Government and what talents others may bring to the table.

That is so important because that is the whole point, I suppose,

of our testimony today in which all of you appear together and are,

in fact, conversant with what each other is doing—thank goodness—and supportive, and amending the bill as we proceed. It is

important for us in the Congress to understand lessons from your

experiences, because you have been there.

I just offer anecdotally, sort of triggered by this, my own very

small military experience a long time ago, now 48 or 47 years ago,

I was a young intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke, when

he was Chief of Naval Operations. One of the reasons that Admiral

Burke employed me was to make the Navy point of view well

known to Members of Congress or Cabinet members, others that he

was able to inveigle into the morning briefings. But then I had the

good fortune to go down to the basement to see Allen Dulles and

the CIA people, along with other people from other services, who

also had points of view, the Air Force point of view or the Army

point of view or what have you.

This was extraordinarily instructive to me as an advocate who

was loyal to Admiral Burke and the Navy. This was long before

Goldwater-Nichols, and even the joint chiefs came in in the same

way. Since then, our culture has evolved as regards public service.

The complexities of dealing in other nations really have accelerated

that, because if we are to be successful—as you have stated so

well—Americans understand that the war on terrorism is a longgoing thing. It does not simply involve nation states. In places

where there are people who are declared targets of retaliation, this

involves a civilian component constantly trying to think through, in

a dangerous world, how we contribute.

I think what we are talking about today offers in this reserve

corps, or however we wish to talk about this, a way in which people

of talent in our country, who really want to give of themselves, will

have that opportunity. That is, we are bright enough to be able to

structure the mechanisms that identify them and finance those activities. So, I thank you very much for that response.

35

Mr. Kunder, in your testimony, you described a new Bureau for

Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, and pointed out

that the Agency would be developing an agencywide response platform. Just yesterday, as it turns out, we had Mr. Michael Hess before our committee for his confirmation hearing, to head up this

Bureau. You are appearing back to back, Wednesday and Thursday.

We are pleased that such a qualified person has been identified

and nominated by the President. But can you go into more detail

about your views of what this ‘‘response platform’’ is to be? How

will Mr. Hess organize the Bureau? How many people, for instance,

will be involved? And would you consider these people reserves, to

be quickly pulled from various places? How will you identify the

people in his situation?

Mr. KUNDER. Thank you, sir. If I may just comment, you were

talking about the specialized response corps that we very much

support Ambassador Pascual on. I think one of the interesting phenomena in that area is that this is an odd occupational specialty.

I mean, our Nation has a certain number of computer programmers

that move from job to job.

A crisis response coordinator for southern Sudan is an occupational specialty as well, and there have been traditionally a cadre

of folks who have moved around in this field. And I can tell you

that they are in demand; the demand far exceeds supply. Because

of the number of crises going on around the world right now, we

simply do not have enough. We have got to invest in creating the

kinds of folks who will be on standby, who can deploy quickly.

One of the interesting phenomena, I was thinking when General

Sharp was talking about Bosnia, about some of our military officers, because they have served in peacekeeping operations and

post-conflict operations, and these are men and women who retire

often in their midforties full of energy and experience. We are increasingly seeing what we see with Mr. Hess, and that is a retired

military officer moving into a management role on the civilian side.

And that is an enormous potential asset for us.

Specifically on the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, currently that Bureau has within it some traditional offices that USAID has used to respond to crises: The Office

of Food for Peace that delivers food assistance around the world,

the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which responds both to

natural disasters, tsunamis, and so forth and also conflict situations.

What the Administrator has proposed is reconfiguring and adding new offices; creating a new Office of Conflict Mitigation, a new

Office of Military Affairs. These are the kinds of decisions that Mr.

Hess will face, and exactly how we are going to configure that new

bureau so that it best fits into the structure that Ambassador

Pascual is creating.

Currently there are in excess of 100 people in that Bureau. That

is by our standard a pretty significant asset. There is an inner ring

of about 100 people, and the question is how we are best going to

configure those to be the best partner in the kinds of situations we

have been describing.

