>> it's not at the point where i'm going to deliver the pamphlet on the arc concept. it's something we're still developing. >> do you have any idea when we might expect it. candidly, i would have to ask the services and come back to you. thank you. >> i think i would be speaking out of turn to say we have an actual timeline on that. >> madam secretary, question on guam, if we lost that fuel capacity, how long would it take us to replace it and where would we have to find that energy? >> i would have to look at the date and we would be perhaps -- perhaps the general can be more specific on where that would come from.

>> general, maybe -- >> i would say -- i can address the specifics. the specifics are classified. that's okay. don't tell us anything classified. there are alternative sources in the pacific that we would leverage. there is the concern about above-ground facilities there. there's a resiliency effort going on. and i'm not over exact thyme period but to address some of the vulnerability issues we're going to have in this environment. so i think we are looking at that and looking at the actions we need to make to make those facilities better protected but i think also as described earlier we talked about this briefly in your office this morning. is it's more than just a single -- a single piece, a single system, you know, it's more than hardening. it's really as arc battle is attempting to address. it needs to address the end to end chain of operations so it's

a complex and it's broad in nature. >> before we go to ms. burr dell, there's a quick question here. >> just a quick question here. we talk about the full capacities on guam and other set places. a specific location but one of our colleagues in the last congress, what about getting the fuel to the ships themselves 'cause you wouldn't want the ships to have to come back to a set location. what about the refueling capacity in the midst of battle do we have the ships that can do that? >> candidly, i'm not aware of any shortages that we have in refueling the fleet. that one is best i can address so we can address with the navy. >> last question very quickly. if we had a protracted battle that went -- with high intensity operations, do we have the

industrial base here to sustain that? and if so, for what period of time do you think? >> candidly, i'm not qualified to answer that. >> mr. schiffer, any idea on that? >> i would have to also plead that when it comes to speaking to the industrial base of the united states, i'm not qualified to answer that but we'll be happy -- >> if you could get us that information and now my call-in friend from guam. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i would ask to ask my first question to secretary schiffer. and that is the concept of tangible progress with regards to the construction of the new facility seven what that means for the realignment on guam. what exactly is tangible progress and when tangible progress occurs, what will that allow the united states to accomplish? and further, what must the united states be doing concurrently as the government of guam -- or the government of japan works through its

processes to reach tangible progress in okinawa? >> thank you. as we look at tangible progress on the replacement facility, we see it as not a single specific event but rather a series of steps roughly in parallel between japan and the united states as spelled out in the realignment roadmap, the guam international agreement and other bilateral agreements. it will allow us to move forward with the government of japan as progress is made on the frf to in turn take associated steps that we have to take on guam. there are a number of different

indicators that we're looking at. starting with the decision on the runway configuration for frf that we're expecting on the two plus two and the efforts we're looking at down line, construction of the seawall, and progress on the landfill itself. the other critical point for the committee, which i know that you understand is that preparation on guam needs to begin well in advance of actual construction on the ground for the replacement facility at camp schawb. and that relocation of the marines from okinawa will be faced with completion of suitable infrastructure on guam. consequences in such a way to maintain unit cohesion and operational readiness. and that's why this entire process has to move in lockstep

and why we need to look at all of the different indicators as we go along including for one other item to offer, japanese financing for infrastructure improvements on guam as part of this continuing that comprises tangible progress and will enable us to relocate from the air station to the replacement facility and to relocate the marines from okinawa. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i have one quick question, mr. chairman, this is for secretary. as you know, the defense authorization bill contained a provision that gave the secretary of defense to intergrate the water and wastewater lines on guam. i have long believed that the navy indeed all services should be out of the business of being a utility provider. and that said i continue to believe that the integration of

power in guam provides us the right model for utility integration. in that case, madam secretary, guam took over control of the navy's power system but did so after agreeing to reach certain performance milestones. additionally, there was a third-party expert that helped to oversee the integration process and ensure that the agreed upon milestones were met. however, this was all done at no cost to the rate payers on guam. would you agree that this is a model that should be used for the consolidation in the water in wastewater system in guam? and would you also agree that consolidation of the utilities should occur without burdening the rate payers on guam? >> thank you, congresswoman. we are working with the guam water authority to interconnect with their lines and some of the

