>> there was a report on april 30th filed that the yukon fifth was not in europe, but deployed on a training dpers in croatia; is that correct? >> are you talking about last september? >> yes, during benghazi. >> it was on a training mission in bosnia. >> on the night of the terrorist attack in benghazi; correct? >> that's correct. >> what is the time of deployment of the forces? what is their standing order? >> their response times ratcheted up and down from n-plus-1 notification, sitting on the tarmac up to n-plus-6 according to the threat. >> according to adam, through a

whistle blower, that individual stated that force could have been in benghazi three and a half hours, four to six hours, somewhere in that time frame; is that correct? were they at that state of readiness? >> no, i do not agree. the travel time alone would have been more than that. they would have been sitting on the tarmac. >> was the command transferred in the benghazi attack from european command to africom? >> it was transitioned over, yes, sir. > at what point? >> occurred, as i recall, during the night of september 1 # -- 11th. >> do you have a time frame? >> no, not from memory. i can take that -- >> i would time that out. was that unit ever deployed anywhere? >> anywhere after the benghazi attack in >> during that attack, during that 12-24 hour period,

did they leave croatia. >> they were told to begin preparations to leave croatia and to return to the operating base. >> okay. so, again, have you checked into specifically what their time to deploy orders were at that moment? >> yes, we have. not only for that particular element, but for fleet antiterrorism support teams for all of the various response forces, we do have that time line available. >> okay. so, again, what i want to know is what was the standing order time to deployment at the moment of benghazi attack? was it t-plus-11, plus 2, what was the standing? >> given it was a training event, it was probably a six, but i'll take it for the record. >> i appreciate that. during the foreign relations committee on benghazi, and there was comments that they didn't have the funds to provide security. is it true that the defense department provided security in benghazi? >> there were six individuals

under department of defense authority in benghazi. >> the state department does not pay for that; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> do the state department, secretary clinton, ever contact the department of defense asking for additional security because she was getting requests from individuals in libya for additional security? >> i don't know if she contacted the department. i was not contact. >> okay. can you check that for me for the record? >> sure. >> had secretary clip ton or someone from the department of state contacted the defense department, would have you provided security in benghazi? >> we routinely respond to department of state requests for support. >> and what they were really requesting, people on the ground there, was not particularly a large deployment; correct? talking 16 security individuals? >> at one time, we had 16 there, that's correct. >> okay. in your opinion, had we had just a minimal force, armed force of trained defense military

individuals in the compound in benghazi, would that attack ever occurred? >> i can't speculate about that hypothetical because it literally is hypothetical, i mean, -- >> it is true the minimum number of special operations, individuals repel the attack then when they came from the annex to the consulate, they basically repelled the attack; correct? >> from the cops lat to the annex, but the -- >> well, first time from the annex to the consulate; right? >> the first event occurred at the consulate. >> right. we had special ops folks or contractors come from the annex to the consulate to repel the attack. >> well, to recover the individuals who had been attacked. >> the assumption would be if we had maybe four times fold -- you know, 16, which means four people full-time guards at the consulate, probably that attack never would have occurred. >> well, if you're asking me would additional security forces have made it a difference in any

number of ways, the answer is, yes, of course. >> well, thank you, thank you, madam chair. >> yes. >> thank you, madam chair, i have a couple questions at the start for senator wyden to finish up an inquiry. >> thank you. our gourd says it is in fact c-23s in the hanger now ordered to move c-23s there. that is still the question. if you could get back to me, i appreciate it. thank you, madam chair. >> senator king. >> thank you, madam chair, and thanks to the witnesses, thanks for services in a time of danger. i just was thinking this morning you have been off tempo in war for 12 years. you, the military and the united states, that's longer than the revolutionary war, that's longer than the vietnam war, longer than any period of off tempo war fighting in the history of this country. i start with i thank you. i'm going to say thank you for serving in a time of uncertainty, boast of your written testimony, oral

testimony, secretary hagel, today, the department of defense faces a significant challenges of conducting long-term planning, budgeting in a time of considerable uncertainty, and general dempsey, this year's testimony comes in the context of extraordinary uncertainty, and when i read the testimony and heard it, it struck me. you guys are good diplomats. you mention uncertainty like it was a hurricane or something. it's congress. it's not a hurricane. it's not uncertainty like we don't know what's going to happen. you're dealing with a congress that will not give you a budget, that will not give you a number. you might like the number. you might not like the number, but you are dealing with a congress, the first of the three co-equal branches that will not give you a budget around which you can plan the defense of this nation. i appreciate the euphemisms in the testimony, and i think that's probably why you are on that side of the committee room, but that's what we are dealing

with here. we are dealing with a congress that will not give you certainty, will not do its job. it's only congress that can appropriate money and congress is not doing the job. it's diswrus outrageous. we sat through so many hearing, madam chair, whether it's this committee, the armed services committee, and we had the same conversations for the last number of months, and, you know, we wanted to beat up on people on this side of the aisle when it's us, congress, that's not doing what needs to be done. i'm going to go to the floor at a little bit afternoon, and i'm going to make the 13th motion, madam chair, to put a budget that we pass in this committee, and then pass on the senate floor into conference with the house. we pass it on the 23rd of march after a full committee process with numerous amendments here and a full process on the senate floor, where we had numerous amendments there. we passed it after a hearing over and over again, the senate wouldn't pass a budget, and we passed one. yet, we are not allowed because of procedural rules in the

senate, and, frankly, the desire, i think, by the house, we are not allowed to initiate a budget conference to try to give you the certainty, the certain my that you need, the certainty that our nation needs. you know, i start, really, my thoughts with this sense of gratitude for service in a time of 12 years of war, but also service where you face uncertainty that is completely urn the control of the people who sit in this room and at this capital, and the fact we are not giving it to you that you can come here still with the spirit of acronymty, i applaud you for it. to a couple questions. furloughs are of great concern to me. so many have been fur e lowed. it's a short term strategy. if there's a steep cut in the way you use it, steep cut, furloughs drk it's not really a long term strategy. the longer term strategy is, well, you know, if we finally get a budget number and it's a tight budget number, then, you

know, is it worth everything else to do across the board furloughs. talk a little if you can, and i know july 1 is the day to share your sense, but talk a little bit about furloughs as a long term strategy, whether you intend to use them or set that aside as you do with long term challenge, and then i have one last question. >> senator, thank you. well, furloughs is not an issue as you appropriately noted. it's a reaction. it's tree -- triage. it's a reality. that's exactly, as i noted in my statement why i was forced to make a decision after many weeks of ree view by the comptroller, his staff, the chiefs, by the way, and all the senior uniforms involved in this. no one wanted to do this, senator, but i had then a choice

to make to go further in cutting into our readiness around the world, and i couldn't do that, and so, yes, it's -- the worst way to have to respond to anything, but it was a necessity, and we all came to the same cop collusion. last point i'd make, uncertainty, which i have talked about, and you've all talked about, with this cloud of uncertainty continuing, that hangs over all of us, these kinds of issues, furloughs, all that go with that for our work force are going to be something we're going to continue to live with. it's very unfair to these people. it's unfair to this country to have db to be put in that kind of a situation, and then still ask these people to make the contributions they are and the sacrifices they are for this

country. >> madam chair, can i have 30 # more seconds. okay. we have a hard stop at 12:15. >> i'll take it off record. >> i appreciate that very much. >> thank you very much. i thank the chairman, very pleased that still that we have offered providing special victims council to victims of military sexual assault, i thank chairman dempsey and secretary hagel for supporting the efforts issue and right now i'll make sure it continues. thank you for your leadership on this. i enjoyed work with with you on such an important issue for our military. i wanted to ask chairman dempsey in follow-up to what senator johnson asked you about the attack on the consulate in ben gay sigh, something i wanted an answer to which is february 7th, you testified before the senate

arm services committee, and you were asked a question whether general ham had issued a stand down order to the military personnel in tripoli or elsewhere going to assist those in benghazi. we heard before the house oversight committee that mr. hicks, the former deputy chief of mission said colonel gibson on the ground in tripoli received a stand down order, and so, general dempsey, i've not had a opportunity to follow up with you based on the february 7th testimony. mr. hicks testified he believed it came from africom or special operations in africa. regime dempsey, who issued the order, what happened there, and why the special forces that wanted to go, with, as i understand it, with colonel

gibson in tripoli told not to go and who gave that order from there they wanted to help in benghazi on that night. >> yes, thanks, senator. on that testimony, i went back and -- >> i had a feeling you would. >> yes, yeah. there were two different groups of command, and they worked with the joint command, co-located with another agency of government in tripoli, and four, we're working under the direct line of authority of special operations command europe or africom, and it was the other two went, and the other four, by the time they contacted the command center, they were told that the individuals in benghazi were on the way back and would be better used at the tripoli airport because one was a medic, that they would be better used to receive the casualties coming

back from benghazi, and that if they had gone, it would have passed each other in the air, and that's the answer i received. >> okay. >> so they were not told to stand down. stand down means don't do anything. they were told to, the mission they were asked to performed was not in benghazi, but at the tripoli airport. >> can i ask you, general, they requested to go, though. >> correct. >> they asked to go to support the -- what was happening in benghazi from tripoli; correct? >> that is correct. >> they were told from what you're saying, not to go because of the timing? >> because timing and that they would be -- they would contribute more by going to the tripoli airport to meet the casualties upon return. >> i don't know if you know the answer to this today, but if you don't, can you get back to me on it? can you tell me when they made the request and what the timing was of that request and when they were told to stay in tripoli? i would appreciate a follow-up on that. >> yeah, i plan >> thank you

very much. i wanted to ask both secretary hagel and as well as you, general dempsey, about the situation with al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula. i saw a may 2013 letter from general holder talking about the aqap being the most dangerous regional affiliate of achi -- al-qaeda, a group that committed numerous terrorist attacks overseas. how dangerous is this group? >> i think that is not accurate. they are dangerous for two reasons. one is their aspiration to attack the homeland and europe putting them -- which makes them unique in many of the other affiliates. the other al-qaeda affiliates are local and regional, but this has global aspirations. >> where are they located? >> generally in southeast yemen. >> yemen? what's the security situation in yemen right now?