36

We have traditionally also maintained an outer ring along the

lines of what Ambassador Pascual was describing earlier of reserves on call, teams of these kinds of experts who may be working

for the U.S. Government in one crisis, but working for an NGO in

the next crisis.

We maintain rosters. We keep computer databases of their skill

sets, so that if, in fact, we do need a food logistician in southern

Sudan, we literally are able to search our databases and find an

individual who has that kind of relevant experience.

So we see the need both for an inner circle of U.S. Government

employees who do this full time and are ready to deploy immediately and then an outer ring of reserves who we can call upon

to supplement that.

The CHAIRMAN. This leads me to a question of you, Ambassador,

and that is: Are you working to develop joint contingency planning

with Defense and USAID in southern Sudan? Can you describe

how you are going about such planning, whether you have civilians

ready to go? What is happening there generally?

Ambassador PASCUAL. We very much are beginning a process of

doing contingency planning and, in fact, not just contingency planning, but planning for things that have to happen today in southern Sudan, but even more broadly than that, how we look at Sudan

in general.

It is absolutely crucial that we have the capacity to look

around—look at the full range of challenges that we are facing in

Sudan in order to be able to bring together our policy in a way that

really makes an impact and has a difference.

It requires us to address immediate humanitarian needs. There

is obviously a pressing and humanitarian and security situation in

Darfur, where violence needs to be brought to an end. There are

issues that need to be addressed in southern Sudan and in transition areas and in key flash points on transformation of security

forces and demilitarization.

All three of those things need to be done as a platform in order

to create a basic foundation for stability and normalcy, so that people can actually start to have lives again. And then from that, we

need to be able to build—we need to build in addressing the infrastructure for economy and social transformation. We need to build

the capacity to actually have a government that is responsible to

its people and which is transparent and uses its resources in an accountable and transparent way. And without that kind of government, it is going to be difficult for Sudan to succeed in peace.

And finally we need to help build the capabilities and the capacities that exist in the south, so that this is not just an internationally driven activity, but, in fact, that the Sudanese have the capacity to bring this process forward into the long term.

So what we are doing is bringing together with the National Security Council, with USAID, the Africa Bureau, and the State Department, with the Department of Defense, a core team that is

looking at each of those areas. And for each of those areas we are

identifying strategic priorities, we are identifying how to sequence

the activities, we are identifying the resource requirements.

As you might imagine, the resource requirements are huge, and

we are asking very tough questions about what can we do within

37

existing resources, where we can get international donors to pick

up, what can be done by the resources which are held by the Government of southern Sudan.

We are in the midst of this process right now. We are in the

process of bringing it together so that we can present it to our deputies and allow them to review that, and from that then be able

to make the judgments on what is necessary on how to address

some of the resource gaps, which inevitably will arise from the

process.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, this is very important information. You are

acutely aware, as anyone would be, of the calls daily from persons

throughout the world as to what our response may be in Sudan.

And the coordination you have described is critical in each of the

areas of competence, as well as geographically, but we wish you

success. And I wanted to try to illuminate that situation, which is

there now.

Let me ask about a potential situation, without being provocative. It is suggested from time to time that there will come a day

in which the Government of Cuba changes. In a situation of this

variety, as is often raised hypothetically, would we be prepared in

our Government to assist the people of Cuba under those circumstances?

There are many Americans who have all sorts of plans for us for

Cuba informally. But at the same time this is going to raise an

issue, I suspect, with whichever administration may face it over

time. And that is not the only one of these situations, but it is one

that is very close to us, one that is often commented on.

What sort of capabilities do you envision your Agency, or those

you are allied with, would have in the event that some type of

planning was required, as well as humanitarian activity?

Ambassador PASCUAL. Thank you. Again, an extremely important issue where we have an opportunity now to look ahead and

be able to plan for the future. And we indeed have been engaged

with my Office together with the Western Hemisphere Bureau and

the State Department and USAID and the Department of Defense,

as well as the Foreign Service Institute, the National Defense University in looking at this issue.

It is, indeed, the policy of the United States that we seek a

peaceful democratic transformation in Cuba. Last year, the President tasked Secretary Powell and Secretary Martinez to pull together a report, which was developed by the Commission on Assistance for a Free Cuba. That report looks at an extensive set of activities that are important to undertake to be able to support a

transitional process, or to support a democratic Cuba when that opportunity arises.

