Fiscal Year 2005 National Defense Authorization Budget: European and Southern Command

Federal News Service March 24, 2004 Wednesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2005 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET: EUROPEAN AND SOUTHERN COMMAND

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES: GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS, COMMANDER, U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND; GENERAL JAMES T. HILL, UNITED STATES ARMY, COMMANDER, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND

LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Generals, thank you for being here today. Just a couple of quick questions.

General Jones, in Europe-and I'm not sure if this is directly your area. But in the response to terrorism, certainly since 9/11, Europe has been in the middle of that and had a good many successes right after 9/11 in terms of rounding up people with al Qaeda links and thwarting terrorist attacks. I'm just wondering what role your command plays in any sort of coordinated effort in Europe, and if you can give us some insight on what the level of cooperation is between the U.S. and the Europeans in trying to respond?

Obviously there are some differences of opinion in terms of how we approach the war on terrorism. What impact is that having on our ability to deal with it in Europe, which is-as Spain demonstrated but was obviously long before, is a clear target and some place we need a level of cooperation? If you could just give us some perspective on that?

GEN. JONES: Sir, the role is a very important one. The U.S. has invested quite a bit of infrastructure in Europe to link up our global communications system and intelligence gathering system. We are involved in very close contact with our European allies on a bilateral basis under the auspices of the United States European Command.

We have expanded that envelope, if you will, beyond the traditional allies that we routinely think about.

That we've expanded it, as I illustrated a few minutes ago, to include some North African countries and countries in the Pan-Sahel region. And we think that this is an important thing to do for the future because our future successes in terms of fighting the global war on terrorism is going to be enhanced to the extent that we're able to fuse actionable intelligence in such a way that we have a broader group that has access to the information in real time so they can upon it.

European nations have arrested over 9,000 people in connection with terrorism since 9/11. They are extremely active in the defense of their borders. There is a huge problem with regard to immigration, illegal immigration, towards Western Europe. As you might imagine, the disintegration of the borders in the member states of the European Union has actually complicated the problem because people can flow rapidly across from one nation to the other. But we are involved very, very closely with our friends and allies in making sure that we have an exchange of information in a way that makes it extremely effective.

And I'd go back to the example I gave of Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean and Task Force Straits of Gibraltar, which is two separate Naval operations; one in the east and one in the west and into the Mediterranean that have been ongoing now for almost a year. This has resulted in a very, very efficient way of sharing intelligence around the Mediterranean rim. From the time a ship goes through the Suez Canal or comes through the Straits of Gibraltar, if there's any hint of suspicious cargo those ships can be requested to be voluntarily boarded, and there are even some other arrangements by which they can be involuntarily boarded to make sure that contraband and illegal shipment-illegal immigration, for example, human trafficking, which as a result of this operation has gone down almost 50 percent in the western Mediterranean in one year.

These are some of the examples of the fruits of intelligence sharing and close cooperation with our friends and allies, and this is-I might just say that this is something we need to migrate more effectively into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization because if there's one thing that's lacking, and that is a fused NATO intelligence piece, since a lot of the intelligence activity is done by nations. And this is an idea that's on the table right now.

REP. SMITH: One specific question about that, and this may not be your area, but specifically with regard to Spain and the dangers of their response to the terrorist attack being to pull out of Iraq; perhaps in a more diplomatic area. But it struck me right after the attack, and right after the election certainly, that it would be worthwhile for some very high level person here in the U.S. to go to Spain and say, look, I know this was your position before any of this happened and I understand that you're not just reacting to it. But the perception this will send is devastating.

You know, stick it out for a little while longer. Respect the impact this has. Change that position. Do you have a feel-I mean, does it dawn on the new Spanish government that whatever they may have been saying for the months before the election, given the terrorist attack, that their position is extremely problematic for Spain's safety, as well as everybody else? Is there any possibility they might rethink that in light of that reality?

GEN. JONES: Sir, I think that in the aftermath of the elections, I think there is going to be a period of time where people go into a more detached assessment. This was a very, very emotional response; as I said, on the scales of our own devastating attack of 9/11. Within the European community there will be focused discussions with Spain as to the implications of what it is they might or might not be doing. For now they are a very active and important contribution to NATO operations. And we certainly hope that no nation inadvertently contributes to encouraging terrorists by virtue of a political decision, and will work their way through to making sure that that is not the intended-not the message that's intended to be sent.

REP. SMITH: We definitely need to get that message to Spain.

Quick question, General Hill. First of all, welcome, and I really enjoyed your time as commander at Fort Lewis in my district. You did a terrific job and I'm pleased to see you're moving up in the world, as it were. And I just had a quick question about Haiti and Venezuela. You know, we are trying to promote democracy in the region. Obviously that's one of our core principles and, as you noted in your opening remarks, it's been a tremendous transformation from 25 years ago to the assumption that there will be democracy in Latin America.

But we struggled with that with President Aristide and now with President Chavez in Venezuela, in the sense that here we had two democratically elected leaders who were not behaving very democratically in their position, and certainly did not seem to have the support of their people. And I think you would agree if Aristide was still in charge in Haiti, we would have a much more deadly, dangerous situation. How do we go about-and specifically with regard to Venezuela, since that situation is still active.

I mean, how do you deal with a democratic leader who has so utterly lost control of his country, the faith of his people, and in some cases isn't behaving in a free and open way, even as a democratically leader? What's the advice, you know, as policymakers because obviously we can't go out there and say, you know, get rid of this guy, if people just elected him. On the other hand, supporting him can be problematic as well. How do we walk that line, as someone who's had to deal with it in a couple of high profile situations?

GEN. HILL: Well, the situation in Venezuela is a very complicated situation and we have encouraged, through our government relations with Mr. Chavez, to respect his constitution, to continue to work through the political reform, and those discussions go on with him on a daily basis. From my perspective what we have done with Venezuela is continue our mil to mil relationships with the Venezuelans at about the colonel level and below. We've been very careful in how we have managed our general officer relationships with them for two reasons: (1) to ensure that we don't encourage Mr. Chavez's move-seeming move to a greater authoritarianism, and certainly that we don't seemingly invite a coup. So we work those, but it's a very delicate situation.

REP. SMITH: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.