Good morning everyone. We will call this subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities to order. The subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities meets today to receive testimony on the department of defense review of the december six, 2019 insider attack on Naval Air Station pensacola, in which three u. S. Service members tragically lost their lives and eight more suffered injuries. It is critical that we learn from the attack, understand the threat, and take the necessary steps to ensure the protection of our service men and women going forward. I would like to welcome our witnesses, mr. Garry reed, who services the director for Defense Intelligence in the office of the under secretary of defense for intelligence, and Lieutenant General charles hooper, who serves as the director of the defensive purity cooperation agency. Thank you both very much for being with us today. We look forward to your testimonies. The National Defense strategy focuses on strengthening alliances and attracting new partners as a key component to more effectively compete with china and russia while countering the continued threat posed by radical terrorist groups and rogue regimes. The nds states that by working together with allies and partners, we amassed the greatest possible strength for the long term advancement of our interests, maintaining favorable balances of power that deter aggression and support the stability that generates growth. I agree with the nds. That is why i have long supported critical Security Cooperation program, such as the International Military training and education, or i met. These programs provide those around the world an opportunity to train and learn from the best in the United States. Ultimately, our partners return to their home countries with a greater appreciation of the u. S. , and impart Lessons Learned on military and how to organize and deploy their own armed forces. These programs improve interrupt realty with key partners and lay the foundation for cooperation that will pay dividends for years to come. Over the past 20 years, more than 1 million International Military students have trained in the United States. Currently, the United States hosts over 5000 students from 1053 countries. Many of the students who come to the u. S. Are the same troops who have fought or will fight alongside americans downrange. Oftentimes, they rise through the ranks to become leaders in their own armed forces, with many becoming chiefs of defend, ministers, or even president s. However, while the benefits of these programs are invaluable, the tragic events at pensacola highlight unacceptable shortfalls in our Security Standards and vetting procedures. The attacker, arrived in the United States in 2017 and harvard anti u. S. Sentiments which he broadcasted on social media. All the while he was able to purchase a firearm, access u. S. Military installations, and ultimately carry out a deadly attack against americans. We must do more to protect our military personnel and ensure the stability of our facilities. Mr. Reed and general hooper. We look forward to your testimonies, explaining the results of the department of defense review and describing what corrective steps are being undertaken. Your findings are critical to find if the department has the resources, support, and authorities it needs. We thank you again for joining us and look forward to the discussion. Before i handed over to senator peters for his opening remarks, i would like to remind everyone that later we will close the hearing in order to discuss sensitive matters of National Security. At that point, we will ask for the public and members of the press to exit the room. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding. The intent is for us to break it 10 30, and we will then at that time clearly room. Senator peters and i will go vote. We do have a vote called for 10 30. And then we will reassemble those that have the authority to stay in the room. We will reassemble. So thank you very much. Ranking member peters . Let me begin by thanking senator ernst for holding this hearing. Unfortunately that attack resulted in the death of three u. S. Service members and the wounding of eight other americans. Our thoughts remain with the victims and their families. We have a responsibility to the victims to learn all that we can from the attack and to implement changes that will mitigate the risk of future occurrences to the greatest extent possible. Following the attack, the department reacted quickly to put in place additional Safety Measures. The provision of training to Foreign Military personnel is comparatively advantage of the United States over near competitors like china and russia. Such training not only helps to improve our upper realty but also to establish its connections with junior officers. They go on to hold positions in their countries in the future. Indeed, the International Military education and training our unmet program is regularly cited by the military and leadership as the most effective and resource efficient tool that we have to build a Strong Military to military relationship with foreign partners. Despite these clear benefits, we must ensure that such training does not risk the safety of u. S. Military personnel, other foreign students, or the installations in which the training is occurring. On january 17th, the department announced new Safety Measures and im looking forward to hearing about those new Safety Measures from the witnesses of today. I want to thank the committee for holding the hearing and i look forward to hearing it. We will start with you mr. Reed. Thank you chairman ernst and Ranking Member peters, senator scott, other members that may be joining us. We appreciate the opportunity to testify today and address your questions regarding our review. The tragic loss of life that occurred of pensacola Naval Air Station on december six, 2019 will never fade from our memories. Three young, vibrant u. S. Navy sailors were tragically taken from us. Their families and their loved ones, they paid the ultimate sacrifice to save others while confronting their attacker. Three of those wounded were First Responders at the Sheriffs Office. They are brave actions to get control of the situation within 15 minutes of the initial gunfire save many more from the heavily armed shooter. We are forever indebted to our fellow comrades and those who took swift action to protect others from what was later determined by the u. S. Department of justice as an act of terrorism. We greatly appreciate the outstanding work of our federal state and local Law Enforcement agencies. It was a Great Partnership between Naval Security forces