[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-75]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING
ON
BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE U.S.
SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 4, 2009
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
57-258 WASHINGTON : 2010
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TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina JEFF MILLER, Florida
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama
SCOTT MURPHY, New York
Tim McClees, Professional Staff Member
Alex Kugajevsky, Professional Staff Member
Andrew Tabler, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2009
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, June 4, 2009, Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense
Authorization Act--Budget Request for the U.S. Special
Operations Command............................................. 1
Appendix:
Thursday, June 4, 2009........................................... 19
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2009
FISCAL YEAR 2010 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST FOR
THE U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Miller, Hon. Jeff, a Representative from Florida, Ranking Member,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 2
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee 1
WITNESSES
Olson, Adm. Eric T., Commander, United States Special Operations
Command........................................................ 2
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Miller, Hon. Jeff............................................ 24
Olson, Adm. Eric T........................................... 25
Smith, Hon. Adam............................................. 23
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
FISCAL YEAR 2010 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST FOR
THE U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities
Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, June 4, 2009.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1 p.m., in room
2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Smith. Good afternoon. I think we will go ahead and get
started. It is right at one o'clock. We certainly expect other
members to come drifting in as we proceed, but I want to be
respectful of the Admiral's time and get started on time.
Welcome, as always, before our subcommittee, Admiral Olson.
It is always pleasure to see you up here, and certainly we
appreciate the work you do for our country in leading the
Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
I have an opening statement that I have written that I will
submit for the record.
Just briefly, I want to say how important the Special
Operations Command is to our Nation's national security and how
much we really appreciate and respect the job that you and all
of the people under you have done in protecting our national
security all over the world in many, many places, some of which
are well-known, like Iraq and Afghanistan, others of which many
people are not aware of, but in many ways are just as
important, certainly, for the future of the broader conflict
against violent extremists. And I think that the holistic
approach that the Special Operations Command has brought to
winning that fight is invaluable.
Without question, you are the best in the world at finding
and disrupting terrorist networks, at targeting individual
terrorists and either capturing or killing them; and that
skill, regrettably, will continue to have an important role in
our national security.
But you also understand how important it is to win the
broader ideological war, to work with our partners out there in
other countries in the world to get them to take the lead in
countering insurgencies, to give them the training and help
they need. Of course, nowhere is that truer or more in need
right now than in Pakistan, and that training will be an
important part of the success there as well. And also just the
broader message issues: How do we communicate; how do we do
counter radicalization?
Both your command, and I think as impressively, the
individual soldiers, marines, airmen, Navy SEALs out there,
have developed skills in those areas that are invaluable not
just to the Special Operations Command, but have proven to be
valuable to the broader Department of Defense and Intel
Communities, in truly understanding what we are up against, how
to confront it, and also how to build on alliances that are out
there.
What has been learned out there on the battlefield has
really been very helpful in terms of preparing on all of those
issues. We know Special Operations Command takes a strong
leadership role.
Our subcommittee is very interested in being supportive and
being helpful. We know there are inevitable battles over funds,
but you always seem to do a very, very good job with what we
provide. And I do believe the Congress has also recognized the
importance of this role and has done our best to provide what
you need to fight that fight.
So we appreciate what you are doing and look forward to
hearing your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith can be found in the
Appendix on page 23.]
Mr. Smith. With that, I will turn it over to the Ranking
Member, Mr. Miller, for any opening statement he might have.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM FLORIDA,
RANKING MEMBER, TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND
CAPABILITIES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Miller. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I also have
a statement I would like submitted for the record.
I would like to say welcome, Admiral, I hope your travels
up were good. Thank you for the hospitality. I had a wonderful
chance to visit with you and Marilyn, Monday evening, and we
thank you so much for hosting us and look forward to your
testimony today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 24.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
With that, Admiral Olson.
STATEMENT OF ADM. ERIC T. OLSON, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES
SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
Admiral Olson. Well, thank you, sir. Good afternoon,
Chairman Smith, Congressman Miller. Thank you very much for the
opportunity to appear before this committee to highlight the
current posture of the United States Special Operations
Command. I will say that thanks to the foresight, advocacy and
strong support of this body--and we recognize that we were a
product of the Congress--we do remain well positioned to meet
the Nation's expectations of its Joint Special Operations
Forces.
Primarily, as you well know, U.S. Special Operations
Command is responsible through its service component commands,
the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), the Air
Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), the Marine Corps
Special Operations Command (MARSOC) and Naval Special Warfare
Command (NAVSPECWAR), for organizing, equipping, training and
providing fully capable Special Operations Forces (SOF) to
serve under the operational control of geographic combatant
commanders around the world.
In this role, the United States Special Operations Command
headquarters shares many of the responsibilities, authorities
and characteristics of a military department or a defense
agency, including a separate major force program budget
established by the Congress for the purpose of funding
equipment, materiel, supplies, services, training and
operational activities that are peculiar to Special Operations
Forces.
