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37–321 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–43]

SECOND REPORT TO CONGRESS BY THE

COMMISSION ON THE NATIONAL GUARD

AND RESERVES

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

MARCH 23, 2007

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

IKE SKELTON, Missouri

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

MARTY MEEHAN, Massachusetts

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

NANCY BOYDA, Kansas

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

DUNCAN HUNTER, California

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

KEN CALVERT, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

THELMA DRAKE, Virginia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

ERIN C. CONATON, Staff Director

MARK LEWIS, Professional Staff Member

JOHN CHAPLA, Professional Staff Member

MARGEE MECKSTROTH, Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Friday, March 23, 2007, Second Report to Congress by the Commission on

the National Guard and Reserves ...................................................................... 1

APPENDIX:

Friday, March 23, 2007 ........................................................................................... 29

FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2007

SECOND REPORT TO CONGRESS BY THE COMMISSION ON THE

NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVES

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

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

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

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

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

WITNESSES

Punaro, Maj. Gen. Arnold L. (Retired), Chairman, Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, U.S Marine Corps ................................................. 3

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Punaro, Arnold L. ............................................................................................. 35

Reserve Officers Association (ROA) ................................................................ 33

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Letters from different organizations in support of H.R. 718, the ‘‘Guard

Empowerment Act’’ ....................................................................................... 119

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. McHugh ...................................................................................................... 127

(1)

SECOND REPORT TO CONGRESS BY THE COMMISSION

ON THE NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Friday, March 23, 2007.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:05 a.m., in room

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

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

SERVICES

The CHAIRMAN. Our hearing will come to order.

Today we take into consideration the second report from the

Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.

When Congress created the 13-member commission in the Ronald Reagan National Defense Act of 2005, we asked it to provide

a comprehensive independent assessment of the National Guard

and Reserves.

Today before us we have the chairman of the commission, Major

General Arnold Punaro, United States Marine Corps, retired, and

we certainly welcome him as an old friend, as well as one who has

done yeoman’s work.

To give a little background to our hearing, in April of 2006, H.R.

5200 was introduced in the House. It proposed some significant

modifications to the way the National Guard would be structured

and how it would be resourced to fulfill both its domestic responsibilities, as well as its wartime missions.

Because the provisions of that bill were so sweeping, in the John

Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007,

Congress directed the commission to issue an interim report on the

advisability and feasibility of implementing the provisions of that

bill.

Congress also directed the commission to look at the role and responsibilities of the chief of the National Guard Bureau, National

Guard officers, National Guard equipment, funding.

The report is before us today, and what an incredible effort it has

been.

Congress creates these commissions when we do not possess the

in-house resources either in expertise or in time to pursue complicated matters as thoroughly as needed and that is what the commission has done for us.

This commission, its excellent staff has really gone above and beyond the call of duty. They have been tireless in their endeavors.

They have held hearings, hearing after hearing, actually consulted

2

hundreds of experts and they have traveled as necessary to get the

ground truth and they have done the in-depth historical and legislative research needed to fully understand the second and third

order issues surrounding each proposal.

They have done all that because they are true patriots who have

answered their government’s call and also because they understand

the importance of this issue.

So much of our national security hinges on the National Guard

and Reserve force. This could be to support the fight alongside our

active duty forces overseas when the drums of war sound or it

could mean first on the scene of some domestic emergency, such as

Hurricane Katrina.

That is easier said than done. These are not just issues of manning and training and equipping in the guard for its dual role, but

also how the Nation postures itself to meet challenges facing our

homeland, how the Department of Defense and Department of

Homeland Security will jointly work together is so important, because our men and women in the Guard and Reserve are citizen

soldiers in the proud tradition of the minutemen and of the militia

of yesteryear and the employers who support them do all that we

ask of them so well.

They deserve to have the best support structure possible. These

are complex questions and it is appropriate that in addition to answering the statutory requirements to address the provisions of

that bill, H.R. 5200, the commission’s report has taken a broader

look at six focus areas: the Defense Department’s role in homeland,

the role of the states and their governors, the National Guard Bureau, U.S. Northern Command, reserve policy advice, and reserve

component officer promotion.

In just a moment, I will turn the floor over to Chairman Punaro,

and we will look forward to hearing the commission’s recommendations. We should all listen very closely to what he has to say, because it is a profound and thorough work product.

However, I first call on my friend, the ranking member, the gentleman from California, Mr. Duncan Hunter.

Mr. Hunter.

STATEMENT OF HON. DUNCAN HUNTER, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON

ARMED SERVICES

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this very important hearing.

Mr. Chairman, given the significant issues that we face regarding matters of homeland defense, homeland security and the role

and resourcing of the National Guard in both those missions, this

is a very, very important hearing.

Furthermore, just as we are faced with significant issues of resetting and sustaining both the Army and the Marine Corps, this committee also must address how to sustain and reset the National

Guard and other reserve components for their wartime missions.

And I want to join you in welcoming General Punaro and thanking him for his great service to this country and just say, preliminarily, Mr. Chairman, that the story of the guard in the operations

3

in Afghanistan and Iraq is a story, in my estimation, a story of success.

I can remember the days of Vietnam when there was a major divide between the guard and the active forces and that divide was

one that resonated throughout America that there were, in fact,

two separate forces. There was one force that went to war, that

was the active force, and there was a force that didn’t go to war,

and that was the guard.

In fact, I can remember having conversations with my great

friend, Mr. McHugh, over the naming of the subcommittee, the personnel subcommittee, and naming it the total force subcommittee,

because under his watch and under the present operation, we truly

have a total force.

And so watching, Mr. Chairman, coming back from the

warfighting theater in Iraq and looking at the guard and its operations and its meshing with the active forces, this is a story of success.

But nonetheless, it is a story that we have to build on and I look

forward to hearing the testimony from General Punaro and figuring out what good, basic, practical things we can do as a result of

this great work by the commission that will make the guard even

better, even more prepared to be beat both the homeland mission

and this mission that extends American military power around the

world to carry out our foreign policy.

So thanks for having this hearing this morning. It is very timely

and I look forward to the testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank my friend from California.

Let me also state that we have the written testimony from the

Reserve Officers Association, and, without objection, we will put

that into the record.

[The prepared statement of the Reserve Officers Association can

be found in the Appendix on page 33.]

Major General Punaro.

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. ARNOLD L. PUNARO (RETIRED),

CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON THE NATIONAL GUARD AND

RESERVES, U.S. MARINE CORPS

General PUNARO. Thank you, Chairman Skelton, Ranking Member Hunter, members of the committee, for the privilege of presenting, on behalf of my fellow commissioners, the findings and recommendations of our March 1 report that related specifically to the

National Defense Enhancement and National Guard Empowerment

Act.

This is the work of 13 dedicated commissioners and a superb

staff and I particularly want to thank the chairman and Mr.

Hunter for your superb appointments to the commission, who

stayed in close touch with the committee and have been the mainstay particularly of our work on the homeland defense and on the

equipping areas that we are going to address here this morning.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that my written testimony be submitted for the record and instead will offer a brief oral summary, if

that is okay with the chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, please proceed.

4

General PUNARO. First, the commission, we thank the men and

women in uniform, particularly those in harm’s way, for their sacrifices, particularly the 590,000 Guard and Reserve personnel that

have been mobilized since 9/11 and, in addition, the tens of thousands of Guard and Reserve personnel that have served here at

home in that same timeframe and that continue to serve here at

home.

So I would like to start by making some bottom-line observations

up front.

The problems: Mr. Chairman, we wanted to spend most of our

time in this report looking at making sure that we had identified

correctly the problem set. It was our thinking that if we could get

agreement and consensus on the problems, that solutions would

flow that would make sense.

We have some recommendations about how to fix the problems.

Members of this committee testified before the commission. Certainly, Congressman Taylor and the other principal sponsors of the

Empowerment Act have some great ideas and it is our judgment

that we are not hung up about whose solution gets implemented.

We think these are very, very serious, enduring problems that

need to be fixed and we know, in the wisdom of the committee, you

will come up with even better ideas than we had.

Let me talk first about the operational reserve, because I think

that is kind of fundamental.

You hear Department of Defense (DOD) testify that we no longer

have a strategic reserve, a reserve that was designed and planned

and manned and equipped for the peak of the Cold War, if the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact came across the Fulda Gap in the

inter-German border, they would be called up and have timelines

to deploy that were months, even years, in some cases. That was

the strategic reserve and they were kept at very low readiness levels in terms of personnel and equipment.

The department has said and I have mentioned 590,000 have

served and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and other contingencies. They are an operational reserve. That is a fundamental

change in the nature of our Guard and Reserve that is being used.

However, DOD has not changed any of the fundamentally underlying laws, policies, rules, regulations, procedures, processes, funding priorities, personnel management systems to make it an operational reserve.