and the us gambia county Sheriffs Office that allowed such a Swift Response to this attack saving countless lives. In response to the attack, the department of defense immediately implemented a safety and security stand out. The secretary of defense directed my office to take immediate steps into areas. One, to strengthen the vetting process for a military students immediately. And to, to conduct a comprehensive review of the policies and procedures in place for screening foreign students and granting them access to our bases. Im here today to brief you on the results of this work, and as you already mentioned, follow up in a closed session to talk about National Security details. With regard to the first task, we screened all current Saudi Arabian military students immediately using new procedures we had put in place as part of our personal vetting transformation uninitiated, which as you have been previously briefed, we are building towards a continuous vetting process that relies on automated data record searches as a supplement to the investigative process. We put this process into place for the International Military students and it stays in place today. We have screened all of these saudi students and we continue to work through the full population of roughly 5000 current i ms. These automated searches look at Intelligence Community derived information including government data, commercial, data publicly available data. The results on these checks are analyzed by train Security Experts and analysts and used as a basis for determination of further investigative action. In this case, the review produced only a small number of returns that required additional analysis within the department of defense, but none that triggered any remedial action or further investigation by federal authority, relative to the current population. It should be noted, however, that the perpetrator of the attack and several of those associated were not subjected to this review because they were already subjects to the ongoing fbi investigation and they were examined more thoroughly through that process. As you may have been briefed, that resulted ultimately and they are removal from training in the u. S. For misconduct not related to the december 6th attack. Moving on to the policy, review we found that the department of defense is overly reliant on the vetting conducted by the department of state as part of their assessment of eligibility for the visa. There was insufficient information sharing in place between the d. O. D. And department of state in that process. We also found that d. O. D. Programs meant to detect and mitigate events such as the pensacola attack did not cover International Military students, for instance our insider throughout programs. We learned the policies for International Military student possession of firearms varied at the installation level, and that at the federal level, there are ways to bypass firearms restrictions for non immigrant visa holders. We are well underway to implement the six recommendations derived from 21 findings contained in the report. Additional screening and vetting measures are already in effect for all current and future International Military students. The secretary has issued new policies related to access credentials and the possession of privately owned firearms and ammunition for our International Military students. We will build on this with an additional changed that reaches across the entire student population and foreign affiliate landscape within the department of defense. To implement these recommendations ive established these voting insecurity review proven Integration Group cochair with joan hoopers office and defend Security Cooperation leagues. We have four subordinate working groups going through each of these recommendations and finding in detail to implement the full set of proposals and ideas. We will be happy to provide these details in closed session. In closing, it is important to note that this work does not singularly focused on the tragic events that happened in pensacola. Protecting our personnel and military bases is a top priority for us. Across the department, we are actively reinforcing our Insider Threat programs, proving security and strengthening our Counter Intelligence posture. Within the federal government, we are in the midst of the most significant reform of the background of this investigation process and, decades adopting new technology and improving our awareness of personnel security threats. We appreciate all the congressional support we have received over the past several years to provide us with the resources and authorities for the full range of d. O. D. Security, Counter Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Insider Threat programs. Its this ongoing worth allowed us to quickly adapt the International Military student vetting process. We will continue to modernize this enterprise for all trusted personnel that, live, work and do business with the department. Thank you again, for your interest in these matters. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, mystery. General hooper . Thank you. Thank, you madam chairwoman. Ranking member peters. Thank you for convening this hearing today and i acknowledge the president s of chairman scott. The training and educational Foreign Military personnel in the United States is one of our most effective tools to strengthen alliances and attract new partners. As a foreign officer in a career security cooperate, or i have worked alongside many Foreign Military careers whose training establish an appreciation for American Culture and values and has shaped longstanding cooperation and partnership with the United States. All the value of these types of military training and Education Programs cannot be overstated, i want to be absolutely clear that nothing is more important than safeguarding american lives. The incident in pensacola was tragic, and my heart remains with the families of those who we lost and with the people of pensacola for the impact this event has had on their community. My colleague an eye today will be sharing new procedures that the government has put into place to reduce risk and improve the training environment so that all u. S. Foreign military civilian personnel and their families remain safe and have the opportunity to continue benefiting from our Foreign Military training program. The training and education a Foreign Military personnel specifically in the United States is one of our most effective Security Cooperation programs. What makes the u. S. Approach to Security Cooperation different from that of our strategic competitors is that the basis of our approach is not the sale