Hearing of the Armed Services Committee - FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Act Budget Request From U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Northern Command

Statement

REP. SMITH: (In progress) -- appreciate your service. I think both of your areas are incredibly important to our national security and to this committee, focusing first on SOCOM. The demands that have been placed on our special operators since 9/11 have been enormous, more than I think any of us have imagined, and you have responded terrifically in every instance, and we appreciate that and all those who serve under you. They're doing a fabulous job for us in Iraq and Afghanistan and in dozens of other places that many Americans are unaware of.

And we on this committee firmly believe that, going forward, the Special Operations Command will be a key piece of the Global War on Terror, if not the key piece. We envision the future is going to be about counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, fighting off the ideology of al Qaeda in all the places in the world where it is at.

And nobody is better qualified to do that kind of counterinsurgency, working with local populations, than our special operators. And we want to give you every bit of assistance that you need to get that job done. And as we look at the budget, one of the things that we are really going to focus on in this committee is the 7 percent reduction in SOCOM's budget for this cycle over last.

I know, Admiral Olson, you and I have spoken about that, and you certainly respect the choices of the Pentagon. But we here on the committee are going to advocate for an increase in that and try to get you the help you need in the places you need.

Also I had a meeting this morning with the general in charge of the Air Force, and we are very much aware of the air frame concerns, particularly on transportation, how SOCOM needs to get more forces in those areas, and want to try to help with that as well. If we're going to ask this much of our special operators, we need to make sure that they have the equipment and support that they need, and we're going to need to do that.

We're also very interested to hear from General Renuart today about NORTHCOM, you know, our most recently stood-up command, at least until the African Command gets stood up, and the challenges that you face since 2002 in protecting our homeland. And I think the thing I'm most interested in that area is how NORTHCOM -- and you and I have had the opportunity to speak about this before -- how you've merged in with all the other different pieces.

In that same time frame, of course, we created the Department of Homeland Security, which has responsibilities in those areas also. And then there are a variety of other agencies, both within the Pentagon and without, that you have to work with, and curious how that cooperation is progressing and what we could do to help you in those areas.

With that, I will turn it over to the ranking member on this committee, Mr. Thornberry, for any opening remarks he has. And I will also say that any member of the committee can submit opening remarks for the record. I will be doing that myself. Thank you.

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REP. SMITH: Thank you very much.

Admiral Olson, as I mentioned, I met with General Wurster this morning, talking about some of your needs in terms of air platforms. And I know there are needs there.

Could you give us specifics in terms of ISR and also transport -- I guess, have a military -- sorry, a offensive capability to the transport as well. What airframes do you need, both for ISR and to be able to transport and protect your troops?

And if you could, what portion of that do you see coming in the supplemental or a supplement versus in the rest of the budget? It seems that the supplemental has become very, very important to funding your operations, and I wonder if you could break those two pieces down for us. What do you need and which budget do you see it coming in?

ADM. OLSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our most immediate acquisition needs are recapitalization of our C-130 fleet and increased ISR capability and capacity, followed very closely by our V-22 acceleration effort.

We have 37 C-130 platforms that require recapitalization soon. The average age of many of these is close to 40 years old. They're really in three types. There's an early model penetration aircraft, a tanker aircraft, and the AC-130 gunship model which, in total, again, add up to 37.

We're facing a degradation of the fleet because of center wing box problems, in addition to advancing age. We're reaching the point where investing in upgrading those airplanes or sustaining those airplanes makes less sense than replacing them. So that's our number one pure acquisition need.

The ISR question is a little bit more complex because it's not just about buying platforms. It's a system of capabilities that has to come together to produce real capability where we need it. There is the recruiting of the right people to fly and analyze the product of overhead systems, and ISR also includes maritime systems and ground systems.

There are airspace issues for training the aircraft. There are schoolhouse pipeline issues, there's bandwidth issues, there are MILCON and ramp space issues, all of which have to be carefully coordinated and developed simultaneously in order to produce -- in order to optimize the production of increased capability.

So we depend on a mixed fleet of manned and unmanned systems, both at the operational level and at the tactical level, for both man- hunting kinds of missions and force protection kinds of missions. And I can provide you separately all of those numbers that add up to that.

REP. SMITH: Yes, I'd be very interested in that.

ADM. OLSON: But it is a matrixed kind of a format. "If you get more of this, then you need more of that" kind of format because of the way that this has to be built together to produce the full capability.