The United States Special Operations Command has also been
designated as the combatant command responsible for
synchronizing Department of Defense planning against terrorists
and terror networks globally, a function that requires robust
daily activity, punctuated semiannually by a conference that
now attracts over 1,000 people from about 40 different agencies
and organizations.
Additionally, we have been assigned proponency by the
Department of Defense for security force assistance. In this
role, we expect to foster the long-term partnerships that will
shape a more secure global environment in the face of global
challenges such as transnational crime, extremism, and
migration.
The Joint Special Operations Force itself, those assigned
to the United States Special Operations Command by the military
services for most of their military careers, comprises Army
Special Forces, Rangers, Navy SEALs, combatant craft crewmen
and mini submarine operators, Marine special operators, fixed-
and rotary-wing aviators from the Army and the Air Force,
combat controllers, pararescue jumpers, practitioners of civil-
military affairs and military information support; all of
these, and more, augmented, supported, and enabled by a wide
variety of assigned logisticians, administrative specialists,
sensor operators, intelligence analysts, acquisition
professionals, operations planners, strategists, communications
experts, budget managers, doctrine writers, trainers,
instructors, scientists, technologists and many more, who are
great men and women, Active Duty and Reservists, military and
civilian, who generally work within the Special Operations
community for an assignment or two.
This is truly a team of teams. It is a force that is well
suited to the irregular operating environments in which we are
now engaged, as you mentioned in your opening statement, sir,
and its proven abilities have created an unprecedented demand
for its effect in remote, uncertain and challenging operating
areas. Whether the assigned mission is to train, advise, fight
or provide humanitarian assistance, the broad capabilities of
Special Operations Forces make them the force of choice.
And while the high long-term demand for Special Operations
Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to 86 percent of the
overseas force currently being deployed to the United States
Central Command area of responsibility, Special Operations
Forces do maintain a global presence.
In fiscal year 2009, Special Operations Forces have already
conducted operations and training in 106 countries around the
globe. Throughout these operations, Special Operations Forces
have taken a long-term approach to engagement designed to forge
enduring partnerships contributing to regional stability. This
balance of effective direct and indirect actions, the
combination of high-end tactical skills and an understanding of
the operational context of their application is the core of
Special Operations. From support to major combat operations to
the conduct of irregular warfare, Special Operations Forces are
normally the first in and last out, accomplishing their
missions with a very small, highly capable, and agile force.
Given our current environment, it is important to note that
the traditional activities of irregular warfare are not new to
Special Operations Forces. Unconventional warfare,
counterterrorism, civil affairs operations, information
operations, psychological operations, foreign internal defense,
are longstanding Special Operations Forces core activities. As
a result, significant resources are required to ensure that
Special Operations Forces are properly manned, trained and
equipped to operate globally and with unmatched speed,
precision, and discipline.
The United States Special Operations Command fiscal year
2010 budget request includes the resources necessary to
continue providing full spectrum, multi-mission global Special
Operations Forces that will equip the United States with a
comprehensive set of unique capabilities.
While the United States Special Operations Command's major
force program (MPF) 11 budget has historically been robust
enough to meet the peculiar Special Operations mission
requirements, the success of Special Operations Forces depends
not only on SOCOM's dedicated budget and acquisition
authorities, but also on Special Operations Command's service,
parents and partners. Special Operations Forces rely on the
services for a broad range of support.
Some of the enabling capabilities that must be provided by
the services include mobility, aerial sensors, field medical
capabilities, remote logistics, engineering, planning,
construction, intelligence, communications, security and more.
And with the combination of the United States Special
Operations Command budget and the support from the services,
Special Operations Command seeks a balance, first, to have a
sufficient organic Special Operations peculiar force for speed
of response to operational crises; and, second, to have
enabling capabilities assigned in direct support of Special
Operations Forces for sustainment and expansion of operations.
The United States Special Operations Command headquarters
will continue to lead, develop and sustain the world's most
precise and lethal counterterrorism force. We will provide the
world's most effective Special Operations trainers, advisers
and combat partners, with the skills, leadership and mind-set
necessary to meet today's and tomorrow's unconventional
challenges.
This Nation's Joint Special Operations Forces will continue
to find, kill or capture our irreconcilable enemies; to train,
mentor and partner with our global friends and allies; and to
pursue the tactics, techniques, procedures and technologies
that will keep us ahead of dynamic emerging threats.
I thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today. I will conclude my opening remarks with a simple
statement of pride in the Special Operations Force that I am
honored to command. Special Operations Forces are contributing
globally well beyond what its percentage of the total force
would indicate. Every day, they are fighting our enemies,
training our partners, and, through personal contact and
assistance, bringing real value to tens of thousands of
villagers who are still deciding their allegiances.
I stand ready for your questions, sir.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Olson can be found in
the Appendix on page 25.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. I have several questions.
We will adhere to the five-minute rule, just to keep structure
to the questioning.
The first question I have is about 1208 authority, which I
know has been a critical tool for what you have been able to do
in a number of different places. You are asking for an
expansion of a little bit of the money. I think it is $35
million now. You are asking for $50 million.
