>> coming up next, the army chief of staff will talk about the u.s. army's future. after that, officials from the center for medicare and medicaid services will discuss health-care spending. 12:05, livet coverage of the virginia in not duration ceremony for governor elect terry mcauliffe. the firsteagan was sitting first lady to address the united nations and the first to address a nation in a joint appearance with the president. >> for my young friends, life can be great. not if you cannot see it. open your eyes to life. see it in the favorites coverage -- visit colors that god gave us as a precious gift to his children. enjoy life and make it count.

say yes to your life. when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no. >> first lady nancy reagan as our original series "first ladies" returns monday night at 9:00. on c-span and c-span 3. also on c-span radio and c-span.org. >> next, the army chief of staff is at the national press club. he recently spoke about the u.s. army's future. he covered a range of topics including budget cuts, sexual assaults in the military, and the u.s. role in afghanistan. he also talked about the situation in iraq, regarding al qaeda's influence in the region. what it could mean for u.s. combat troops.

>> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i am a reporter for bloomberg news and the president of the national press club. we are the world leading professional organization for journalists. we are committed to programming such as this, that foster free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club, please visit our website. to donate to programs offered to the public, please visit press.org\institute. on behalf of our members, i would like to welcome our speaker. our head speaker -- our head table includes guests of our speaker. i note that members of the general public are also attending. it is not a lack of journalistic

objectivity if you care applause. i would also like to welcome our audiences. you can follow the action on twitter. now it is time to introduce our head table guests. i asked each of you to stand briefly. son, the right, kurt jack washington correspondent. gene, reporter with the hexagon newsletter. jim michaels, military writer for usa today. the uniteder for states institute of peace. patrick, a reporter with defense daily. eeva, washington correspondent or the chicago tribune. alison fitzgerald, finance and investigative reporter at the center for public integrity and chairwoman of the national press

club committee. skipping over the speaker for a moment. eric, new systems specialist at the associated press. the committee member who organized today's event. -- jen, editor inside the army. carlo, a freelance defense and national security reporter. and thomas young, a retired air national guard. senior master sergeant. [applause] when our guest became the chief of staff act in 2011, his job was not too easy. he had served nearly 37 years.

he fought in desert storm as a key defender in operation or rack ephraim. he was the head of the campaign in iraq. saddam hussein was captured under his watch in 2003. not the home, he is fighting a war against sexual abuse in the army which has an army -- higher rate than other branches. in a message to army personnel he said, "the u.s. army is failing in its efforts to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment." the general has also said sequestration budget cutting is making the fight against sexual abuse harder than ever, from slowing hiring, not providing resolutions for victims. the tightening of washington's pocketbooks and higher than expected costs in afghanistan have added another dimension of difficulty for general odierno. even though the financial restraints are certainly being felt, his message to the soldiers was clear. he said, i just need you to stay focused on what you do to train, to sustain your equipment, to

develop leaders, to take care of our families. do the best you can with the resources we give you, he said. general odierno has stood by president obama's measures to shrink the size of the army by 80,000 troops by 2017 while working to increase its capabilities. a native of new jersey, general odierno is married to his high school sweetheart and they have three children. he holds degrees from west point, the naval war college, the army war college and north carolina state university. general odierno's son retired army captain, tony odierno, had his truck hit in southwest baghdad in 2004. tony is now secretary of the board of directors of the wounded warrior project. please join me in giving a warm national press club welcome to u.s. army chief of staff, general ray odierno, who will proceed straight to questions and answer, rather than a speech. \[applause]