You cannot just sit here at this microphone as DOD witnesses

have said and say it is an operational reserve, sprinkle some pixie

dust and it makes it happen. That is why we are in the serious

problems that we are in today.

They have declared it to be operational, but we have not made

any of the fundamental changes to put that in place.

So the commission has concluded, on that broader front, this

operational reserve is neither right now feasible nor sustainable

unless we have fundamental underlying changes to the laws, rules

and regulations and policies.

Let me give you some examples just on the readiness front.

These are not examples that are not unknown to this committee,

to your subcommittee, your chairs and rankings of your subcommitVerDate 22-MAR-2001 07:16 Dec 02, 2008 Jkt 037321 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-43\082000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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tees, who have spent a tremendous amount of time over the years

looking at the readiness.

We were, frankly, unpleasantly surprised at how bad off we are

on the readiness front. It is a lot worse than we would have anticipated. It is a lot worse, I think, than a lot of people know.

Army National Guard readiness is extremely. As General Blum

has testified, 88 percent of the guard units here in the United

States right now are below in the warfighting readiness measures.

We know C–1 to C–5, C–1 being fully combat ready, good to go

right now, once you get to C–3 or below, that is not good, 88 percent.

When he testified before our commission, we are not ready.

When we put that out in our March 1 report and I was walking

the halls of the Pentagon, I got tackled by a couple of four-star generals and admirals and saying, ‘‘Holy smokes, this can’t be right.

You are not asking the right questions. These numbers are wrong.

They can’t be that bad. And ready for what?’’

So before coming here today, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make

sure that we were exactly accurate on what we reported on March

1, so we got the experts, sat down with them, just as your staff has

done with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others,

and I can tell you today the guard is less ready than the 88 percent.

It has gotten worse in the three weeks since we issued our report, not better. We don’t see the trend going up. We see the trend

going down. And I think that is the same testimony that you have

been receiving.

The Air Guard is also at a historic low. Readiness levels, 45 percent or C–3 and below, and that is a historic low.

It is a very important point here. This only measures readiness

for the overseas warfighting mission. Our Department of Defense

does not assess readiness for the homeland mission.

So we don’t know if they are ready for the homeland, because

they don’t measure that. And so this is a very, very important fact

that has got to be changed.

That is particularly worrisome, because unlike the overseas mission, where, if a National Guard brigade or a Marine infantry battalion of Army Reserve truck company is going to be called and mobilized, even if the unit is short on personnel and equipment, they

have got a mobilization time to bring in additional personnel and

equipment, to train that unit up and then deploy them overseas.

That is not the case here at home. Homeland scenarios, it is

come as you are. It is you have got to be ready right now. And the

fact that we have the first three guard brigades that went to Iraq,

that have been back since 2005, two years later, they are still C–

4 for equipment.

And even though we have promises of large funding in the budget to repair these things, the out year, in other words, the get well

figure for combat for the guard is 2015, the get well for their combat support is 2020.

I don’t think that is acceptable with the kind of threats we deal

with here at home.

So the point is here that DOD has not fully accepted and taken

ownership of its role in protecting the homeland. Unlike the DOD

6

strategy says, it is not the first among many DOD priorities and

one of the reasons is because we have a fundamental flaw in the

system.

No one, no one currently generates or validates civil support requirements within either the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Department of Homeland

Security, under the law, has the obligation to do this.

They are not doing it. Therefore, DOD has nothing to work on

and validate whether that is sufficient or not.

So without these requirements, even if you had electricity in the

power line and even if you had a good light bulb, you flip the

switch, the bulb isn’t going to come on, because in the Department

of Defense, if you don’t have a requirement, nothing happens.

This has got to be corrected. We have got to basically ensure that

the people responsible for generating these requirements do so and

then the Department of Defense needs to take them and validate

them and those that are validated need to be prioritized and funded.

The Northern Command, the command that was established

after 9/11, mind you, after 9/11, to focus homeland missions, is still

focused on traditional missions and it does not adequately consider

or utilize all the military components, including the active and reserves and the guard in the planning, training and exercising for

homeland missions.

And that is because it is primarily an active duty command, 90

percent of its personnel are active duty, very few are Guard and

Reserve. The leadership is active duty and they don’t know what

they don’t know. They are good people, they work at it hard, but

their focus is very, very prescribed by the Department of Defense

and they are not focused on the factors in homeland that they

should be.

The governors, the commanders-in-chief of most domestic

incidences, do not have enough of a voice in policy-making with regard to the guard and operations in their states.

Our government, our Federal Government has told the governors, ‘‘You are in charge, you are responsible. We hold you accountable to deal with emergencies in at least the first 72 hours.’’

That is a fundamental principle of emergency management. You

handle it at the lowest level possible. ‘‘But, please, Mr. Governor,

don’t come to Washington and give us your views. Don’t tell us

what you need, and we certainly aren’t going to take those factors

into account when we are making decisions.’’

So, again, another fundamental break. We have got to give the

governors more authority and more clout to carry out the missions

that we have told them they are responsible for.

The Nation’s ability to respond to a major domestic catastrophe

is not well coordinated, particularly at the interface between the

state and federal levels. Department of Homeland Security has

identified 15 planning scenarios that the Nation needs to be ready

for from major disasters like hurricanes or fires to unthinkable

weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological.

However, because they have just identified them and we haven’t

engaged the entire system in planning, coordinating and funding

and training, putting plans together for dealing with these, the NaVerDate 22-MAR-2001 07:16 Dec 02, 2008 Jkt 037321 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-43\082000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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tion is not adequately prepared for some, not fully prepared for

some, and absolutely totally unprepared for some of the worst case

scenarios, and that also is an unacceptable situation.

The National Guard plays a key role in fixing these things, but

should not be saddled with the lead in coordinating this effort.

That is a role that both Congress and the President have decided

belongs to the Department of Homeland Security. They ought to either do their job or somebody ought to just shut them down and

admit it is not going to happen and make other arrangements.

But they should be held accountable right now under the law for

fulfilling their mandate.

Mr. Chairman, these are longstanding problems that require fundamental reforms to a number of our institutions of government.

This is not about one individual, the chief of the guard bureau.

This is not about one institution, the National Guard.

This is about empowering the National Guard and giving them

greater authority and clout as part of an integrated team, as part

of a total force team that includes Northern Command, the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the governors,

and breaking down all these barriers and stovepipes and ensuring

that we bring a fully integrated, fully capable team to protect the

lives, the property and our economy here at home.

So we believe our recommendations are far more sweeping than

the solutions proposed in H.R. 5200. You need to do more than just

empower the National Guard. No question about it. But you could

make the head of the National Guard a five-star general and if you

don’t fix Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense’s procedures for dealing with

homeland security, he or she is not going to be effective in that job.

So all of these agencies and institutions of government must take

greater responsibility for building a coherent and competent interagency process of planning, coordinating and funding for the homeland mission and the governors must be given a more prominent

role in implementing that mission.

So we aim, Mr. Chairman, for true integration of the forces, including promoting the goals of jointness set out in the landmark

Goldwater-Nichols Act. We believe our recommendations would, if

implemented, promote organizational relationships that would enhance the National Guard’s ability to fulfill its mission both overseas and here at home and offer a comprehensive, systemic approach to problems of readiness, equipping and manning of the

Guard.

Our report lays out 26 findings, 6 broad conclusions, and makes

23 specific recommendations, most of which can be implemented

without legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I could really stop here at this point, because you

have got all our recommendations and the report before you, and

quit here and take your questions or give a quick summary of

those.

I am ready for questions.

[The prepared statement of General Punaro can be found in the

Appendix on page 35.]

The CHAIRMAN. I will ask one question and then ask the ranking

member to proceed in order.

8

Your comments regarding preparedness, regarding readiness are

downright frightening and you could say a similar vision is out

there regarding our active duty counterparts.

Where do we first fix the lack of readiness for the Guard and Reserve?

General PUNARO. Mr. Chairman, obviously, as you pointed out,

the active forces have some equipment and personnel shortages, as

well.

However, as I pointed out in my testimony, when you are talking

about deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, even on the active side,

they have spin-up cycles and train-up cycles.

And you know the Department of Defense as well as I do. They

are not going to send units overseas that they don’t believe to be

fully combat ready.

I believe, however, the reverse is true for the homeland. Nobody

is paying attention to the fact that we are unready to deal with

these missions here at home.

So I would have the Department of Defense working with the Department of Homeland Security. Get the General Accounting Office

in there. They have got some of the best readiness people that I

have seen in all the years I have focused on this in looking at what

the problems are.

I know they have talked to your subcommittee chairmen and

ranking members. And I would look at the requirements here at

home and make sure we have sufficient Guard and Reserve units

that are going to be the first responders to deal with these situations here at home.

