Transcripts For CSPAN3 Countering Weapons Of Mass Destruction 20180207

Good afternoon, everyone. Id like the call this subcommittee meeting on the emerging threats and capabilities to order. Ill start with the Opening Statement, and then we will have an Opening Statement from you, and move on to the witnesseses. Thank you, gentlemen for being here. The subcommittee on merging threats and capabilities made to d today to receive testimony on the department of defenses efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction and we welcome assistant secretary for defense of Homeland Defense and Global Security, deputy rapuano, and Joseph Osterman who is the deputy officer of socome, and thank them for appearing before us today. This hearing is coming at a troubling increase in the proliferation of wmds by rogue states and terrorist organizations that pose a direct and growing threat to the National Security. While we are familiar with and concerned by the growing size and capabilities of north Koreas Nuclear program, we should be mindful of the efforts to expand the chemical and the biological weapons capabilities. The Washington Post reported in december that north korea is moving steadily to acquire the ses en shall machinery that could be potentially used for the advanced bio Weapons Program for factories by the ton, to lab s for specific development. And there are other agent tas are used in iraq and syria. After the fall of the physical caliphate, we must be aware of the potential of the Technical Knowledge to spread. Additionally, there are syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad as he used chemical weapons against his own people. These show the global threat, and the need for a e global strategy to combat the threat. I noticed that the recent d. O. D. Counter strategy report was released in june of 2014. As i have laid out the scope and the complexity of the problem has only increased since that time. This requires the d. O. D. To reassess the strategy and ensure that we are postured appropriately in terms of organization, authorities and capabilities to most effectively confront this threat. From preventing the development of new wmd threats and mitiga mitigating existing one s s to responding in the event of a wmd incident. Like no the witnesses to provide the subcommittee with the candid assessment of how they view the wmd threat and as well as providing recommendation on the current approach that may be warranted. Additionally while it may be preferenced it is to deal with the threat before it reaches our shores. We must be prepared to respond quickly and effectively to the wmd event in the homeland. I note that while dod is not necessarily the lead organization for the Homeland Response mission, id, in particular, the National Guard place a key role in the unique support to civil authorities like the federal Emergency Management authority and local author i tis. We would appreciate a update on the d. O. D. Planning and fulfi fulfillment of the Vital Mission of defending an attack on the homeland. Lastly, one year since the unified Campaign Plan has identified socome with the respon responsibility for the d. O. D. s mission which includes drafting a new plan and establishing intelligence priorities and encountering global d. O. D. Operations. General osterman, we look for you for the the update of what they have done to combat this vulnerability, and any steps that have been taken and any challenges for cocom to execute this Important Mission. We thank you for being here this afternoon, and we look forward to the testimony on this important topic. I call on the Ranking Member to make his opens statement. One of the when all else fails. Improvise. Okay. Okay. Hows that [ laughter ] let me start over. Let me begin by thinking that senat senator ernst for holding this committee, and i look forward to working with you again this year to examine key drafting of the fiscal year 2019 and National Defense authorization act, and the department of defense is a wide array of measures to control the spread of wmd ranging from nonproliferation programs that help the International Norms and expert controls to other efforts that are designed to stop the development of wmds by noncooperative methods. Part of your responsibility is the oversight of these methods and i am looking forward to understanding how they are achieving the objectives and what challenges they may be encountering. The u. S. Official commander of socon has been providing this training for over 20 years. And you equip those tasked with rendering wmds should they fall into the wrong hands. And as combat and command they have been synchronized with the global commands and operations for countering wmds. I hope that the witnesses will share their candid views of how to handle these critical responsibilities and retaining the focus on encountering extremist and violent groups. As we know the special Operations Forces are a finite resource, and it is important to report sufficient ready innocence the nofail wmd missions. I look forward to hearing the testimony of both of you. Thank you. Okay. Well go ahead to start with the witness testimony, and the s secretary, ra rapuano, we will start with you. Thank you, members of the committee, i am pleased to be here to testify about the departments efforts to counter chemical, raid logical and Nuclear Threats both at home and abroad. The United States faces a range of complex and multi dimensional pbr and other challenges. Over the past year the north korean regime has increased the dangerous and provocative behavior and continued to test nuclear and Ballistic Missiles in violation of the United Nations council resolution. We have seen the increased use of Islamic State of iraq and syria and clearly against the norm of their use. And more broadly, the increased advanced and use of these expertise and materials to be used for peaceful and military purposes heighten the risk that adversaries can more easily seek or acquire wmd. It was never more than a difficult person than to acquire the expertise necessary to use wmd or use materials in intentional attacks. The speed and volume and coverage of the International Travel means that naturally occurring pathogens of security concerns can spread worldwide indeed. And so potentially having the same catastrophic consequences of the deliberate biological attack. These diverse threats require multi faceted approaches to keep up with and adapt to the current thre threats of mitigating further risks. The Intelligence Community and the department of state, and the d. O. D. And the department of justice all played critical roles in detecting the threats and preventing attacks on the homeland and working with foreign partners to stop or suppress efforts. And the domestic and the overseas