But the key challenge is, in fact, to be able to look at what kinds

of steps are necessary after Fidel Castro’s death to be able to really

strengthen and support that transition to democracy so that it is

not just a succession. And in order to do that, we have been working in policy roundtables and exercises to be able to learn lessons

from other transition experiences.

We have worked very closely with the individuals and experts

who have been involved in Central and Eastern Europe in the

former Soviet Union, because we learned a great deal there about

38

political transition and economic transformation, about how to deal

with intelligence services and security services and what kinds of

things need to be asked, how to deal with security in those transformational situations and how to work with—effectively, with our

allies in that environment.

And so by bringing together that kind of core expertise, we have

been able to put suggestions and ideas on the table that are now

being factored into our policy process.

We have also worked on simulation exercises that force us to

look at different scenarios and ask those tough questions now, because we know whatever the scenario is that there are going to be

tough questions. And better that we rehearse those today and understand how we might be able to respond.

So we are actively engaged in this process right now, and it, I

think, is making contributions not only to what we might do in the

future, but greater enlightenment to the kinds of steps that we can

take today to be able to prepare us for that eventuality.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you very much for that response, because it does indicate once again the forward looking aspects in

your testimony. Jointly, gentlemen, you have mentioned Nepal and

other countries that are engaged in change and that may require

assistance. But this requires some thoughtfulness.

General Sharp has said often that people who have language

skills, cultural background, scholarships, understand the traditions

and the people in ways that, maybe, not each one of our citizens

may. We should find those Americans who have those talents.

Let me ask you, General Sharp, and maybe Mr. Henry would

have a comment on this. In your testimony, both of you have discussed a section in the Department of Defense authorization request to the Congress that the Defense Department be authorized

to transfer, if necessary, $200 million in goods, services, and funding to the Bureau that is headed by Ambassador Pascual.

Unfortunately, neither the Senate, nor the House congressional

authorizing committees, have included this provision in their bills.

So this leads to the question: Why the resistance?

I think those of us involved in practical politics have some idea

about the resistance, although, maybe technically there are some

other reasons.

Essentially, many times the defense committees, whether it be

the House or the Senate, do not wish to see defense spending going

elsewhere. They are reticent to do this. From the standpoint of

those dealing with the State Department situation, it has been an

unfortunate fact of life that the 150 account has been perennially

downsized whatever the year, and whatever the circumstances.

We sort of start at the high-water mark here, and we are fighting all the way through the succeeding stages. Sometimes we are

successful, if we can go to the floor and offer an amendment restoring all of that which has been lost in the process, and sometimes

gaining some favor. This process is not new.

On the other hand, what you have proposed is very important,

the potential flexibility that is involved here. There is a mandate

to transfer funds, but it does suggest that there may be value in

doing that. Do you have some thoughts, General Sharp or Mr.

39

Henry, about how we might reengage the problem or be more successful?

Mr. HENRY. Well, first of all, the thinking on the part of the administration is that this is something that is actually keyed at saving both American dollars, taxpayer dollars, but also hopefully,

American lives.

As I said in my statement, we have come to understand the criticality of early measures in taking and getting in and engaging on

problems so they do not become crises and, then for us in the defense, so the crises do not become conflicts.

If we find ourselves engaged in a conflict, then the rate of spending will be significantly higher and, again, we will be putting the

lives at risk of American servicemen and servicewomen, so that is

the reason why we have initiated this. We think that it is a good

investment for all parties concerned. We look forward to working

with all parts of the Congress to try to work with them on the reasoning behind this.

It is not—the transfer is only based upon the fact that there

would be a demonstrated need that would be agreed upon by both

Secretaries to be able to do this. It is not something that will be

done at all times, but it is a contingency, and that is the world that

we live in in the Department of Defense. We have developed a

standing Army in other branches of the military, because we realize the world is an unsafe place to live, and we have to exercise

it from time to time. And that is what we are trying to work with

the Congress and, obviously, the State Department and have that

same sort of standing capability. And we think that as an adjunct

to that is the ability to have this civilian reserve force, to have this

ability to have this real surge capability to which the dollars would

be applied.

