it makes no sense to have a governor elected by the people and yet the first check on exit french rocket is not the collects its general and we are not asking that you will take a position for or against electing that position. all we are asking is that you that the people of south carolina decided. we are asking you do what was done at the time the lottery when many industry or said they were opposed to the lottery but

they believed it was such an important issue that it ought to be decided by the people of south carolina and it is our contention if it can be good enough for a lottery it can be good enough for the taxpayers chance to make decisions on the constitutional framework of the government the owner. i would say that is particularly the case in south carolina when the framework was handed to us in the 1800's based on the fear of black men in politics that is both wrong and outdated. these truths and the need to change these truths had been recognized by democrats like antoine were vince along with republicans like gary smith or tom young and i think it is vital we do something this year a bill changing the truths. so these are a simple request for this legislative term. i ask for your work on their passage and hope you will call on me to do anything in the

respective districts that might help toward that end. i would say i intended to call it quits here but as this is my last day delete christie of the state of me had a few other words of thanks as together we have made changes the last seven years that will make and have made a difference in people's lives. in fact when i ran for office eight years ago, i pledged to work to make south carolina and better place to call home. and when will this work is never done and never completed in today's global competition for jobs and capital and way of life, we have made changes in each of the areas talked about in the now dustin the campaign. when we talked about the need to improve a chance for a job, the chance to better what we brought home and building a life for a family hour even a job was the key to using one's talent there for how important it was each year we do things to make our business climate more competitive. that is why i would say i thank

you for passing the first cut the marginal income-tax rate in south carolina history. as a result of that change, $292 million has already stated the hands of small business people that would have gone to government. it has made a difference how the small businesses could have a job or even survive frankly in these tough economic times. and so if you what i would ask you offer a round of applause to the speaker and the senator who were instrumental in this passage and for that matter where he will stand up? bobby if i could and would you mind standing up again and where is jim? [applause] >> thank you for doing what you did on that. [applause] i was trying to recognize jam as well because i know he worked

hard on that one, too but thank you for passing the largest recurring tax cut in south carolina history. already to eckert $60 million have stayed in the hands of taxpayers and for the difference this will make in people's lives if you wouldn't mind what he once again give speaker harold and letterman a round of applause and for all of you in the senate and house instrumental passing that change to people's pocketbooks and wallets, would you give yourself a round of applause on that one. [applause] thank you for passing the first toward reform bill of its kind. that bill took us off the list of judicial hellholes and it's the kind of chance instrumental to better link the state's business climate and prospect for jobs so i would ask that you recognize senator larry barton and keto, where are you all? would you stand up, please be recognized. thank you. [applause]

thank you for passing the first reforms of workers' compensation system a change like that one is also just the kind of thing a business from the far looking at south carolina takes into consideration. in addition to thinking larry and harry i know scott richardson was a senator back then, scott, would you be stand it to be recognized on that one along with harriet larry? come on, there you are. [applause] thank you for passing things like the small business health care bill and i would ask you thank senators lowry and mcconnell and representative cato for making that happen if you all are getting tired of standing of -- are you getting tired of the standing of thing? [laughter] we will keep -- i have a couple for you to stand up, here's the interesting thing though, the byproduct of the changes is

evident in the record setting matched by 4 billion the year before which was matched by 19 invested in the state since 2003 or for that matter the more than 64,000 more people working today than there were when this administration started back in 2003. these numbers are not at times where we are likely to be but it's important to remember we ranked 14th in the united states of america and in employment growth and ranked ninth in the nation in labor force growth which means a lot of people voting and leaving the northeast or upper midwest coming to south carolina to seek opportunities. i think it's evident in the decisions of companies like boeing and google and starbucks and eddy thus to put roots in south carolina. it is evident in expansion of bmw or oscar, it is evident in the efforts of on some heroes working to grow and sustain small businesses like southern

aluminum and clinton or roofing in some central or that matter donner and estherville. it's evident in a lot of different fronts. we talk about change in the way that colombia works and once again we have this land where we would like to end that we have made real changes and efforts year i thank you. for too long to many votes were not recorded in the chambers and there can be no accountability with out transparency. get niki hanly and najaf and valentine in the house and harvey in the senate led efforts to change this on the simple belief is an idea was important enough to be voted on by the general assembly of south carolina, it was an idea important enough to be recorded and i thank all of you for when you did to change this and if you wouldn't mind what you get a round of applause to niki and nathan and harvey for spearheading the effort? come on, stand up. [applause]

we now have online transparency to allow taxpayers to see more directly how their money is being spent in state government and on the front would you give the comptroller general a round of applause, richard i don't know where you are you up there? he may not be here. he's watching on tv. okay. quote i will give him a round of applause on that one. [applause] we into the competitive grants program and i will leave that one alone. we ended passthroughs and came with a water faucet and fighting an executive order and court decision to boost but i know they were meaningful steps opening up our political process making it more accountable to the taxpayer. thank you for what you did here. even in the ethics committee said it couldn't be done back in 2005 we found a way to begin online disclosure so that citizens could better see where

money was coming from and going to in campaigns. we pass campaign finance reform. i had been vetoed twice during the previous administration and its passage and the wild west practice of on a limited and undisclosed amounts of money coming to a political party or political caucus and i would particularly thank jim harrison and mccaul will once again for their efforts here. thank you for what you did on that one. can we give a round of applause? i know you're getting weary of it. why not? [applause] i would thank for passing steps to improving our governmental structure that yield better results. think about this the department of transportation had not changed since 1919 and changes mean more money will go to the places of congestion and need rather than where there are fewer cars and much more on political power. larry did a great job on that one and where is annette?

stand up if you wouldn't be recognized for what you did on that one. [applause] you know the dmv story. it's important to think about the impact of people's lives on this one. we only have so much time here on earth and you can spend doing something you love or spend it on the dmv. waite times have gone from on average 66 minutes down to 16 minutes and that kind of change matters directly impacting somebody's life and for what greg did and speaker wilkins an what we emphasize this for what the staff did in increasing and fostering change would you give them a round of applause as well. [applause] we talked about improving quality-of-life, and for me and

so many others this is an important measure to the look and feel of our state and that is why i think particularly pride if you want to call it that in fact more land has been set aside during this governorship than any other in south carolina history. there's 153,000 acres will pay dividends economically in attracting and retaining people in the state and giving them a glimpse of the splendor that keeps so many of us here. i think what chip still deserves credit for what he did with conservation banks if you could recognize my old friend, fishing, hunting partner, list if you would stand and be recognized i would appreciate. [applause] i would say the quality-of-life begins with life itself. and so i went to thank each one of you for working to pass the dui reforms. over the course of this administration the fatalities due to drinking and driving have

decreased by about one third which means more than 100 people each year are able to continue in this difficult life and that would not have happened without the changes you all made so when you join me in thanking those three? where are the others? [applause] do you know we passed one of the toughest immigration reform bills in the country? it was based on the simple notion if you're going to have rules we all ought to play by the rules and it's made a difference for the families across the states and i would once again thank chip and jim harrison and mcconnell for what they did on this one. if you live on or near the coast some would define quality-of-life as able to buy insurance for your house. the coast winter and still protect taxpayers in the middle and upstate from holding the bag

on paying for storm damages as is now the case in the government-run program done in florida. as we walk in wal-mart we never get the price we want the we would get a better price as if there was no competition. this bill of the private sector to work and i would thank not only members of the task force would once again nikki and harry for what they did in advancing that one. it to you want to stand again or want us to class at you? we are going to clap at you. all right. [applause] we talked about improving education, and about we have a fight on this one. but as a result of all that back-and-forth on this administration's core belief that every parent ought to have an opportunity to decide which school works best for them and their child for the choice more had been offered. we now have virtual schools and classrooms that allows someone in the rural south carolina to get educational expertise from a

different chorus of carolina and i know that rex and chip once again worked hard on that one and showed leadership moving that through. we passed a statewide school bill fellows the first of its kind in the nation and i don't believe we would have gotten that through our friend the other choices that now, and education without a larger debate on full-scale choice in education but what i know where are you, west, would you be recognized for that one? [applause] i would say whether in the additional 2.7 billion that is gone to education above and beyond the level of funding but can at this administration starting in 2003 or the education and economic development act that offers a tech program for students our physical fitness programs offered as a result of health and fitness act or even in

full-scale choice in the early childhood education i know the darrell jackson and mike and a long list of others deserve credit for the work here that is making a difference in the minds of students and thereby a real difference in people's lives. would you give them a round of applause as well for their work. [applause]@@@ essence you're in debt to governments for part of the time and we always got to get to the heart of what drives

taxes and that is what we spend in the government so as mentioned earlier this conviction is the core and at times i wasn't as diplomatic as perhaps i should have been in expressing my thoughts on this one but the good news is as a result of all of that fussing and fighting the taxpayer was recognized a table of the government in ways that would have not been the case. though they are still remembered what is forgotten about that chapter is the way that we faced a 155 million-dollar on constitutional deficit. those pigs in the joint and even changed few minds when we set president backend for the next 100 years on the sanctity of our balance budget requirement in south carolina and for what you get here on thank you as well. did you know we are the second state in the nation that offers of savings accounts for all state workers and state retirees and that health and budget initiative will save millions?

did you know that there's changes we instituted at the front end of this administration with corrections hatching eggs and a growing their own corn for grits and commerce selling jets and prt consolidating programs? millions more have been saved and will continue to be saved in fact if i might, could i ask the entire cabinet to stand up and be recognized for all those little things the you've done over the last seven years in saving the taxpayer money and making a difference on behalf of the taxpayer? what you stand and be recognized? [applause] did you know that $110 million has been saved with the proviso that you put into the budget with the preferred drug list or that we save $1.8 billion over the last six years in the first in the nation long-term care program? i could go down a long list of

the did you know with regard to taxpayer savings but i will spare you that list and simply thank each one a few for all of those little and at times and seen steps he took over the last seven years to save the taxpayer money. i have always believed that the ultimate measure if you will of government is what it spends and all too often spends at a rate that is unsustainable and far surpasses the taxpayers' ability to keep up and with all those conversations and even consternations what we have seen is a worthwhile and that they have forced many in government to follow the lead of those paying for government in looking for ways to do more with less. the length of this talk leads to the conclusion i'm going to ask for legislative changes beyond that which i had already all

lined. i will call it quits but let me leave you with to parting thoughts. the first is from our family minister in the prayer service before my second inaugural he encouraged me to live like a six roman:8 that we do justice and what crumbly. i never got that charge quite right over the following four years. i don't know that i ever will. but what i do know is i will be trying and would pass his charge on to each one a few who bear both the pressures and the responsibilities of elected leadership. under the category of life beyond politics i would ask the new focus on the things that matter the most and many of you if not all of you are so far ahead of me on this larger germany but i heard a story a couple of months ago that has helped me in refocusing on the hoeven might help you, too i offer it.

in early december i was the grand opening of the llc in lancaster where i ended up in an amazing conversation with the ceo, rick eliason who found him saltzman seat 18 in the plan that went on the hudson river. lift it from lagarde and a short time after liftoff the captain came on mentioning a bird strike and a matter of factly said they would have to be headed back to the airport to replant. rick's position was interesting because he said cady corner to the stewardess he saw absolutely no fear in her eyes as he said what he said. another couple minutes go by and the captain comes on announcing just three words "prepare for impact." at that point he could see the horror in the stewardess's eyes as she knew what it meant. they are fully loaded with fuel and you don't put a plan that size in the stream of the brooklyn or manhattan. he did the calculation and figured he would be daunting and

about 40, 45 seconds, and in the moment the whole of his life with flashing by. he said so before he had the natural fear that we do of deaf and the moment he wasn't afraid of death because it was so near. what he did think about was the time that he had wasted, the time he spent arguing about petty things about things that mattered with people who needed, the tiny little things get to him. he said was the amazing process of letting go of those things in that 45 seconds in a sense she dieted to himself and some of those previous aggravations in the short window of time that he had left on earth. but he didn't die and he now light and life to playing on a bonus, playing a video game on bonus time that he shouldn't be here but he was and therefore he was going to fully live each day and profoundly positive ways he would try to make a difference in the lives of those around him and the world of large.