activities and working closely with the allies and the partners to counter the wide range of threats that exist today. Close cooperation with the other u. S. Departments and agencies and allies and partners is crucial since d. O. D. Must prioritize capabilities and efforts to minimize the risks and activities that are best executed by the department. They do it by using a layered approach to mitigating the threats at the source, and preventing them with reaching the homeland and when necessary responding militarily, and the departments strategic approach for the wmd focus is three lines of effort. Preventing the acquisition of the wmd and retaining and reducing wmd threats and when necessary to respond to and mitigating the kons kwns of the use. For example to prevent the transmit of materials to and from north korea, the department worked closely with intraagency partter ins to encourage the states to impede or stop elicit shipment with the efforts to build capacity and understanding of the norms and obligations through the Proliferation Security Initiatives and we engaged with the partners through the Reduction Program or the ctr program to decan tekt, security or eliminate those pathogens of concern. Despite the best efforts at prevention, we must be prepared to contain and reduce those threats once they develop. And the d. O. D. Is postured to preve prevent these threats. The government is also to deter ed adversaries and make sure that the actors who possess w. M. D. Do not use them against the United States or the allies and patter ins and for example, d. O. D. Continues to support the stateled partners to work the international lies and partners to hold the assad regime responsible for using chemical weapons. We are concerned about ongoing use report, and make sure that the president has all of the options available to respond if necessary. In addition, to contain and reduce the threat from isis, the u. S. And the Coalition Partners continue to exploit the opportunities on the ground to better understand and disrupt their wmd networks. Ultimately though should the deterrence or the efforts to contain and reduce the threats fail, and an adversary attacks the United States or our allies, the department of defenses top military priority is to respond and prevent future attacks. This may require u. S. Forces to operate in a contaminated environment which is critical that we safeguard the force and ensure that u. S. Personnel can sustain effective operations in the event of war or other contingencies, and this is why d. O. D. , wos closely with the allies and partners to assure that we are prepared to respond to an eincident overseas. In asia, the d. O. D. Is working with the key allies in korea and japan to ensure that the forces are remaining available to respond from anything that may arise on or from the peninsula. And partners are used to enhance the capability to respond to and mitigatet the effects of a cbrn incident. In addition to responding to events overseas, the d. O. D. Must ensure that we are ready to support the federal response to domestic cbrn incident at home. While most of those begin and end locality, events such as wmd attack would require support from neighboring jurisdictions, State Governments and as necessary, the federal government. The d. O. D. s role to assist the federal and State Government with local response when necessary is an important one. The d. O. D. Has developed a wide range of cnbr capabilities, and employ the capabilities to be used to use the civil resources in the aftermath of the cbnr incident and while a large Scale Nuclear and biological attack is something that we hope will never okccur, we cannot wait fo that threat to be imminent to enact, and so the complexity requires a whole government approach, and strong unity of effort. I work closely with the joint staff and the Combatant Commanders and the d. O. D. Components to ensure that the department utilizes the leverage and uses the authorities and resources and capabilities of the nation. U. S. Special Operations Command in the new role as coordinating authority of this focus has brought new enthusiasm no the role, and ensuring that the combat and command are taking a transregional approach to counter the challenges and to have the capability and capacity and plans to operationalize cnbr efforts. In closing, we must anticipate that the adversaries will continue to evolve and increasingly effective methods to pursue, or develop the cbrn weapons. The diversity of the challenges makes it imperative that the d. O. D. Is rigorous in priorities the efforts and work closely with the u. S. Departments and agencies and international departme departments to continue to confront the threats by wmd threats at home and abroad. As the challenges continue to emerge, your continued support for their part and the efforts described today are critical to our ability to understand and anticipate and mitigate the threats. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, secretarygeneral. Rank member ernsst and others on the committee, it is a honor the represent the director rapuanos office to stress the importance of countering the wmd threat. The testimony in the full senate committee, general thomas outlined the usocom for the new role of the change of january 2017. We are proud to report significant strides and increased communication, and information sharing and operational koo aal coordinati o other allies and those working in this space. Socom has years and decades of experience to support these tasks. The role of coordinating authority as directed by the unified command has the scope of special Operations Forces specific roles to the planning of department of defense counter wmd effort and support of the other combatant commands and the Department Priorities and as directed other u. S. Agencies. As other missionaries and coordinating authorities are established, this is going to enable a more strategic approach, and enhanced integration of the Department Plans and intelligence and priorities. Since the lead responsibility of this mission set from the u. S. Strategic command and the establishment of the socoms coordinating authority we have foc focused on three areas of major effort. And first, we are going a major Campaign Plan with coordination of the geographic combatant command commands. It takes a transregional perspective and emphasizes preventing new wmd development in existing programs and precluding aspiring actors from attaining the ta wmd. And we have a Baseline Assessment to determine the combatant and command and capabilities and capacity. It has identified shortfalls and when needed, the future capability of development and resource allocation. Thir third, we are increasing the understanding of operating environment by enhancing integration of