>> better than it's been in a very long time, by still relatively unstable. the president has partnered with us in helping build u up the yemen security forces. >> does he have full control over the country? >> he has -- no, he does not have full control of the country. >> what about the prison break situation? there's been multiple prison breaks going, like, six of them, last one in 2011. does he have more security over that situation? >> the situation -- as i said, senator, the such as is improved since the president became head of state. he's changed leaders, and some of the republican guard units, but it would not be possible for me to declare it's a stable environment. >> okay. i thank you. i appreciate all of you being here. thank you. >> senator nelson. >> thank you, madam chair.

later today in the armed services committee, we're going to consider a sense of congress that i assume most people will agree with, mr. secretary, the sense of the congress that commanding officers are responsible for establishing a command climate in which sexual assault allegations are properly managed and fairly evaluated and a victim can report sexual assault without fear of retaliation including group pressure from other members of the command. there was among victims, and 50% of the victims say that if they

report the assault, they don't think it does any good. are you aware of that survey? general dempsey is shaking his head, yes. is that correct, general? >> it is. >> okay. then my question to you, mr. secretary, is do you think that by removing the chain of command in order to prosecute sexual assault in the military, will that give the incentive for the victim -- will that give more insentive for the victims to come forward? >> senator, thank you. first, let me respond to your point about the resolution that do you think we'll be presented in the markup. i would fully support every word of that, obviously. >> i'm sure that will be unanimous. >> as to your question, i have

said first that we have to look at every option, every possibility, which we are. as you know, there's 26 pieces of legislation on this, and we are listening to people, chiefs, financial, litany, pages of things we are doing and started doing last three months. it's not enough we have to do more. there's things to change. we accept that. to the specific question. i said that anything we do, anything the congress does, it needs to be done thoughtfully because there are -- there will be cons queens to anything that comes out of this as to how we handle this in the future. i don't personally believe that you can eliminate the command structure in the military from this process because it is the culture. it is the institution. it's the people within that institution that have to fix the

culture. the people are the culture m i don't know how you disconnect that from the accountability of command. now, as i said, we need to change some things. we can do things much better, we'll have to, but i think -- i think we got to be very careful when we talk about taking the command structure out of this process. >> certainly, it's been pointed out that cultural changes such as integration in the military, such as don't ask, don't tell, the command structure was absolutely essential. in this case, we're talking about the reporting of a crime. do you see a distinction there as to why the command structure should still be in place? >> well, first, i think we all accept it is a crime, and it

needs to be treated as a crime. the things that senator murray and others have been doing on victims' rights, special council, all things going forward, we have been, but all that has to be done. now, to your question, i don't think you can fix the problem, senator or have accountability within the structure of the military without the command involved in that, and i have -- i have believedded, like in everything in life, accountability matters. you hold us each accountable. you're accountable. i'm accountable. the general's accountable. that's where i think we had a disconnect on, not all of it, it's culture, a lot of things involved here, but if you don't hold people accountable, then you're not going to fix the problem. pass all the laws you want, and

that's not going to work. that'd be my response to your question. >> madam chair, since you want to move along, i'll submit for the record additional question on a different subject having to do as we leave afghanistan, is there equipment that we can leave there that will help afghanistan's society more readily be able to support themselves? >> okay. >> thank you, delighted to have you here. i wanted to, on the same subject of senator nelson was asking about the -- i'm a believer that at some point you should just bring in the fbi and department of justice and treat a rape like a rape and throw people in prison, but short of that, the department of justice has a

office on violence against women and office on victims of crime, both with considerable experience. i was a u.s. attorney and think highly of those offices. do you have plans to engage with those offices to improve the type of services provided in the military and sexual assault situations? >> the answer is yes. we are doing those things. we are taking the initiatives internally that we need to do a number of things we've already begun. a number of legislative proposals will and are put forward, as you know, and that need to be, i think, accomplished as well. short answer is yes. >> and to a completely different topic, and then probably well beyond this budget year, but it's a budget issue this committee may be facing for a while. the american military has an increasingly robust and increasingly frequent role in

responding to international emergencies, tsunamis, earthquakes, famines, floods, so forth. how significant a component do you see that being in the future of the military budget? do you see that we should be expecting significant increases in that area? from a strategic policy point of view, how would you evaluate that use of our american military in terms of building international good will and projecting american values? >> it's, i think, critically important part of our foreign policy. clearly, it's in our national interest. we, as you suggest, have had over the years significant capacity to help countries during disasters. i mean we have very recent examples, certainly, within our

own country. the national guard, reserves, national guard in particular have the resources to do that. we should respond. we'll continue to respond. as to the budget, yes, those kinds of programs will continue. they need to continue. it's clearly in our interest around the world, and it's humanitarian. where we can help, we will continue to help. >> but beyond the humanitarian value, do you see it is part of the strategic value that the military provides america in its relationship with foreign nations? >> well, it's part of it. i mean, our -- our charge, our objective, our mission, our responsibility is the gnarl security -- national security of this country first, but that unfolds into many areas of how we do that. when you're making friends around the world, when you're developing partners and allies, you're developing a next generation of global citizens

who see america helping them, i'd say that cuts right directly to the national interest in security of our country, and we can do that and have. doing it, and probably do it better than anybody does, the military. >> certainly is a point of pride we take as americans how well we can deliver necessary humanitarian resources in the wake of a catastrophe. anywhere on the planet, nobody who matches us in that strength. lastly on cyber security. we are continuing to try to find a way forward to develop a bipartisan bill here in the senate in the wake of the president's executive order, which i think was both a necessary and correct step, but not a sufficient step bought of the inherent limitations that attend app executive order opposed to full-flown congressional legislation.

could you comment for a moment on where you see that theater of operations for the military and for the country? i would note that general alexander has asserted, who i have the highest regard for, by the way, asserted that he believes that the united states is on the losing end of the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of human kind as a result of cyber intrusions, not necessarily military ones, industrial espionage, but where do you see your role going forward on that? >> first, i recall our days together on the intelligence committee when we worked on this issue, and it hasn't gotten any less complicated to your point. as to our role, you may have noted that we have asked a significant increase in the cyber capacity in this budget, and we have continued to do that for the obvious reasons. i aid many times, senator, said it in the senate and out of the senate, that i think cyber

represents a great a threat to this country as any one thing, and there's a lot of threats, nuclear threats, weapons of mass destruction, but for the reasons you know and everybody who knows anything about this understands why i say that. this is an area that we have obviously cyber command, responsibility for, and general alexander, i think, is on the hill today, this afternoon, and as you know, he's dual hatted in his capacity as nsa director, cyber command. the defense department has essentially most of the assets here, as you know. this is an interagency issue, as everyone knows, where homeland security has a significant amount of the authority. how then do you not only just interagency, which i think is going along pretty well, but a bigger issue, the privacy issues the business issues, and what i understand really led to the

break down in your efforts here on the hill in trying to find compromised legislation last december. that yet needs to be bolted together, but we have a very significant part of this, but we have jurisdictional limitations too as to what we can do and what we can't do. our main responsibility is to protect our national security as defined by defense establishment, government, and so on interests, but, again, as you know, when you veer out in the private sector and how far you can go, what legal authorities you have, what laws govern that are, i think, the large area of some contested debate. ..

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> defense secretary chuck hagel and martin density testified on wednesday at the house budget committee. this includes wisconsin congressman paul ryan is determined. he is the chairman. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome, everyone. i would like to start on time.

we have a big event. we hope that everyone can get a chance to ask a question. and we look forward to the meeting with the white house. with that come i would like to start by thanking our distinguished witnesses. each of you served our country. both in military and government. we thank you for your service. the first duty of government is to keep us safe. our strategy ought to driver budget. our fears that the budget is driving the credit union is the opposite.

last year the secretary testified and said there was little room for cuts if we wanted our troops to fill our missions. now the department of defense includes room for improvement. every agency must use taxpayer dollars wisely with the budget. the secretary announced the choice is to develop the budget. it is not necessarily a better one. we have suggested a number of ways to improve the department and i want to commend the hard work and that includes acting on the recommendation. that being said, this is our

nation's top priority. it has borne have to burden and mr. the house that provides this. this needs to be more efficient. even as we try to cut this, we have to make sure that we do not cut the bone. we have to make sure that our troops overseas have what they need to complete their mission and we owe a debt of gratitude for the military and families who continue to make sacrifices. they are there fighting for us while we speak. i look forward to hearing your thoughts and what we need to meet us. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to welcome our

witnesses. thank you for your of dedicated service to our nation. i also want to convey our gratitude to the men and women of the armed forces for the sacrifices that they have made every day for our country. this week the house of representatives will be debating the national defense authorization act and we need armed forces and this includes the cases of sexual abuse in the military. here in the budget committee we have been helping to honor men and women in the armed forces by allocating the top resources to accomplish their mission and by making sure that we have a budget plan that ensures america remains economically strong and land of opportunity for their children and grandchildren. the choices we make in our federal budget should reflect

this. including investments in education and research and infrastructure necessary to help our our economy and sharpen our competitive edge and create new opportunities. a very deep and rapid cuts imposed by the sequester place all of these objectives at risk. you have spoken very plainly about the negative impacts on military readiness. there are obviously other major impacts on the defense side of the equation. the nonpartisan congressional budget office which serves as the independent referee has said that the deep immediate cuts will also reduce economic growth this year by a full one third with 700 fewer thousand american jobs this year. it includes the cuts to the

branch. these are self-inflicted wounds turkey vegetation we have not even had the opportunity to vote for that proposal. it includes the same level of funding as the president's budget in the house and senate democrats. the bad news is the way they make up for that by absolutely gutting the other parts of discretionary spending. the part of the budget would be cut by approximately 20% below the 2013 sequestered levels. the president has been absolutely right to make it clear that he will not support appropriations bills that have those lopsided priorities.

mr. chairman, i would say given the differences between house and senate budgets, you would think that our republican colleagues of want to get together now to resolve those differences. we didn't have a budget and we have now had a budget for 81 days. >> this includes blocking a budget conference we actually make the compromises necessary.

