leadership? >> first of all from my own conversations with president karzai, i think that he is embracing his responsibilities for this, for this conflict in his country. his visit to kandahar just a few days that the admiral referred to us very important in terms of helping set the stage iv the continuation of the campaign there. so i think that we have some clear-- we have clear goals. i think frankly the narrative over the last week or so, possibly because of the higher casualties and other factors, have been too negative. i think that we are regaining the initiative. i think that we are making headway but the thing that i would say, two other points i would make senator. one is, people need to remember we have only been out this new

strategy for about four and a half months. we don't even have all the surge troops in afghanistan. >> could i ask you, before my time runs out, is that leahy lobbied implemented in both afghanistan and pakistan? >> we are working to ensure that the leahy law is being implemented in both places and we could discuss it further with you in a closed session. >> i suspect it will require a closed session but i just think that because, i discussed it with you privately as well as with the admiral and it is something that-- it is more than just a talking point with me. >> we understand that fully senator and it is with us as well. and i would just add one more point to the earlier point you made. there is no doubt that these wars have cost the american taxpayers a lot of money.

as the chairman said at the outset, close to reach billion dollars. that said in terms of our international competitiveness, in terms of our overall economy it is worth keeping the perspective that at about four to 4.5% of gdp, we are spending less on defense did then during any other wartime in our history, and it is a level that certainly is sustainable. >> thank you are a much mr. secretary. senator murray. >> mr. chairman, senator specter came in while i was voting it does have a previous commitment and i agreed he could go ahead of me if that is all right with you. >> senator specter. >> thank you mr. chairman. secretary gates, an article in

"the new york times" on april 17 of this year quotes sources on a confidential memorandum written by you, according to a times article, which relevant considerations on dealing with iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon to contain that effort. general john abizaid has some time before, talked about such containment as an option, and i think we would all vastly preferred not to say iraq develop a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. there has been talk about alternative forces but those

efforts are not successful. what would the broad parameters. >> should be option be considered for containment? >> first of all senator specter, i would tell you that contrary to the news account, the memorandum that i did earlier this year did not discuss either by name or in concept anything about containment. and, my answer to your question would be, is that i think we have a strategy and our view is that it is unacceptable for iran to have nuclear weapons, and we are proceeding on that basis. >> mr. secretary, when you testified back on march 21 of

this year, i propounded a series of four questions and asked that they be responded to for the record, and as yet, i have not had a response. let me ask you at this time one of the questions which i had propounded. that related to a statement by general petraeus to the effect that the israeli-palestinian conflict commenced anti-american sentiment due to a perception of u.s. favoritism towards israel, and his comment embraced the idea that a failure to resolve the conflict had begun to imperil america-- american lives

which is obviously a very serious consequence. but basis, if you know, did general petraeus have in making this or is there any indication that that state and is factually correct? >> first of all, if you have not received the answers to your questions by march i apologize for that and we'll find out why. my recollection, and i would defer to the chairman because he may remember better than i do, i do not think that that isn't that what general petraeus said. i think that our view is, it is clear that a middle east peace settlement between israel and palestinians would enhance our diplomatic and other efforts in the region, and would enhance our own security, because that dispute is used by our adversaries against us but i

don't know of any evidence that the failure to arrive at a middle east peace solution hasn't that put american military lives at risk. >> nor do i, senator. i think the secretary has it exactly right. >> secretary gates, in an interview with cnn back on april 29 of 2009, you had commented that you think you thought our policy was sometimes too arrogant, and one of the concerns that i have had as we have been dealing with iran we have never been able to establish really a dialogue. for some time, a number of senators try to have interparliamentary exchanges. in 2007, senators biden, hayden

and i-- got back a response. that have been discussed with president bush at that time and had no objection. a response from the iranians that they liked the tone of our letter but were not yet ready to talk, and the question i have is , with your comment about u.s. arrogance, is there any way we might use what president bush had talked about starting his administration a little more humility and i think president obama certainly withdrew any effort to have preconditions like stopping the enrichment of uranium before you talk about the subject. any way to modify our dealings with iran which might produce some better results? >> senator every united states president since the iranian revolution has reached out to the iranians.

i was present at at the first outreach and at the end of october, 1979, when dr. brzezinski met with the leadership of the iranian government, prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister basically said we accept your revolution-- resolution. we will sell you all the weapons that we contracted to sell the shah and they said give us the shah. three days later after that meeting, our embassy was seized in two weeks later all three of those people were out of power. every subsequent president has reached out to the iranians. no president more sincerely and with greater effort than president obama. this is one case where i don't think-- where i think the arrogance frankly has been on the other side of the table, not on the american side of the table. >> thank you for yielding and thank you mr. chairman.