I would fix that first, because with the units deploying overseas,

you have got a spin-up time for them. You don’t have any spin-up

time to deal with these emergencies here at home.

We don’t have some of the ready battalions and ready forces that

we used to have on standby to deal with this. They are not in a

situation now, because of our overseas commitments, to be as ready

as they need to be.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Hunter.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, thank you and thanks for your great work. And I did

get a chance to talk with lots of the members of the commission

as you walked down through this analysis and it has been excellent.

Let me go to a couple of things here. One, last year, in late

spring, the Army and Marine Corps came over to see me and they

told me that they were going to be, believe it or not, some $20 billion short in terms of reset money.

And so we directed our staff to come in, analyze how much of the

reset, of their shortages were embedded in the base bill, how much

was embedded in the supplemental bill and how much was embedded in the bridge fund for last year.

We added that up and we took the delta, we took what the Army

and Marine Corps testified they needed, by golly, to reset every single piece of equipment that they knew about in the world that belonged to them.

And I directed the staff at that point to fund every dime and we

funded every single dime and I think the Army was $17-pointVerDate 22-MAR-2001 07:16 Dec 02, 2008 Jkt 037321 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-43\082000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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something billion short and the Army made up the balance between that and some $20 billion and I think, in the end, we actually added several millions of dollars to their total request.

We didn’t short them one dime. Now, we now have that in the

pipeline and we have gotten after the Army on several occasions

with respect to how much they had obligated.

What they have responded to our questions with respect to how

much they have obligated and how much they have done is this—

one thing they say they need, and the Marine Corps joined in this,

is that they need carcasses. That is, if you don’t have the old

Humvee to renovate or the old Bradley or the old tank because it

is still in theater, you can’t renovate it because it is still in the

warfighting theater.

But the second thing that has come back from the Army is that

they took care of the guard in this reset.

Now, I want to simply ask you, are you telling us in your testimony that basically when they gave us this reset number, of which

we funded every single dime that they asked for, that they totally

missed the guard?

General PUNARO. No, sir.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, what happened?

General PUNARO. There are two things here. One is the Status

of Resources and Training System (SORTS) readiness rating measures the day’s warfighting readiness. It measures the units on

hand, personnel and how well those people are trained in their

skill set.

It measures on-hand equipment and whether that equipment is

ready. It measures supplies, whether you have your ammunition,

and it measures training readiness.

In terms of money that is put in the procurement pipeline, particularly for reset, as you know, it takes, on average, five years for

a procurement dollar to spend out.

So in terms of what has been put into the budget for the Army

Guard and for some of the other components, there has been a substantial increase, particularly at the initiative of the Congress, for

money in the reset pipeline.

In the budget that was submitted to the Hill this year, particularly in the Army, there is a substantial increase in funding for

equipment not only for the active duty forces, but for the Guard

and Reserve.

However, what we point out in our report, Mr. Hunter, is that

we have seen this all too often. We have a chart on page 35 that

looks at what was projected in the future year defense plan and

then what actually gets executed.

And so the reason the Guard and Reserve are always so nervous

is it is always promises, promises. However, I think there is a

greater awareness both in the Congress and in the Department of

Defense of the readiness deficiency.

So I would expect to see the equipment, but as I pointed out, the

guard doesn’t get well until 2015 for combat and doesn’t get well

until 2020——

Mr. HUNTER. Well, General Punaro, the $20 billion that we put

in, that I directed the staff to put into our bridge fund was an auVerDate 22-MAR-2001 07:16 Dec 02, 2008 Jkt 037321 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-43\082000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
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thorization for a supplemental, which was, by golly, signed by the

President and funded.

That is not money that was in the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). That is 20 billion bucks, cash on hand, that we put

in our budget that was followed by the appropriators and followed

by the Senate and ultimately signed by the President, and that

money is available to be obligated.

And one thing that is somewhat frustrating is we asked them for

every dime. They came in with every dime. We then we put that—

we then subtracted out what we had already funded, embedded in

the base bill, and we came up with a balance of $20 billion and we

funded every dime.

And you are telling me now that we actually missed major pieces

of this funding. And so my question is, do you think the Army

shortchanged the guard or do you think the guard at that point

didn’t have their arms around everything that they needed? Because the clear impression was given this committee is, ‘‘This is

what we need.’’

General PUNARO. Mr. Hunter, I don’t think anyone is able to

identify the requirements for homeland mission, because they don’t

do that in the Department of Defense and the guard doesn’t do

that.

So whatever they identified, that $20 billion is for the

warfighting mission and I would expect that money to spend out

over a period of years, and the readiness will improve as the new

equipment comes in there for the overseas warfighting mission.

As you well know, there is no warehouse out there or parking lot

with seven-ton trucks that you can go out and buy off the shelf.

You are probably 2 to 3 years for that $20 billion.

But there is no requirement for civil support. So there is no way

the guard could have identified that for you.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, let me go now to the equipment. As the guard

has gone over, and I have talked to a number of guard commands

that have gone over, they have shed the equipment that they had

in Kuwait and taken on the new equipment.

So that they went into Iraq with what you would call the top end

and then a number of them said they came back without equipment, the implication clearly being that there is equipment parked

in places like Kuwait or in Iraq.

Now, if you look at the up-armored Humvees, common sense tells

us we have now—if you look at the number that we have introduced into theater, it is something like, Army and Marine Corps

combined, I believe it is in excess of 20,000 vehicles at this point.

So if you have got 20,000 up-armored Humvees, that is the

M114s, those have displaced in units and, similarly, MAC-kitted

Humvees that went to the Marine Corps early on have displaced

the non-up-armored Humvees.

Now, if we were a company and you were the CEO and you had

somebody that said, one of your procurement officers had said, ‘‘I

want to buy another 20,000 Humvees because we are short,’’ the

first thing you would say is, ‘‘Well, what happened to the 25,000,

some of which had very few miles on them, that were displaced by

up-armored Humvees on the basis that the battlefield conditions

required up-armored Humvees?’’

11

One thing that we haven’t got a handle on is how many of those

25,000 Humvees that have been replaced in Iraq, how many of

those are still there, how many are in Kuwait, how many have

been moved back.

So one thing that I think we need to do is get a handle on this

equipment that has been displaced by new equipment or equipment

that was needed to accommodate the battlefield. Where is it?

Now, we found out that there are 1,800 MAC-kitted Humvees,

which are outstanding vehicles. In fact, they have got more armor

on the sides than the M114s that are parked at a certain location

in Iraq, 1,800 of them.

So I think that one thing we have to do to make sure that the

guard gets full-up is to, first, find out how much stuff we have got

and find out where the excess systems that have been displaced on

the battlefield, where they are parked.

Unless somebody has got a program that gives these things away

at a dime on the dollar to some other country, we should have

25,000 displaced Humvees, minus maybe 5 percent or 10 percent

battle losses, but they should be inventory someplace.

Do you not agree with that and do you not agree——

General PUNARO. You are absolutely——

Mr. HUNTER. Do you not agree that that would be good for the

guard if we find them?

General PUNARO. Yes, sir, and I would hope the guard wouldn’t

be up here asking for $20 billion of the taxpayers’ money if they

knew they had 10,000 Humvees sitting over in Kuwait that they

could bring back.

Mr. HUNTER. I asked General Blum last year, I said, ‘‘Before we

figure out what we have got to have, let’s find out, because he told

me we are shedding equipment in Iraq and we are not bringing it

back and our guys are coming back without equipment.

Therefore, when the C rating comes along, we are low end. And

I asked him if there was a way to ascertain what we have parked

in theater and, as I understand it, at this point, we don’t really

have our arms around that.

Don’t you think we have got to get our arms around that?

General PUNARO. Yes, sir. That is one, I will tell you, again, I

would sic the GAO on that. They have some people on this readiness stuff that is the best I have seen in all my years that I have

worked at it and they could figure it out.

I mean, you have governors whose brigades have come back and

they have been told they aren’t going to get any equipment for four

years. Well, we all know that is unacceptable.

If there is equipment over in theater that could be brought back

that would give them even 10, 15 or 20 percent of the equipment,

particularly the kind of equipment you are talking about, it is very

useful in these dual use situations.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, similarly, we have got the ballistic, the Small

Arms Protective Inserts (SAPI) plate body armor, which now has—

we now have almost a million sets of SAPI body armor that is bullet resistant. We had virtually none six years ago.

We now have a million sets. Now, what that tells us is we have

displaced all of the regular body armor that we had before that did

12

not have the SAPI plates, that was basically frag resistance, but

not bullet resistant.

That obviously has value and it weighs a lot less and it is still

an effective body protection system.

That means we have displaced 500,000, 600,000, 700,000 sets of

vests. I think we need to find out where those are, don’t you?

