to washington the way u.s. defense secretary james mattis is making comments to the press assistant news chairman of the senate armed service committee in all he did senator mccain never lost sight of our shared purpose in defense of freedom for in his words and i quote a shared purpose does not claim our identity it in a largish on the contrary it enlarges your sense of self so our nation is lost a great patriot and our military has lost one of our most ardent supporters the fiscal year nineteen national defense authorization act is named for senator mccain and it meets all of d.o.d.'s critical needs the earliest passage in the legislative

calendar this marks the first time since one nine hundred seventy seven we had this x.i.i. and surely we had eighty seven percent of the members of the house of representatives in the senate voting in favor of it this demonstrates that the defense of our republican joy is overwhelming bipartisan support and now that congress has done our its part and we are grateful to the american taxpayers it's now d.o.d.'s duty to spend the fund responsibly as we rebuild readiness to invest in critical capabilities for future defense we will be rigorously examining our spending plantain our audit d.o.d.'s first is in full swing as we have stated before we are witnessing a world that is awash in change and maintaining readiness in the face of looming threats is a responsibility that we owe the next generation. today i want to show how dio dia

is working to meet those challenges we're going to put our activities into strategic framework that we have provided in the national defense strategy and we have three lines of effort the first one is increasingly thousand the second line of effort is strengthening our alliances and building new partnerships internationally and finally reforming the way the department does business to get the best use of the dollars first on building a more lethal force we have no room for complacency in any domain we recognize cyberspace and outerspace as we're fighting to mange on par with air land and sea and these two domains cyber space in outer space for made contested to mainz by the actions of others so as a result we have elevated cyber command to full combat and command status and we

have worked with congress in the white house to define the evolving space problem that we confront now where you're i'm implementing the national center authorization act and it's provision for unified space command in line with the president's vision for a needed space force while revising our vision for defending our assets in space and revising antiquated space acquisition processes we are working now with congress on our way ahead with regard to needed legislation for a separate department in other adaptations we've established a joint artificial intelligence center to experiment new concepts while drawing synergy from separate programs for this potentially game changing capability we have created the close combat lethality task force to accelerate the fielding of advantage quitman and to train our war fighters up to speed of relevance for the

battlefield they confront. we have released our nuclear posture review outlining the necessary steps we are taking to strengthen america's nuclear deterrence so these weapons are never used nuclear war being a war that cannot be won and must never be fought and at the same time we are working with the department of state to determine how to advance arms control where possible we have implemented new standards to improve deploy ability of our forces so they are ready to fight and win at any time across the need domain current and future readiness will be enhanced by this focus we have an enhanced seen advanced lethality my travel schedule indicate just how seriously i take our second line of effort strengthening alliances and partnerships i have visited fifty seven countries so far as secretary of defense our goal is to improve consultation

cooperation and burden sharing so we can best deter the threats and the competition i mentioned earlier because we are stronger alongside like minded nations i recently returned from south america where i met with leaders in brazil argentina chile and colombia and i'm reminded that despite the problems we had minutely face here in our hemisphere we are fortunate to see increasingly an island of democratic stability and growing prosperity in an unstable world from ottawa descent to go and way to cyrus there are exceptions and we know them venezuela cuba nicaragua even castro knows now that the cuban model doesn't work even for cuba anymore or for anyone else as venezuela's material is finding out. but democracy is working and we will be continuing to work with our friends from ottawa

to the southern tip of south america for cooperation is critical for realizing the shared vision of democracy prosperity and security we are working with colombia ecuador and others to schedule our hospital ship the u.s. naval ship comfort to help our friends dealing with millions of poor venezuelans fleeing their country as we witness the human cost of materials increasingly isolated regime and we will stand with those people and our friends our neighbors clearly want closer relations with us and we will work with them to realize our shared vision for the region we are also bolstering relationships across the atlantic as we look to the lesson to the past as we look back at the national security council policy paper from one nine hundred fifty three where it said freedom and security of the free nation to direct and the central contribution to