>> senator murray. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and thank you to all of you. i want to start with you because as you well know among the troops serving us in afghanistan today many are in fort lewis in my home state during the frontlines of the stryker brigade and they have suffered tremendous losses this year and with increasing taliban offensive operations every day, families across my state are picking up a paper almost every morning now and reading about more. i am committed to giving our servicemembers every research they need to bring a quick and decisive end to the taliban and the other insurgent forces but i am very concerned about the increasing number of casualties, but also work concerned about the reports we have not solidified our gains in march in southern afghanistan despite the tremendous sacrifice their servicemembers and their families. i wanted to ask you today what you can share with us or give us some insurance that marjah and our operations in southern

afghanistan are a success? >> let me address it and then asked the chairman to do so as well. first of all, we made very clear at the very outset many months ago that this summer would see increased casualties. as our military and our coalition partners move into areas that have been controlled by the taliban for the last two or three years it was inevitable that there would be increased casualties, tragic but inevitable and we have warned about this from the very beginning. the reality is that the military operations in marjah were successful, and a place that have been controlled by the taliban is no longer afford to years or more, is no longer controlled by the taliban. getting the civilian coalition and afghan forces in there, the civilian officials, building the development program is moving

forward but it is moving slower than we originally anticipated, so i would say, as i indicated earlier, i think we are moving in the right direction. i just met with general mcchrystal in brussels last week and i would tell you the general view of all of the alliance defense ministers was that we are moving in the right direction. we do now have all of the elements for success in place. this is going to be a long and a hard fight in general mcchrystal is condensed, confident that he will be able to show that we have got the right strategy and we we are making progress by the end of this year. but this is not something where week to week or month to month you can be able to say we are moving the front forward. that is not the kind of fight this is. >> progress in marjah bam is slow and steady and we see indicators all the time where

bazaars aruba and where there were none before and as the secretary said this was a place run by the taliban for the last several years. they are still there and intimidating and they recognize that, but they are fundamentally, they have been displaced, but they certainly haven't been defeated in that particular area. we see an increase in the number of teachers who are there. there are some 80 plus teachers they are and squirrels are open where they were not. this is a very tough fight, but we see steady progress. an increase in the number of local government of afghanistan employees from in the 40s a few weeks ago to over 60 now. so we recognize the significance of it. we wreck denies the challenge of it and it is going to take some time. we see an expanded rule of law taking place there. it is very gradual.

this is a very very tough undertaking and it is going to take some time and i would not ask routinely, when will it be-- when will we be successful in marjah specifically and it is hard to say that, but all the indicators are moving in the right direction as tough as it is. >> i have another question for secretary gates. i think all of us are watching this very closely and especially those of us that are seeing this in our home states and the soldiers we represent so we will stay in touch. i did want to ask secretary gates about a topic we have discussed many times and that is the tanker competition. you know my concern about the fact that the wto has said that there will illegal subsidies on the a 33 airbus but i heard you say in their opening remarks that the president would veto any appropriations with the c-17 production line, and i am very

concerned if this is awarded to airbus, that we would have absolutely no life by the military aircraft production left in our country, leaving us very vulnerable in the future. does the dod have any plans to address the potential loss of u.s. capability? >> first of all, if they advocated in response to senator bond earlier we expect to have the c-17 with us for decades, probably 40 years or more. there is significant wide body aircraft production capability and begin a and we have more than enough time to adjust it to a military production line if we need to. >> and the production capability and ongoing engineering design manufacturing? >> sure, if you have wide body engineering and capability for commercial purposes it can be adapted for military purposes. >> my time is up mr. chairman. thank you.

