>> last year you receive 130,000 freedom of information act requests. is that accurate? >> that is correct. >> about 6 under were significant enough to require additional review? -- about 600 were significant enough to require additional review? >> 85 of the responses had passed the processing deadline before there were submitted to the office of the secretary. he also said about the delays the one that were under the review process were short, one to four days. it still caused delays. have modified that process to make it a notification only system. we have mitigated the inspector

general's concerns in that way. >> also, when this administration took office, they already had a backlog in the department of more than 74,000 requests. >> is that correct? >> the highest in the federal government's history. we have done it down to 11,000 foia requests. >> it strikes me at a time of fiscal austerity, you had to hire 40 more full-time positions to do with this enormous number of requests for an affirmation. >> i believe that in case the department's commitment to foia, to increase the number of hires. >> we have a lot of challenges to make and a lot of choices to make with respect to the budget

and there seems to be a commitment there to take 40 full-time positions allocated. the thing that strikes me is the bill put forward by the majority would make across-the-board cuts to the office of the secretary, significant cuts. 9%. the president was going to raise it and h.r. 1 would make more cuts. what will that do to get to the transparency issue? >> it could significantly hinder it. i have been able to double the size of my staff since i have been there. the department has shown commitment around foia across the board. i am concerned these cuts will significantly impact our processing. the foia officers discuss that with me. do you agree?a

>> i concur with ms. callahan's judgment. we're trying to make processes as efficient as possible but there is an inevitable draft of reductions. >> thank you for testimony. i yield back. >> mr. langford is recognized for five minutes. thank you for being here. the sheer point system seems like that is working and you're comfortable. i understand it will be better than the mailing documents back and forth. you'll be able to review them there. does that increased and efficient -- efficiency help in the budget?

you have seen an increase of efficiency. is there an increase anywhere else? >> have not thought about it but because it is a centralized system and labor is disbursed because the component officer will upload the information and my office will do the notification to across the department. it probably does make it more efficient for labor as well as for awareness. >> you mentioned before there was a one day that -- the day before from office gets it and they can have this applauded before it gets sent out to the request your. have you had any moment once the notification has been made there is a contact back and saying hang on to that, we need to check it for for whatever reason, have those slowed? >> yes. the share point system started in july 2010. it was a three day notification system. we had moved to a one day

notification system. since july, we have had a handful of times including one i caught last month that involved international equities that were inconsistently redacted. i said wait a second, this needs to be reviewed and check for consistency. i did a reply oil and set the stage to be checked and i instructed my director to have it reprocessed and it has been a handful of times by my recollection since the share point system started. each time, there has been good catches and we have confirmation that would have been inappropriate to disclose. >> none of the times it was caught and slowed down, it was not for political reasons or we need to get our story straight before this goes out issue. >> absolutely not. >> the issue you brought up about catching up. people want to request information and it is great to start getting caught up on the

backlog that has been there. the document i have received, talking about a report to dhs and the annual freedom of information reports makes a comment about the length of time it takes in 2009 against 2010. are you familiar with that and the timing? >> i issued the report. i am not familiar with that except quotation. >> it talked about the medium number of days. it is now to 93 in 2010. in 2009, the average number of days was 74 days and 2010 was 120. it is processing through where the share point system is coming on line. there's a lot of the backlog. in 2010, it is catching up and getting better. you mentioned we are getting faster. it looks like it is slowing down somewhat. >> if i could clarify. with regard to the awareness

review. it was a small number of requests that were impacted. they should have no impact on the processing. the number of days you quoted is not -- that does not -- that is not consistent with my recollection. perhaps there was some numbers i am not familiar with. >> we will share this with you. we can get a response back. you can give us a written response and say here is what the actual numbers are, that would be terrific. >> i would be happy to clarify that. >> what is the decision on making a significant request? what is the criteria that is set? >> the criteria for a significant reporting has stayed the same since 2006. it is issues that will be discussed in the media so we know they are going on. as has been discussed several times, we received an

extraordinary amount of requests. weekly report is sent to the firstfront office. this component of the same request as another. it is for awareness purposes. sensitive topics, priorities, and litigation. >> if a private citizen made that and handed it over, that may not rise up. some of it is the request your or the topic. >> it is the topic that would be of interest. if the media requested it, it is assumed it is a topic of media interest. the media is included for notification purposes. >> we will recognize mr. welch for five minutes. you arrived at the correct time. >> thank you.

this question of transparency is an important one. mike understanding is you get overwhelmed with requests and to position is you are transparent, you are doing your job as best you can, is that right? >> i tried. >> i want to give you an opportunity to explain why you believe you are meeting that standard. let me share in what you have been doing and what your responses are to the assertions that have been made about your failure to do that. >> thank you. the department and the professionals there have made herculean efforts to get the backlog down from its high of 98,000. they are under amazing pressure and they do amazing work all the time. in addition to reducing the backlog, in addition to providing -- >> i will interrupt you.

here is what will be helpful for us and you. to explain -- the backlog was x and now is it is x-minus. all of us respect and appreciate the hard work that you and your fellow workers are doing. the more concrete you can be with us, the more hopeful it is for the khomeni to be able to come to the right conclusion. >> as i indicated, in fiscal year 2009, we had a backlog of 74,000 requests. that has been reduced to 84% in the past two years to an 11,383 backlog request. in addition, we have received 102,000 requests in fiscal year

2009 while processing 160,000 foia requests. that is the work of the u.s. citizenship and immigration service. in addressing and getting more efficient. this accounts for 70% of foia's that process. received between 8010 thousand foia requests and have been able to commitment by uscis to reduce that. >> there are some allegations in the report that the front office that dhs was interfering with requests by correcting errors without going foia -- with outgoing foia responses. i wanted to have you tell the committee what type of specific errors to the front office to

review how to correct? >> as i have detailed, the front office reviewed the cover letter as well as the underlying response. they did not make any changes to the responses, but they did identify several times where there were typographical errors and other elements that were not consistent with professionalism standards i would like. they have caught those in their awareness review of the documents. >> ok. according to the inspector general's report, the ig provided -- stated, we were not able to substantiate the most serious allegations made by the ap story or subsequent comment. we determined the review process

lead to inefficiencies and slower processing of certain responses. what were some of the inefficiencies you observed and what steps were taken by dhs management including your front office, general counsel's office, and your office to reduce these inefficiencies and has the response time improved? >> absolutely. we take these issues seriously. we had identified these problems and have self corrected it. the initial original awareness process was done via e-mail and it was a relatively cumbersome process. as soon as we had a technology solution we could provide an internet based system where everyone could access, we move from the e-mail system to the internet based system and that process has been more efficient. i believe it is a leader in the federal government. >> think you. -- thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. >> i wanted to point out to my

colleague, he questioned the posters behind the chair and the and he said why are there political statements on the back wall? if the tillman read the briefing document, he would know that political statement is the title of the hearing. i wanted to point that out so folks who are in the audience have looked at the title of the hearing and see it on the wall and that is not a coincidence. although some of my colleagues may think it is. i would be happy to yield the balance of my time. >> thank you. ms. callahan, what is the purpose of foia? >> to inform the public of the elements of the federal government. >> tell me whether or not something where discoverable or

not. >> discoverable is not quite the right term. >> this administration applies a presumption of disclosure unlike the previous administration. >> i was not asking for political comment. i'm asking for the elements. that you applied to determine not which administration is better than another, the legal elements you applied in determining whether or not you should turn something over. >> foia applies to all federal records and we seek to find all responsible records and we look at them as -- those records in case there are specific exemptions. there are nine exemptions that may need to be applied to documents or alamance. >> it should be turned over unless there is an exception. >> yes.

>> why with the employment of the person seeking the rec matter? >> it does not matter. >> what what that have been part of the calculus that was used? >> it was not. the weekly report that summarizes anything that may be of media interest -- >> how do we know that it was not part of the calculus that was used? >> the inspector general's report indicates political calculations were not part of the process. >> i am asking about residency and employment. what does it matter if they are private or a reporter? >> it does not matter. >> can be both? >> yes. >> why would you track that information? >> it is only summarize because it may become part of media interest or tension. >> why? why keep whether or not it is a

private citizen that is requesting the information or a reporter? >> it is a requirement to disclose who is requesting. the log say the name of the person who is requesting it unless it is a privacy act request. >> the employment of the person is part? >> sometimes the media affiliation may be part of a lot. -- log. >> what about the political affiliation? why is the part of the calculus? >> it is not. >> you do not track whether it is a republican or democrat requesting the information? >> under foia, we hvave gotten only one request during my tenure. >> you said when senator grassley, when his had gone to the process, it was delivered to

the political review system in the office of the secretary, you took care of his request your other fashion. >> i am sorry if that is what you interpret it. >> that is what you said. you said you took care of it to another system and you did not know about it until you were rough -- informed that a republican senator had a request that was ready to go up. >> the initial in coming. the weekly report summarizes the incoming requests that come in so they are summarizing what the request is. senator grassley may or may not have been on the report. we never processed his response pursuant to foia. >> i apologize. i yield back. it is clear that you take care of politicians differently in the one case. >> if a member of congress -- that is inaccurate. >> we are supposed to indicate

which is that democrat or republican. >> ? >> that is the way that you are addressed. i do not know what it -- why it was a recommendation of my career staff. the standards from 2006 were modified slightly based on your recommendations. >> my time has expired. >> we now recognize the distinguished gentleman from illinois.

>> mr. connolly. >> i thought the report found that there was a lot more transparency at dhs than in the previous administration. is that true? >> i believe that is one of the conclusions by the inspector general. one of the things my office established in august 2009 is a policy of proactive disclosure to attempt to put up the frequently requested documents and elements that may -- people may want to seek. the chairman saw foia logs for many departments. >> i continue to find offensive and propagandist and one of these is framed in an

offensive way. the testimony and the report of the inspector general suggests the answer to the question. what that the previous administration had been so transparent. some have been equally as concerned about transparency and backlog and politicization. what was the backlog? how high it reached? was it true that the backlog from the previous administration had 98,000? >> that is correct. >> by the time they left it was down to 74,000. >> that is correct. >> what is it now? >> 11,000. one-ninth of its previous high under the previous

administration. the idea that someone's political affiliation, when did the practice began? >> it was a recommendation from my career staff to added. i do not think it is material. we do not usually differ for requests from members of congress. >> that is correct. in terms of notifying political leadership if that is what you can call it. the non-career political appointees leadership picked by the president, often confirmed by the senate, notifying them of the status of requests, when did the practice began? >> in terms of notifying when responses one out, that has been a longstanding process. >> it began in the previous administration? >> the awareness review and having a systematic process started in this administration. >> this administration. >> we have a state of their

solution to it. >> i was the chairman of fairfax county, one of the largest counties before i came here. the va has one of the most open sunshine laws and vigorous laws in the united states. e-mail, phone logs, and the correspondence, all memos are subject to foia and strict time lines in terms of getting requests fulfilled by the media or others. i was the chairman of the county. it was routine practice our legal counsel would notify the political leadership of pending requests so we were not surprised. i find it shocking that some of my colleagues think that is done -- and on toward development. i think that is responsible management. is there any evidence and maybe this is the nature of their concern of political interference once made aware in responding to requests?

>> i have no knowledge of any political interference with regard to the awareness review. i believe the inspector general made the same conclusion. >> thank you. are you aware of any such political interference? >> i agree that the report which took a close look at this issue did not find any evidence of improper interference. >> would it be fair, looking at the backlog of progress and the policies regarding transparency and a lack of political and your ferrets, one could conclude the transparency of dhs in this administration has improved over the previous? >> that is a fair statement. >> thank you. we have answered that question of the chairman's head. i will yield back. >> thank you. if i can summarize this.

there is a presumption in favor of disclosure. there are exemptions. you do not believe there has been any political interference. would you concede that slow walking are taking your time in complying with an otherwise legitimate request could be interference? >> there are many steps and that could create delay. >> including slow walking something. taking your time and reviewing it and deciding when to disclose it? >> i hope that would not have happened but that could be one of the many possibilities of delays. >> that would constitute interference, you would concede. >> our professionals take their responsibility seriously. >> that was not my question. is even simpler. is slow walking or delaying the disclosure of information interference? >> it is delayed.

