Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the US European Command, Southern Command and Africa Command

Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee - FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Budget Request from the US European Command, Southern Command and Africa Command

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REP. JOE WILSON (R-SC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And Generals, Admiral, thank you for being here today.

I have the perspective of being a member of Congress representing Parris Island, representing Fort Jackson, the Beaufort Marine Air Station, the naval hospital at Beaufort. Additionally, I'm a veteran; 31 years. But more importantly, I've got four sons serving in the military, three in the Army Guard, one Navy doctor who has served in Iraq. And so I'm very proud of our military. I'm very appreciative as a parent of your service. And I've never been prouder of the American military and I want to thank you. And General Craddock, this is such an exiting time with victory in the Cold War, with the liberation of southern and eastern Europe.

I work very closely with the Republic of Bulgaria. I'm the co- chair, along with Congressman Ellen Tauscher, this developing free- market democracy. Two years ago, for the first time in their 1,225 years of existence, their national assembly voted for NATO bases, American bases to be located in their country. Can you tell us what the status is of the new bases in Bulgaria?

GEN. CRADDOCK: Thank you, Congressman. First of all, let me just thank you for your support and those of your sons. We appreciate their service and your support for their service and all the service members. With regard to Bulgaria, Joint Task Force East, as you know, is the name given to the construct to put a joint task force headquarters stationed in Bulgaria, Romania, and some of their facilities there, and then rotate forces through that. We have received the funding required for the projects in order to put the brick-and-mortar together to accomplish that. We are almost complete now with the finalizing for both countries, Romania and Bulgaria, of the technical agreements -- I think 11 of 12 at the last time I checked, which was a few weeks ago -- have been completed and are in place. My deputy went down to sign off on several of those recently. So I think that we are well on our way to reaching agreement with the "how" of what we're going to do.

The brick-and-mortar is going in to provide the structures that we'll need. And then the last part, the forces available to do these rotations, and then jointly with the Bulgarians and the Romanians, accomplish one, the engagement; and two, the training for us as well as them. Now, we are a bit short on the forces. We are using forces out of European Command to do that because of the intensity and the requirements for OIF and OEF, our request for forces is yet unfilled. We'll continue to do that. I've talked to the commander of European Command, and we're confident we can put together the required forces -- (inaudible) -- engagement.

REP. WILSON: Additionally, I've visited Russia a number of times, and I'm still hopeful for a positive relationship with that country. We have shared interests of fighting terrorism, of also the threat of nuclear proliferation. What has been our contact, and our military contact, with Russia?

GEN. CRADDOCK: European Command meets regularly at the staff brigadier, major general, one- and two-star level with Russian counterparts. They do that to work through work plans for exercise, engagements where we will exchange type units for a period of two or three years. Recently, we finished that for the coming years. That was brought back. And that document, the work plan, is signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with his counterpart, the Russian Chief of Defense. So we have an ongoing engagement. This year, we completed in December, Torgau, which is an annual exercise. A bit more robust this year, we were encouraged than in years past. We are hoping to be able to increase that for the future. The engagement to a EUCOM and the Russian forces I would characterize as difficult. We have not lost any ground, but we are not gaining ground because of the political influence rolling into the military engagement.

REP. WILSON: Thank you very much. And in lieu of the last question, I just want to extent -- every time I see General Ward, my open invitation for a home for him, for he and his command, in Charleston, South Carolina, and on behalf of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce, indeed, we have a whole list of reasons while Charleston would be perfectly situated for AFRICOM.

Thank you and congratulations.

REP. SKELTON: The gentleman's out of order.

(Laughter.)

REP. WILSON: We would have had a home for you, too, and a condo, Mr. Chairman.

(Laughter.)

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