>> for the 13th time, senate democrats have been blocked by republican senators. >> mr. chairman, thank you. thank you to the distinguished members of this committee. i note that my predecessor, former chairman, the portrait hangs proudly on your wall and is monitoring testimony. i shall do all i can not to embarrass him. as you all know, he was and continues to be a remarkable

individual of public service. i thank you for the opportunity. this includes the department of defense and our national security. >> it was at $526.6 billion and this is part of the base budget. 79.4 billion for the contingency operations. a written statement, as you have probably noted, contains significant details on both budget requests. but please allow me to focus on

these general areas before i take your questions. first the budget challenges facing the department as a result of sequestration, and third, how the department is preparing for future budget uncertainty and the prospects of further reduced resources. as you all know, we have been forced to implement abrupt cuts in the current fiscal year because of sequestration. according from your office of budget, we must have $37 billion in spending for the remainder of this fiscal year. with our decision to shift the question nation away, the cuts fall heavily on those deploying things in the future. it is also facing higher costs

than expected. we are facing a shortfall of more than $30 billion in the operation and maintenance budget. the department has cut back sharply on facilities and maintenance and instituted hiring freezes and cut overhead spending and reduced priority programs and directed for loads of nearly 700,000 civilian employees and submitted a $9.6 billion reprogramming request to congress. there other steps we have taken. >> this includes significant

non-deployed operating forces and the army have stopped rotations as key combat training centers. more than a dozen air force squadrons either already have or will soon stop flying. the navy has curtailed all of us. this includes reductions to readiness and for loads of up to 11 days for most of the civilian personnel. they made it reluctantly because i recognized the significant hardship that this places on our civilian personnel and families. the current budget environment is requiring different options to deal with including the

budget control act of 2011. if these are not changed, the fiscal year 2014 funding will be subject to an additional $52 billion in dod funding. and if there are no changes, continued sequestration will result in roughly $500 billion in additional reductions to defense spending that is the department that time and flexibility to plan and implement spending reductions wisely and responsibly. this budget enables the department in afghanistan as we transition out of afghanistan and protect readiness and modernize the inventory in keeping with the strategic

guidance and the high-quality of the all volunteer force. this budget continues the department's approach of the last couple of years of targeting growing costs of areas of support and overhead acquisition and benefits. over the next five years we have identified $35 billion in new savings across these categories. this includes weapons programs and restructuring and terminations that achieve a $.2 billion in savings. slowdowns and military construction and reductions in other low priority programs. this preserves the dod benefits while putting our military on a more sustainable path to the future. it includes changes to the tri-care program to bring this close to the levels envisioned when the program was implemented. the department of defense also must be able to eliminate excess

infrastructure. this includes one round of realignment. that, as we all know, is an imperfect process and there are upfront cost. but in the long-term there are significant savings. the previous rounds are saving $12 billion annually. we cannot justify the funding when we are reducing the structure. 2003, we have invested this and we are on schedule to close or consolidate 20 more overseas operations. although there are opportunities to achieve significant savings by improving efficiencies and reducing overhead, the scale of the reduction will require cuts and changes to military operations. this budget request content

request further alliances with the defense strategic guidance and continues to reduce the size of the ground forces and this budget invests in key elements of the defense strategy, including implementing the asia pacific region and maintaining a safe and secure and effective nuclear stockpile and increasing investment in cybercapabilities and sustaining the growth of special operations. finally, this budget seeks to preserve a combat ready force with the all voluntary force. let me just very briefly note what the chairman had mentioned in his opening remarks about the strategic choices and management review that i directed three months ago. the fiscal year 2014 budget reflects the best efforts to match ways and means.

this is during a period of intense fiscal uncertainty. it is obvious that changes to the topline spending program would require changes to the budget plan. consequently i directed a strategic choice in order to assess the potential impact of further reductions and planning for those continued reductions. i3 internal result than i have rel internal result than i am nowi l internal result than i am now reviewing all of the documents. this continues to find new ways to operate more affordably and efficiently and effectively. however as i have stated, continued cuts on the scale and timing of sequestration will require significant reductions and military capabilities in the scope of activities around the world. the fiscal year 2014 budget sustains our military strength

and gives dod the time and flexibility to make the necessary reductions in adjustment in the past, any modest reforms of personnel and benefits along with efforts to reduce infrastructure and restructure acquisition programs were met with fierce political resistance. they were never implemented. as you all know, we are now in a different physical environment. the realities are forcing us to confront these choices and to make the reforms necessary to sustain our military strength and meet new complicated threats and we must do better. this will require continued partnership and assistance of this committee and the congress. before i take questions, i would

ask if it is okay if the general present his statement as well. >> absolutely. >> thank you. distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to come before you today and discuss the two dozen 14 budget. this comes at a time of extraordinary uncertainty and risks to our nation's security are increasing. but the resources and the readiness is decreasing. it remains as the means to prepare to win and are more uncertain everyday. this is purpose to keep our nation clear from coercion. it is ready with options for that uncertain future. it supports fully deployed operations and includes a

conventional forces that have proven so essential. especially our people. this is the best equipped military as a nonnegotiable imperative and make sure that our wounded warriors and family receive world-class care and services that are worthy of the services. there are some things in this budget does not reflect what sequestration. it imposes lesit imposes less rn gives us time to implement the reductions. the consequences and the risk to national security will gain priority in the weeks ahead due to the strategic choice. as you know, the senate has actually asked us to provide our assessment on impact by the

first of july. nor does this budget account in this way. we do not yet know the full cost to recover what we imposes here. and we have continued across all services and as a result we have every day measures four and unpredictable idea and we are proposing on options. this means that the cost will inevitably compete with the cost that we anticipate building nests in 2020. as our military power becomes less sustainable, it becomes less sustainable. this includes the partners and allies of the base and more importantly our men and women of uniform and their families.

that is not inevitable. working together we can uphold the readiness at an affordable cost. to do that as we have discussed in the past, we need three things. the certainty and that is to say a reliable topline and the time to implement trade-offs and modernization compensation and readiness. this includes the institution at-large. we should be allowed to grow more gradually in some cases. we should stop pouring money into excess facilities. real institutional reform is the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes and we do have the mistakes that await us. we have this in order to restore

and a reliable appointment. i look forward to taking your questions. >> the administration includes the concept of an overall budget framework. >> we are meeting a number that was requested by the administration and this includes a veto on this bill. the second follow-up is today the houses marking up the dod appropriations bill.

basically needing the administration's number. >> i have not been asked for my thing whether the president should veto the bill or not. >> that is where i say that i have asked my thoughts on the overall budget and i will give them. but i have not asked the best. >> it is a good idea that this is part of the law. wouldn't you agree? >> the numbers that we asked for the congress to give us, as you have noted, they are part of our budget. but the president has to make a decision on the framework of the total budget. >> tomorrow, actually.

okay, april 2011, i recall the president putting out a speech where he mentioned the number that he was going to hit for the pentagon. then in january of 2012, secretary panetta announced this report to the number. this year the budget says that we are going to go $120 billion lower than the number that secretary panetta talked about. we are engaging the strategic choice of the management review. it seems like we got a budget driven strategy and not a strategy driven budget. that is point number one and number two. do you have any reactions you can give us with respect to any of the findings that you have from this review? what are the things you can do without jeopardizing its mission to meet that number you put out there.

>> i have just testified in have been testifying last two months i support the fiscal year 2014 budget. as do all of the military leaders in the department of defense. we believe that this country can be fulfilled with that budget has to do with reviewing the budget and that review was done based on sequestration and the reality of the numbers that we are dealing with, as i have just noted. don't hope not budget not.

but reality. the possibility of sequestration continues. including how we can fulfill this measure and since i will be enforcing this time this includes asking about questions of. thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your testimony. as a member of congress, the

veterans appropriations bill, i fully support the white house recommendations in the vetoing of the legislation if it is in the context of the house republican budget if you see the green shaded items, there are other security related parts of the budget and they would increase those parts of the budget relative to the middle line, which is the 2013 sequester. how do they do that? by cutting things dramatically. they would cut that almost 20% under the requester. what the president is saying is that i want a budget plan that meets all of our needs in this includes the defense appropriations bill and the defense bill coming out of the

house. we also need to meet other parts of our national requirements. the way to resolve this is for us to go to the conference. so we can come to a negotiated settlement which is why the refusal to go to conference is insane and incomprehensible. he is not alone. i know a lot of our colleagues here wonder why they refused to go to conference. if we do that, we could resolve the issues and come together on a plan for the country that funds are security department and our kids education. i suggest that we get on with that right away and let's go to the conference. i have a question. because as i look at the fiscal year requests and i actually see some items that i think are part

of the peacetime defense rather than wartime defense. this includes the chief of the air force general, general welsh. the desire has been reduced. the footprint in afghanistan. trying to provide flexibility and we should not be doing that by putting this into the base account. this includes the requests from all of you and the president and commander-in-chief. he has put forth a request and the house republican budget exceeds the request by $5 billion. my question to you is that the administration's request reflect what you believe is necessary for the wartime operations and account operations? >> what i believe in

consultation with the military leaders include the budget that we present, 226 -- 526 billion-dollar baseline. it is the sufficient just to carry out our strategic interests, and that is the budget that we have been testifying to. we have been going into great detail as to why we believe what we do. >> i would like to just talk about this request was made. >> this year's request proves inadequate to the task. we have to have some understanding of setting up the future two years out or not yes, this is part of the budget. >> as you know, the president's budget was three months late. before that goes down, i would

just like to point out to the members of those bottom for, all of them are significantly higher than they were in the 2,062,000 and eight levels. i have a lot of questions. i want to welcome you and i hope that i can talk to you about this. this suggests our whole strategy is not working and they will continue to support this defense system. but would the u.s. do if russia provide this? >> congressman, the president has asked being prepared for all options of contingencies.

>> we have contingency plans that i don't want to discuss. the efforts that are ongoing, we try to stop the violence from not allowing it to get into a regional conflict, which is already spilling over into the borders as usual in israel and jordan and iraq and working with the russians and working with others, working with our allies, i was in elgin last week with the ministers of defense and the british and the french. >> we would like to move on. >> the senate democratic budget

provides no funding for this after the fiscal year 2513. >> we have made it very clear we are transitioning out of afghanistan to a post-2014 world. this is the policy. >> the budget doesn't take in to effect this. >> i do not speak for the senate democrats. >> if they have no money, and they don't support this. >> we have not submitted a budget request. we will submit a request. >> we have provided information in the appropriate mix of personnel.