-- delay. >> what about an overuse of exemptions in the reduction process? >> that is also something that would give me pause. the inspector general's report raises an issue i had not previously identified. the department has been using the exemption b-5 perhaps -- increasingly starting in 2006. >> perhaps. >> it has been increasing. >> where do you find an exclusion or exemption for the phrase, this is bananas. >> b-5 is for delivery to live

-- >> can you see anywhere that an exemption would apply to an e- mail that said, this is bananas? >> we provided documents to you. i would ask the agility be given the opportunity to review the document. >> do you know where in the package it is? >> slide 3. i do not have slides here. if the question is about the production, this looks like the

production to the associated press. my office did not process this request under a typical process, typical standards. we were recused. >> you are still an expert. can you possibly find an exemption for the phrase, this is bananas? >> part of the purpose is to have a vigorous and reasonable dialogue and perhaps it was the determination of the office that was part of a deliberative process rather than a final decision. i was not involved in this reduction. >> what about the note, spoke confirm.dan and he will confe is that part of an exception? >> that was part of the request from the associated press.

the office of the secretary had made some recommendations to modify our boiler plate responses to make them more streamlined and they did not understand that several of the paragraphs were required by law. therefore, after consulting with the office of general counsel, we decided to use the same standards. that was a predecisional document. i did not make the determination but an exemption would be appropriate. >> you do think it would be appropriate. for that phrase. >> the response was not changed. >> for those that may not be familiar, what is the process if you are redacting an

impermissible way, who gets to review that? >> how do we know what we do not know? if you are redacting something, who gets to decide whether or not the reduction was appropriate? >> a detailed the entire process including the possibility of consulting with counsel. once the requests are received, they have several appeal options and going to court. >> i cannot see. why would that be an exception? >> i am concerned about the overuse in this department. we have discussed it and we're going to look at a systemic solution to the issues the inspector general raised. >> we know it was coming. they're trying to substantially edit our letters. why is that an exemption?

>> i do not have knowledge of the processing for this element. i will not able to continue to enter these questions. >> would you agree that is not appropriate use? >> this was not my processing. >> the agilent time is expired. now we go to the distinguished the gentleman from illinois for five minutes. >> thank you. i sit next to the other gentleman from illinois. i was not certain. since both have testified that neither are aware of political interference in responding to requests, i will yield the balance of my time to the ranking member. >> thank you. i want you to -- i think you

admit and the inspector general will agree. things are not perfect. note -- none of our offices are perfect. we have great people but they are not perfect. i am concerned about this. recommendation #five. it says that the secretary issued a written guidance. you just said you were working on addressing the issue of exemption no. 5. tell me what you are planning to do. what do say -- what do you say? how do you address that? one of my colleagues say how do

we go forward? when you said you had reduced by 90% the backlog. that is phenomenal. now we want to do better. this president said he wants to do better. i want you to address that issue. >> i want to do better as well. i had not identified this as a systemic problem until the inspector general brought it to my attention. we have not had a chance to do a thorough plan. i think it will look at the specific elements of b-5. training and materials and education will make sure when

the exemption is used it will be used properly and it should not be used to -- for embarrassment purposes. >> how long have you been in that position? >> two years. >> have you been in the department before then? >> i was in the private sector. >> referred back to 2006 to three times and i was looking at some guidelines dated august 4, 2006 create it says select requests for submission in one of the following criteria is a four congressional -- that has been a policy since 2006. >> without change, yes, sir.

>> when you came in and trying to do this transparency, an effort to make things more transparent. i take it you review these things so you know what the guidelines are? >> i did. i relied on my career foia professionals. we looked at the guidance and decided to issue it as a memorandum to show its importance but also added some ministerial and formatting elements to be more professional and consistent with how we refer to things. the substance of the submission guidelines have not changed. >> there was nothing in between 2006 and when you came in? >> that is correct. >> that is where you have to go back to. >> yes sir. >> is it safe to say that during the bush years, 2006 through 2008, these were the guidelines.

>> that is correct. there remained the guidelines essentially today. >> the attorney made some complaints about your departments such as the commitment to producing documents and questions about resources. the made a number of allegations. since you will not be here to enter those, we would benefit the committee with your responses. they were rather serious. >> to clarify, you may have been referring to the inspector general. the republican staff report. >> i have not had an opportunity

to read the entire report. i did carefully reviewed the allegations made concerning attorneys in my office, including career attorneys who worked there with great success for some time. when i first saw the section heading, my initial reaction was one of concern. as you indicate, that makes serious allegations about lawyers i know well. i take seriously as i should any allegation of wrongdoing by my staff. upon further examination of the portion of the report dealing with the lawyers, my concern turned into indignation. i believe the report paints an unfair and irresponsible portrait of certain people and events. the report reads more like an advocacy peace rather than a sober, a substantive, this passionate investigative report. the portion of the report that

focuses on the office of the general counsel is quite unlike the inspector general's report which resulted from a serious fact-finding effort and makes six constructive recommendations, all of which the department has concurred with. >> thank you. i think he has fully answered his opinion. we now go to the gentleman from michigan. >> thank you. ms. callahan, in your written testimony, you state two years ago, the department faced a backlog of 74,000 requests. under this administration, used to reduce the backlog by 84% or more than 63,000 requests. in his interview with the

committee, a member of your staff pointed out that 30,000 records were transferred to the department of state. literally boxes on pallets were dumped on the state department when we had done our portion of the processing. do you feel that it is fair to take credit for backlog reductions that have simply been transferred to another agency and the record to remain in the federal government? >> if i could clarify what the process is. i am familiar with the incident as i had testified earlier. the u.s. citizenship and immigration services has done an amazing job of processing their files. they received between 8010 thousand requests a month for alien and immigration files. each department processes their own records. once uscis had processed the

documents, they refer. because the u.s. cis was getting their backlog down, the department of state was the beneficiary of that. some of those records that were not only of dhs documents the department of state documents. we're attempting -- that is a one time circumstance. one way we could mitigate this is for cis to sign an mou to process department of state documents and i believe that is in discussion. >> this backlog was not reduced by your department. by your office. >> it has been reduced by all the professionals. the 420 that work hard every

day. >> the credit seems to me and a different spot. according to recent report, a portion of the reductions achieved was the result of the federal contract signed under the previous fenestration. in light of the fact a private company completed this work under contracts signed under the previous administration, is a not somewhat disingenuous for you to credit these reductions to this administration? >> the reductions further reductions. uscis has made an incredible effort and they have done so in coordination with contracts. i applaud them for applying such a significant priority to getting that backlog down. they have done an amazing effort. >> credit where credit is due. politics where politics is due.

let me ask another question. during their interviews, the officers stated the front office approval was needed before they could release responses. your deputy chief officer testified, from office were reviewing and approving. absolutely. if we could not send something out the door, until they gave the thumbs up, that is approval. do you agree -- disagree that policy was in place? >> the original park was an affirmative acknowledgment they have received the foia and reviewed the foia. we attempted to mitigate that. we move to a notification system and is more efficient. >> thank you.

ayyub. >> just to review. you took credit for a big reduction that $7.6 million worth of bush era money paid for the contract and reduced. you took credit for records transferred to another workload of other people. you have some hard working people and i appreciate that. how to those people feel about the day after our whistle blower and others giving testimony, the whistle-blower gets taken out of her office, moved to an inferior office with inferior title and has her job narrowed in scope and i am told she is on health leave. i am listening to all of this and i am saying, isn't that the most chilling affect anyone could have to see that if you tell the truth to congress, the next day, your job is reduced enter offices changed and it is not called a demotion but it sure as hell looks like one? >> there are several elements of

the process that i cannot speak to hear. i would be happy to have a non- public briefing about certain personnel issues. >> my time is expired. we do not do nonpublic issues when a whistle-blower is penalized and hundreds of hard- working people see the effect of testifying honestly under oath before congress. i yield back. >> we will have a second round. i will began. in.bega ms. callahan said she was recused but you are not. you are in political appointee.

the counsel's office does redacting. isn't that true? >> i am not familiar with the specifics of the process. >> i will make it simpler. you are a political appointee. other people are political appointees. your department as redacting. -- it does redacting. >> we may adjudicate or interpret the statute. quick to add thing -- you at things. >> determinations made by the office of privacy. >> in the case of the ap's sensitive request, they found you doing the reduction of the material delivered. your office headed by a political appointee did the reductions that are being talked

about. your office, people under your control. yes or no is all we need to know. >> no. >> who did the reduction we're talking about today? we're seeing some upsurge reactions here. who did them? >> i do not know who made the specific reductions. qassim year career lawyer was involved in giving legal advisor to those who made the reductions. i cannot speak to the specifics. >> i will ask you a closing question. the president said and was unambiguous he wanted to err on the side of disclosure. if you had a recused department on a particular request, the ap request, why would it not have been appropriate to meet the spirit of the president's own words to simply say to the

career professionals, we're not going to second-guess this one. we will err on the side of openness. we will not have a further review by those in your office and others who might have suggested further reductions, some of which look like covering up embarrassments for deliver to of cover up conversations. the meaning of these items which we are releasing his a small part of the discovery, has never been given to the ap. why is that it would not have been appropriate to have erred on the side and take your chances that it once, something would get out. it would not be perfect, even though it was done by the career professionals? >> it would not have been appropriate because the president's memorandum did not say to ignore the law.

the law includes exemptions. we are duty bound. >> i have heard enough of a political appointee who interfered clearly with career professionals. we have a whistle-blower who your organization has punished that was part of an overall disclosure we have become aware of. let me close because my time is limited. we're not done with this. the minority may think this is not right. our expectation is from this day forward, we what the rest of the documents that were requested. we want to see the mall. additionally, i am putting you on notice that as we view the ap request, which is nine months delayed, they have not had their day in court to get some of the things we're seeing here today. we're going to have additional hearings so that we fully understand why an item by line item introduction that they are

waiting to see nine months later and have not seen. i would ask that you do what you need to do to ensure that we do not have another hearing. make an expeditious decision on this appeal. nine months, the associated press to want to know something that have led to material changes in how you do business. nine months later, capias to winning on responses to these and the only answer we got here is, i did not review them, i was recused. i did not work on it. "it isot explain why it i bananas" gets redacted. the foia statute is unambiguous. it is through narrow exemptions and if they are abused once, and it is delivered, they have been

abused. i yelled to live ranking member. >> thank you. -- i yield to the ranking member. >> thank you. i used to represent lawyers when they got in trouble. i know that license to practice law is very important. we're held to a very high standard as officers of the court. when i asked you about the allegations in this report, i could tell that you got a little bit emotional. you share what i share. i know the feeling. i want to give you a chance to respond to some of these allegations. there is something that while the chairman is concerned about people being demoted, i am concerned about that but i am concerned about people's reputations. and lawyers, we have a high

standard to set. mr. talking about the lawyers in your office. there have been allegations that may have been made that could possibly lead down the road to some serious problems for those lawyers. i want you to respond and most of lawyers i would guess could be making more money if they were in private practice are doing something other than government work. they're dedicated employees and the refuse to allow them to have a blanket of - allegations be placed on them without giving you a chance to respond. >> thank you for giving me this opportunity to supplement my answer to your earlier question. it is, as you indicate, truly unfortunate that the attorneys who are the subject of the majority report are in fact

career attorneys, a line attorney in one instance and a senior attorney for the department, to have their names dragged into a public report support -- for performing their duties as attorneys. i have reviewed their performance and continued to do so. i have not found any indication of unethical activity or improper practice of law. dhs attorneys i know are hard- working, dedicated professionals. the report has hemlines but this report does not describe the attorney i know -- attorneys i know and work with. i believe we have cooperated and acted in good faith. thank you for this opportunity to respond.

>> i would like you to finish what you were saying. the chairman talks about fairness and people's reputations and demotions. there have been serious allegations made here. i do not know what the truth is. i would like for you to able -- be able to answer the question. >> thank you. she competed for a promotion, a new position i was given by the department demonstrating the importance of foia. it was a laborious and detailed process. she was not selected and that was confirmed by the office of personnel management. >> where was that decision made? >> the initial selection of the

proposed ses was december 17. she was informed she was -- had not received a promotion on january 10. we were working on him on board -- working on onboarding. it was not released from her department until march 2. we received notification that her department had released her. we were informed by the office of the chief human capital officer that her start date would be march 14. we took the first opportunity to notify her on march 4 which would have been the day after testimony. it was in order to give her

notice this was happening. she was aware it was coming on board and she did not know the date certain. we were attempting to tell her with as much time as possible so she could move offices. the office moves are comparable. i had made a decision to have the new ses closer to me. they're one of two people who report to me. >> will take a five minute recess to set up for the next panel. did you want a second round? i apologize. >> i did and i appreciate the opportunity. >> and you do. i want to go to exhibit 7 if you could have that shown. in this e-mail, the deputy chief of staff, you explain why the

office must repeat the request ears language verbatim to minimize legal liability. she responds by saying or writing, we have to repeat allegations in foia's. can we get a reading prior to tomorrow? what did she mean? >> i am not sure. i was not copied on this portion of the email. >> you responded to it. >> i was the original e-mail. she forwarded it on to colleagues asking for their response. >> what do think she might mean? >> hsu was asking whether or not my summary was complete.