Can you tell us how those funds are used and why they are
so important to what you are doing?
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. The 1208 authority is peculiar to
Special Operations. It requires that the funds be used to
support ongoing Special Operations. This is really enabling the
Special Operations Forces to extend their operations through
the use of surrogates and counterparts to conduct activities in
partnership or in support of the Special Operations Forces who
are on that operation.
It is an authority, not an appropriation. It authorizes the
United States Special Operations Command to recommend to the
Secretary of Defense, after coordinating with the geographic
combatant commander and the chief of mission in the country, to
utilize up to currently $35 million of Operation and Management
(O&M) funds from within the Special Operations budget. So it is
an issue of prioritization within our budget.
It is enormously important because it is an agile fund. It
is a focused fund. It is used for purposes that are well-
coordinated. And in a closed session I could provide a fair bit
of detail about how it has had effect around the world.
Mr. Smith. Certainly. I think it is a program that we
strongly support. And I think it essentially contributes to
sort of the second area of questioning, and that is the
importance of interagency cooperation in what you are doing,
which is increasingly important.
When we look at this broadly, globally, as a
counterinsurgency fight, there are a lot of different pieces
that are going to have to be pulled together in order to make
this work. I think from what I have seen of Special Operations
Command under your leadership, and also out in the field under
the leadership at one point of General McChrystal, I think
pulled those pieces together about as effectively as anywhere I
have seen in government.
As we go forward and you look outside of areas like Iraq
and Afghanistan, where I think we are specifically familiar
with the struggles there, but you look at some of these
emerging threat environments around the Horn of Africa and
Yemen and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the
Maghreb, what do you think is most important towards pushing
forward that level of cooperation between SOCOM, other elements
of DOD, State and the Intel Community?
Admiral Olson. The most important thing to push forward are
structures that provide a forum so that the interagency
community can provide the content to the discussions. These are
relationships that are building over time. We are way better
than we have ever been. We are not as good as we will be next
year or the year after.
But so much of it has to do with just understanding each
others' organizations and cultures. And we are even seeing now
what I call second or third generation, or second or third
order effects of people who have worked together in one place,
coming together in another place, and already having a
relationship so that they can move much more quickly together.
General McChrystal, I think, set the standard aggressively
at the operational level. I think the United States Special
Operations Command is serving as a model of sorts at the higher
headquarters level. We wake up every day with about 85
uniformed members of the Special Operations Command going to
work in other agencies of government inside the National
Capital Region; most of the agencies that you would expect, and
perhaps some you wouldn't normally expect us to be in, in small
teams, typically two to four people with an 06 colonel or Navy
captain as the team leader.
We also wake up every day at our headquarters at McDill Air
Force Base in Tampa with about 140 members of other agencies
coming to work in our headquarters. Full members of the team,
sitting in on all the discussions, sitting in on all the global
collaboration kinds of briefings, and this has provided a
transparency in the interagency environment that is very
helpful.
It is hard now, having seen it in action for a few years,
to imagine, to remember back what it was like before we--back
when we used to look around the room and see only uniformed
members. It really is a good, solid team effort at this point.
Mr. Smith. That is something we really want to encourage. I
think you hit upon the absolute key to it, is getting people
from the different agencies to actually work together side by
side, day in and day out with each other, in different forums.
You have done an excellent job, as you mentioned, in sprinkling
some SOCOM people out in other places. Other agencies need to
do that as well. I think the National Counterterrorism Center
(NCTC) is a good forum for that. But we want to see that happen
more and more and look for ways to encourage it.
I think in particular some of the Title 10, Title 50
conflicts between Intel and DOD can be resolved better if we
start having more sharing back and forth. Now, obviously, we
understand all of those different pieces have personnel to
manage. That is the great challenge, I know, for you. And if
your personnel is sent all over a bunch of different other
places, you have a core mission to accomplish.
So if along the way, if there are ways we can help you free
up more personnel, please let us know. I know you have got an
ongoing issue in terms of just the management just within your
own entity of different service members, and we are
communicating that concern to DOD and trying to give you the
authority you need to better manage your own personnel within
SOCOM.
Certainly we look for those opportunities also to build
those relationships and really just sort of continue on with
the Goldwater-Nichols principle and now apply it across agency
lines as well as within the DOD. We look forward to that.
With that, I will yield to Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I serve on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and I have had
an opportunity to visit with some of our NATO allies, and they
are indeed proud of the contributions they are making,
certainly within the SOF community and certainly in
Afghanistan.
What I would like to ask you for the record, if you would,
explain the impact of the SOF capabilities of those partners in
the current fight as it exists in Afghanistan, and, if you
could, an update as well on Iraq as we transition out.
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. From your visits to the NATO SOF
Coordinations Center, you understand how this team is coming
together and the bonding that is occurring across the Special
Operations Forces of NATO at the headquarters environment. I
think it is inspired. It certainly stimulated the activities of
some Special Operations Forces being provided to the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) effort in
Afghanistan.
