where i think the air force is going to be focused is on the third grid which is command and control. because it's how we tie in this all together, old and new, manned and unmapped, pen trading -- unmanned, penetrating and standoff. it's the air force that has the core mission of command and control, and we do this for the joint team, so i believe it's going to be where we're going to spend most of our time investing, to pull those grids together. >> thank you for that very thorough answer, i appreciate it. thank you, mr. chairman. >> general, congratulations on the nomination for this important post. senator warner, my colleague and i today did something we do once a year which is really fun. we have a coffee for all of academy nominees that are about to report to all the service academies. we're sending some great virginians to colorado springs, and they're very, very excited to report, i guess, on june 30 is when they're out two, weeks today. very, very excited. couple of questions.

you and i talked a lot about readiness in my office, and you have testified and spoken briefly with the chair about this, that there's a projection. .. is to increase readiness, is manpower. >> your support for increasing manpower is the number one issue

for us. every service creates and sustains readiness differently. for an air force there are five key elements that we have to keep in balance. anyone of them can be a limiter. the first is the critical skills. it's beyond the pilot. it's the maintainers in the air traffic controllers in the mission specialist. it's all the people who have finger prints on an airplane before takes off. the second is weapon system sustainment. it's all the deppe work in the required maintenance to keep that airplane sustained. the third is a program that is operations and maintenance to get that plane air airborne and funded for its mission. the fourth is the missions of the ranges that allow us to do a full spectrum readiness and the final his time. the two limiting factors that keep us from being able to build readiness beyond what we are consuming is people and time. what you did to support our increase in people is critical

and we will manage the time based on the off temple and demands on the air for. >> one of the points you mentioned was my next question and that's this maintainer shortfall. you have talked to us before about that. the in strength on active that you're working with is 317,000. it's larger when you add guard to appear just because the end number might be okay, that doesn't mean within the number there aren't some disparities. talk to us a little bit about the maintainer shortfall and what are the plans that you might have as the chief to deal with that issue. >> right now we project that we have 4000 maintainer short of what we need. a significant number number of the manpower is going to go into maintenance. >> you layer that maintenance layered between active guard and reserve. >> it is. >> i've noticed this at langley. it's a real seamless operation between active duty and guard. >> it's that way across the board.

if you go and ask who's active and whose guard, all three hands will go up. we truly are one air force. we are bringing in maintainers to make sure that we bring in the right skill set. the challenge of course in bringing those maintainers is all the ones that will come in will be what we call pre-levels which is early entry that can do basic maintenance. that will take us up to two years to get them fully trained. that'll take us up to five years before they are supervisors. what we have to do is manage this across the garden reserve an active based on where our experience is to ensure that we can continue the mission at the tempo that we are in today, which i do not expect is going to come down during my tenure if confirmed. we had also advanced and bring on new weapon system for the future. i'll ask one last question, you talk about them being a key innovator and that's the case, a lot of the new missions that you have looking forward our space,

cyber and isr. talk about your ability to move out our new missions in those domains under the current reality. >> to demand single on the air force has been on those for key areas. that has been the research growth area in the air force. if you take a look at the last years of pacific trade you will see that's where we are today. like to answer your? space because sometimes history places the right individual at the right time and general john haydn is absolutely brilliant. he is changing the way we think about space. he has some significant initiatives that i look forward to championing if confirmed. one is the space mission force which takes the force and actually now has replicated what we see in the flying business. opposed to where we used to be

where most space operators and warriors would come to work and were primarily monitoring and reporting. now he has been thinking about operating in space. he has actually built a time so you spend sometimes in operations and sometimes in training. it's changed the culture of thinking about space which i think is one of the most powerful things that he has done. he is getting us to think about enterprise any space capabilities normally has three parts to it. there's an integration and a response and there's a ground control element. they always start lined up and one of them get slid. we haven't had a way in the past to realign them and so he is doing that. >> thank you so much mr. chair.

>> general, congratulations on your nomination, thank you for your years of service with your family and their many years of serving alongside you. i want to continue the conversation about readiness where senator mccain left off. i want to call attention to one thing you said in particular that you don't expect the op tempo to come down during my tenure. >> if confirmed, yes or. >> so for four years you expect the current op tempo to remain as high as it is today. >> i do, sir. >> secretary gates, and his memoir duty wrote that the department of defense was designed to plan and prepare for war, not to wage war. that is five years stated that since he left office in december 2011. you believe the the department still has that challenge today?

>> no sir, my sense would be, i don't know the context of what he was saying when he wrote it. >> he meant specifically trying to acquire radically the capabilities needed for the fight in iraq and afghanistan and vehicles to support ground troops, airborne, and other. the point being the pentagon in some ways is designed to procure the weapons and capabilities for the next generation spores a opposed to fighting the wars are in right now. >> yes there i think that's accurate. i will tell you there are certain capabilities that we bring to the site that if confirmed there is no degradation. one of those is air support. >> now i want to turn to a specific question of readiness the on the general discussion we've had this morning to the effectiveness rates for deployed air trapped against the islamic state. we discuss this in your office call last month. as i told you i continue to hear through official and professional channels from the pilots who are flying aircraft

over iraq and syria territory, as well as their families that tell me some harrowing stories about those effectiveness rates. you tell me in your conversation that you thought the rates were in the 90% range but you would check on that. do you have any figures. >> yes sir, that is still accurate for aircraft flying forward we average 90% mission capable rate. >> but if you went to every home station that generated those aircraft and crews and sent them forward, you would see them hovering around the 60 - 70% rate at best. >> so in hearing from pilots and their families about maintenance issue that prevent aircraft from taking off or early return to base or required to fly without the full spectrum of aircraft system or extend missions to dangerous links because the relief aircraft can't take off, i'm hearing from that is less than 10% of of all cases. >> yes sir, i think that's all

accurate and i can get more accurate numbers if you'd like. >> i would appreciate that. >> now i want to turn to nuclear modernization. i want to talk about the specific level about nuclear modernization. in february 2011 to the message about the senate, president obama stated that i intend to modernize or replace the triad of strategic nuclear delivery systems. heavy. heavy bomber, air launch cruise missile, icbm and ballistic missile submarine. since then the air force has examined options for replacement those systems are expected to milestone approval earlier this year. they have both been deferred by under secretary of defense frank kendall. i worry that this is inconsistent with the president's commitment and could delay the fielding of these critical replacement. >> at a general level do you

share his oft stated commitment to deploy those or do you believe conditions have changed that we might want to reconsider or delay those program. >> no sir, i think they need to be modernized. >> senator fisher asked you for your personal commitment about moving milestone two decisions along. you said yes ma'am, you do have a commitment, could we be more per precise? could you give a timeline and what you expect decisions? so for the g bsd were expecting a decision in august and were still on track to meet that. we are expecting a request for proposal within the next two weeks and also on the same time within the next two weeks we should have a milestone decision on the long-range strike. >> thank you for both. finally, on june 6 at a public speech, the national security advisor said, the administration

has already made it plain our concerns about how the modernization budget will force difficult trade-offs in the coming decades. the president will continue to review these plans. to your knowledge, have they been asked by the white house or national security staff to examine plans for nuclear modernization? >> no sir, not in in the meetings i have been in. >> thank you to you and your family. i would like to turn to the issue, but the specific issue in hawaii i'm concerned with the possible reduction to staff. especially when the full set of requirements.

how do you ensure that any cuts will not be made across the board in the capabilities and necessary tasks will be taken into consideration. >> with a 20% reduction was given to the service, to organizations took those cuts up front. the united states air force in the joint staff. we did that to delay, to keep from delaying the pain overtime and so it was a it of a rip the band-aid off to be able to take those cuts up front and reorganize accordingly. one of the examples of that was that we stood up in an organization support center that now consolidates all installations of the united states air force. we had 1500 airmen and civilians involved in maintaining and running our bases.

