Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 2015032

Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20150323

And that also and this is very important and this gets back to the earlier discussion of sequester if its in the base budget, it is the base upon which we build our future budgets, and we need stability. We need a horizon so that we know what our budget is going to be not only this year but in years to come. Otherwise, we cant spend it efficiently, and we cant spend it strategically. We need that kind of horizon and sequester is what robs us of that, and thats why its bad in a manage yearal sense for anybody who has their budget sequestered. General dempsey, do you want to speak to that and perhaps its affect on readiness . As you know, weve been trying to dig out of a readiness hole. We said three or four years ago if the wars in iraq and afghanistan ended then it would take us three or four years to recover our readiness because we were ready for ten years for a particular kind ever conflict, which you know better than most. And so we had to kind of recapture our credentials for other kinds of military missions to include highend and sequestration, when it hit us last time, readiness tends to suffer a deeper impact because you have to go get the money where you can get it, and some cases you cant get it in man power, you cant shed it quickly enough. You cant shed excess infrastructure quickly enough. You sometimes cant terminate contracts because of the penalties involved. You end up taking more than you should out of readiness. So, yeah i do think readiness always suffers more than we think. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, you know, i share the concerns of my colleagues and other defense officials in terms of the detriments of sequestration, but i also am interested in implications for money that is also spent in wasteful and inefficient ways. Specifically, im thinking about the fact that we really dont know the kind of money that we are spending when it comes to service contractors, and there is still yet to be enterprisewide contract man power reporting application under your own documentation. I believe the goal was to have 95 compliance by 2018. I dont think youre probably going to make that goal. So despite the numerous commitments from senior level dod officials, can you tell me when you were restart work on the ecmra when youre going to use accepted army methodology, and when will you be insisting on compliance from the components and agencies to ensure inventory is used to inform and review Decision Makings on taxpayer dollar spent in the department . Well, thank you for that, and some of the detail ill have to supply to you separately. Thats fine. But the general point that youre raising is our trade craft and excellence in the acquisition of services and ill just Say Something for everyones benefit that you know, which is half of the money that dod contracts is not for goods, its for services. And so as we talk about acquisition reform and improving our game, we need to improve our how we acquire services as well, and the initiatives you cite are some of the ways in which were trying to improve our performance and our trade craft and the acquisition of services because thats half of our spend. Right. And ill give you that the question for answering on the record. Will do. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary, mr. Chairman, thank you for being here. Thank you for all your hard and diligent work. Mr. Secretary, welcome. Were all very pleased and very happy that youre in your position. You do have very difficult times and issues as the chairman was indicating, in the world view we see in front of us. We need some plain answers and talk on the issue of this budget. Chairman dempsey we had a brief conversation about this. So let me tell you where we are and then tell you why we need your help. Right now the president had submitted a budget that had a base amount of 561 and our Budget Committee is currently marking up a budget with the base of 523. Theyre indicating they want to make up the difference to that jagged edge of the lowered number, as you said mr. Chairman by koko so the aggregate number would be somewhere around 613. You sort of said however, you cobble it together, but how you cobble it together does make a difference. I would like you to help us with this. I have told the Budget Committee that making up with oko does not work. 70 members of the house signed a letter and sent it to the Budget Committee asking to honor the base budget number of 561 that the president asked for. What i have said to the Budget Committee is they should ask you guys, so this is my asking you guys, help us. Mr. Secretary, you said that one, it affects because based upon this is the basis upon which you build your next budget. Thats certainly important. But we dont need to hear that its an issue of rather. I think there are structural issues as miss duckworth was going to that could impede your ability to access the funds. One the National Defense authorization didnt marked up until december. Your fiscal year begins in the fall. Tell us why a base of 523 with an oko of 90plus billion doesnt work or youre going to be facing that. Ill start first and then chairman. It doesnt work because to have the defense we need and the strategy that we have laid out, we need the budget that we have laid out, not just in one year but in the years to come, and so budgeting one year at a time, and this proposal is a one year at a time thing, doesnt work for National Defense. Its not going to permit us to carry out the strategy as weve planned. Mr. Secretary, one more thing to jump in because you said that point before. You said that the president would veto a bill that legislates sequestration. If we pass a budget that has 523 as the base and we send you a National Defense authorization act that is a base of 523 with oko of 90plus billion is that within that veto threat . I think what the president meant was that a budget that did not relieve sequestration, that is give a multiyear perspective for the budget he would veto not just for defense but as had been