of goods and services, but the enduring relationship that comes along with it. At the heart of any defense relationship is a human relationship that is built and fostered through opportunities for u. S. And Foreign Military students to train alongside americans. When International Students get training in the United States, they are exposed to our values, our culture, and our people. These experiences serve as the Building Blocks for our long strategic and defense relationships. In addition to building lasting relationships, these Training Programs build the capacity of our allies to provide for their own defenses and contribute to shared security challenges. Education in training in the United States is the foundational to building and enduring operable itty with our partners. Since 2000, one over 1 million International Military students have been trained in the United States. We have trained more than 28,000 saudi students over the life of our Security Cooperation relationship. Its worth noting that close to 4000 heads of state, ministers of defense, chiefs of defense, and other general officers received training by the United States. This delivers a lasting strategic return on our Security Cooperation investigations. Recently, our own secretary of defense discussed his personal experience training alongside foreign partners. He attended west point with students from other countries, trained at the kalanick military academy, and trained alongside an officer from the african continent while he was on duty. These experiences have shaped his strong support for Foreign Military training and Education Programs, and inform the departments response to the incident in pensacola. InterNational Military students receive training in the United States under a variety of programs. The department of defense and department of state both have authorities and appropriations to Fund Military training in the United States. Most of this training occurs in the department of defense facilities and schools. The department of defense provides and funds International Military training and education under a variety of d. O. D. Programs such as Section Three three three global train. The counter isil train and equip fund, the afghan Security Forces fund, the Regional Centers for security studies, and the Regional Defense combatting terrorism and irregular warfare fellowship program, which we now refer to as the Regional Defense fellowship program. The department of state has three main programs to fund u. S. Training of foreign militaries from which the department of defenses demand implementer. The International Military education and training or imt program, and the peacekeeping operations which include the global peace operations initiative. Department of state funding is focused on the professionalization of Partner Nation Military forces. By emphasizing professional military education at every level of an individuals career, we seek to develop professional Leaders Within the United States can work and foster enduring relationships that enable collaboration overtime. The department of state uses Foreign Military financing to Fund Training which can typically focus on tactical or operational subjects and is directly related to other programs. State funds training through peacekeeping operations, which is almost exclusively conducted in partner nations and is primarily for peacekeeping and counterterrorism, maritime security, and military professionalization purposes of selected countries. The programs i have discussed thus far are programs that rely primarily on u. S. Assistance. However, many of our allies and partners use their own money to come to the United States for d. O. D. , provided training associate with the chairman of defense articles and services under Foreign Military sales. We are responsible for ensuring transfers of defense articles and services to include the necessary training and education to ensure the effective operation and sustain mint of the systems. The role in supporting Foreign Military training executed pursuant to these authorities is to administer these programs by provide policy support to u. S. Government stakeholders who are part of the enterprise. These include geographical combatant demands and the Security Cooperation offices and embassies, the state Department Military Affairs bureau, and the military departments whose School Houses run a majority of the training and Education Programs. Support ranges from annual Security Cooperation planning conferences to issuing and maintaining d. O. D. Wide guidance for the execution of its Security Assistance and Security Cooperation programs. For example, while its not directly involved in the screening or vetting of military, students the Agency Issues policies and procedural guidance that requires International Military students to receive security and medical screening in their home countries. However, due to this unique nature of our relationships, each u. S. Ambassador determines a local security screening process for their individual host. Meanwhile, any student who comes to the United States under one of these programs is also screened unvetted to determine their eligibility for a u. S. Visa. The visa application process include screening against bio graphic and biometric databases and inter agency counterterrorism tech and at 37 posts worldwide including those in saudi arabia, screening by an immigration and Customs EnforcementHomeland Security investigations and visa security unit. The department of state and the officers of the under secretary of defense for intelligence and policy, the military departments, and our foreign partners are all critical to ensuring the success of our Foreign MilitaryTraining Programs and we have been working hand in hand to update process ease and policy guidance in response to the events in pensacola. In closing, i want to reiterate how invaluable Foreign MilitaryTraining Programs are to advancing our National Security objectives. InterNational Military students are here as student visitors to learn skills and professions but also to learn about our people, our culture, and our values. This cannot be overstated. The human relationships forged between our respective military members from a long term defense and strategic relationship, increase our inoperable italy and enable partners to contribute to our shared security objectives over the longterm. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We will go ahead with our rounds of questions. We will get as many questions in as we can prior to breaking for the vote. I will go ahead and start with a couple of questions about acquisition of weapons in the United States. Mr. Reed in general hooper, thank you again for being here today to testify. This is an important topic. I would like to begin by talking about the ability of for National Military students to acquire weapons in the United States. According to the fbi, the pensacola shooter used a hunting license to legally purchase a nine millimeter block 45 pistol. Mystery, can you discuss the ways in which foreign nationals, foreign students can obtain a weapon either on or off a military base . Thank, you madam chair. As we mentioned, we had variances in our policies that did not specifically prescribe International Militaries to do this from obtaining, purchasing, handling firearms where they were enrolled in the training. Secretary esper has issued new guns that makes that clear, and is a condition of them accepting the opportunity to train and the United States going forward. They will sign this acknowledgment statement that they are no longer, regardless of any state, local, federal laws, they are prescribed by the secretary as a sponsor of that trainee. We have put that in place. With regard to the shooter in pensacola, as you noted, and you have likely seen the same things i have coming out of the fbi and atf, most states in this country, if you have a valid hunting license, there is no further requirement for any documentation. That seems to go against other statutes that prescribe non immigrant visa holders from doing that. I am not an expert on either one of these areas, but we understand that to be the case. We are working with atf right now, i believe from our department, we intend to put forward changes to legislation to close down what looks like a loophol there. I understand that atf is looking at a very similar process. All of this we are talking about the legal purchase. But if you know a little bit about firearms in general, purchasing from an individual is different than purchasing from a firearms dealer. Many of these restrictions we just talked about very when it is just individual to individual sales. And then that doesnt even get into the non legal acquisition of firearms. So there are clearly many ways in this country to obtain a firearm. What we have taken action on as to make it clear to our military partners that any use of firearms while theyre here in training, first of all they are prescribed from the purchasing as we mentioned, we acknowledge that there are many traditions on many of our bases for skied shooting and other firearms related sport activities. The secretary has granted the installation commanders a discretion to approve those actions, should they comport with and be consistent with the training environment, and should there be no other reason for the commander to disapprove that, we put that down in their hands to do that, different from the acquisition of the weapon that we already talked about. We have not completely prohibited any of them from ever handling a firearm, we have received concerns from many members and partner nations about some of the sport activities and we are open minded about how those possibilities may work in the future, but they will be at the discretion of the local commander and what that awareness on a limited by specifically approved basis. Certainly, i dont believe that for a School Activity or sporting activity, most of the training may require different weapons to be handled, but certainly that would be different than the acquisition of a weapon. My time is expiring. I would like to move on to your Ranking Member peters for questions, and then we will go on to the other members of the subcommittee. Thank, you madam chair. I just want to follow up on your answer about dealing with firearms. How will that be enforced . You do testified that its easy to get a firearm in the United States right now. Even when you have this prohibition, how are you going to be working with state and local authorities to actually enforce it . Thats my first question. The second part is, even legal purchases, you mentioned person to person, but under our background check laws, roughly 40 of weapons are sold without any kind of background check if you do it online or the gun show. So how are you going to deal with those challenges . Thank you, senator peters. We are coming out of from a couple of angles. Working with the atf, working within the enterprise that forms the system. There are pathways for us to create learning functions within certain populations. We are exploring that. But as you already mentioned, it is not going to stop everything. Within our own department, we have put in place additional programs and procedures going down at the installation level with our Insider Threat programs, training and educating the full student population on things that would be indicators of nefarious or undesirable behaviors, including such as off book firearms activity. We have put some filters in place so our entire student body and khadr a are more attuned to recognizing where there may be indicators of this behavior. We are also, and general hooper can describe this better, putting in additional measures with the host nation governments, particularly the saudi government, on training controls and supervision of the training population. That will give us an additional layer of observation. So we are tackling it in that, way and through the technical side working within the legal framework. Let me pick up on that. Has saudi arabia made any commitments to respect to vetting their personnel before they actually are sent to the United States . If i heard your testimony correct, this individual was posting things on social media prior to coming to the United States . Is that accurate . I will go to the first part. Through the investigation, the fbi uncovered that the attacker had posted in the months, a few months preceding the attack, some jihadist type of rhetoric. I am not aware of any posting by this person before they came here. If you want to address the government . As to the first part of your question, the answer to your question is yes. The saudis have agreed to do a number of things differently. They have been very willing to work with the United States on improving their own internal vetting process ease. This includes increased psychological and behavioral testing, prior to uncover ideological, social, or family issues or anxieties. Theyre also providing their nominations with us, to us ahead of time with greater lead time to allow our own u. S. Vetting sufficient time to operate. Finally, we will be asking saudis to consider the individuals personal opinions or attitudes towards the u. S. Government, u. S. Officials, u. S. Policies, and western culture, and respect for persons of different race, gender, religion, national