gone forward since october, i'm seeing them felt all down through the organization, which is where it's got to get done. so thank you for that. and i appreciate it. we still don't know yet from general allen, you said yesterday to the senate, how we're going to bring home the 23,000 that are scheduled this year. i'm just worried that your comments of the last few weeks were a little premature. i don't think anybody says it's gotten a whole lot safer in the east of afghanistan. and i understand that the glowing comments you were just making about the afghan army. concern that the fighting season in 2013 is split by ramadan, and we would have our folks in a position to allow something to go on in the second half, right off ramadan's, the last half of the fighting season in 2013 that is counterproductive to what we're trying to get done. can you help me understand? i'm in a position to have some information on intelligence as to what is going on, and it didn't -- i was a bit shocked with your comments, because it's

not marrying up with the evidence i had at that point in time from things improving on the ground to that rapidly to and since then that questions of certain folks who should know, and make sure, maybe you were misquote order maybe overstated with respect to that. but i am concerned that we -- and then one final question. >> sure. >> rumors recently, more recently, that even more accelerated drawdowns are on. the question yesterday in the senate is that no decision was made. does that imply that those kinds of conversations are going on within the administration separate and apart from what general allen is telling you and the commanders on the ground are telling you that would be great concern to us if these are political decisions driven in the white house for whatever reason, that they would start having those conversations. can you help me understand what is going on there? >> yeah. first and foremost, after 40 years, i'm never responsible for any headlines on any article and

comments that you make. my comments were perfectly in line with our commitments under lisbon. to prove it, all of the defense ministers in the last meeting i attended, all of them concur in the same strategy which is we're in together and out together by 2014. and we are all following exactly the same process here. we're doing the tranches. we're doing the transition to afghan authorities. obviously we are watching it closely to make sure that it's working. so far it is working. the afghan army is doing a great job. we've got to continue to put them in place. we've got to make sure that they're able to achieve security. everything is conditions-based when you're in war. that's a bottom g hng to be tr this very closely as we go through that process. with regards to other decisions, obviously we are in the process of how do we draw down to 23,000 the surge, and general allen

will present a plan to general dempsey within a few months to be able to show how that be be accomplished. and then beyond that, frankly, no decisions have been made because we are looking at the situation on the ground, what we're going to need in order to achieve the mission that we're interested in achieving. >> so we're still set on what the mission is, and no instruction is to change the battle plan to reflect levels o 68,000? none of that is in the works or pushing forward at all. okay. thank you for that. one minor -- one issue with respect to the budget. i think there is also a $600 million decrease in defense funding because of the switch or the adding $600 million for green energy or renewable energy efforts. that's a cut to defense spending. it's not your core mission. you know, we're going to pay and

mabis is bragging on the paying $15 a gallon for jet fuel to fly fa-18s is a demonstration project, i guess. and it just makes no sense in these kind of budgetary constraints that we would pay $15 a gallon. and even if you ramp that industry up as good as it's going to get, you're going to be paying twice nor that blend of algae and fossil fuels over what just straight fossil fuel. so i'm not real keen on spending that $600 million. i think you could find a better place to spend $600 in defending this country as opposed to demonstration projects that might not yield the benefits that we want. so again, appreciate your long service to our country. i yield back. >> gentlemen, time expired. mr. critz? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and secretary panetta, general dempsey, secretary hale. thanks so much for being here. thank you for your service to this country. secretary panetta, the air force

recently announced four structure changes in light of the new national defense strategy. these changes include major aircraft reductions to both combat and mobility forces. and an an air reserve station in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, outside a brac process. the base serves 1400 active reserve and guard units of both navy and air force and has tens of millions of dollars appropriated for improvements. can you tell me if the decision to close the base was made in coordination with your office or with other stakeholders, and how many other bases are being identified for unilateral department of defense closure outside of the brac process? >> congressman, i really recommend that you ask the chief of the air force that question, because the decision to make that decision was in his hands as part of the strategy that was being implemented to kind of fulfill the strategic goals that we were after. so on that specific decision, i

would recommend you ask him that question. >> okay. thank you. and it plays actually into a larger role. because as you know and are aware, that the air force's restructuring plan propose as reduction of 65 c-130 tactical airlifters getting us to a total fleet projection of 318 aircraft. part of that is because we're going to be lowering the army to a structure of about 490,000 members. my concern is that pre- 9/11, the army was at about 480,000. so very similarly sides. we had 530 c-130 tactical airlifters. i'm just curious as to the air force's new restructuring plan isn't realistic given previous demands for tactical airlift and future demands in this new strategy. can you elaborate any of this? or general dempsey? >> i cannot elaborate on that specific issue except to say the collaboration between the air