intelligence, planning and assessments. To this end, we have established a counter wmd Fusion Center dedicated to coordinating information flow and planning, fusing intelligence and operations, and providing the wmd community of action that is a single point of contact from the wmd capability. While much progress has been made, your tremendous amount of work has been to fully finalize and implement the efforts. We look forward to collaborating closely with the office of secretary of defense and the joint staff and Defense Threat Reduction Agency and other combatant commands and the rest of the counter wmd committee. Thank you nfor the subcommittees continued support for the mission, a tnd the servicemen a our families. Thank you. Outstanding. Thank you, gentlemen, very much. We will open with questions and we will do those in fiveminute iter rations, and should we be joined by other member s of ts subcommittee, we will allow their questions as well. I would like to start with you mr. Rapuano, which wmd threat concerns you most at the stage based on the work within the department and the insight across our inner agencies. Thank you, senator. I think it depends upon the filter that you look through, if you are looking at the near term, primarily north korea the primary focus of the department, a combination of the destabilizing behaviors and very aggressive Testing Programs behaviors and very aggressive Testing Program for their icbms, aggressive statements about their nuclear Weapons Program and capabilities give cause for a great concern and weve got a lot of efforts focused on that. I think that we also put a lot of concern in terms of that evolving capability beyond the primary russiachina focus which you are well familiar with from the mpr and the National Defense strategy is iran. That they are developing missile and weapons capabilities in count count countervention of u. N. Secu resolutions and finally, developments that create growing concern over time is Bio Technology just the Rapid Advances and ubiquitous availability of Bio Technology today. Things that you can buy on the web now and essentially do a paint by members instruction where the province of nobel prizewinning scientists only decades ago, and that really levels the Playing Field for any actor looking to develop Bio Technology, biological agents and engineered agents that can present a real threat. Certainly, and thank you. You mentioned north korea, of course, the Nuclear Tests and weve all followed that with great interest, but something that we just dont talk about a lot, but was pointed out in the Washington Post and i mentioned it in my remarks is north korea acquiring different mechanical pieces that potentially could allow them to develop chemical or biological weapons. Has that been a focus, as well of the agency . Yes. We and the rest of the Interagency Community have significant concerns about north korean chemical and biological programs that we believed are focused on developing weapons. So we are tracking that very closely. There are a variety of export control, Australia Group and other organizations for which we look to limit the export and the further proliferation of agents of particular concern, but we do have concerns about Bio Technology and the ability to innovate agents and develop them without that kind of seed stock over the longer term. Okay. And then in regards to the biological and chemical weapon, as well, secretary or general, when we talk about nation states we know that they have the capabilities out there, what are the assessments when it comes to various terrorist organizations and or including isis . Do they have the ability to deliver those types of weapons . So we understand that both al qaeda and isis are interested in chemical, biological, nuclear. They certainly would be if they had opportunity to acquire the materials and know how and more details in terms of the understanding of those capabilities and we need to go to closed session, general. The only thing id like to add, senator, is the fact that part of our functional Campaign Planning that we associate with this is to allow us not only the state, but nonstate actors to look at the threats, if you will, in vertical columns and the functional Campaign Plan cross cuts those so we can observe where the Technology Transfer may occur between state and nonstate actors and also where one nonstate actor perhaps is working with another nonstate actor in a different geographic location or in a functional capacity. So we try to weave that in with the translation of our strategy and policy to actual tactical application interdiction in order to basically reinforce the larger protocol efforts that are in place. Okay. Thank you very much, senator heinrich. Thank you, madam chair. Secretary rapuano, i want to go back to the issue you were talking about in terms of rapid innovation with respect to biological resources and with technologies like crisper and others just changing that landscape at a rate that we could just has never occurred within the field before, are there things that we should be thinking about now that can create some level of obstruction or raise barriers to entry to make sure that were doing an adequate job of what we apply with respect to expert controls and other tools in other fields . How can we make sure that were not just missing some very big developments that could be happening under our nose with off the shelf internet purchased items, for example. Senator, that is something we are very focused on with our interagency partners. In turn, there are a number of norms and in terms of internationally and nationally with regard to research being done in the bioarea where you look to not do certain thing, but wellestablished norms that get at that works great for the folks who follow the norms. Im wondering if we shouldnt have some sort of track and Trace Technology to make sure people are following the research and the community. There are efforts in that area. I didnt come prepared to speak in detail about them today. Its very difficult, though, because its very widespread and the research is going on all over the world and not like more select research thats only being done in highly developed nations and its proliferated to where its being done and places that would have been unimaginable decades ago. That wasnt the answer i was hoping for. I think we really need to put some thought into this because this is a situation that could get ahead of us very quickly. I want to shift gears quickly and ask you, general, with respect to special forces and how they have led the effort in places like syria and iraq in reigning in development of chemical and biological weapons from groups like isis, these are specialized missions. Theyre uniquely tailored for soft capabilities, but i wanted to