>> you are the chief privacy officer. and a liar. >> i am not a lawyer in this position. i need to clarify that. >> i am a minister and i am always the minister. why did she have to go to the office of general counsel? >> as with any office, there are reasonable disagreements and she was confirming what i have said. she was making sure that was accurate. she received that confirmation. >> do you believe the staff had an appropriate understanding or appreciation of statutes and processes? >> they have a much more robust understanding then when they first arrived. >> that is changing. >> i hope so. >> i yield. panel will be

different. this hearing has never been about the reduction in the backlog. whether that was produced by contractors, paid over $7 million, buy new equipment or by transferring to other departments. this has been about somewhere north of 1000 requests that were politically sensitive that involved the press in most cases. a member of congress in one case. those are the ones we have never really talked about. the receive them and make decisions and send them out. those are the ones this committee received.

i want to make clear in closing, this is not about the reduction or increase. it is not about the very great and positive towards the president obama said on day one when he wanted to make a statement there would be more errness and effectively weer on the side of disclosure. hopefully we will understand that we want to limit this to only the portion which is by definition controversial. sharepoint is a great piece of software supporting it so someone can make a decision which we can only know in their minds, there process, has to be

scrutinized by this committee. we are the committee of all the questions of abuse and we are the overseer of the hatch act and other laws designed to keep politics out of the policy of the executive branch. thank you for yielding. we will take a five minute recess.

half-hour. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everyone.

i'm not sure this is working. isn't working? i think we know joblessness is one of the biggest issues in this country today. all 47 republican senators have come together to sign a constitutional amendment in order to give us the fiscal discipline to do the job that we need to do. the same job at every family in america does. we all leone being -- within our means. finishers had taken the lead on this issue. [inaudible] i want to call on senator hatch first, and those up in the

leaders on this issue and actually everybody has played a role in this. this particular constitutional amendment would be the right thing for our country. [inaudible] the total national debt was around $5 billion into data is over $14 trillion headed towards $20 trillion. the spending was a reasonable area spending against the gdp. today we are at about 69% and according to the cbo, the president's budget has followed, we are going to hit up a fully 90% of gdp, which would make us similar to -- and that is that

the president budget figures are right. we simply cannot live without. now can you imagine if they pass that amendment when we left one vote. at that we had 67 at the time and when person didn't leave that very morning. when we lost by one vote that but have a past that, we wouldn't be in the terrible fiscal distress we are in today. and we would have had to make very tough choices just like every family has to make and in balancing their budget and living within their means, and i think most of us would agree that this government is incapable of living within its means, and we have to go to this extended order to get angst on. so we are filing this a balanced budget amendment. all 47 republicans are bored. we will work with their her colleagues on the other side to see what we can do to get them

on board and hopefully we can pass this bill and such an amendment and get our country into a fiscal situation that really works. we have a lot more i could say that i'm going to stop at that and call on senator leahy and then after senator leahy, senator cornyn, senator cornyn and then senator -- and i will call on others. >> at the end of the day this is an issue that is neither democratic nor republican, neither dog liberal nor conservative. this issue, our mounting debt potentially threatens every federal program, every federal expenditure known to man. by the end of this decade, if we continue to spend at our current rate, it is likely we will be spending about a trillion dollars a year just on interest on national debt and to put that in perspective of course this is substantially more than we spend on social security and an entire year. is more than we spend on medicare and medicaid combined in an entire year.

is substantially more than we spend on national defense in an entire year. so regardless of whether you most concerned about protecting our ability to defend ourselves against foreign aggressors, or on the other hand you are most concerned about protecting entitlement spending, you should be concerned about perpetual reckless runaway deficit spending, and that is what this amendment would put an end to once and for all. thereby protecting all of those programs. again, programs that are important both to liberals and conservatives alike. this is a time when we have to address the difficult questions that arise from the fact that perpetual deficit spending brings about a particularly pernicious form of taxation without representation. one group of elected legislators spends money, and then people who are not yet worn or not get a voting age someday have to pay off the debt left by the roof of legislators. we fight a war over taxation without representation and we won that war and we need to

abandon this pernicious practice once and for all and that is what this does. i'm please pleased to support it i'm very grateful to my colleagues and senator hatch, senator cornyn, senator kyl, senator -- and some of you is who have helped us us with this and to our minority leader mitch mcconnell who is shown so much leadership in getting our party in the senate behind us. >> on november the second lesser the last year the mayor can people send a very clear message to all of us, whether get as mike said, whether we are republicans democrats or independents, that they are sick and tired of the reckless spending and the unsustainable debt and they wanted us to act together hopefully on a bipartisan basis. is the only way this going to get done. to address that problem, and we can do it, and this constitutional amendment is one way to do that. in 1997, senator had said when they came within one vote there

were 11 democrats but joined republicans then, and i hope now that we have gotten an amendment that 47 of us agreed to, we will be reaching out to her democratic colleagues to see if they got the message that we got loud and clear on november the second. we are accountable. we are responsible to the american people for what we do. we usually have those determinations whether we have been good stewards or whether we have done what they expect of us. we find out in an election, so i think this is a great opportunity for us to work together. i hope both sets of data will come together, pass this amendment and that will go to the states were 38 states would have to ratify it, and then within five years, this balanced budget amendment would be implemented. >> thank you. i would like to start by saying a quick thank you to senators hatch and cornyn.

on the one hand and senators lee and kyle. these two groups, these true centers that produce thoughtful alternative ideas on how many might reach a balance budget amendment and through a lot of hard work we all came to an agreement on a consensus product that i think is a great product, and importantly has the universal support of the republican conference into that and i want to tangle leader mcconnell for having the wisdom to seize the opportunity to unite this conference by this very very important idea. it is important for many reasons. i want to touch on just one, and that is i am absolutely convinced that i think many economists are, that we cannot have the economic recovery we need and we cannot have that job the job growth that we badly need as long as we have this disastrous fiscal deficit looming over our economy. getting our fiscal house in order, getting a balanced budget is an absolutely necessary precondition for the strong economic growth and job creation

that frankly we were sent here to accomplish. so i share the hope that some of my colleagues have alluded to, the hope that there will be a large number of democratic colleagues who will join with ue republican and pass an amendment to the constitution that we badly need that will provide the fiscal straitjacket that we need to get our fiscal house in order. >> thank you. i was a freshman congressman back in 1997 when the senate had it this vote the last time and it failed by one vote. senator hatch mentioned. it would have passed in the house of representatives and i can't help but thinking how much better our country would be today 14 years later if we had enacted a balanced budget amendment that then. because since that time we have seen dramatic growth in government, dramatic increase in spending and debt, and today, today it threatens the country on a level like we have never seen before, so much so that the

chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, echo mike mullen, called our national debt the greatest threat to america's national security. i think that speaks volumes. i think that is why this exercise is so important and we worked together as republicans to come up with a proposal that we would like to put before the senate and before the american people, and hopefully rally them around and get the democrats on board with this because it is high time that washington did what so many states and what every family in this country is to do and that is balance the budget. south dakota was at first it in the union this year to balance its budget and it took some hard decisions. they cut $127 million which is a lot of money. doesn't sound like a lot of here, but they did it the hard way. they made the hard decisions, and because we got a balanced budget within our state constitute their required to do it. we do it every year and lots of states to their beer. is high time the federal government did it. is long overdue if we are going to get this country back on the right track, growing, creating

jobs in dealing with this massive problem of spending and debt. >> thank you orrin and thank you all of you. does work so hard to make this a reality. having examined the amendment i do think it is solid and we will do the job it reopened to do and i congratulate those of you who have worked so hard to have unanimous support for it. we have demonstrated that systemically, it seems, congress is in a bill to its means. and 97, when the amendment failed by one vote, i was one of the first key votes i cast is in a senator. people were saying we were getting our house in order and maybe we didn't do need a balanced budget amendment. now we have deficits 10 times that rate. it threatens our financial future. it threatens their jobs. erskine bowles and alan simpson, the cochairman of prison obama's

budget debt commission signed a joint statement before the budget committee, and they said this is the most predictable economic crisis this nation has ever faced. the debt is growing out of control. so, i would say that the greatest thing we could do for our economy, the greatest thing we could do to put this country on a path to financial success and growth and vigorous strength in the future is to get our financial house in order. this will do it. i think those who have worked for it so much, and i do believe it is not a hopeless task. one vote short in 97. i believe we can pass at this time. i thank all of you who have worked so hard. >> like my colleagues i want to thank senator hatch for his leadership and everybody else for their leadership. this is a team effort, all 47.

i know that you all like to write about the times we had 45 and maybe not 44. all 47-cent above most amendment. they think this is one thing to consider. the second thing, i know some of the people in the poli-sci goober department say wait a minute, this is not going to work. somebody talks about is the budget has to be, you have to have -- they don't have a printing press. that to be a balance but they don't have the protection in regards to national security. in a declared war, which might be helpful this time around, you can overcome that with 51 votes, so national security is protected. the other thing i would say is that some people that are critical of this, how long will it take for 38 states to ratify it? i think that is the proper number. i want to tell you something. you talk to any state-led that's -- legislator and a

governor today and say is there some way that you can reign in federal spending in part that goes for the funding of all the speculation on all these mandates that they have to put up with? they are going to say a man and i think it would be gratification. read it up appear, long-term, long-term. that is exactly what we are after here. while we may not be successful i don't want to put a wet blanket on this. ivan see much leadership in the white house. we can't kick the scan down the road to an even numbered year and go until 2013 and bob up against what could be real economic chaos. none of us know when that tip of the spear is going to hit but if we send a message like this i think it will signal to the american people we are serious and most especially to the world and most especially to the financial community. thank you. >> thank you. spending has been an addiction

for congress for many years, and i'm very proud of our public and conference for standing together to break that addiction. and if anyone questions the need for a balanced budget amendment, all we have to do is look at this current debate on funding the government for this year. at a time when the whole world recognizes that american is on an economic cliff, the democratic party is yet to even agree to cut this year but we borrow every week. they are not going to join us. they're not going to show the leadership until the constitution requires that we do it. that is why this balanced budget is so important, and that is why we need to have a vote on this balanced budget amendment before there is any debate or vote on the debt ceiling. >> if america, as we know today, is going to be saved, it is imperative that this balanced budget amendment to the united d states constitution pass.

this institution is not capable of living within its means. this is not a partisan issue. it is an american issue, and it is imperative that we do in the federal government but virtually every state has and that is a requirement that the balance the budget. it works very well and stay. we need it at the federal level. >> senator graham. >> this is a historic day for the republican party. we all agree on something, and it is a big deal. every end of our party has come to believe that the budget in the constitution is probably not going to happen and what would it mean? it would mean the political record -- reiter gives way to constitutional mandate. i've come to believe since being here since 1995 that all the rhetoric in the world is never going to lead to a balanced the budget in less than bing changes

pretty soon. in a balanced budget would make us do what everybody has to do it home. you can't leave town until you get the budget balance. you have to say no to people. may be your friend who would make mad and he would have to title your belt and -- tighten your belt. you have to do things that people in the real world do every day, so i hope and pray that we can get some momentum to one day have the constitutional balanced budget amendment to change the way the congress works, not just for now but forever. it is sad to say. >> thank you senator hatch. before being elected to the senate last year i actually have the distinction of being the longest-serving governor in the united states. i served as a governor for 10 years for the state of north dakota. and one thing that we have to do each and every year was balance our budget. families have to balance their budgets. businesses have to balance their

budgets. cities have to balance their budgets. states have to balance their budgets. our country needs to balance its budget. i am pleased that all 47 republican senators are together on this balanced budget amendment. it provides the right kind of safeguards. it provides safeguards in time of war. at divides transition to get to that balanced budget so we can address social security, medicare, all the programs are important to people. i'm very hopeful that with all of the republicans on this balanced budget amendment now, we can join with their counterparts across the aisle and get past. there was a sense in the senate vote not too long ago you will recall and we picked up 13 democratic votes. so if you do the math, we are getting close, and i'm hopeful now that we can get enough votes to pass this balanced budget amendment. again i want to thank senator hatch, senator lee and certainly

there leader senator mcconnell for their leadership on this incredibly important issue for our country. >> thank you. i want to thank senator hatch and all those that have been involved in drafting a constitutional amendment. one of the things that you all have not seen happening but has been happening every week, most of the time two times a week, is republicans have been gathering in this room and in another room to talk through those things we need to do over the long-haul to make sure that our country becomes fiscally sound. it has really been a three-step approach. one is to make sure that we negotiate. the deepest cuts that we possibly can in the continuing resolution is underway right now. a second piece is to have a statutory solution. one that can go into place right now, because we have had financial analysts on both sides of the aisle coming and talking about the fact that something

has to occur right now. and the third piece is to make sure that over time, after the focus on why natural discipline goes away, that we have something to her then and there is a constitutional amendment. we have had lot of people working on all three phases of this. i think it is shown tremendous leadership by mitch mcconnell and their leadership team to pull us all together around all three of these concepts. i believe it is the number one issue in america. i really do and i don't want a message. i want is to solve the problem in all of us want to work together to see that happen. i really appreciate again with the leadership of our party has come together to try to do that and we are reaching out to the other side to try to make sure that this happens. thank you. >> thank you senator hatch for your leadership on this and senator mcconnell and

gathering all 47 republicans which i think is for important. the number one problem we face in our country is our debt. we will never ever balance or budget until we amend our constitution. it is the single most important vote we will cast. republicans need this as well as democrats. we all need a rule that we must obey. this is the single most important vote we will cast this year and i hope the other side will come and embrace the idea of fiscal sanity again. thank you. >> i get home every begin to wyoming and sit around and asked people questions, sit around and discuss things and i did leslie. set with a group of people and said who here believes they have a better life right now than their parents had and every hand goes up. in and i asked the question, how many of you believe that your kids will have a better life then you have right now? the hands all came down. we talked about why that is and the reason fundamentally is the