General PUNARO. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a major role for this

committee is to find out where these tens of thousands of pieces of

equipment that we know existed, we know they were replaced by

equipment like the 114s that were needed with the armor to combat roadside bombs in Iraq, we know some of the systems that

were displaced were almost brand new when they were displaced

and they have got to be somewhere.

And I think that it is incumbent upon us to find out what we

have got in inventory.

And then I would submit this, General, a question to you. Let’s

say we come up with what we have got. We get an inventory on

what we have parked in theater, how much is parked in Kuwait

and how much is the units that came back simply don’t have a

handle on, let’s retrieve an inventory of all the equipment that we

have got or at least retrieve the numbers on that inventory.

Let’s figure out where we are short on what it is going to take

to make the guard full-up and then let’s pass a supplemental, just

like we did last year with the $20 billion for the Army and Marine

Corps, and full-up the guard.

Do you think that would solve the problem?

General PUNARO. No, sir, because I think you are going to find

a lot of that equipment is unusable.

Mr. HUNTER. I know I am assuming—but, General Punaro, I disagree with you. You have got some brand new Humvees that were

replaced in theater simply because they did not have the level of

armor that is necessary to combat roadside bombs.

Those pieces of equipment, those Armor Survivability Kit (ASK)

Humvees were not taken out of service because they weren’t outstanding vehicles. They were taken out of service because they

didn’t have armor on them.

So they are parked somewhere, unless we have given them away

to some country for a dime on the dollar, and there are 20,000 of

them. So let’s not say they are unusable.

General PUNARO. No, but you said, ‘‘Would that fix the problem?’’

The problem is——

Mr. HUNTER. No, no. My question is if we figure out what we

have got, if we figure out what we have got in country and what

we have got parked and what was shed from these guard units and

may be sitting in a compound someplace in Kuwait and we make

sure we have got a handle on what we have got and then we figure

out what the delta is, what we are still short, why can’t we do the

same thing we did for the active guys last year, which is to figure

that down to the last dime and pass a supplemental like the $20

billion that we authorized in this committee last year and get the

money and spend it and make the guard healthy sometime while

we are still young?

13

General PUNARO. That sounds like it would certainly be helpful.

But, Mr. Hunter, the shortages are across the board. They have

shortages in their combat engineer equipment. They have shortages in their medical equipment.

Mr. HUNTER. I am talking about combat engineer equipment.

General PUNARO. Radios. I doubt seriously if there are any retrievable command and control gear over in theater.

Mr. HUNTER. So my question to you is, if you are short on radios

and you don’t have a bunch of radios stacked up in inventory, then

you buy lots of radios.

But I am saying we find out what we have got. I mean, the

dumbest thing in show business would be for us to go out and buy

25,000 Humvees and we find out we have got 25,000 Humvees

parked in theater in various lots with between 5,000 and 10,000

miles on them.

I think you would agree with.

General PUNARO. No downside to doing what you are suggesting,

but it is not going to help the homeland security mission, because

they don’t have any requirements for that. They don’t know what

they need.

Mr. HUNTER. Okay. Let me go to homeland security for one

minute.

You had the great Captain Wade Rowley, who was one of your

members, who was a captain from a logging family in Oregon who

came down and built the border fence for us and knocked back the

smuggling of illegal aliens and narcotics in San Diego.

When he brought these units in, when he would rotate in guard

units from Missouri and lots of other states to build the border

fence to stop the drug trucks from coming in, they generally fell in

on rented equipment. Right?

So if you may have a guard unit, the guard units that came in,

for example, from other states, often, of you had rated them as they

were in transit, you would have rated them at C–4, because they

didn’t have their bulldozers, they didn’t have their water trucks,

they didn’t have that kind of stuff.

Because you have a domestic inventory here, they rented the

equipment and fell in on rented equipment so they didn’t have to

move it halfway across America. They fell in on the rented equipment at the site of their operation.

Now, is it your feeling that we should continue that type of thing

or that these units should be full-up with respect to organic equipment for the homeland mission?

General PUNARO. This is a key point that you bring up and this

is one of our key recommendations.

We need to identify the gaps in the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Guard Bureau, working with DOD, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),

working with the Centers for Disease Control and the other domestic civil agencies that have a role in all of these scenarios, they

need to sit down and say, ‘‘Okay, for this particular planning scenario, what do we have on hand, what can we get off the civilian

economy, what does the military have that they can bring to the

fight, identify the gaps.’’

14

First, identify the requirements. Nobody has done that, so we

don’t know that the requirement are. It is hard to say what the

gaps are when you don’t know what the requirements are.

So identify the requirements. Then identify the gaps and then

have a plan and coordinate a plan for where you are going to go

get what you need.

This is, I think, one of the real failings of the Northern Command (NORTHCOM), is they have some contingency plans and, by

definition, a contingency plan is a 50,000 foot level plan, not an implantation or an operational plan.

For the defense of the Korean Peninsula, we have a plan that

every unit in the military knows who they are, where they go, what

piece of gear they bring, and as those units are basically pulled out

of that plan and put somewhere else, they put another unit in

there, so you have a full-up round.

None of that happens on the domestic homeland front. There are

no plans. And the Northern Command plans are for when it is—

when there is catastrophic failure by the state and local, that is

when NORTHCOM rolls in. We think that is a very silly way to

plan.

We ought to get the whole Federal Government, state and local

on the same sheet of music, on the same team up front and determine who brings what to the fight and then you will know and will

determine how many of those civilian bulldozers could be used and

by whom, and then that way you will know.

That is the only way this is going to work. You can’t basically

say, ‘‘We are going to grab a little here, we are going to grab a little

there.’’ It is a come as you are situation.

Mr. HUNTER. But the base question, in your heavy equipment,

such as your construction battalions and your engineering battalions, when you need things like bulldozers, water trucks, graders,

et cetera, is it your position, as a matter of policy, that we should

have that organic to the units or that, as a matter of policy, you

should rely on systems that you can rent from the domestic economy, like they are doing in these civil works projects like the border fence right now.

General PUNARO. If that is a unit that has an overseas

warfighting mission that requires that piece of equipment, they

should have it organic to the unit and, by the way, it has——

Mr. HUNTER. But I am talking about not an overseas requirement, but a requirement that you can see is a domestic requirement, like the construction of the border fence.

Obviously, if you are going to be deployed, you have got to have

the equipment, you have got to train on it, et cetera.

General PUNARO. If they get a domestic requirement and they

validate it and they determine that getting it off the local economy

is the smartest way to do it for the taxpayers and it is going to be

available when they need it, yes, I would say that would be the

preferred method.

But we don’t know whether that is the preferred method now or

not, because we don’t know what the requirements are and we

don’t know what the gaps are.

15

That is the whole purpose of getting state, local and Federal all

on the same sheet and determining who is going to bring what to

the fight.

Mr. HUNTER. Well, I think it makes sense to make that analysis

and get all these parties married up and integrated and talking to

each other and get this done.

And I think what we have to do at this point, General, is find

out, doggone it, what do we have in theater and what do we have

that has been displaced by these fairly massive purchases that

have gone to the active side and, in some cases, replaced almost

new equipment, where is that new equipment and can we make it

available to the guard, and I think that is a preliminary step that

has got to be made.

Second, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say this—we were given

a number by the active Army and the Marines last year. We funded every dime that they said they needed.

I take it that the net result of your description of shortfalls ultimately translates into dollar requests. You have got to spend

money to get this stuff. I think we ought to spend the money that

we need to get this stuff.

First, let’s find out exactly what we need so we don’t replace a

bunch of stuff that we have got parked somewhere, but then let’s

spend what it takes to get it and if we have to come up with a supplemental this year that we bolt on to the base funding bill, let’s

do it.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman for his questions.

General, it is interesting and we are pleased to see Jim

Schweiter, who, as your general counsel, I know has done yeoman

work for you, but he did that for us as minority counsel, and I wish

to recognize him for his present, as well as his past efforts. A real

patriot. We thank him for his efforts.

[Applause.]

Mr. Ortiz.

Mr. ORTIZ. General, thank you so much for the work that you do

with the commission and we have worked with the National Guard,

the reserves.

At one time, I was a member of the reserves. But we just need

to spend more time and try to see how we can help you.

And I have been spending some time with the National Guard

and some of the reserve units and I know that since that money

was given to you to buy, through the commission and through the

National Guard, to buy that equipment, a lot of equipment has

been destroyed. A lot of equipment has been damaged.

And I went to visit a couple of reserve units and National Guard

units and they just returned from Iraq and after I met with them,

I wanted to see the equipment. Well, there was no equipment. The

equipment was left in Iraq so that the active military duty could

use the equipment.

I think it is hard for you to do your best to serve two masters,

the Federal Government and the state governors, and sometimes I

wonder how you train, because you have to train to go to Iraq to

fight a war and then you have to train to respond to natural disasters, flooding, hurricanes, fires.