the maintenance of our own freedom and security went on to say that building up the strength cohesion and common determination of the free world benefits all that's month that nato summit we reinforced that message and it yielded tangible results discussion for a candid and they went to the heart of burden sharing issues several of my counterparts told me it was the most productive meeting they'd attended. all twenty nine members now are spending more on defense in nato no longer is the question one of reducing defense budgets as it was since the fall of the berlin wall until the end of the two thousands no longer is the question of whether to spend more the only question is now or how much to increase and by when already committed to spending two percent of g.d.p. on defense by two thousand and twenty four we also gained unity ladies and gentleman on the needed command structure that we had to reform there are two new

headquarters one of them hosted by germany and one that we hosted in norfolk and we also gain full commitment to what we call the four thirty s. thirty air squadrons thirty naval ships thirty combat battalions all available to fight within thirty days that is a well established and quantifiable goal now we also received commitments of a plus up of over one thousand and nine u.s. coalition allied forces to the nato led afghanistan mission looking to the indo-pacific we are bolstering existing alliances while forging new partnerships among like minded nations twenty five nations participated in this year's rim pack exercise hosted by the u.s. pacific fleet the largest naval exercise in the world it was emblematic of the refreshed military relationships in that the chilean navy commanded the maritime

element and this is the first time a latin american country in the history of this exercise has done so. we also continue to work closely with allies and our diplomats lead the effort to denuclearize the korean peninsula we keep a clear eyed view of the challenges working together in support of the unanimous un security council resolutions to economically sanction the d.p. r. k. the sanction enforcement patrols today are international patrols we continue to build stronger friendships across the region and all of our actions reinforce the vision of a free open inclusive and prosperous indo-pacific where nations large and small are free from coercion in south asia we continue to work by with and through allies and partners in pursuit of peace and two additional countries are now joined the nato led campaign in afghanistan as partner nations that united arab emirates and qatar

and thirty two of the thirty nine nations which have already committed force it to the mission agreed to either increase or sustain the current force levels through twenty nineteenth we are fully supporting afghan led and afghan owned reconciliation efforts and hard fighting is going on to convince the taliban they must negotiate a recent statement by a taliban leader made specific mention of negotiations as a way to bring and i quote here an end to the war unquote this is one of the most forward leaning statements made yet by a taliban supreme leader even as they conduct attacks designed to garner press attention cost in lives and they are now stripped however of any relief religious guide for an inhumane campaign against the afghan people clerical groups in saudi arabia kabul carda have all encouraged the ceasefire efforts and as they are

showing a way to end the war through this afghan led reconciliation process. in the mideast the defeat isis coalition continued to make strides liberated isis held territory in iraq and diminished the physical caliphate in syria i believe that this is down now to less than two percent of the land they want controlled even as we recognize the fight is not over as we strengthen our partnerships abroad the department is also looking inward to reform how we do business and that is our third line of effort we understand we cannot have lasting security for a country without solvency we are conducting the first audit in the department's history and i want that audit to find problems it's the only way we will be able to craft effective solutions this ensures we uphold the trust the congress new american people have placed in us to spend their tax dollars wisely and other

reform efforts d.o.d.'s realize nearly four billion dollars in savings and if i eighteen so we can apply it to more lethality we initiated the repeal of seven several hundred unnecessary regulations across the department in hansen ari fish and sea and making it easier for industry to work with us and without compromising performance or accountability we embraced and finalized the congressionally directed split between our acquisition in sustainment and our research and engineering offices to ensure our war fighters have the technology and equipment they need both on the battlefield up today as well as tomorrow the bottom line is making significant progress along our three strategic lines of effort our strategic framework has proven applicable across our far flung departments operations and we will continue to drive results in the months and years ahead. on

a couple of other issues on madni this is the program laden gelman designed to enlist immigrants with needed skills. the issues with the program are not about immigration they are about national security we need and want every qualified patriot willing to serve and able to serve two years ago and twenty sixteen and independent i.g. investigation raised security concerns with many applicants resulted in the suspension of new applicants that year d.o.d. had been working diligently to complete the screens that were directed by the i.g. investigation for those already in the pipeline for the roughly six thousand who have served are currently serving reveries only cleared just purely processed under magni thus far the u.s. military welcomes them as critical and valued members of our armed forces. on yemen

we support our partners saudi arabia's sovereign right to self-defense and we recognize the end of the conflict requires a political solution and both state department and department of defense are working closely with the un special envoy martin griffin in that regard we are also working closely with the coalition that is fighting to support the un recognized government and or determine what went wrong with errant bombing attacks and prevent their recurrence with that let me pass the mike to the chairman to general dunford for an overview of what our men and women are doing around the world and how d.o.d.'s turning budget dollars into joint readiness and capability done for good morning ladies and gentlemen like to begin by reinforcing the secretary's comments on senator mccain our thoughts and prayers are with his family as a naval officer and as a member of congress he was a lifelong and tireless advocate for the men and women of the u.s.