So I am not the expert on how individual nations' Special
Operations Forces are performing, what their activities are in
Afghanistan. That is outside my realm of responsibility, and I
am not sure my monitorship is strong enough to give a coherent
and an accurate answer on that at this point.
I will say in my discussions with NATO's SOF leaders, there
is a sense of community that is forming across the Nation's
Special Operations communities. I would term it, loosely
perhaps, special operations forces, the special operations flag
is something around which NATO forces can rally. It is a
relatively inexpensive, relatively low-level investment in a
much broader military capability that NATO can provide.
The NATO-SOF Coordination Center now, as you know, is less
than three years old, but it has got its legs up under it
pretty well.
Mr. Miller. What do you think we can do to assist our
allies as they develop their SOF units?
Admiral Olson. Sir, there is already robust activity in
NATO, and we are seeing some NATO countries step forward in
terms of presenting their Special Operation Forces as subject
matter experts in particular disciplines and then using that to
attract others to exercise and train with them. So there is a
synergy that is occurring bilaterally in areas where the United
States isn't involved, and multilaterally and bilaterally where
we are.
I think that my shortest answer to that would be to explore
ways to operationalize the NATO SOF Coordination Center, and I
am not knowledgeable enough about how NATO works
organizationally to understand the details and nuances of that.
The NATO SOF Coordination Center director is now a dual-
hatted American two-star general who serves in his primary role
as the commander of Special Operations Command/European
Command, so I would suggest exploring ways by which we might
form a separate director for the NATO SOF Coordination Center.
Mr. Miller. One question, moving away from NATO, involves
where we are with our gunships. Certainly with AFSOC in my
district, it appears that there is a shortfall. But the budget
doesn't request any additional funding for gunships this year.
Can you talk about our plans, or your plans, to address
that particular shortfall, along with your plans to maintain,
modernize and upgrade the existing aircraft that are out there?
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. We have a recapitalization program
for most of the rest of our C-130 fleet, 37 MC-130Js will come
into our program. That was a higher priority initially than the
AC-130 gunship for recapitalization because of the ages of the
airframes involved.
The recent level of activity in Afghanistan is causing us
to understand again how important precision firepower is in
that tactical environment, and we are understanding clearly
that our capacity is insufficient and that other platforms,
substitute platforms, simply don't bring the same response to
troops in contact that an AC-130 does.
The AC-130 is not a precision-fire platform. It is actually
an area-fire weapon that is extremely accurate with its sensors
and guns. So what we are doing to augment the AC-130 fleet,
what we are seeking to do immediately is modify our MC-130W
fleet to serve as a platform for a standoff precision-guided
munition as a primary weapon and a 30-millimeter gun as a
secondary weapon. All proven systems. It is simply a matter of
integrating them in a platform that hasn't been used for that
purpose before.
We are seeking funds to do this, and we think that because
the technology risk is so low, that we can deliver it very
quickly.
Mr. Miller. That is all for now, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Mr. McIntyre is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. McIntyre. Thank you for being with us, Admiral, and
thank you again for your hospitality last year when I was able
to join you down in Tampa. And thank you for the service you
give to us here at home and around the world.
The concern about wear and tear on equipment I know is one
we have had, especially since the situation occurred in Iraq.
Tell me, with regard specifically to the Special Operations
Forces equipment and resources, what resources are you finding
under your command that are experiencing the greatest wear and
tear, and to what exactly do you attribute this extraordinary
aging process, and do you have some thoughts you can share with
us about how we might can best help you address that situation?
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. Thank you. I don't think it will
surprise anybody; the answer is that it is our mobility systems
that are suffering the most wear and tear because of the ways
they are used and the pace that they are used. So I asked my
staff just recently to give me the top five items in terms of
what we are seeing in wear and tear, and it is exactly what you
would think. It is our fixed-wing and rotary-wing aviation, it
is our ground mobility fleet, and in one case it is a maritime
platform.
We are simply flying more hours, we are driving more miles,
we are spending more time on the water, and this is just at a
pace beyond what we had predicted when those systems were
procured. So we are refurbishing them more often, and we have
been resourced adequately to do that.
My concern, looking ahead, is simply that we sustain the
level of resources that will permit us to keep this equipment
going. As we look forward to some forces perhaps drawing down,
in Iraq especially, we don't see that happening for Special
Operations Forces at all. So as we have come to depend on some
special funding means to keep this equipment going in the
operational environment, we are going to have to find a way to
work that into our baseline budget in order to sustain this
equipment over time.
Mr. Smith. Sorry to interrupt you. Just on that point, as
we are drawing down our conventional forces, I know there are
some challenges in terms of your staying there in the same
numbers, in terms of making sure you continue to get the
support equipment that you need. A lot of that you get from the
conventional forces in the field.
How is that playing out? Are you satisfied that those
concerns are being met, or is there more that needs to be done?
Admiral Olson. Sir, I think it is playing out well.