ask how would special forces perform this sort of a mission in a more conventional forces environment and take a force environment like north korea where we have a very different battle space than you would in iraq or syria and a very heavily secured wmd sites and im trying to get a specific locational answer, i want to understand how you apply that same mission set in a more traditional battle space environment . Senator, i think i would probably answer that one from the standpoint of reactive approach to it. Really, when you look at the proactive ways of being able to interdict things like that, it is associated with the pathway approach and i think you alluded to that in one of your Opening Statements about the components of different types of wmd acquired as precursors or Even Technology requirements associated with missile or other type activity, and so understanding pathways is important, and i guess when i would look at that from what weve done in iraq and syria versus what we actually would be looking at with the state actor, and really, the process is very similar. You look at that, for example, we could easily translate the Human Capital that is associated with the knowledge for these things and that becomes an opportunity for targeting whether it be kinetically or nonkinetically. I think there are a lot of similar things that way that can be done. When it comes to the secure facilities and all of those and i probably have to get with you off line with that one as far as details and i would say the approach is very, very similar in the sense that theres always Human Capital resourcing and technology thats associated with these type things and it just really depends on what scope is actually being applied and the fundamentals still apply, for example, as i mentioned with the Fusion Center, the ops intel fusion to understand what is the indication or warning that things may be coming along and how do you matrix that with the different threats that are out there versus viability of the threat, if that answers your question. Thank you, general. Senator shaheen. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you both for your testimony. I am sorry i wasnt here to hear it, but can you perhaps this is for you, secretary rapuano, how do you categorize weapons of mass destruction . Thats a great question. Its described in very different ways. If you look at domestic law, the defendant of justice describe weapons of mass destruction from a firecracker to a thermonuclear bomb. When we look at an International Perspective we have a much higher threshold. So it is a weapon that causes significant effect, but you still see a very wide range, chlorine, for example, which is an Industrial Chemical can be used and has been used as we know by the syrians and isis as a chemical weapon. It doesnt have near the level of effect of nerve gas and other agents. So its a pretty wide spectrum, but its essentially a chemical, biological agent or Nuclear Device that creates significant consequence. So do we consider Cyber Attacks as potential weapons of mass destruction . So we have not defined to date in terms of how we in the u. S. Government use the term wmd. We have not defined that to include cyber. Should we . I notice the Nuclear Posture review contemplated that there might be situations in which the massive use of Cyber Attacks could result in potentially a nuclear response. So should we be thinking about them in those terms, Cyber Attacks . Senator, my reading from the mpr, it doesnt define cyber use. It leaves a pretty big hole. It defines the effects of any use of any technique that would be extreme, and disastrous for the nation that could result in our response with Nuclear Weapons so its not the means. Its the end. Right. Anything that might produce that sort of end has to be pretty disruptive, and so the question im raising is should we be thinking about cyber in the same way that we should be thinking of these other weapons of mass destruction because certainly they have the potential to create the same amount of chaos and potentially the same amount of fatalities depending on how theyre used. Senator, i think the challenge with that is cyber is a domain from which theres zero negative effect all of the way to it could be a high potential effect and with wmd classification, and one of the distinctions has been the threshold of even lower use is significant enough to characterize it as a class of weapon. Isnt part of the issue with cyber is that we dont really have a welldefined body of law and response proactively response to the wrong term. That we dont have a proactive way it address the potential of Cyber Attacks and that thats part of what makes it very difficult for us to figure out how to categorize those . I believe the challenge with any means, whether its cyber or other avenues of attack is what is the threshold that will warrant what level of response . Its a threshold of the consequence they believe is the deciding factor to determine what level and how significant the response okay. I appreciate what youre saying, and i dont think that responds to the question that im raising, however. I want to go to another issue around cyber, though, because i appreciated the departments response to my inquiry regarding the work that the department does with i. T. Companies and the issue around sharing sensitive source code with russia and other hostile governments. I wonder if you can tell me why dod doesnt require companies to disclose information about whether they have released their source code information to hostile governments and whether we should be doing that . Senator, i dont come here to todays hearing with details on that, but i can i can get those answers for you. I would appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Well start our second round of questioning. Secretary, in the departments strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction, dod states that it will dissuade pursuit of wmd by demonstrating defenses on passive capabilities and you had made those comments, as well in your Opening Statement. Can you, in this open setting, can you describe what those capabilities are . What are those layered defenses . So, senator, there is a range of defenses depending on the type of weapon used and the consequences of the effect starting with the passive and thats inclusive of resilience to deny the adversary the intended benefit of the use so the better defended and the more resilient the targets of the attacks and the less inclination on their part to employ it, active military operations or a range of other activities that are not necessarily kinetic operations from the whole of government perspective and its a wellknown list, as you know, and sanctions are diplomatic actions and there are financial penalties, and