infrastructure will be used for the infrastructure for the water facilities, the water on base. and those will be interconnected. now, as i understand the agreement in the ndaa about the integration, set some conditions for meeting a performance standard before there could be such thing as an intasegregation and that's what happened with power. we'll continue to work towards meeting the standards that will work for the needs of the department of defense as well as guam water agency. >> madam secretary, i noticed in the agreement that they're saying that the navy should have -- have a voting member on our utility board. can you indicate where else in

the united states that the navy is a voting member on a utility board or any other local governing body? isn't this a cumbersome requirement for the navy or any service or through the state and local relationship? >> i don't know of any place where it would be, but i believe that the requirement there was based on this need to make sure that that certain operational standards were met and i believe that was one way that that could be done. >> so your answer is then that nowhere else in the united states? >> none that i know of, congresswoman. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. >> the chair runs new jersey. >> i thank all you witnesses for coming out. talking about interconnectedness. how is command engaging with our international partners over there to really address terrorism? you have elements of the

philippines, indonesia, southeast asia that are obvious threats, you know, how are our partners coming together and, you know, do we need more resources and/or funding to accomplish this and be ready for that? >> thank you, sir. that's being addressed in multiple levels. let me talk about kind of current events. as you're probably aware we have joint operations task force operating in the southern philippines of around 600 u.s. personnel. that's been there for a number of years and continues to be effective in addressing terrorist issues that were occurring in that part of the philippines, i think, very effectively. so that's one significance. we're also concerned as we look at the south asia region what the l.e.t. or the terrorist group which emanates out of pakistan but has a presence in india and nepal and bangladesh -- we're concerned how -- let me backtrack for a

second. as you're aware the l.e.t. is responsible for the mumbai attacks where so many people lost their lives and so we're very concerned about that interaction that l.e.t. is having on india and the effect -- the compression effect you have between two nuclear powers when there is an attack from the l.e.t. so we're very concerned about that very much in the southeast asia. we're attempting to focus that not only in india but also in bangladesh and nepal to assure that we work on facilitation networks. and more importantly, how we address building the capacity of our partners to, in fact, address those internal issues so that they can secure their borders, so that they have developed networks for intelligence. they can develop intelligence on things that might be occurring inside of their country. and then also how they might, you know, law enforcement actual counterterrorism operations. so that's another line of our operation there. we facilitate that mainly

through our theater security cooperation plan which addresses the specific countries in the aor and the ones that are specific concerns for terrorist activities, clearly a big part of that tcp is addressing that building partner capacity to address either endemic or military issues that are causing those situations to occur. >> it's probably kind of in the same rel him to diffuse the depositions also, you know, with south china sea, the taiwan strait, is that kind of the same angle that you're taking with that or is that a totally different game? >> i'm not entirely -- the real building partner capacity part of this i think is a different sense, of course, when we interact with the chinese there's a different interaction we interact with our allies and partners. >> i was just curious about how

you're -- we know there's a lot of tension there specific in the street and that type of thing and how we're dealing with that moving forward. >> and i think again and mr. schiffer may want to comment but i think the importance of the interaction military-to-military with the chinese and the nature of that appears to be episodic at best. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. thank you, mr. runyan. and now mr. courtney. >> thank you, mr. chairman. actually to follow up on mr. runyan's question. there was the sinking of the ship and again, there was exhaustive forensic investigation that was inescapable. that it was a completely unprovoked attack by a north korean mini sub and yet we were enable to get china's

acknowledgement of again something that was just totally black and white that north korea was responsible for this. and in terms of the prospect of productive military-to-military relationship even government to government relationship -- i mean, to not be able to succeed in able to get a basic baseline of what actually happened there. and in terms of just what impact that's going to have in terms of transit traffic both commercial and military in that part of the world -- i guess i would ask you to comment on that, mr. schiffer, in terms of, you know -- it seems like using that as a test -- i mean, the relationship is not really doing that well. and maybe it's just episodic is the right way to describe it. the second question in terms of readiness is just -- the press reports show that there was clearly a gap there in terms of sonar technology in terms of being able to detect that mini