>> admiral mullen, the defense department i understand has suggested that continuing the ddg 1000 destroyer program is essential to our national security interest. one of the reasons i understand for those is a determination that there is an important need in maintaining a national ship building capability. what suggestions do you have for strategies do you have that will address concerns about our ability to meet our current and future national security needs in the area of the ship building? >> as i indicated in my opening statement senator cochran, i think being able to produce the number of ships that we need for our navy is at a critical imperative for our future security and that we have an industrial base that obviously

supports that. the only play in the many years that i have been involved in ship tilting in particular, the only way i have ever seen it come close to success is to reach that sort of strategic partnership that i indicated before between the industry-- obviously you want to hell the administration. and it has got to be affordable. @@mean one of the challenges that we had with the ddg 1000 program like to many is we started and the cost just absolutely skyrocketed. it essentially does itself in. and i don't know any other way to get at that except that kind of strategic partnership which together addresses the major challenges both in acquisition, in transition from one ship class to another. the challenges that obviously exist in shipyards in your home state as well as where we have

additional shipyards, how do we inject the technology over time, and how do we sustain that capability over time and it takes a long time to build as well as expected to be around 430 to 40 years depending on the ship you are talking about. i think it is absolutely vital that we have that base budget has got to be at an affordable level. >> mr. secretary, there are some political uncertainty surrounding the new government in iraq and we know that there has been violence and there probably will be more violence. my question is, will the delays that are being observed in establishing a new government affects the drawdown of u.s. forces? are we going to be forced to dangerous signs of instability to change our plans and strategy of how to deal with the

situation there? >> the short answer senator cochran is no. the truth of the matter is the election trajectory in iraq is basically going pretty much as had been predicted. we figured it would take several months for them to form a government after the election. an important hurdle in terms of general general odierno's confidence was the certification of the election last week. the council constable of representatives convened this last monday and that against the process of the formation of the government, so the violence we have seen it has really been al qaeda in iraq violence aimed at promoting or provoking sectarian conflict and sectarian violence and one of the good news stories out of iraq is that that effort on their part has completely failed. these guys are doing politics and i would just say, coming out

of the nato summit and i probably shouldn't say this but i was intrigued with the fact that we have a new dutch government information and they anticipate it is going to take about four months to put the dutch government together so these coalition governments are too easy even in established countries. >> admiral mullen what is your assessment of the iraq security forces and the capability of effectively managing the security challenges? >> maybe i should use a vignette to speak to that. recently, when two of the top al qaeda leaders, al qaeda iraq leaders were killed, that is the iraqi security forces were very much involved in that and every time i both either see or ask about this issue, they are in the lead, and there is a great confidence in them, particularly their ground forces. we are working through their

naval capability and we are working to evolve their aviation capability but they have been particularly strong. what general odierno will also speak to what is, he was taken back a little bit by they way they see this requirement. when we came out of the cities a year ago last june, their country, a lot of pride in what they do and they really have stepped up and made a difference. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman thank you very much. welcome. mr. secretary, senator cochran i think asked in his rhetorically in his opening statement about the supplemental. i think we were told earlier that the supplemental had to be completed by memorial day. it was of course not and the senate has completed it at what is the date by which you are not able to make the payments you

need to make in terms of getting the supplemental south? >> i had hoped that it would be done by memorial day. we began to have to do stupid things if the supplemental is an pass by the fourth of july recess. we will have to begin planning the money that we have and the overseas contingency fund for the navy and marine corps will begin to run out in july. we will then turn to owen them money and the base budget for them, causing us to disrupt other programs. the army comes along a little behind that, and we have reach a point, so we began to have to do disruptive planning and disruptive action beginning in july. we could reach a point in august

, in early to mid-august, where we actually could be in a position where the money that we have available to us in the base budget runs out and we could have a situation where we are furlough wing civilians and where we have acted duty military. >> mr. secretary, you mentioned a startling statistic. you talk to think about the joint strike fighter in a plant where it takes 7% of the plant in the government was being charged 80% of the all-- overhead. i am sorry, 6% of the floor space and yet you are being charged 70% of the overhead. how does that happen in by the way i think all members of the senate decide you are going to make people accountable for bad management practices and we are going to incentivize in law good management. did you find that out and check

out who on earth made that decision? >> unfortunately senator, i think there are been a lot of bad decisions along these lines in terms of contracting and in terms of our acquisition process, and so the acquisition, the bill that was passed tier of the president signed into law is an important aspect but at the end of the day what is really required is people who can execute a program efficiently and with a very sharp pencil for the taxpayer. i don't think we have had a sharp enough pencil lead in some cases i don't think we have had sharp enough managers. i think we are trying to more professionalize our acquisition workforce now, where we are substituting career civil service who have these skills for contractors to do in many cases have been doing it, but we just have to be a lot smarter and a lot tougher and a lot more effective in our execution of the program and as you suggested