>> well, thank you. it's an hob to be here. i thought it would be better during these times of lots of news that we'd go to questions and answers. just an initial opening comment that every day i'm extremely proud that i have the opportunity to represent the men and women of the united states army. 1.1 million in the national guard, u.s. army reserve and the active component. over the last 10 years, there's been over 15,000 awards of valor given out to u.s. army soldiers. nine medal of honors, almost 30 distinguished service costs, 600 silver stars and awards of valor because they did what we asked them to do, go and provide security over this great nation of ours. and it's important that we think of that as we move forward and look to the future and what are

our national security issues, what are the things that we have to be concerned with as a nation and what is the army's role in those national security issues. so i hope we'll have a good discussion on that today. we face many challenges, today, whether it be budgets and balancing our budget, reducing the debt and what's the right level of funding for our military. we face problems, social problems which was mentioned, such as sexual assault, sexual harassment. we are working the issues of suicide, the issues of taking care of our soldiers who have been wounded, both with physical and injuries and those that are nonvisible injuries. it is something we must stay focused on, not just today but for the foreseeable future, bull there are some soldiers who are impacted by this for many, many years. it's our responsibility to make sure that we continue to take care of them. so i hope -- it's an honor for

me to be here and i look forward to the discussions. so with that i'll turn it over for the first question. >> thank you. we do have a lot of ground to cover. let's start broadly since we're in a new year. what would you consider the most significant change we might see in the army in 2014, considering the new strategic environment and the shift from conflict to peace? >> thank you. so there's several things that you'll see in 2014. obviously at the end of 2014, we'll see a change as we come out of afghanistan. we're still waiting on the signing of the agreement. we call the b.s.a. with afghanistan and after that we'll make a decision on do we leave residual forces in afghanistan or not and that decision will be made in consultations with the joint chiefs and the commander in chief and with the commanders on the ground with that what that

says is, just a few years ago the army had over 250,000 soldiers deployed in iraq and afghanistan. the end of 2014 it will be much less number than that. so we'll be in the process of transitioning our force. so there is a couple of things, a rebalancing to the asia pacific which is the defense strategic guidance that we developed at the beginning of 2012. but in addition to that, it is also about us staying engaged regionally. and the army's pushing forth with the concept of regionally aligned forces whether it be in the asia region, africa, middle east, southern command, in order to provide them the resources necessary for them to do what their job is that is to prevent conflict, build security structures that allow us to be safe and continue to grow our economy as we move forward. allow us to help shape the

environment for the future. and then if necessary and as the last resort, be prepared to win if that's what we have to do in order to protect our own security. those are the things and the changes you'll begin to see in 2014, but this is a process in a will occur over the next five, six years. >> looking to iraq, with the seizures of parts of fallujah and ramadi, much of the work you have done has turned back in iraq. how do you feel about our role now in iraq as we watch what's going on over there and trying to figure out what's next? >> so first i would say, obviously it's disappointing to all of us to see the deterioration of the security inside of iraq. you know, i spent a lot of my life over there. from 2006, end of 2006 to september, 2010, i was there as we continued to reduce the level of violence and the sectarian violence was going on.

i believe we left it a place that is capable of going forward. we've seen it because of several political issues internal to iraq, that security situation is now devolved into my mind that is concerning. that is something to be cognizant of, what's going on in syria, what's going on in lebanon, what's going on inside iraq, and this sectarian potential building of sectarian conflict between sunni and shiia and the exploitation of that of nonstate actors such as al qaeda and other organizations who will try to take advantage of this. the biggest threat to our national security is this ungoverned territory becomes areas where we have terrorist organizations that become dom plant and then try to -- dominant and then try to export their terrorism outside of the middle east and into several other countries, including the united states.

