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STATEMENT OF

MAJOR GENERAL DAVID F. BICE

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

COMMANDING GENERAL, MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON

June 28, 2001

INTRODUCTION

It is my privilege to serve as the new Commanding General of Marine Corps Base, Camp

Pendleton, California, and to appear before you today to discuss our Anti-Terrorism/Force

Protection (AT/FP) Program. This is a timely opportunity since two weeks ago Camp Pendleton completed a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) exercise with participation from surrounding cities, San Diego County, State of California, and Federal Agencies. This was the second major Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection exercise conducted at Camp Pendleton in the last year with participation from our local, State and Federal partners.

Until just recently I served as the Deputy Commander of Marine Forces Europe where protection of U. S. Service men and women and the security of U. S. Military installations is our highest priority. Camp Pendleton's number one priority is the safety and security of all 60,000 personnel who work or live aboard Camp Pendleton including members of all Services, active and reserve; dependents; and civilian employees. Providing a secure environment at Camp Pendleton is essential to operating an amphibious training base to ensure highly trained and ready Marine forces can meet any contingency when our Nation calls. The increased potential threat of a terrorist attack inside the continental United States requires a specific Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Program to ensure this secure environment.

AT/FP PROGRAM

Our AT/FP Program at Camp Pendleton centers on the concept that the best deterrent against terrorism is an alert, educated, combat ready Marine -- from individual Marine to Commanding General. Our principal resource in executing our AT/FP Program at Camp Pendleton is the 25,000 Marines and Sailors of the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) stationed aboard the base. The 25,000 Marines and Sailors of I MEF are an integral part of the active AT/FP readiness posture through individual awareness. These same I MEF Marines and Sailors make up the operational units that occupy the 18 outlying encampments aboard Camp Pendleton. They provide an active role in physical security within their respective encampments.

Camp Pendleton is centrally located between the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego and this unique location affords us the possible assistance of local resources for an AT/WMD event on Camp Pendleton, such as the San Diego Metropolitan Medical Strike Team, the San Diego County Hazardous Incident Response Team, the FBI San Diego Anti-Terrorism Team and the FBI San Diego WMD HAZMAT Response Team.

The cornerstone of the Camp Pendleton AT/FP Program is our AT/FP Plan, based on the Joint Staff AT/FP Installation Planning Template, and our regular exercise program. Our AT/FP Plan is a living document that is continuously refined, based on lessons learned and newly assessed requirements. We have exercised this plan three times in the last two years. These exercises are key to establishing essential working relationships with all parties involved, including all organizations on Camp Pendleton, those in the local community, and with State and Federal Agencies. We also participate in local community exercises like the recent Federally sponsored Disaster Preparedness Program's Weapons of Mass Destruction Exercise in San Diego, as a part of the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici "train the 120 cities" program.

As I indicated earlier, two weeks ago Camp Pendleton hosted a Marine Corps Headquarters sponsored tabletop WMD exercise focusing on a WMD event within the Southern California region. This exercise, VECTOR WEST, consisted of a BioTerrorism event initiated on Camp Pendleton, but ultimately impacting coastal Southern California from Los Angeles to the Mexican border. The intent of VECTOR WEST was to encourage discussion between Camp Pendleton and our local, county, State, and Federal partners in order to understand each other's first responder capabilities, emergency action procedures and facilitate specific contacts among the participants in preparation for an event of this magnitude. VECTOR WEST highlighted a host of issues that cloud traditional lines of thought between military support to civilian authorities and civilian support to military communities when a WMD event of this magnitude strikes the military community and the civilian community as one.

As a part of our AT/FP Program we have established a Camp Pendleton AT/FP Working Group, task organized with key members of the Marine Corps Base Staff, resident operational forces and tenant organizations. We also provide representation to local and regional working groups such as the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Group and have coordinated Mutual Aid Agreements with local emergency services organizations, specifically fire, police and medical services.

Camp Pendleton underwent a Joint Staff Integrated Vulnerability Assessment (JSIVA), in February 1999. This assessment was a landmark in validating the Camp Pendleton AT/FP Program and provided essential guidance in helping us determine our vulnerabilities. Based upon the JSIVA, we were able to develop a prioritized list of requirements aimed at mitigating or eliminating identified vulnerabilities. These requirements totaled 3.3 million dollars and included mechanical vehicle barriers at our gates, deployable road barriers, a mass notification system, Level A and B protective suits, perimeter fencing, an encrypted radio system, deployable lighting, spike penetration system and a geo-notify communication system (i.e. reverse 911). We submitted these requirements through the Combating Terrorism Readiness Initiative Fund (CBTRIF) and just recently received two-hundred eighty-five thousand dollars to meet part of these unfunded requirements. Our currently approved major repair projects (centrally funded by Marine Corps Headquarters), associated with the JSIVA assessment, include 3.4 million dollars for upgrades to our gate houses and inspection lanes; permanent electrical power to our emergency communication repeaters; an uninterruptible power supply to our emergency operations center; and improvements to our perimeter fencing, special response section facility and working dog kennels.

Self-Assessment continues to be an important part of the program for Camp Pendleton. Through our continuous planning, exercise, and coordination efforts we have, for example, determined that a significant vulnerability is our lack of a compatible communications system to coordinate with local and State emergency organizations that operate on an 800-megahertz communications system. We determined that Camp Pendleton needed to procure an 800-megahertz communication system to more effectively coordinate with our local, county, State, and Federal Agency partners. Our proposal was evaluated at Marine Corps Headquarters and it was determined that this is a Marine Corps wide vulnerability. As a result, Marine Corps Headquarters is currently considering the procurement of an 800-megahertz communications system for all Marine Corps Installations in future programming efforts. Based upon our self-assessments, we submitted a request for procurement for the 800 MHz radio communications system, a personnel alert system, and additional mechanical gate barriers for a total of over 9 million dollars through the force protection portion of the Marine Corps submission to the FY01 Defense Supplemental Funding Initiative.