by consolidating into a single center we are down to 350. that is just one example of how we've taken the 20% reduction reductions and organized ourselves to be more efficient. >> you will continue with that kind of an approach to any further reductions that you are going be asked to take. >> yes ma'am. >> acquisition forms were introduced in 2015 and has some insights about the way the air force is concerning to the current threat environment. it stated, the acquisition approach is not agile and results in late delivery of capabilities and technologically superior forces. if voice is a concern that our system prevents the timely delivery of the capabilities that are fighters need to succeed. what is the top recommendation that you would suggest to improve the major system acquisition outcome? >> actually it would be to use

the authorities that now are moving toward service chiefs to do my job to ensure that i keep requirements solid that i don't allow any requirements creep in that i hold them accountable for delivering on the contracts we sign, to ensure that we are doing my part for milestone a and b decisions to make sure we are putting the right programs forward to meet the war fighter needs. >> in these times of budget constraints, i think you responded to some of the questions from senator mccain. in hawaii we have joint base pearl harbor and we have both a strong active air force presence as well as a guard and reserves. what are your guiding principles in terms of active guard and reserve forces working together question. >> ma'am, we are at the point in our air force where we actually cannot accomplish our mission without the guard and reserve. we talked earlier about how you can work into a c-17 cockpit and find one of each. that's how we look across the air force. we are taking a series of

initiatives through high velocity analysis and working with the generals of the various states who are involved in our deliberations to ensure that we optimize in each of the missions that we are required to do, what's what's the right mix between active guard and reserve. one of our biggest initiatives, actually this year is going to be to start up and integrated wing concept in south carolina. what were doing there as we are actually combining the reserve in the active duty in a single organization. we are working our way to the seams that occur in the authorities that occur to ensure that that organization can actually operate as a single wing. perhaps the best outcome of this

concept is going to be we are going to have a better understanding of each of the, opponents have the pressures and challenges and motivations that cause each one to sign up and serve and how we can work more effectively together to accomplish the mission. >> you are doing this in south carolina so is the intent to see how this can function and he implemented and then you would do that in other places such as in hawaii. >> i crack myself. i think seymour johnson is in north carolina technically speaking. we are doing that, we are doing that and based on expected success there in the pilot program we will take a look at other organizations. >> just one more thing, they brought up assault and i respect your commitment to change the culture, your commitment to prevent sexual assault against retaliation is really critical. that's an ongoing concern for many of us on this committee so i think you for that commitment. >> you have it. >> thank you mr. chair. >> the morning general, thank

you for all that you do for your country. i wanted to ask you what your viewpoint was on the performance of the compass call mission package and the important role that it plays with ensuring that we disrupt enemy command-and-control. >> it's critical and i believe i can speak can speak from the half of the combatant commanders that it's critical in every one of their area of operation. >> thank you. i wanted to follow up and ask you, as best as you can answer this form, can you explain to us why this is an urgent requirement that we actually placed this mission package on a more survivable and effective aircraft? >> yes, ma'am, the reality is this mission through electronic attack is actually becoming more more critical, especially as we look to the global challenges we face, china, russia, iran, north

korea. it's also playing a role against violent extremism. the challenge of the c-130 is that it doesn't operate at the altitudes that we need to be able to put the footprint down on the target that were trying to service. so our challenge is that any time delay in being able to get this into an aircraft that can climb to a higher altitude is going to diminish over that same time frame our support to the combatant commanders. >> so, if we fail to to authorize the request that the air force has made to use existing rapid acquisition authorities to re- host the equipment on a proper airframe will that result in a 4 - 6 year delay in providing this vital capability in a more survivable and effective aircraft? >> yes and i would add to that that if we need to do further integration of that equipment you could add two more years to that. >> so based on the request that

the air force has made, do you continue to believe that it's important for congress to authorize in this year's defense authorization the request to use rapid acquisition authorities to re-host the compass call given the fact that this is such an important need for combatant commanders? >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> general, i would compass call to re- host program is important to our combatant commanders and i join the senator to field this work a fighting capability. >> thank you mr. chair. welcome general. as you know from your time in new mexico, my home state is home to the air force research laboratory as well as to nsa

laboratories. i want to start by just inviting you to come visit and see the great work. i want to ask broadly what role do you see our defense roles playing in air force modernization? >> yes sir, i'll go back to my opening statement. we are the service you rely on. the technology that you are. these are all things that are going to be game changers in the future. >> i would add directed energy to that list. >> despite the great work that they do at those labs, this committee is expressed concern in the nda that it takes an unreasonable amount of time to hire experienced individuals at the defense labs. sometimes it takes over a year to get somebody in place which just seems like far too long.

the result of that is a percentage of the authorized dealers remain vacant due to lengthy delays for the private sector that we can get placed in a relatively reasonable time. if confirmed, can you make speeding this hiring process a priority? >> yes i will and i actually align with senator carter that we are in a war on talent. one of the initiatives allows us to go directly to a university and hire talent from the university. what we have done previously up to now is that we have told our talented young men and women to go get on usa jobs, post all the resumes and maybe we will get back to them in six months. they are gone. it's unacceptable in this environment. everything that the secretary's doing, anything that i can do to make that easier i will do. >> i appreciate that. i think that focus will be incredibly important for getting the kind of talent that we need

in what is becoming a very competitive environment with the private sector. regarding the replacement discussion, is the air force, will you consider the same platform as the combat rescue helicopters that the agent 60 or whiskey? >> right now it's a different set of requirements. the question will be, clearly, when you when you can get one platform that can do multiple missions, but right now as i've looked at the requirements and clearly have confirmed something that i will get deeply involved in making sure those requirements are firm, right now there's enough differences between what you would need to be able to fight your way in to rescue someone versus what you would do to provide security for the missile fields. >> given the dramatic improvements we have seen in laser, in particular technology

of microwaves in the last few years, what role do you see directed energy playing? >> sir i describe it as silent sabotage. right now when i want to place firepower on the enemy they and everyone else in the area know where they are we need is a capability to create and affect and not have them know exactly where it came from or who. i think directed energy is going to provide that for us. it's going to be especially effective in our special ops forces but it will also have conventional effects. i'm excited about the technology and if confirmed i will surely push it. >> i look forward to working with you. thanks for your service. >> first of all, i've always said that the greatest asset and i have observed that your greatest asset is sitting behind

you in green. i imagine don is replacing betty. you have a problem problem with that? >> no sir. >> something was brought up back in april 2013 we granted some 17 combat units. the squadrons, that lasted for about four months. i think we had some 17, 25% of the pilots were uncertified during that time that we retrain. of course you know what happens in terms of maintenance and all that. have you ever calculated the cost and come to the conclusion that we lost money on that deal? >> i haven't calculated the cost monetarily but i will tell you that the cost personally for those individuals that were affected, because it wasn't only the pilots that stopped flying. it was the double maintenance

folks who stopped maintaining. >> i know that. >> is air traffic controllers and impact across the forest. what we can't calculate is the number of folks who decided that if this is how i'm going to be treated, i won't stay with the company. >> i actually talked to some of them. in terms of the reef euler, casey 46, right now the general made the statement that our casey 135 and casey tennis dressed at a point near bending and i'm concerned about our ability to flex that course to another region of the world if we need to. you agree with the statement? >> i do. >> i can't highlight the magicians in our debt post. quite frankly there's only one reason we have aircraft still flying and it's the quality individuals that keep them flying. >> the casey 135 is 50 years old now.