General SHARP. Just, very briefly, to add to Mr. Henry’s answer

is: We believe that as we fight this war on terrorism, we are going

to have an enemy that moves around quickly, that crosses borders,

that really is not in any location, that we, as the U.S. Government,

need to have some pretty flexible ability to both be able to surge

people, but also money and across departments in order to be able

to try to fight and win this war on terrorism. That is going to be

a critical component of it.

So I think anything that the Congress can do to, you know, give

the ability to all of these departments to be able to utilize their capabilities at the maximum as quickly as possible and utilizing the

funding that Congress and the people of the United States have

given and to be able to share that. And the more that we are of

one organization between all these, I think the more that makes

sense.

The CHAIRMAN. This may be a question to be raised directly with

Secretary Rumsfeld, but would it be helpful if I were to contact the

Secretary for—and would he be prepared to argue strenuously the

points that you have made with Senator Warner or the corresponding chairman in the House committee, because I think that

type of intervention is likely to be required for there to be a change

in mood in, at least, the defense committees.

Mr. HENRY. Secretary Rumsfeld, along with the rest of the Department, feels that this sort of capability is important. Earlier in

40

response to another question, General Sharp talked about the idea

of joint interagency. As we go into our Quadrennial Defense Review, this is one of the areas that we are actually looking for.

We understand that the national security establishment that was

developed in 1947 was one that was focused on what eventually became a cold war, and we have optimized that over the last half century in that direction.

Here, we find ourselves faced with a different sort of war that

we are engaged in. And we have to make some adaptions and

modifications to our security structure. And as we see it, it is probably less stovepipes and more of what we have learned about in the

Department of the inherent value of jointness, which we have reinforced over and over again, but most specifically in Afghanistan

and Iraq, and the significant amount of value added you get when

you are willing to work an interdependency—on interdependencies

and accept those and work across lines. And so we think this is a

first step, both the standing up of S/CRS, but also the funding

mechanism to go in that direction.

And so this is something that the Secretary is behind and we

would expect to see similar recommendations and proposals coming

out of the Quadrennial Defense Review about how we can do this

across the Government.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that would be very helpful. I know that as

you have opportunities to brief the Secretary, not only about this

hearing but also about your general understanding of things, you

can be helpful in that respect. We all will attempt to be if we work

together on this.

Mr. Kunder, let me ask—I have had the pleasure of meeting with

80 USAID mission directors who were in town a couple of weeks

ago. I understand they also met with you and Ambassador Pascual,

at one point during their 3-day meeting here in Washington.

What reactions did you gauge from the mission directors to your

Office and to the types of ideas that we are presenting today? Do

you have any feeling, either of you, Mr. Kunder or Ambassador

Pascual?

Mr. KUNDER. I think I would agree with what Lieutenant General Sharp said earlier that all employees of the U.S. Government,

certainly in the foreign policy side, have to understand that we are

engaged in a global war on terrorism.

You know our cadre of senior leaders and many of them came

into government in a different world, a more peaceful world. And

many of them were engaged in what they would consider long-term

development or long-term improvements in human progress around

the world. But certainly under the Secretary’s leadership, Secretary

Rice’s leadership, and under Andrew Natsios’ leadership, both have

delivered strong and unequivocal messages that all of our team is,

to some extent, engaged in the war on terrorism.

I think there has been a broad acceptance of the importance of

the work they are doing as part of that effort, whether they are

doing children’s survival programs in West Africa or they are on

the front lines in Iraq or Afghanistan, they understand the need to

be participants in that conflict and win that conflict. And, second,

they also understand the importance of interagency coordination.

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cause they are part of each Ambassador’s country team, in which

they serve, on which we have military attache ́s and representatives

of U.S. Government Agencies.

So, I think it is not that difficult a transition for them to understand the kind of coordination that takes place at the country level

and then moving that up to the interagency level in Washington.

So far we have had excellent support for the whole concept.