debt. the debt is the threat to our future. and wyoming i said in the senate for five years. we had a balanced budget amendment to our own constitution. we have to balance a budget and wyoming. her family stayed to do it in their businesses need to do it and if we are going to have the secured future of this country, the one that we know, that we need there is only one didn't do it and that is by making sure i constitutional amendment that we balance the budget every year in this country and that is why i'm so bad that 47 of us have come together to unanimously signed onto this approach for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. thank you. >> last but not least,. >> thank you so much senator hatch and senator mcconnell for your terminus leadership. i think it says so much that we are all together in what in my view is the single most important piece of legislation that we can pass in the united states senate. and this is about what i heard from a hoosier voters as they

campaigned up and down our state. why can't you live within your means and congress? white why do some pushing think get it like we do at home? and congress has not been able to live with its -- within its means and that is why this is the single most important legislation that we can pass. for me it this letter children. i have two small children at home, and we owe it to our children to make sure that they can live their lives free from being indebted to china, that we are passing on to them our failure to make the tough decisions today. so i'm so proud to join with my colleagues to make sure pasturing rosebushes and management and i look forward to working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle so that we can pass this and make sure that we live within our means and address the fiscal crisis in this country. thank you. >> i want to pay personal tribute to senator mcconnell and senator kyl for their leadership on this. they have both benjamin's leaders and having us all

together is a very important step in the right direction. we will turn it over to you pretty questions and we would be happy to colin anybody. >> can you give us a sense -- [inaudible] >> spending is around 25.3%. aven had that much spending since world war ii. since the height of world war ii so it is clear that we are off the charts and not standpoint. the 18% is the average revenue that we have had over the last 50 years. and we decided that as an appropriate figure to try to shoot for and that is why the 18%. >> if i could just add one thing to that. as recently as 2007, total federal spending was just barely over 90% of gdp.

that was at a time when i would argue congress was not at all trying to exercise any fiscal discipline and yet virtually by accident, here they were just barely over 90%. wouldn't take a big lift to go from that level down to 18. [inaudible] >> number one, we won't have a vote on this. we will have to let leadership determined that at least it seems to me. if we are smart we will do that. number two with regard to the senator you voted for the balanced budget in 1997, and i suspect that, i suspect he would vote for this one if you were here. [inaudible] i heard it, but i think you

would vote for it. he is and talk to me. we chatted together very carefully the last time, and if he wins in florida he is a different constituency now i suppose. >> let me add just one more point of context. under article v of the constitution they are two ways to amend the constitution. one is by joint resolution of congress. the second is by constitutional convention. at an earlier time in our history were actually within two states and triggering a constitutional convention responsibility by congress, so i will tell you that this is such such -- has such power across the country, people simply don't understand the proper ways of the congress and why we can't do what states and families and businesses do. so there is going to continue to be, i would suggest, significant pressure from the states that we do this as well, and i think that is an important part of this context. we need to do it anyway, but

that is senate and a port and additional pressure. i am sorry, i can't hear. >> my preferences we would pass the senate would move the whole issue of the constitutional convention. i'm just saying that is an article v of the constitution, that would be an alternative if we don't do our job. i hope we do our job and that would move the point. >> one point i want to emphasize relative to some of the questions asked earlier there are safeguard provisions in this balanced budget amendment you should take a look at. the dressings that time of war, transition to get to the point where the budget in balance and other issues. we do provide safeguards in this package. [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> let me put it this way. this is a version that all 47 republicans have agreed on. i personally believe this is step one. the house is going to pass this. we will have to see how close they come to ours, and we will certainly work it out, but i would work for this version and let's hope we can get it through. [inaudible] right now we are dedicated to this ounce budget amendment and i do believe we will have democratic support on this. now, time will tell.

[inaudible] i expected number of democrats to vote for this. if they don't they're going to have to face their citizens, and that is not going to be easy because everybody in this country knows we are in trouble. everybody knows that we may lose the greatest country in the world, and so we are going to do everything in our power to get the democrats on board and i hope we can. >> i do think that it is going to be imperative for anyone of are there house or are there political party who stands for fiscal responsibility and fiscal restraint to vote for this. and for those who voted for the predecessor version of it years ago, think would be difficult to

articulate an adequate justification why they would vote for that imposed against this. this simply has safeguards built into to make sure it is not circumvented so if you are for the principle of balancing the budget there is no reason why you shouldn't be in support of this. well, anytime you are talking about passing an act of congress there is a reason why people describe something that they want to characterize as a herculean effort. is not -- like getting an act of congress. when you are trying to get a constitutional amendment passed out of congress it requires two-thirds and it is difficult. i'm not going to stand here and tell you i'm absolutely certain that we will have two-thirds of those houses locke up by tomorrow. i am telling you that the mood in the country is right, and it is sufficient i believe so that people are listening to their constituents. they will vote for this the senate will vote for it by a requisite margin. [inaudible]

well, we have 11 or 12, maybe 13 webb indicated that they would vote for a balanced budget amendment. as for this proposal we live and we have been working on getting republicans on board in establishing republican unanimity. [inaudible] sorry? [inaudible] well, look. it is not my inclination. i doubt is the inclination of any of my college to signal what would or wouldn't be on the table in terms of negotiations if this were not to pass. right now we are focused on getting this passed and we believe anyone who believes in a balanced budget amendment idea should get behind this, and if they have some rational persuasive explanation as to why they should and then we will talk. as of right now i don't see any reason to make changes. [inaudible]

>> remember one of the aspects of this balanced budget amendment is that after ratification meant to balance it within five years. whatever. we will have to see, but i think republicans are committed to passing this amendment in the senate. and i believe we have republicans and democrats that are committed in the house to pass their amendment, which will mirror this to a degree. [inaudible] >> i think over time all of us have to be because the can't live the way we are doing right now. no question about it. thank so much. great to be with all of you. [inaudible conversations]

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

i commend us on the wall between tyranny and freedom and honor their bravery. but i have concerns about our objectives in libya. our contribution to meeting those goals, the length of america's commitment to what could be a prolonged conflict. secretary gates himself when asked if the u.s. had vital interests in libya said no but we have interests in the region. the united states has interests in all regions of the global, but i am curious what the criter are for military intervention. history has demonstrated that an entrenched enemy like the libyan regime can beesilient to airpower. if gadhafi does not face an

imminent military defeat or refuses to abdicate it seems nato could be expected to support a decade long no-fly zone enforcement like the one over iraq in the '90s with iraq and afghanistan already occupying a considerable share of american resources. i sincerely hope this is not the start of a third elongated conflict especially in a region where we have other more discern s le interests. it is not my intention to second-guess or undermine the administration's authority but i would like an explanation of the nature of this threat and how american intests will be advanced through the use of military power. fortunately we have two witnesses who i hope will bring clarity to these ambiguities. defense secretary robert gates and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff admirable michael mullen, thank you for taking the

time to attend this open session today. mr. secretary, i understand how busy you've been. i know you've traveled a lot. i know yove got tremendous burdens on you and also you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today, and that's very important. on a final note i would like to remind members of the public who are with us today that i will tolerate no disruption to this proceeding. this is a serious matter. members of this committee and the american public deserve to hear what our witnesses have to say. i will ask the capitol police to remove anyone who creates a disturbance. thank you. ranking member smith. >> thank you, mr. chairman, secretary gates, chairman mullen, thank you for being here today. the most important thing is to answer questions where we go from here with the situation on the ground in libya is and what you see the level of u.s. involvement from this point forward. it's obviously a very uncertainly situation and there

will be no guarantees, no set timetables. but as members in congress, the more information we get on your best estimate of what our commitment is going to be, for how long and what's going to be involved and what our goals are the better off we're going to be able to explain it to our constituents. i also think it's important in the hearintoday to flesh out the criteria for our intervention. many have asked why libya and not so in the other places that have civil war. i think i have some of the answers for that, but i hi it's important to explain to the american people this is not an open-ended commitment from the united states that we will dive in and get involved in any civil war anytime. i do believe there were a unique set of circumstances in libya that warranted this action, but i think it's incredibly important we explain what that unique set of circumstances was and to let the american people know this is not something we're going to be doing in a great number of places. i think here we had a clear situation where our unique assets and ability to at least

in the short term stop a humanitarian disaster. colonel gadhafi was rolling back the rebellion in killing many civilians and there was every reason to believe he would continue to do that and they were unable to defend themselves. had a unique situation also in that the international counity came together in support of action against colonel gadhafi. the arab league, anywnato, we h broad base of support. i think that's important not just because it gives us that support, gives us cover, if you will, for our actions but it's important because it also made it more likely we could sceed in those actions and that's one of the most important criteria i don't think has been talked about enough. you can look at situations in the past like in rwanda or in syria, bahrain, yemen, and see a humanitarian crisis developing t that doesn't mean we have the mitary ability to go in there and succeed in making things better instead of worse. in libya i think we did have that opportunity because of the international support, because

of the assets that we could bring to bear and because of the fact we had clear targets in libya to stop colonel gadhafi from throwing back the rebellion at least tporaly and to have that opportunity was one we should have taken. i think everyone should be mindful of the fact if we had not acted not oy would this have happened, not only would thousands of civilians in libya been killed, but the united states of america in the eyes of much of the wld would have been blamed for that because they would have seen clearly that we had the chance to stop it and chose not to. as someone who has worked extensively on counterterrorism policy and dealing with al qaeda, that would have been a crushing blow to us to once again make it look like the united states did not care about protecting those in the muslim world who face the violence of des rats. we have to factor that in as well. going forward we need to know what comes next because for the fact that we had the ability to act a week ago doe't mean we will be successful. we want to know what the commitment is going to be. i share the chairman's concerns

given our commitments in afghanistan and iraq. how long can we sustain this and where is this going? we look forward to your comments. we look forward to further ex langss and i thank the chairman for the time. >> it will be just a couple of things, mr. secretary, if you could hold until we have the cameras, give them an opportunity to leave. now the secretary has a hard end time today at 12:30, so i will really push to keep us in the five minutes. if you have -- excuse me, 11 thirt. what time did i say? no, :30. excuse me. and i will hold five minutes.

if you want to take five minutes to answer your question, they will answer it in the record. mr. secretary? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for the ability to speak to the military operations in libya. i start by providing context how we got to this point at least from my perspective. in the space of about two months the world has watched an extraordinary story unfold in the middle east. the turbulence being experienced by virtually every country in the region presents both perils and promise for the united states as stability and progress in this part of the world is of vital national interest. this administrati's approach has been guided by a core set of principles president obama articulated in february violence, standing for universal values, and speaking out for political change and reform. at the same time we ve recognized that each country in the region face as unique set of circumstances and that many of the countries affected are

critical security partners i the face of common challenges like al qaeda and iran. in the case of libya, our government, our allies, and our partners in the region watched with alarm as the regime of moammar gadhafi responded to legitimate protests with brutal suppression and a military campaign against his own people. with colonel gadhafi's forces on the verge of taking benghazi we faced the very real prospect of significant civilian casualties on hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to egypt. potentially destabilizing that k country even as it undergoes its own difficult transition. once the arab league and gulf cooperation council called on gadhafi to cease his attacks and our european allies expressed a willingness to commit real military resources, it became apparent that the time and conditions were right for military action. the goal of operation odyssey dawn launched on march 19th was

limited in spe and scale. the coalition quickly achieved its first military objective by effectively grounding colonel gadhafi's air foe and neutralizing his air defenses. during this first phase the u.s. military provided the preponderance of military assets and firepower as well as logistical support and overall command and control. responsibility for leading and conduct i conducting this mission now called operation unified protector has shifted to an ingrated nato command going forward the u.s. military will provide the capabilities that others cannot provide either in kind or in scale such as electronic attack, aerial refueling, lift, search and rescue, intelligence and reconnaissance support. accordingly we will in coming days significantly ramp down our commitment of other military capabilities and resources in had this operation.