now we shift to the fighters. we have the same problem there except it's a little bit different. we've actually in training now with t6's, t ones t1's and t38. they are 50 years old. now they are projecting that before we are able to start replacing that it's going to be 2024. is that correct? >> yes sir. i don't know how many years it would take to re- rotate those around until it's totally replaced. i haven't calculated that. can we hold onto it? >> were going to have to. >> here's the problem we have in its using your quotes, when you said, you talked about, the most pressing challenge for the united states air force is the rise of peer competitors with advanced military capabilities arriving at our own. were talking about

third-generation and we've already acknowledged that the trading and the t38 is not adequate to train someone for a fifth generation fighter. isn't that correct. >> yes sir. >> so it's almost as if were saying everything is going to be happening in a vacuum. in fact, it's not. even today, if for not giving adequate training for our new competitors, what's it going to be like ten, 15 years from now. is that one of the things that bothers you? is that one of your greater concerns? >> sir it is, this is a classic case of what a service chief is faced with which is how do i, with the resources given, if confirmed get the right balance between capability, capacity and readiness. there are trades that we make. when we look at, for instance bringing on a new trainer

aircraft, that's one of the trades that we have to make to push that to the right until 2024. that will require us to keep the t38 flying longer and it's just one of the embedded in evitable traits. >> we got spoiled over the last few decades because we didn't have competitors out there that were almost equal with us or even advancing. that's one of the great concerns that i have. i know you and i have talked about that and you're going to be stressing that. >> yes or i well. >> i look forward to working with you. >> thank you mr. chairman, i want to thank your chairman for being here as well. i'd like to congratulate your nomination. in our last meeting you and i talked about the 434 air feeling wing and they are based in indiana. the basic process for the next jan casey 46. when do you anticipate we will see another opportunity for that reserve unit. >> the next ones up are in mode

for mobility base and we expect to rollout with a candidate announcement within the next two weeks. >> thank you. in the last decision, the air force emphasized the decision of associate units. that aligns with recommendation of the commission report in 2014 that recommended a expanding the record number in the air force. you anticipate that you'll be creating more reserve associate in the future? >> i do. we have a very successfully active duty officers that are actually commanding guard rings and so we have already done this kind of mix and we look at every organization and then look at the mission and the op tempo that we can sustain. how do we optimize all three components to best achieve the mission.

as we do this i expect and confirm that we'll we will see more associations of the future. >> the ground-based strategic deterrent provides, i think an important opportunity for cross service collaboration between the air force and navy on strategic missiles. i think it's an historic opportunity for research and development, lessons learned from the navy's recent trident program which can reduce risk and savings which are critical and field an extremely capable follow on. is the air force committed to commonality as a means to modernize and maintain the triad? >> yes we are. what elements do you see as most applicable for the icbm program? >> sure as you know one of the

aspects is that it's an enterprise approach. as we feel that weapon system, it's actually not just the missile, it's the missile in the launch and the command of control. it's the entire enterprise approach. the. the navy does the same thing when they look at this submarine for spirit i think there's synergy there between how the navy approaches that and how we approach the enterprise that's required to support this myth mission. i think there's various elements will you ensure that the program to process prioritizes commonality as an important strategy to increase capability while reducing risk and cost? >> yes or i will. >> i want to talk to a little bit about the 122nd fighter wing in fort wayne that was conducted numerous missions and support with their a-10 aircraft we were excited to see that the air force is charged the 122nd to continue to wage war in the wear and tear with the f-16. that structure announcement shows fort wayne transitioning to f-16s and fy 18.

due to concerns raised by this committee and others these plans may shift a little bit. i was wondering your assessment of how the senate and house versions of this impact your ability to carry out structure changes involving the a-10. >> sir, anything that allows us more stability and flexibility to make the key decisions we need to make are helpful for a service chief chief. any restrictions we have on being able to move forward obviously hurt us because as we look at balancing capability readiness, we need need that flexibility. when it comes to fort wayne, as we put forward our options for the secretary of defense, as we talk about, we may ask your support to delay that transition in order to make sure we can continue the fight against isil.

>> how do you think that will impact your timing as things currently stand? >> i think we are looking at one year. >> thank you very much. >> thank you think you mr. chairman and congratulations to you and your family. i want to begin by paying a little complement to secretary carter, president obama i think they have been doing a very good job in terms of their selection of their top military generals and whether it's general millie or general dunford or your nomination that fits into a category of incredible experience and also, what we've seen is frankness where they have come to the committee and they have been very up front with the committee. i think it's well respected and well appreciated. if you're confirmed, i certainly hope you will continue in that vein.

let me just mention, general millie was here a couple months ago and he stated that given the current budget of the president's budget, given the force levels of the army would put the army at high military risk. that's pretty dramatic. didn't give any news but i thought it was dramatic that the chief of the staff of the army was saying that to do their mission, on the current budget you have an incredible diverse missions that which i think most people don't even recognize how broad it is, do you also see high military risk given the current budget and air force numbers that are at all-time lows? - right now in terms of what you need to do and in terms of your mission, high high military risk, that would be pretty remarkable for them to state that. we need to do something about it. i have no doubt. >> sir i would characterize

significant training to hire which has been previous assessment. >> you don't think it's high right now? your at the highest level. you have 35 maintainers who are contractors. you don't think that's high-risk. >> the challenge and readiness, when we have this discussion, i find you have to start this discussion with ready for what. if you were to ask me what is the state of readiness in the air force to fight it violent extremism in the middle east i would say it's extremely high. they are ready to execute the fight. if that was all we were asked to do for the next decade i would tell you that we can sustain that. but if you tell me that i need to be signing tenuously ready for the other global challenges that secretary carter has laid out that i believe we need to be ready for which is china, russia, iran and north korea, i believe that would be high-risk. >> thank you. >> let me turn to follow-up on the topic that senator donley was talking about. that is the case of the ac 46.

i know you're making some decisions here and you will be making some decisions relatively soon. when do you plan to make those decisions? >> the nest decision will be in the next several months. >> with that include those locations? >> yes, sir. as a matter of fact, we have 11 locations that we will be betting down. two of those that we are planning. the next to i do not believe. >> what you look at in terms of characteristics? we have a set criteria at a basing process that first lays out that criteria. we share that criteria with the delegations and then we score bases against that criteria that produces a preferred candidate lists. the preferred candidate list is where we actually begin our site surveys. >> all throughout a couple characteristics that i think are important strategic location, air combat power for the

asia-pacific, world-class training areas, 247 mission that routinely intercepts russian bombers, red flag exercise of the year, over 105th generation fighters located there, c-17, c-130s, do those sound like important characteristics? >> yes, sir. >> you know a place i'm describing? >> yes, sir. he called it the most strategic place in the world. is that important? >> it's actually important across all the missions of the united states are forced. >> can i get your commitment to take a very serious look at when you're making those decisions to look at billy mitchell's place that he called the most strategic place in the world as part of that? >> yes sir, you have it. >> and i asked one other question are you concerned about recent unprofessional behavior by the chinese and russian air

force and what should we doing about it? some of us think that maybe we need to draw a line and then just tell them not to cross the line. kind of like what turkey did. what is your recommendation on that and how dangerous are those? how more frequent are those? >> they are dangerous. it has been more frequent. here's my concern. when we do an intercept which i have been personally involved in, you close on an aircraft that is not defending itself with legal weapons well inside a lethal range. the backend of the aircraft are people who can defend themselves. why would we allow each other to be able to close at that range and within reason, for 50 years we have been doing this. three very professional air forces and our pilots can do this with predictability and professionalism. when that breaks down to potential things can occur. one is miscalculation by either side and the second is that we

find, as we did with the chinese situation when that aircraft violated the number one rule of aviation's don't hit another aircraft with your aircraft and we hit the ep three, the other concern is when you have an incompetent pilot that takes that aggressive behavior and is not actually capable of being able to perform that kind of intercept. that troubles me. so confirmed my message to my counterparts in both china and russia and that is if we have professional air forces let's hold our airmen accountable. what should we be doing? >> the senators time has expired. go ahead. >> sir what we should be doing is messaging them through channels that this is unacceptable behavior. >> thank you. some of us believe that billy mitchell wasn't always right general. >> this court-martial was

injustice. i was was going to mention that there was a court martial involved. >> i was waiting for the senator to say north of the 54th parallel is also one of the requirements. >> he was vindicated later, general, thank you very much for being here. you and i discussed this a week or so ago. we recently had testimony that over 80% of the current members of the military of the united states come from military bloodlines. you yourself, i believe your father, brother, your daughter is a captain in the air force. that certainly is good in terms of the commitment, but two problems suggested self. one one is a narrowing base of people to populate the military as we go from the vietnam generation down to a much smaller base and secondly the development of a second military cast in our country.