he would invest in the things that matter. those things you can't see, feel, you can't touch but the things of lasting value. i don't know if i will ever see him again, but i do know i will be trying to follow his lead. and as we work together over the next 11 months and as we go our different ways after that, i hope that you will, too. if we strive in this direction i suspect will make a difference in bringing all of us republicans and democrats to the representatives from the coast and the midlands and upstate and south carolinian is together to better the lives of people here in our state. that is my hope, that is my prayer. thank you. good night. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [applause] governor i understand look rick was going through, too. i've been there. [laughter] thank you her for allowing me to be here. we thank you and appreciate you being here. the purpose of this trend is ly is about two hours, ten

minutes. >> good morning. on november the fifth, 2009 a gunman opened fire on the soldier readiness center at fort hood, texas. in line at the center were soldiers deployed overseas. by completing administrative

task. 13 people were killed and 43 were wounded. on the u.s. army base on united states soil. the army major edell hasan was an active duty army psychiatrist as of today his be in charge an article cxviii of the uniform code of military justice and with 13 counts of murder under article lxxx of the same uniform code with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. i am troubled by the fact that over a period some of the circumstances have led to the shooting or the results of military officers not following existing policies and procedures. specifically there are numerous stories in the press, npr, ap,

msnbc, cnn and fox news and others that the alleged shooters raiders in senior raiders failed to document negative information in his official record. we have questions, why did it happen, could it have been prevented, was the response adequate and more importantly to ensure that everything possible is done that this does not happen again. several task force and panels examining these very questions. today we hear from the first of these groups to issue a report. the independent review related to ft. hood secretary gates after the shooting gave 45 days to quickly examine the department defense programs, policies and procedures related to force protection, emergency response and support of health care providers and oversight in the alleged perpetrator prior to the shooting. to co-chair of this independent

review secretary gates bit to seasoned senior leaders, former secretary of veterans affairs, togo west and former chief of naval operations, admiral vernon clark. gentleman we thank you for your service and look forward to your hearing in your findings. it is also worth noting that secretary west is no stranger to this type of initio refute. he cochaired the and the penner review group following this disclosure and efficiencies regarding walter reed in 2007. i hope our witnesses will adjust the inadequacy of our force protection and emergency response policies. to identify service members with radical or violent tendencies before they may hurt others. i am particularly concerned about the system of officer evaluation in the early services. the performance report, the army calls it, must accurately

reflect the strengths and weaknesses of officers. problems must not be passed from one assignment to another. this hearing continues the committee's oversight of these issues that began this several briefings at the end of last year. we will continue this oversight in the coming weeks and months. i have said from the outset that we must take great care that our inquiries into the shooting did not compromise our imperil the prosecution of the gunman in any way. we will continue our increase in the thoughtful and deliver a manner that will not undermine the legal case against an alleged shooter. i would also remind the members of the conditions ensuring the associate report and we will not discuss its contents publicly and ask members respect of those conditions. the primary concern of this committee is the safety of all of those who served in or support our armed forces. we owe this to our service

members and the department of defense civilians and of course the family members. at this time i turned to my friend some of the ranking ã'6@ rbrb. mckeon the gentleman the existing internal domestic terrorist threat. this threat is not a department defense problem alone. lisio your point points out an integrated synchronize nationwide effort will be

necessary to ensure national preparedness to prevent and respond to future domestic acts of terror. major hasan have been an individual actor in the ft. hood shootings but the radicalization of an officer took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution should send shockwaves through all americans as to the power and reach of an enemy like al qaeda in yemen to generate such radicalism among other u.s. citizens. al qaeda and yemen declared war on the united states with the attack on the uss cole in 2000. while the u.s. has taken actions to curb their power and influence as an external threat, this nation and its allies seemingly have also taken action to assist in the organization. for example, in 2006, the escape

of 23 members of the al qaeda from a maximum-security yemeni prison including several who attacked the coal lead to the formation of al qaeda on the arabian peninsula. the 2007 release from guantanamo bay of said al-zawahiri one of the first 18 at that prison allowed him to join the al qaeda in yemen and to help plan the christmas day attack on northwest flights to 53. moreover the nation has not learned a lesson from september 11th. that organization that has information about potential or actual terrorist mushier that information with all who might act to prevent terrorist activities. as is becoming apparent such was not the case in idid the november attack by major hasan to had internet contact with al qaeda and yemen or the attempted christmas day bombing of

northwest flight 253 by a terrorist acting under orders of the al qaeda and yemen. with regard to the ft. hood gittings cure reporters clip major hasan's supervisors were aware of his shortcomings as an officer and medical professional and fail to act appropriately. the report is strangely silent on whether not major his son gave any clear evidence of his radicalization or whether there were any substantial clues about that radicalization that his supervisors should have acted upon. i hope that your testimony will address these issues. the report also points out numerous personnel policy shortfalls that contribute to the departments and preparedness to deal with internal threats. among the many findings there was criticism of current policies, practices and procedures related to identifying potentially violent behaviors, information sharing, the combination of religious

practices come counterintelligence activities in cyberspace and definitions are responses to prohibited activities. although u no specific recommendations as to how to resolve these issues, you are clearly suggesting that these policies, practices and procedures need to be refocused. tightened and implemented with renewed vigor. such a course of action suggest the possibility for closer government scrutiny by dod and other agencies. for example various electronic social media such as facebook, twitter and webpages and e-mails of u.s. citizens. the report is silent on how much should be balanced against the first amendment and privacy concerns. i would be interested in your views on this issue. finally you made six recommendations for immediate action. i would hope in your testimony and the follow-on questions you can address three of them in

detail and why do you single out those three from among all the other recommendations for immediate action. number when the need to synchronize continental united states dod emergency management systems with the national emergency framework. two the dod enhancement of joint terrorism task force and three, the creation of a dod entity to concentrate in one place the d.o.t. effort to gather, analyze and interpret data useful for identifying indicators of potential violence action. al-tikriti copperheads of inducible catalog of those indicators that can be updated continuously and made available throughout the d.o.t. in the military services. in closing i want to thank you again for your past and continuing service to this nation. your report is a significant first up in identifying the areas that need to be improved from internal domestic terrorist

activities. thank you very much and i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman from california. now the witnesses, the honorable togo west, secretary west. make sure-- >> there we go. i have it now. thank you sir. i wonder if you have our written statement. i wonder if we can submit it to you for inclusion in the record? >> of course, both written statements will be submitted into the record without objection. >> we will take just a few minutes and admiral chloridize to hit some highlights of we would like to call to your attention. i would go first and with your permission he will pick up. >> very good, we look forward to it. >> mr. chairman and distinguished members of the

committee on armed services, as pointed out, more than two months ago on november 5th, 13 people died, 12 members of the uniformed military, one civilian and 43 were wounded when a lone gunman walked into the soldier readiness center at fort hood and began firing. that was a day of tragedy and it will be remembered as such. shortly after that event secretary gates and paneled this review and asked admiral clark and me to chair it ken ssr debinigno did we did so. the report has been submitted to him and it is now before you. secretary gates asked us to take a careful look at personnel policies, atsa procedures for force protection, emergency response measures in support of those to provide medical care to

those who serve. .. what we saw and found and concluded with respect to the last perpetrator and as the chairman has noted, the

remainder of it, the details are restricted at which that is available to you. we did not -- because there was already under way -- looking to the intelligence aspects the was assigned to a different and review and directed in terms of interfering with it. we did not because it is under control of military justice authorities looking to the criminal aspects of this matter. again, we were instructed not to interfere with that, and similarly, the fbi has had a separate review going forward to look into the sharing of information portions that had to do with them. nonetheless our mandate was widespread. it was directed towards having us look to find gaps and deficiencies as the secretary

mentioned in policies, procedures, practices by the department of defense and the services across the board. with respect to the alleged perpetrator, you will note that the -- we state openly in chapter 1 of several military officers did not apply policies to the alleged perpetrator. we also recommended that finding in similar findings reflected in the genex be referred to the secretary of the army for review as to responsibility, accountability and such other action as he shall deem appropriate. he has done so. the referral has been made. the army has to review under way now.

before i turn this over to admiral clark to fill in some details with respect to the review and the report that you have, three observations i think are important to point out. first, what we learned is that this is never enough preparation. there is never too much preparation. authorities at fort hood had already anticipated a possible mass casualties sent as reflected in their emergency response plans and their response on that day showed that preparation. two minutes and 40 seconds after the 9/11 call was received, first responders were on the scene of the shooting and by first responders i refer specifically to members of the fort hood security team.

a minute and a half after their arrival, the assailant was incapacitated. two minutes and 50 seconds later, two ambulances and an incident command vehicle from the post hospital alive and began to provide life-saving health care. with that response, lives were saved. and yet, 13 people died, scores more were wounded. we can prepare better. we must plan with greater attention, and we must make the efforts and look around the corners of our future and anticipate the next potential defense in order to deflect it. secondly, we need to pay attention to today's hazards. the fact is that we need to

understand the forces that cause an individual to radicalize, to commit violent acts, and thereby, to make us vulnerable from within. and third, there is much in this report that is about violence violence by a service member against his or her colleagues. the effort is to detect the indicators that one might commit acts of violence. to catalog them, to make them available for the persons who need to know what are the indicators and where have the indicators been noted? and then to prepare ourselves to act when that evidence is before us. to make it available to our commanders so that they can act

and to be clear about their authority. one further note has been pointed out. we were asked to do this review within 45 days. the secretary clearly had in mind that there would be follow-on review of what we would come up with. for that reason, although we have cast our net widely, there were also boundaries, simply in terms of what the 129 or so souls committed to our leadership could accomplish. and this you will find there is space left for the follow-on refused often our recommendations in terms of the need to pay closer attention and closer review that. mr. chairman and mr. ranking member and members of the committee, this is how we structure it ourselves and now if i may turn to admiral clark

for how we structure the board report. >> we welcome you at the hearing. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman mr. mckeon, it is a privilege to be here again today áo@ @ saw and we missed to fort hood incident was evolving and slide the barriers. second, let's talk about iding

employees. it is a difficult challenge the reality is that there is insufficient knowledge and guidance to identify individuals. guidance concerning the work place violence and the potential for self radicalization or radicalization in general while secretary west indicated its insufficient. and the key here is we focus on violent of any kind. what we found was a lack of clarity for comprehensive indicators, which then limit the commanders for the supervisors ability to recognize these potential threats. and so it doesn't matter if we are looking at somebody who might be inclined to hurt themselves, and by the way the secretary defense had that specifically in our terms of reference, incidence of suicide

or criminal and gang behavior or somebody at the king suppressed activity in doctrine or family violence or the evolving threats like radicalization, identifying the key indicators is critical to focusing the force on threat. so our focus was on violence that comes from any kind of behavior. but that's what we found especially was that policies on internal threat or an adequate. prohibited be fierce and actions need to be addressed in our report says specifically such guidance exists but it's incomplete for the day in which we live. let me talk briefly give out information sharing. the secretary defense indicated friday in his reaction to our review that we saw a requirement

to create the ability to adapt rapidly in the changing security environment which exists today, anticipating the new threats, bringing a wide and continuously evolving range of tools, techniques and programs and to play. robust information sharing is absolutely critical. along with that the command and control system to convert information into real decisions and real actions that require active information gathering, and we must remove the barriers, all of the barriers, information sharing is a key element allowing decision makers to connect the dots. we've got to get the information, the syndicators to the appropriate levels of command. and let me speak briefly about the response that we saw at fort hood because the secretary asked us to address an emergency

response. as secretary west has indicated, we were impressed with what we saw at fort hood. ladies and gentlemen, i served for 37 years. secretary west and i went down on the second day after the formation of our team. what i saw was the best after-action report i have ever seen in my life, with the kind of candor that was impressive. lots of good news. the base personnel were prepared. they were trained. they took appropriate action. their action was prompted. as the secretary indicated, the response to the active shooter was impressive. there were courageous acts. the first responders, local law enforcement personnel, the dod civilians, health care providers, all of their actions prevented greater loss.

that said, we still believe it can be done better. we've got to focus on better tools for commanders, focus on violence prevention. in whatever form it exists, we must adapt in the gulf to the rapid change. we must understand that this is not -- there is no single point solution here. change is going to continue at a rapid pace. we have to share information so the right people can connect the dots and exercise against the most stressing and pressing scenarios to make sure the we have a right. so we were impressed with what we saw at fort hood both military and civilians on base as well as those in the community who were key players in the outcome of november 5th. and all those reminds the greatness of our people.

the strength of the nation and resilience and character of our people on this point, and the rest of the team, our hearts go out to the families of those that were lost and those that were wounded in this incident. and the thrust of our activity, of our effort has been to do everything we know how to do, to help the secretary of defense put the spotlight on those immediate areas that need to be addressed in phase two of his organized effort. thank you, mr. chairman. look forward to your questions. >> admiral, thank you. adel clark, at oral west, we thank you for your telling testimony. it appears to me that there were to disconnects that lead to a

major question. disconnect number one is the actual performance of the alleged shooter on the one hand and who we are in academic evaluation. second disconnect would be one of intelligence type, whether that reached the right superiors or not. which leads to the bottom line question was a great deal overlooked because this will say medical person in a specialty which there is a shortage. mr. secretary?