force and the army on their lift requirements, that has been accomplished. and you will have both of them here at some point in the near future. this is about accounting rules. so if you have x number of airborne brigades, how much x number of ground brigade, how much lift do you need? and those accounting rules have been adjusted over time based on lessons learned. do you want to add anything? >> i do want to add the c-130 very important us to. but all studies show we have too many, frankly. so what you're seeing is adjusting in tough budget times to go down to what we believe are the minimum requirements that meet our war-time needs. >> and part of my concern is that we're actually adding i guess duties to the air force's c-130 because they're going to be doing the c-127j lift as well. i look at the c-127j. it was going to be sort of a pickup truck and the c-130 might

be more like a tractor-trailer truck. i'm curious if the c-130 is going to be able to get into the same airports as the c-27, and is it really a cost savings, or are we going to start saying well, we can't geplaces so, we'e tempo for the chinooks to do what the c-130s can't do. and i guess my question is long-term. this is a short-term savings. is it also a long-term savings? have we looked at the 20, 30-year life cycle of these aircraft? >> i think -- i think they have looked at the long-term savings that we be achieved here. and part of the goal in developing our strategy was obviously to ensure that we had not only agility and ability to deploy quickly, but that what we were using was multimission and designed to accomplish a series of missions, not just one. and the problem with that one aircraft was that it was kind of single mission-oriented. >> right. >> and that's why i think the

air force recommended that we move towards the c-130s. >> okay. i'm a little suspicious of -- i've just heard from some of my army friends that they like the greens, they like the same uniform and the aircraft above them. it makes them a little more comfortable. >> that shocks me, congressman, for the record. >> my last question in a very short amount of time is that we have used the national guard at a level in the last ten years in oif that oui never used in the past. the future defense plan, does it maintain that same tempo of use of the nationalguards or are we going to see -- i don't want to say diminishing, but much less use of nationalguards in foreign operations? >> what we do, sir, is we respond to the demand. so as the combatant commanders put a demand on the system, the chiefs meet it. the answer is we will have active component and notably guard and reserve in an r-4g en cycle. if demand goes down there, will

be fewer than demand. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. whitman? >> thank you, mr. chairman, secretary panetta, mr. hale, thank you very much for joining us today. i want to go back to some of the statements you made about this effort of budget reductions driven by strategy and ask you this. i know that part of that strategy is an increased operational capability and presence in both the middle east and the asia-pacific. within that context, we're looking now about an additional ssn being moved outside the fit-up. and we know in that pareater, e asia-pacific, the ssn is a very, very frequently utilized asset. also, we're going to be pushing the ssbn next few years down the road. so it's not going to be operational or deployability until at least the 2020s, and we'll have a significant period of time where we have a reduced number of ballistic submarines

in a time when we know it's a critical deterrent to our triad. looking where we are reemphasizing our efforts, that seems to be counter to that. and i would ask this. with that in mind, have we looked at and can you tell me from the perspective of china, you tell me how many subs they are building per year and how many subs they will have in fy-'17 and beyond, just to have a comparison as to where we're going to be strategically? >> if i could, congressman, we should take that for the record and make it in a classified setting. >> okay.+++

you talk about the seven cruisers that are going to be brought out because of the cost of modernizing them to a platform. but you're also looking too at a fleet that has been really pushed. we're talking maintenance that has been put off. many ships, as far as their operational availability is really being pushed. if we're looking at that and a strategy that denotes more challenges there in the future, especially with our naval capability, and just having been to an exercise, a bold alligator and looking at our operational capability within the marine corps that is necessitated by ships and looking also at our amphibious ship decline in numbers, i would ask too, how are we going to reconcile that

with operational availability, with ship availability based on backlog of maintenance and our l-class ships essentially going down, yet we're going to be emphasizing that capability as part of our strategy. how do we fix or how do we address that, what i see as a conflict? >> if i could take a shout at that one, congressman. you're talking about a specific single service. in this case you're talking about the navy. i mentioned in my opening comment, we really need to think about this as a joint force. and what we're doing as service chiefs and as joint chiefs is looking at our war plans and determining how we meet the demands of the war plans innovatively, differently, creatively, and integrate those capabilities that we didn't have ten years ago. so while it might -- it might seem that the navy as part of this joint force has actually benefitted from this new strategy has it has shifted to the pacific, but it hasn't been without cost to them at all.

and the entire joint force has to be appreciated to understand how we meet the needs of the nation in terms of the new strategy. >> sure. and i certainly appreciate that. i guess my concern is that with that reemphasis in these areas and looking at this new strategy, while i understand the cross capability that is there, it still appears to me, though, where we're going to be calling on our navy, in many instances the capacity and capability there is going to be pushed to the absolute maximum. well look at the number of mavs that can be deployed and the things we're asking them to do in a joint atmosphere, it seems to me that they're going to be pushed in a situation where it may not be the most challenging of situations where we say wow, we can't do all the things that we need to do. so my concern is if this is indeed being driven by strategy. and mr. secretary, you spoke of increased risk.