sub and, you know, when you gave your list of investments and help that we're living to our allies to the region, that was one of the items and i didn't hear it and i wonder if you could address that because clearly, you know, 46 sailors lost their lives because they didn't see that sub marine coming or that attack. >> let me address part of the question and also and then turn the floor to general alles. i guess i would note first that when the incident occurred our military-to-military relationship with the peoples republic of china was in one of its periodic and from our perspective very unfortunate periods of suspension because the chinese had suspended the relationship in january of last year following our announcement of an arm sales package to taiwan. so we were actually unable to

have any discussion at that time with the chinese so we were enable to have anticipate discussions about china. i'm not sure that would have made much of a difference, frankly, and much like you we continue to be somewhat mystified by how the chinese have approached what seems to us to be very, very clear evidence that culpability in the incident. we hope now that we have resumed the military-to-military relationship with china that we are going to be able to put it on stable and reliable footing and that in so doing, we'll be able to reduce misunderstanding, miscommunication, and misapprehension and perhaps have some real discussions with them about some of the larger strategic issues in the region including how we each view and approach north korea. and that is certainly something when secretary gates was in

china this past january, he engaged on. insofar as the readiness issue that you -- that you identified before turning things over to general alles, i'll just note that the list that i offered was by necessity given the open nature of this hearing not complete and obviously we'll be happy to brief any member of the committee that is interested in a closed session more fully. on the fuller list of the capabilities that we're seeking to develop, but i certainly can say in this open setting that as you are no doubt aware, we've undertaken a series of very robust exercises with our ally including a number of exercises at sea off -- both coasts of

korea. and those exercises have been attended in no small part to increase capabilities and alliance capabilities precisely so that we're better postured to be able to deal with these sorts of provocations in the future. >> and thank you, sir, thank you, mr. schiffer. i would make a couple of comments about chonan one was the nature of the attack was unexpected, it's unprovoked and unexpected so from that standpoint it was a surprise attack and a surprise to the koreans. as indicated a lot of your focus here in the near term has been increasing the capacity of the south koreaas in terms of asw and we have increased our capabilities in those areas. i think the chinese's main concern is about the stability of north korea in general and i think that is a large part -- is

a large calculus in how they respond to those situations. to us as we already expect or mystified as the evidence we gave on chonan. >> we have three votes that have just been called. our witnesses have graciously agreed to wait as we run over and do those and come back but i want to try to get in one more set of questions so i would like to turn now to the gentleman from alabama, mr. rogers. >> thank you. general alles, i understand the department is reevaluating its preposition stocks as a part of secretary gates efficiency drills. and we're already beginning to see reductions in funding in the 2012 budget that the secretary has submitted to us. was pay com part of this evaluation in the strategy? >> yes, sir. we were a part of that evaluation. i would note that we have call

culated the effects of that as it spoke gep our operations plans to ensure those plans remain available from our standpoint so i can't address the whole worldwide scope and that's at paycom. but in terms of addressing a very difficult time distance equation we have in the pacific theater we're currently satisfied. >> and you feel like that's going to be adequate in the near future? see, i'm -- given what's happening with the decrease in national disaster of japan and the global resources and the volatility in north korea, it seems to me that bringing those prepositioned stocks down was risky and you're saying you don't think that's true? >> we addressed -- that was one of the concerns we addressed to the department was to ensure that we were looking beyond just the near term really at the five-year and beyond horizon because the dynamic and the security posture in asia is changing as we consider the rise of powers in asia itself.