>> were you referring to? >> i am not certain what you mean by the adequate mix. >> there has not been an adequate assessment of the capabilities in your strategic workforce planning. will that be included? >> we have assessed that all the time. that is always a factor that plays out to carry out all of our strategic interests and operations. >> thank you, general. i think you for your testimony. i think many of us would agree that sequestration is a terrible

policy. so i visited several weeks ago dinero science honor and they have done some incredible research and i met a guy that was paralyzed in an accident. he could move one finger. now we are going through the program and he has full mobility above his waist. he actually has taken steps by himself. the researchers researchers in charge of that project are very concerned because of this due to sequestration. this includes researchers that we have to cut back in certain areas and they are concerned about on this program. which obviously they have incredible benefits for the lawyers that have sacrificed so

much. also as the ranking member, we have a concern to do more with a balanced approach and accommodate many of these priorities that we have. in my area because of sequestration, more than 8000 civilians and employers have received notices, 725 national military guard technicians and this has an impact on their families and regional economies. this includes employees having to sacrifice even more. should they be you preparing for nine more years and furloughs? >> this includes the reference he made to dramatic brain injuries and the research that is going on in the programs. our budget for 2014 protects

wounded warriors and the general and i, general dempsey, we spoke at a tremendous brain injury conference. we are committed to the funding of the programs. we are committed because it is the right thing to do. we will continue to carry out all of the programs that you have just talked about. >> thank you. i yield my time. >> what this shows is the growth in nonsecurity of discretionary spending of 2001 i would emphasize that it does not

include the ocl accounts. including we need all of our priorities in those countries this is the second time that we have tried to go. >> these are constant dollars. >> thank you. in your testimony you mentioned this includes the furloughs early and there are a lot of families that are affected that have nothing to do with this i wanted to ask what are the factors and to be able to resolve that and what are we trying to do to resolve that at this point.

>> as we cut nonessential services and overhead and consolidations, we are continuing to try to find savings. >> we are looking at everything. that was part of the strategic review. and we don't know what is going to happen in the next 3.5 months. that is part of the uncertainty of living here. what the comptroller has to do is deal with the reality that we have of sequestration that is going to continue and we will have to comply with it. >> this includes pulling the furloughs down if we can. >> this includes reprogramming authorities. >> first we really need your

help on getting this current $1.6 billion programming accomplished because it gives us some flexibility and flexibility is key here. >> thank you. >> if we lose sources, if we have time, we will ask for additional reprogramming. one of the major items is how much this costs in the next three months and there is still some uncertainty if we can find a way to minimize those. we will have a better chance of ending the furloughs early. especially with the local basins that have been implemented and allow the local leadership and the people that are working on the efficiencies. last year the secretary talked about the reductions for the

next five years as part of the uniform reduction. but there was only a 16,000 reduction of the next five years of the civilian workforce. i asked if the secretary is responsible. and we are looking at this response of a recommendation in the civilian workforce at this point. >> this includes giving them as much flexibility as we can give them with some guidance for the very reasons that you mentioned. >> about a 5% reduction built in to the five-year plan. it is heavily dependent and it has a lot of civilians at work. if you give us the authority to

do it, we will be able to do this. >> we would have begun to achieve some of this civilian reduction, but this may not be close, but we would be drawing down the civilians in order to achieve those reductions. >> mr. secretary, i thank you for your service. having been the cochair for the last 14 years of the traumatic brain injury caucus, i would like to talk about the situation with one out of five veterans and estimating experience in educating the dod.

we have emphasized the importance of this issue and we have made funds available for the identification and treatment of brain injuries. in 2007 it was $900 million to increase access and treatment and research for traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder. in 2008, my colleagues and i were in place the national defense organization bill requiring screenings of soldiers and this includes soccer players and tennis players. we did not do it for our troops. we said we were going to do it by the act of congress. everything is at the point that as members of the armed forces,

in order to identify any possible warning. we'd make sure the service members are supported. >> congressman, i can tell you that i have been at the dod for more than three months now. this is as high a priority as we have. we have a lot of high priority. including getting this dealt with in an entire inventory. this one is as high up as we have. i have instructed all of our leaders to make this a priority. we are doing that and are permitted to do that we have

assurance and commitment that this will be done. >> not to go back and answer question for the record, we have other things that we are doing including hiring health care professionals. we have been talking about rescreening cases that were previously closed on average about 90% complete with that effort. >> thank you. >> sir? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, secretary. the defense department is now hearing that they are not going

to get the budget money that they need? >> your question is legitimate. i'm going to ask the comptroller to respond specifically. let me first say that. for the reasons you just noted and others. the accountability of spending and programs and management is essential to everything that we do and any institution and we are making progress on this. we are filling the mandates of congress. we are not there yet. i will ask one of the specifics on what will be available in

2014 and what is auditable by 2017. the last point i would make on this and i don't know if the comptroller will say this, but this is another consequence and i do not blame sequestration. the comptroller's office inside of dod, all across the globe are spending a huge amount of their time on sequestration and reprogramming and reviewing everything. this an excuse for not having an honorable statement. >> i'm saying it's not an excuse. but the priority has not already been there.

>> if 1% of them. sometimes we can't document it. sometimes our business practices are not tight enough. we are doing it on an interim basis and not waiting for 2017. we will have audit ready statements for the budget which is the key part of the concerns. we have been pressing through this personally. we will do our darndest to get there. getting rid of sequestration would help a lot. >> thank you for that. general dempsey, one quick question. will you achieve your campaign objectives by the end of 2014? >> yes. >> okay. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your outstanding service to the country. let me start by saying that the

services are given greater attention to the problem with sexual assault in the military and hopefully taking greater action to address the problem. i thank you for that. after decades in a couple of years where we see a 37% increase in the number of sexual assaults come in now 26,000 cases over the past two years, it is time to change this and empower the prosecutors to do some innovative things that are different than the current changes. because this is a hearing on the impact of having no budget and the sequester on our national defense. there has been a national dialogue with the honda sequesters are causing in the economy and medical research and innovation.

this includes infrastructure in the country. i don't think we have the same impact on the sequester on our national security. i certainly hear from the folks in special operations and we don't like the fact that civilians were going to be furloughed because of some arbitrary budget policies. but there are some challenges here. our republican friends said for many years that they would not pass a budget. they will not proceed and that is going to cause great problems and angst in the coming days and years. including many of my republican friends who want the sequester. they want to cut across the

board. they have rejected the democratic replacement for the sequester. so this is going to have serious consequences. i want you to drill down and be specific and focused on special operations in particular. the threats have evolved over the past decade. the throat and transmits or unconventional. in the past the former commander admiral said that we are focused on quality. you have said, general, that we need personnel and our capability. but what is the sequester going to do with our ability to invest in special operations forces. >> if i could, i would like to thank you, congresswoman. i have spent two great years and

we always felt so at home. thank you for that. also the effort that we have to look at the impact of sequestration will present some uncomfortable choices. some of which can be mitigated including with a third of what we need. whether it is sequestration or something last great if we can get about a 30% institutional reform and compensation health care changes. then we can have an impact on this and something that is probably manageable. otherwise it won't be manageable. we will find that we will have to make some choices and it will put us at a disadvantage. special forces is one of the three areas and we have

advantage, meaning that we haven't taken the reductions that we have in other parts. but if we go to full sequestration and this becomes an annual event, we will have to slow the growth of special forces. >> ideal for that shared. >> let me remind the committee of the sequester act. this includes cuts taking place this year. it was requested by the budget control act negotiation. >> i think the gentleman in the secretary for being here today. the question about military sizes to the general. i have that 1.2 service members and that is one for every 1500

troops. from 2000 that increased 8% while active duty only grew 3%. >> wires was going so fast? >> so when you stand up, and architecture in iraq and afghanistan, it stood up in addition to be existing number. >> the answer is yes if you're asking that. >> okay, thank you. >> over to the secretary. the magazine recently said that u.s. military command through by 50% in 2012. her predecessor said they wanted to reduce those numbers,

including joint chief of staff who said by 1300 people down to 4200 people and can you explain that when they said that it should be going down? >> my response is those numbers are not going to come down. we took a very hard look at it during the review the last three months with this issue. and those numbers will come down. that will be one of the things we have just completed. >> we will be making those decisions this year. general? >> this includes the joint forces and the absorption that is separate under the flag of the joint staff. but the secretary is giving us

the notion that if we are going to reduce this then we have to have this with the secretary of defense. he said that they will make a decision soon? >> yes, they will be making these decisions this year. >> okay. thank you. >> mr. mcdermott? >> i was an individual adult people coming back for more. this includes david kennedy about the fact and the military is drifting apart at this time. >> my concern is that you go down to my office and see the faces of all the people.