talk to me about these two issues. >> yes sir, if you look at where the active-duty air force is actually located, we, we tend to be on the eastern seaboard along the south and in the northern tier and western seaboard but were not everywhere. as we've gotten smaller and smaller it's harder to connect the american people with their active-duty air force. >> this is a concern. >> this is an absolute concern. where we actually are in every state is in their air national guard. i think the closer connections that we have is one air force between all three components, it's our international guardsmen that are actually most connected to the citizens and the political leadership in each state which is where we need to leverage. i am concerned about exactly what you're talking about which is lack of a connection which is further concerning of the morn more we have second and third generation. >> let me talk about math for a minute. were talking about maintaining

operations, significant tempo, we don't see conflicts resolving or going away. we don't see the world getting more calm and easy to deal with and yet were talking about significant upgrades. you're talking about the be 21 casey 46 and deployment, icbm, were talking about major capital expenditures and i don't know anybody who's talking about additional funds. one of the things that bothers me as we are now operating under editor decisions made in 2011 before syria, before ukraine before self china sea before isis and yet we are trying to pack 10 pounds of capacity into an 8-pound sack. i just see this as a looming

huge problem for this country. if we don't somehow account for increased threats and the necessity of the capital upgrades that were facing. >> yes, sir, i agree. >> is there any way you could maintain your capabilities and meet your responsibilities in a world where the sequester returns next year? >> no, sir. if we are sequestered again, i can't give give you a better example of what sequester did to the united states air force than the a-10 discussion. it was sequester that brought us the a-10 requirement. if we get sequestered again because we had an $8 billion math math problem to solve in 2015. if were sequestered again, we will have a 10 billion-dollar math problem to solve in 2018. >> will that have a direct measurable effect on the national security of this nation? >> yes, sir and others have testified that we will be unable to execute the national guidance if we are sequestered again. >> i just hope people in this

building and across the way are also listening to your testimony because i think it's very important. >> you help develop this budgetary recommendations that turned into the authorizations that are in the bill that we just passed a few days ago. are you comfortable with where the committee came out as far as the air force budgetary needs are concerned? >> sir, i'm generally comfortable. i know there are continued issues that we will have to work on. >> casey 46, a missed a deadline for delivery next year. it's unusual to have a deadline missed a year in advance. what is that going to do to the whole schedule and for the deployment of the casey 46 and are you concerned about what's happening with that contract? >> i'm absolutely disappointed that we missed this milestone.

what will happen now with the program and having been out there and walked the line and looked at company leadership and i in seattle with billing, i'm confident they have a good plan to be able to overcome the challenges were finding right now primarily in the refueling boom but the unfortunate reality is that we are going to delay, up, up to a year receiving those airplanes. we still believe that we can absorb the impact of that one-year delay in the first two bed downs and then mcconnell and then after that we think we will be back on track when we go to other bases after that. >> i you as you make your future decisions those known as the maniacs. that's a very skilled and very important facility.

i have joined my colleague from alaska but now i'm talking about a base that's right around the 45th parallel. thank you very, very much for your testimony. >> thank you. >> general, just a few more follow-ups. the committee had a lot of concern and there's provisions in the current bill that was recently passed on the f35 maintainer issue. can you speak to that a little bit and what you see is the best path forward and how important it is to address that issue. >> yes, sir. this is a challenge for all services who are trying to sustain and modernize the same time because none of us have maintainers that are currently operating in a weapon system that we can then shift. when you bring in a new weapon system, the first thing you do is train the maintenance forces to receive that aircraft. our challenges, the more were told to keep the old aircraft it's going to further delay bringing on the f35. those maintainers that were counting on, were working through a lot of different options. we've already done a number number of things. we transition to contract with all of our nine deployment

locations. we did this with the aggressors in alaska and i support appreciate your support for that. were doing everything we can to bring the f35 on but the more we are delayed in terms of bringing on new manpower and holding airpower can have a significant impact. is the best solution to strengthen the air force to make sure we have airmen working those issues as opposed to contractor. >> absolutely. >> has that beenentioned in the budget negotiations and discussions in terms of your future air strength? >> yes, sir, we are authorized for 21,000 and we've put all the resources in place both from recruiting and pipeline training to be able to bring in the number of airmen. if we are successful this year, and we see the kind of recruiting numbers we are looking for, we will likely come

back to this committee and ask you to reprogram money to allow us to get to our authorization of 321. the bulk of those airmen that we will bring on will be maintainer >> back to the issue that i mentioned a lot of the characteristics that i think are very powerful in terms of the strategic necessity of alaska. i would like to get your commitment during your first year if you are confirmed to come up to alaska and see those issues and strategic strengths for yourself. >> yes, sir, i will. >> thank you again general and thank you to your family. thank you for your years, decades of service to our country. >> this hearing is adjourned.

[inaudible conversation]

today a discussion on guantanamo bay prison detainees. former chief prosecutor for guantánamo military commission mark davis speaks at the national press club live at ten am eastern on c-span. the referendum vote on the u.k. membership in the european union is next wednesday. the heritage foundation hosted discussion on the vote with former margaret thatcher speechwriter john a sub 11. at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. on american history tv on c-span three, this saturday starting at one pm eastern we are live from gettysburg college in gettysburg pennsylvania for the annual civil war institute summer conference. authors, historians, professors examine topics like refugee camps, construction in the north and the post- civil war era of

ulysses s grant. also the origins of the lost cause. at ten with the approach of the 40th anniversary of the air and space museum in july, they will show a series of nasa films. we will look at the national film science reporter, suited for space. >> and like you to see a couple of our earlier models. after the mercury suit it's the gemini. >> this is a suit very similar to this and in fact identical to this that was worn by white and his extracurricular excursions. >> it does look different from that 70 suit that we saw. >> this is an earlier model of the apollo suit. >> tracing the development of spacesuits from the markedly program to the apollo moon mission.

then at six on american artifacts, curator takes us on a tour of the smithsonian air and space museum to show some of the museum's one-of-a-kind artifacts in the quest to go higher, faster and higher in aviation. >> in may 1927, it flew 33 and a half miles from new york to paris. it was formed by charles lindbergh who is an unknown pilot. his role was to win the prize of $25000 for the first nonstop flight from new york to paris. that was the impetus for this flight. what it represents from the history of aviation is part of the telling of the airplane and the transformation of the airplane from what the right others created and how it transitioned over the 20s and 30s to what we call the modern airplanes. >> for the complete tv schedule, go to cspan.org. >> next a hearing on the threat of transnational organized crime

to the u.s. the senate foreign relations committee heard from ilium brownfield, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law-enforcement affairs. this is one hour 15 minutes. [inaudible conversation]

former relations committee will come to order. this morning we will look at how we are moving beyond the war on drugs to understand our challenges of transnational organized crime. what strategies can be effective in combating this threat. illegal drugs and crime associated with them are still devastating communities on both sides of our southern border, it's not yet clear how

successful a huge investment made over the decades have been in eradicating supply and production. the bottom line ishis, where the rule of law is weak or nonexistent transnational criminal organizations will prosper and engage in corruption in 2011 the obama administration issued a strategy to combat transnational organized crime. this was an ambitious aspirational strategy that sought to mark an evolution in thinking. now nearly five years later, we need to ask, what is working and what is not so we can get this right moving forward. our witness today's investor bill brownfield who is a strategic thinker with a long practical experience. we welcome him and look forward to his testimony and our discussion. with that i turned to our raking member senator ben cardin.

>> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for convening this hearing on transnational crime. the world has changed and so has transnational organized crime. i think it's important for us to have an update as to where we are. president obama's transnational organized crime strategy has been there for a while. is it working? do we need to do more, we need an update and i hope today that secretary brownfield, you will share with us how we are doing in regard to that strategy. >> organized transnational crime, we've seen many of the results of that. we've had hearings on trafficking, on human beings or wildlife, on weapons, on drugs, we've seen the transnational organized crime in its financial crimes against us, particularly

on cyber, i'm particularly proud of the work being done in my own state of maryland on cyber security dealing with the effects of transnational crime. we have our cyber security command and many private companies working in my state in regards to these issues. this clear nexus between government corruption and transnational crime that is pretty clear, when you take a look at how transnational crime spreads, you find areas in which there is corruption. where they can deal with their expansion of their own activities. then mr. chairman, the human cost of this. we talk about the impacts of dealing with transnational crime but the impact of this, the

trafficking of drugs into america and in my state and in every state in the nation, we see record numbers of addiction. it's affecting our communities directly as well as the criminal elements and what they do. we certainly have seen that in the trafficking of migrants. in april, 500 people alone were on a capsize traffic it vote. there's a human cost of this and of course it's big business. the numbers are astronomical. just in the trafficking of refugees in 2015, it was a 6 billion-dollar enterprise. it's a huge amount of resources that are being taken out of our productive economy and we need an equal response to it and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses.

>> thank you for your comment. today our witness is amb. william brownfield, the assistant secretary for the bureau of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. we had a long meeting last week to go through many aspects of this problem and i thank him for being here today and sharing his knowledge and how better to attack this. if you could keep your comments about five minutes, that would be great. we look forward to questions. without objection your written testimony will be entered to the record. : cocaine to heroin.

we have made great progress on cocaine. u.s. consumption is down more than 50% but heroin abuse is exploding. our international challenge is to work for a solution with the government of méxico, the source of most heroin in the united states. i can report that we are working well together meshing our domestic heroin abuse reduction plan with méxico's new national heroin plan. but we must not ignore cocaine. in two years cocaine production in colombia has doubled and the u.s. is the traditional market for colombian cocaine. colombia is understandably focused on its peace process. our challenge is to support that process while at the same time pursue a serious drug strategy for colombia and

central-american transit nations. and we need to address challenges beyond our atmosphere. afghanistan produces more than 80% of the world's heroin. africa is a massive transit point moving north south and east, west, and some old ones. the second and greater strategic collage for the 21st century is the vast new field of organized criminal activity that is neither drugs nor terrorism. we call it transnational organize crime, arms trafficking, illegal mining and logs, cyber crime, intellectual profit theft. while each crime is distinct they all share certain enablers,

they require corruption to run trafficking networks and money laundering to convert to legitimize property. they prey on weak government inconstituent -- institution. we have learned lessons since first attacking the drug crises of the 20th century and we have changed our tactics accordingly, one lesson that many technologies developed over the 40 years to control elicit drugs can also be applied to talk. but police operations, lab takedowns, arrests, while important cannot alone solve transnational organize crime.

whether through training, education, equipment or technology and our partner institutions are not just the police, they are also investigators, public investigators, judges and correction officials and we must construct the global architecture, the treaties and conventions, the un and other international organizations, the cooperation and coordination mechanisms that permit governments and law enforcement to work together to address transnational organized crime. mr. chairman, i have been in this business more than 37 years. i take the long view to solving our national security challenges, when i joined the foreign service in 1979 the most sophisticated tools available to law enforcement working in international case were the telephone and a roledex file.

we have come a long way since then but we have a long way to go still. thank you and thank the member members of the committee. >> thank you for the meetings we have had in the office. let me -- i want to make sure people heard fully what you had to say, 90% of the heroin that comes into the united states is not just coming from méxico, it is produced in méxico; is that correct? that is a good rough estimate, mr. chairman. >> so it's not a situation of having a southern border where things would naturally migrate through, it's actually being produced there. i think the other point you wanted to make sure that you are working closely with the mexican government with the issue and feel like you have a good

partner in that regard, is that correct? >> that's correct, i think highly with the attorney general of méxico who has been placed in charge of the government's efforts. >> so what is it that's specifically causing 90% of the heroin that americans are consuming to be produced in méxico? >> i will offer two, three or maybe even four elements of an answer. one part of the answer is that the same mexican trafficking organizations or cartels that for the last 20 years or so had been moving the product from south america, mostly cocaine through central america and into the united states discovered as the cocaine demand reduced in the united states that they could replace much of that through heroin and made a systemic effort to build that market. so it was mexican organizations building the market. second, they discovered that

having a vertically integrated system, which is to say controlling the entire process from cultivation through laboratories that converted opium into heroin to the transport and logistics network and eventually the revenue, money laundering networks worked to their advantage. third, you have geography, which is to say méxico is a lot closer to the united states than is afghanistan and, fourth, in a sense méxico became the victim of colombia's successes, colombia use today produce about half of the heroin consumed in the united states, but thanks to some very serious and successful efforts by the colombian government, colombian heroin has dramatically reduced in the u.s. market, mexican heroin has replaced it. >> so what's happened in méxico is not like any international business enterprise, vertical

integration, proximity to customer, the mexican production to dramatically increase just like any other legitimate business might act. this is obviously iilegitimate. >> drug organizations are not stupid, very good businessmen. >> my great staff had comments about some of the positive things that were happening in colombia, however, i declined not to say those in my opening comments because of what you just said and that is that 50% of increase is occurring in colombia. what is driving that after all the years of effort. >> after, you know, positive effort by many administrations, what is driving the 50% increase?

>> actually and mr. chairman, i might nudge your figure to 50% closer to 100% in the last three years. i think it's driven by several factors. one to be blunt and honest is the focus and attention of the colombian government on their peace process and to some extent a willingness or a desire not to take steps that would complicate that peace process and la farc gorilla movement is one of the world's laidest trafficking organizations. second the government of colombia no longer has the same eradication program that they had for the last 20 years or so. they have stopped all all what aerial eradication. this is partly a decision of

them telling us to stop aerial eradication but also partly a function of the colombian coca growers having realized and discovered that certain zones in colombia would not be sprayed, zones right near national frontiers or la farc controlled areas. this explosion of coca cultivation. >> let me just ask you, this is not what we want to hear. i know we had the president up here recently and all of us were glad to see him and certainly want to continue the partnership we had. is this in some ways in accommodation to la farc in order to end up in a more peaceful situation that you see occurring? >> mr. chairman, i think it is part of that. that's too simple an answer and i want to give complete credit to the government of colombia

which i admire enormously and has made extraordinary effort at great costs and with great courage in terms of what they are doing. we have to acknowledge that the peace process and negotiations developed in the last four years, one of the elements in colombian policy that has not been maintained at previous level is counternarcotics and eradication. >> i do on my next round want to focus on the tremendous increase in production that's occurring right now in afghanistan and the highly luck -- lucrativi production in china, so much easier to do and so much cheaper to make and that's probably our next challenge as a nation.

with that senator gardner. >> well, mr. chairman, i want to follow up on your point and embassador we appreciate very much your service. we know the work that you did in colombia and we appreciate that very much and we now need to see how we can deal with a more holistic approach on drugs coming into america. i just want to concentrate one minute on heroin because i've been throughout my state and i have seen the impact of heroin addictions in maryland and it's every part of my state, there is no part of maryland that's been immune, no community has been spared and my understanding is that this is true throughout america. the heroin addiction issues are incredibly impacting all of our communities, so i am pleased to hear your report that

governmental sector you're confident that our relationship with méxico is productive and we are working on that issue and you have also acknowledged 100% increase in heroin production in méxico. so clearly we have to be more effective in our policies in méxico to stop the production. now, there's a lot of other issues involved in the heroin use here in the united states. we have the opioid abuses, et cetera, so we need a multiple approach but from your experiences in colombia, i would hope that we would have a more aggressive expectations on cutting off source productions in méxico. >> that's a very fair hope on your part, senator, and i would -- i want to feed into that hope. i am optimistic but by the same

token i have been in this business long enough to know that to have an impact you have to think in terms of years and not in terms of months. i would use as an example, plan colombia launched in 2000, until the year 2007, no one, no one in this institutionution of the united states congress or the executive branch would have been prepared to say we are made serious in-roads and impact on cocaine production in colombia. by 2007, 2008, seven to eight years after the start of the most aggressive program we have ever pursued in the western hemisphere we have begin to see that. as we are working with méxico, we have to remember that we have our own part to play in this and it's a serious part.