origin, or Sexual Orientation went screening them for training in the United States. You mentioned that right now the focus is surrounding all current saudi personnel in the United States, and then eventually it will go into the entire population. How are you prioritizing that . Senator, we are about two thirds of the way through the roughly 5000 population currently in the country. We are prioritizing on a basis of our terrorism high threat categorization that comes out of the director for national intelligence, of our high threat terrorism locations correlating that with the student populations and working that as a priority. And then you will engage in Continuous Monitoring . Can you walk me through how you plan to continuously monitor these 5000 individuals . From the technical point of view, the database search functions that have already described, we have the ability to query and to set alerts for within those data sets, much like we do for our own continuous vetting population for our own National Security populations. We are additionally pursuing and working through a pilot right now on a social Media Monitoring and alerting function through commercial vendors. We have had a lot of people offer that to, us and i will tell, you when we put it to the test and try to do it on scale, you sometimes are dissatisfied with the fidelity of the results. Anytime we are talking about social media, you have a host of issues about Identity Resolution that matching that to a person and the credibility of information. But we are pursuing that at the direction of the secretary to be more proactively monitoring on social media. Some of the databases we are already monitoring derived from some social media sources, but its not comprehensive. We are pursuing that. The third means of monitoring is the Non Technical means that are already described, which would be through our Insider Threat awareness programs that exist at the installation. Thank you. Thank you for holding this hearing, senator ernst. This happened in my home state. One thing that has surprised me is why dont people call this terrorism . Nobody wants to use the word terrorism, and clearly this was someone who posted jihadist information and clearly was anti america. But people want to talk about this being an incident or Something Like that. I dont know anyone could think it wasnt terrorism. Why is there a reluctance to call this terrorism . I can speak for myself but also for the department. We fully recognize the conclusions of the attorney general that this was an act of terrorism. I know within the department of the navy and the honors and recognitions they bestowed upon the three fallen sailors, they recognize they fell at the hands of a terrorist attack. I have not experienced any prospect on our side, and if i refer to it differently was not to downplay the fact it was a terrorist incident. Does the department feel like if you call it terrorism it hurts what we are trying to do . Sir, i concur with my colleague. It has been on we identified as an act of terrorism. So when everybody talks about is having training here build longterm relationships and that, it sounds really good. My concern is when you talk to people that have been part of this, there is a lot of countries that participated and they will say that there are countries where we have long term relationships after the fact because we trained together, but i am not to date finding one person who said they had a long term relationship with saudi nationals that they trained with. I think all of us know the importance of our relationship with saudi arabia. Its an ally. Its someone we rely on to work within the middle east. But is there, should we look at countries differently . Because if you listen to your testimony, especially your, as general, you talk a lot about the importance of this relationship. I hear that. But i never hear that about saudi arabia. Are there countries that we ought to say maybe we should not be doing this or there is Something Different that we ought to be doing, we should do more of it in their home country, things like that . Sir, an answer to your question, the defense chief from saudi arabia and i have had multiple discussions about this perception of saudi students in pensacola and it other installations. He has expressed his concern over this, and he has come to us with solutions on how the saudis intend to address this. Then i will discuss how we intend to address this issue. Among the steps the saudis have committed to our increased cultural Awareness Training before their students began training in the United States, to increase their security religious, ideological awareness and u. S. Personnel will deliver part of this training. Second, we will be distributing a code of conduct, and they will be distributing a code of conduct detailing what the kingdom of leadership expects of their students while in the United States. There will be increased to provision of saudi students by both local Liaison Officers and more personal engagement and oversight by the Saudi Defense, who is a senior Saudi Defense official in the United States. We are working with the saudis to ensure that the Liaison Officers are sufficiently senior and rank, to ensure their effectiveness and authority in this role. I can tell you personally that in consultation with the navy, i have spoken to saudi leadership, we will not accept anything less than a colonel at pensacola, a saudi colonel to be the liaison at pensacola. The department of defense and collaboration of the department of state has reviewed existing standards of conduct for International Military students and has transmitted to saudi arabia conduct expectations documents to further inform the vetting. Beyond just these dos and donts, the explanation of department of defense expectations emphasizes the importance of attitudes, to your point, towards the United States and respectful purchase of all backgrounds. The department is reviewing our International StudentSponsorship Program to determine how to increase saudi participation. These programs will further promote cultural awareness and strengthen relationships among saudi u. S. And other International Military students. These are unique steps we are taking with respect to this perception you have articulated about saudi students. I know my time is, up but i will have other time later. We will have additional time. The vote has been called, so this will be a natural breaking point. We will go ahead and transition. Senator scott, i will go vote. Senator peters has already moved that direction. We will reconvene as soon as i return, and we will start on the closed portion of the hearing. Thank you