>> [inaudible] mr. chairman, i paused just for a minute because i am trying to reflect on how much my answer takes me into a discussion of an area we've covered in the anned rather than their report. >> do your best. >> thanks for the encouragement. but i think we can say in general as to the way officers are evaluated especially medical officers and the way that is reported, that we have concluded and have said to the secretary of defense is this, first the disconnect you know it is correct. that is what we mean when we say the policies were not applied, that things witnessed or not always reported where they needed to be reported and that in fact the contradictory

indications. and that with respect to the second, and we recommend to the secretary defense that he take some public steps about this that we had to say to the force or he had to say to the forced, the department has to say to the force evaluations make a difference, and we can't do the job of leading were protecting against threats if honest evaluations are not done by those who have the duty, the information and the authority to do so. >> at -- admiral? >> a major piece of this is what is part of the record. and our report we don't tell the secretary defense what parts to make, what should go into the record. we say when he asks us for gaps and weaknesses and so we said

look, if an individual's track history doesn't stay with them, that leaves you open to potential weakness in gas. so there are certain things that are required by regulation that cannot move from station to station with an individual. that is something that needs to be looked at. with regard to the issue of performance appraisal, we all know the performance appraisal is a challenge. in any environment. that said, we use specific terms to say things we want to come vote. we didn't just use the term leadership. we use the term officer ship. if you look on page six and seven of our report we say specifically what we think happened here. we believe that some of the signs were clearly messed or they were ignored. i can't tell you which, and i

can't go further than that because of the nature of the restrictions that -- the information that is in the restricted annex. but there is no doubt in my mind or secretary west's mind that there are issues here and if there were not so we would not have said that to the secretary defense. with regard to the intelligence matters -- we did not do the intelligence review. the president had already outlined and authorized a review and we were giving specific guidance do not interfere. with that said, mr. chairman, since the review team began this action there's been a number of things in the public domain that tell us there is agreement that the dissemination of information process needs to be improved and there was a release on friday by the fbi that talked about the improvements that are clean to

be made and are being made in cooperation with the department of defense. our encouragement was this: we didn't tell the mix ackley how to do this. by the way we don't do policy. we were reviewing policy. you want people that are going to do policy to be confirmed by the congress and not people that were called on to do this in a matter of a few weeks i believe, in fact ensure of that having been there. so, what i'm suggesting is we suggest it will whatever the outcome is what needs to be done is to ensure the right information gets in the hands of the operational commanders. give them a chance to connect the dots. >> thank you very much. mr. mckeon. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i asked an animus consent the gentleman from texas, mr. burgess be allowed to participate in today's hearing.

after all committee members have had an opportunity to ask a question. >> without objection. >> thank you mr. secretary, admiral, the concern i think all of us feel probably most keenly is are there other potential threats? do we have other potential people that are in the system and the system is not adequately working to find them and are we open to further problems such as we've seen? the report was strangely silent on whether or not the major gave any clear evidence of his radicalization or whether there were any substantive clues about that radicalization that is supervisors should have acted upon. we know from the media reports of at least three instances he

acted in a matter in hindsight negative have raised concerns about his allegiance to the united states and possibly prompted action by his supervisors. his statement that the sharia law a trumped the constitution, his religious discussions with patients and his presentation to his colleagues that equated suicide bombers to service membered who died for this nation. what substantive evidence to your review turn up regarding major hassan's actions or statements the gate or should have given his supervisors any indication of his radicalization to what degree did the three instances i cited in my opening to this question i arouse concern by major hassan's supervisors about the appropriateness of such statements or actions and what was done with regard to those concerns? and what policies, practices, and procedures limited or blocked the ability of major hassan's supervisors to

appropriately assess his developing radicalization? and then i am concerned if political correctness was involved here and if the need for psychiatrists maybe beat us overlook some things. those are kind of my major >> mr. mckeon, let me try and answer that and i will try to answer, remembering that there is a military justice investigation underway, and i need to be careful not to do in evidence that will be use there. first of all, let me say that overall i believe that in the restricted annex you will find a discussion of the items you mention. but on the question of whether signals were missed, whether there were indications that she let me say this. we have said in the open report

in the chapter we devote to it, and also in our executive summary, in fact, i just heard admiral clark refer to that language again, some signs were missed, others appear to have been ignored. the fact is, that there was evidence and that's what we are referring to, or signs for senior officials to see, to note and to react to. we explained those in specifics in the annex, and our concern is, yes, there are policies in place that should have made the reaction to them possible. it should make that reaction possible throughout the force. and yet, we have indications that they were not acted upon. the need for properly recording in either the ss aer, service

school academic evaluation review, or any oer, the officer efficiency report. ss aer is using all the military schools. that is how we evaluate them. both academically and as officers. to have those accurately reflect what is happening is an important tool for telling future commanders what has happened, but also for making judgments on those officers as they progress. secondly i would add this. again, perhaps as important as anything is once recorded, the information needs to get to the people who will have to make decisions. i think admiral clark already pointed out the fact we have several policies that say, and we mentioned this in our report, our practices, that keep us from keeping certain kinds of

information beyond the person's life and the citizens live, at which that is recorded. if there's been alcohol or drug use, a rehabilitation program, that information is not forwarded. it is no longer in there after that's done. there are other kinds of information as to which we have policies that specifically exclude, keeping them and making them available when the file goes forward. we recommend that they looked at. there are times when it is important for us to be aware of changed circumstances that in the circumstances we face today, i thought you're going to ask about this when you first mentioned it, could this happen again? could an incident happen again? as long as there are humans serving in the armed forces of the united states, or anywhere else, the government in our society, self radicalization, becoming upset because you

believe that you have been inappropriately treated in your workplace, prejudices of one sort or another, can lead to violent acts. we need to equip our forces and commanders with the equipment to detect it to get them the information to refer to come >> if i may. the things you addressed, the alcohol or other prior things, or things that affect the workplace, don't address the radicalization. and that seems to be the real crux of this. and that's the thing i think we need to be mindful of as we move forward. admiral? >> magistrate, you're right, and i should have mentioned the fact that those are also indicators. that is, what gets said, how one

speaks to one's colleagues and professors, a view that suggests a willingness to act on it. sorry. >> and i concur with your assessment also. and i ally myself with secretary west's comments. i won't repeat all of those. i could answer your question in a very full someway, if we were in a closed session, and we're not. and would welcome the opportunity to do that. because there are real answers to your questions. and those will be spoken to in the right time when there's authorization to release that kind of information. let me just make one comment about your question, are there others out there. i want to make sure that it is clear why i don't have an answer to that.

the answer to that would not be evident by researching the clarity and viability of the policies. which is fundamentally what we have done. the secretary asked us to find these weaknesses on our core and our structure and architecture. and so i don't know how to express the breath of that over the course of this whole discussion. it sometimes doesn't come through with just the way the written word comes out. but that answer specifically has to come from a collection of intel sources. we did not pursue intel at all by direction, and we were to sink a -- our task was -- he sent us in a different direction. he sent us their specifically though to help equip the rest of the department. so they wouldn't go off on a broad and hunt for themselves, but they could put the crosshaircrosshairs on areas

they had to go after first. and so as they follow along to the things that secretary west addressed, it is clear that your question about, you know, what's the nature and breadth of this look like. that question has to be answered, and we simply -- we didn't go there because we weren't interested in. we went there because that was not our task, and we really do not -- i do not have an answer for you. that said, the things that secretary west commented on, we do believe that there are indicators, and those indicators need to be examined. because the issue of self radicalization is one that is new to us in many, many ways. and i listed a series of kinds of behaviors that could lead to violence that are well documented in policy and in directives and programs. such is not the case when we

talk about self radicalization. that needs to be addressed with speed. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> we are now in a five minute rule. mr. ortiz? >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary west, chief clark, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for your service. maybe we can go back a bit and you can inform the committee as to how he got his promotion. this evaluation and performance, was he promoted by a board? how to promote him where there are several members sitting on this board who recommended that he be promoted? maybe you can give us an insight as to how that was done? >> caucus would ortiz, again,

trying to be mindful on our part, that we have explored this in some detail in the restricted antics, which i believe is available to you and that we want to be careful not to delve and talk in a session about things that will have an effect on the military justice investigation. the standard practice for consideration, for military medical officers in the army is yes, they are provided, they are promoted, they are considered by a board. that board considers, there are also evaluation reports. and also the record from the academic training. ssaer as i mentioned. so they make their judgments based on that. and that happens in the case of every medical officer, and so it would have happened in the case of this officer. >> you have several members sitting on this board, are they allowed to come up with a

dissenting view that maybe they were not all in agreement? that this individual should have been promoted? >> these boards are controlled by statutory directive. in my time as the chief, this was one of the always very important things that the secretary of the service and myself considered, including specifics about the guidance that went to the board. and the board and functions in accordance with the guidance it gets from the service secretary. the statutory process precludes, controls is a better way to say, controls and very exacting terms the kind of information that can come before the board. and this is to ensure that everybody has an equal opportunity to promotion, and you know, all the things that go with that that has been developed over the years.

if you take a comment on page six and seven of the report when we comment on the fact that it is our view that somethings were missed or overlooked, you know, that can give you a glimpse inside to what our opinion is. and again, i would love to -- i do like the idea that i am in inhibited in what i am allowed to talk about in an open hearing about this. i wish it was otherwise. but i would just say to you this. you can take comfort in the process, is that communicates to you. you can take comfort in the process what they are allowed to review is what is specifically in the oer or any material that the member chooses to put in front of the board. there's a very exacting process that has to occur, if there's other information going to be placed in front of the board. that's all i can say in an open hearing. >> i understand that the reason

i ask this question, i was wondering when this board met, and maybe they'll were dissenting views, if they were able to go the other way through the chain of command. >> i can only repeat what i said. i wish i could say more. >> thank you so much. i don't want to take too much time, but thank you for your service. and i just hope we can get to the bottom of it. the reason i'm asking these questions is because, not only should we be worried about our soldiers who might turn to the bad apples like this guy, but we saw the killings on the cia in afghanistan. you know, and we just wondering if we can also, and maybe this is not in your line. but i worry about our service people in afghanistan, in iraq, and hoping we don't get those bad people to be able to

infiltrate our soldiers to where they will do something like this. mr. chairman, thank you so much for your time. >> thank the gentleman from texas. >> thank you both very much for your service. i have a button with a message which i cherish. it was given to me by half baker who was at principal architect of the guidance system for the patriot missile. i knew him primera in his role as an unapologetic defender of the second amendment right. and i never saw him without his hat and this button that said politically incorrect, and proud of it. indeed, that button was such a part of him that i attended his funeral, was pleased to see that it was there on him in his casket.