CHALLENGES

Although we have made good progress through our planning, coordination and exercise efforts we still face several significant challenges. Our first challenge is our current infrastructure of 3,800 buildings and structures aboard Camp Pendleton that were not built to current AT/FP standards and are vulnerable to the current asymmetrical terrorist threat that exists today. Forty percent of these structures were built in the 1940's and 1950's. The Sustainment, Restoration and Modernization program at Camp Pendleton, like that of the Marine Corps overall, continues to struggle from years of deferred maintenance and repair projects. Our critical backlog of maintenance and repair (BMAR) was at one-hundred thirty-nine million dollars at the end of FY00. Local maintenance funding for material and services, used to sustain the infrastructure at Camp Pendleton, has declined 50 percent from a FY97 amount of $15.5 million to our current FY01 level of $7.8 million. In many cases the deferment of this local maintenance and repair magnifies the vulnerability of this infrastructure to terrorist attack. Our ability to provide our own Base operating funds for day-to-day maintenance of our infrastructure continues to compete and lose to basic operational costs that we must pay to keep Camp Pendleton open. Some specific examples of these "must pay" operational costs are our increased costs for contracted services on the Base and the exponential increased costs of energy in California. For example, our FY00 energy costs were 12.9 million dollars and our FY01 actual and projected energy costs are 32.1 million dollars even though we have an aggressive energy conservation program, that has effectively decreased our overall energy consumption from FY00 to FY01. This leaves us with a significant shortfall that falls into a "must pay" category to keep the Base open.

The Interim Department of Defense Anti-terrorism/ Force Protection Construction Standards of December 1999 provide non-waiverable minimum construction criteria that will become incorporated into all new Fiscal Year 2002 and beyond MILCON funded construction for inhabited buildings, primary gathering places and troop billeting. The minimum standards provide standoff distances from roads, parking lots and controlled perimeters that will allow the commander to provide more security should a higher threat occur. Standards also include some structural and design enhancements that reduce the risk of mass casualties. If the standoff distances cannot be met, the facilities must be designed to mitigate a specified blast at the available standoff distance. Unfortunately, the existing base infrastructure makes it difficult to meet standoff distances, increasing the cost of Military Construction projects for inhabited facilities. The costs associated with MILCON projects that conform to these higher levels of construction standards grow significantly with the level of risk. If a MILCON project is assessed as having a high threat, requiring a high level of protection, it may not compete favorably for programming because of the significantly higher costs associated with that structure, compared to other projects. This forces us to make trade-offs in consideration of the cost associated with a project's AT/FP vulnerability assessment. Often, we have to mitigate the associated risk, by innovative design or placement of structures, in order to reduce the cost of a particular project to an affordability level that is fiscally supportable. Other security measures may be required to reduce the risk of terrorist acts towards other Marine Corps assets as well as our people. We estimate it will require seven million dollars to upgrade and establish 37 miles of fence line around portions of the perimeter of Camp Pendleton to the standards within the new DoD Physical Security Upgrade Program.

The last challenge I would like to discuss is one that I will describe as a geographic challenge. As I indicated previously, Camp Pendleton sits between the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego and while this is an advantage as to possible mutual assistance, it is also a significant challenge due to the day-to-day movement of people along the coastal freeway and rail systems. Camp Pendleton covers 200 square miles (125,000 acres) in size, has 17 miles of open coastline and is within 60 miles of an international border. On any given day, approximately 100,000 people are on Camp Pendleton with approximately 62,000 cars entering the gates each and everyday. Much of Camp Pendleton consists of training areas, impact ranges, and landing beaches to support the training of operating forces. Surrounding these training and impact areas are 18 outlying encampments, 16 separate family housing areas, 6 public schools, a Naval Hospital and a Marine Corps Air Station. Many of these outlying camps and housing areas are geographically separated and are not conducive to providing mutual support in terms of security. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), resting within the confines of Camp Pendleton, adds an element of risk not normally associated with Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection efforts aboard a military installation. Camp Pendleton also hosts a California State Park along part of its coastline and provides training and recreational support to a host of non-military organizations. These unique geographical factors present a significant challenge to providing a secure environment through access control, perimeter protection, protection of key facilities, and mutually supporting security arrangements between internal encampments.

CONCLUSION

I want to thank the members of the panel for the privilege of testifying today. Let me

conclude with saying Camp Pendleton shares your concern for the asymmetrical threat that terrorism brings to our shores today and tomorrow. We have learned a great deal in developing our Anti-Terrorism and Force Protection Program and we remain vigilant in our effort to continually improve through participation in every working group meeting, every exercise, every assessment and through the continued awareness of each and every Marine, Sailor and civilian employee -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our coordination efforts with our local, State, and Federal partners are an essential part of our program, critical to mitigating a terrorist threat in the Southern California region. Although we maintain an effective Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection posture overall, we have a significant shortfall on the infrastructure side of force protection for our Marines, Sailors and civilian employees, because of decaying infrastructure, due to historic under-funding of maintenance and repair; and the lack of funding for a DoD program to systematically replace current buildings that do not meet AT/FP standards. Without adequate funding to support our military installations, any efforts we attempt to make toward AT/FP are band-aides on a catastrophic wound. Congress and the American people can be certain the safety and security of all personnel aboard Camp Pendleton is, and will always remain, my highest priority as Commanding General, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton. Thank You.