that was part of our calculation and part of our response back to the department to ensure we had adequate stocks for our operations plans. >> i understand that we need to get every dollar -- get use out of every dollar but i also want to make sure that we're ready and i have very really concerns about these productions. we know that the readiness posture of paycom is negative by the ongoing military operations in iraq and afghanistan now by humanitarian assistance in japan. how significant is the shortage of forces and equipment required to effectively deal with the broad range of security concerns in paycom's area of operation? >> so i would comment there, sir, for our day-to-day theater security operations i think we are adequately resourced and i've had this conversation with my boss. there is a significant presence

of u.s. forces from paycom in the afghanistan and iraq obviously there is an effect in those forces. there's a long-term effect i do believe about the strategic expression we're making by having those forces out of theater year after year after year that we do have to address our operations and i think as our long-term equation, i think we need to continue to look at that. it's having, though, probably a different effect you may not be aware of. as we have more of our ground -- as the ground forces are gone, obviously, to iraq and afghanistan, we're relying more on our navy forces so that require more basic days or operations days outlet of those forces which is more wear and tear on those aircraft and ships and also the long-term viability of those and we're using those assets because we're relying on them because of our deployment of forces out of theater.

>> what would you like to see this committee and this congress to do with that wear and tear with that problem that you just described? >> i think in once against as we continuing on the continuing resolution that's going to affect maintenance schedules for our ships and our aircraft because of funding levels that they don't have. that's one aspect of it. i think also we have to look at the long-term equation of what our ship-building program looks like. >> just as a last point i want to go back to this prepositioned stocks. when i asked you if paycom was involved in any evaluation did you feel any pressure from the secretary's office and administration to tell them what they wanted to hear on that issue? >> no, sir. i think we had a robust dilock with them and clearly expressed what our positions were. >> okay. we're going to stand in recess until the conclusion of these votes. we thank you for these patience and it will probably take us 20

minutes. maybe about 30 minutes before we get back. so feel free to go out in the hall and do whatever you need to do. we'll be right back. thank you. >> i want to thank our witnesses for their patience and apologize our leave during those votes. the chair now recognizing the gentleman from north carolina, mr. kissell, for five minute. mr. kissell? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses for being here. mr. chairman, i couldn't help but being a past world history teacher i couldn't help enjoy your story about pearl harbor.

when i was teaching i would start out every semester by reading a reamble to a book and i believe it was "fly boys" but don't quote me on that and it talked about the japanese surprised the fleet, caught them in the harbor in december and the end result of the battle was they sunk all the fleet and i would tell my students if you can tell me, you know, where that happened, i'll give you an a for the semester and you don't have to come to class. you can do whatever you want. and all of them would raise their hand and, of course, they thought it was pearl harbor. i said well, the next line in the book says president roosevelt wrote a letter to the japanese and congratulated them on their great victory and that stumped them a little bit. it was 1905. it was the russians. we have a great capacity to think we have all the answers and we have to keep looking for the things that may surprise us. the reason i asked the questionerly general about the

supply ships jean taylor was one of our colleagues who was very knowledgeable of these things and i remember one session he was very concerned when how do we resupply the oil when we're out in the sea during battle do we have enough oilers. and i will follow up with this with a question and you can take it off the record. my question being this, if we're in a prolonged engagement in the western pacific, do we have the resources to -- you know, the chairman asked do we have the industrial resources? well, not answering that but do we have the resources -- the capacity whether it'd be ships, airplanes or whatever to get what we need on a continuing basis to where the engagement may be? and whoever, you know, feel free. and i encouraged you to be brief. i have a few questions. >> we can't, obviously, get into classified discussions here.

i would need to answer specifics off the record but generally i would say yes we do have the capacities we need in the terms of resupply for the plans that i have booked right now, sir. >> okay, good. one country we haven't specifically mentioned even though we have said in the general areas vietnam. where do we see vietnam emerging or do we see them emerging in terms of the military but where do we see them merging politically as it relates to our relationship with china? and once again, whoever wants to jump at this one. >> i think as a general statement we've been extraordinarily pleased by the progress that we've made in our relationship with vietnam over the past number of years, since

normalization, and we certainly look to deepen and strengthen the relationship that we have between the united states and vietnam in the years ahead. >> does china view that as a threat 'cause historically that's -- those two countries have been at odds? >> i wouldn't speak and couldn't speak about beijing's threat perception but certainly as you know, china and vietnam have had a rocky history of their own. and i'm certain that there are those in beijing probably do view our relationship with vietnam in less than favorable light. from our perspective, or deepening and strengthening relationship with vietnam and our desire to ent i