The CHAIRMAN. Good. Go ahead.

Ambassador PASCUAL. If I could add briefly, we had an excellent

dialog and exchange when I spoke to the group of mission directors.

And one of the things that I really felt so strongly about is that

all of them were recognizing that they are at the front lines of

transforming realities on the ground, that they really are change

agents, and that they play a new type of role in the implementation of U.S. foreign policy and security policy that is different from

what we may have seen in the past. The centrality is a bit different.

I think they all recognize the importance of having a multiple capacity of different resources brought together in an effective way.

The military often says—uses the term that we have to look at all

elements of U.S. power and how those elements are brought together on the ground to achieve certain effects on the ground.

And, indeed, what I found from these mission directors is that

they were focused on how to achieve those effects and how to coordinate and work with others, particularly some who have worked

in Afghanistan or Iraq have seen some phenomenal challenges and

have come to understand firsthand the importance of actually having that coordinated capability.

And as was outlined a little bit earlier by Mr. Henry, particularly

what we have seen in the provincial reconstruction teams, is a real

model for the way that the military and civilians can work together, but the other thing that they emphasized is that the model

works if you get civilians on the ground.

And if there is one complaint, what we heard, was that it is absolutely crucial to have a greater capacity to get civilian capabilities

on the ground more effectively, sooner in ways that people are prepared.

And, if anything, this conversation, I think, has really highlighted the importance of having a real surge capability and funding that surge capability. What we have heard from our military

colleagues is that that is the core business of the Department of

Defense is to establish that surge capacity to train it, to exercise

it, and then be able to deploy it.

And what has been so difficult for us on the civilian side is to

build that as part of the operational model that we have for all that

we do that we have to have that surge capability, and we have to

fund it, because if we do not fund it, we do not create it, we do not

have the people, we do not train them, we cannot make it work.

And I think all of us who have been working on these issues

have come to that similar conclusion that were highlighted very

much when you started this work in 2003 that we have to have the

resources, the authorities, and the capabilities to actually be able

to get on the ground quickly.

42

The CHAIRMAN. I was inspired by the meeting with the 80 directors. First of all, it was an education. We have 80 different situations. We are serving that many—80 countries—and, to borrow

some of your language earlier, preventive medicine in a way; the

success of many of these directors and their colleagues can make

a profound difference in terms of the future of those countries. Perhaps a future without conflict and without bloodshed, even within

the countries or from their neighbors.

So, it was very interesting and the individual experiences that

were expressed to me varied, as well as to their reactions to how

their message is received back here by the administration, by the

Congress and what have you. And so I appreciated it. I think they

came altogether for 3 days. It was an important situation.

Yes, sir.

Mr. KUNDER. If I might just say a word, sir. I think that is how

we see the linkage. If there is any value added that we believe we,

at USAID, can bring, it is in that transition from the crisis response when a country is falling apart, into the long-term improvement, because as we like to say: We want to get our soldiers home

as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure they do not

have to go back—have to go back 5 years later to the same place.

That is when you get into the long-term improvements in

healthcare and education and economic systems.

If I could just add one final thought. I think you mentioned earlier the President’s freedom agenda and Ambassador Pascual mentioned Cuba. I think it is another important lesson that the investments in human freedom and democracy are critical on both ends,

on the input end and the output end.

If we have open participatory societies and invest in building political parties and civil society organizations, we are less likely to

have the societies fall apart into conflict.

And then, if they do fall apart, what we have got to do is build

democratic processes as we are trying to do in Afghanistan and

Iraq, so that the long-term stability endures. And I think this is

the linkage between the President’s freedom agenda and the kind

of work we are doing here, the critical link between democracy and

governance and stability.

The CHAIRMAN. And some of the work that your Agency, USAID,

is doing hopefully may mean that American military personnel will

not need to be involved in 80 countries or in any number at all to

the extent that through thoughtful diplomacy and work on the

ground, we are able to achieve these results for the people that are

involved.