16

Not only that, then most of the first responders who either work

for the city or are police officers or doctors or nurses, they are activated and they leave. So you are left there with a vacuum.

We need better lines and I do believe that you all need a fourstar general to be equal with the active military, because you guys

have a lot of ideas that maybe we don’t know about.

NORTHCOM, I think the other day we had a lot of questions

about NORTHCOM. One of my fellow members wanted to know

what do you do. This is why I say that we will not be able to answer all these questions today, but we need to spend more time

with you and see how we can help you.

I know money was given to you, but I know that at least 40–50

percent of the National Guard and Reserves have been activated

and a lot of that equipment has been going to Iraq.

So I know the last count we had was that at least 7,000 pieces

of equipment that belongs to the National Guard were in Iraq.

We want to help you. We want to work with you. I think that

maybe we should have follow-up meetings to see what we can do.

But one of the questions, how do you get to train for two different missions? Now, I know we are in a war right now. You have

got to train for that mission and sometimes you get there, you don’t

have the equipment, you don’t train with the equipment.

You get to Kuwait. That is where you train or you get to Iraq

and then that is when the equipment is given to you.

But then you have a different scenario, a different responsibility.

We have had flooding, we have had fires. How do you train for

this? How do you keep these people trained, focused on the mission

that they have at hand?

Maybe you can enlighten me a little bit on that, General.

General PUNARO. Mr. Chairman, you have really hit the nail on

the head there. First of all, the commission agrees with you that

the chief of the National Guard Bureau should be elevated to fourstar.

If the Congress determines that the duties he is currently doing

are the ones that he is required to do and adds that to his charter,

that would give him greater clout in the system, greater authority,

and it would recognize the tremendous contributions that the

guard is making today that aren’t actually embedded in their statutory charter.

So we strongly support that. Northern Command, again, you hit

the nail on the head. They are not focused sufficiently on the back

home missions. They are too focused on traditional missions and

they are the ones that should be identifying the requirements for

civil support and bringing those to the Pentagon, into the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, and arguing vehemently that we

need this equipment to do our missions here at home.

And third, how do you train? You don’t. That is the problem. The

Department of Defense has traditionally taken the position that if

we are ready for the overseas warfighting mission, for example, if

we can take an M1A1 Abrams common tank into battle, then, by

goodness, our troops are ready to basically do security duties or

hurricane and flood duties here at home.

The commission believes that is a flawed assumption. There is

ample testimony not only from senior military officials that that

17

doesn’t work anymore, there is concrete evidence from 9/11 and

from Katrina that that doesn’t work.

And so this is why we think the identification of the requirements for civil support are so fundamental. Everything in the military flows from requirements. Equipment flows from requirements,

training flows from requirements.

Since the Department of Defense has not identified requirements

for the civil support mission, they don’t have mission essential task

lists that our military trains against for those missions.

For example, when we call up an artillery battery in the Marine

Corps Reserve to go to Iraq as military police, we don’t just send

them over there. We retrain them as military police.

So it is logical that an artillery person is not going to be able to

do a lot of the homeland missions. So you hit the nail on the head.

But it starts with requirements.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you. My time is up, but thank you so much.

The CHAIRMAN. Major General, you were describing what happened in Missouri regarding their former artillery National Guard

brigades.

Special recognition to Karen Heath. You know, it is interesting

what we have provided your commission from this committee.

When I was chairman of the personnel subcommittee, Karen Heath

was such an integral part of it and we loaned her to you for your

excellent work, along with Jim Schweiter.

So, Karen Heath, great to have you back.

[Applause.]

Mr. McHugh.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, welcome, thank you, as my colleagues have said, for

your and your colleagues’ efforts.

I had the opportunity, the honor of testifying before you, along

with then Chairman Hunter, and to see your efforts through all of

that and the output of it is very impressive and very helpful and

I thank you for that, as we all do.

I want to return, for the few moments that I have, to the comments from my friend from Texas. You just noted about the commission recommendation to elevate the head of the National Guard

Bureau to a four-star. I suspect you would find a wide range of

support on this committee for that, perhaps some who would even

go further and make them a permanent member of the Joint

Chiefs.

But let’s talk a little bit about the process behind that. Four

stars today are recommended by the—to have a role by the secretary of defense and less formal roles by others and, of course,

come to the nomination of the President and his discretion.

National Guard Bureau chief is a little bit different, as you

know. It is really selected from a list of recommendations by the

independently appointed heads of the guards in the various states.

So did the commission also consider, reject or not even contemplate perhaps, if you are going to elevate them, would you

change the way in which they are nominated, as well?

General PUNARO. We felt like, as you know from your previous

subcommittee chair, in dealing with these flag and general offices

over the years, we felt like that was something that if the Congress

18

was to look seriously at our recommendation and look at the duties

he is performing, you would have to consider changing the process

by which the individual is picked.

We felt like that was something that you all would have more

wisdom than we had about how to best go about doing that. We

did look at in great detail, because we knew this was a very important issue for the committee and for the sponsors of the act, we

went to the General Accounting Office for their detailed analysis of

the four-star positions.

We commissioned our own research by the federal research division of the Library of Congress and, Mr. Chairman, I believe you

have that report for the record, to look at all four stars, the criteria. And when we did that analysis and we looked at the duties

that the chief of the National Guard Bureau is currently performing, we felt very strongly that it did match up with and equated

to four-star responsibilities.

And should the Congress require him to do those duties as part

of his charter, he should be elevated to four-star and I believe you

would want to adjust the process by which the individual was selected and, furthermore, you want to make sure that it wasn’t

just—that the Air Guard and the Army Guard both would be able

to compete for that position.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you.

Second point, also raised by the gentleman from Texas,

NORTHCOM. Obviously, this is the complex and delicately balanced or perhaps should be more delicately balanced circumstance.

The commission, as you discussed in your response to Mr. Ortiz,

indeed, in your mind, should play a more active role, become more

of an advocate, if you will, for those civil support programs.

And, yet, as I believe I understand the recommendations, you

would still hold their direct responsibilities to basic military Title

10 and reserve authority for the governors. Is that correct?

General PUNARO. That is correct, but we also go further than

that. We believe that we have got to get away from these stovepipes.

The three major categories for the use of the Guard and the Reserve, you have state active duty, you have Title 32, where the Federal Government—state active duty is run by the governor, paid by

the state.

Title 32 is run by the governor, paid by the Federal Government.

Title 10 is run by the President and the secretary of defense, paid

by the Federal Government.

We believe that we need to get away from these stovepipe categories and have situations that are preplanned in advance and

NORTHCOM would be the command that would do this coordination and preplanning, where the governor would have access to and

be able to utilize the guard in any capacity, as well as those federal

forces that have been given to the governor for that operation,

where he could direct those forces, and then you wouldn’t have——

Mr. MCHUGH. Can I? Because I have got just a very few seconds

and I appreciate that and maybe we can also submit some for the

record.

19

But is there a problem, a conflict, a challenge for NORTHCOM

to be recommending and prioritizing the duties over which it will

have no command and control authority?

General PUNARO. But they will. They are the command that

would, if the President federalized the Guard and Reserve for any

domestic response, they would have it and, therefore, they should

be the ones that are identifying the requirements for it and advocating the requirements for it.

Mr. MCHUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

Before I call on Mr. Taylor, would you clarify for both Mr. Taylor

and me the manner in which the head of the National Guard Bureau is chosen today?

General PUNARO. Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. McHugh accurately

described how he is picked today.

I have to fess up and tell you I would hesitate to put on the

record in precise terms exactly how that occurs, because I am not

as familiar with it as I should be.

It is done by this independent review group. There are nominations from the states. It is ultimately selected by the President. It

is one of the few that is not totally on the office of the secretary

of defense.

But I believe if the Congress required the duties that we believe

are the appropriate duties for the chief of the Guard Bureau and

elevate him to four-star, I think you would need to look very carefully at the selection process and make it similar to the way the

other four-star selections occur.

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is my understanding that General Blum was both interviewed

and selected by Secretary Rumsfeld, which proves that even Don

Rumsfeld made one good decision during his six years.

A couple of things on the vehicles. I very much agree with the

gentleman from California wanting accountability for where those

vehicles are.

I would be willing to wager a state dinner that the Administration has already made plans to give those vehicles away to the

Iraqis or someone in theater. But if we want to pass legislation to

say bring them back, I would vote for it in a heartbeat.

I very much appreciate all your recommendations, except for one.

Obviously, number 14 gives me some heartburn, but you are exactly on track with regard to there is no clear delineation of who

is going to take over in this country in the event of a manmade or

a natural disaster and we saw that firsthand.

The one part that you have raised that obviously needs addressing is the mentality with the Nation tells the states, ‘‘You are on

your own for the first 72 hours,’’ because there have been events

and there will be events that are so horrible that the states will

be incapable of doing that.