the anywnato-led mission like i predecessor is a limited one. it it will maintain pressure on forces to prevent attacks on civilians, enforce the no-fly zone and arms embargo and provide humanitarian relief. there will be no american boots on the ground in libya. opposing the gadhafi regime, as welcome as that eventuality would seem, is not part of the military commission. in my view the removal of gadhafi will likely be achieved over time thrgh political and economic measures and by his own people. however, this anywnato-led opern can degrade gadhafi's military to the capacity where he and those around him will be forced into a very different set of choices and behaviorsn the future. in closing, as i've said many times before, the security and prosperity of the united states is linked to the prosperity of the broader middle east. i believe it was in america's national interests as part of the multilateral coalition with

broad international support it to prevent a humanitarian crisis in eastern libya that could have destabilized the entire region at a delicate me. and it ctinues to be in our national interests to prevent gadhafi from visiting further deprivations on s own people, destabilizing his neighbors a setting back pro degrees the people of the middle east have made in recent weeks. mr. chairman, i though you and your colleagues have many questions so i will now ask admiral mull en to comment. as always, my thanks to this committee for all the support you have provided to our military over the years. >> thank you, mr. airman, distinguished members of this committee. i share the secretary's gratitude for the opportunity to talk to you about coalition operations in support of the libyan people. let me start with a brief assessment of where we are today and then leave you with some impression. as of early this morning nato assumed command of the entire military mission over libya. there are more than 20 nations

contributing to this operation in all man earp of ways, some public, some not so public. ntributions range across the board from active parcipation in strike operations to financial aid and assistance for humanitarian efforts. we a joined by several arab countries who have, despite domestic challenges of their own, chosen to come to the aid of the libyan people. i hope they do so knowing that the united states and the ternational community rain grateful for their experience and leadership but also knowing that no one military, no one nati nation, can or should take on a mission of this nature alone. this coalition we have forged in record time, mind you, is not only a coalition of the willing. it is a coalition of the able. with each nation bringing to the effort what they can in terms of knowledge and skill to tackle a very fast moving complex humanitarian crisis. 25 warships patrol off the coast of libya today including two allied aircraft carriers,

france's charles de gaulle and italy's each with combat aircraft embarked. also in those waters are destroyers and frigates, submarines and even a u.s. amphibious ready group. on these ships and at european bases ashore the nato commander from canada lieutenant general charles bouchard has at his disposal more than 220 aircraft of just about every size and stri imaginable. with these pilots and these planes, he may operate freely throughout the libyan airspace around the clock, gaining intelligence of ground force movement and intentions, striking targets of opportunity on little or no notice and preventing gadhafi from using his own air force tottack his own people. i would note among these coalition aircraft are more than a dozen from qatar and the united arab emirates. fighter pie lats from qatar have

flown more than 30 sorties in support of the no-fly zone mission. indeed in just the last 24 hours u.s., nato and coalition aircraft flew some 204 sorties, 110 of which were strike related. hitting fixed and mobile targets in tripoli, misrata, with such freedom of movement because we moved quickly in the early hours of the operation to render an effective regime air defense and command and control. the first struck late saturday night, the 19th, tripoli time. the no-fly zone was essentially in place. we have tipped to rike whe and when needed and it's my expectation that under anywnato leadership that level of effort and focus will not diminish. what will diminish are operations as we turn our attention to providing unique

enabling capabilities. i've been involved with operations for much of the last decade. from the balkans to iraq and afghanistan. so many forces so fast. the enemy wasn't just gadhafi' military it was also the clock as he marched on benghazi intent on brutalizing the people there. but we were read there were pilots and sailors moving into position ready to act. we were able to do that because we, the collective we, not just thunited states, have invested in close relationships with one another facilitated and improved over time through annual excises, pernnel exchanges, actual combat experience and mutual dialogue. nobody is underestimating the

scope before us. gadhafi has military capability to those of the forces who raid against him. he shows every desire of retaking lost ground and, in fact, did so yesterday. he still wants benghazi back and adjibaya. he threatens th on the streets of misrata and he has made no secret of the fact that he will kill as many of them as he must to rush the rebellion. your men and women will execute that mission now in support of nato with the same professionalism with which they have led that mison until today. again, thank you for allowing me to be here and thank you for your long standing support of our men and women and their families. >> thank you very much. i was pleased the president addressed the nation on monday

to explain. he made his rationale quite clear. utilizing u.s. warriors to protect civilians from a brutal dictator is a noble cause. but the president's strategy seems to consist of two mutually exclusive parts. the first is to protect libya's civilians which is now the responsibility of nato forces. this is a political consideration and not part of the military mission. i'm concerned that such a mismatch is a strategy for stalemate. moreover, the president went on to aeb until gadhafi steps down from power, libya will remain dangerous. that sounds like foreshadowing for a mission protect the civilian population. secretary gates and admiral mullen, how long do you anticipate our military mission will last? under what circumstanc is it

permissible for gadhafi to remainn power? if he does, will it be necessary for u.s. forces to remain engaged in libya to protect civilians? if it is not permissible for gadhafi to remain in power, why has the military mission been limited to? first, you have characterize it had it correctly in the sense the military mission does not include regime change. personally i felt stronglybout that. we tried regime change before and sometimes it's worked and sometimes it's taken ten years. and it does, as has been the case in iraq sometimes involves both enormous human and fiscal cost. so the idea here was basically to establish the no-fly zone and

protect the libyan people. i believe one of the characteristics of protecting the libyan people has, in fact, been our effort to degrade the libyan military. this is something that after the initial gulf war we actually did not do in iraq even though we had a no-fly zone. we didn't keep attacking saddam's military capabilities as we are doing in libya. as both the chairman and i have indicated our role already has begun to recede to the support roles that i indicated. we will not be taking an acve part in the strike activities and we believe our allies can sustain this for some period of time. i think the one thing th may make a difference in terms of how longt takes for this

regime to change is the fact that we continue to degrade his military capabilities, and i think that may contribute to some cracking of the uni of his own military. but the bottom line is no one can predict for you how long it will take for that to happen. but i can tell you that the military mission and our now support role will remain limited as i have described it. >> i would only add, mr. chairman, echoing wha the secretary said about being able to predict how long, i just don't think that that can be done right now. we have actually fairly seriously degraded his military capabilities, his air defense capabilities, his command and control capabilities. his overall forces at about 20% to 25% level. that doesn't mean that he's

about to break from a military standpoint because that's just not the case. however, i do have great confidence in nato's ability now in command with the resources it has available to be able to continue to trim that capability and continue in the support role that the united states will to support that attrition. and then i think for the long term it is obviously as others have said there are lots of tools in the kit and to bring that kind of pressure on him which gets to the eventual overall policy objective of his leaving. >> thank you very much. ranking member smith? >> thank you, mr. chairman. first, i want to agree with both your remarks on that. i think regime change by military force by a foreign military force comes with a very high cost and a lot of unpredictability and is

perfectly consistent to say we want gadhafi to leave but the cost of doing it with u.s. or nato boots on the ground is entire entirely too high. we have to put pressure on him in other ways to drive him out. i think at is something there has been confusion about in the public. i think it's a fairly consistent position and certainly it does sometimes work as we saw in e case of yugoslavia. it did drive him out rather quickly. if we can degrade the support for gadhafi, degrade his military and the, that has a better chance of succeeding in a clearer long-term path than any sort of military invasion. the questi i want to ask is the thority for doing this. i think there's considerable consternation about that amongst my fellow members of congress. what is the legal constitutional authority for the president and the military to have acted without prior congressional authorization? i think there was a lot of misunderstanding about the history of that within congress and within the media for that matter. this is not unprecedented.

there has been a bipartisan feeling amongst both democrat and republican presidents that article 2 gives them the authority to act militarily. it happened in kosovo as i referenced but also in panama and granada. we have the war powers act out there. as i understand it, it's been the position of every executive that is an unconstitutional infringement upon their article 2 rights and therefore they have not felt like they have to follow it. certainly it wasn't followed again in the instances i just mentioned. if you could walk through your viewpoint on the authority, i think that would be very important for members of congress. i don't think that was adequately explained at the briefing yesterday and i think that leaves a lot of members of congress feeling like they've been completely left out and that the law has not been followed and i think that's a critical piece in building broader public and congressional support for any action going

forward. so if you could talk a little bit about that, i think that would be helpful for us. >> first of all, this is not exactly my area of expertis constitutional law. but i will say that i -- >> but if i could -- >> i understand. >> you've been there a long time. been through a lot of these decisions. >> okay. >> you have something to say about it. >> i was actually in the white house on the staff when the war powers act was passed. and in the mid-1970s, and i think it is fair to say there has been disagreement between the congress and the president ever since then on what is required of him under the war powers act. president obama is the eighth president i've worked for. seven operated under the war powers act and i would say that his compliance in terms of consultation and notification of the congress has been consistent with the actions taken by all of

his predecessors both republicans and democrats since the war powers act was passed. there was a consultation with the congressional leership before the military operations started. on frida before saturday night, about half were present in the situation room. about half were on a telephone conference call. the written formal notification of the congress took place. so this has been an area of contention between the executive and the legislative branches for better than 35 years now. but i think th the president's actions are completely consistent with those of his predecessors and with the executive branch's interpretation of the war powers act. >> thank you. the only thing i would add to that because i do think, and this is not for your benefit but more for the white house. yes, the friday before we launched the attack we did have that consultation. i think in the future, in the

days and even weeks as we built up to this it would have been better for the white house to have began discussions with key republican and democratic leaders as we built up to this decision. i don't think that was done sufficiently and i think that would have helped members of congress be more supportive of the action once it eventually took place. understandg that was not your decision. i just think that would have been a critical issue. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> let me add one sentence and that is the president actually did not make his final decision on what to dontil thursday night and so having the congress, having the leadership the congress the very next day to me was pretty prompt. >> i get that. what i was saying was we do not feel that it should wait until the final decision is made. there were a lot of things being discussed in the weeks leading up to this. we had gone to the u.n. in part to ask for the resolution that came down on thursday. we knew it was coming.

even before the white hoe knows what it's going to do there is benefit to bringing leadership in congress into the discussion in terms of building support. and i think that would have helped build more support in congress if we felt we knew the thinking process leading up to that decision. thank you, mr. chairman. >> and, again, one of the problems of consulting congress before a decision is made versus just telling us what is going to happen is probably, i think, what the ranking member is referring to and probably one of the things that would help with the support of congress. mr. barton? >> thank you. mr. secretary, i would like you to take my first question, you would, tofor the record because i know others will be needed tformulate an answer. under what circumstances would the president discuss with congress forces in libya and second, sir, if not for libya under what circumstances would the president request

authorization from congress to use military force in general? do you see the use of cia and u.s. special forces in libya as following the blueprint we used in afghanistan? >> first of all, w -- i can't speak to any cia activities but i will tell you the president has been quite clear in terms of the united stes military there will be no boots on the ground. >> in afghanistan we went into assist a well-organized group. we took sides in a civil war and joined the side that was going to win anyhow. in libya the only opposition group in recent history is the lifg, the libyan islamic fighting group, a radical faction that has been waging jihad against the gadhafi regime following the 9/11 attacks against the united states it was

banned worldwide by u.n. resolution 1267. it it is my understanding the lifg is aligned with aigm. in a call earlier this month "the new york times" noted libya is not a nation. there isn't any loyalty to libya. it is a collection of 140 different tribes. ch more like iraq. sir, are we now aiding and abetting the same organizations that we are fighting in afghanistan and iraq? >> to be honest, other than relevant handful of leaders, we don't have much visibility and to those who have risen against gadhafi but i think that in a way speaking of the quote/unquote opposition is a snomer because it is disparate

and very scattered. each of these towns that rose up in the west and where resistance has been quelled basically did so on their own and you didn't see people going from one town to the next to share in the fight and, frankly, that's one of the problems that those who have rebelled against gadhafi are facing, the lack of command and control and lack of organization. i would say there are multiple agendas, very disparate elements across the country engaged in this. at this point we don't have a lot of visibility into those. >> what visibility do we have? lifg is a major component of the opposition? >> i'm just not aware of. i just don't know. >> i know the premise is debatable but many people feel that this is an unconstitutional and illegal war, but i think

almost everybody agrees that the cost shouldn't be borne by taxpayers by increasing our $14 trillion debt or by raising taxes. and they shouldn't come out of the hide of the dod. that hide isretty thin now, sir. that's why i introduced a bill i know you're aware of that would make dod fy-11 accounts to have a list of specific recommendations of nonsecurity discretionary appropriations rescissions for fy-11 by july 2. this bill exempts fy-11 spending for dod as well as the departments of homeland security and veterans affairs. mr. secretary, the legislation requires that you report to the president no later than june 1 with estimates for total expenses in libya based upon expenses incurred thrgh may 15th, 2001. is this a reasonable time frame for you to assist congress in our effort to ensure the capability of our armed forces fighting in afghanistan and iraq are not degraded by the president's unconstitutional and

illegal war? >> first of all, i can tell that you our costs as of last monday were about $550 million. and in the new support role that we assumed today we expect the run rate, we estimate, that the run rate will be about $40 million a month. so i can give you that information now. >> is this a reasonable time for you to tell us what it will cost so that we can find -- the president can find the rescissions? >> i would have to consult with the white house on that. >> would you do that for the record, sir? >> yes, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you. mr. reyes? >> thank you, mrchairman. seetary and admiral, thank you for being here. we know you're working under very difficu circumstances. my questn deals along the same lines as mr. bartlett's.