.. not only sending people prepared to go to war but also to return. i mean, people sent to iraq didn't know where they were going. they had no background

whatsoever in the speculation. they were just thrown in like the recruits and the viet nam war and then when we bring them back into our society, we have been very bad and getting jobs and housing, all of the things somebody would think if you served the country the country would reward you with when you came home. when they came home from the second world war we handed them a free college education. that is where the greatest generation came from is the class of 1949 had been educated because we said they are coming in coming years in education now we don't do that anymore. what i'm looking about is your own and thinking both of you in terms of the larger problem of keeping the american public involved in the issue of going to the war. >> this obviously as you have known over the years or have

done it could take days and weeks to respond but in the interest i will give you this response. so many pieces to when you just noted. you've done a better job as a society in a country being able to delineate of war from the war a year as these young men and women comeback, similarly a back in society, all of the things that are required for that successful transition, in perfect front page you may have seen that the story of a young man, can't get a job, the country failed him. we know the stories. we are not giving enough. i get that. we will do more but compared when i fluent travis air force base 1968 after vietnam, 48 hours later and you were out on the street. you have a class a uniform and

some expense money and that was eight. so we have come a long way. one of the differences and i will stop, i used to get speeches on the senate floor about this during the peak of the iraq war and afghanistan, the disconnect, one person of the population pays the price. they make all the sacrifices, they bear all the burden, they do all the dying. and i'm supportive of the volunteer service by the way. it's the most professional armed forces ever. they are better lead and better equipped but here's the point. how do you integrate that in a better way so there is more appreciation and more understanding? i think the people of this country do appreciate the service of our men and women and need to do more. >> thank you mr. chairman.

mr. secretary, good to see you again. thanks for your role on sexual abuse and the military and for your support and also general dempsey, great to see you. i sit on the committee which is where i solid you last. i worked hard in my role on armed services to provide workable replacement sequestration we talked about in the committee and we have proposed bills as well. i am concerned that the 2014 budget, seriously hinder estimates and under funds the cost and makes the tree often other areas, for example i don't believe we should be shutting down the bases were paying for spending on the backs of zero military members that the question i have is the dod budget has already sustained significant funding cuts and faces potential additional cuts in the future. but at what point do they endanger the national security is a question to either of you and then my second question is is there a particular funding amount or percentage cut you believe to be a red line when it

comes to the issue of national security? >> i will start and the secretary will take the bulk of the question. but in terms of can we identify the point at which we put the security strategy at risk? i think we will be able to identify that point through the results of the security traces strategic traces management review. when we did the future defense plan three years ago, four years ago, the top line of the $590 billion. this year, 526 if we get to the sequestration will be 474. this is in the deepest cut in our history it is the steepest by the wide margin and that is the makes it difficult. >> i would add a couple of things.

one of the points that the chairman made to answer your question in his opening statement, he said something to the effect that one of the effects of sequestration and what we are going through and may continue to go through for some years, i think he said it's going to be more costly to recover the lost readiness. that is a factor that often gets lost or never gets any attention and that is a big part of hiding your question and answer when you say at what point do we know? >> do we have a funding amount? is there a red line when we will get to the point as congressional members here and also the american people that are invested in the military is there a red line to say when we get this point our national security is in trouble? >> this isn't just the members' business. i go back to the review. i asked in this review all the

different scenarios at 150 billion over the next ten years, to under 50 million reduction or the 500 billion over the next ten years which a small law as the chairman reminded us and sure it is going to cut into our readiness and our operations. i noted that in my testimony as did the chairman. there is no question about it. when you go through the inventory of things we are having you do now, the chiefs of all the services, cut training and essentially eliminate the training deployment, stand down squadrons, we are doing is putting everything forward to protect the current readiness requirements but they are going to be across coming right in behind that. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. secretary for being here and of course for your service to the country. i think the uncertainty of not

having a budget ads to the difficulties that we are facing in dealing with the very serious financial challenges in our country and i think the only way we can ensure that we meet our obligation to the men and women of uniform to ensure they have access to all the things they need to complete the mission and the things when they return is to ensure that we have a budget and the priorities ward and a thoughtful and careful budget process, not a budget process fraught with needless uncertainty and partisanship and i hope your testimony today will inspire further engagement to develop a serious set of solutions for the nation's fiscal challenges and most importantly motivate the republican leaders to appoint the conferees so we can get the work of completing this budget process. for some reason although there's been a lot of clamor about the importance of a budget and adopting the budget there seems to be no interest on the republican house leadership to appoint conferees which is

necessary and life in q4 showing the uncertainty and the example of the uncertainty from not having a budget and i hope that will inspire them to do that. it's important what mr. van hollen identified going through the appropriations defense most homeland security that will essentially free sold in very substantial additional cuts in the nondiscretionary spending and nondefense spending above and beyond the cuts of sequestration. but i just want to ask you to spend a few minutes if he would to address the departments investments and programs to help realize sustainable budgetary savings while approving efficiencies, accountability and readiness for more than a decade the department and congress collaborated to implement identification strategies.

the real accounting of the resources the department possesses and we have a great company in my district in portsmouth ground that has been a leader in this work but a department logistics task force in march of 2011 estimates that full implementation of this policy can result in a savings between three to $5 billion beginning in 2017 but there's been difficulties with the implementation, so i would like to know where that stands and whether it will adversely impact this implementation much as a potential to produce real savings and efficiencies and bring greater account of the and transparency to the department. >> i am going to respond generally and then ask for a specific comment on this. one of the things we are focused on and have to be focused on is accomplishing the objective then you just noted. we don't have a choice.

we should be doing it any way whether it is sequestration or not for the reasons everyone understands. we are doing it. let me get the comptroller to be more specific about your question. >> i'm afraid they will have to do more research but we will get back to you. let me add we have done a lot of things to the 40-foot containers rather than 20 that has saved money grouping together cell phone contracts in many the to bigger items terminating more than 30 weapon systems that we felt were of low were priorities in the past efforts to reduce our cost, and we are going to do it again as the secretary of directed and we are all committed to. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here, general. i recently had a privilege to meet with a group that came up

there was a group of men and women and when they went to places they never heard of, their families or back home doing to things, building the tools necessary and also buying bonds necessary. one of the things that keeps me awake at night is if we were to have a repeat of that, that we could not afford to put together that kind of mobilization because we couldn't afford it. i don't think my figures are alone.

former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said the national debt and it will be bumping up on the debt ceiling that's statutory but the real debt ceiling occurs when creditors are no longer to interested money. is our ability limited by our ability to fund? >> i think the quick answer is yes. the comments -- and i recall when he said them, i agree the nation's economic strength is of all of their liberties and preservation of security. and you can't just connect the two. >> how do you go about planning for the uncertainty and the difficulty of the budget?

we just passed out of appropriations the defense markup on the defense. previously you had a request for equipment, helicopters, airplanes etc. that's been diminished. what process do you use to make those decisions. >> we have the component that oversees the services on accountability, responsibility for managing the pentagon that is opposite of the security fence that is five undersecretaries, the comptroller is one of them. the undersecretary for the acquisitions and the chiefs and

the services with input from the nine combatant commanders works through that, then the budget obviously is an underpinning dynamic because if you don't have the money you're not going to be able to buy the weapons. >> we have to deter them as it fails and if not, the force we had to those responsibilities allows us to see how big we think it needs to be. >> i will ask members not to ask questions and the end of the three minute time so we can try to get the answers in that time as well. >> thank you mr. chair and to the witnesses for your testimony as well as your great service to the country. am i correct in my understanding that if you look at the united states military spending and

then you compare that to the military spending of the next ten highest spending countries from a defense perspective the united states from a budgetary standpoint exceeds the spending of those ten countries that fall behind us? >> it might be their team. but the gist of it is correct. >> certainly the national security is a tremendous concern. it's a top priority. i think all of us on both sides of the nile. but it will be useful for me and even the general or you could provide some context for why that level of spending is necessary in terms of the threats that we need to be prepared to guard against in

that list china and russia and others do combine. >> let me make a general comment and then i know the general wants to answer this as well. >> what does it take to ensure those interests are protected starting with the homeland of your country? that is the priority of any nation's defense structure is the security of their country. and then you build from there what does it require? i don't need to go much beyond picking up the newspaper today. and you go down proven "new york times" "washington post" and the inventory of problems in the world are threats to last. they come from cyber nuclear

threats, terrorism, conventional forces, economic threats said u.s.s. what your requirements are to defend your country and then based on that assessment, then you fleshed out with the requirements are going to be in the resources. >> it's the question we are asking in this review is what do we want to be doubled to accomplish? >> what key devotee and so much so that it can rotate. our forces generally present in places like korea and europe. its rotational and we keep a compassionate for readiness at home as the hedge against the future uncertainty. >> all you need is about 25 new books and if anybody interferes with your interest they will nuke them but that is and who we are. we need options along the spectrum of the conflict. but this is a much longer a

question to be answered. >> i'm a big supporter of national defence and there's a few things we should be giving in congress to provide a common defense. i, like you have been very concerned with the cuts over the years and the special impact of sequestration. certainly the air force base and fort leonard wood it's very concerning to us with the layoff of civilians as well as reduced training hours and other issues we've been talking about with a lack of modernization and reset, but having said that, i wanted to visit with you about a report that senator coburn put out. this is very concerning to me because it undermines my efforts and a lot of our colleagues efforts here to advocate for

more defense spending when they've identified $67.9 billion what they think is wasteful spending that can certainly be put bitter towards helping advance the new long-range strike. >> some of the things they identified in the research concerning the behavior of fish and teaches about democracy and developed an application for the iphone. their for office of scientific research fund a study examining how to make it easier to produce the cocoons and africa and south america and there was a study done by the same office to try to determine the color of the dinosaur on the first perhaps bird that flew. what are you doing to address the examples of a video produced called the gross margins where you did that barbecue grill and invite the drill sergeants.

it's very frustrating to me this is going on at the same time you're trying to advocate for more defense dollars. have you seen the report and if so what are you doing to address the waste? >> i've never argue that we couldn't find a way to use our -- to be good stewards of the nation's resources. we will look for the report to see whether we put it in there or somebody else put it in there when it became a part of the bill. >> i am familiar with the report. let me say i'm not going to defend some of those and get into the details. but there is the room for pairing of waste and i will say it was over ten years about two-thirds of it was kutz and civilian personnel and we didn't identify how to do that. as i told you it was to let us close bases and get rid of the civilians we don't need.

if we are bring to make the changes we are going to need your help. >> general, one of the comments made in our presentation. once again we may not have a budget for this road map. that should concern every single person in the preparation can you talk a little more about what that means in the current sequester and what that means down the road when sequester continues and the second question secretary, i know the president is now involved.

what role are you playing in the implementation of those plans specifically to ensure those civilians are involved in the oversight. >> it is the most to articulate but most of it has a constituency in congress and washington, d.c.. readiness is the hardest one to articulate because there is no huge constituency you only know you needed when you need it. let me as a basketball analogy. right now about a third is training at the individual level they are not training as big units. so if it were a basketball team we are giving individual drills but we are not scrimmaging and when you don't scrimmage before you go into the game and generally doesn't have a good outcome and so i am uncomfortable that we are cancelling rotations to the training centers which is where we do our scrimmages and that is

all services. >> dirty briefly on the question regarding the drones. i support strongly the president's policy and the speech he gave and much of that was about more transparency and oversight, we do have oversight now and the intelligence committees. what we do in every way is legal the drones are a very secure factor in our inventory. it's always a responsible use factoring into the civilian casualties and collateral damage is this the right thing to do? relationships with other countries? so i think what the president did and i was the co-chairman of the advisory board in the last four years it's something that we recommended often.