i probably should be wearing that button today because maybe i'm going to be politically incorrect. i suspect that these officers might have felt that they were following policy, because they had to policies which were in conflict. one of them was to be politically correct and not appear to profiling. the other was to offer an honest confident evaluation of the performance of the officer. now when can i get inside their head, but i would suspect that they may have given more weight to the politically correct policy. by the way, we do profile. people understand that. if you're looking for a ray, you're probably not looking too hard, preadolescent males and women. i suspect the ethnicity had been different here, that the policies might have been applied

differently. how do we get a proper balance? between liberal correctness and the obligation to honestly and fairly evaluate? >> do you care who you get your answers from, congressman? may i take that on? were you addressing that to me or the apple. >> both of you. >> i'll take it on. i hear the term politically correct all the time. i know that people think they know what it means, but i'm not so sure. i think what we're talking about, quite frankly, is how do we do what we have to do to get the information to spot the people who are likely to harm our service members, on the one hand. versus, how are we careful that in so doing we are not taking steps that lump people into a

group and keep us, not from favoring them, but from attributing characteristics to the entire group, and thus, convicting one person before we actually learn what's happening with that person. and so i don't think there's a real tension here that we can't deal with, if we realize this. in our force, we are already handicapped. in trying to identify a potential violator by the fact that if it's a member of a military family, if he or she is a member of the military family, who wears a uniform, they have access to art installations that they don't get searched. they have their cards. they put them in and they get in. and so the way that we stop them is to identify them ahead of time. and i think, and we made these recommendations in our report, that we can look for objective indicators. if you have objective indicators, if you cataloged,

that's why we recommended, and ongoing organization to do just like that, look at the indicators that a person might commit violence, make them available and make our decisions on that basis, we will be able to get the job done. and won't have to worry about pc or any other short-term expression that suggests we are not looking at a group because they are immigrant that i think the average american would like to be a little politically incorrect in circumstances like this, if it's going to result in better security. would you agree, admiral? >> i absolutely believe that the people of the united states expect and they should expect that we will pursue the best security posture that we know how to possess. and certainly, our people

deserve nothing less. my take on this is that this is an especially challenging, and this is why i refer to the secretary of defense again, commenting on the nature of the rapidly changing environment in the last decade. you know, the fourth generation warfare scheme, our enemy and tends to go after, pursue us in the scenes. and the inside, internal threat is an area that our review suggests very clearly that we have done an inadequatinadequate job identifying these indicators. our focus is on identify the behavior so we equip and enable the commanders if they -- i love one of the things the chairman of joint chiefs of staff said. the day our panel, our review was set up, was one of the reporters said admiral, you know, how do you look at this. he came out clearly and boldly

and said, i expect commanders and leaders in organizations to understand what is going on in the command before the chain of command to be functioning in a vibrant way, and that's the answer to these kinds of problems and challenges. the reality is, is the guidance on what kind of behaviors to look for for the self radicalized individual are inadequate. i would say that already some have been published. i saw a review of a message that went out to the united states army yesterday. we have to move fast, and this is the requirement that. >> thank the german. dr. saunders? >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary west and admiral clark, it's great to see you both again. you have been great public service throughouthroughout the year. i want to ask this issue that has come up in the discussions about the fact that we have an annex which i didn't go and look

at before this discussion today. i think this is going to be a frustrating experience trying to figure out where to go for the american people and policymakers, if we have this dichotomy between a discussion here, generalities versus talking about a specific case. i need to understand -- by the way, that's not lassoed by doctor. it's for official use only. it is one thing if we had out in that room the criminal case file. the interrogation, whatever is there. but in fact, what you all are in conducting is an administrative proceeding based on the records that are in the military, in order to problem solve. and it's not clear to me why the american people are not entitled to see because it's part of the problem, these unredacted reviews, career reviews, or

academic reports, or college transcripts, or whatever is in that record as part of an administrative proceeding. you're not putting those things out there. you know, did his performance in college and we concluded based on that that he's a criminal. help me with that. here's the problem we're going to have. you say it's not the right time to have this discussion. when is the right time going to be? will it be after i assume there will be a criminal trial. that may not be. there still could be an adjudication -- i'm not talking about this case, but there's always going to be kind of questions somebody mentally fit to go to trial. you know, where will this all go? i don't know what is right time will be for the american people and the people in texas, that people in military to have the kind of public discussion of this specific case. if i was a family member, i would not be satisfied with go to the annex and we will discuss

the. i want to know what happened but i would want to know what happened with this specific case. so when is the right time? where is your advice coming from that we cannot put the documents out there, things that clearly occurred before the criminal investigation. so where does your advice come from or what was your specific advice with regard to the annex versus specific documents? >> congressman, there's several aspects but i think i can do them quickly. first of all, the specific questions where is our advice coming from. it's coming from the d.o.d. lawyers. secondly, what would it be based on? it's based on a couple of things. first, yes, the annex is -- what's contained in it has two effects. one is that much of it is from officer efficiency report and the like, those are specifically protected. secondly, the overall concerned that what's contained in their

will have an effect in the military justice proceedings. and on that score, we've already been warned not to discuss that openly. it's available to you. thirdly, i would point out that even the annex, as you point out is redacted, is only redacted as to names. everything else that we wrote is there disclose. what happened as what we found out, what we recommended, what's in the record. all disclosed in the annex. i think fourthly, the question, when is the time to discuss a. yes, you've given the answers that it's after the conclusion of the military justice proceedings which may be at trial, i assume that's what everyone is preparing for, i don't know it. i would make one other observation. we were not asked to find out what happened. we were asked to assure the secretary of defense that there were not gaps or deficiencies in the policies, practices, or procedures that would help us

either identify such a person and deal with it, or protect the force, or be prepared for mass casualties going forward. or support military caregivers. and also, if you look specifically at how the army applied its policies to the alleged -- >> that's where our gap is here today, because we can go back and try to sort all this out in the annex, but it's going to be a frustrating thing for the american people i think you try to sort out what these policies are, should they be different. i think lawyers for the most part will always say this may upset the criminal trial, but we've got to be sure we're not going to net out so broadly of protection that is going to keep us from making america safer, our military saver, and avoid these kinds of tragedies. i'm not clear we are at that point today with his annex. >> may i make one very quick observation? in order for the american people

to understand this part of the process, so we had five teams, and one of the teams dealt with the issues as prescribed in the terms of reference and secretary west has indicated, look at the gaps, weaknesses, the application here. so that it is clear that we thought through the longer-term process. the person that headed that effort for us was a four-star general from the united states army. and it is not just coincidence that he has already been given the task by the secretary of the army. we recommended that the secretary of defense refer this, the findings that we have in hand, to the secretary of the army. the secretary of army has named that same officer to proceed with the case. in order to speed the process and rapidly come to a judgment of accountability. >> i think the german. mr. jones? >> mr. chairman, thank you very much, and to the admiral and to the general, thank you very

much. had the privilege to dealing with your previous years when you were in uniform, and it's a pleasure to see you today. this important work that you've done to try to get to the bottom of this tragedy that happened at fort hood. i saw today in the express, and it's not earthshaking news, i want to take my question and a little different direction. i know those who evaluated his performances are probably hurting very badly, because maybe they did not see what they should have seen or reported what they did see in his actions. will but i want to know the environment authorities psychiatrist in the military will work. and let me explain that. there is no excuse what

happened. none. and you have already pointed that out, and made recommendations that i know that the secretary of defense, the secretary of army will follow many of those recommendations. i know there's an investigation going on by the military as it relates to what criminal actions might have taken place, but is there an environment where we have more and more of our troops of ptsd, and more and more of our troops with tbi and other mental problems from going deployment after deployment after deployment? is there an environment that, because we have not as many psychiatrists as we need in the military, that may become and this would be your opinion, but is an environment we need to have these psychiatrists. we need to have these

psychiatrists to help the families and to help the military. and so may become and that's no excuse, maybe what should have been a red flag was not a red flag. i will ask you both if you would respond to that. >> i think i will give you my answer rather briefly, congressman, and then let admiral clark speak. i thank you very will articulate what could have been a possibility, or more specifically, what could be a situation that we face today. >> you identify one of the things that i'm not sure a lot of people understand, and our report says the united states military has had people in combat zone for 20 years. virtually 20 years. and so we all need to understand that there is stress on force. now, one of the things, and so i agree with you that these are

realities. and these people -- we came to the conclusion, by the way, the secretary gave a specific instructions to go look at the care of the health caregivers. and we haven't addressed that yet today. where of the conviction that they largely have been treated as a separate group. we believe they need to be treated just like the combatants to. they need the same kinds of programs and support and all that goes with that. and so we did not look at tbi, ptsd, the secretary had a deal i guess that he didn't need our view on that because he must have looked at that, where he needed it. and so we came to the conclusion that these people are a critical part of the readiness posture of the united states military.

and so great care is required and programs to support him are required. >> mr. chairman, i want to thank both the gentlemen for being here today for the response to each member's question. and thank you for your answers to my question. i hope that my colleagues did here, as i think i heard, your response very clearly. thank you. with that i will yield back my time to. >> i thank the gentleman. ms. sanchez? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, once again for your continued service to our country. i want to ask you from a different angle something that i -- i maybe wrong on or maybe something to thank him and i don't know whether you've really had a chance to look at this incident. i think it's important for us to understand how we protect our forces internally as you said. but i'm looking more at this as an administrative issue, and

certainly one section of it was what my colleague just talked about, our need for psychologists and people in the military and how difficult it is to get them in there. but i'm looking at more at a sense of supervisor to somebody who works in this particular case, the alleged attacker. because on the day that this happened, as i was driving in the car, i heard a radio station where one of the direct supervisors for the last year and a half, he had now retired, a colonel i believe god now retired, had been out of the military for about six months. was on radio talk show talking about this alleged attacker. and i don't know if you all got that interview, but he went on and on for about half an hour

about all the signs he had seen with respect to this alleged attacker. and how he never reported it. and so, i mean, i think it comes down to two things. one, it's always difficult as a manager, and if you go and you ask or you go and take a look at the surveys where people are asked, what's the toughest part of being a manager? it's the firing of people, are the demoting of people or the turning and the people. it doesn't make any of us feel good, so there's just that human reaction of, you know, i've got somebody here who is crazy and how my going to, you know, move him on. and we can to move them on versus, you know, how do i fire him? then there's the whole legal issue of how to go about firing someone at how difficult is it to do that. my question is, did you take a look at that, especially this whole issue of how much you can damage the career of somebody

who is -- has made a military career, and certainly -- i think i have heard from several soldiers of personal experiences where they are going to seek some help with a psychologist, for example, within the military. has come back to damage their career so much to the point where they've had to get out of the military. were you given that information about this talk show and this particular gentleman and how he referred and how he saw the signs, now he never did anything about it? the only thing this gelid said was, into, i couldn't wait that's enough to retire because this guy was a walking timebomb. and more portly, would you look at administrative proceedings, do you have any recommendations how to get to that very basic, i'm a measure but i don't want to hurt this guy's career, but he might be a crackpot?