mentioned earlier for others as well. Okay. Now, getting to but mr. Chairman, oko, mr. Secretary, there are restrictions. If we dont lift those restrictions in our bill, the nda doesnt get passed until december and your fiscal year begins before that. Wont you have a period of time almost a quarter of a year, where you cant use the money . Yes. If this is done without an appropriation that is in line with it, youre right, we would have that problem, and i think your earlier point too, the question about whether this approach being proposed by the House Committee would be acceptable to the senate or to the president , the uncertainty about whether this would even work for this year is another one of the problems with that approach. So you guys have 40 more seconds if you want to tell the congress why they shouldnt do this, you should do it now because otherwise you will be facing this. Im not going to tell the congress why they shouldnt do it. The Congress Makes its own decisions with my advice. My advice is we need to fix our base budget because you build the institution through the base budget, and you respond to contingencies with the fund called other contingency operations. In the context of a fiveyear future defense plan and we wont have the kind of certainty we need over that period if the current strategy is followed. But, look, as you heard the service chief say, you know, were at the point where this is better than nothing, but, frankly, it doesnt do what we should be doing for defense in a predictable fashion. Thank you. And id mention to the gentleman, its going to be before december before we have a Defense Authorization bill this year. Senator mccain and i are determined to move i know its different than weve had in the past, but its going to move a whole lot quicker. Mr. Orourke. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, you said in your opening comments that you would never send our men and women into harms way without the necessary readiness the necessary equipment, and the necessary docdoctrine. I think you would agree we not send nem in harms way without the necessary strategy. Im having a very difficult time in light of the six months during which weve been at war in iraq and syria against isis and in light of the president s authorization for the use of military force or aumf that is now before this congress for consideration, im having a very hard time understanding what the strategy is and i want to make sure that as my colleagues have said, that we fund our military well beyond the budget caps and the sequester levels. I agree with them there, but i think perhaps more importantly that we have the necessary strategy in place so that their efforts, those men and women serving this country and our interests overseas are not in vain. Could you answer the strategy question for me . Certainly. First of all strategy is does take in addition to geographic perspective a multiyear perspective and a multiyear commitment, which is why annual budgetary turmoil isnt consistent with our strategy and taking a strategic view. With respect to the strategy against isil and defeating isil, in iraq the i think the first thing id say is that we not only need to defeat isil we need to defeat them in a lasting manner, and thats always the difficult part. We can defeat isil, but defeating them in a lasting manner means having somebody on the ground who keeps them defeated after we assist them in the defeat. On the iraq iraq side of the border, thats oon iraqi force if i can interrupt there, well just take the iraqi portion of this. Okay. From my understanding based on the testimony from the excellent series of hearings that the chairman has brought before us our strategy there largely relies on training, equipping, and advising the Iraqi National army. We have spent tens of billions of dollars doing just that from 2003 to 2010 to awful effect. The army melted in the face of a Farley Farley far inferior enemy. What is different about our strategy today thats going to ensure our success . Well, it will hinge as it did then, upon a multisectarian approach by the government of iraq. Without that it cannot succeed, and what happened to the Iraqi Security forces a year ago was that they collapsed because sectarianism had taken root in the government of iraq and the people who lived in the regions that were swept over by isil were not willing to accept or support the Iraqi Security forces as they were then configured. They need to be configured in a nonsectarian manner or multisectarian manner or it wont be possible to have that lasting defeat of isil on the iraqi side of the border. Its as critical now as it was last year. Mr. Secretary with all due respect, the strategy in so far as we understand it today i think is insufficient to achieving the president s aims of degrading and destroying isis, to your aims of ensuring a lasting defeat of isis. I think if were honest with ourselves and the American Public and the Service Members who will act out the policies of this country, if we are going to achieve those aims we are going to need u. S. Ground forces in iraq and syria. We cannot depend on a syrian moderate opposition force. We cannot depend on the political whims of the different sectarian factions in iraq. We should not depend on Iranianbacked Shia militias in this country. Lets be honest about what its going to take to do it, and with todays topic of the budget in mind, do we have the resources necessary in the president s request to support Ground Forces to achieve our tactical and strategic goals in syria and iraq visavis isis . Ill answer that first and then the chairman may want to add something to it. We do have the resources to support our strategy. The one ingredient, very important ingredient you left out was air power, and we are applying air power in a very effective way in support of Ground Forces that are not u. S. Ground forces but that are local Ground Forces because we want a lasting defeat of isil and only local forces on the ground can impose a lasting defeat, and thats our strategy. Chairman . And if i could just in the interests of time, chairman, i will take this for the record because i do think that the strategic advantage we have is the coalition and i think that will eventually be the path to an enduring defeat, but ill take it for the record. Thank you both. Mr. Rogers. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here. Secretary carter, i want to start off with a shamelessly parochially issue. The amp v program which i know youre familiar with is replacing the ml 13 combat vehicle which is maintained at the army depot. Do you know who is going to make that decision and when about where the source of repair is going to be made . I do not know when that source selection will be made but ill find out and make sure we get back to you. Thank you very much. General dempsey, based on open source reporting russia is planning to put Tactical Nuclear weapons in the illegally seized territory of crimea. What is your best military advice as to how we as a nation should respond to that . Well, theres several things. I saw the same open source report. I havent seen it reflected in intelligence, and if i had i would have suggested we have this conversation in closed session. Theres other things that russia is doing that seem to be provocative in nature, and i think we have to make it very clear that things like their compliance with the inf treaty that there will be political diplomatic, and potentially military costs in terms of the way we posture ourselves and the way we plan and work with our allies to address those provocations provocations. I have seen it, it concerns me greatly. I certainly would counsel them not to roll back the clock to previous experiences, and i have had those conversations with my counterpart. Great. And this would be for secretary carter. I was very pleased a couple days after you were approved by the senate for your new position to see you publicly announce that this inf treaty violation by russia can no longer be tolerated without some kind of response. Im curious, how much longer do you think it will be before we provide some kind of response to that continued violation of the inf treaty . Our response is twofold. One is to a diplomatic one which is to try to get the russians to come back into compliance with the inf treaty, not my responsibility but an important part of it. But on the military side, we have begun to consider, and i think what our options are because the inf treaty is a treaty, meaning that its a twoway street. We accepted constraints in return for constraints of the thensoviet union. It is a twoway street and we need to remind them its a twoway street meaning that we without an inf treaty, can take action also that we both decided years ago it was best for neither of us to take. So we are looking at our alternatives in the areas of defense against the systems that they might field in violation of the inf treaty, counterforce options, and countervailing options. All of those are available to us. Were looking at all of those because the russians need to remember this is a twoway street. Well, i appreciate that. I would hope that one thing that you would consider is to modify the aegis were currently constructing in romania with the capacity to defend itself against those intermediate range missiles that they are illegally testing. Defenses are one of those the categories of response that we can consider. Thank you very much. Thats all i have, mr. Chairman. Thank you gentleman. Mr. Takai. Thank you mr. Chairman and welcome mr. Secretary and nice to see you again general. I wanted to ask a little bit about whats happening in hawaii. Theres been a lot of walk regarding the drastic reductions in army troop levels, which i believe actually is contrary to the defense strategic guidance that called for the rebalance or the shift to the pacific. So mr. Secretary, does the president s fisal year 16 budget request provide you with the capabilities and the resources to conduct a rebalance to the pacific and how would drastic reductions in this theater affect this capability . Well, it does provide for the rebalance, but i want to second what the chairman said, which is we are on the ragged edge of being able to satisfy all the ingredients of our strategy of which the asiapacific rebalance is a central ingredient. So if we dont get some budget stability and we keep doing things one year at a time and one piece at a time we are going to have to reconsider our strategy. The way i put it earlier is not just the size but the shape. Now, i would hope that our rebalance to the asiapacific is something that we are able to sustain, and in our budget and our multiyear budget plan, we are able to sustain it. But under sequester and in one year at a time fashion, as the chairman said, were on the ragged edge in our strategy, and something will have to give. Okay. Thank you. And mr. Secretary, the other purpose of this hearing is to talk about the president s request, the aumf request. So i wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about that and ask you to clarify some aspects of the request. In subsection c called limitations, it says the authority granted in subsection a does not authorize the use of the United States armed forces in, quote, enduring offensive Ground Combat operations. So what is enduring offensive Ground Combat operations . Does this refer to the length of time which the operation is ongoing, the scope of the operations, some undefined relationship between time and scope . Well, thanks. The aumf for me as secretary of defense, two things are important in the aumf. One is that it gives us the flexibility to carry out our campaign, and that speaks to the provision you quote and ill come back to that in a minute but the other is that it is a past up here on capitol hill in a way that says very clearly to our men and women who are conducting the campaign against isil that the country is behind them. Thats very important to me. Both the content of the aumf and that its supported widely in the congress. To get to the provisions of it, the aumf doesnt try to say everything that is permitted. Instead, which is i think wise because for the chairman and me we need the flexibili

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