we know it's been difficult to continue to operate with the budget process tied up in the continued resolution. so one of the concerns -- well, two questions. one concern is we probably are going to get a request for supplemental which will include bya and, if so, will that also include afghanistan and iraq for that? and the second question, there's a lot of concern that with the action now against libya that somehow we're going to have to readjust the commitment that we're making particularly in afghanistan. as you knw, i represt ft. bliss and there are a number of people that have expressed concerns that we're going to

somehow shift some of our assets can you address both supplemental and any potential for having to shift resources from particularly afghanistan? >> we will not be shifting resources from afghanistan. in fact, thanks to the cooperation of the congress, we are just in the process of sending about $600 million worth of additional isr to afghanistan and yesterday in a meeting i approved coming forward with an effort to try to reprogram about another $400 million worth of isr so we will be adding isr capability to afghanistan not taking it away and we don't a anticipate strike forces. there have been some electronic attack of aircraft that have been moved from iraq to the middle east but in a way we felt was not -- did not present any risk to our operations in iraq. in terms of how to pay for this,

there is a -- we are in discussions with the white house right now on thisnd i share your and mr. bartlett's view that it would be very difficult for the department to eat this cost out of the base budget. there is an overseas contingency operations bill here before the congress and my personal view -- i haven't coordinated this with the white house or omb but i think we ought to be able to find a way to deal with this in the framework of that bill without adding to the top line number of that bill. i would add, though, just in terms of my interests as secretary of defense and keeping this operati limited is, is the strain we have on our mi military and one of the things people haven't talked much

about, we have 19 ships and about 18,000 men and women in uniform helping on the japanese relief. there are going to be some costs associated with that, also, that are going to have to be taken care of. between these two operations, i would just make a final pitch for those who are contemplating deep cuts in the defense budget looking around the world at the commitments and the challenges we have. i think it bears a very careful consideration. >> thank you, mr. secretary. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for your work. >> thank you. mr. jones? >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. mr. secretary, admiral mullen. i must tell you from the last week the american people are so disenchanted, the people in the third district, that the president seemed to say to

congress you really aren't a fa factor in whether we do or do not, and i guess that can be debated and i'm not trying to get into that. i get so upset when i hear -- and, mr. secretary, i have great respect for you and secretary clinton on the interviews this weekend. when you say that we can't tell you when it's going to end, i understand that but, you know, there again, we're going to be in afghanistan four or five more years, maybe ten, i don't know. anyway, we're not a strong nation. we can't pay our own bills right now. i had three wives of marines in camp will lejeune called wonder about a shutdown. their husbands are overseas in afghanistan. they're worried about whether they're going to get a check. they have children at home. that's not really where i want to go. i want to put it where my people see it in my district.

this gadhafi is absolutely evil. and yet we take the lead on everything. i don't know where the other countries are. why in the world don't they take the lead on something? and, yes, admiral mullen, this will be a question for you and i have one for the secretary in just a second. if we now have nato in the lead, does that mean we can reduce our military involvement and reduce the spending of these tommy hawk missiles at a million dollars apiece? that would be my question to you. and, mr. secretary, under what circumstances as it relates to the president's decision to go into libya -- this is piggybacking to what mr. bartlett was asking -- but under what circumstances do you see -- would you see that a president should come to congress before he or she at some point in the future makes a decision like has been made about libya?

that the decision is, well, you know, okay, congress. we'll talk to your top leadership. we'll tell them what we're going to do and yet to the people's house there is no consultation at all. and i just think that the american people are just tired and fed up. so my question to you is under what circumstances would you believe that the president should come to congress and make a request for military use in lia? do you see any circumstances other than what's been done so far where a president -- i will take it away from mr. obama but a leader of this nation, when does the president understand that he has a responsibility to inform congress because, truthfully, we have been left out in the cold. so, admiral, i have my question to you, i belie. i have a question to mr. secretary. i made it clear enough and if

you would answer, i would appreciate it. >> the short answer with respect to our commitment is, yes, it will be significantly reduced literally starting today. we went in fairly heavy early but it was -- and actually it was in great part at the request from a leadership standpoint of our allies in europe originally. so you will see us come down fairly dramatically in the next few days and then sustained at a level of support in the areas the secretary has mentioned. the other thing that i would just mention briefly in terms of can ha confidence in nato, i have sat in this same room over many years and nato has been very badly berated because they wouldn't lead, they wouldn't contribute forces, they wouldn't do things that we would want them to do and we were carrying the load. in this case, it is actually the opposite. nato has taken the lead, done so

rapidly, essentially approved its own rules, if you will, and operational plans to execute this mission in record time. and nato has evolved like many of us but nato has evolved in ways where they are really contributing significant amount of capability in all four aspects of the mission, no-fly zone, civilian protection and humanitarian assistance. and i think they will continue to do that. >>he answer to your question is better provided by individual presidents, mr. jones, because they all make their own judgments on these matters. i think as you all are well aware there has not been a formal congressional declaration of war as far as i can recall since world war ii. there have been different kinds of resolutio, resolutions of support. presidents have sought them sometimes. congress has passed them without the request of presidents

sometimes. as secretary clinton has said, we obviously would welcome an action by the congress in supporof what the president has done. that would provide an opportunity for debate. but i think that it is -- the seeking of a resolution even short of a declaration o war depends very much on the specific circumstances involved and just to give you an example, i was asked in a senate hearing several years ago whether i thought congress -- if i thought the president had an obligation to come to the congress if he were to decide to use military action against eiran, and i sai i thought so. because i think the natur scope and duration of such a potential conflict would require

it it. so i think the bottom line answer to your questn is that's a judgment call that each president needs to make. >> thank you. mr. andrews? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary and mr. chairman. first, iope you would convey to the men and women underour command how proud we are of them, how grateful and how supptive. second, to each of you, particularly you, mr. secretary, thank you for providing a very artful example of candor and duty at the same time. we appreciate and admi the way you conduct yourself. mr. secretary, if you came to us for your posture hearing in february of next year and you reported to the committee that the strategic mission in libya had been a success, not just the military side but the entire strategic mission had been a

success, what would that look like? >> well, i think -- i think a policy success would be the removal of the gadhafi regime and at least the beginnings of the emergence of a more or less democratic government in tripoli. >> admiral mullen testified a few minutes ago that at present, i think i have this right, that the gadhafi forces still maintain a military capability superior to that of therebels. if that condition were to persist, and -- well, if that condition were to persist, what's the next strategic move on the military side that would be necessary to achieve that success that you just outlined? >> well, i think i can speak

with some confidence thathe president has no additional military who was in mind beyond what he has already authorized which is the support of the no-fly zone and the humanitarian missio so i think what the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some command and control andome organization. it's pretty much a pickup ball game at this point. and as i got a question yesterday in one of the briefings, the truth is in terms of providing that training, in assistance to them, frankly, there are many countries that can do that. that's not a unique capability for the uited stat. as far as i'm concerned somebody else should do thaadministratio has outlined a strategy that essentially goes like this, that

we'll us the military coalition to create the conditions under which economic and diplomatic and military efforts by the rebels can create success. there are two things that trouble many of us about this mission. the first is a constitutional issue about the way we made the decision to get here in the first place. that's really not your purview. the decision was made, and i think that's a discussion between the head of the executive branch and the congress. the second thing that troubles a lot of us is that, although we are hopeful that that strategy will succeed, that by setting those conditions, we will achieve the resu that you articuted and there will be a new government in tripoli that looks something like a democracy, our concern is what if it doesn't succeed? we don't want to speculate on

failure, because that's not a very smart thing to do, but i think there clearly is a concern that we need to have a plan b, and do you have any sense of what the plan b would be if this one doesn't work? >> well, i think that keeping the pressure on gadhafi is -- has merit and is a worthy objective on its own. one of the conditions that i think weighed on the president and on all of us was that with his military power and his money, that gadhafi's ability to disrupt the democratic transitions going on with both of his neighbors, tunisia and egypt, was considerable. and as his own people rose up against him and he began to suppress them, there were many, many foreign workers in libya

that felt themselves at risk. so there are over a million egyptia egyptians, for example, in libya, which isone reason why the libyan -- i mean the egyptian government frankly has been so cautious, because of the lives of thoseyptians. degradg his military capability, keeping him under pressure so he he cannot disrupt what's going on in tunisia and egypt, send waves to those countries, all of those things have merit d value on their own in my view. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. forbes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, if tomorrow, a foreign nation, intentionally, launched the tomahawk missile or its equivalent to new york city, would that be considered an act of war against the united states of america? >> probably so. >> then i assume the same result

would be true and the same laws would apply and the same reasoning would apply if we launched a tomahawk missile at another nation. is that also true? >> well, you're getting into constitutional law here. i'm no expert on it. >> mr. secrary, you're secretary of defense. you ought to be an expert on what's an act of war or not. if it's an act of war to launch a tomahawk missile at new york city, would it not be an act of war to launch that on another nation? >> presumably. >> a foreign leader recently made a statement, and i have a lot of respect for him. the whole world is in an earthquake and everything is shaking. the only thing that keeps you from shaking is the rule of law. many of us are concerned about that. i listened to some of the justifications for the rule of law here. i heard this word. this is okay because it's covered. there is nothing that's covered to change the rule of law. i heard we had a chance for

success. there's nothing that success does to change the rule of law. i heard this is a humanitarian crisis. that didn't change the rule of law. syria is in a humanitarian crisis, should they be scared to death we're going to bomb them tomorrow? i heard it's limited to scope and scale. a small war is okay and the big one is not. and then i heard it's okay to bomb the heck out of them as long as we say our goal is not regime change. mr. secretary, for the rule of law, we've got a very simple statute. the war powers act, which you said you were around when that was written. it doesn't require declaration of war. it requires one of three things. i know you're familiar with thembut i'm going to read them. it sayour forces should not be put into hostilities or imminent hostilities by the commander in chief unless one of three things happen, a declaration of war, specic statutory authorization

or a national emergency created by an attack on the united states or its forces. my question for you today is, which of those three things took place to justify this act, or if it didn't, is it the administration's position to the best of your knowledge, that they simply don't have to comply with the war powers act? >> it has been the position of every president since the warf powers act was passed that the kind of action that we have undertaken is compliant with law. >> mr. secretary, i would like to try one more time. could you just tell me which of those three provisions, a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization or a national emergency created by an attack on the youths united sta its forces was applicable? >> it has been the view of every president since the war of powers act was passed that the kind of action we're taking is complaint of the law. >> it's kind of like obscenity,

we know it when we see it. we can't put these actions in one of tho three categories, therefore the conclusion we have to reach is that the preside just feels that he doesn't have to comply with the war powers act and maybe that's what every single other president has felt as well, but i can just tell you in this shaking time, in the rule of law, it doesn't help us when we have these conclusions that the end justifies the means, and mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you. mrs. davis? >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you to both of you for being here. this is a difficult time, obviously. there are so many activities going on around the world. we appreciate the fact that you're there. mr. secretary, i think that we are all in a position of our words being used against us. in this case, i think the comment that you made about our national interest is one that i wanted to give you an opportunity to clarify, even

beyond the statement that you made in closing this morng. could you please do that and, i think respond to the fact that this was obviously, i think, a reluctant move on our behalf and wanted to give you both, perhaps, an opportunity to even respond to that. >> well, i think that what happens in libya is clearly in our interest. what happens in the middle east is of vital interest, and libya and what is going on inlibya, i think, has an impact on the rest of the region, and i think gadhafi, unrestrained, could have had a very negative effect on the democratic revolutions that are taking place across the region. i have -- i think it's also important to bear in mind that our allies, particularly britain

and france, but a number of others have come to our assistance in afghanistan. they have put up 50,000 troops, nearly 50,000 troops, because we felt afghanistan was in our vital interest. itain and france and our other allies clearly believe that what's going on i libya is a matter of vital interest for them, and so i think that one aspect of this that hasn't been touched on is that we are stepping up to help the same allies who have helped us in afghanistan. they have now taken over the lead of this. i think this is consistent with libya being in our interest, because of our allies' interest in it, but also the vital importance of the region as a whole. i thinone of the things that differentiates this. we've been dealing with gadhafi for over 40 years. i cannot recall a single instance in the last 40 years in which the arab league has called for action against one of their

own members. so you have the arab league. you have nato. you have the united nations all expressing the view that action needed to be taken against this guy, and i think that this is an area where the united state is now reseeding creeding to a supporting role, and i think that comports with our interests. >> i would only add, ma'am, that from the military perspective, it's not up to me or those of us in the military to dene our national interests. it is up to us to defend them. that's really what we do. >> i would not necsarily get into a what if gam but i also want you to, if you could respond, to the possibility that colonel gadhafi could comply with u.n. demands. i'm wonderinghether the administration would want to

accept the continued existence of his regime. >> i think that the political future in libya needs ultimately to be decid by the libyans themselves. the circumstances under which he would be allow ed to remain are hard for me to imagine, but there are conditions that the president has put down in terms of a cease fire, that would include him withdrawing from the cities that he has occupied, restoring the utilities and so on, and stopping killing his own people. everything that we've seen to this moment suggests that he's not in compliance with any of those things. >> is itossible that the rebels themselves would not respect a cease fire? that they would want to continue giving a scenario that we don't see today where there is strength behind that effort?