it's a little more transparency with the two titles that are used is the authority that is in our constitution and in all and in title l witches covert action but both are necessary in the security of the country. cigna thank you mr. chairman. thank you for your service congenital mencia secretary. i would like to direct this question to you. if there is universal agreement on anything it is that the sequestration is unwise and as americans we can do better than that. it seems there are two principal drivers, the top one of course and then the other part of its that creates so much inefficiency is that the cuts

were universally applied. now that the top parts i'm not going to try to get into that right now, but how they are uniformly applied i would like to delve into that a little bit. you have over $9 billion of reprogramming in the works. as we are marking at one of my colleagues introduced an amendment would give the dod about $20 billion of running room on that. i voted no because it didn't seem like that much discretion without congressional oversight was wise or proven, but i was intrigued by the idea and if you could expand on that please. >> i would like you to take the limits off entirely and he would still have a full oversight. any time we do a program it has to be submitted to the committees who can only do they did to freakin' matteo primm.

i never understood why you need a separate limit on the amount especially in an environment as this one but if you want to that i would certainly prefer something significantly higher. i think he would have all of the oversight need even without the transfer limits. >> the reprogramming in the works now, does that reflect the full source of consternation in the dod or is there more that you are looking at right now than you are going to need to come back on and work through. >> we are only 2 million short of it. we don't have any flexibility. yes we have remaining problems that were shortfalls that we are looking at right now. >> i would be open for a lies half saying that if we are

expected to be under the sequestration levels for the foreseeable future and i am trying to advert that and i would be open to any type of an alternative devotee give you more running room. >> thank you. flexibility is as we said through the hearing absolutely key and you're point about running room is part of that flexibility. we are going to most likely need that depending on what happens here but if this plays out the way that it appears it is going to play out, at least for the remainder of the fiscal year 2013, then we have to continue to make these tough choices and we need flexibility. >> thank you mr. chairman. secretary, it is a pleasure to have you here. we are excited somebody with your background and experience in the government in the military in in the position you

are to meet the stresses and i appreciate general dempsey and undersecretary one youth said. you are coming to capitol hill urging health care reform and closures and congress has never met a basic wants to close which is why we have the base closing commission because we want to have it both ways. you look at the savings and people go ballistic and you get stuff down where you are dealing with readiness issues and i appreciate your patience. i would request in written form a little analysis on the nuclear weapons. it is mindboggling to me that we are looking at upwards of three-quarters of a trillion dollars over the next ten years that the administration was forced to deal with some upgrades and we have far more than we need and we are spending a minuscule amount, less than 1% decommissioning and i would really love an explanation for why we have to have this level of expenditure when you are

talking about other initiatives before us. the question i would put t you now for perhaps a reaction deals with the environmental stewardship of the department of defense. i have been impressed with the progress that has been made for a sustainable military. i've been impressed with the recent guidance in terms of the facilities that's really terrific and i hope it can be put into effect. but there's also the element the department of defense is the largest generator of superfund sites in america. there are ten other members of the committee who have super funding sites in their district that have yet to be cleaned up. i'm dealing with one in portland oregon that was a staging area for the needy three wars and there's serious pollution that is in part of responsibility of

the federal government. and i would like to know what we can look forward to. i know it's tough times and i am willing to go the extra mile but i hope we are not backing away from the responsibility for pollution that is across the country in every state and many of them in our district. >> i can assure you they are not going to back away. we will continue to fulfil the commitments that we have made and those are based on our responsibilities. as no the founding sites are administered out of the epa. we fund part of that. a good part of that is due to us over the years pre-world war two.

we will continue to make the funds available and continue to work with the superfund and administrators specifically if you have something let us know. >> thank you mr. chairman. i represent tennessee's seventh district fort campbell in that district and of course we of the wonderful 101st, the 160 and fifth division. when i'm talking with many of our men and women in uniform, a couple different things come up that have to do with readiness and i appreciated your comments on the readiness and i think that's one of the lessons we learned through the 90's is when you do these drawdowns, not carefully, there are consequences to pay. but looking at europe -- and this is one of the things people are talking about now in my

district -- they are looking at the force structure we have in europe and the are concerned this may go away. mr. secretary, i told them if i ever had a chance to ask you i would ask you, here we go. what purpose does this serve to have that permanent force, and what is it therefore? is it fair to counter russia, is it there to make it better and easier to serve as the launch point to get to other parts of the world come if we had another benghazi crisis or the middle east, how we handle what if we did not have a place like europe to go from? how badly worded in perry commanders options or degrade his ability to respond if we didn't have it? and you know, just talk to me about europe for a minute and i have one other comment to add once you do. >> i will less the general to

respond, too because this has been his whole life. i think he listed a number of reasons why we need the forward deployed forces. its force protection, of course. that is the whole point of the free balancing asia-pacific. it is time and schedule and options. benghazi is a good example, the congress continues to ask a lot of questions of what happened in benghazi. why weren't the believe there? it is clearly in our national security interest to have them deployed option because if you don't, the only option you have is you bring them out of the united states. the world is too fast and changed. we don't have any options and some things happen like that. your list of questions was a list of answers as well.

that is the first time the general has said -- >> the flying hours program i've worked with the committee to add funds to continue that. i was very concerned about loss of the 500 aviators and i would ask you to work on the program if it continues in 2014. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. secretary and general dempsey and undersecretary for your leadership and being here today. i wanted to ask a couple questions, one relating to the end of the war in afghanistan. we know what the timetable now is 2014. what do you foresee as the future involvement after 2014 as it relates to the military personnel and contractors and what you see as bill role in that effort in terms of our responsibility to authorize or

appropriate? second, i was glad to hear the answer. i've been working on its use of waste, fraud and abuse. what i learned is the pentagon has missed all these deadlines as it relates to the audits. so i'm going to ask -- i hope it isn't too redundant but have you projected any savings that would hopefully be completed pretty soon? and finally, just a little bit about the overseas contingencies' operation fund. that has exploded beyond any reasonable measure of what the contingency fund should be. now you are asking for 5 billion of the request the house armed services committee has provided. why aren't we projecting major savings from ending the war in afghanistan in fact the contingency fund continues to

expose? >> congressman, i will try to be brief as i know we all have ties emissions. the 5 billion additional didn't come from our request. that was a congressional addition to low we request of the 79 billion. that represents 10 billion less than the request last year. i was in the senate for most of the iraq and afghanistan war through the emergency supplemental that's really what it came from. now we are going to be bringing them back down for the very reasons you know and others. in addition to that, however why you still need it if you are coming out and i will get the post 2014 question. we are bringing a couple thousand a month to get down to 34,000 troops fighting february of next year. huge amount of equipment that we

have to get out and do something with that equipment. all of these are huge costs to last. it's not as easy as getting out as we did in iraq or we lose everything up on the ships. this is a whole different ball game so those are additional costs. but i see is after 2014, the president is laid out and we don't have the and fais mission after that we will have the presence there. >> thank you. mr. williams? >> i appreciate your patriotism and my question is directed to you, mr. secretary. fort hood is in my district and they are doing a fantastic job. a lot of people in my district asked the you think that america should be this number one super power in world? >> i believe and i always have that america must maintain its superiority in every way to maintain our national security.

>> do you feel [inaudible] >> our enemy is very fierce today. >> do you think your friends trust us? >> we have partners, we have allies, we have relationships that are all built around common interests that's not new, that is the history of the world those of the common interests that forged the relationships in the era of the common interest came after world war ii when we build all those coalitions nato and so on. we talk about the president's budget but you were aware it cannot really in the cycle. but also the sequestration was the idea of president obama. >> i will also add it's a report to some of the components identified sufficient spending

cuts such that they would not have needed to follow their civilian work force during that 11 days if you could have gone other ways in the public and creating havoc with some of the community's? >> if you were here for my opening statement, i noted that decision but i will repeat. we have looked at every possible area we can cut. i've listed some of them and we can give you an entire list of them and would be happy to do that. i got the point we started with a possibility of 22 days of furloughs. the decision i made was finally he 11. the last thing we wanted to do was in coordination with all commanders and senior leaders because i couldn't take the

readiness issue down any further than where it was. we would have to cut more into the readiness and force protection of zero people. i couldn't do that. >> last question to the i've never been able to understand why do we compare ourselves to other countries as far as the amount of missiles and you name it why do we compare ourselves to them, why do we set the standard if we are going to be the superpower in the world why do we want to come to their level? why do we just want to be america? >> i'm not sure what you mean. >> we thought bringing levels down and worried about the budget of another country i don't see how that plays into the defense. >> just because the votes on the floor. >> thank you to all the witnesses. i will be quick. i was a big fan of your work in the senate and nonproliferation continuing when you are working on the sensible ways to right

size the nuclear arsenal to address 21st century needs in the nuclear arsenal so that is a different picture question i want to ask you about in the post cold war era and the time that we are struggling to address the long-term debt and deficits we still have a huge arsenal even with the progress that we've made on the treaty numbers 1,050 deployed nuclear and we are being asked to pay for the modernization will in light of all of that can we afford or can we move back towards something like a great report that you did in may of 2012 with the global zero where you envisioned a nuclear arsenal deployed in a different way?