>> i wish to goodness that i was not constrained about talking about this. you might imagine how i feel about this, having served 37 years, and making the judgment that we made in here. we can use the word officer ship. we were just talking about the alleged perpetrator. they were responsible for developing him and educating him and training him and developing him in the field of medicine. and as an officer, in the united states army. our impression in the words in our report are straightforward as we can say them. it needed work. >> any comments, secretary? >> i would add this. with respect to your question

about having heard or known something about that conversation you had, if not specifically refer to in our report. i have no doubt that the colonel of whom you spoke was interviewed, and that the results of that interview are part of what's in our annex. so i don't think that what that colonel had to say, if he was indeed a supervisor, has been lost. or missed that has now become part of the record for the military justice. secondly though on the other question of how -- i refacing it a bit. how if we're going to propose all these things designed to get this information and act on it. are we sure we are not pushing commanders and supervisors to damage the careers of those to whom they may make a hasty judgment, or a judgment based on not enough information.

that has been in the discussion, especially in the team that did the work that supports our chapter to. wages on personnel policies and practices. in fact, we have a section called barriers to taking action. on the information. because there is this tension. i had one officer, by the way, and i apologize if i'm taking too long. who talk to me quite candidly about the tough decisions a commander makes in deciding when to move on information and why, why not. what will that do to the career of the person? is it fair to recorded? that's even part of the policies of what we do or do not pass along from command to command, from section of a person's career to the next station. all of those concerns are in there. and yes, you're right. we are in this report pushing for a wee look at that very

balanced, and so the danger you mentioned is quite possibly there. because we are saying it may be more important under the circumstances that we face today to look harder for the information, and once we get it, to consider whether we don't need to make sure it's passed on to the right places. and perhaps with the danger you mentioned is there. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this hearing may be a little frustrating for some people, but maybe to our witnesses because some of you feel somewhat constrained by you been told to talk just any particular specific area. fortunately, we are not constrained and don't seem to fit in the box is very easily anyway. the term political correctness has come up a number of times this morning, and it seems to be a high on my mind. it seems to me to be standing back looking at the forest from a distance, you've got a guy who

is muslim. okay. but we also know that some percentage of these guys get radical, and they are the ones who start wars and things in the middle east and blow people up. we got one of the networks for the military. and he got radical on us and shot a bunch of people. that seems to be just a simple face of the. maybe that's not politically correct, but it appears to be the fact. so my question is as i read through all this report, there's nothing that makes any reference to the theology or religion are what drives this guy. and i suppose, maybe there's a difference of opinion that maybe some people think that somebody committed a crime, like somebody goes wacky in the office and decides to shoot some people and perhaps the other perspective is that we're due with an act of war or act of terror were suddenly because of an ideological motivation, decided that something tripped and he decided it was time to do holy war. you have been passed though, gentlemen, with looking at procedure to guessing to be the procedure would have to take a

look at people who are potentially timebombs, even if it's a timebomb motivated by theology or by some sort of a radical religious view. so my questions are several. verse, was it an act of terror? mostly looking for yes or no. second of all, procedurally, is it possible for us to say, hey, watch out for people that are from a certain, mohammed or whatever it is, that potentially can go crazy. can we specifically look at that what you're looking at some of these performance appraisal and watch for the? i guess people would call a profont, but some people also call it common sense. and those are my two main question, if you can hit those pretty quickly because i have another one or two. >> i will be quick and go directly to the second one first. it is always possible to look at acts or statements, and it doesn't matter whether there are statements of i don't like that guy because of the way he walks or the color of his hair, or i

have a concern and it's based on what i believe my religion tells me to do but i do not think religion or theology are off bounds when they look for indicators of potential violence. with respect to the basal procedures we can do that. it's not illegal when you're reviewing some of these profiles or their jacket, that comes before you and this guy happens to be this and this. and you say okay, watch. were okay to say it's okay to look at this more closely. that's okay to do that? >> years ago, i was counsel to i'm not today. we recommend that we look at all the indicators. >> okay. was it an act of terror, that was the first question. >> i'm going to pass on that. i was asked to determine that. i know this, the people that died were terrified that the people who were wounded were also. >> thank you, sir. admiral?

>> secretary west has answered the question exactly right. my early statement about violence and indicators is all about the subject that you are racing to us. and i would nod down different kinds of categories of people that the focus is violence. we didn't care where it came from. we wanted to come forward with recommendations and said, go look at this. in the area of itself radicalization, the indicators are not understood, and therefore we don't react well. because we have not spent the time to talk within the department about what those indicators are. as i indicated, just friday, the army is publishing the best that they got today. our recommendation says you need to put together a group of people and look at this long-term. this isn't going to start that this is not a single point solution. >> my clock is run pretty tight

here, i still think we have this figured out. and part of what concerns me is that after this event, at fort hood, we had this guy, lily, lily speaking. louis is part of the islamic society north america according to the justice department is connected with the muslim brotherhood. we're talking about a guy who is one of these moneylenders was a radical islamist and he is speaking to make people feel better at fort hood about islam. i think we need to build somehow the political correctness is over writing buggy at the common sense that there are factors that drive his behavior and has got to be built into our model. and i am out of time. >> may i? >> yesterday. >> this is a two-way street. we know that we have over 3500

islamic believers serving effectively and faithfully. and so the street runs both ways. >> thank the gentleman. ms. davis? >> thank you, and mr. secretary, admiral clark, thank you for taking on this assignment. secretary west, it's my understanding that prior to this service you were on the walter reed, the group that look at walter reed and independent review group. and it's my understanding and is really picks up on something that admiral clark said as well, that in looking at the care of the mental health professionals or providers or professionals overall, they looked at the issue of provider fatigue, medical provider fatigue. what can you tell us about what you saw in that instance and the review and the questions that

were raised? have we made progress? i know that trantwo's and yes, we need to look at those. we need to look at how we are treating with it, this issue. what have we done? >> well, i had an answer for you until you said what have we done. because i think we need to be able to give you that answer more specifically than i can today. i remember sitting in a hearing two years ago at the bethesda naval ashman at the naval medical center at bethesda. and seeing health care professional, an officer, stand up in the stands and say it's good that you're here and that you're looking at the care that we provide to those who have served and have been wounded. but keep in mind, and your term is a good one about the fatigue for caregivers, and its affect on us, because if we're not hole

in body and soul and mind and all those things, if we don't deliver the best of care, so it's very powerful. is one of the reasons why i believe the secretary include it in terms of reference this time. what we found is whatever is being done, more of it needs to be done to our recommendations say that. >> do you have anyway of knowing how we are monitoring that? who is overseeing that to understand the extent to which we do have a lot of people hurting out there who are in tough positions to tell people about that? >> i think as professionals they have periodic surveys and the like. but in terms of a real look, this may have been one of the first ones i've had this much chance to look at it, so that's why we devote so much time to it in our discussion. but i don't know how on an ongoing basis it's monitored, other than the way that they are assessed as they develop

professionally. >> let me just add one thought. this is a real challenge, because when you need, each go to deploy, the whole group -- the person's chain of command at home but don't go with them. in the medical sense very often. you know, they go as individuals. we examine the policies, and what we see is that when the person gets home, who assumes responsibility for the monitoring function? that's something that needs to be examined. and also look at policies in the way they are put in place. for example, in order to come on to care for the combatants, there's a policy were the doctors come home, in order to buy continuity of care for the combatants, they go with them to their home. that extends their deployment. and there is a cost to that. i'm not saying it's the wrong policy. might well be the right policy. but somebody has to examine this, and as i said, we have not

treated the docs, the medical personnel, like the combatants in terms of the kind of programs and processes to support them that the combatants have. >> they keep it because i know there are some practices of embedding positions with national guard, for example, as part of tricare. that sounds great, but there may be some downsides that if i could just -- it into another personnel issue, because i think it's been addressed about the appropriate judgment and standards of officer ship. as you spoke about, and we know, and even not necessary in the military, but in medical school generally, that it is difficult to perhaps not inhibit a person's career in some way, and that that has -- its downsized in terms of the processes personnel practices we talked about that you have to go

through. is part of what you're looking at also to say how many times have we intervened in careers to suggest that people are in the wrong place? is that something that, as you look at this, you have identified a guess, in fact, we see that this is actually working? or in fact, it doesn't look as if that's happened instances at all? >> i fully expect in the face to examination where the d.o.d. will and has to look at this, because we raised the foundation for it to be looked at in our report. what i really believe has to happen is that they need to understand the process that they have. what we found is, the educational side of this, the dock side of this. that's one review group. and then there's the officer side of this. secretary and i were having a discussion one afternoon talking about the specifics of this.

and wondering about the what is. there's no way to know if this counseling had occurred, if not count of -- what was it like and the core of our institution is that we grow and develop people. we are proud of what happens when young people into united states of america go serve, and what mom and dad and aunts and uncles see about how they have grown when they get home. that's the essence of what officership is about, and creating and establishing and enforcing standards. we suggested it be looked at. >> thank you. >> i think the gentle lady. mr. forbes? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary and apple, we thank you again for your service. you are both good and decent men who have done great things for our country. sometimes though, we see today that the american people oftentimes feel that we don't ask the questions that they wish

we would ask. and they constantly say you ask the questions you want to ask what you don't ask the ones that are really on our mind. and they've indicated recently they are not going to tolerate that anymore. so we struggle here to try to get our arms around the questions that are really of concern to them. and here's what they seem to be saying to me. they're concerned about individual acts of violence. that's what we talked about. but even more concerned, to them is when those individual acts of violence have an association or support from a more orchestrated, long-standing patterns of violence that are kind of bullet into tapestry of concern to the american people. that seems to be missing from your report. let me be specific on that. i don't want to focus on individual shooter, but if he had been a republican, no one would have argued, okay, the republican party caused him to do this. if he had been a democrat, same

thing, no right minded person. but as mr. aitken mentioned are there, there are radical muslim extremists groups that what objective indicators because we have on our streets interviewed by tv cameras. we read their threats and we corroborate acts of terrorism. my question to you is this, i want to come back to the political correctness, -- mr. secretary, i want to give it a definition. political correctness is really the failure to say or do something that might offend anyone, even if that statement or action is two and could be beneficial if stated or done. my question is not to the shooter, but why did we at least ask the question in this report whether that political correctness can't any of the military personnel from applying their policies the way they would have done? that looks like to me and should have been a question asked. and even more particularly, my question to both of you is, did we ask them if that political

correctness camp to them or impacted them from applying their policies? >> the question we asked was, did you apply your policies, and the question we asked in our review of the facts we got, was, and if not, can we tell why not your witches i think another way of getting to yours. and you will see about three paragraphs in our annex that go to that, that go to, what kinds of considerations were being taken into account when they failed to act? i think you'll find that we cover your concern. >> my response to that would go along these lines, that any open annex we stress and focus the indicators for prohibited actions and activities.

here's the instruction. d.o.d. instruction, and in our view, it needs work. when i asked myself the question, i get to -- probably don't use the words that you would use. maybe i would, made i would. that's not the point. the point is we were focusing on violence. violence that would generate from any source, do we have it covered? do we have the guidelines in place so that commanders now what the reaches of their authority are, and what indicators they can say that one crosses the line. in our view, -- and then i talk about information sharing. see, this is a puzzle that fits together. and if they do not have all the information that would allow them to connect the dots, they

won't get the right answer. our conclusion is that these areas require immediate focus. >> and we want to get that balance, both of you talked about, but to get it we got to make certain we're not going too far on one side with actually policies that even by implication, are keeping us from getting at the edges that we need. thank you both. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank the gentleman. ms. shea-porter? >> that you. and thank you both for being here. i'm just going, when we talk about political correctness because i don't think that is really what this is about. i think it's about the lack of leadership, lack of common sense, lack of awareness, a lot of other things that we talk about -- i can remember when my husband was an army officer. you are responsible for everything around you. not sippy for your own behavior, but you are responsible to notice and work with others and to report.

and this is a commonsense albin here that's really missing. so right now i would like to focus on that. i want to know what's going to happen to the officers and the people around him. those who saw things. what was their responsibility to each other, responsibly to this country, responsibility to the army? what are we doing about them? and you can hand them training manual after training manual, and you and i both know that if the lights not on, it doesn't matter. and so i'm more concerned about, i don't know if it is an unwillingness, and unawareness. i'm not sure exactly what's wrong there, but i worried mostly about that. because it's the same thing the recent attempt of bombing. most of us would sit here and save one and one and one, i'm not confused. i can get there. the same thing here, with all the different pieces. i know we talked about

connecting the dots, but i don't think you need the whole tapestry to recognize we had a problem here. i was very upset hearing my colleague talk about somebody who i observe that, and i'm not sure what he did with it because i didn't hear the interview, that they were talking about. but i really worry about the rest of us that are sitting there and can't add one and one and one, and get to the right edge of. so if you would both please comment on that. >> i think your comments are very insightful, and i would be in alignment with your comments completely. you can't legislate good behavior. but you do layout by directive standards and guidelines, and then leaders take over. we use the term officership because we wanted to differentiate just between leaders and the requirement that an officer has that is even beyond leaders are required to do. to create the environment for

success for our people so with regard to suggesting that the connection of the dots all have to be done to solve all the problems, we haven't taken that position. we have said there were indicators that were there and they were either missed or on page six and seven, i spoke to earlier. clearly the essence of the institution is about leadership. i talked about the growth and development aspect of it. but then helping people along the road on the growth and development process with the kind of feedback that oftentimes changes their life, changes their future. and so that's why i find myself in alignment. that said, we were asked to look

at gaps and weaknesses. and we can see that there were things that would have even made it more clear had the document connected. and we didn't talk about information sharing. which is not talking about information sharing across agencies. we are talking about what happens from command to command. information that does not move because it's kept in local files, not as part of the official record. and we believe that in order to deal with this evolving threat, that the secretary, his words were, has really evolved in the last decade, but the changing threat, what happens when you have the interpreter being inside a family. this changes the fabric. we believe that you can't leave a stone unturned. and a stone unturned means give them every tool we know how to give them. >> thank you. >> i think i would follow the

admirals lead on all of that, especially on respected his reference to page seven of our report. to me there is no clear indication, the fact that we share your view about the responsibilities of leadership, of supervisors, of officers, when they are being responsible for those under their command or under their supervision. we have two bullets there. one of them, mr. mcewan asked about in his opening comments. first, the secretary communicate directly to the force and the commanders and to all. the necessity to be part of what is happening for those around them. whether it's supervision in reaching out in seeing and knowing what's happening to them. how they are developing. and then secondly, effectively

how important it is to be honest and complete in our evaluations of those whom we are supposed to supervise and to be responsible for. those two things i think go directly to taking responsibility for those of whom we are responsible. . . looking at page six of your report. as directed in terms of reference to be reviewed the