military when we mourn senator mccain's passing will be eternally grateful for his distinguished service in his courageous example before we take your questions i'll highlight some of the ongoing operations in exercises across our geographic combatant commands her priority in the indo-pacific command is supporting the state department led diplomatic and economic efforts aimed at denuclearization of the korean peninsula twenty eight thousand u.s. military personnel are stationed on the peninsula demonstrating our commitment to the alliance and deterring north korean aggression we're also conducting air and maritime operations to disrupt ship to ship transfers of fuel in violation of un sanctions against the d.p. r. k. and we're doing this in conjunction with allies and partners. across the in the pacific command u.s. military forces work on a day to day basis with allies and partners to preserve a rules based international order that's consistent with their interests in dope a com also has exercise programs in thirty one nations to train advise and assist

partner forces in internal security counter-narcotics and counterterrorism operations and the central command remain focused on our mission in afghanistan the defeat isis campaign in iraq and syria and countering iran's destabilizing influence across the region approximately fourteen thousand u.s. military personnel deployed to afghanistan as part of operation freedom sentinel and nato as operation resolute support our primary mission remains countering terrorist threats to the united states armed forces alongside forces from forty nato and partner nations are also training advising and assisting over three hundred thousand afghan forces who are responsible for security in afghanistan and iraq and syria were operating as part of a seventy seven member defeat isis coalition in syria two thousand u.s. and additional coalition forces are working to enable the fifty thousand syrian

democratic forces in clearing the remainder of isis in euphrates river valley and it stabilizing those areas that have been cleared of isis in iraq the priority is supporting iraqi security forces to ensure that the success they have had against isis is enduring. in the european command we're enhancing our alliances in deterring russian aggression through enhanced forward presence in other force posture initiatives we also have a robust exercise and training program enabled by the european defense initiative this year we've conducted thirteen joint exercises in europe in addition to a wide range of service pacific training in engagement in africa manned proximately seventy two hundred u.s. forces are supporting thousands more african military partners in providing for their own security and conducting counterterrorist operations against isis and al qaeda affiliates our efforts include developing security forces in somalia countering isis in libya and supporting partners in this so how and lake chad

regions in the u.s. southern command were also working to deepen our security relationships in addressing regional challenges and threats as the secretary mentioned the u.s. navy hospital ship comfort will soon deploy to relieve the pressure of increased population flows from venezuela and finally here at home the u.s. northern command has sixteen hundred d.o.d. personnel and thirty three aircraft working to suppress wildfires in the western states well more than two thousand guardsmen to supporting homeland security on the southern border the northern command also provides around the clock ballistic missile defense will americans and canadians from the north american air defense command defend or airspace even while meeting today's requirements the combatant commanders and the services are adapting and innovating our efforts include a series of globally integrated exercises and experiments to help shape the force will need to fight and win the moral in closing i believe in that you can see that your men and women in uniform

a busy and we're very proud of them but we don't do any of this alone as the secretary said we're grateful for congress who support expressed in the bipartisan national defense authorization act in all that we do we work alongside our allies and partners our source of strength thank you. thank you mr secretary you mentioned yemen. today there was a report for the u.n. that said that the coalition of the yemeni government beirut may be responsible for war crimes my question is how do you justify continued american investment of support and american credibility in a coalition that has produced such problematic results which in cracked of a car drives by some as a humanitarian disaster well the reality is that that battlefield is a humanitarian field and we recognize the tragedy there that's why emphasize that we are working with the u.n. special envoy to try and this to drive this to a u.n.