Recently we have had service chief-level talks with the
Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Staff of the
Army. We are in complete accord about what the challenges are
and seeking ways together to resolve those.
I think there is a broad understanding that whether it is a
small force in an area or a large force in an area, you still
need somebody to control the airspace, operate the airfields,
provide the quick reaction force, provide the medical support
to do all the rest of it that it takes to look after the force
that is forward.
So we are helping them help us by doing the detailed
analysis of exactly what it is we think will have to be left
behind, if you will, by the forces that draw down in order to
sustain the activity that stays behind. So I think we are on a
good track with that in our conversations with the services.
Mr. Smith. Thanks. I apologize, Mike.
Mr. McIntyre. Can you tell us what the typical rotational
cycles are of SOF personnel, particularly in the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), and how that may be affecting what you best
feel like you can do with regard to keeping up with such a pace
in terms of the rotation to personnel? I know that is an issue
that has come up in the broader context with our military, but
I specifically want to be concerned about how that is affecting
you with Special Operations Forces.
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. The service components have sort
of evolved into different rotational paces, depending on the
nature of the force, the type of equipment they use, the nature
of the operations they are conducting. So it ranges from about
90 days on the short end for some of our aviators who fly an
awful lot of hours at night, on night vision goggles, and who
burn up their allotted flying hours more quickly and therefore
need to come back and sort of reset, through about seven months
for our Special Forces operational detachment A teams, the
Green Berets, who are at battalion-level rotations at that
pace. And then it extends beyond that to one-year rotations for
many of the people assigned to the higher headquarters in order
to provide a campaign planning continuity to the effort at the
more senior levels.
The rate now is sustainable. Our predictions about how long
we could sustain it were wrong. We didn't think that we could
sustain it at this pace this long, but the force is proving
resilient beyond our estimates.
I think personally that we are at about the maximum rate
that we can sustain, but I think that we can sustain this rate
for some time longer. It has now become the new normal. It is
the way we operate. People who are doing this have been doing
it long enough to know that this is what it is they can expect
to do, and our retention rate remains high and our recruiting
remains healthy.
So if the demand didn't increase, we are probably pretty
okay. But what we see is an increasing demand for Special
Operations forces, so we have got a growth plan in place to
accommodate that.
Mr. McIntyre. Thank you. It is good to have you here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ellsworth is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Ellsworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Admiral. I apologize for being late. I had some
Hoosiers in the office that didn't want to let me go.
If this question has been discussed, let me know and I will
move on to something else. Can you talk, Admiral, about some of
the interoperability between the agencies? If things are being
done in the most efficient manner between the interagency
cooperation, some of the challenges you might have faced, what
is the best practice and what are our successes and what
challenges are you facing in the meld there?
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir, we did address that to some level,
and what I said, very quickly, is it is better than it has ever
been. It will get better. We are now at the point where the
structures have evolved to provide the venues for these kinds
of interactions to occur. Now it is a matter of the people
getting the knowledge of each others' organizations and
traditions and, frankly, languages in order to optimize the
efficiency of it. The trend is certainly one in the right
direction. We are way ahead of where we thought we might be
just a couple of years ago.
Mr. Ellsworth. If you would--this is totally unrelated but
an area of particular interest to me--discuss what you can
about our attempts and our movement in the non-lethal field,
where we are at on that, whether vehicle stops or personnel
stops. I know that is not what normally would be discussed in
Special Ops, but certainly it would be a valuable part in
winning hearts and minds, if you wouldn't mind telling me where
we are at and what we need.
Admiral Olson. Sir, we are all in favor of every applicable
non-lethal technology. We understand as well as anybody, I
think, that killing people is not the way to success in either
Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else that we work, and that a
non-lethal effect that can then give you time to sort out the
situation, sort the people, would be a great advantage on the
battlefield.
Special Operations is in favor of any feasible appropriate
technology. Our position, though, is that those technologies
have a much broader application than Special Operations Forces.
So we are advocates of it, we are champions for it, we are
supporters and cheerleaders for it, but we have very few of
those programs initiated within the Special Operations budget
itself.
Mr. Ellsworth. I have seen some of the things. I am
embarrassed to say, being in Congress and on Armed Services,
that I am watching the Discovery Channel and seeing some of the
new technology about the heat-projecting apparatus. I don't
even know what you call it, but it is very interesting. Is that
on the edge of being used?
Mr. Smith. My staff is telling me it is called the active
denial system.
Mr. Ellsworth. That is a great name for that. I couldn't
have named it better myself. Is that in the prototype stage? Is
it being used?
Admiral Olson. I saw that demonstrated, but it has been a
couple years ago, and I don't know what has happened since
then.
Mr. Ellsworth. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Smith. A couple areas I want to ask about, and we will
go back through the members as well.
Piracy has been emerging as a threat and a challenge. I
guess--congratulations, I guess, is the word on running a very,
very good operation in rescuing the Maersk crew here about a
month or so ago.