then getting into the military space. There is a full range of what the total force brings in term of capabilities for response. Okay. As secretary of Homeland Defense and Global Security you coordinate the cwmd policy and oversee defense support to civilian authorities and how is dod postured to respond to a cburn incident in the homeland, and can you give us an example and walk us through that . Senator, we have what we call the cbr and response enterprise. Its almost 19,000 combination of National Guard and title 10 military wo are formed into a variety of teams. We have the wmd csts and the civil support teams and the Response Teams and teams with different mix of capabilities that go from decontamination, detection, medical effect, medical treatment. There is air transportation, ground transportation, and the whole package that can be integrated that can either be commended by the state National Guards and theres at least one team in every state. Or they can be authorized under title 10 and under dod command. I appreciate it, and thank you for the shot out with the csts and we are existing in the air guard, as well. We have both air guard and army National Guard that combine forces and they work proactively and just for the publics information, can you describe their proactive stance and where they might be stationed during large events . Perhaps they were around the super bowl this past weekend just so people understand how we utilize those teams. Yes. As you imply, senator, we use them on a routine basis with event, super bowl event, fourth of july and these assets will be predeployed in the vicinity of activities for which there may be some concern that there would be the target of an attack that might include wmd and they are prepared to respond in concert with all of the other assets that are typically deployed for those events and Law Enforcement and others. I appreciate that, and just to make it clear for our public that we are not just reactive in certain situation, but we are also very proactive in making sure that our public is safe here on the homeland. So thank you very much for that. Well go on to senator sullivan if you would like to take the opportunity to ask questions. Thank you, madam chair, and gentlemen, good to see you. General, semper fi. I dont know if the chair already asked it, so if she did i apologize for the repetition, but how is the transition going from stratcom or other assets that you need from us that can help with this mission . I actually think from a broader, National Security mission and the counter wmd mission is the evergreen mission. We might be going after isis for a couple of more years or al qaeda, but as long as were a republic the counterwmd mission is in my view the most Important Mission in the u. S. Military and we want to make sure its resourced and actually think it makes sense to transfer it over to socom, but im sure the transition hasnt been flawless and its not like, general, you guys dont have other missions that you are currently focused on so im wondering how its going . Senator, thanks for the question. Actually, the transition and assumption of the duties went exceptionally well. A very close and Good Relationship with u. S. Stratcom and it was wellcoordinated and welldefined and frankly everyone came to the table with a basic understanding of what the Resource Requirements were, and actually before the assumption of the mission we actually worked through all that. We are actually at a point right now where the way the plan was set up and general thomas approved essentially the transition plan which is at the oneyear mark where we are right now where we reevaluate where things were last year. Do we have the right people in the right places and the right resources to the mission . I think were real close to what we need. We probably need to tweak it internally to optimize it, but everyone was very, very supportive that way. So right now, any Additional Resources we put into the normal budgeting cycle and i am very confident that theyll be represented in there. As far as the authorities, right now everything is moving along well and no problems with the geographic combat and commands and helping to work with them nor with the inner agency. Senator, if i can just add that socom, really who has been in this field most of my career, socom brings a unique blend of experience, skills, capabilities and relationships that make them uniquely well equipped, particularly in terms of their relationship with the cocom, the operational equipage of the capabilities necessary. They have a visceral appreciation of that from their experience and then working the entire threat or kill chain associated with cdwd all of the way to consequence management and focusing the department and the cocomes in those areas that we have the most impact on getting that wmd. Great. Thanks. You know, both in my capacity here and then, general, as you know, in my reserve duties ive spent a lot of time focused on this issue and recently within the last six months there have been exercises on the very large scale and the counter wmd sync conference and more tactical in nature and the exercise. Are there do you have after actions in Lessons Learned from those operations that are either cls phied or unclassified that you can share with the committee that, again, so were having good viciblity on how things are developing and what you see is strengths and weaknesses. Yes, senator. We definitely have it after actions and we use it to feed interactions. We adjust those in stride based on, you know, emerging threats that are out there. So i would say those here and in the closed session or afterwards we can get the classified information to you. Great. And then ill just madam chair, on the north korean threat and the network that theyve developed. Theres a lot of us who are, you know very curious how much, and ive asked the Intel Community on this issue, but how much the north korean proliferation network has helped with not only what theyre looking at in terms of proliferation, but the advances theyve made particularly with regard to Intercontinental Ballistic Missile testing. Its hard for some of us to believe that thats all organic advancements because theyve clearly made a lot of advancements, not only on the nuclear side, but on the missile side. Do we have a sense and again, maybe its better for classified session are they getting help on the outside with regard to how quickly theyre advancing and are we confident that our networks are able to battle their networks on a country that almost certainly has a record of proliferation, but i think we would be fools if we werent assuming that they would try to continue to proliferate even with this very strong kind of sanctions net around them . Senator, i would simply say in open