my question is are these scenarios, is it an acceptable risk? in your mind, it an acceptable risk? >> i think it is an acceptable risk. we're going to be maintaining 285 ships. we've got 285 ships now. we'll have 285 ships in 2017. in that next five-year period, our hope is to increase the fleet to 300 ships. so our goal is to try to make sure that we have flexible, deployable and capable navy that is out there. >> thank you. mr. johnson? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, mr. secretary and general dempsey for being here today. i know that the development of a new strategy and related changes in the budget request were very difficult undertakings. and some of the responses that i have heard from some on the committee to your work has been unfounded criticism.

there is no way a 1% reduction of the pentagon's base budget from 2012 to 2013 could mean the difference between the world's greatest military and a hollowed out force. and under the administration's proposal, the dod base budget will remain essentially constant between 2013 and 2017 after adjusting for inflation. i believe there is room for additional savings in the department's budget. and those may very well come when we can get some clean accounting statements. and i'm glad to know that that time period, mr. secretary, you have moved up to 2014 i believe, right? and i share your concern about the -- and your opposition to across-the-board cuts that would

be mandated by sequestration. but before i ask any questions, i'd like to ask you a couple of things. last october, there were records that i requested, and those records were not submitted until last week. can you be more prompt after this hearing with supplying any records or answers that are requested? >> congressman, i was not aware of that. but in the future, if you make a request for documents and you don't get them in an expedited way, i wish you would call me and let me know. we'll make sure you get them. >> all right. thank you. and also in that regard, mr. secretary, a dod report on rare

earth elements was due in june of 2011, and it has not been completed as of yet. and we were also promised an interim report in december. but we've received no interim report. can this be gotten to us quickly? >> that one is coordination. i know it's late. i'm told it will be very soon. >> thank you. any time frame? >> i don't have a specific time. let's get back to you with more specifics. >> all right. thank you. >> my legislative aide is saying a couple weeks. we hope that will be in that period. >> all right. thank you. that's great. mr. secretary, i'm concerned that the pivot to the asia-pacific increases the risk

of an increasingly adversarial military competition with china, and that is not in either country's best interests. how do we execute this new strategy without beginning a new cold war? and i might add that i definitely see a need for us to reposition our thinking in terms of the asia-pacific region. >> i just had this discussion with the vice president of china yesterday. we are, you know, we are a pacific power. they're a pacific power. and while we've had our differences, the fact is we've had some common concerns that we need to confront. one is nuclear proliferation in that area. and it's as much concern to china as it is to us. secondly, it's the whole issue of ensuring that trade routes and commerce flows freely that

area. that's another area that we have joint concern.concern. thirdly, we have humanitarian needs in that area that we need to respond to and they're as much concerned about that as we are. area after area there are some common areas that we have concerns that will help us improve the regional cooperation in that area. that's the kind of relationship we would like to have with china and that's what we hope to develop, but in order to do that, we have to do that from a position of strength, and that's why we have to maintain our presence in the pacific. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> thank you. mr. hunter. >> thankan. thank you all for your service and time. let me start with this, this is a quote from secretary perry and general shalikashvili under president clinton. a dramatic reduction in the threat allowed for a significant reduction in the size of our military force, the most obvious

benefit of force structure was a reduction in the defense budget. this peace dividend, i'm quoting, amounted to about $100 billion a year has been a major contributor to the balance budget our country enjoys. did the nation pay too high a price for this benefit, in particular, was the capability of the military forces reduced to the extent they cannot adequately protect american national interests? our answer to that question is an emphatic no. a year and a half later terrorist murdered 3,000 americans and off we went to war and as secretary rumsfeld went we went with the army we had not the one we wished for. how do you differentiate yourself from these two leaders in that time who were presiding over what they would not call but look back and see was a hollowing out of the military? >> well, i differentiate from them because i think we each face our own different circumstances. i mean, you know, i mentioned earlier in response to another

question that the fiscal reality of the '90s is different than the fiscal reality of this decade and it seems to me that as others have testified, that we can only remain a global power if we've got that balance, the aggregate of diplomatic, economic and military power and what you're seeing us do is try to reconcile a different set of circumstances from any -- that -- from any of our predecessors and to ensure that we do form a strategy and map the budget to it as opposed to just reacting to budget cuts and i can only assure you we did that and that this will have to be seen as having been effective over time. >> thank you, general. >> okay. moving on then, let me hit on a few other things in no particular order here. one of the main points of the budget is calling for more capability in the guard and reserve, yet the national reserve account is zeroed out.