the office of national director has developed heroin abuse reduction plan and the objective of that plan is to reduce the demand for the product in the united states. the mexican government in my judgment has been very good about law enforcement efforts focused on introduction and attack and taking down laboratories. the challenge we have right now is going after the tens if not thousands of thousands of acres in méxico that are currently under cultivation for opium poppy, that's the challenge, that's what i'm trying to work with the government. >> obviously that's extremely important. we want to help any way we can. could you just share with us a better understanding of the criminal elements that are bringing the heroin into the united states, its relationship to traffickers in regards to

humans. are we talking about mexican mexican-cartel-type operations or are we talking about american connections, are we talking about other parts of our hemisphere, outside of our hemisphere that are involved in syndicates that are bringing the drugs and perhaps people into the united states? >> senator gardner, i will offer you my views and obviously u.s. law enforcement has a right to correct adjust fine-tune or modify anything that you're about to hear from me. first it is my opinion that the mexican drug trafficking organization have developed in the last 10 to 15 years in a way that basically subplanted previously the colombian drug trafficking organizations which dominated the movement of

product, particularly cocaine from south america to the united states. they are overwhelming within méxico, mexican organizations that are comprised of mexican citizens. do they also take advantage of other forms of trafficking in order to make money, yes, they most assurely do and whether that's trafficking in persons or firearms, whether it's trafficking in -- in contraband or other forms of criminal activity they engage in it. their usual approach is to manage the process themselves from within méxico and get the product across the united states border. that is done by the organizations themselves and their personnel. once they have delivered to the ultimate destination in the united states, by which i mean the city, at that point they have a local partner and that partner may or may not be

mexican, it may be -- an all-american gang, it may be a shift but a transportation of wholesale to retail where the product moves from the criminal organization to some other americanized version. >> just so i understand, you're confident that the leadership in méxico fully understands this and is working with us in order to root out these criminal elements within méxico? >> i am, senator, although i do say that this has taken a number of years and the reason is that it is a change from the perspective of méxico to how they address drug-related issues. until the heroin crisis and you use that word correctly, we have a heroin crisis in the united states, until that crisis, the mexican position was roughly that by the accident of

geography, they were located in between the producer state further down to the south in south america, colombia, perú, bolivia, and the consumer states located to their north in the united states or in canada or in western europe. as we have shifted from cocaine to heroin, they have had to confront the reality that the entire problem is centered there. it's taken time. i believe we are moving in the right direction. i continue to offer you optimism but with a careful dose of please don't hold me to a solve this problem by friday standard. >> i will follow up on the second round, thanks. >> senator. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i represent the state of georgia, the capital atlanta, ground zero, that is is where it comes to get distributed,

interstate highway system, the port of savannah, operation of control between united states and méxico and the land therein is pretty much controlled by the drug cartels; is that right? >> you're talking to a native texan, senator, i wouldn't go that far, i would say that on the south side of the border there's a tremendous amount of penetration and influence including several of the major mexican border cities. >> and the increase in the heroin traffic is because of the increased demand for heroin in the united states -- >> it's certainly right that you would not have the amount of heroin crossing the border if there was no demand. much of the demand was artificial, the original demand was cause bid overprescribing pain opioids as pain medication which developed some demand and then the cartels substituted, say, $40 a hit which you had to

do by using a prescription drug to give the same buzz for 10 bucks and they created a market for heroin. >> do you think the human trafficking and the drug trafficking coming to the united states are tied to each other? >> i do in many instances, yes. >> the human traffickers are used to get the drugs in the united states, are they not? >> i do believe that as well. >> how much cooperation are we getting to try and stop that? >> i believe we get good cooperation on a case-by-case basis and in specific locations. i believe across the board the cooperation is good with mexican federal authorities along the border. i think the cartels are so skilled and so well informed that they can identify and spot the weak points so that in a sense even if we had 99.9% of a

tightly control border, they would find that one tenth of one percent. that's the problem, that's the challenge that we are dealing with. >> i get the impression that the cooperation of foreign -- i'm not just talking about méxico, i'm talking about the macro sense, the cooperation that foreign governments give us on the human trafficking issue is less than helpful; is that correct? >> it depends upon the country but i would not -- i would not disagree that in a lot of cases there's reluctance to acknowledge that they have a trafficking in person's problem. >> i go back to my state of georgia and atlanta being in particular, we are ground zero where a lot of those people are brought thinking they are getting into america but they become section slaves, drug traffickers or worse or domestic servants, or whatever. i don't get the impression internationally that we get the cooperation we should from other governments to really stop the

human trafficking. it seems to be growing rather than diminishing. >> i don't disagree with that senator. you're going to accuse me of pandering but i'm going the make one additional statement. i have signed a memorandum of understanding and i signed it the first time about two years ago with a large city police department, atlanta police department and they have a division that does hate crimes as well as -- as crimes involving trafficking in persons which are usually sexual and gender-based crimes, they are the best trainers that we have anywhere in the world for many of the reasons that you yourself have just layed out and part of the challenge and therefore part of the solution is how we can project the way we deal with these problems here in the united states, in a real-world way with police that are

overseas in countries that have the same problem. that's part of our challenge. >> never apologize for the senate for pandering, we do it all of the time. [laughter] >> on the subject -- and you and i never met, in terms of human trafficking and drugs are the enablers in the united states for a lot of the cartels in latin america and in méxico and it's the flow of information that these gangs that can be the best mechanism we can use to stop a lot of trafficking and drug distribution. that's my impression. do you agree with that? >> i do agree wit. in fact, i tried to say it as often as we can. we have sign 110 memorandum of understanding with local law enforcement institutionutions throughout the country and my message, this is not just in our interest. we get excellent trainers to do

overseas, it is our interest, they are developing the contacts with foreign police, they are developing the intelligence sources that can in turn be played back to do their jobs in the streets of america's cities and communities whether it's gangs or other involved in organized crime. >> on that point, mr. chairman, law enforcement particularly in the southern in the united states has developed such a database that the tracking of these -- of these gang members and the flow is becoming traceable in a very instant approach. >> thank you, senator menendez. >> in 2011 the administration

released a strategy on combating trans national organized crime from a national security threat to a manageable public safety problem, the effects of transorganizeed crime. strategy outlines five key objective and identify dozen of priority actions for implementations, the five objectives are protecting u.s. citizens and interests, supporting partner nations to address corruption related to transnational crime, protecting the u.s. financial system by organized crime, targeting transnational criminal that pose threat to the security and building international cooperation through multilateral and private partnerships. in your testimony, however, you noted that inl has recalibrated their work and focused on two

strategic objectives, helping partner governments sustain judicial institutions that enhance the capacity of criminal justice systems and developing the global architecture necessary for a cross-border law enforcement, does that represent a strategic shift by the administration? i know you noted that you're not ready to declare victory but the circumstances protend defeat, i want to understand what the u.s. policies -- have the end goal changed, have the ways to achieve it changed? >> senator, this is the way i would answer that perfectly legitimate question. i would say that -- >> i only ask perfectly legitimate questions. at least i think so. [laughter] >> i would say that inl is part

of a larger group of institutions, we obviously have the federal law enforcement organizations, we have the department of justice, the department of homeland security. we have those that are involved in the counterterrorism efforts as well. we therefore have a piece of the national strategy on transnational organized crime, this is about the time that you vaguely recall, that this was about the time i came in to this position and my decision at that time was let as inl let's not try to do all of the strategy, let us pick those elements where we have the greatest ability to influence in a positive way and we picked institution building because in a sense it's what we do across the board around the world and developing the global

architecture which is a code for the conventions, the international agreements, the international organizations and mechanisms that allow governments to coordinate and cooperate around the world. we are actually working the other issues as well but my guidance to my people five years ago was let's pick those areas where we can have the most impact and where other parts of the united states government would not naturally be doing as much. >> i ask the question and i want to follow up with a different part of your testimony, certainly protecting the u.s. financial system from exploitation and certainly targeting transnational criminal networks would be essential elements of any such plan that we would want to pursue. you know, the two-stated goals that you described that you've narrowed it down to may help

that but i'm not sure directly does. let me ask you this that inl support for capacity building is now my emphasis directly the requests of our international partners. host governments and can't be driven by the desire of the united states and other donors. again, maybe more than semantics where you say it can be driven, i absolutely think it should be driven by pursuing our own national security interest and projecting our own values. no one else is going to do that for us. so i ask these questions because many of us here are trying to give this and whatever future administration the tools it needs to accomplish the goals the administration says it has set and i hope the administration has not reset inl ice goals to only work within the confines of relationship that aren't adversarial.