, and hold people accountable. >> the work you are doing on contracting is so important. to use the term dumb for anyone who would say yeah our program is 7% or 6% of the floor space we are willing to ante up 7% of the overhead. i mean that is just dumb for somebody to do that and i applaud what you are trying to do to establish accountability. i want to ask about afghanistan because i am nervous and worried about that which has been written recently, and i think also acknowledge by some the persistent violence around marjah, the issue of the taliban in kandahar and general mcchrystal saying this is going to happen more slowly than we originally anticipated. as they look at that and i wonder you know, what are the cost of that in terms of soldiers lives and money and so

on, and then i also wonder aside from marjah and kandahar, do we ever expect to control the tribal regions of afghanistan? as i look at that i am becoming more and more nervous about the july 2 thousand 11 date by which the president talked about bringing troops out. so give me your assessment. we are reading these things and seem less optimistic and seemed to suggest things are going as they expected. >> lettuce boat take a crack at it briefly. first of all, i think that we have, i think general mcchrystal has finally put in place a strategy that can be successful in afghanistan. we have the access arriving on the ground that will allow us to be successful. we still have a third of the troops yet to arrive better part of the surge, so we are only a

few months into the execution of the president's new policy, and i must tell you i have a certain sense of déjà vu, because i was sitting here getting the same kind of questions about iraq in june of 2011, when we had just barely gotten the surge forces into iraq at that point. this is not-- this is not some kind of production program or something, where you have, you are going to meet these particular objectives this week and next week. the chairman is saying this is a process. we think we have the right assets, we have the right strategy, we have the right leadership and most of our allies and partners share our view that things are heading in the right direction and that b. will be able to show clear progress and that we are on the right track by the end of this year. but, this is not something where we do ourselves any favors by tearing ourselves up by the

roots every week to see if we are growing. this is a process and it is going to be long and hard but we are headed in the right direction. >> mr. secretary i was actually quoting general mcchrystal when he said this would happen more slowly than we original thought. >> what he is talking about is the time as we have shaped-- would general mcchrystal has also tried to make clear is this is not going to be a traditional military campaign in kandahar. there is a huge political and economic component to this and the shaping of the political environment, as they had real success in doing that for marjah , is very important in kandahar and that is what he is talking about is going to take a little more time than he anticipated. >> i would echo what the secretary said. from what i've seen encircling my interaction with general petraeus and general mcchrystal senator, and i mean we all have

angst about this, but we have got tremendous leadership team. we have put the resources in and it is a very, it very difficult counterinsurgency and as i said in my opening statement and as i've said before i think kandahar's the center of gravity for this. i think we will know by the end of the year obviously where we are with respect to reversing the momentum and that is one of the key objectives here. what i'm concerned about and i know people are focused on july 2011, we all are in a way that we are just not going to know until we get much closer to july 2011, how many troops and where they will come from, the case then the place. ..

>> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thank you again for your service. i think you've been terrific, and i know how hard it is, so thank you very much. the question i wanted to ask, one on afghanistan and one on china. let me take china first. things like here are eurocentric. out west, we look west, and for 30 years now, i've been going back and forth to china and trying to do what i can to build and improve relationships. i spent the last week their meeting with a lot of the

leadership and came away with a very different view of what is happening and i wanted to talk with you about it. i shared with them my dismay over door being turned down to meet with your counterpart, and what came back for arms sales to taiwan. now, the impression i had from our government before i went was the chinese expect this and they are not going to be very upset. in fact, they were very upset. and the way they have of showing it is a refusal of military and military contact in my view at a time when the chinese military is expanding strategically in a very critical and concerning the way. and i think that everything we do we subscribe to the one that china policy. everything we do should be to minimize conflict in the streets. we met with president joe.