In particular, we were reminded that about 40 percent of all the

guardsmen, of the Louisiana Guard and 40 percent of the Mississippi Guard happened to have been in Iraq the day of Katrina.

20

And so those states did not even have the full complement of

their own people to call on.

The second thing, as far as rental equipment, my experience

was—and this is going to the local engineering unit—they have left

every stick of equipment in Iraq. They were told it would be replaced. It wasn’t.

By the time the storm hit, to your point, 60 percent of it still—

I am sorry—they had 60 percent. But the idea that you can go out

and rent it was flawed.

Again, I don’t think anyone could have thought this through, because suddenly the military is in a bidding war with civilian contractors who, by the way, have a government cost-plus contract. So

they can pay as much as they want for that bulldozer, knowing

that they are going to get 10 percent over the cost of that and now

the military finds themselves in a bidding war for the same stick

of equipment that they could have bought in the normal order of

process.

So I think you have raised some excellent points about the need

to replace this equipment now, do it in an orderly manner that is

hopefully to the best cost benefit to the Nation, and it has got to

be on hand, as you said, that minute when something happens.

And I don’t think our Nation has addressed that. I very much appreciate your comments when you say we need to decide on this

whole homeland security thing, whether or not it is going to be the

National Guard’s mission, homeland security, and my thoughts fall

with it ought to be a National Guard mission.

Quite frankly, we saw how ineffective a political appointee,

whose only previous job experience was the head of the Arabian

Horse Association, in his role as trying to run FEMA. You look at

his e-mails, the guy is worried about did he have the right color

shirt on.

You look at his e-mails, he is ordering state dinners on his government credit card, while local communities had resorted to police

sanctioned looting over the food stores that remained in order to

feed the local population.

There is no doubt in my mind that ought to be a National Guard

mission. So again, your point was to raise questions. It is Congress’

job to provide solutions, but I very, very much appreciate such a

distinguished panel raising these questions, because it is going to

happen again.

The one thing I would ask is did you look at—I never felt like

all the resources that were available to us were used in Katrina

and the statistic is about 52 percent of all Americans live in a

coastal community.

So, therefore, if it is a natural disaster or a manmade disaster,

New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, it is probably

going to be at a waterfront community and I don’t think we have

an adequate plan to use maritime resources for that. For example,

to bring in barge loads of fuel by water instead of truckloads of fuel

over bridges that have been destroyed or to bring information floating hospitals, bring in floating barracks.

To what extent, if any, did your commission take a look at that?

General PUNARO. Again, you have pointed out why NORTHCOM

has not got the proper plans. You can’t plan at the 100,000 foot

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level. You have to plan in the very specific detail that you just

identified.

We should know in a given scenario, do we need the comfort or

the mercy or are we going to use barges and where are we going

to get them from. And, by the way, this can be done by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

We have the best planners in the world. They are not doing it.

Mr. TAYLOR. That was my follow-up question. You saw no evidence that 19 months after the storm, that they have taken the

first step to do that.

General PUNARO. They have had a lot of meetings. They have

talked to each other extensively. NORTHCOM, under Admiral

Keating, has done precisely what the leadership in the Department

of Defense wanted him to do, which is develop high level contingency plans, but please don’t ever do anything that might get the

Department of Defense more involved in protecting the homeland,

because it might cost us some money.

So they have written the job descriptions and written the definitions in a way to make sure that see no evil, hear no evil, say no

evil, and that is the problem.

NORTHCOM, DOD and DHS all have described a very narrow

sandbox. They stay in their sandbox and we never get everybody

together for planning and coordination, and that has got to happen.

If it doesn’t happen, again, we are right now today, for the 15 planning scenarios that the Department of Homeland Security has

identified and everybody in government has agreed to that we have

got to deal with, we do not have—we are not fully prepared for

some, we are not adequately prepared for some, and we are totally

unprepared for others.

And the planning and coordination that has to involve the National Guard, the governors, DOD, Centers for Disease Control,

FEMA, it is not happening.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, again, for 19 of your 20 recommendations.

General PUNARO. Right.

The CHAIRMAN. Before I call on Mr. Jones, let me mention that

my very own Missouri National Guard is planning for the unthinkable. Back in 1811, there was the New Madrid Fault earthquake.

Fortunately, that part of Missouri, that part of the country was

not well populated and even the Mississippi River ran backward at

that time. And to Missouri National Guard’s credit, and hopefully

it never comes to pass and I doubt if it will in our lifetime, are establishing various communication units that should that horror

come to pass, that tragedy come to pass, that there will be a National Guard response at least regarding the communications from

A and B and C, knowing what is going on in that area.

Mr. Taylor asked for unanimous consent, am I correct?

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent that several letters from different organizations in support of H.R. 718, the

‘‘Guard Empowerment Act,’’ be included for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. Thank the gentleman.

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on

page 119.]

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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

General, I want to thank you, as everyone else has done, you and

the commission and the staff for putting together this excellent report, which is an recommendation to this Nation, as well as the

Congress. I look forward to carefully looking through the report

and the recommendations.

I can’t help but ask this one question. I only have one or two.

You made mention that before the report came out or maybe at

the time it came out, that you were at the Pentagon and two generals asked you, ‘‘Did you ask the right questions?’’

Do you think there is still—there shouldn’t be—but maybe some

type of an attitude problem with how certain individuals at the Department of Defense look at the guard?

It should not be, because they have been the real heroes, along

with the active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no question

about that. But do you still sense that there is a mindset, so to

speak, that maybe the guard is important, but maybe the guard

can wait?

I am not just talking about equipment, but I am talking about

you mentioned policies that need to be reviewed. It is a different

world we all live in as it relates to the guard and their role, both

civilian role, as well as warfighters.

Do you think there still maybe needs to be some type of attitude

adjustment?

General PUNARO. Yes, I do, but let me make it very specific so

we don’t put people on report that shouldn’t be put on report.

I don’t see this as the highest levels of the Pentagon. I certainly

don’t see it with General Pace or Secretary Gates. They are extremely forward-leaning in the saddle on the Guard and Reserve

matters and particularly wanting to work with this committee on

these recommendations and the Empowerment Act.

The Air Force has traditionally been very, very supportive of the

Guard and Reserve and integrated them and done their best.

Let’s be candid. We all know it. This is an Army issue, for the

most part, in terms of giving the proper respect, giving the proper

coordination. And it has been a challenge. It is not unique to the

current time we are in. We have seen it at various peaks and valleys and that is why I think the Guard Empowerment Act is so important.

It will put the guard in the position where it is not dependent

on different personalities either on the civilian or the military side,

particularly in the Department of the Army.

But, yes, sir, there still are those that do not want to give the

Guard and Reserve the respect that they—not that they deserve,

but that they have earned, 590,000 have gone to combat.

And in our commission, I felt we would run into somebody somewhere that would say they didn’t do a very good job, but we haven’t

found one person to say they have not performed in a magnificent

fashion.

Mr. JONES. General, thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I know that this committee, under your leadership and Mr. Hunter, as well, that we will do what is right to give

23

the guard the proper respect and equipment and give them what

they need.

And I would just say, again, as you said, General, I am going to

be repetitious for one moment, the guard, as well as active duty,

they are the real heroes in this war in Iraq and Afghanistan and

thank you for what you and your staff have done with this report.

I yield back.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

General Punaro, what you and your commission have done is just

yeoman’s work and we will not be able to thank you sufficiently

and we appreciate your testimony, as well as the subsequent work

that we will do together.

Mr. Cummings.

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

General, we have had some problems in Maryland with regard

to recruiters, and one of the things that I noted was that there is

a GAO report of last fall, August 2006, to be precise, that recruiting improprieties have dramatically increased throughout the Department of Defense.

Specifically between fiscal years 2004 and 2005, service reports

identified incidents of recruiter wrongdoing having escalated from

4,400 cases to 6,600 cases.

Meanwhile, criminal cases doubled from approximately 30 cases

to 70 cases. GAO further found that DOD has not established an

oversight framework that includes guidance specifically requiring

the armed services to maintain and report data on recruiter irregularities or even criteria for characterizing the irregularities that

occur.

Can you comment on the trends regarding recruiter impropriety

in both the Army and Air National Guard and have you found

these incidents to be increasing or decreasing and what types of incidents are being reported?

As I said, in Baltimore, we have had some major problems and

disservice being done to those young people who wanted to become

a part of the guard. Commitments were being made to them, telling them that they would not be going to Iraq and the next thing

you know, they are on the front line and all kinds of things and

it really gives us a lot of heartburn, because I think it makes it

more difficult to recruit.

General PUNARO. Yes, sir. That was not something that we

looked at specifically, recruiter misconduct, but I would tell you, as

a general observation, because this has been true in other times

when recruiting has been increasingly more difficult.