>> well, again, i just don't know the answer to that. i think that there are a lot of different diplomatic players involved, even now, with outreach from th the rebels and from various people in gadha gadhafi's camp, and what the outcome of those talks maybe. i just can't foresee at this point. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. miller? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, do you think it's time that there was some type of resolution, either judicial, i guess it would have to be judicial about this conflict on the war powers act between the legislature and the executive body? >> i'm not going to wade into that, mr. miller. that's up to the congress and up

to the president. >> did i hear you say that the president would appreciate a vote on a resolution of support from this congress on our nation's involvement i libya? >> that such a resolution would be welcome, yes. >> would you be willing to speculate what that vote would be? >> no, sir. >> could you or admiral mullen discuss our plans, if any, regarding arming the rebels? they seem to be getting their butts whipped. >> well, consistent with what the secretary said, we know few of their leaders but there's just a whole lot more we don't know. and so we certainly are looking at options from not doing it to doing it. there's a fairly standard way to

do this, to train and equip that we are familiar with, but i would also repeat what the secretary said. we're not the only ones that are familiar with this. there are plenty of countries who have the abili, the arms, the skillset to be able to do this. and so there is -- that's in significant discussion and debate right now, but heretofore, no decision has been made to do that. >> what would the effect be on current activities if we can't reach a budget resolution and this government were shut down? >> well, as i think we've indicated before to the committee, even under the continuing resolution, there are severe consequences already for the department of defense. there will essentially be no

military construction for fy-11. there are a number of acquisition programs. >> specifically libya. >> i'm sorry? >> specifically libya. we're not building anything in libya, i think. >> i misunderstood your question. >> if the government were to shut down, what would the effect be on the activities we are currently involved in in libya? >> my understanding of the law you is it would not impact any current military operations. >> why did the president notify congress, quickly, you said, the next day after he made the decision. what was his reasoning for notifying the congress? >> i think that it's consistent with the actions that i've seen of other presidents of wanting to inform the congress of the leadership of the reasons for his action and to solicit their support.

>> and did he get it? support? >> there was not, i would say there was, other than one member who raised the war powers act issue, there really wasn't much discussion. >> what support did he ask for from the congress? >> simply -- well, he wanted them to understand what he was doing, and that there would be public support from the congress. >> we don't understand what he's doing still. and i don't think he has the support of this congress, but that's my personal opinion. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. larsen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'll give you my assessment of a vote in congress. it would truly be bipartisan on the yeas and the nays. i think that's kind of where this house is right now. a lot of folks on different sides of this issue in both parties. the reason for this hearing is

to get a better idea, try to settle some of those thoughts folks are having. in the spirit of the social media revolution that set a this off in the middle east, i actually tweeted last night telling people that you were going to be here and asked for some questions from folks. i actually got a good one, good one back. it has to do with the opposition. it has to do with the idea that removal of gadhafi will likely be achieved over time through political and economic measures and by his own people, from your testimony, mr. secretary. a question that came back regarding that issue is how does a disparate operation that is multi-headed or in some respects leaderless, organize to defeat gadhafi without additional help beyond what's being provided right now? if the military mission is just to protect the civilian

population and to have -- enforce a no-fly zone, but you have this opposition thathas many heads and no leaders, how do they organize? so the specific question i have with regard to that is what specific steps are we taking to -- are we directing to organize these rebels so that we help that objective if that is one of the objectives in libya? >> well, again, as i said earlier, part of the challenge here is that the opposition is, or the rebels are so disparate and so scattered. the truth is that there was a certain point not too long ago when almost all the major cities in libya were in the middle of uprisings. and there's very little indication of much coordination

or contact among them. it was basically a spontaneous uprising in one city and town after another. in many of hem, they were able to either turn the gadhafi military or chase them out of town, so the notion that the libyan people can't do that, do th, i think is contradicted a bit by that earlier experience. as i said in response to another question, we really have very little insight into the very different pieces ofhis opposition and one of the things that obviously needs to happ is for there to be some unity, but frankly, among them, but frankly, we have little means of doing that at this point. >> and i think that's one of the concerns is that, does the rebellion have legs to it

without a lot more help? and so we go through this military mission and at the end of it, still get -- still don't get the payoff, if you will? >> well, i think the degradation of gadhafi's military over time does create the circumstances that make it easier for these people. i mean, we're blowing up his ammunition supplies. he can't replyrom a broad -- any of the things that have been lost, so it will be difficult for him to recuperate or to restore his military capabilities and over time, that will -- that should work to the advantage of those in opposition. >> it's my understanding that the military has yet to make a decision on whether or not to arm rebels, that is to sort of take advantage of the language of the u.n. resolution of 1973.

so given tha that there's a decision yet to be made whether you do it or not, can y at least provide, what are the three or four top criteria the administration would use to make that decision? >> well, we haven't really addressed this issue quite frankly up until this point. i would just share with you my view is this is something that a lot of other countries can do. one of the things that i think makes libya different in terms of what's going on there right now is that the united stateis in support of others, and others have been taking a much more aggressive stance in that respect, if you will. my view would be if there is that kind of resistance to the opposition, there are plenty of sources for it other than the united states.

>> thank you. mr. turner? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, admiral mullens for being here. i want to also acknowledge our men and women who are servi. we are also grateful to what they do to keep our country safe. mr. secretary, i want to thank you as others have for your cand candor, because you're answering me very difficult and uncomfortable questions honestly and directly, and i appreate that. >> i also want to associate myself with mr. forbes' comments concerning the approval process and the concern that the war powers act has not been complied with and i want to associate myself with mr. miller's comments that i do not believe that the only issue you're facing is an issue of lack of congressional approval. i think there is significant question as to whether or not you have congressional support. i canell you that i believe that if you placed a resolution on this floor today for a vote

for approv, that i doubt that it would pass. i certainly would not be voting for it. i would not be voting for it, mr. secretary, because of the answer you gave us with your candor of who it is that we're supporting. this mission is unclear and the goals are unclear because as your answer is when we ask who are the rebels. you say other than a handful, we don't have much visadvicvisibil you say we don't know. we don't know who they are, we don't know what their position is with the united states. we don't know what they'll do if they're successful. we don't know what form of government they'll pursue if success. we don't know their geopolitical position with their neighbors. many of us are concerned about erall what would be the outcome here and without us knowing the questions that

you've answered honestly and with kandser that we don't know, i think it's very difficult for anyone to say that they could believe that this outcome will be positive. on one of those outcomes i'm concerned about is what does it say from a policy basis. what does it say on a doctrine basis and what does it say on the region. can you please tell me how much consideration was given to the united states' effort for iranian nonproliferation initiatives when this decision was made to go into libya? >> the consideration to iranian -- >> nonproliferation initiatives, our ongoing efforts on iran with nuclear nonproliferation. >> i c tell you that i haven't heard a single question in this hearing or in the briing yesterday that wasn't debated

intensively during the administration's deliberations on this. so i think all of the ramifications of potential action were addressed. let me just add one more thing. we may not know much about the opposition. >> just a second, before you do that, i really am very interested in what considerations on the issues of iranian nuclear nonproliferation initiatives. you said everything was considered. what was it considered and how was it considered? >> i think the judgment was that it would have -- this action with respect to libya would have essentially no impact with respect to the iranian nuclear program. >> here's my concern. as you know, when we invaded iraq in 2003, libya had commenced a nuclear program and weapons of mass destruction program. as you know, they cooperated with the united states and tendered, delivered to us the assets of that program,

participated in inspections and had been cooperating with us on this issue. my concern is what does it say to iran at this time as they look to our action and whether or not this would harden their regime and put their regime on a faster paced effort for a nuclear weapons program. my view is that in terms of what they want to try to achieve in their nuclear pgram, they're going about as fast as they can. it's hard for me to imagine that regime being much harder than it already is. >> thank you. your comments about the rebels? >> what i wa going to say is we may not know much about the opposition or trebels. we know a lot about gadhafi. in 1983, after we received a number of clandestine reports indicating gadhafi wantedo

kill president reagan. we had the disco attack that killed 12 american men that led to the bombing of libya. this guyhas been a huge problem for the united states for a long time. the reason the arab league came together and the reason that the u.n. voted and the reason nato has supported this is not because they know a lot about the opposition, but because they know a lot about gadhafi. they know what gadhafi was not only going to do to his own people but his potential for disrupting everything going on in the middle east right now. i think in the eyes of many of the participants in this coalition, this was more a preventive action to keep gadhafi from pursuing his degradations as much as it was supporting the operation. >> thank you. ms. boldolo. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to welcome secretary gates and admiral mullen. at this time, mr. chairman, i wish to yield my time to the

gentle lady from hawaii, ms. hannah busan. >> the gentle lady is recognized for four minutes, 47 seconds. >> thank you. secretary gates, are you at liberty or do you know what it's going to cost us or what it has cost us to date, our actions in libya? >> yes. through last monday, it was about $550 million and going forward, in the reduced role that we will be playing we estimate the cost will be around $40 million a month. >> you also mentioned the cost of japan and the -- i think it was 19 ships we have deployed and 18,000 of our service personnel in the relief efforts and that it also had to come out of a budget. do you know how much that's costing us? >> no.

>> do you know if it's around the 500 some odd billion llars? >> it's significantly less than that. >> you also mentioned that you belie that the amounts would be covered out of the oko budget. is that correct? >> no. i said that was my opinion, that this is a matter still under consideration with the white house and omb. >> but it is going to be coming out of somewhere in the defense budget? >> that is -- i would expect that to be the case. >> if there's no supplemental, assume that, it would still come somewhere out of the defense budget we're dealing with today, correct? >> probably. >> we've -- >> but if there's no oko, we're also in big trouble in afghanistan d iraq. >> we also know that time and time again, members of the department of defense have come forward and said the cr is just preventing you from making any long term determination or planning. so i'm now very curious about if

it comes out of oco, would you be able to cover these costs? >> i think so, yes. >> so secretary gates, that causes somewhat of a problem, in the sense that if we are cutting the budget or if the crs have cut the budget as much as it can, i'm curious as to how you are going to now be able to accommodate a cost of 550 million and 40 million a month plus whatever japan may be costing us out of that oco budget that is supposed to already be cut pretty close to the bone. how are you going to do that? >> because there's several billion dollars in there that was moved around principally by the congress that we think we can recover that would cover these costs. >> when you say it was moved around by the congress, are you saying it's still within the budget itself? >> yes, but things that we don't need or want.

>>s we're looking for money, to say there's a couple billion dollars out there that you don't need or want that the congress is doin kind of leaves us to wonder where are they so if we have to cut, what are we going to cut? >> i think the congress has already done that with the oco. >> you said there's still several billion dollars you are going to be able to cut. it's not what you want and that's how you're going to fund this. >> i'm saying we could substitute these costs for other costs that are in the oco. >> what are those costs, secretary? >> i would have to get that for you for the record. >> i really would appreciate that, because i would like to know what that is. you also said and we've heard this constantly tha there will be no boots on the ground i terms of libya, that's correct, right? can you also tell me at this present time, do our "allies" or the nato forces

me? unified protecter. are there any boots on the ground at this time in libya? >> not that i'm aware of. >> so we're saying we're not going to put any boots on the ground but neither have our allies? >> that's my understanding. to tell you the truth, the opposition has said they don't want any. >> is there any attempt or do you know if there's any time in the future that there are going to be boots on the ground in libya? >>ot as long as i'm in this job. >> i know that's on our side, but do you know if the allies? >> on the allies, i have no idea. >> there's been no discussion as to when they would put boots on the ground, no >> i don't think so. >> under what conditions. it could be thou we're saying there's no boots on the ground, no one has any intention of putting boots on the ground. it may continue with the air strike. >> as i indicated, the bels themselves have saidhey don't want any. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. . kline?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, gentlemen. i want to sort of dig into this nato operation thing and see if we all agree and understand. we have a nato operation in afanistan right now. is that not correct? isn't that what we have? >> it's nato plus about another 21 or 22 noncontributing. >> exactly, but it's a nato operation and there ar other contributing nations, and we have a commander who happens to be an american in this case, general petraeus running that. he's got sort of an interesting chain of command. he's the central command. general mattis is involved in this, but it's essentially a nato operation. our nato partners there have caveats. i know, mr. secretary, in

hearing after hearing, we all felt your frustration as you went and talked to the nato allies in this nato operation d said, you know, you've got to get rid of some of these caveats. we got to get you out in the field, get y out of the wire and get you engaged and get you to contribute more. and as you said, admiral, we have other nations who are on our part in nato who are involv there. now we're involved in another nato operation. we've turned over control of nato as if that's like sobody else, other people, it's not us, but we're part of nato. we're supporting, in a supporting role here, but we're still part of nato. in this case, this operation has a canadian lieutenantgeneral who is commanding, but he's got a command structure and presumably it goes to admiral s staritis again. i'm hesitant to look at this as

though we've turned it over to somebody else. we're involved to a nato nation. the united states has a caveat that we won't put boots on the ground. i'm not being critical of that caveat. i'm trying to put this into context. it's a nato operation, it involves the united states as part of to. nato forces are involved in this. our u.s. forces have caveats on what we will and will not do. is that roughly correct? either one of you? >> i think, yes, sir, it is roughly, although the caveat issue, particularly with respect to isap, to a point that i don't even track them anymore because so many of them have been taken off the table by our nato allies. >> i understand. i don't mean to interrupt but i am on theclock. i do appreciate, and i'm sure the secretary appreciates a lot of the caveats have gone away and our nato allies areuch more engaged than they were when the secretary was sitting in front of this committee two,