Mr. KUNDER. That would be our hope; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Let me just say that, you know, prior to a

number of talented people coming into Iraq, it was my observation

during visits there with community groups and what have you,

that some of our younger officers, military officers, were suddenly

employed as they needed to be, in that situation, in capacities that

might have been fulfilled by mayors, superintendents of schools,

people who handle these civil capacities—and they did so remarkably well. Even in their home communities in Indiana or wherever

they were from, they probably would not have been called upon to

take that kind of responsibility.

43

But nevertheless, it was not the responsibility they had anticipated. This is not where their training and background had led

them. But the talents of our military people should not be underestimated, and we are grateful as they adapt to all these conditions. What we are talking about today is how we really have the

reinforcements as ready reserve, or a cadre of people who are able,

as opposed to a long lapse or a waiting time. Sometimes these engagements, even of our military people, are short lived. Their enlistments run out or what have you, their commitment.

But let me just ask you, Ambassador, are you having trouble recruiting people for dangerous situations? And we have talked about

going into harm’s way today, and not just in situations that have

been in the military conflict, but some others that, as a matter of

fact, did have considerable amount of personal risk. And I am just

curious about your experience in calling upon Americans to take up

these posts.

Ambassador PASCUAL. The willingness on the part of the American civilians to take up these risky assignments in order to be able

to address what people believe is truly a national security interest

has been phenomenal. And it is within the Government and it is

outside of the Government. And, indeed, if we look at the nongovernmental community, at the people who have been willing to

voluntarily go into these extraordinarily dangerous and complex

situations, because they believe it is important to help save lives,

to address humanitarian needs, to promote democratic transformation, to give people a chance to actually influence their future. And I believe that in doing so that they are not only advancing the prosperity and the prospects of that country, that they are

advancing our own security, is truly remarkable.

Within the U.S. Government and within the State Department

we have had an all-out effort to ensure that we can indeed actually

staff our Embassies in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other difficult

posts. But the reality is that we need more people, and we have

a limited number of foreign service officers, we have existing challenging diplomatic missions around the world. And one of the

things that is not helpful to our long-term diplomacy is that in

order to deal with today’s challenges, today’s immediate missions,

that we simply strip away people from those other important diplomatic functions——

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Ambassador PASCUAL [continuing]. That you and others have

fought to be able to get out there, so that we have the capacity to

actually demonstrate an American presence abroad.

So a key issue, frankly, in being able to recruit and recruit effectively, is actually to have the resources to extend our hand to that

wider range of people outside of Government, those people who

have the skills and the capabilities who are willing to either volunteer to participate in a reserve corp or to serve as contractors, a

whole range of different ways in which we might be able to do this,

but we have to have the resources to bring those individuals in,

train them and give them the capability to actually put their good

will to use.

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The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is a critical element of this, and hopefully one of the imports of this hearing will be to encourage our colleagues to understand that and provide you those resources.

I can remember in this committee within the last 2 years—I

would be hard pressed to name the date and the time—we discussed these so-called hardship positions out in our Embassies in

the field. One reason this came up was that in some cases where

there are very, very difficult diplomatic circumstances for the

United States, extremely junior foreign service personnel were

doing the best that they could, because it had been very hard to

identify more senior personnel who had some experience and some

background, who at that particular point in their lives and careers

were willing to undertake these tasks.

So this is the reason that I raise the question within this new

initiative. We have been down the road before, and I can understand that situation with the careers of many persons in the foreign service, that after a while, they fear they have given a lot of

time and thought to their country. They would like a situation that

seemed less dangerous perhaps for themselves, for their families,

for their careers and what have you, and sort of move on in other

situations. But, nevertheless, this is a dangerous world, as you all

have been pointing out.

The kind of service being offered by persons not only in our military service, but in our diplomatic service, and now in this new

joint affair often is dangerous. It is going into harm’s way on behalf

of all of us, who are, therefore, spared a great deal of agony in our

lives and in our communities.

Well, we just appreciate very much all the thoughtfulness you

have brought to this hearing. You have been forthcoming and articulate in your testimony. I am certain it is helpful for public understanding of what you are doing.

Let me just say that I would like to insert a statement of Senator

Biden in the record. I am pleased to do so.