session that this is something that we and the rest of the Intelligence Community are intensely focused upon, and thats probably all i can say here. Okay. Well, im glad youre intensely focused on it. Thank you, madam chair . Thank you, senator heinrich. General osterman. Obviously, isis has lost geographically and then defeated. Would you still consider them a wmd threat even in that scenario . Because obviously, this is about talent as much as anything in an intellect all capacity. Whats your whats your analysis of that at this point . Senator, i my analysis is yes, they are still a threat, to put it simply. When we look at pathways and were looking at intent, tra infrastructure and expertise and Delivery Systems in use and theyve demonstrated not only the capability over time, but even though as they lose the geographic caliphate, that those individuals that had the Technical Knowledge and frankly, the level at which they were working or had been working is not one that, you know, by loss of that geographic caliphate that it would undermine their ability that it would continue to pursue the weapons of mass destruction capability. Secretary rapuano, one of our greatest challenges in countering particularly, biological wmd, is being able to, at scale, develop vaccines and other potential specialized medicines and pharmaceuticals for our troops or for populations that are impacted by those, and a good example is when ebola began to emerge there was a dod vaccine. I hadnt gone through the fda full process, but theres not an obvious way to scale those up in a forprofit Pharmaceutical Company in many cases and we havent found partners to do that. Have you thought about how to address this so that we dont get caught behind the 8 ball the way that we did with the ebola crisis . Yes, senator. We work very closely with hhs, barta over at hhs, dhs to look at biothreats in general including naturally occurring to sync our research with them to make sure were covering the full landscape of whats naturally occurring and what perhaps could be intensified or developed for malevolent use. So were looking at ways that we can get quick production just in time, but thats very difficult because you need that base in terms of the manufacturing base. Weve done that in certain areas and in other areas its been more challenging, but thats a priority and thats a priority thats also reflected in the still draft, but almost complete national bioDefense Strategy. I look forward to seeing that because it seems to me that, you know, setting bio weapon aside even with zunotic outbreaks that we typically have not had the capacity to be able to manufacture things. We may know through research what would or might work, but getting that to scale in any sort of meaningful way, where we dont have the mechanism to do that right now. Absolute lie. Ive got a few seconds left and ill turn it over to my theegs. Can you talk a little bit on talking about how communities collaborate and leverage relative strengths across the counter wmd mission in terms of how do you bring together the different agencies and talents and labs have, and you mentioned the Fusion Center. What has worked when it comes to effectively leveraging the intellectual talent that is in different places . So, ill take a start at that, senator, and then hand it over to general osterholm. When you look at that spectrum of activities all of the way from intent and desire for wmd through use and response to, it is a very wide spectrum and when we look at any one agency including the department of defense, we are old responsibilities, capacity, scope, theres no one that can do it all. In fact, if you start to specialize and say what tools and techniques, weapons can be applied to getting most return on investment in terms of preventing, denying, responding . So if you start all of the way to the left on the pathways. Thats primarily export control and understandsing what those pathways. For example, cocomes are benefiting from other nations. They do things differently than what they do here. Some of them manage export controls and developing an understanding of individuals, character, leaders and what their level of interest is. It all forms a composite in terms of our understanding. So what socom, for example, is doing with the Fusion Center is just improving that ad mixture and that ibts gracian of intelligence both from a national and the military intelligence perspective. As you go further right to a point of use or threatened use to response, our use is getting kinetic as well as the dynamic of a response and the hold of government response. Were very focused in the past several years on nationalscale events and intentional events and Nuclear Events so that obviously is a major challenge in terms of how do we achieve the unity of effort in crisis from in real time, but we are making progress in that area, as well. Senator sullivan . Oh. Okay. I think were doing democrat, republican, democrat. Thank you, madam cheer. I want to get back to, and again, if we touched on this, i apologize, but in terms of countries, so governments that you see is the biggest threat from the perspective of counter wmd threats, which ones would you put in the top category . From a Strategic Perspective . Just a country that has capability and has a history of proliferation. So obviously, we need to start with the two countries who have exist earnxistential wmd a china. Is it bad actors or russia the same . For example, north korea, clearly helped syria build a Nuclear Reactor which the israelis ended up bombing. Have we seen that kind of activity from when were looking at those countries that are of greatest proliferation concern, again, depending if youre talking the dual use commodity side of the equation its more mixed and then its not entirely always clear where the dualuse items are going and whether theyre going into the wmd program, but iran and syria are two very significant nonproliferation actors in terms of proliferating and iran has done it. There are other cannotries that we have concerns and issues with that we would handle closely. And north korea, of course . North korea, of course. Let me ask another question related to that just on the point of north coria, i wouldnt say in the context of proliferating wmd, per se. The dual use piece is a lot more gray. Well, they built the reactor in syria. Thats about as dramatic as it gets, isnt it . So it is a concern, but really depending on how you want to draw the threshold of are they knowingly and deliberately looking to provide wmd capability to another actor . Again, thats better left to a closed session. I once heard a ill just describe it as a senior National Security official say that the chipoa, the Iran Nuclear Deal with the United States had enabled us to kind of take our eye off