>> i think it's been the goal of every president of the united states and our freedoms since world war ii. now, ronald reagan if you remember in 1986 turned to gorbachev and said let's give it of all the nuclear weapons and i recall a lot of people. every reduction in our nuclear armament has come as a result of the treaty and the commensurate reciprocal reductions. you ask yourself how many missiles and how many nuclear warheads you need to defend yourself how many times you have to blow up the world i believe in a strong deterrence strongly.

and i don't believe ronald reagan and every president we've had asked the right questions the was a result of the treaty of the russians from 2010 the congress approved the senate if we can find ways to reduce the threat to mankind it's still to protect ourselves is that what we should be doing? i just want to get a couple points in really quickly. as you know in discussing brak for voting for it i would hope that we could work together to closely define what the process is. i think, too we need to add the national laboratories and this interest but also if we are

going to do it lets just do it all. one thing to be specific, electronic of records, we asked the department of defense some time ago to get that done to create efficiencies and save a lot of money. it's than five years ago. first of the dod will be interoperable by the end of this year and the transfer of all of our paper back-and-forth as you know five years within a lot of money is worth let me in the interest of time just a couple important points. the scene listen to what the devotee of those two systems they don't have to be the same

systems, just interoperable as long as they are talking to each other and we can accomplish getting paper records all of the dod over to their claims and that's being done and will be done that's one part. the backlog of the vba isn't a dod result problem. 4% of the backlog is our peace, and that's mainly because secretary shinseki made a decision i didn't think was right a couple years ago to start including all the vietnam veterans and everybody prior to iraq and afghanistan and the veterans the were produced in the war. we have electronic records and i was in the vietnam it's all paper records so they've been flooded with this stuff. a lot of glitches and actions absolutely. but i've got to be a responsible

for the modernization of our systems for the dod. that's not mutually exclusive. we worked very closely. i just offered more manpower. we have people over in the va. we have them all over and they just accepted seven more people which i'm glad they've done. but guess a lot of issues and problems but we are getting their. >> thank you mr. chairman for being here today, mr. secretary and general. i appreciate that, too. i wasn't planning on talking about this. i will be brief and i appreciate your response on the evidence issues and a backlog and electronic medical records and the different proprietary records and the private sector it's clear having a single system isn't going to work, that we have to find utility programs will make them all interoperable

and i just had the veterans for them and will tell you that every single complete was having access and falling that we are getting adequate care and that seem less. >> i want to have you talk to me a little bit about the impact sequestration is having on the defense contractors and their ability to stay in the staff and meet these demands. i have - job growth in the contract and in my district. i represent albuquerque and in mexico and it is a real challenge. >> well, again the contractors are going to be and are going to be severely cut. there is no way around when you were putting off contract and forcing them into the future you

can't go with making commitments and also meet your goal for the disadvantaged groups such as veterans and women to make sure that you're meeting the goals the use of the side to encourage that on to commercial and those kind of relationships. and what we do any district like mine to shore up these private businesses. >> my suggestion as the chairman and all the members of congress know is if we could get some clarity come some certainty comes some flexibility on the budget you have my support for that. >> last but not least.

>> thank you mr. chairman. my constituents have one question the money to direct it to you. to please our young men and women under the most unprecedented constraints in the history of the battlefield and the veterans lunch a couple years ago as was a veterans the army and i asked the young man but the rules of engagement thank god somebody asked me. they're terrible, they won't let us fight back. we have to identify ourselves and first you let them to stop shooting at us. it's that might be have to shine a light on them. if the fire is coming from anywhere in the village we aren't allowed to return fire or allowed to pursue. i have a body that did that. the insurgents were released for breaking the rules of engagement

what are the rules of engagement crux there aren't any. we didn't really have any rules of engagement. they told us to kill germans and that's what we did. i said if the german squad would you have pursued them? no pity and we would have blown up the church. my question is can we look these young servicemen and women in the eye to tell them we backed them with unlawful flight and fury of the country we base them in harm's way and the we give them the battlefield discussion to every generation since the beginning of this republican. >> it's never been the tradition in the country to use force indiscriminately.

a truly hangs in the balance in the support of the population and less so killing in particular in the murder of insurgents requires us to be particularly careful about the use of the force. no man or woman is hamstrung in their ability to protect themselves. and some of what you are referring to. >> i would suggest if world war ii were conducted in the same manner as we conducted our affairs in afghanistan that would still be going on. thank you. >> this was a fast-moving hearing. i wish we had more time but i appreciate your indulgence. thank you. this hearing is adjourned.

>> here is part of keith alexander said testimony. >> stat congenital alexandre

aside from these two cases is the intelligence community kept track of how many times the phone records obtained through section 215 and the patriot act were critical to the discovery and the disruption of terrorist threats? islamic we are going to make those figures available over the next week and would be our intent to get those figures out. i talked to the committee on that yesterday. i think it's important to note. >> we talked to the community about this yesterday but you didn't have the figures yesterday. >> i gave a number to them, the terrorist defense that these have helped prevent. >> we collect millions of

records through 2:15 but the dozens of them were critical. is that right? >> dozens are both here and abroad and in disrupting or contributing to the disruption. >> of the millions and dozens have been critical. >> that's correct. >> will you give me the specific and classified the specific cases that you're talking about? >> we will but we are going from the intel community to do this. tomorrow i will give as clear as we have precisely what we have done on each of those and the reason that i want to get this exactly right, senator, is i want the american people to know that we are being transparent to read this and if you are giving it in a classified to the specific members of congress, correct?

>> we can give the classified, that's easy. but i think also for this delete what you are asking and perhaps i misunderstood this but you were asking >> you can do that within a week? >> that is our intent. i am pushing for that and perhaps faster. and i don't get any takes. >> if you don't get what? >> text from the people behind me for doing the work because we want to get this right. it has to be that across the communities of of what we give you you know is accurate and we have everybody here especially between the fbi and the rest of the intel community to say this is exactly correct.

in the early 1900's, cocaine was used by a wide number of americans. listen coca-cola for example, it was a number of product. now there was concern when black people started to use cocaine.

for a sample "the new york times" ran an article in 1914 about black folks being a new seven -- southern menace. and black people under the influence of cocaine most talked about that it caused them to be more murderous, it caused them to rape white women and be unaffected by bullets. all this nonsense was going on then and it's going on now. although the language has been tempered. but drugs are such easy scapegoats. >> the senate armed services committee approved changes to the military's handling of sexual assault cases.

the new provision, offered by committee chairman carl levin, requires an automatic review if a commander overrules a military lawyers advice to prosecute sex assault cases. the same panel blocked the proposal by new york senator kristen jalabert and that would have removed the chain of command from decisions about whether military sexual assault cases go to trial. this portion of the markup is 90 minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you. the personal subcommittee met yesterday and adopted the mark as amended as the subcommittee mark. i want to thank you for holding this open session. the subcommittee mark was held in a concession yesterday. as appropriate that this important legislation be marked up in open session. the provisions comprehensively address the issue of sexual assault in the military. ..

>> from a bill offered by senators murray a and the plymouth all that would require all military departments to establish of special victims cancel this dod sexual assault prevention office to require the secretary of defense to submit proposed legislation to prohibit sexual acts and contact fit between military instructors in trainees to ensure response court naders were members of the national guard or reserve ran from of bill hall offered from senator claude bouchard and the castle to require the comprehensive review of trading, qualifications and experience of individuals responsible for sexual assault prevention response program. also the provision to require the inspector general to investigate

allegations of reprisals for reporting sexual assault. yesterday and the subcommittee we adopted six amendments related to the issue of including the amendment requiring the independent panel on sexual assault of the military to report in one year instead of 80 months. an amendment requiring -- and the additional duties of the panel of the sexual assault of the military and an independent panel of judicial proceedings to address the victim compensation also extending crime victims' rights and an amendment number 153 as is modified record -- regarding discharge into a sexual

assault charges. >> i want to tell my colleagues to see about the oscars that is truly a undermining military readiness and there are so many important and good ideas in this bill but will certainly make a difference. but to reverse this crisis i did not believe it will be enough if we do nazis the opportunity to embrace the kind of systemic reform that will truly increase accountability and object to the and trust in the military justice system by having trained legal military professionals handle a serious crime from the beginning. this is not a radical idea idea, it is a common-sense proposal carefully crafted to leave many occurrences in the chain of command including 36 serious crimes unit to the military. it is simply the right thing to do.

it has been a drop the world by the closest military allies without any negative consequences. but you do not have to take it from me or my colleagues to support this measure. taken from the victims who have said to us over and over again that they do not report because they do not trust the chain of command. taken from the military leaders who just testified in front of us that they themselves say "they don't trust us. if we're going to achieve our goals of reducing the number of unwanted sexual contact, assaults and rapes that are 26,000 per year, we have to start by increasing the reporting of such cases up from the current rate of 3300. then we have to get those assailants out of uniform that they do not deserve the

honor to wear. if the chain of command has told us for decades that they will solve this problem and they have failed. we have heard the words'' zero tolerance for over two decades. starting with secretary dick cheney in 1992 when he said we have a major effort under way to try to educate every buddy to let them know we have zero tolerance policy where sexual harassment is involved. that was over 20 years ago. it is our duty to act on behalf of the sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and those to serve to make us proud. senator graham would you like to give your opening remarks? >> i think we're on the verge of coming up with a solution that moves the ball forward.

first goal should be for the men and women in the military that have been sexually assaulted or treated improperly sexual and advances, improper contact than the two are very different comic to crete the most supportive environment in the united states to come forth. way you have to ask yourself is a difficult for a sexual assault or rape victim to come forward? yes it is. very difficult. we have sexual predators in the military and we need to know the difference between the sexual predator and of color remarks and inappropriate behavior is senator mitch castle said he won you can solve the other you have to change the climate. i will end with this thought there is no problem in the military that will ever be solved without commander by year end. of the finest military in the world for reason, it works this is a problem, an

aberration, this goes to the holt -- car in sold through we are in to remember past two own some of the problem or it will never get solved. everybody has to believe their reputation is at stake with sexual assault is committed it goes unreported rory bad results in the end. what we have done legally to impress upon the commanders how seriously we view this and how seriously society views. i have been ned judge advocate over 30 years if you want to get somebody's attention talk about your issue or presentation going to the highest level of the comanche a new looseleaf about we will say because you know, that matters. so we have a proposal. senator you have been terrific said if the judge said -- advocate recommends prosecution the commander says i don't think so it automatically goes to the secretary of the service involved.