he is headed for a constructive relationship. he's about to sign an economic framework agreement with the mainland, and i think there is the opportunity to consider where we go if this across the street situation is stable. so my question to you is this colin code which significant action could china take to ease its military posture in the street in a manner that was substantial enough for you to consider or reconsider the future arms sales to taiwan; which are a substantial, and written and will continue to be a substantial irritant in my view? >> first of all, senator, one of the points that i made in

singapore with chinese military leaders in the audience was that our arms sales to taiwan are on the basis of the tie -- taiwan relations act that was passed at the time of normalization in the late 1970's. i think that -- and the have known that all along, and i was struck by an article in the local press in singapore following that session somebody asked one of the chinese generals were some chinese general, it may not have been one present, and you guys have known about these for decades. why all of a sudden are you raising such a stink about them? and the general response was we had to accept it when we were weak. we are no longer week.

and bottom-line is the decision on the taiwan our sales is fundamentally a political decision. it is a decision mandated by the taiwan relations act, and it is a presidential decision. so this is not a decision that is up to the department of defense. it is a decision that is of to the political leadership of the united states in terms of what would be a requirement in order to change our approach with respect to the execution of all or change the law if it is necessary. i don't know if that is required. but at this essentially a political decision and not one that we in the dod would take. but i will tell you the chinese, even though the president of taiwan has reached out in that relationship and looks pretty stable and we certainly applaud the growing links between taiwan and the people's republic, another piece of that is the

extraordinary chinese deployment of all manner of cruise and ballistic missiles opposite taiwan on the chinese side of the street. so that's a reality that goes along with the growing other links between the two. but as you say, our position, and i repeated in singapore, is we are opposed to the independence of taiwan. we stick with a feathery communique that have guided u.s. and chinese relationships for the last 30 plus years and we need to go forward. >> perhaps some of this i should discuss with you privately, but in my meeting with some of the leadership it was mentioned that the -- china had offered to redeploy them. i understand the word redeploy isn't removed and a understand the nature of what is there and the number of troops; however, i

think the most important thing we can do right now is established as a military to military contact. and i discussed this with ed morrill willard, as matter of fact as late as yesterday, and i think that he thinks this way as well. so i would just leave that with you. i think it is extraordinarily important that we find a way that our top flag officers can communicate with their. >> well, i would just say, senator, that i also believe those contacts are necessary, and not just sort of ship visits and the uniform officers talking with one another but from a policy standpoint and from a strategy standpoint. the point i have made in my whole speech in singapore, a good part of it was about the importance of military to military relationships between

the two countries because my experience with the soviet union, i don't know if the strategic arms talks ever achieved much arms control. but the one thing i do know is over 25 year period, we gained a very good understanding of each other's approach and strategy when it can to nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy and so on, and i believe deeply that it helped avoid miscalculations and misunderstandings. i have no interest in a military to military relationship where we basically get together and sing kumbaya all that i think having a relationship where we can talk about things that are really potentially dangerous and our relationship have all kinds of merit and i am a strong proponent of contact with the chinese military for that kind of a dialogue. >> thank you. i'm pleased to hear that. i think my time is up. thank you. >> thank you.

>> thank you mr. chairman. mr. secretary, mr. chairman, admiral, thank you for all of your service and the good work you do and all the hard work to do. i have listened with great interest to the questions of my colleagues, and they have addressed all the major issues, and so i'm going to be a little bit parochial. senator murray talked about tankers, and senator cochran talked about ships. it will come as no surprise to i'm going to talk about solid rocket motors. and you are well aware that many of us are concerned with the solid rocket industrial base and the importance of sustaining that. and in the nuclear posture review i understand the quadrennial defense review recently published national security strategy testimonies and so one. dewaal underscored the need for the capabilities and stability

of systems that rely on the solid rocket motors and robust production industry. unfortunately, the administration's budget seems determined to go the other way. the other direction, and we will not and lose the industry, we will lose the skills that go with it. the industrial base is one thing, but when you really are talking about rocket scientists, you lose them and they go elsewhere and would be impossible to reconstruct that. so, last year the congress directed the department to review and establish a plan to sustain the solid rockets industrial base, and the plan was to be due june 1st. june 1st has come and gone. i understand the interim report

is still in the development and the department is working towards delivering a final plan, quote, no earlier than the end of this fiscal year. i can take you to today's newspapers. they are talking about a continuing resolution at the end of this year to be followed at some undetermined moment an omnibus bill and this creates great uncertainty with respect to the solid rocket folks. so in the absence of an official recommendation regarding the delivery of solid rocket motor industrial base system and plans to you have any recommendations the you could offer now or anything you could share as to the fox the department may have in this area? and let me ask the admiral if he has anything on this.