And third, the V-22 fleet. Our venerable Pave Low helicopters, the MH-53s, the last one of 31 that we had operational is coming off line September 30th of this year. They have reached the end of their useful life. And accelerating the V-22 in order to replace some of that capability is an urgent need for us.

We've been talking carefully with the Air Force about this. The Air Force has included in its supplemental request enough funds to purchase an acceleration of V-22. We've included in our supplemental request enough funds to nearly match that with respect to Special Operations modifications.

You asked specifically about how dependent we're becoming on the supplemental or how much the supplemental will contribute to this. About two-thirds of our supplemental budget over the last few years has gone to operations and maintenance costs, about one-third to the urgent procurement to fund those items most necessary and engaged in the current conflict.

I don't believe that there will be a decrease in the operations and maintenance requirement any time soon. My budget request, although down 7 percent from fiscal year 2008, given the top-line restrictions that we operated under, does include a $400 million increase in O&M, and that's on top of the supplemental that we have come to expect in 2008 and 2009.

So I believe that our supplemental is now necessary for the continued business of Special Operations, certainly now, in Iraq and Afghanistan and the broader CENTCOM region, but in the future more so in terms of funding our global activities.

REP. SMITH: Thank you.

General Renuart, if you could help me out a little bit in terms of NORTHCOM's responsibilities and anticipating threats, as you described. I guess mentally I'm dividing this up between sort of specific threats and then planning against general threats. And how closely do you work with the intel community? How good is that relationship?

You know, on a daily basis, you see specific threats and you're responding to a specific threat, whether it's, you know, a person of interest in the U.S. or a specific target that is threatened, and what your role at NORTHCOM is in responding to those threats versus just protecting what we know to be, you know, likely targets. You know, and some of those are private facilities as well as public; if you could sort of explain in those two areas what your responsibilities and challenges are.

GEN. RENUART: Mr. Chairman, thank you. I'd be happy to. And really your question gets to the construct of integrating with our partners, both in terms of developing information and then planning for potential activities.

One of the comments out of the 9/11 commission and one of the comments out of post-Katrina lessons learned that was common that affect us was there was not sufficient collaborative planning among all the partners to understand the nature of the threat and then to act on it if it, in fact, occurred.

We've worked very hard on that construct of anticipation and of collaboration with our intelligence partners. I mentioned we're integrated into the National Counterterrorism Center and integrated in with the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. But it really goes beyond that. Our day-to-day -- our intel function collaborates with all of the intelligence community, focused on threats that may be far away from our home, and how do they potentially work their way to us in the homeland?

As you know, we have some very carefully worded congressional limitations -- constitutional limitations, excuse me -- on how we collect intelligence, if we can collect intelligence in the homeland. Our role is really to provide assistance to the law enforcement agencies. But we have built a level of confidence with each of those that they share with us freely within the constraints of the Constitution, the information that may help us deter and detect a threat that could be coming from outside the country.

Our focus is on the terrorism nexus, but law enforcement partners have the focus inside the country on acting on the potential terrorist leads that we might have at home. I would use examples that I think have been made public in the last year or two -- a cell that was arrested in the vicinity of Fort Dix here on the East Coast; some individuals that were arrested in the vicinity of Charleston Air Force Base a couple of months ago.

We were aware that the FBI was working that. We shared information that came from outside our shores that pointed to a terrorist nexus here in the country. And then we were collaborative partners with the FBI as they began to develop that information. That relationship for us has proven to be a very strong one, one I'm very pleased with.

Having said that, we've got to be able to take information and then prepare ourselves at home for the consequences if one of these threats comes true. That too relies on a very close collaborative effort with the Department of Homeland Security, certainly with the law enforcement partners, with DHS's principal military arm, the U.S. Coast Guard, and we are the DOD lead element for the contingency planning portion of the integrated mission planning team that DHS has formed.

We work on a day-to-day basis. We have weekly BTCs, planning BTCs, with each of those organizations so that we are both equally abreast of both threat information and then the contingency planning that would be necessary to respond.

So I think we are, in my view, leap years ahead -- light years ahead, excuse me -- of where we were even after Katrina. We still have work to do. We'll continue to keep those bonds close. But I think if you were to ask any of those agencies in the government, they would identify their collaborative effort with NORTHCOM as really one of the highlights.

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