three, fr, five years ago. i just want to get this in the context that they're different operations but they're both nato. our forces are involved. we're clearly heavily engaged in afghanistan, we have the fewest cave caveats, but we have forces here as well. when you say we've turned this over, that's a little misleading. we are still part of this operation. the nato operation doesn't mean it's some foreign operation. this is a command structure which we're not only a integral part of but we're the leaders of. >> i mean, we clearly are inlt gral to this, but what the secretary said and what i said is we really are in support here, so the staffs are much more integrated with nato, individuals from nato countries. >> but if i could, we're n supporting somebody else. we're part of this. we have a smaller role than we

had until this morning, but we're still part of a nato force. i want to put it in that context, because whoever's flying the planes that are releasing the munitions to destroy tanks and gadhafi forces and degrade his army and so forth, we're still part of that force. i want to -- i'm trying to get at the mission piece of this, and i'll not going to have any time to do this, very quickly, if you look at a city like sirte where you didn't have this humanitarian crisis, it's gadhafi's hometown, if the rebel forces move into sirte or trying to get into sirte and gadhafi's forces are trying to keep them out, is this part of the humanitarian role? what would be the justification for nato forces of which we're a part for striking gadhafi's forces there? >> i think the civilian

protection mission is dominant there. >> but gadhafi's forces aren't killing civilians. >> however, there has been also a privacy issue on no civilian casualties or absolutely minimizing them. that applies to nato as well as it did to us up to this point. >> thank you. ms. tsongas. >> thank you again for appearing with us and answering the many difficult questio that we continue to have. i think we were all very pleased that the president, in speaking to the american people clarified what his intentions were and what the rational was. i think also, we can feel good steps we're taking in bringing the international community and our arab partners into this process. as always, i think we've seen

how admirably our men and women in uniform have performed. i want to revisit the question of boots on the ground. i appreciate so much, secretary gates, your firm commitment in continued reiteration that that is not something you would find acceptable, and i myself want to take this opportunity to say that i could not under any circumstances support the deployment of u.s. ground forces to libya. but i worry th we have a stalemate on our hands and we are already seeing the limit of what can be done from the air. numerous reports have indicated that within the just past two or three weeks, that president obama has signed a covert finding which would authorize military aid to the libyan rebels. to me, thisignals that other options besides the current arms embargo, no-fly zone and air strikes are being left on the table. with two other wars as you both

have said and our armed forces nearly at the breaking point after a decade of combat, deployment of our ground forces into libya cannot be one of them. secretarygates, it's my understanding that admiral gortny, director of the joint staff, has indicated thathe united states believes it has the authority to put forces on the ground in libya. can you envision any scenario in which the rebel forces --ou've said they don't want us athis point, but a scenario in which they would request a presence of u.s. or coalition ground forces in libya and under what circumstances would we consider such a request? >> i assume there are conditions under which they would ask for it. i couldot imagine the circumstances under which the president would approve it. >> you think it's an absolute line in the sand, that u.s. troops boots would never be on e ground. >> thais certainly the way he has expressed it to the chairman and myself.

>> going forward as we transition to nato, and nato were to make a decision that it needed to put boots on the ground, wod there be a caveat in place that said no american soldiers could be used in that context? >> presumably. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. conway? >> thank you, gentlemen, for being here this morning. we don't know much about the rebels. what we do know about gadhafi's advisers, do we have any intelligence as to who his military advisers are and what their current status might be as to remaining loyal to him? seems the best way of him to come out of power if somebody close to him takes it out of his hands? do we have any intelligence to that effect? >> i think we have information about some of those in his inner circle, and but in terms of

their intentions, i think we don't have much. what we do have is the evidence of one of his intimates, his foreign minister. >> moususa kusa, right? >> who was in his circle and an encouraging sign. >> you sai there are other entities in the world that are capable of training and equipping gadhafi's rebel forces. iuspect the forces only want the equip part, not necessarily the training part, because that would require boots on the ground. comments this morning in the press at least one attempt to fire an rpg, they had it pointed in the wrong direction. apparently a lot of training needs to go on. since we don't know who the rebels are. you don't want to give weapons to someone who might misuse them somewhere else. if someone else decided to arm these rebels, what would our

position be with respect to that? >> well, we haven't -- >> what if it was al qaeda had decided to arm these guys? >> well, we would clearly have a problem with that. i mean, i honestly don't not answer to the question. >> personally, arming those guys is a bad idea, because we don't know who they are. we're doing is protecting civilians. do we need to arm every civilian in order to do that? to protect all the civilians? >> i don't know. >> we have had boots on the ground in libya. we had the two pilots come out of the air, and the search and rescue mission that is part of the unique capabilities. we will folks on the ground in libya from time to time if necessary in order to fulfill those missions. >> only for a search and rescue mission. >> but they will be there in harm's way to do that. >> very briefly.

>> admiral mullen, i hate saying these kind of things, but you made a brag earlier about the way the coalition was put together, the international community, the arab ague, you went quite extensive in that brag. it's odd we didn't have the time to solicit congress' intervention or help in that regard. again, that's folks on this side of the table whining about the process, but you did say that and i wanted to push back on that just a little bit. 40 years of a dictatorship doesn't create in place the kind of civilian mechanisms for running a country. if gadhafi does come out of power, tribal nature of the communities, what do you envision ttprocess, looking like since there is no organized military leadership in place and it doesn't appear to be anyone we know of on the civilian side. what really are the prospects for libya emerging from this

regime change in anything that's remotely orderly? >> well, i think that there are several alternative outcomes. one is that somebody from his military takes him out and then cuts a deal with the opposition, so that would be one scenario. another scenario would be the tribes abandon him, and then cut their own deals with each other. another alternative would be early our preferred option which would be that these opposition forces and the tribes come together and begin to create something that resembles a more democratic state that protects the rights of its peop. there are a number of diffent possible outcomes. >> do you see what would be r involvement under any of those he scenarios? >> well, i think our involvement, if asked, would

probably be the most likely under one in which they were moving toward a more democratic government. >> we don't have any influence or sway with the tribes. >> have we put any kind of metric in place which government we will support versus which one we will not? >> no. we haven't gone that far yet. >> thank you, mr. chairman. yield back. >> thank you. mrs. caster. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you gentlemen, very much for being here this morning. i would like you to give us an inventory of gadhafi's military forces and assets. take a step back. libya is a country of about 6.5 million. generally, if you take that 6.5

million, how much in the population are loyal to gadhafi an how many oppose the regime? >> let metake a shot at the second part and come back to the military piece. it goes to part of the discussion that just occurred. what we're seeing on the tribal side is actually, i would call it hedging. even iide tribes, even inside gadhafi's own tribe, there is a split on where this is going and i guess myexperience is, taking is to other countries, that's not uncommon. people kind of want to see how this is going to come out before they vote, particularly, if he is sustained and given his track record for killing as many of his own citizens as he possibly can. with respect to his military 15 to 20,000, he centers the most capable military on the 32nd brigade which one of his sons

commands. it is predominantly in the tripoli area although not exclusively. there's another brigade called the ninth brigade, so we have a feel for his center of gravity and his military capability. i indicated earlier, we have atrited a vast majority. >> you said 20 to 25%. >> 20 to 25% overall of his military capability. the vast majority of his air defenses are gone. >> inventory for us what his capabilities and fire power are in the air. >> he doesn't have much in the air left. we haven't seen any -- we've seen i think one plane fly since the no-fly zone was effectively in place which was very rapidly after the initial setting of that zone. he's got a significant amount of capability with respect to tanks, armored personnel carriers. >> do you know how many?

>> well, i would rather put it in roughly the ratio. he's about a ten to one ratio for him versus -- for the regime forces versus the opposition. he's got the mobility, he's got the training he's got command and control, communications a lot of which the opposition doesn't have. >> probably very little in the water? >> he's got some capability in the water but it's tied up. they know if they move, they're not going to move again. that message has been communicated to him. so most of his capability is ground capability. over time, that will continue to be able to be atrited, depending on where it is. i don't expect we would do that in town. that's the civilian casualty piece, but certainly in proximity as has been the case in the last few days. >> say over the past decade, where has gadhafi purchased his weapon tri?

if apparently his strength is in the tanks and land vehicles or even in the air, where has he purchased his capability? >> he's got an awful lot of former soviet union capability. >> any western countries you know of? >> i don't know. >> talk about the rebels' capability. you say they are disparate, lack control, how many militarily trained rebels would you estimate? >> the estimate is about a thousand that we have right now, but again, as the secretary said, that's our understanding, that's principally in the east and so we just don't know across the land how many would stand up at this point. >> you don't have a good feel for who would join the fight or who has joined the fight, how many you could put into that

resistance population. >> they are supplemented by a fair number of civilians who don't have a military background. >> right. do you know? can you say how many thousands or not? >> no. >> okay. thank you ve much. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. whitman? >> thank you, mr. chairman, secretary gates, admiral mullen. thank you so much for your service. i want to begin by stating what the obama administration has said. their effort is to persuade gadhafi to relinquish power. under that scenario, what happens if gadhafi stays in power? if he does, what's the contingency plan if he continues in tha role? >> i think we have considered the possibility of this being a stalemate and being a drawn out affair. it's hard for me to, unless there's some kind of a

significant change in behavior in terms of his own people and so on, it's hard for meto imagine circumstances in which we would be content to deal or tolerate a government that still had gadhafi at its head. i think, you know, it's hard to forecast what directions this business may take. but i think that the administration would have a hard time accepting a government with gadhafi as the head, in terms of dealing with it. >> so at this point though, there's no contingency plan if he does continue to remain in power? >> other than keeping the pressure on. >> okay. the administration has said too absolutely you're not going to deploy ground forces there. as we watched ten years of war in afghanistan and iraq and know that as we pursue operations there with precision strike and the use of air power, we talk

about that being used to prepare the battle space and that coordinated effort there. under that scenario, is it correct that we have nobody on the ground in libya in any way, shape or form, directing or coordinating these air strikes like we have used tactically in iraq and afghanistan? >> that's correct. >> are you satisfied with the effectiveness of that without us being able to direct those operations like we do in other theaters? >> the chairman is better able to speak to that than i am. i think tre's some loss with not having somebody on the ground, but i think that it's more than offset by the effectiveness of what we are doing and by not having anybody there. >> i want to talk a little bit too about the no-fly zone and looking at deployment of marine deployment there, and looking how the sixth fle is currely

being deployed. the u.n. security council 1973 requires inspection of all vess vessels and aircraft in route to and from libya, under th scenario, what role do you see the u.s. navy and the marine corps assumes those elements in 1973 and 1970? >> i would see it, again, nato's part of the mission nato has assumed is the arms embargo. we would certainly support it in terms of ships that would be under the nato chain of command to support that. i would also note that this particular resolution is the first one that i'm aware of that allows us to actually do this at sea, to board, whether we're invited or not. that's a significant upgrade, if you will, of being able to

enforce something like the arms embarg >> will that stretch our force capacity as far as our naval forces, especially with where we need them elsewhere with say in the fifth fleet and engaging the sixth need in an expanded role. >> no, sir. i don't think substantially in addition to focus on libya, this is a part of the world that also has significant amount of turmoil throughout it, so having a presence of naval capability there in the mediterranean, i think, is a wise decision. >> looking at these scenarios, it's great to have that ability tooard these vessels at sea. let's face it, there's also a contingency that some of them get ashore. what would be the u.s. role if we were to find that out, that under this resolution, there was a violation with these supplies going ashore? >> well, i think, i mean, i don't know if the implication of the question is would we go ashore. the answer would be no. i mean, it is, and this question

has come up a lot. it's zero boots on the ground, none, with respect to that. i actually have a reasonable amount of confidence from certainly the arms embargo standpoint tha we can enforce this in a way that is maybe not exactly perfect, but it's a very strong embargo that we might be -- i think we're going to be able to significantly impact his ability to break it, although that certainly is a possibility as well. >> thank you. mr. cooper? >> thank you, mr. chairman, secretary gates, admiral mullen, thank you for your service and above all, thanks to the troops. i have more of statement than a question, because my remarks have to deal with the congressional role in this process. i don't think it's been mentioned so far today that the senate, u.s. senate, on march 1, unanimously called for a no-fly zone over libya. the house di not have a similar

action. that's at least some sign of congressional involvement early on in this process. it's no secret this is a period of domestic tension in this country, politically, but it makes me yearn for the day that politics stopped at the water's edge and we could gather behind the commander in chief. there's a lot of discussion about the war powers act, from some members here. they're still unfamiliar with it. as you pointed out, mr. secretary, every single president, democrat or republican, has questioned the constitutionality of that act. if we d wanted to repair it, we've had years do so, but congss has not done that. there's a school of thought and the law that although the war powers act was intended to limit presidential power, it has in fact expanded it. yet we in congress have not amended that act since 1973. many people have wondered about the lack of