>> alleged perpetrator of the incident at fort hood. now, i know that's how we talk and there are lawyers everywhere, so we have an alleged perpetrator, and we have an incident. but i think picking up on mr. forbes' comments, most americans say we had a brutal mass murder, not an incident. and as you pointed out, mr. speaker, certainly the victims -- those killed and wounded and their families and those around -- were, indeed, there arized. -- terrorized 689 so i think following up again on mr. forbes' comments, the american people recognized that the 9/11 commission was correct years ago when it said we have an enemy, and that enemy is islamist extremists, their words. and the concern is that we may not be paying attention to the fact that the alleged perpetrator was, in fact, an

islamist extremist and how he was radicalized whether it's self-radicalized or radicalized by an imam in yemen, i suppose, is still being looked at as a matter for the trial, so we don't need to go into that. but i just, i think there's some frustration out there, and you've heard some of it here from us that we seem to be overlooking the, what is that, the 800-pound gorilla or elephant in the room, that this is something more than just a random act of violence with an alleged perpetrator, and it's certainly more than an incident. you said, mr. speaker, that you thought -- mr. secretary, that you thought we need to look at ways to have carrying this information forward, and i think you're on to something there. i know that now many, many years ago when i was a second lieutenant in the marines, we were asked to keep a platoon commander's notebook. and in that notebook we had

every marine's name and number and the wife's name and the dog's name and just kept track of things so that we knew who those marines were that were in our platoon. we'd keep track of it. and then because of foia or something the word came out, we can't do that because those little notebooks with your comments will be taken away and made public. and i think that from that time it seemed and the next 25 years that i served and, admiral, you served so many more -- and thank you for that, by the way -- that ability to keep track of our men and women has, has gone further and further away from the little platoon commander's notebook to the fact that you can't keep track of major events that occurred in the lives of our men and women in uniform. so the question to you is i

can't quite track it here, but have you made a specific recommendation to do something specific about some statute, or is that part of the reference that you've made for action by the secretary the of the army or something? can you address that? >> the part that is referred to the secretary of the army is the specifics about determining the accountability and take measures as he deems required. so we step forward and i indicated before i don't know, i believe you were here when i talked about in order to speed that process the manner in which we managed ourselves and our structure and organization so we have coherence and continuity in the person that's not only collected all of our information that steps forward and does the next phase also. you know, your comments about the platoon commander's notebook reminds me, again, of what officership is all about. and it also aligns itself with

what the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said on day one. hey, i expect the chain of command to function effti on ine unit and in the group. >> with respect, if i may, identify only got 20 -- i've only got 20 seconds. but the point is officership needs some tools, and that platoon commander's notebook was part of it, so the question is is there some recommendation that we take some legislative action that would allow for simplicity's sake that platoon commander's notebook to be the reinstated? because it's not there now. >> and you see our reference throughout talking about giving them the tools that they need and the gaps that exist, and so measures that have, measures that have occurred because of interpretations is what policy review is all about. and so if it requires your kind of action, then it's exciting to know that there are people in the congress that are ready to lead that effort. >> mr. chairman, thank you. >> thank the gentleman. mr. taylor.

>> [inaudible] >> yes, yes, please, respond. >> thank you. in the back of our report there is an appendix c that lists, for your convenience, all the findings and recommendations by chapter and by subject. 2.8 or 2.9 of those recommendations carries a recommendation that i think goes to what you say, the ability to collect the information and to carry it forward. so that's, that's part of what you had. the second thing is you mentioned that the, that the victims and the wounded were terrorized. i think my language was terrified. in both cases i think we acknowledged that they died and were wounded with courage and honor and dignity. >> mr. taylor, gentleman from mississippi. >> first, i want to thank both you gentleman for your continued service to the nation. admiral, i'm going to direct this at you. i think this is the first time you've appeared before this committee out of uniform, so you are free to speak your mind.

could this have happened on your watch, and regardless of how you answer that, why? and what's the message for the base commanders who are still in uniform? >> well, since we judge today that the policies and the programs and the procedures, the guidance on unauthorized and prohibited activities are inadequate today, then i would suggest that they were inadequate when i served too. and that's the what and and the why. >> and your specific recommendations now that you're out of uniform? >> my recommendations are focus on the behaviors, focus on anything that is -- we're talking about protecting our people in our workplace. focus on the violence indicators. and then once you do that somebody said, does it include this, does it include that? of course it does. it includes anything that is going to create harm for our

people. go deal with it, create the guidance on the indicators and empower and enable the commanders so they can take the actions they need and connect the dots. >> and in the case of this individual did anyone, did any of his coworkers or did any of his patients raise an alarm flag and say, i think this guy is dangerous? >> i wrote this down at the top of my page, i am constrained. i cannot -- >> i really don't think you are, admiral. >> i'm sorry, i am. my interpretation of this is that i am. and by the way, this is not my report. we have turned it over -- >> again, i'm asking you, vern clark, not admiral clark. you, vern clark, former cno, the opportunity to talk to the american public, did anybody in his command or any of his patients raise a red flag that i think this man is difference? >> okay. and i'm here representing the

work of this review. if you want to invite me back for another day to have the discussions about other top thetics, i'm here representing this review, and representing this review this area of discussion i am restricted, and i'd be happy to talk about it in closed section. >> you are invited back at your invenience, and say it today. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank the gentleman. mr. kaufman. >> i just want to, first of all, thank you both for your long service to this country, but i want to start out saying how offensive the notion of this review and its classification ought to be to the american people. this is just another incident in a long pattern before this committee of information that is withheld from the public that is neither germane to national security interests in terms of its classification, nor is it impending on any legal

processes. this is, i read it, it was just merely a finding of facts prior to the event, and it ought to be available to the american public. and so i think we have classification that ought to be politically embarrassing, and that ought to be a classification of top secret, secret, confidential, politically embarrassing. because the majority of the information that has come before this committee that has been classified is merely classified because it's politically embarrassing. general casey had said right after the incident that after these people were killed that it was a great tragedy but would be a greater tragedy if, in fact, we overreacted, and i think he was referring, obviously, to the muslim-americans who are currently serving in the military. but i served during the cold war in both the army and the marine corps, and there was a counterintelligence strategy for which we could detect individuals who had sympathies

with those who might be ideologically aligned to our opposition at the time, marxist communism. and, in fact, we had to affirm in statements that we had no, i think, relationship with the series of organizations that, in fact, were aligned directly or indirectly with our adversaries at that time, again, during the cold war. it seemed to me that we are at war now whether we call it the global war on terror or whether we call it overseas contingency operations with a version of radical islam that has somehow morphed into a political ideology that has declared war on the united states. so do you see that out of your recommendations that we are, in fact, able to have a system of counterintelligence that looks at linkages, that looks at objective patterns of behavior to try to decipher these

sympathies with those who are aligned as enemies to this country? mr. west, please? >> i think the quick answer, congressman, is yes. to some extent secretary gates even touched on that kind of an idea in his statement the other day when he released the report. the fact is we do have to respond today to today's imperatives. and those imperatives include the possibility -- that's why we're doing this -- that an incident like this could occur can again. or worse, several. at several different installations and that they could be part of a coordinated effort. so we need to look now at what admiral clark just, again, reemphasized as the indicators, and we have to look at them and then collect them and make them available so that people can use them as match sticks as they evaluate what's happening in their units. >> admiral?

>> i reenforce my earlier comments. this is, certainly, that kind of collection is authorized in certain circumstances, and all of those are not a part of this committee's work, but other committees in the congress. it's a matter of in the public domain that improvements need to be made in that regard, and that is all then about information sharing, and i pressed the point earlier in response to another question, inside the department and in interagency domain to help commanders connect the dots. >> let me just say in closing, thank you for your testimony, that i'd served in iraq with the united states marine corps 2005-2006, and i served with muslim-americans there, and i was impressed with their service and their dedication to their country. and i do believe that they would want a counterintelligence operation to where they were

vetted so where there were no question about their loyalty to this country. but i think they're a valuable asset to the armed forces of the united states. thank you again. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank the gentleman. mr. reyes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning and for the work you've done. i apologize, but i had my own hearing, so i got here late. but i did want to cover two areas that i think -- and if they've already been covered, i apologize. the first one is the sharing of information. the, in terms of the, i guess, the kind of intelligence that we know we have and have the capability to evaluate internally. your -- well, let me start

there. what are your recommendations in terms of how much we haven't shared and how much we should? >> good to see you again, sir. >> good to see you. >> in the entire area of information sharing, our recommendation is in the simplest way to say it is take down the barriers, get rid of 'em. and make sure that you do it inside the department too. but certainly do it in the interagency process. i have in front of me immediate release, fbi release on friday saying that a series of things are going to be done. in your other committee, i know there'll be something you're going to look at. now, other investigations have occurred. the president chartered an examination of the intelligence process. i'm sure that that's the subject to your other work, but my response would be just as it was to mr. taylor, i'm not here to

represent that report, i'm here to represent this report. but our recommendation is we need the barriers removed. we need to, we need to make sure that the -- we're going to hold the commanders responsible, and to do that we need to make sure that they have the tools, and sometimes the tool is maybe a risk assessment tool that helps them look at a series of diverse information, other times it's straightforward raw intelligence. and so remove the barriers is the simplest way i know how to say it, sir. >> i would say we have two information-sharing problems that we addressed in our report. the first as the admiral alluded to is amongst ourselves within the department of defense. from one commander to another, from one command level to another. to get the information that is needed to make assessments there. the second one also alluded to and the product of, a part of one of the fbi investigations is

sharing between agencies. and there again we saw some breakdowns, and we made some specific relations for -- recommendations for improvements including increasing the operation of the joint terrorism it is a thing forces. >> like mr. taylor, i hope we get an opportunity to have you back where you're not constrained by just reporting back on this report. the other issue, because as you probably know i represent fort bliss, and i get a chance to talk to soldiers and their families. one of -- and i'm curious to hear your thoughts. one of the things that they're conflicted about is the fact before they deploy they're expected to read up and know about the country they're going to the, afghanistan and iraq. the incident at fort hood has

sent, i guess, a chill down that says if you're looking at the internet to learn more, you may either become susceptible to radicalization, you may be getting the wrong information, you may, somebody may be monitoring it that may reflect negatively on them. how do we, how do we draw a balance on making sure that our troops going overseas into these areas are as knowledgeable as possible but yet don't have this cloud other them about -- over them about the work that they do on their own through the internet? >> i think that raises a good question, congressman. i have to say that i don't think we either discussed it or analyzed that particular part of the balance, if you will, in preparing our report. we have been focusing, frankly, on whether even in that research

i will have to say or those connections there are indicators that need to be, that we need to be aware of and at least evaluate. your point as to whether there is a kind of, what, inhibitor in reading up to prepare is, i think, a valid one. i guess my answer is if we pursue our research on the internet with honest hearts and good intention, i think that's likely to show itself. but if there are repeated efforts that then lead to a growing radicalization and, remember, it's not just that, it's a collection of indicators, a whole host of them that are needed to be read. i think if they're read properly, then we should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. the people who are danger of self-radicalization and, therefore, of violent acts and those who are simply preparing to go. now, that may not be the most

satisfactory exla nation but it's the best i have at the moment. >> thank the gentleman. mr. conaway. >> thank you, mr. chairman. admiral, good to see you this afternoon. mr. secretary, you mentioned understanding the forces of radicalization or self-radicalization. admiral, you mentioned key indicators of violence, lofty terms. certainly easier said than done. the clarity of hindsight allows us in most instances to weave a tinkers to evers to chance connect the dots program that would say, oh, yeah, surely had we done that we could have stopped whatever incident might have gotten involved. but in the fog of the present, the unclarity of the ongoing of the day-to-day we ought to always strive to get percent at whatever -- better at whatever it is we're doing, and if we've

got your reports, great as we plug in those things. i'm concerned and, secretary west, you may have just called for a constant surveillance of internet activity by all of us. do we want to live in a country that creates a surveillance program of thoughts and ideas and those kinds of activities in our quest to be safe? there's a movie out there, i think tom cruise starred in it, where they set in place a system to anticipate crime. and they would go and punish folks who would commit a crime in the future before it was committed just because it occurred between their ears. so i don't want to build an unrealistic expectation that in a free america, in an america where our protections under the constitution allow us to think and say and express that we don't sacrifice that in this quest to be safe.