i cannot think of a more chilling statement to make to empower a lawyer they and have the commander's decision reviewed by the secretary of service in question. that is a huge chromatics step in the right direction that stays within the chain of command. if there is agreement by the jagged and the commander not the right case to go forward you automatically have the commanders commander look over their shoulder. i think we're making great progress. victim advocates that senator ayotte has supported to make sure the moment you come not of the shadows that someone will be there for you and no one else. they are your guide and soyoil to you to help you to the system. there are so many good things that our members have come up with some of their passion has brought attention to this and so we appreciate their passion but

to my colleagues the decisions they make on how to solve this problem have wide-ranging effects of how the military operates and at the end of the day it will be our commanders who decide who goes into battle and who stays behind. they have a lot of hard decisions prosecuting sexual assault cases is a big decision but one of many difficult to have to make i trust our commanders are going to do better because he will hold them accountable we could not get the results that we wonder if we pull the matt of the game. >> there is a series of amendments to offer then we will offer this up to debate >> we have an additional 10 amendments relating to sexual assault include

macassar gold number 21 as authorized. for temporary assignment or removal of active duty that is accused of the offense and a castle 22 for additional issues by the independent panel and the amendment when it's in the six acquiring duty to conduct a comprehensive review of best practices and response and it eliminates the five-year statute of limitations trial by court-martial by a related officials and won 94 expressing concern with the imprecisely defined terms to present statistics on incidents of rape or sexual assault or sodomy or other unwanted sexual acts in the military. number 200 including the coast guard to develop regulations for the expedited transfer of sexual assault. of number two '05 directing

sector defense to report on the prevalence of the civilian justice system without command knowledge and number 200 day as modified directing secretary of defense to submit the report outlined to ensure the health care providers are appropriately trained and accredited allocated necessary to manage the victim's medical needs and as modified to require the independent panel of sexual assaults in the military to consider all legislative proposals considered by the committee and 222 the have the prohibition of military service by individuals convicted of sexual offenses i move these be adopted. >> is there a second? is there any discussion? all in favor say aye. >> i move the adoption of this marked as amended and subject to further amendments stemming that is

usual procedure now it is open to the amendment and i would now call up number 183 which as i have indicated is co-sponsored by senator inhofe, and the castle mccain, reid, us gramm and king and it would replace the provision personnel subcommittee package that removes from the chain of command the authority to prosecute serious offenses. in his place the ottman requires an independent review of the next higher level of the chain of command and in those cases where a commander decides not to prosecute a sexual assault allegation and it addresses the problem of retaliation by making retaliation a crime to establish an expectation that commanders will be held accountable for failure to establish a climate in which

victims can report such offenses without fear of retaliation. we also have a serious problem of sexual assault in the military we have a problem with the under reporting of sexual assaults the aquiver problem with the inadequate investigation of sexual assaults. we have a problem with the lack of support for victims of sexual assault. we have a problem with retaliation ostracism and peer pressure against such victims and we have a problem with a culture taken adequate steps to take and correct the situation. members of this committee have worked to come up with a strong response to these problems. senator delivery and scheduled her for a subcommittee hearing on this issue and it is a force for change in the months since and senator rick asco has devoted hours and hours to addressing the problems of sexual assault in the

military and the mechanics of the justice system and many others or of perhaps all of us but surely most of us on both sides of the aisle have made important contributions to this legislative initiative. the personnel subcommittee language is drawn from bills introduced many senators to introduce the problems. for example, a bill establishing special victims council to provide legal advice and assistance to victims of sexual assault and all the military services and a bill requiring the commanders refer all allegations of sexually related offenses to the criminal investigative service for investigation. a bill requiring the inspector general to investigate allegations of the reprisals for reporting sexual assaults, and a bill ensuring that commanders cannot overturn guilty verdicts.

we now had a vote on this to support those provisions. however, i do not support removing the authority of commanders to prosecute sexual assault cases to put that decision in the hands of military lawyers outside of the chain of command as the personnel subcommittee version would do. i believe that doing so would weekend our response to sexual assaults and actually make it less likely that sexual assaults would be prosecuted it would also and wisely removed the power of the commander to prosecute other kinds of serious crime including allegations ranging from homicide to barracks larceny, removing prosecution decisions from the chain of command will likely weaken our response to sexual assault by taking

the responsibility for prosecution away from military commanders who are actually more likely to prosecute and instead transferring the responsibility to military lawyers who are less likely to prosecute. we learned last week that military commanders have often prosecuted sexual assault cases even when civilian authorities declined to do so. we also learned military commanders have insisted on prosecuting sexual assault cases even when the military lawyers recommended against proceedings and we have been told by senior and junior military commanders alike that they have prosecuted sexual assault cases against the recommendation of the military lawyers because of the importance of the message that such prosecution sends to the

troops but the military lawyers who make a decision under the sub committee provision. for example, airforce colonel levitt forcefully testified before us that the message sent by a prosecution is often more important to a commander than the issue of prosecutorial resources or burdens of proof that weigh heavily on prosecutors. she told our committee that she could absolutely see the scenario where a prosecutor may not choose to prosecute a case because of the uncertainty of a conviction but i absolutely want to prosecute the case because of the message it sends some my airmen understand there would be held accountable by removing disciplinary

authority to prosecute an offense from commanders would also take away an important tool that they need to change a culture that needs change. colonel levitt told the committee that it is "critical the commander has the ability to prosecute offenses and she said you know, they say actions speak louder than words i need to be able to back up my words and she ended by saying, when i say there is absolutely no tolerance for sexual assault i need to have the ability to back that up." some states taking authority away from the chain of command would somehow reduce retaliation and increased reporting of sexual offenses. however, the provision in the subcommittee mark would address only the issue of who decides whether to prosecute sexual assault are

allegations was that have been reported and investigated and that decision takes place long after the victim reports the attack made by a senior officer who is likely to be many levels of command to remove from the victim in the meantime the victim would still work with the same people to the same officers as a four about a new avenues to escape peer pressure and ostracism. when a chain of command can establish that a zero tolerance policy for sexual offenses and the chain of command that has the authority and responsibility to take on problems of command climate that fosters and tolerate sexual assault and a chain of command that protects victims of sexual assaults by ensuring they are appropriately separated from the alleged perpetrators during the investigation and prosecution of a case and the chain of command that

can and must be held accountable if it fails to change the unacceptable military culture. it is harder to hold someone accountable to back to reduce their power to act. the chain of command has achieved cultural change before for example, two generations ago when may face problems with racial dissension in the military and with the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" they did it and can do it again this of the basic reasons the amendment would not remove the chain of command for prosecution decisions. our amendment takes a different approach and a more effective approach. first or amendment helps to ensure all sexual assault

cases that should be prosecuted are prosecuted and higher level review of the decision of a commander not to prosecute a sexual assault case this review is conducted by the next higher commander usually a general officer following the ruling of the decision to prosecute sexual assault cases is now made by convening authority like a captain in the rare event as senator gramm said if they recommend it to be prosecuted and the commander says noah our proposal requires the independent review be conducted by the service secretary. second our amendment addresses retaliation ostracism and peer pressure against those who report sexual assault by directing

the secretary of defense to prohibit retaliation against the victim for reporting sexual assaults and for the first time to make such retaliation a criminal offense punishable under section 92 of the uniform code of military justice. we express this in congress the commanding officers are responsible for establishing a command climate in which a victim can report criminal activity including sexual assault without fear of retaliation and should be relieved of command if they fail to do so. this is not an issue of a division between those who advocate strong action to address sexual assault in the military and those who don't. no member of this committee accepts the status quo of

thousands of sexual assaults in the military every year of every member of this committee wants to act forcefully to drive sexual assaults out of the military. the question for us is how to most effectively of shape -- achieve this objective our alternative will be more attractive to attack this problem than the provision of the subcommittee mark. our nation has no strong their vehicle for achieving the difficult and dangerous than our military. when we ask the answer, no matter how hard the task or what sacrifice we must make a message we must send to the military is there is no more important mission into day than purging sexual assaults from the ranks and real calling on them and counting on them to win this

battle. if we give them the tools they need they can and will win at. senator inhofe? >> thank you. my commitment to the integrity of the commanding officer goes all the way back to my service in the army in did jag court before said you were even born and at that time we talked about that we did want to do anything to take away the authority the commander has. i really commend those who put this together, primarily the chairman you came up with this compromise that i think does take care of the needs as has been explained already by senator graham and the chairman but i call your attention to the third example of what could happen if both jack and the commander recommend the event should not go to trial it's still goes up to the

court martial. is important to point* that out and i strongly support this amendment. >> thank you, mr. chairman first let me say with all my heart, pitch and i respect senator joel brand issue -- leadership on this issue we have the same goals and passion indicted meyer her greatly for the work she has done. so how do put of the creditors in prison and to support victims might years as an experience to handle all of these cases guide my decision today no one on this panel has spent more time holding hands of

victims, crying with victims , explaining difficult decisions and no one has a more often looked a jury in the eye to ask them take away the freedom of someone who has been accused of rape or sodomy a couple of points i want to make about the proposal i am supporting today. it is important to note that if the commander disagrees with the lawyers it does not go to a uniform it goes to the top person that branch of the military that does not wear a uniform i think the military is strong for many reasons but one of them is that we believe civilians

should be the top decision maker of each branch in the military and it is important with this decision that the ultimate decider is a commander disagrees is in fact, a civilian. there is a provision another review even if the lawyer says no frankly that goes further than i ever dreamt weeks ago that when the lawyers say don't go ahead, it gets another review. i think that is very important and the of thing that is different about this provision is the crime of retaliation. we have heard no evidence that there is data that supports the notion that

commanders are refusing to move forward when advised by their legal device. that has not been a problem that we have found. in fact, as has been pointed out by the chairman and others, we heard testimony to the opposite effect that there are times that the lawyers said no and the commanders said yes. under the subcommittee's proposal it would be over when the lawyer said no. there'd be cases that had their day in court that would never see court under the sub committee proposal. because we fact they have moved fowe know for at they have moved forward even when lawyers say notably the prosecutors say know all the time to these cases. many of these cases are he said/she said and who is believable. cannot tell you how many

prosecutors there are in the military system and the civilian system that can get their arms around that evidentiary challenge. so there are hundreds of these cases been turned down today in this country by civilian prosecutors and there are a lot of cases turndown that will be taken at under these proposals in the military. we also have heard no data that would indicate that by removing the command completely from any role that will have a positive impact on retaliation if you look at the surveys a lot of the victims talk about retaliation and in the civil system it is more that is painful and personal and private and a moment you don't want to have to say out loud in the military is all backed plus what impact

will have on my career? oh what i try to look at is where the victim most be protected from retaliation? a victim goes back into the unit are they're more protected if this case goes to trial because an outside prosecutor that nobody knows said it should? or are they more protected from retaliation and the commander says we are having a trial? i can make a strong common sense argument the latter is true. not the former. not only does common sense tell me it is true also i have been told in numerous conversations with military prosecutors and victims'. . .