that proliferation threat because of the fact of the agreement. Thats not the current view of the u. S. Military or other, is it, general . That is not. Mr. Secretary . I guess it was a shocking statement that i heard. I actually couldnt believe it where somebody had mentioned well, because we have the agreement now which i was very opposed to, we dont have to look at them so much with regard to a proliferation, Nuclear Development problem. I think thats just incorrect, and i want to get that out there to both of you. That is not the view of this administration. Okay. Or the u. S. Military as part of the administration . Or the u. S. Military. Let me ask one final question. With regard we had secretary mattis testify in front of the full committee yesterday, the National Defense strategy which i think he got a lot of bipartisan compliments on with the thoughtfulness of the document for what its focus is, but in particular one of the areas of focus in the document is the emphasis on allies with regard to the National Security strategy. In this effort, the ally participation with regard to counter wmd would seem to me really important. Do you are we getting cooperation and do we have regular, deep consultations with our nato allies and other bilateral allies who have similar capabilities that we have in terms of counter wmd or what we can do to help the countries to counter with the wmd efforts . So we have a variety of programs. I mentioned the ctr and a number of proliferation programs where we are developing capacity on the part of the allies to operate in cbrm environments and we are assisting them in terms of understanding dualuse commodities and the potential risks. We are working with them, for example, in the maximum Pressure Campaign with regard to illicit shipments to north korea, ship to ship transfers and we are very active. The secretary is very serious about partnerships being a critical element. Its from the secretary. Youve heard it from him and the lethality, partnerships and reform and that Partnership Approach is a mainstay. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. So i wanted to follow up on that a little bit because i understand that we are a participant under the Proliferation Security Initiative and that that works with our International Partners to interdict ship ams of wmdrelated items. Can you talk about that a little more than you just did with senator sullivan and also talk about its important in addressing situations like north korea in in terms of the potential to interdict shipments of nuclearrelated materials. Yes, senator. The Proliferation Security Initiative is not an operational coordination process. Its really about developing a common understanding and prioritization of proliferation consequences and impacts and working together. What flows from that oftentimes are operational coordination. For example, the inquiries of ships at sea and thats not with mpsi, per se, its more about having that worldwide cooperation, discussing and agreeing conceptually, but actual operational coordination happens bilaterally in small groups and another topic that would be best addressed in a closed hearing. So with respect to its importance in addressing the situation in north korea, can you speak to that in this open session . Simply to say that we have a growing number of partners and allies who are looking to cooperate with us on addressing illicit ship ams including ship to ship. And doesm including ship to ship. And doe including ship to ship. And do including ship to ship. And dot including ship to ship. And dos including ship to ship. And does that include russia and china . I just wont go into detail in this session talking about individual relationships and agreements that at this point. General osterman, as you have both pointed out and we have a multitude of threats of wmd around the world. Can you talk about how our military assesses the severity of each threat and the potential resources that it would require to respond . Yes, senator. The there is i kind of described that path work earlier. Most of it is the in functional Campaign Planning. In other words, we look at it the from a wide variety of criteria, you know, what is their intent . What is their ability and all of the way through that and really from a transregional perspective and some of that threat is how are they looking to work this in a transregional fashion . Are they exporting a singular small node . What are the viability of chemicals that they may be capable of producing, for example, or as was mentioned earlier the biological agent aspect of things, et cetera and thats basically how we get into the assessments of that risk and really, we define that prioritization, if you will, of threats and then as i mention, matrix that with the actors that are out there to kind of come up with recommendations up through the department about how do we prioritize and how do we set policy for this, but thats really about it and most of that is based on our intelligence and the technical means of looking at things and we translate that internally to make sure we have the response and the protective force within the military to operate in that environment and with the particular wmd were working with. And senator heinrich earlier raised the question of isis and whether they continue to have the capacity by to inflict major damage through wmd. You talked about the and weve all read about the reduction of the caliphate and theyre on the sxrun there have been several news reports that they talked about the fact that there are significant numbers of isis fighters who have gone under ground and are reappearing in other places and have the potential to reorganize and since we saw that in syria and thats how isis reconstituted itself from al qaeda, what are we doing about that and how much of a concern is that . Senator, what were doing with that is that even though at large isis has a number of people that are basically moving to Counter Insurgency type of mode or whatever. The actual number of individuals associated with wmd production and this goes back to your definitional question about what is wmd . The ability to put, you know, low toxicity into something is that really wmd . So its a very, very finite Technical Capability and Human Capital issue and they are generally not front line fighters. These are theyre folks that were not necessarily easy to track, but ones that weve been working on for a number of years here and have ideas where that they are if we havent taken them off the battle space. So where my concern is and where we will watch through the transregional approach is to make sure theyre not leaving that area of operations and perhaps becoming an export or as we term it an exops act to the United States proper. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. I believe we have time for one more brief round of questions. So if we can just ask one final question in this last round and then well wrap up our subcommittee hearing, and i appreciate, mr. Secretary, the discussion about the different agencies that you interact with whether its department of energy, Homeland Security and other entities. Being the junior senator from the great state of iowa, one agency i did not hear was the usda and one thing we dont often discuss is the fact that, yes, we want to protect our Human Capital and part that is affecting the feed stock here in the United States. We have had an acting discussion in the ag commity about offshore vaccine banks like footandmouth disease that would affect agriculture at large with livestock and other things that could be introduced into plant life agriculture and what are the discussions when talking to the usda and protecting agriculture . Thank you very much, senator. That was a major omission of my part. It is the lead federal agency for threats to agriculture and livestock and they play a very Important Role because that is a critical commodity in terms of our economy and our populations needs. So they are pat of that team and a core member of that team helping evaluate potential threats to agriculture and developing approaches either to forestall or respond to events that threaten usag. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Senator heinrich . Thank you, madam chair. Secretary rapuano, you mentioned the Draft National buy Defense Strategy that was actually required back in fy2017 ndaa and a number of members of this committee including the chair and the Ranking Member of the full committee have been sort of waiting with bated breath for that. What is the hold up and when will we see that document, do you think . That is at the white house. Weve been participating in the nsc and dhsled review of the biostrategy. I met with the director on the nsc staff two weeks ago on that topic. To my understanding it is just about there, but i dont have the latest and im not and the reason being we are hoping to use that for the fy2019 ndaa. Absolutely. So the sooner the better. Understood. Thank you, madam chair. Gentlemen, i want to ask one final question on interagency cooperation which im sure i think woe all would agree is essential to defeating the network and the Proliferation Networks that youre focused on. Do you see that there is in terms of this mission, sufficient cooperation between the dod, socom, the department of energy, department of ag and others . Are there statutory improvements that we could help you with that could help make sure that the mission and the interagency coordination is not stove piped and it brings together the agencies. Senator, i dont see any statutory obstacles and in my experience, the Interagency Community working cwmd is very collaborative, and works very well together. We are constantly looking for ways we can improve the process and focus and prioritize those threats that are most extent to us. Also, looking ahead at evolving technology and actors to better understand where the most significant threats will come from. Thats part of the great work that so com is doing in their new coordinating role for the cocom. So were i was just speaking for myself and my perspective that we are on the right road and we have room to improve and were moving out. Senator, if i can add on to that. With the different units and Everything Else ive worked with the military, ive never found a community that works more closely together. Its literally an open door everywhere you go from not only an interagency and also an i. C. Perspective and also from an allied perspective and some of those tangible examples are routinely meeting with the various intel agencies affiliated with this and their sub organizations collaborately working on tools and intel assessments as well as tangible technical means on certain things. From an allied perspective, that question earlier, we actually bring in allied partners to our twice a year global cent conference that comes in there and participate and sit in as participating members. It really is, in my view, a Tremendous Community and frankly, just having forms to bring them together which is a bring responsibility on socom as a committee to bring everybody together and get concerted effort in a particular direction based on departmental guidance, that has not been the problem. You know, its everybody is willing to help. Its trying to get everything moving in the same direction and very, very positive responses so far. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Id like to thank my colleagues and senator heinrich for coordinating this meeting for us today, as well. Secretary and general, thank you for your wonderful ex. Er tees aexpertise and the comm to the men and women and the citizens of the great United States for all that you do. We look forward to see how socom progresses during this transition and we look forward to working with you on any initiatives that you deem necessary. So thank you very much for joining us today, and we will conclude this subcommittee meeting. The senates Top Republican says their Senate Agreement on a twoyear almost 400 billion budget deal would provide pentagon and domestic programs with huge spending increases. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell announced the pact joined on the senate floor by senator Chuck Schumer from new york. However, negotiations continue on Government Spending which ends after midnight thursday unless a house and senate deal is reached. Watch live coverage on cspan, cspan. Org or listen through the cspan radio app. The house sub Services Committee is looking into senior military leader misconduct investigations and they question about how investigations are conducted and wanted to know about the results. Watch beginning at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Saturday, American History tv on cspan3 is live beginning at 9 00 a. M. Eastern with allday coverage from the new museum of the bible in washington, d. C. , with the symposium of historians exploring the bible and the founding of america. Speakers include Baylor University history professor thomas ki thomas kidd author of benjamin franklin. The religious life of a founding part, and daniel driesbach, author of reading the bible with the Founding Fathers and the divinity Professor James byrd author of sacred scripture, sacred word, watch at 9 00 a. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. A forum on transparency at the food and Drug Administration featured a discussion on how transparency affects investors. The chair of the Deerfield Institute spoke for about 20 minutes. During this event hosted by Johns Hopkins University School of public health