brokered negotiation. but we did review the support for the arab coalition when we came into office as you know it was started before we arrived here we reviewed it we determined that it would be the right thing to do to support them in the defense of their own countries but also to restore the rightful government there is in effect what is what is going on our conduct there he had to try to keep the human cost of innocents being killed accidentally to the absolute minimum that is what are our goal where we engage with the coalition in yemen in a as a general statement we stay out of the war ourselves and we are focused on defeating ice just an al qaeda in the arabian peninsula that's what we do where we conduct operations so again our goal is to reduce this

tragedy and to get it to the u.n. brokered table as quickly as possible considering given what's happened recently are you reconsidering or considering reviewing again american support we are constantly reviewing what support we are given yes. we also had an army lieutenant general in riyadh almost immediately following the early august credit. to convey our concerns and asked for a swift and complete investigation and we will continue to do everything we can to limit this kind of tragedy but the most effective way is to get this to a u.n. brokered negotiations the question of general dunford could you bring us up to date on the training with turkey on the joint patrols and where that step sure about two months ago we began to work with the turks more broadly than the security in northern syria to focus on man bridge those two phases one is independent patrols

with coordination and communication between turkish forces u.s. and coalition forces second phase being combined patrols we are now conducting the independent patrols with communication between the turks and we're still planning with the turks for combined patrols in order to do combined patrols one we need a command control construct set up we need joint training to be done in turkey and we need agreement on rules of engagement and other details that are patrolling and that's ongoing here that is ongoing you know we're both satisfied that is the turks and the united states with the pace of our planning most importantly security is being provided in syria we're talking about making some refinements about security in the future. mr secretary and. general dunford first i want to ask you about syria and russia are you concerned that the russians may stand aside and let the syrians move chemical weapons capability into the living area for which everyone agrees is an upcoming the summer time including can

you tell us anything about what the u.s. may be doing to pressure the russians to keep the syrians from doing that temperature temperate very quickly. according to iranian news agencies the head of the navy's. it was your guard who were there said yesterday that the wrong one has full control of the call and that the u.s. navy does not belong anymore in the persian gulf i'm just wondering if you have a response for the iranian revolutionary guard on that point barbara on on the chemical weapons you have seen our administration at twice on the use of chemical weapons your question goes really to the heart of the issue i will assure you that department of state has been in active communication recent active communication with russia to enlist them in preventing this but i'll just leave it at that for right now but it is the communication is going on. for decades our forces have been

postured in the gulf to ensure freedom of navigation and will continue to do that. please go ahead thank you mr secretary and general dunford this question is for both of you give out to install the seventeen commander for u.s. forces in afghanistan and my question is at what point is it right to call this what it might look like a permit us presence in afghanistan and then secondly given the should we try to post hundreds of thousands and very small footprints of troops in afghanistan to get to negotiate peace. is there any advantage to privatizing a force if there's going to be boots on the ground for the forseeable future when the american put put their nation credibility on the line privatizing it is probably not a wise idea but as far as a permanent us president number one there's thirty nine nations there supporting the u.n. recognized government it's not a u.s.

presence alone or and it shouldn't be implied that way we are there in order to ensure that america's security and just think back to nine eleven in this building that america's security is not threatened out of that that location that involves the afghan people be. and in control of their own future this is why we talk about an afghan led afghan owned reconciliation process and we believe that the best way to get there is do ensure taliban recognizes they can't win on the battlefield they must negotiate. go ahead joe thank you mr secretary of state when we please get general and bring your thoughts on this is one look he said is it is going to be a permanent presence what i would tell you terror is that we have permanent interests in south asia diplomatic interests security interests and we're going to we're going to maintain a presence to have influence in that region the diplomatic presence security and security presence in the form of that presence is going to change over time you know as an example just a few years ago we had over one hundred thousand u.s.