the governments and others in control don't want to help because that would interfere with our profits, their profit taking or other personal interests, are we seeing ourselves then as barred from working with other institutions in those countries that could move towards treating the type of systems that we would want to see? >> senator, i think you in a sense are reaching the same conclusion but saying in different ways. of course, we want to cooperate with those governments and in those countries that represent, if you will, the greatest transnational organized crime in america. my point, my statement was that if we do not have genuine

commitment, we are probably not going to succeed. we can try and direct the buy-in but i had the dubious pleasure to be embassador for a country saying that capital is in caracas. i could not deliver a successful program in terms of institution building in those three years in that country because the government would not cooperate. that's the point i'm trying to make. with some countries our strategy has to be periphery strategies. what we want to do is work with the government and its

commitment and buy-in for these programs so that they themselves are supporting what we are trying to accomplish, what we are putting resources into and what we are doing the training and capacity. >> mr. chairman, i would note i appreciate, in countries like venezuela and others that are not unique to them where they are operating in a way for which there is significant operations of transnational crime, then we must find other ways if we cannot induce them to participate and have them institutionally decide to move in a direction at that time good for their people and national security and you have to find other ways, it seems to me, to pursue actions that will get them in that and i look forward with working with the chair and ranking member to think about those ways because otherwise we advocate large source in countries in which we are undermining our overall goal.

>> i appreciate that. based on my last trip to venezuela ta took place long ago, i can't imagine anything constructive that they would be willing to work with us on under the existing government. so i agree with you, thank you, senator cain. >> i wanted to ask you questions about cyber. i'm in armed forces committee. i'm just intrigued by your position, talk to us a little bit about the cyber activity you see from transnational criminal organizations, what's the magnitude of the threats, what are threats and terms of cyber activity by criminal organization that is we need to be aware of? >> senator, i think you've already put your if i thinker on

the areas where cyber or call it misuse or unlawful use of cyber constitutes a threat to the united states. one is state to state and it's a matter of intelligence to all intents and purposes either intelligence collection or purposes. we have treated it as a different issue from organized crime and that is the use of cyber for the purpose of supporting in some way shape or form terrorist activities and terrorist operations. the third is pure criminal activity which is to say the use of cyber for the purpose of stealing or in some way illegally enriching one self or organization, as we look at

transnational organized crime in the 21est century we better be careful because as we make progress on other elements, may discover that it winds up being the greatest not just law enforcement but security to the united states of america. that's the challenge that we have before us. the challenge that i have is dealing with two different communities as well as my own kind of law enforcement and criminal justice community and figure how we can mutually support or borrow from one another in terms of technologies, techniques and -- and systems that we have developed for dealing with these issues. they are -- they're similar but they are different. as you well know based upon other committees that you sit on, if you're working an intelligence issue or a terrorism issue, you're not necessarily thinking about developing a case for prosecution in a court of law.

if you're dealing in my area of criminal justice, that's exactly what you're dealing with and then the question is how much can we borrow from one another before we have contaminated the product. either we have contaminated their counterterrorism product or they have contaminated ours. those are the source of challenges that i'm dealing every day on the cyber. >> convention on cyber crime, for example, provides model for countries to develop and provides platform forincreased cooperation in cyber crime investigations. is the united states actively engaged without counsel or similar multinational efforts to specifically focus on cooperation vis-a-vis cyber crime. >> senator, we have -- we have adopted the convention, we did it not because we are members or

european nation, we did it because as we looked at the entire -- entirety, if you will, of international conventions on the matter of cyber crime, about five or ten years ago, we thought that was the best product out there. and our view was rather than reinvent the wheel or creating something from scratch, 196 different governments all of whom will have their own particular point of focus or interest or concern, let's use the existing document. there are some that disagree. the government of china tells me on a firly regular basis which is to say every time i talk to them, that they would like there to be a new international convention on cyber crime. let's not throw away a working

vehicle with modification it can run well in the next 15 years. >> last question, if i could, if you were to give -- that was international cooperation, if you were to grade the level of cooperation between the different agencies that touch this, the three kinds of cyber that you mentioned, you're talking dhs, state, dod, intel agencies, what grade would you give currently to the level of coordination among the parts of the federal family that touch upon this important issue? >> yeah, that's an unfair question but i'll -- i've been in this business long enough to take risks and say things that i shouldn't say. i will say this, senator, we have probably moved from a c- minus up to a b-minus. we are moving in the right direction.

what we are pushing against are institutional, you know, decades long institutional bias and approaches, each organization has its own capability and are not particularly anxious to relinquish control over that and mix it in with somebody else and we are dealing with different desired outcomes or objectives. and it's a tough challenge, this is not just -- the easy answer would be to tell you or allow you to say to me you guys are stupid and you can't figure it out and you can't do it on your own. it's a bit more than that. it's complicated. this is an issue where we are bringing together different communities that have traditionally over the last 300 years not worked very close together and i can offer one

ground of hope, part of the solution is the embassies, at least those embassies that are in the middle of particularly dangered zones. the united states government where you have a mini president, we call him or her embassador and they are able to work through some solutions which we then find you flip them back to headquarters and we try to use the same solution here. it's actually one of the reasons why i have some optimism in this field. >> great, thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you. >> if you would, mr. brownfeld expand on what you did with the china office? >> this is not evil or not bad, china is today perhaps the world's largest pharmaceutical industry.

i read a figure recently that there are 160 pharmaceutical companies in china. that strikes me as high but i read the figure, don't ask me where i read it but i can find it at some point if i have to. china then is -- confronts the situation where they have incredibly diversed extremely energetic pharmaceutical industry that is not anxious to be regulated. the chinese government has moved in the right direction in a number of areas, within the last six months they have moved to register 116 new psychoactive substances. pharmaceuticals in the world can cough out, 20 to 30 per year.

you can do the math in terms of what the impact on that regard is. one of the areas, which we have consistently discussed with the chinese government, senator gardner, is fentanol, we have noted that fentanol is produced in many different forms or analogues in china. they have move today register, control, require a license for the production of many forms of fentanol, but not all. and your question, mr. chairman, suggests this answer which is accurate one, the overwhelming majority of fentanol that's consumed in the united states of america, which also produced fentanol for legitimate medical purposes, but very little slides into the black market, the overwhelming of fentanol is part of the heroin crisis is produced

in china. >> and explain to those that are watching the difference in profitability. >> it is phenomenal. if you assume that the cost of producing fentanol is not significantly different from the cost of producing heroin, and from a rough estimate perspective, that's not a bad assumption, a gram of heroin, would be about the same. a gram of fentanol will produce a buzz, a high, about a hundred times, 80 to 100 times powerful as morphine and 40 to 50 times as powerful as heroin. you just do the simple math to that. add to that the fact that the transport of fen, -- fentanol

can be as taking an envelope and sealing it and putting in the mail, the delivery is much, much simpler than the delivery for heroin and that is why -- >> and if you will, to explain to those that are listening to this, the size of an equivalent cocaine delivery that has the same potency, you're talking about half a shoe box in what you just described? >> that is basically right. i would say that half a shoe box of fentonal would provide you the same amount of buzz in purely psychic and drug-related terms as 25 full shoe boxes of heroin. that's the difference that we are looking at. that's why an envelope produces as much as a substantial like

multikilo shipment of heroin. fentol properly used doesn't kill you. it is still used in the american medical community under obviously tight control. the problem that we have is when the fentanol is mixed with heroin and the user either does not know he has fentanol at all or has bad fentanol or miscalculated the potency how much he can absorb, that's what's killing americans at the rate they're dying these days in the heroin crisis. >> will, i look forward to another round of questions where we can talk a little bit about authority that that you might like to have to do your job better. >> just to underscore that point