i would tell you that i am not aware of the status of this report and am not in a position to provide any recommendations frankly because i just don't know but i am happy to find out why this report is overdue and see if we can to bring it to conclusion. >> i'm less concerned with the june 1st date than on again with the idea that we all love is an interim report by the end of the fiscal year and this committee is going to have to take action before the end of the fiscal year because it may very well be that the defense appropriations bill becomes the only one that escapes the omnibus and pass this on its own. i know the chairman hopes is not the case, and i hope it is not the case with it. but there is always that possibility. >> what i can commit to this to try and get this report and its recommendations to use and you can make some timely decisions.

>> okay. >> senator, i don't have any more background at this point. >> all right. that's fine. most disturbing to me and others who share my concern about this, this is not strictly a utah provoke you wish you is the lack of evidence, the complete lack of evidence that any coordination between nasa and the pentagon before undertaking the action to basically tell this industry, and do you have any reaction to that statement? we have discussed this in hearings before, but are you aware of anything that has been raised with the department of defense on behalf of maseth as they've decided unilaterally to shut down the creation of the solid rocket motors?

>> i'm just not aware how much coordination there was, center, but i can certainly get an answer. >> i think the implications for this are very serious. nasa, i think, is making a mistake. for nasa purposes. i think the absence of solid rocket motors and nasa is going to raise nasa's costs. to destroy the space program and a number of areas where i think it is important. but to go ahead on the decision without even talking to the pentagon in terms of the implications for the minuteman and other inhabitants in the defense department where your dependent on the solid rocket motor borders on the irresponsible. so anything you can share with us i would very much appreciate. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator feinstein. >> thank you very much, stir chairman, for allowing me this

extra question. i very much appreciate it. secretary gates, chairman of something called the senate international caucus. the senate caucus on international drug control. we call that the drug caucus, and we are about to put out a report on afghanistan. i am very concerned the taliban is on its way to becoming a marco cartel, and i won't make the argument here, i'm not going to make it here. it will be in our report. but i want to ask you about one specific thing. there are specially fitted units supported by united states personnel that have proven to be very effective at conducting counternarcotics operations all around the world. at this time, there are only 288 members of the national interdiction unit of the afghan counternarcotics police that have been vetted and work directly with the united states

personnel. program managers have told the staff of the caucus an additional 250 vetted officers are needed for the unit based on the scope of the drug problems in afghanistan. and this would maximize the ratio of the united states matters to the afghan officers at the current staffing levels. the contact for training the afghan narcotics police is administered by the department of defense. my question to you is what you take a look at it and take a look at the possibility of adding 250 officers for this national interdiction unit? >> sure, we'll take a look at it. >> i appreciate that. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. i have a question, mr. secretary, that has been festering in this body. up until world war ii, we had a

senior military officials with a full array of metals with generals and admirals and full of a signing documents to into the war. that is how we ended the war. what point would you say today it was over that we could leave? >> i think the war in afghanistan will and much as the war in iraq has ended and that is with a gradual transition from our being in the military lead while the iraqi security forces were growing then partnering than the iraqi is in the lead and are drawing back the overwatch and strategic overwatch and now an advisory

and assist role. at the same time that the political system starting fresh was being created and maturing and i think what you will see is the same kind of a gradual transition to where the afghans are in the lead and the security every enough that's what we are talking about when we talk about when we begin a process of transition to afghan control in the provinces. we are already talking about which ones of those will happen and can we do some of them beginning toward the end of the year or early next year. so as we did province by province in iraq i suspect that is the way that will happen in afghanistan as well and i think however much people may debate how we got into iraq the outcome ended up at this point at least being more positive than anybody