forces in afghanistan in today we have forth about about fourteen thousand so they'll be a permanent diplomatic mission in afghanistan to be permanent diplomatic presence across south asia but i certainly don't expect that the current forces that we have in afghanistan represents an enduring large military commitment they feel that i do not like to fight back to my comics and now i have my question to them and i think you could present a democracy here too. thank you grit president trump on june thirteenth said quote there is no longer a nuclear threat from north korea and quote this depends go on said assessment. you know time you're asking for a. straightforward answer on a complex subject the bottom line is there was progress made the whole world saw that progress when the two leaders sat down we also knew very clearly this

was going to be a long and challenging effort to negotiate this away if you know that war began in one nine hundred fifty and has never ended so we're engaged in the process and we stay with the diplomatically led process our job is to support the diplomats in times by north korea it's the need. i prefer to leave since this is all right a nonsectarian pompei all shoulders prefer to leave the state department in the in the position to add to these questions we stay in a are supporting role. go ahead. sector i just want to pin you down a little bit on the yemen answer you get from people is it fair for us to think that the u.s. is willing now to curtail or at least hold the saudi led coalition that's willing to curtail support should things not change and to general dunford i want to ask you if possible about something you don't really talk about which is your communications with your russian counterpart general gerasim office since the

russians confirmed that they had asked about refugees and reconstruction i just want to ask what do you think that's an appropriate use of the military to military communications to you know for the last several years we have been working with the saudis and the. doing what we can to reduce any chance of of innocent people being injured or killed we recognize that we are watching a war in which the hooty led effort. involves launching weapons out of residential areas into saudi arabia we recognize the complexity of it at no time have we felt rebuffed or ignored when we bring concerns to them the training that we have given them we know has paid off we have had pilots in the air who recognize the danger of a specific mission and declined to drop even when they get the authority we have

seen staff procedures that put no fire areas around areas where there is hospitals or schools we we recognized every mistake like this is tragic in every way but we have not seen any callous disregard by the people we're working with so we will continue to work with them reduce this this tragedy. maintain the communications link with my russian counterparts for the entire time that i've been in this assignment and we do it to mitigate the risk miscalculation to manage a crises and also the d. conflict operations inside of syria the one thing we committed to early in a relationship is that we wouldn't talk publicly about the substance of our conversations to avoid a relationship becoming politicized because we do believe particularly at this critical time that maintaining that communications link is very important jennifer . it was a pretty shocking report this month about forty thousand army face having the lead

paint and affecting the children of service members and the army yesterday said they're going to investigate and it's going to cost several hundred million dollars to investigate i'd like to get your reaction when you heard about that report and what you can say to assure the mothers and parents of those children who are in their homes with possible lead paint and certain general dunford if i can just follow up on north korea is it time to restart now. terry exercises with south korea given the recent news that the north koreans are not doing the right thing jennifer i've seen the report i do not have any additional details you know the army is moving very quickly on this part of the way we make a more lethal force by ensuring the troops aren't worried about their families back at home so this is this is a moral obligation we have to the families to provide safe lodging obviously for

them and it's something we take very very seriously we've had other environmental impacts on some of our bases you've seen us work to correct those and i have absolute faith the army is moving on this quickly i spoke to the sector of the army this morning about this very issue so they're they're they're moving on it let me just talk about the policy of the suspension. of exercises on the korean peninsula as you know we took the step to suspend to several of the largest exercises as a good faith measure coming out of the singapore summit we have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises we will work very closely as i said with the secretary of state and what he needs done we will certainly do to reinforce that jeffords but at this time there is no discussion about further suspensions that mean in real terms when is the next exercise well there remember

that what we did when we suspend the exercise ladies and gentleman we suspended several of the largest exercises but we did not suspend the rest so there are ongoing exercises all the time on the peninsula the region you've not heard much about the mid north korea could not in any way misinterpret those as somehow breaking faith with the negotiation so the exercises continue. what it means in practical terms is that we're making no changes to the extras program at this time . yeah they're very ok all the way back i had to i want to return to afghanistan for a minute and ask you about the recent attacks in gaza they tell you and others have said the television failed to reach their objectives but the bottom line is fifteen hundred afghan soldiers and police fell apart and the taliban swept into guys need

in thirty four days to get them out and once again as we've seen numerous times in the past have good commandos american special forces now and if the wounded in dozens of american air strikes were necessary to get the taliban out so after all this time training and billions of dollars spent on the afghan army which is a say a vote their conscience. first of all i would not say they fell apart because there were six military objectives in gaza and they did not achieve a single one now could they go in and shoot up the red dental neighborhoods chase the police out where they outnumbered them outgunned them you know this is not this is not an easy fight we've never said it was but i don't believe that you can use this example as emblematic because if you look at where the taliban were what they were claiming they were going to.