there is no request for it at all. the national guard reserve modernization account reduced by 44%. navy reserve over the next 5 years goes down by 9,000 sailor based on current capability even though we'll have lcs, more fire scouts which we'll need to get them back for, shortsighted. air force is reducing it looks like two active and five reserve squadrons. it should be the other way around just from our point of view kind of common sense if you're there to save money you look at these reserve and national guard squadrons, they pulled a lot of weight in iraq and afghanistan and chairman klein had a statement on that matter. it don't make sense. when you can support a lot more reserve for the cost of one active. drones and technologies, we're going -- we're going to ask for half as many reapers even though

we say the strategy is so that we can rely more on technology we're reducing reapers in half and reducing the number of global hawks and canceled the next uav because the fire scout can do the job. that's fine if your argument wasn't we're going to rely more on this technology but you cut it at the same time. it doesn't make sense to me. third, asia-pacific, we fund ship repair at 100% which we know is 80% of what it needs. ships going out not close of being capable what they need to be doing. it looked like we cut seven cruisers. meaning you cut seven cruisers so that you can -- we don't want to have to fix the things that are expensive to fix so we just let them go. that's what's happening here. navy refuses to down select on the lcs. that's congress' problem as well as dod's in my opinion. we should be able to at least down select on an lcs. i don't care which one it is.

you can't train for the same class you're training different sailors to work on two different ships, different logistical tale, different modules or same modules but different command decks inside, you're going to have sailors trained for two totally different things, and lastly, something that i noticed, the joint light tactical vehicle, you'll have contracts go out in june of this year, ford came to us and said, hey, if you prolong this a year, ford will get involved and save you hundreds of millions of dollars and we said no. there is a some major problems with the budget. my main point is this, the strategy and the budget contradict each other. they do not go hand in hand, they don't fit and it looks to me like the things we're trying to accomplish are not going to be paid for. anyway, that's my opinion and i'm sticking to it. gentlemen, thank you again for your service, thanks for coming in here. >> thanks for reading the thing. obviously you studied it quite a bit. >> gentlemen, time is expired.

will you please answer those questions for the record. >> we'll be more than happy. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for joining us today and for your service to our country. certainly i echo some of these sentiments because we are concerned about the need to cut costs and that's the great challenge that faces you and we appreciate what the stress you're under to accomplish this, however, it does seem the more cost effective way to approach it is to continue standing reserve and guard units in a stronger capacity than has been announced thus far so we're asking for your consideration as a representative of the niagara falls air reserve station we are expected to if all goes according to as projected to lose 16% of the nation's guard. that's a big hit for an area like ours and as you were talking about and took to heart what you said about the need to have jobs when our veterans come home, my part of the country sends a lot of people to war and they come back to our area and the jobs are just not there. we treasure these jobs as well as the proximity we have to the

border with canada and believe you certainly understand the need to ensure we have a continued mission if not the c130s that the guard has but another mission to fall in its place and very important for a variety of reasons but again what you said about our military security being linked to our economic security and our industrial base and our manufacturing, do you envision a policy or do -- what are your thoughts on a policy whereby using our limited department of defense procurement dollars, that we actually give preferences to domestically produced materials? is that something under consideration? is that something you think could help our job situation back home to shore up our economy and industrial base, as well, sir? >> well, let me begin by saying, you can't view the defense department budget as a jobs program. i know there are jobs that are dependent on it. i know we care an awful lot about the people that work under our department. but the bottom line is, what do

we need in order to get the best defense for this country? and where can we get it? and, frankly, we do look at the u.s. industrial base as supplying, frankly, the biggest part of that, why? because i can't rely -- i don't want to rely on foreign suppliers for that. i've got to rely on u.s. suppliers in the event we have a crisis and we've got to respond. >> i agree with you 100% and i'd like your comments. >> yeah, thanks, thank you, ma'am. just on this active guard and reserve issue, we really got to be clear that i mean the active is active because they're full time, 24/7, 365 and fund them to be full time so they can be the most responsive ford. the guard and reserve if they were full time if they were ready on the same time line would cost exactly the same thing. but yet, you know, on occasion we'll be told the guard and reserve are cheaper. they are because we only employ them for x number of days a year. once you bring them in and you want them to serve for 365, the

fully encumbered costs are identical. the question for the nation that we're trying to answer is, how much active, because you need them right now, how much guard and reserve and within that, how many of them do you need within 30 days, 180 days a year? so believe me, we want to do what's best for the nation but this is not a -- the you know, the active guard/reserve -- it's not a dichotomy. it's a trichotomy. >> i take that to heart. i want to get back to the secretary's comments. is there anything this congress can do to assist in your stated goal which i share that we can do more for our industrial base, our local manufacturing and again our national security as opposed to relying on manufactured items from countries that may turn on us and may not end up being our friends? is that something we can work on together? i think that's important. >> absolutely. i would have no problem working with you on that on that aspect. i want to be