because i don't know that you'll ever get there, and you won't be safe enough, and i don't know that i want to live in a world where i can't go to the internet with some expectation of anonymity to look for things that are there. and if i'm searching for bombs or, you know, whatever, but just to create that expectation in the american people's mind that we, in fact, in the military, the department of defense, could, in fact, surveil our people be so closely that a fratricide incident will never occur, or that if it does occur, we've had a spectacular failure of command. i don't know that i believe we can do that. just your comments. >> i'm not sure, congressman, that i called for it, but i certainly acknowledged that i understood the congressman's concern and the concern of people. because we do advocate looking for the indicators and recording them and having an entity that

can make a collection of what kinds of indicators we ought to be looking for. you solved the problem i was going to have with your question because we're not calling for it for the american people. we're talking about the fact that when people are part of the military family, they come privileged to enter our facilities by just -- >> so they sacrifice their -- >> some things. and that's already established. >> i understand that. but the more they sacrifice in terms of their personal freedoms and personal privacies, the less attractive the uniforms will be. >> i think you're right. >> admiral? >> i'd love to comment on that. i, i don't want to align myself with the movie -- [laughter] that's where i want to go, and you don't either. >> i don't remember the name of the movie. [laughter] >> i don't know either. i haven't seen it. >> chilling. >> but what i do believe is we

could have done better on this one. and so we want to do as well as we know how to do. and the keyword again is this balance thing. and this is why we took great care not to define exact outcomes, but to say, mr. secretary, as you look at this the, this is an area you need to put the spotlight on when you look at policy programs and procedures. we believe that there is fruit to be harvested here, and then people in responsible positions in the administration make the decision about what that balance is going to be, and we believe that that is going to require everybody to challenge the assumptions and then move forward with -- and certainly the congress has a role to play in all of that. >> i think understanding the radicalization process. i mean, what -- you look at a fellow, hasan, all the advantages he had. born here, grew up here, all the educational advantages he had,

how did he decide to do what he did, allegedly, i'm a cpa, not a lawyer so i can talk a little clearer than, perhaps -- anyway, thanks for your comments this morning. yield back. >> thank the gentleman. mr. rudy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think, i think i'm the last member here, so i guess i'm the end of the totem pole, so hopefully i just think that if we are ending here, we need to get back to the beginning, and that's what the chairman said, and i think that you've seen consistency on both sides of the aisle here, a lot of the questions that we have over here are the same questions that were raised on the other side, and i think that the chairman, though, said it best at the beginning. what we have here is two issues that the american people in my district and, i'm sure, across this country are concerned with, and that deals with the breakdown between communication

of the federal agencies, the department of defense, the department of the army, the fbi, the cia, whoever, should have known about these things, been communicating. i mean, after 9/11 we all know that's why we have homeland security, that's why we don't have these breakdowns in communications between federal agencies. that's one thing that's not acceptable to the american people. so those questions and those solutions as we move forward, and i understand you're under restriction. i'm a former judge advocate, i served at fort hood, and my son was born at the hospital that major hasan worked at. so it's very emotional for me to sit here. .. evander standing restrictions. with the army i say to people cahal -- you are

quick to react to mmi initial push back is give the army the benefit of the doubt we're doing things the right way and not purposely doing things to expose people to risk or danger that we can do better. with this review hopefully, that is true and whether or not you can address that specifically we will get better. ask an admiral it if we have the adequate policies those stocks will be connected and we will address them in the future. the one question i do have with that, admiral i don't know if you specifically say you alluded to the fact commanders will be held responsible. i don't know that means retrospectively because things from this but i don't understand what you mean when if the policy is inadequate and hold commanders responsible how can you hold them

responsible if the policy was what it was? >> thank you for the opportunity to clarify. what happens when issues like this come up and hearings are held some of the judgment is to the commander do what he could do with the tools he had? of it is within the ability to have the information required or take the actions or pursue the lines of inquiry, then they are held accountable. if they don't come which is certainly the case we're finding today with policy is inadequate is another story. as a former judge advocate you know, to revise as those that came before you. >> i did not finish my point*. second, what they are may not have been best with major hasan and how we connect those dots with what is adequate and what we can

expect from the commanders moving forward. those are what the people want to know. if i could clean up a few things because i have one minute left. mr. west, absolutely a terrorist act. could happen one of the charges referred whether it is or is not i don't know. premeditated murder and attempted murder charges but within the scope of the law it is centered. i will not question why it was our was not >> well, we're not there yet. >> right. and i too just want to close with this. i think that with this idea that's been raised a few times here with political correctness, versus good order and discipline. i sort of disagree with what was just said. all these guys wearing the uniform behind you understand when they sign up they are sacrificing a lot of constitutional rights that the rest of us -- that's part of

sacrifice. that's part of service. and we know that when we are signing our name on the dotted line and getting into formation every morning. i mean, that's part of the deal. but i just think it needs to be -- i think it needs to be remember the supreme court has upheld time and time again that for the sake of good order and discipline, sacrificing some of the rights that we civilians have included political correctness, for the sake of, you know, it might not all be politically correct and the military, that the military gets to do that, to keep us safe. so with that i will just thank you for your service, and for your testimony. >> admiral? >> very briefly. our report points out that there are differences between uniform members and civilians in the department. and i didn't refer back to mr. mckeel's comments earlier on, that this is not just an issue in the department of

defense. and so if you look at this kind of threat that we're describing, we're talking about a challenge to us as a people. and so we didn't say, go change those rules. don't change that makes. but we did point out it is different. and so if, when we then examine the whole force protection of the environment we have to understand what we have ever have to make judgments and those judgments have to be made on balance. and in those palaces have to be defined and in an enabling way that goes back to the point we pressed here, let's be quick and enable the commanders, leaders in these institutions so they can leave the command with the context of good order and discipline and all that goes with that. >> mr. mckeon, final comments? >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, thank you for being here. for being able to answer some questions about being able to answer questions, i don't know if we all understand all of

that, but it is what it is. i said in my opening statement, when an officer takes an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies, foreign and domestic, i also said in my questioning that the media reports we had been given, one of them was major hasan had made a statement that sharia law trump the constitution. what i want to know is if you can answer that? did he in fact say that? yes or no? >> sir, it's in the restrictive annex, in a reference to anything that he might have said that we decided to cite. >> okay. if somebody is an officer in the armed services, and they make a

statement such as i quoted, that would indicate opposition to the oath that they took as an officer, why would they didn't have a right to be promoted to higher rate? or why are they even, indeed, left as an officer in the service? >> i think it's fair to say that statements like that are indicators that ought not be missed and that ought to be taken into account in making decisions on precisely what you said. >> thank you very much. >> may i clarify that i said, i didn't say whether that subject, was in the restrictive annex that any comments he might have said we decide to include in the annex are in that restrictive session. and i would personally enjoy the fulsome discussion on the particular discussion. >> i thank the gentleman. let me ask in summary, if you

agree with my comments. we've all been frustrated, as you know, by our inability to discuss all aspects of the shooting at fort hood. some things are clear. more needs to be done to identify and document behavior that suggests an individual may present a danger. we need to carefully examine what new tools or authorities may be needed to address this. do you agree with that? >> you said it better than we wrote it, mr. chairman. >> i align completely with your words. >> thank you. we've also heard that there was a failure in what the independent review has described as officership, that at least in the case of major hasan, military officers failed to accurately document major hasan's performance and abilities in his academic and his military evaluations. do you agree with that?

>> that's with greater detail than we said, sir? >> sir? >> that's with greater detail than we said. they also were very inconsistent to. >> admiral? >> secretary west is correct. >> let me ask as a last question, and i think it's very, very important. your term, officership, i think across the board those in uniform should fully understand that term. would each of you give a definition of that term one more time? >> i'm going to let admiral clark gophers. it's a term he used most often and then i will give my view. >> admiral? >> we talked about it at length

inside our review. and just a couple of days ago, one of the staffers came up and provided me with this instruction that has it and it. and it happens to be from the uniformed services university of health sciences. and if you'd like, we can provide it to you. but it talks -- >> would you like that to be part of the record? >> that's fine. >> no objection to. >> i agree with everything that's in here, and it talks about all the elements that you define the role of united states of america and talks about upholding the constitution and the oath. and then the standards and all of the things that we would expect that go with leadership, and a person who decides to live a lifestyle of service and a role of leadership supporting, goes and objectives and values of the united states of america. >> thank you. i know mr. mckeon joined me as was all the members of the

committee, thank you for your service on this panel, your leadership, and of course, the fact that you've been such an outstanding american leaders in the past. thank you very, very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> a couple of live events tutorial about today

>> british prime minister gordon brown announced that flights between yemen and the u.k. have been suspended. the flight ban is part of a package of new security measures introduced by the prime minister, and is in direct response to the christmas day failed bombing plot. other measures include the expansion of the home office's watch list and new body scanners at airports. following his statement, he took questions from party leaders and members. this is 50 minutes. >> order. statement from the prime minister. >> with permission, mr. speaker, i should like to update the house on the measures we have taken to enhance our security and our protection against terrorism. yesterday at a regular meeting of our national security committee, ministers and i received the latest intelligence and information from the chiefs

of our security and intelligence agencies, the head of the u.k. border agency, the country's counterterrorism officials and police officers at the chief of defense staff. and yesterday i also spoke with president obama about our security measures. the failed attack over detroit on christmas day signal the first operation outside of arabia by al qaeda in the peninsula. this is the yemen-based organization with closely to the al qaeda in pakistan. we know that a number of terrorist cells are actively trying to attack britain and other countries. so earlier this month the whole secretary of the transport secretary made statements to parliament setting out urgent steps we're taking to enhance aviation security, including new regulations for transit passengers. today followed the advice of the government has received, i want to announce further measures. to strengthen the protection of our borders and maximize aviation security, to enhance intelligence coordination at home and abroad, mr. speaker,

earlier today i pay to be to those members of our armed forces who gave most recently their lives in the service of the security of our country and afghanistan. the action we're taking to counterterrorism at its source in the afghan pakistan region and elsewhere is the central part of our wider counterterrorism strategy. and all our actions which will update regularly are out on what is and must be the first and most important duty of government, the protection and security of the british people. while the uk's borders are already among the strongest in the world, i now want to set out how we will further strengthen our protection against would be generous. first i extending -- [inaudible] the sharing of information on individual of concern. i can announce that as was extending our watchlist, we intend for the first time to use the watchlist as the basis for to do list.