[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., U.S. SENATOR FROM

DELAWARE

Mr . Chairman, I commend you for convening this hearing today—and for your

leadership on this issue. In December 2003, you came to me with the idea of convening a group of experts to address our ability to deal with reconstruction and stabilization crises—and I was pleased to join you in this effort.

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has taken on stabilization missions once every 18 months, with an average duration of more than 5 years. We did

it in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Haiti, Somalia, and now Afghanistan and Iraq to

name a few. And, in the decade to come, whether we like it or not, we will do it

again. Addressing the needs in countries that are on the verge of becoming failed

states will continue to be one of our greatest challenges.

Weak states are cracks in the very foundation of our international system. If left

untended—or in other words, if we fail to respond adequately to stabilization and

reconstruction crises—they can and they will, in my view, threaten the security and

well-being of countries around the world, including the United States. They can become sanctuaries—as we have seen time and again—for terrorist networks, organized crime, and drug traffickers.

For all of these reasons, we ignore failed states at our own peril. As Tom Friedman says, ‘‘If you don’t visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit you.’’

And, obviously, it is in our own best interest to act efficiently and effectively. We

should not reinvent the wheel every time we are faced with a stabilization crisis—

cobbling together plans, procedures, and personnel—as we have been doing. We

need to be forward thinking, comprehensive, and strategic.

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That was the logic behind the legislation I was pleased to join the chairman in

proposing in February 2004. Our bill envisions much of what has become a reality:

A State Department office that draws on expertise from all civilian agencies, as well

as the Department of Defense, to monitor potential crises, create plans and procedures to respond effectively, and efficiently mobilize people and resources.

I appreciate that the administration has moved in this direction—and I appreciate

the work, specifically, that Ambassador Pascual has accomplished since his Office

of Reconstruction and Stabilization was established at the State Department last

summer. There has been solid progress over the past year—but, in my view, we are

not where we need to be yet.

I am interested in learning more about how all of you are working together, and

your visions for the future. And we especially want to know what you need in the

way of resources and help from Congress to get your critically important jobs done.

Between the four of you, there is a tremendous amount of expertise in this room,

and I thank all of you for being here today.

The CHAIRMAN. Likewise, we will keep the hearing record open

today in case there are other members, other colleagues, who might

have statements or maybe have questions of you. And if they do,

we would ask you to respond for the record.

I thank all of you. And the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

RESPONSE OF HON. RYAN HENRY TO QUESTION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY

SENATOR LUGAR

Question. What is the scope of the newly created Stabilization Office at OSD that

reports directly to the Deputy Secretary? How does this Office interface with the

State Department?

Answer. On May 2, 2005, the Deputy Secretary approved the establishment of the

Defense Reconstruction Support Office (DRSO) to provide a single DOD focus for coordination of the Department’s operational support of U.S. reconstruction activities

in Afghanistan and Iraq. This Office is located in Washington Headquarters Services (WHS) and its Director reports directly to the Deputy Secretary.

The DRSO consolidates the functions of the Afghanistan Reachback Office and the

Defense Support Office—Iraq. OSD Policy retains responsibility for representing the

Department on Iraq and Afghanistan policy matters in the interagency. However

the DRSO may engage directly with the State Department and other U.S. departments and agencies on pertinent operational matters to ensure the Department provides well coordinated and responsive operational support for U.S. Government elements engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

RESPONSES OF LTG WALTER SHARP TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY

SENATOR LUGAR

Question. Could you describe what elements of the Defense Science Board Summer Study ‘‘Transition to and from Hostilities’’ are currently being pursued by the

Defense Department?

Answer. The Defense Science Board (DSB) 2004 Summer Study on ‘‘Transition to

and from Hostilities’’ made recommendations for the Department of Defense and the

U.S. Government. The Department of Defense has begun implementation, or is considering implementing, many of the DSB’s study recommendations.

For example, the Department of Defense is developing a stability operations directive for Secretary of Defense approval. Specific details are pending Secretary of Defense approval; however, we envision a policy where stability operations are a core

capability—one U.S. military forces should be prepared to undertake. At such, stability operations will have attention and priority comparable to combat operations.