If you go back and look at various points in the last 20 or 30

years, when recruiting gets more difficult, the incidences of malfeasance and recruiter salesmanship and promising things that don’t

actually come true does go up.

The thing that worries us when we look at the recruiting and the

retention is particularly as it relates to the Guard and Reserve, the

snapshots they give are just only snapshots in time.

So we kind of looked at sort of the trends and the trends we see

are not good in terms of the propensity to enlist, the family support, the employer support, the number of prior service personnel

that we really need in the Guard and Reserve is less and less.

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So it doesn’t surprise me and particularly if you look at the amount of money from 2004 to 2005, we went from roughly $500

million spending on recruiting and retention in the Army, the

Army Reserve and Army Guard, to over $2 billion, showing you

how much more difficult it is to get people to come in all of the

components.

So it doesn’t surprise me, as someone that has looked at this over

the years, that the incidences of problems with recruiters is going

up.

Certainly, the department needs to get on top of it, because that

can have a very corrosive effect, as you point out, on future recruiting. But we did not, as a commission, look into that specifically.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one other question. I don’t know whether

this comes under your purview or not.

But when the Government Reform Committee did a hearing at

Walter Reed, a young man, a sergeant, came up to me who had

been injured and he talked about how it seemed like the enlisted

folk—how did he put it—the folk who were not in the guard got

service and better service than guys who were in the guard.

Are you following me?

General PUNARO. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And he was very upset. As a matter of fact, it

became a major story on National Public Radio (NPR). They actually interviewed this guy.

Have you heard stories like that? He just felt like he was just

like put on the back burner and he felt like it was just very, very

unfair. And, by the way, our office was able to help him get a Purple Heart today. He got it this morning at 9.

I am just curious.

General PUNARO. Certainly, we have a subcommittee that Patty

Lewis, with Karen Heath as the lead staff that is looking into the

healthcare for Guard and Reserve, looking into transition.

It is much more challenging for the Guard and Reserve when

they demobilize, because most of them are not located near major

military treatment facilities and getting the kind of care that they

need.

So we have heard some anecdotes similar to the one that you

have described, but they were more related to when they get back

out in their communities, where do they go for post-traumatic

stress syndrome treatment, where do they go for other problems

that have come up by virtue of their deployment, now that they are

demobilized and back in the communities.

We haven’t run across anything of the nature that you identified

at Walter Reed, but that would be part of our broader look at

healthcare for Guard and Reserves, which we will report on in January 2008.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, General, thank you for being here, and I particularly appreciate that you have brought a fellow commission member, Secretary Ball, who is a highly respected citizen of South Carolina.

Additionally, I particularly appreciate of your efforts and the

Guard and Reserves. I served 3 years in the reserves, 28 years in

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the guard. The reason I did is because I saw the opportunities of

training. I saw the opportunities of working with people who I

found to be the most competent and patriotic people in the community.

In fact, it is Guard members and Reserve members that influenced my sons, three, who are now members of the Army National

Guard. My one son has sort of followed Secretary Ball, a bit off

track. He is a member of the—a doctor in the Navy.

But, again, it is because they met guard members and I know

firsthand the guard is prepared domestically for domestic terrorism

when it occurs again. I have been there for the hurricane recovery,

the snow emergencies, the ice storms, the floods, the tornadoes, the

civil disturbances.

And then we have a historian as chairman and, of course, here

are members that—we need to be prepared in South Carolina for

earthquakes. The great earthquake of August 31, 1886, was in

Charleston and I want to assure the chairman that the National

Guard is prepared for earthquakes on the east coast of the United

States.

In terms of overseas deployment, I am grateful that one of my

sons was field artillery, retrained as military police (MP) to serve

in Iraq for a year. Another son has served in Egypt.

My unit, the 218th, is being prepared right now for training and

service in Afghanistan. And so they are at Camp Shelby receiving

the training they need, in Congressman Taylor’s home state.

As I look at this, the National Guard Association has commended

the commission for recommending the four-star status of the National Guard Bureau chief.

Additionally, I support very much your recommendation for senior status within NORTHCOM.

What would be the rationale for these two very good points?

General PUNARO. Sir, thank you. And, obviously, I tried to talk

Commissioner Ball into taking a few bullets up here at the witness

table, but he wanted to stay behind and kick my chair when he

thought I was going to stray off.

Mr. WILSON. See how bright he is? Look at that.

General PUNARO. And your son’s service, obviously, we all appreciate.

Northern Command, the rationale for recommending that either

the commander or the deputy commander at Northern Command

come from the Guard or Reserve ranks is because the fundamental

mission of Northern Command is the defense of the homeland.

The people that have the expertise, as you point out, that know

the territory, that know the two million first responders in the

United States of America, the firefighters, the police, the medical

personnel, they know the governors, they know the county commissioners, they know the local mayors, they know the territory, they

should have the lead for homeland defense, just like overseas the

U.S.-European Command or the U.S. Pacific Command, they know

the territory.

They know their responsibilities. The active forces should have

the lead for that and the Guard and Reserve should augment, reinforce overseas as they are doing now.

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Here in the homeland, however, we should give the primary responsibility and the lead to the Guard and Reserve and the active

component should come in behind and augment, reinforce and work

for the Guard and Reserve.

That is very difficult for the active component. They do not like

to think that a guard person or a reserve person could be in command of an active duty person.

By the way, in the field, it happens every day. This is Washington. So at Northern Command, which is really more of a functional

command than it is a combatant command, they don’t have sufficient expertise within the active duty personnel. They don’t have

the relationships. They don’t have the command and control on the

ground awareness and we ought to use the strengths that we have

in this Nation found in the Guard and Reserve.

For example, you will find in Dallas-Fort Worth the head of

emergency management is a lieutenant colonel in the reserves.

Why don’t we utilize those skills?

So our recommendation for Northern Command is we have got

to morph that command into a Guard and Reserve command with

the lead responsibility for identifying the requirements for homeland defense and when we need to have an operation, to be in

charge of that operation.

And I think you will find—and, by the way, the head of Northern

Command, he ought to go meet the governors, because that is his

area of responsibility, just like in the Pacific Command, when Admiral Keating leaves Northern Command today at noon and goes

out to the Pacific Command, the first thing he is going to do is go

meet all the heads of state.

I am not even going to ask the question of how many governors

the previous commanders of Northern Command went out to their

states and their state capitols and met them.

And so that is why we think the Northern Command—and, by

the way, the components, each of the service components, the Army

component, the Marine component, the Air Force component of

Northern Command ought to be headed by a Guard or Reserve and

most of the billets ought to be Guard or Reserve.

So that is our recommendation on the Northern Command.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate the gentleman mentioning Secretary

and Commissioner Will Ball. Our family will always be appreciative of the fact that he named my late wife Susie as sponsor of

the submarine USS Jefferson, certainly one of the highlights of our

family’s memory.

Secretary Ball, we thank you.

Mr. Taylor has a question.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Punaro, I was just curious if you had the opportunity to

brief our counterparts in the Senate yet and if you have, knowing

that whatever efforts we try to take to enact this into law would

have to be in conjunction with them, how did you feel their reaction

to your report was?

General PUNARO. That is a tough question.

Mr. TAYLOR. You worked over there for a long time. You can read

the body language.

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General PUNARO. We made sure and we felt like being up front

with this committee as we have been, the Congress was our customer. You all created the commission. Our report was to you all.

So we have kept the members of the committee, the members of

the Guard Empowerment Act, the other stakeholders fully briefed,

and we have made the rounds in the Senate.

We find, generally, Mr. Taylor, that when we talk about the

problems and go through the problem set, you get a lot of head

nods, yes, yes, yes, yes. We find that in the Senate. We find that

at DHS. We find it in the Department of Defense. We find it at

Northern Command.

I do know for a fact that the principal sponsors of the Guard Empowerment Act in the Senate, Senators Leahy and Bond, certainly

have well articulated the fact that they thought the commission

should have gone further than we did, particularly as it relates to

recommending that the head of the Guard Bureau be a member of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. TAYLOR. That old tricky number 14 again.

General PUNARO. And so I would hesitate to characterize where

the Senate Armed Services Committee is, other than to say we

have kept everybody fully briefed and fully informed.

And, again, I think our position is we have identified the problems, we have put forth some recommendations. I have, as you well

know, tremendous confidence in the committee, this committee and

the sister committee.

You all will talk to the—you will look at our recommendations,

you will look at the Guard Empowerment Act and talk to those

stakeholders, you will talk to the Department of Defense, you will

talk to other vested interests and you will come up with probably

even better recommendations and solutions than the ones we have

identified.

So the reason I am so optimistic, Mr. Chairman, is because I do

think, for the first time, we see a very good consensus on these are

the real problems that need to be fixed.

I would say even DHS, George Foresman, the undersecretary for

preparedness, probably is as knowledgeable a guy as we have ever

had in government on that. He understands that these problems

have got to be fixed.