We had an opportunity to get briefed by Captain Moore and a
couple others who had participated in that operation--a very
impressive accomplishment--but all those years ago you were
trained to do that. Basically you were set up so that if there
was a hostage situation anywhere in the world, you would
respond very, very quickly.
You have been doing a lot of other things in between. But
it is impressive to see that training paid off and we knew what
to do.
Going forward in terms of how we confront piracy, certainly
it is a challenge in that part of the world, off the coast of
Somalia, and has huge implications that we need to try and
confront. As at the same time, as we have mentioned in this
hearing, you have a wealth of other opportunities that are also
important in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a variety of other
places. And one of my concerns is with the media attention on
piracy coming up, if we shift too much of our focus in that
direction we distract from these other very important missions
as well.
I just wonder if you could comment on how you see SOCOM's
role in combating piracy in that part of the world and how it
may distract from some of the other missions?
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. Obviously, across the military
there is robust capability to take on piracy in different ways,
and Special Operations contributes some of the capability to
that, as was evidenced here a couple of months ago.
How that force is used is a matter of policy. It is my
responsibility to train the force to do what it is asked to do.
We do keep some elements of our force on standby, on alert, to
respond to that kind of situation. So that if they are
infrequent, then I think we would consider it not to be much of
a burden on the force.
Mr. Smith. That has always been the case. Even with
everything that has gone in the last eight years, it has always
been the case you have had that standby force.
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Smith. I am sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Admiral Olson. Again, it is more of a policy issue. But the
question is really are we going to prevent piracy or are we
going to respond to piracy with a military force? Today, we
have been more in the business, with my force, of providing
those who respond to it, and we are able to continue with that
mission without impacting on our others.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. I will pass.
Mr. Smith. I have got more questions. Mr. McIntyre, do you
have anything you want to add?
Mr. McIntyre. I just want to ask you if you feel like the
partnership with NATO and their Special Operations capability
is working well?
Admiral Olson. Sir, we did address that briefly earlier,
but the NATO Special Operations Coordination Center, the NSCC,
headquartered in Mons, is an up-and-running organization. It is
not fully manned, it is not fully capable yet, but the
relationships that have occurred within that organization have
developed quite strong bonds among the NATO Special Operations
Forces.
I was able to attend their first annual conference last
year. Twenty-eight countries, I believe, came to that
conference; and it was remarkable how similar the conversation
was, the vision is across the Special Operations Forces of
NATO, some of which say they feel that they have more in common
with the Special Operations Forces of other nations than they
do with other forces of their own nation because of the way
that they train and exercise together.
I think that there is an opportunity to take that to the
next step. I am just not certain what the next step is. What I
mentioned before is we might explore a way to operationalize
the NATO SOF Coordination Center in some way and provide it an
independent director, who is now a dual-hatted officer.
Mr. Smith. Following up on that, a trip I took in January
with some Members, on the way back from Iraq we stopped in Mons
and had the opportunity to visit Special Operations Forces in
NATO Command, and I just can't tell you how impressed we were
by the degree of coordination. And without getting into too
many detailed aspersions here, we did not find similar
coordination in other parts of NATO that we met with.
Certainly that is a major, major challenge in Afghanistan,
is figuring out how to get all of our partner nations--it would
be far too ambitious to stay on the same page, but at least in
the same book, when it comes to how we are going to confront
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
NATO is set up the way it is set up. It is an important
alliance. It is very difficult to manage that many different
countries coming from that many different perspectives, so I
certainly have a fair amount of respect for the difficulty the
organization faces.
But we went through all of these meetings on that with
increasing frustration. Actually at the last meeting, which
regrettably we didn't have as much time as I would have liked
for, was to visit the SOF force, and it was inspirational,
because we saw that it can work. You can in fact bring that
many different nations together to coordinate in a way that is
effective.
I guess my plea would be that the SOF forces over there try
to spread that message out more broadly among the other aspects
of NATO. I think it would be very, very critical.
A couple of things I wanted to ask you about----
Admiral Olson. Sir, if I could make one additional point, I
didn't mean to attribute more countries to NATO or more to this
conference. What we are seeing, actually, is an extension of
Special Operations cooperation beyond NATO, and those who
participate in other operations where they may work with a
NATO-SOF country are now becoming part of this team.
So this first annual conference we came to last year was
actually attended by some non-NATO countries because they
choose to develop those relationships. It is really encouraging
to see this play out.
Mr. Smith. It is invaluable, the mantra of
counterinsurgency--by, through, and with--you want to work with
the host nations, and many of them are now participating in
this and learning the necessary skills and how to implement
that policy.
I want to ask a little bit about some of the contracting
issues. It is something we have dealt with. What we have always
tried to do on this committee is find ways to enable SOCOM to
have a slightly more nimble approach to acquisition. The normal
processes are difficult when you are operating at such speed
and with so much technology that is rapidly changing. If you go
through a normal 18-month acquisition process, by the time you
acquire the product it is out of date. So we have tried to
speed it up in a couple of different areas. I am curious how
you think that is going in general. I also wanted to give you
an opportunity to respond.