, in my meetings that i had in maryland, the if he recollects ntan -- fentanol issue has been highlighted and is a very serious problem in maryland and around the nation. and i don't think we are going to have time today to understand this but i think you're suggesting that the source, china, is one of the largest sources that's coming into the united states, is that -- >> yes, the overwhelming majority. they are, more often than not, senator they are exactly the same criminal organizations. >> but they're using as their source rather than home-grown in méxico, synthetic drug in china? >> my view as of right now as to how this is happening is that

the heroin itself is grown and produced in méxico. that which is consumed in the united states, the fentanol produced in china, much of it, probably most of it is processed shipped through méxico where it is put into the pipeline, the same pipeline that moves heroin into the united states. >> here i hope that your relationship with the mexican authorities are helping us with our capacities to try to stop that flow from china to méxico to the united states. >> and, in fact, again, senator the government of méxico has been worked with us, fentanol is a controlled substance in méxico. it is not openly available so that it can only move through méxico through criminal means, so we are starting from a positive starting point, we still obviously have a lot of work to do. >> so you said in your world presentation you have it in your written presentation, the direct

relationship between corruption and trans national organized crimes. you talked about crimes that are corrupted at the senior level and capacity it has within the country itself. so i want to hone down just for a moment on the corruption issues of heroin or the synthetic drugs coming into the united states. the problems in méxico and the united states, can you just tell us the degree which corruption is entering into this and what we should be aware of? >> corruption is the great enabler for drug trafficking or any type of criminal trafficking in the world to such an extent that i would say if you did not have corruption the trafficking networks would not work. they could not operate. and the corruption literally is corruption of individuals, they might be customs officials, they might be border officials, they

might be police or arafat or sea port officials. in other words, the corruption that allows them to move their physical product through the choke points, because any trafficking network will have choke points. they're usually at borders, they might be at airport borders or sea port bodiers but they have to move their product. as they move to money laundering, they have to deal with bankers and others in the financial institutions who will be aware of what is moving through but willing either to participate or look the other way. those are corrupted officials. at the end of the day, if a trafficking organization does not have a network of corrupted officials, it will not succeed. do we see them in méxico, yes, of course, we do. as you well know, you'll find them perhaps in different numbers but you'll find them in the united states of america as well. we are not immune to corruption.

and in countries with a lower-income level within the united states, the possibility of a multibillion dollar company or cartel offering a sum of money that might equal a hundred year's salary to a police officer or customs officials solely to look the other way is a tremendous inducement and it is why corruption in my opinion has to be one of our highest priorities as we address transnational organized crime perhaps for this century. >> secretary kerry announced a 70 million-dollar program to address corruption. i thank you very much for highlighting that point. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator gardner. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for your testimony. i want to follow up further about méxico as well.

i had the opportunity to visit with many in their government this past november. we talked a little bit about the initiative and some of the efforts taking place there. how do effective do you think the merida program has been? i know they are making changes in méxico as well in judicial reform? can you talk about the effectiveness and perhaps how their changes in judicial prosecutions will affect drug trafficking issues, et cetera? >> senator, i'm going to answer your question in two parts. first i'm going to work through the so-called pillars on the merida initiative. one pilar was a modern 21st century border within the u.s. and méxico. i think we have made tremendous progress. i think they have people,

equipment that they did not have before. we are focusing much on méxico southern border that with guatemala and belize because what we are trying to control is flow of migrants and people as well as drugs through méxico. second, it is taking down criminal organizations, they've done a very good job of taking down the leadership of a number of cartels, critic or skeptic would push back said, yeah, but they seem to be replaced, the cartels have not disappeared, some have and some have not. i give them at least a passing grade in that regard. third is building stronger institutions, i do believe that the federal government of méxico today has far better, more professional, better trained and equipped institutions then they did at the start of the merida initiative. the challenge now is to take that capacity and expand it into

the 32 states as well as the federal district of méxico city, since méxico like the united states is a federal state. and finally building stronger communities particularly up along the northern -- their northern frontier with the united states. i mean, the truth is the mexican economy is what drives that. when the economy is doing well, the communities are better. when the moi is down, the communities are less strong. that's taking the four things that we described as our mérida initiatives and giving them a report card. where are we across the board? first, realities are changing, we are dealing more with transnational organized crime. when we started mérida we were focused largely on cocaine and lesser heroin. the government left office in

2012 and now the not-so new government has determined their own priorities. we have to continue to work that. at tend of the day, my assessment is we are substantially better in our bilateral relationship with méxico today than we were at the start of the mérida initiative, and that in and of itself gives good value to the united states of america. >> one of the concerns i picked up particularly when it comes to drug trafficking issues was concern from some that decriminalization efforts of marijuana in the united states was hurting our efforts to stop traffic out of méxico. can you talk about that? >> yeah, i will do it carefully. i am aware of who i am speak to go right now. i will say that it is impossible for me to go to méxico and talk to the mexican government without hearing from virtually every one i talk to the contradiction between us seeking

to cooperate with them in terms of controlling dangerous drugs while in our own nation four states of the union have now proceeded to legalize by which i mean the state government has a direct financial interest in the cultivation, production, sale, purchase of cannabis. i understand their message. i do not seek to dictate to the people of colorado or oregon, washington state or alaska what they will decide to do. i do think i understand the united states' constitution and the federal system of government, i say that it complicates my life internationally. and i'm going to leave it at that because i do acknowledge that part-time of colorado have every right in the world to determine the laws that they wish to be governed by.

>> and i am running out of time, perhaps we can have a conversation about berma, we spent a tremendous amount of time talking about the drug situation there. berma major producer of heroin. in terms of berma collaboration, what's happening with the new democratic government in berma in terms of eradication efforts and trafficking and would like to talk a little bit further and get more detail of trafficking of drugs in berma by the military and their role they can play on ongoing efforts. we would love to know about that at some point. >> the timing is very good. my read of berma right now is that the new government is ready to do serious things on drugs and counternarcotics that they

have not been able to do for 30 years. >> great, thank you. mr. chair. >> thank you. you have been a great witness and we thank you for the commitment and time and knowledge on this topic. let me just wrap up. i want to go back to colombia for a second and, you know, when the president was here everyone was spiking the ball, if you will, negotiations on la farc were progressing and people were happy and all of that but as i prepare for the hearing today, it feels to me that the reason things are progressing politically is they're easing up on the very thing we began working on so hard and that was production within their own country. i just want to make sure i leave here with a proper understanding from a witness who has lived and breathe this. >> mr. chairman, i am going to

give you an honest answer and a careful answer and i want to be careful because i said it before and i say it again, i admire and respect tremendous the government of colombia. until he became president, i would have called the current president of colombia a friend of mine, you obviously cannot be a friend to a president that far to distinguish to permit something as low as common friendship but i -- i know and admire juan manuel santos enormously. i respect what he is trying to do. he is trying to bring to conclusion a 50-year armed conflict that has killed tens of thousands of colombian citizens. i not only respect that, i support it and endorse it. it is my view that it should be possible to pursue those negotiations to reach that conclusion without having to walk the clock back to where we

were eight or nine years ago in terms of drug cultivation and production in colombia. it is my view that it should be possible to continue to eradicate or have the threat of e right side occasion --