Unfortunately, he is kind of in a straightjacket a little bit just

like Admiral Keating at NORTHCOM was in a straightjacket a little bit. Paul McHale, who served on this committee, was in a

straightjacket a little bit.

So our thing is let’s get them all out of their straightjackets, get

them all sitting down at the table all at the same time, let’s get

this worked out and let’s get everybody on the same team, because

the number one mission is protecting the lives, the property and

economy of our citizens here at home.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank the gentleman.

Special thanks to you, General Punaro, for your excellent testimony and for the wonderful work that your commission has done.

I know full well of the efforts that you and your commissioners

have given.

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I know there is another report due some months from now. We

look forward to that. However, what you have offered us will be excellent food for thought for the upcoming markup that this committee will face in the very near future.

So with that, we thank you for your testimony.

As has just been indicated, we have a series of votes upcoming.

And if there is no further business, with appreciation, we thank

you.

General PUNARO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MCHUGH

Mr. MCHUGHES. ‘‘The Commission recommends that the grade of the person serving as Chief of the National Guard Bureau be increased from three stars to four

stars. The Commission, however, was silent on whether or not there should be a

change in the manner in which the Chief of the National Guard would be appointed

to the highest military grade.’’

Given the Commission’s recommendation not only regarding the increased grade,

but also the commission findings about the increased responsibility of the Chief,

NGB, should the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have

a statutory role in the appointment process for the Chief, NGB?

General PUNARO. Section 10502(a) of Title 10 mandates that the Chief of the National Guard Bureau is appointed by the President (with advice and consent of the

Senate) from a pool of qualified officers recommended by their governors. When selecting from the pool of nominated officers, the President will benefit from consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Their statutory role as advisors to the President on defense matters is already established,

and the Commission has not taken a position as to whether a statutory change is

necessary on this point. The Commission did note, however, that the process for

nominating and appointing the CNGB may need to be changed if the NGB is made

a joint activity of the Department of Defense, rather than a joint bureau of the

Army and Air Force.

Mr. MCHUGHES. ‘‘The Commission’s report critiques U.S. Northern Command

(NORTHCOM) for not adequately promoting, or organizing for, or planning for its

mission to provide support to civil authorities. The report also recommends that the

NORTHCOM commander should be an advocate for civil support programs across

the entire budgeting planning and execution process. Yet the Commission’s report

also notes that NORTHCOM’s civil support role would be largely confined to providing federal Title 10 support and not directly supporting, coordinating or commanding any National Guard forces, which would remain under the control of the state

governor.’’

So what civil support missions and requirements is NORTHCOM to advocate for?

Those civil support requirements validated by DOD? Those advocated by the National Guard Bureau? Those of Homeland Security?

General PUNARO. In its March 1 report, the Commission recommends that the Department of Homeland Security generate civil support requirements for the Department of Defense. We recommend that DHS generate these requirements through a

combined effort that will take advantage of DHS’s insight into the preparedness capabilities present in the rest of the federal government, as well as in state and local

government.

The requirements generated by DHS would then be validated as appropriate by

DOD through its normal requirements process. The Commission believes that

NORTHCOM—as the unified command with the responsibility for Title 10 civil support missions on the continental United States—should first play an important role

in determining whether the requirements generated by DHS should be validated.

And second, once the appropriate requirements have been validated, NORTHCOM

should advocate on their behalf in the DOD requirements process.

NORTHCOM should advocate for those civil support requirements it believes necessary to carry out its mission pursuant to plans and programs, whether those requirements are initiated by NORTHCOM, DHS, or the National Guard Bureau. As

an additional matter, the Commission believes that the Council of Governors will

play an important role in advising DOD on state requirements, as transmitted

through DHS, during the requirements generation process.

Mr. MCHUGHES. Is it wise for NORTHCOM to promote the support to civil authorities’ missions as a priority equal to or above its other missions when

NORTHCOM will not likely have command and control of the operations that execute the support to civil authorities’ mission?

General PUNARO. Regardless of who directs the response to a significant incident,

NORTHCOM will play a vital role. NORTHCOM currently views homeland defense

as its primary mission and civil support as a ‘‘lesser-included’’ mission. This is conVerDate 22-MAR-2001 07:16 Dec 02, 2008 Jkt 037321 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-43\082000.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
128

sistent with DOD’s policy of viewing civil support as a ‘‘derivative’’ or ‘‘by-product’’

of DOD’s warfighting mission. In contrast, the Commission believes that homeland

defense and civil support should collectively be considered NORTHCOM’s primary

mission.

The Commission has recommended expanding the circumstances under which

governors can direct all federal military assets operating in their states. The Commission envisions incorporating all military forces necessary to respond to a particular contingency in a state—whether active duty, Guard, or Reserves—into the plans,

training, and exercises for that response. As part of that planning, state and federal

officials would work out under what conditions federal forces could be directed by

state officials. When a crisis occurs, the governor could request that responding federal forces be placed under the operational control of the leading Guard officer, pursuant to those plans and protocols. The state’s joint force headquarters with a federally certified commander would be the likely command and control element. This

process could be launched through something as simple as a phone call, or formally,

through a letter to the President. The Commission envisions this request being

made just as a governor might request that the President declare that a major disaster exists in the state, opening the way for federal disaster assistance. The President would evaluate the request, with the assistance of the Defense Department,

in much the same way that the Federal Emergency Management Agency advises the

President on requests for disaster assistance. If the President agreed that this step

was necessary, the President would place responding federal forces under the control of the governor. The President would retain formal command of those federal

forces; they would remain under the administrative control of their respective services and be subject to posse comitatus and other restrictions. They would still be

part of the federal military. The only difference would be that they would be subject

to the direction and control of the governor acting through his or her designated

military commander. There could also be pre-planned and pre-trained scenarios in

which this assumption of control, by prior agreement of the President, could be

‘‘automatic.’’

The Commission sees no inconsistency between its view of civil support and the

possibility of states directing the bulk of the responding farces. In the extraordinary

event that an incident was ‘‘federalized’’ with command and control vested in the

President, the manpower and equipment acquired through this process would be the

same.

Mr. MCHUGHES. Should NORTHCOM have operational control or even a role in

civil support operations? If yes, what should that role be? Will you include this analysis in your final report?

General PUNARO. The Commission is analyzing this issue and will address it in

its final report.

Enabling Duns-Hatted Command of Mixed Title 10 and Title 32 Forces

‘‘The Commission’s report recommends that efforts be made to expand the ability

of governors to direct all federal military assets operating in their states. That certainly is one option for addressing the challenge of how to effectively coordinate

mixed federal military forces (operating under Title 10) and state National Guard

forces (under Title 32 or on state active duty) operating in the same geographic

area.’’

‘‘I was surprised, however, to see that while the Commission made numerous recommendations for improving NORTHCOM’s role in homeland defense and support

to civil authorities, and for increasing dramatically the National Guard and Reserve

component manpower at NORTHCOM, and to permit a National Guard officer to

command NORTHCOM, there was no recommendation to improve NORTHCOM’s

ability to command, control and coordinate forces comprised of mixed federal military and state National Guard forces.’’

‘‘As the Commission’s report notes, current law permits dual-hatted commands so

that federal (Title 10) military officers can command non-federalized National

Guard units. The Commission also recommends further expansion of law to better

enable National Guard officers to command mixed federal and state (Title 32)

forces.’’

Mr. MCHUGHES. Given the Commission’s conclusions and recommendations aimed

at improving the command, control and coordination of mixed Title 10 and Title 32

forces, did the Commission examine the course of action that would make the commander, NORTHCOM, and key personnel throughout NORTHCOM dual-hatted—

that is simultaneously able to command, control sad coordinate Title 10 and Title

32 forces? If examined, what did the Commission conclude? If the Commission did

not examine this coarse of action, what are the Commission’s views with regard to

making the commander NORTHCOM, and key personnel throughout NORTHCOM

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able to simultaneously command, control and coordinate mixed Title 10 and Title

32 forces?

General PUNARO. In its March 1 report, the Commission did not make a recommendation on this point. The Commission has not thoroughly examined giving

federal military forces operational control over state or Title 32 status forces, and

thus does not have a recommendation on its utility or advisability.

Mr. MCHUGHES. If a National Guard officer is to be the commander of

NORTHCOM, should not that officer have the ability to command, control and coordinate mixed Title 10 and Title 32 forces in response to natural disasters and in

connection with the full range of NORTHCOM’s missions?

General PUNARO. The Commission has recommended that the commander or deputy commander of NORTHCOM should be either a National Guard or Reserve officer. The Commission did not make a finding or recommendation in its March 1 report on this point, but will continue to explore options on the command and control

of military forces and will include any pertinent findings or recommendations in its

final report.

Æ