Additional DSB study implementation examples include:

—Combatant commanders are incorporating stability operations into their planning

process and exercise scenarios.

—The Army has identified stability operations and irregular warfare as two of its

key focus areas in the coming years and is working with the Marine Corps and

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other DOD components to develop concepts of organization, such as modularity,

that are flexible enough to meet stability operations requirements.

—Joint intelligence and operations commands are being established at most of the

combatant commands, and formal intelligence campaign plans are being developed to support military operations.

—The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence established the Defense Open

Source Council that is conducting a comprehensive assessment of the use of open

source information in the defense intelligence cycle.

—Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) responsibilities were consolidated under U.S. Strategic Command, which has named the Defense Intelligence

Agency as the Joint Force Component Command for ISR.

—The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence has established a defense human

intelligence (HUMINT) management office.

—The Deputy Secretary of Defense has signed the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, directing each Service and combatant command to designate

Senior Language Authorities responsible for language and regional expertise in

their respective commands.

In addition to the initiatives above, the Department of Defense is also supporting

the development of capabilities in other departments and agencies, principally the

State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization

(S/CRS).

Question. Could you describe what elements of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Study (Phase I and Phase II) are currently being pursued by the Defense Department?

Answer. The insights into defense reform and interagency integration have helped

provide a valuable foundation for the Department of Defense as part of the ongoing

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The Center for Strategic and International

Studies’ (CSIS) proposals for defense reorganization, staff streamlining, and achieving interagency integration are being carefully analyzed, evaluated, and considered

in the QDR Issue Process Team (IPT) for Roles, Missions, and Organizations. One

working group of this IPT has been tasked specifically with evaluating overlapping

functions within the Department of Defense and then developing and proposing organizational alternatives. Another Roles, Missions, and Organizations IPT working

group is examining interagency operations and how to achieve more complete integration, particularly in the areas of homeland defense, stability and reconstruction,

and civil affairs activities.

Question. Do you believe that a study following up from the DSB and CSIS reports would be appropriate? What are your views on the merits of undertaking a

single study to examine how best to develop in a complementary manner the capabilities and needs of the State and Defense Departments and USAID to carry out

these missions? Should this be done by State and Defense jointly, or undertaken by

an independent, nongovernmental organization?

Answer. The DSB and the CSIS are in the best position to determine if they need

to follow up on their respective reports. In general, the field of stabilization and reconstruction suffers from an overabundance of reports, not a lack thereof.

The best way for the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and United

States Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop capabilities in a

complementary manner is for all three organizations to continue the dialog they

have already begun. The Department of Defense has developed a close working relationship with the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction

and Stabilization (S/CRS) and is developing a close relationship with USAID’s new

Office of Military Affairs (USAID/OMA).

Question. Could you describe the concept of the Joint Interagency Coordination

Group and how it is being developed? How do the State Department and USAID

fit into the concept? EUCOM is reportedly already working with the State Department, USAID, and other civilian agencies. Can you describe how this is being structured at EUCOM and the other combatant commands?

Answer. The ongoing War on Terrorism intensified the need for military activities

to be closely aligned with U.S. diplomatic, law enforcement, financial control, and

intelligence sharing endeavors. In the weeks following September 11, 2001, the

Joint Staff gained approval from the Deputies Committee to establish a limited

Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) capability in each combatant command. With participation from the Departments of State and Justice and the U.S.

Treasury Department, this interim interagency planning capability has shown great

47

value in prosecuting the War on Terrorism while offering numerous spin-off benefits

to both military and civilian agencies.

There is currently no standardized structure for the JIACG. Its size and composition depends on the specific operational and staff requirements at each combatant

command.

The emerging JIACG concept calls for an interagency team to deal with a full

spectrum of actions including peacetime engagement, crisis prevention, major combat operations, and stabilization operations. The full-spectrum JIACG would be an

element of each geographic combatant commander’s staff and would be responsible

for establishing and/or enhancing regular, timely, and collaborative working relationships between other government agencies (e.g., Department of State, Federal

Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Treasury Department, USAID, etc.) to more efficiently

and effectively apply the instruments of national power in support of the U.S. National Security Strategy.

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