first a no fly list, and second, a large list of those subject to special measures including enhanced screening are too boring flights bound for the u.k. will use the new technology with introduced and our partnership with police and agencies and other countries to stop those who pose the greatest risk from traveling to our country. but over the coming months, we will go further and take action because people even before they board a plane to the u.k. our keyboarders came as a bugaboo of our strategy to strengthen and modernize the u.k. border controls. it has already achieved significant success, enables nearly 5000 arrests or crimes which include murder, rape and assault are as a result of the $1.1 billion that we're making, we will be, by the end of this year, able to check all passengers traveling from other countries to all major airports and ports in the u.k., whether they are in transit or whether the u.k. is their final destination, by checking against

the watchlist 24 hours prior to travel, and in taking appropriate action. so the e-boarding system will give us a better system. and my right honorable friend is meeting today with european counterparts for his swift agreement at your opinion union level on the ability to collect and process data on passenger records, including travel within the european union. and to enforce the commission's recent approval of the transmission of advanced passenger information to our transit system by carriers based in other member states. now as the detroit bomber highlighted, we also need and we are sponsoring research on the most sophisticated devices capable of identifying potential explosives anywhere on the body. and asked president obama and i discussed yesterday, greater security in our airports with a new body scanner introduced from next week and increase an explosive trace testing and the use of dogs must be matched by

demanding greater guarantees about security in those international airports from which there are flies into our country. so i can today inform the house that we have agreed with the airlines pending enhanced security that they suspend the direct flights to the u.k. from yemen. we are working closely with the yemeni government to agree more security measures to be put in place before the flights are assumed. officials are in yemen at present looking at this. and i hope that flights can be resumed soon. but the secrecy of our citizens must be our priority. we will also work with our partners in the international organization, the european union and the g8 to promote enhancements to the international aviation security regime. stronger security arrangements and airports, greater sharing of information and the home secretary will be discussing initial proposals with european and american counterparts. this week. we want to offer increased assistance to countries whose weaknesses in aviation security

they present a wider threat to the international community, including to the u.k. mr. speaker, is because we fully recognize the global nature of the terrorist threat we face today that our response must also be truly global. profs against the u.k. and our interests are raised in various parts of the global. some of the intelligence we need to protect our people against attacks will be here in britain. some will be held by our international partners. and passed to his. just as we help them with information about threats they face there some information will come from the most unstable parts of the world. so in tackling these threats to life and to our way of life, our security services, and i pay tribute to all of them, need to be able seamlessly to track and disrupt terrorist activity and movements, whether within the u.k. or beyond. this requires ever closer working between our agencies themselves and with our international partners. so i can announce that as part of the work i've asked the

cabinet secretary to lead on intelligence coordination are three intelligence agencies have already begun to set up joint investigating and targeting teens to address potential threats upstreamed long before the individuals concerned might reach our shores to ensure that at all times, we continue to deliver improvements in the way we collect, share it, and use intelligence. and building on previous reforms, including the joint terrorism analysis that we set up in 2003, at the office of security and counterterror as an anti-national security secretary we set up in 2007. mr. speaker, in addition to all these measures to protect british lives at home and in the air, we are tackled the problem of global international terrorism at its source that i said before that yemen is both an incubator and potential safe haven for terrorism. and is along the somalia the most significant after pakistan afghan border areas. we and our allies are still clear that the terrorism on the

afghan pakistan border remains the number one security threat to the west. but at the same time we must recognize that al qaeda's affiliates and allies pushed out of afghanistan and increasing under pressure in pakistan are seeking to exploit others with weakened in its, like parts of human and somalia. in yemen, we have been at the forefront of the international effort against terrorism for some time. we've been assisting the government of yemen through intelligence support, through support for its coast guard. were also helping to tackle some of the root causes of terrorism by supporting political economic and social reform. by next year our commitment to human will total some 100 million pounds making the u.k. one of its leading donors. and we are also increasing our capacity building and somalia working with the transitional government and with the african union. mr. speaker, as with all aspects of the fight against terrorism,

this new threat can be met only to enhance cooperation. so we will now work more closely with allies in the region to pool efforts, resources and expertise. next week in london, alongside our conference on afghanistan, we will be hosting a special meaning to strengthen international support for yemen in its efforts against al qaeda. we will help the government of yemen advance its internal reforms that we will increase capacity building and develop assistance in a way that directly addresses poverty and grievances which could fuel insecurity and terrorism. so mr. speaker, since 2001 we have reform domestic defenses against the terrorist threat. we have traveled our domestic security, we have doubled the staff in our security services, we have reformed our sacred structures to bring greater correlation across government. we have responded to the changing nature of the threat by bringing a new power and new terrorism related offenses. new 230 people have been convicted of terrorist or terrorist related offenses since 2001. today's announcement

demonstrates we will continue to be vigilant at gapping our response to changing terrorist techniques. and i commend the statement to the house. >> mr. david cameron? >> thank you, mr. speaker. and i thank the prime minister for his data. there is much in it we welcome. we welcome particularly the emphasis on the national security approach, something we consistently called for over the last four years. i want to ask him about four areas in particular that the radicalization of young british muslims, how to increase security and our borders, international cooperation, and coordination within our own government. first on radicalization, isn't the key point about the detroit bomber is that he didn't go to yemen by accident and happened to get radicalize their? he was actually radicalize first in the united kingdom and went to yemen as a result. doesn't that show that more needs to be done to tackle radicalization right here in the u.k.? we welcome the belated decision to ban islam from u.k. having repeatedly called for a. will he now go ahead and ban

his? the fact is, to many of our university campuses tolerated organizations that have acted as incubators of terrorism. isn't one of the lessons that we should act that threaten violence, but those which threaten our way of life also? and isn't it time for improper review of the preventing violent extremism strategy? second, on the security of our borders, we welcome many other things the prime minister said, particularly on the issue of a no fly list. this was read by our security minister and we very much welcome its introduction. on body scanners, while these are welcome, can the prime minister say whether he did his body scanners would have prevented this particular individual boarding the aircraft in amsterdam? on the question of how we decide to search people at airports, obviously crude ethnic profiling is neither right nor effect appeared however, this doesn't mean we should not be thinking about how to best target our

approach here as i understand, in the case of the detroit bomber, he appeared to participate in a number of high-risk doctors, paid for the tickets and cash, only caring hand luggage and having pretty been paid a u.k. visa. does the prime minister agree with me they should have set the alarm bells ringing? can he tells what's been done in the light of this episode to enhance the training of security staff at airports to identify these clear risk factors? above all, when it comes to our borders, isn't it time for a proper border police force rather than the implementation we've had so far? on international cooperation, this is exceptionally important, clearly we need to work with the authorities in yemen to address the growing threat emanating from that country. we welcome such cooperation but is it important these things are properly handled? now to start with we are given the high profile announcement of a big conference only a good argument next week that it turns out to be in the margins of the summit on afghanistan. and the prime minister asked what how this came to happen?

equally can the prime minister could've another matter? on the fourth of january to prime minister's official spokesman said and i quote from the published record of the briefing, there was security information about this individual's activities and that was the information that was shared with u.s. authorities that as we we know, there followed a dispute about whether information was passed on or not. can the prime minister now promised he will stick to the fundamental principle that we do not comment on intelligence matters? forth, on coordination within the government. i know the prime minister agrees we do need a national security approach probably put in place. we welcome the progress on this, but does he agree that rather than a cabinet committee what we need is a proper national security council with a national security advisor at the heart of government which can address these issues. the privacy was a wee happy but let me put this point that if we have a nashe secret approach, if we think these things are, we will still be spending more on aid to china than we are to the human. if we are really thinking about

national security. finally, the prime minister spoke about antiterrorist legislation. we will always support measures that provide the hard-nosed defense liberty and we will oppose measures that amount to anything or authoritarianism. with that in mind, will he now admits that the attempt to introduce 42 detention without i was a politicalpolitically motivated mistake? >> mr. speaker, i would hope in his response we would find more consensus that we appear to have discovered on this. first of all, can i advise him not to draw to quick conclusions. we do not have the full information that he suggest we have about the radicalization and the united kingdom. and we do not have also all the information about his activities in human. that is part of the continuing investigation that is going on. and to draw conclusions immediately i think is both

premature and dangerous. it is the case that we've excluded more than 180 people from our country since 2005. we've excluded more than 100 individuals on grounds of unacceptable behavior. since july 2005, 8 individuals being a port on grounds of national security and a further eight have made bollettieri departures. we take action what it is right to do so. on the prescription of organizations, we take action where we have the evidence that will stand up in a court of law to do so. decisions on prescription must be based on evidence that the group is concerned and terrorism as defined in the terrorism act 2000, anna and is not a party political decision that has been made that it is a decision made on legal grounds that can be challenged in the court. that's why the decision was made in the way it has been on islam for the u.k. that and that's why we have been careful in what has happened over the organization called heart. can i say on the issue of body

scanners. and what happened in amsterdam. we are investing a huge amount of money for identifying materials that are held in peoples bodies when they go through a search. we cannot be absolutely sure that the scanners we have at the moment are absolutely foolproof. they are the best that we have at the moment, but we will continue to address further in them. the point i'm making today is we invest in scanners in the united kingdom. it is going to be necessary that other countries also have the sophisticated techies, that they are using and they're prepared to develop so we have protection not only at airports in our country, but airports where people are coming to our country. i want to do with this issue of e-boarder as low. i'm grateful if the leader of the opposition is now say he is withdrawing his objection to the holding of such a dated because there is an essential part of

the national security effort that we have got to carry out in the future much that we have within it the possibility under e-boarders to have information in advance, 24 hours in advance of the passengers flying into the united kingdom to be able to check that individual against the watch list, then to decide whether that individual should be able to fly or should be subject to enhance the search is. that is a major advance that is going to happen during the course of the year as a result of the huge investment we've made in e-boarders. as far as international cooperation is concerned, the human conference is a necessary means by which we can signal to the people of yemen at the international community is prepared to support them in their efforts against al qaeda. and i thought it was right and so did the president of united states of america that we brought people together on the beat of the afghan conference to signal the importance we attach, both to human taking action against al qaeda, and to support those people in yemen who are

fighting at these terrorist groups that as far as announcement that were made during christmas are concerned, it is the product is not for us to comment on security information. that will be the practice that is always followed in future. so that is absolutely clear about the policy of the government. but i do think that we should look here today at the wider picture. i'm sorry that he has not got himself into this debate here that counterterrorism strategy starts with what we do in the united kingdom by securing our borders. it means we have to have enhanced cooperation at all times with the security agency of other countries. it means that yo you radicalizan when we are carrying out is not simply in britain but with other countries throughout the world to expose the extremists and to support the moderate and it leads us of course to take action in the afghan border area to make sure that al qaeda cannot begin to a foothold in pakistan, in afghanistan that

would allow the taliban to get back to power. i thought and i hope and i continue to hope they will be complete consensus in all parts of the house on these issues. >> nick clegg? >> i would like to thank the prime minister for his statements. the changing and evolving threat to bring security, not only calls for constant vigilance, but also demands regular review and debate in this house also. he can always count on support of these benches in introducing proportionate and well thought through measures to reduce that threat while protecting the traditional liberties of the british people. i particularly welcome his statement on increasing joint working with our european and other allies in a globalized world, such as european cooperation is vital to tackle any threats. the reason why i have said more, not less european cooperation in this area, our basic safety depends on it. i welcome what he said about the

upcoming u.n. conference to discuss approaches to the situations in yemen and after a. the joint working of our intelligence agencies to identify combat threats and the artist points at which they emerge. and the extension of the e-boarder approach which is my life were to have the information we need about people coming into and leaving the united kingdom. on yemen, mr. speaker, the yemeni authorities if i'm understanding correctly claim there are only a very small number of hardline al qaeda supporters in yemen. can the prime minister tell us how those small number of people will be targeted in order to ensure we do not inflame and in order to opinion and yemen? does the prime minister agree with me that the very greatest challenge is to isolate and marginalize al qaeda supporters in the horn of africa, rather than take steps which will have the unintended consequence of boosting their support in this fragile region? mr. speaker, the prime minte