could have dreamed three years ago. >> thank you for a much. >> i'm c growing and needs to continue to be addressed. there is certainly a terrorist safe haven in somalia and in terms of stability, it is a country that is certainly if not a field state is a borderline phill state and in fact there are -- there are camps where terrorists are trained in somalia that we all need to be concerned about. so, and concerned about the fact that somalia continues to fester to use your word in a very negative way, a government that is struggling to control under assault from organizations that are terrorist based and continue to be the home for the piracy

network clearly which is a challenge in that part of the world. so i am extremely concerned about that and its continued ability to continue to grow in the future. the other place where there is long term potential is number africa where al qaeda has a very strong link as well. while we focus on afghanistan and pakistan which is where the al qaeda leadership presides, it is the network which is still extremely dangerous and intent on executing the kind of potential attacks that result in detroit on christmas and recently in times square. >> mr. psychiatry and ed morrill mullen, thank you for your testimony this morning. >> mr. chairman, at the risk of prolonging the hearing, could i

take just a moment to address the question to put to me in your opening statement? >> yes, sir. >> first of all, one of the frustrations i have had ever since taking this job has been the department of defense is organized and structured to plan for the war but not wage war and the only way that i have been able that i found i have been able to get the kind of urgent action to create the mrap to get the additional intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance work to do to counter ied effort has been battling to get their the groups that you described in the task force's where i jeter them and essentially have all of the senior players both uniformed and civilian at the table. and to be able to force the kind of rapid action that has been necessary to support those in

the field. in several of these areas, i think that the work has reached a point where i think i can begin to take action to begin to return these efforts to their traditional where they would traditionally have a bureaucratic home. the mrap taskforce, the audience are, the counter ied task force to discourage her by general paxton and undersecretary carter never was intended to last more than another two or three months now. i think that in at least three of these areas that we will be able to move back towards the the traditional structure in the part of defense. but long term, it is a serious issue for the department and frankly one that i have not yet found the answer to in terms of how to give urgent action in an area supporting men and women in

combat today that ranges across the entirety of the department both uniformed and civilian and the different defense agencies. with respect to the balance between future threats from your peers and others as opposed to the focus on your regular warfare, i would just remind the committee that if you took a broad look at our budget about 50% of our procurement budget is for what i would call long-term modernization programs that deal with the country's about 40% is dual purpose like the c-17 and of the things we will use the matter what kind of conflict with iran and about 10% has actually been a regular or the kind of asymmetric more fair we've been talking about, so i think we have a very large number of programs in this budget that are aimed and in fact have of the pure command budget roughly aimed at the longer term or sophisticated threats this country will face

in the future. thanks for the extra couple of minutes. >> senator feinstein. the reports as you indicated show that the chinese have been advancing the cyber activities, cruz and missiles. are we concerned? >> we are very concerned, mr. chairman. the growing capability of the chinese with anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles is of a real concern for the navy and for us. the cyber capability is very important. the antisatellite capability and potential space denial capabilities are of concern to us. so there are a number of areas where the chinese modernization that are of concern and frankly this is one of the reasons why i think having a strategic dialogue to try to gain some understanding and have some

frank talks about these concerns has merit. maybe the admiral would like to add a word. >> i'm sorry, i'm right there. increasingly concerned, it is increasingly opaque and these dialogues are absolutely critical to try to understand each other. each time at least from my perspective each time it gets turned off it gets turned off by the chinese and we will go through a period of time we have no relationship. the sector talked earlier about iran and his experience in 1979 and what that has led to as no relationship with a country for over three years. and look where we are. so if i use that as a model that is certainly not one that we can afford as a country or as a military with china as china continues to go. china as a global power, all

those things makes sense to me. one doesn't make sense to me is the fact they won't engage in the military won't engage. scaap once again, thank you for a much for the service to the nation. and we look forward to working with you in the coming months as we continue our review of the budget. and as you conduct your internal analysis of the military requirements, i would like to encourage you to share them with us so that we can be in step with you as we begin the work for the following year. we are having a few problems i think we can resolve them. i hope so. the subcommittee will reconvenes of de dee dee to wednesday at 2:30 to hear testimony from the

>> until then we stand in recess. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

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