I know The Washington Post had written an article recently,
critical of some of that contracting, that it hadn't followed
the process in some instances. I have a very strong bias that
drowning the DOD in process is one of the things that is
inhibiting our ability to move forward. But that is not to say
we don't need to have some transparent process so that we make
sure it is all on the up-and-up and done in the best interests
of the taxpayers.
I just want to give you an opportunity to comment on a
couple of those issues and where you see it headed.
Admiral Olson. Yes, sir. I certainly agree with you and I
am encouraged by all that Secretary of Defense Gates has said
about relooking at how acquisition is done Department-wide,
with an eye towards cost reduction and streamlining the
acquisition processes.
Within the Special Operations Command, as you said, we are
intended by Congress, I believe, to be more agile than the
services can be with their large acquisition programs using our
MFP-11 budget for the Special Operations' peculiar acquisition
procurement actions that we take.
I focused on this a couple of years ago in investigating
our own house. I realized that many of the barnacles that have
grown on our process were barnacles that we let grow. As I
termed it within our own headquarters, I thought we were
operating comfortably, sort of in the middle of our
authorizations, and certainly not pushing the edge of it.
So we have several initiatives within our own headquarters
to provide more agility internally along the way. We have
sought and been granted relief from participation in some of
the servicewide joint acquisition processes which had been
applied, probably improperly, to the Special Operations
programs. The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who runs some
of this process, he has relieved us of those where the
acquisition program is a Special Operations' peculiar program.
We do operate under all the same laws and policies and
reporting requirements. We have got a ways to go in terms of
continuing to scrape the barnacles off, but I think we are
making progress in that regard, and we will certainly continue
to report to you how that is going. But I am encouraged by what
we have seen here just in the last few months.
With respect to the DOD Inspector General (IG) report, that
was not an acquisition contracting issue; that was a contract
that we let with a single provider of many services to the
Special Operations community. They modify equipment, they
maintain equipment, they repair equipment and refurbish it,
they store equipment for us. They do build sort of small ``one
of'' items for us, they design and build those. It is a
comprehensive set of activities that they perform for us, and
the DOD IG look into that--which we appreciate--highlighted
three findings, two of which we concurred mostly with and have
taken several internal actions to resolve working with IG and I
think to their satisfaction.
The third one actually had to do with a potential
Antideficiency Act (ADA) violation, which it was our
responsibility to conduct a preliminary review of. We did that.
Our preliminary review identified that the finding had some
merit. There is the potential of an ADA violation, and so this
week my comptroller has initiated a formal investigation into
that finding, which is our responsibility to do.
We have nine months to report the results of that
investigation. We have 90 days to respond formally to the
release of the final IG report.
Mr. Smith. I have one more question. I want to see if any
of my colleagues have anything else.
Just focusing for a moment, as long as we have you here, it
would be interesting, your take on Afghanistan and Pakistan and
the various situations there. In particular, two areas. In
both--and this is something General McChrystal highlighted in
his comments yesterday and the day before yesterday in front of
the Senate, talking about the balance between confronting the
enemy and being able to track down the terrorists that threaten
us, and, at the same time, protecting against civilian
casualties and taking a more classic counterinsurgency
approach.
And I agree with General McChrystal that we need the Afghan
people on our side, and right now the two greatest threats to
them being on our side are, number one, the civilian casualty
issue, both real and, in some cases, I think generated by
Taliban propaganda. But we need to get better at countering
that propaganda, getting our own message out. But also it is a
very, very real concern.
Then, of course, the other issue is the efficacy of the
Afghan government, which the people of Afghanistan do not
believe in. And I think certainly the best approach there is to
try to go local as much as possible. The Afghan people are far
more likely to trust their local tribes and work with their
provisional governments than they are to buy off on whatever
the national government winds up looking like, not to say we
shouldn't try to make the national government a little bit
better as well. But in balancing that with an Afghanistan going
forward, how do you see the best approach to striking that
balance?
The second question, with regard to Pakistan, this issue
affects Pakistan as well. In fact, David Kilcullen testified
before our committee a while back and had a pretty good summary
of that, saying the drone strikes in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA) are actually fairly well thought of in the
FATA because the people who live there have been dealing with
these violent psychopaths who have been running their
communities.
It is in Pakistan itself and in Afghanistan where the
civilian population sees this as a threat to their sovereignty
and therefore is less likely to be supportive of us.
But also, specifically, Pakistan needs to learn
counterinsurgency. And I won't go through the litany of
challenges there, you know them well. But we need to be able to
help them, while at the same time we have a limited role to
play. Their sovereignty is very important. It is incredibly
important in getting support for their government that we not
have too heavy a hand there.
So I guess my two questions at the end of all that are:
What can we do to better help Pakistan get to the
counterinsurgency level that they need to get at, because as
successful as they have been in Swat and other regions
recently, it has been a pretty heavy-handed conventional
approach that has created 2 to 3 million refugees even as it
has driven back the Taliban, number one.
And, number two, how do you see us striking the balance in
Afghanistan between fighting the people we need to fight and
stopping the number of civilian casualties?
Admiral Olson. Well, sir, I think you just said it better
than I could, and I certainly support everything that General
McChrystal said in his confirmation hearing a couple of days
ago.
If I could go to Pakistan first, I think that we can't help
Pakistan more than they want to be helped. And one of the
filters on sort of their willingness to be helped is how the
Pakistan military is perceived within Pakistan. It is the
strongest element of Pakistan historically. It is the element
of government upon which the people depend. And I think that we
have to be very careful in recognizing that we cannot take
actions that would cause the Pakistan military to appear to the
Pakistani people to be an extension of ours. We can only help
them in a way that truly helps them, and they are much more
expert in that than we are.
So I think the best thing that we can do is develop the
relationships that will erode whatever atmosphere of distrust
exists, help the Pakistani people understand that our interests
there are theirs, and that our commitment is a long-term
commitment for the good of Pakistan and the stability of the
region. But it will require us to work very carefully and very
wisely with the Pakistan Government and with the Pakistan
military and the Frontier Corps.
Regarding Afghanistan, I would highlight that Afghanistan
is a uniquely complex environment. Counterinsurgency in
Afghanistan is very different than it has been anywhere else
where we have operated. It is really a village-by-village,
valley-by-valley counterinsurgency.
One of the things I have found myself saying more often is,
presence without value is perceived as occupation; and in
Afghanistan, in particular, occupation is resisted. It is
simply their culture to resist outsiders, and they pride
themselves on a long history of resisting outside influence.
Much of Afghanistan has not felt the presence, the impact
of a central government in Kabul ever. And, as you said, I
think a large part of our goal there is to encourage the people
who are now deciding where their allegiance will be. It is
causing them to decide to place their bet with a legitimate
government, at whatever level that is. Whether it is a
legitimate tribal, local, regional or Federal Government, it
will come down to ultimately where they place their bet. And I
think in absence of solid metrics, it will be our sense of
where the people are beginning to place their bets that will
lead us to understand whether or not our efforts are successful
in the hinterlands of Afghanistan.
That will require a careful approach. It will require as
small a footprint as we can get away with in the places we go,
with the capability and the security considerations as part of
that. It will require, I believe, more of a shift towards true
local regional knowledge, however that is obtained.
We have to get beyond generalizations in Afghanistan, into
true deep knowledge of tribal relationships, family histories,
the nuances of the terrain and the weather, and how that
affects how business is done, how money is made, how their
world operates.
If we are to be predictable in our effects, I think an
awfully large part of what we have got to develop is an ability
to be--I said that wrong. I don't mean ``predictable'' in our
effects, I mean ``accurate'' in our predictions of our effects.
We have got to have a better sense of the impact of our
behavior as we put our plans together to work in the remote
regions of Afghanistan.
I think this is a long-term commitment for us in order to
build that depth of knowledge, and then allow it to have the
impact in the places where that needs to occur. This will not
be people deciding overnight where their allegiance is. It is
going to have to be convincing them over a long period of time
that they are better off placing their bet with the local
regional government than with the illegitimate power players in
the region.
Mr. Smith. As so frequently happens, in asking you that
question, I thought of one more.
Shifting to Africa for the moment, I recently did a
Congressional Delegation (CODEL) throughout many portions of
Africa, but we went to Burkina Faso and we got a little bit of
a brief on AQIM and sort of the surrounding area there--
Mauritania, Mali, Algeria--and we know there is activity of
violent extremist groups there. Al Qaeda has set up a franchise
most present in Algeria, but also in vast areas of Mali and
Mauritania that are largely unpopulated. We know that there is
some activity from Al Qaeda-sympathetic groups. We have some
presence in different places, not a great deal.
How concerned are you about that area, and is that an area
where we need greater coverage, at least in terms of
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)? Because
there are these huge, vast, open spaces out there. There is
stuff going on but we don't have a lot of coverage of it, so we
don't know exactly. Is that something we should be really
concerned about or not?
Admiral Olson. I think we should understand that as
pressure is applied, as it was in Iraq and now in Afghanistan,
and as the Pakistanis are applying pressure in Pakistan, that
this will not necessarily end the activity. It will shift some
of the sanctuaries to other places. And I think that in these
large expanses of what are often called undergoverned regions,
simply because the governments don't have the capacity to
govern in some of the places where they have the will, then we
have got to find ways of having a better understanding of what
is happening there. ISR would be one of those possibilities.
Mr. Smith. Certainly. Thank you very much. I don't think my
colleagues have any more questions.
I just want to conclude by saying our subcommittee has many
roles, but one them we consider to be the most important is
being as supportive as possible to what the Special Operations
Command is doing. We could not ask for a better partner than we
have in you as the commander there. I look forward to
continuing that relationship.
Thank you for coming out and testifying. We look forward to
working with you.
With that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:58 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
June 4, 2009
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 4, 2009
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