so i think it's something we have to watch. i think it's something that we have to stay engaged with politically and it's important for us to make sure that people understand that we're concerned. and i think you'll see us as we move forward. >> can the u.s. keep al qaeda's expansion there at bay without having troops on the ground? >> well, we have to wait and see. we have trained security forces to do that. i think the first alternative is for the forces that are there that we have trained to execute that strategy. you know, one of the things that we did in iraq as well as what we're doing in afghanistan today is train about counterinsurgency and how you fight insurgencies. and i think what we have to do is continue to work with the iraqi army and others to ensure they understand the basic techniques of counterinsurgency. and so i think we continue to do that. we have a very small element on the ground that works in the

embassy, that has some expertise, that can continue to help in these areas. and i think it's important that we do that. it's also important that we continue to ensure that we stay involved diplomatically, which we are. as we work through. so we got to wait and see. i would say this is certainly not the time to put american troops on the ground. i think it's time for them to step up and see what they can to do. and we have to just wait and see and see if it becomes part of our national security interests to put people on the ground. but i think right now our goal is to let them take care of this problem. and we'll continue to work with them to try to solve this problem as we go forward, but it is dangerous. the thought of al qaeda getting on ungoverned territory is something we need to be very cognizant of. and as we continue to work with them as they conduct counterterrorist operations as well. and that's what we'll focus on as we move forward. >> you said we will not send troops back in iraq. could these seizures have been prevented, did the u.s. blow the

end game by removing all the troops when they did? >> well, i would just say -- i can be -- we can all be monday morning quarterbacks on this. the answer is i don't know what the answer is. what i do know is as i said earlier, we provided them an opportunity. when we departed in 2011, the levels of violence in iraq were the lowest they had been in a very, very, very long time. their economy was growing. they're exporting more oil. they had a political system in place that appeared to be working, but since those times, that political process has begun to deteriorate. their economy has actually continued to grow because they continue export more and more oil because they now have access to their oil fields. they have access to importing that oil. so it's important for us to try to assist them in getting that political process back on track. and part of that is making sure

that they understand all the different factions inside of iraq and we don't alienate factions. when we alienate factions you tend then to provide for opportunities of nonstate actors such as al qaeda and other terrorist elements to try to exploit that. i think that's the message that we'll continue to work as we move forward, that it's important to bring everybody into the political process, continue to improve economically and we can continue to assist them in understanding how you fight potential insurgencies. >> given the uncertainty in iraq, at this point, how do you answer questions from veterans and soldiers about the myriad of the time they spent there? there was a piece that was recently published by paul -- i am going to mispronounce his last name -- soldra, who questioned the service there titled "tell me again: why did my friends die in iraq?" what do you tell those people

thinking along those lines? >> first off, there's many of us who spent a lot of time in iraq. there's many of us who have personal sacrifices inside of iraq and afghanistan. the bottom line is, we raise our right hand in order to defend the constitution of the united states and when we do that we are prepared to go forward and do what is necessary as we're asked to do by our civilian leadership in order to provide security for this nation. that's what we did in iraq. at a time when it was believed we would go there our military went. we were prepared, we went. i believe we left it in a way that enabled it to move forward. we eliminated a ruthless dictator, which tend to forget about, an incredibly ruthless individual who i was there long and long and longer, the stories i was told by many different

iraqis to include their military were actually gruesome in the life they had to live inside of iraq under saddam hussein. i think you have to look at it under those viewpoints, we did our job, we left it in a way that is important. it is incredibly difficult for us to deal with the lives that were lost. no matter what the cause is. it's difficult to deal with lives lost in afghanistan. it's difficult to deal with lives lost in iraq. it's difficult to deal with lives lost in a car accident of a military member or a suicide of a military member, because we're brother and sister in arms and there's a relationship there that's built that you'll never forget. and so i can never explain properly to anybody when somebody gives their life, but the bottom line what i do know in each and every one of those cases, they raised and volunteered to be in the military because they're proud

to be part of the army. they were proud to do this mission. they were proud to be involved in that. and many of them died doing the things they wanted to do. and that's what i remember. i remember their service and their sacrifice and i remember that they dedicated themselves to something much greater than themselves personally. that's what the army's about and that's what i remember. even though i know it's very difficult as we look back at some of the sacrifices that were given. >> what sort of future do you see for iraq and besides the small staff left in the embassy, what sort of role do you see for the u.s. in that future? >> when i was over there and i used to have people come and visit me, i'd show a map of the middle east, and if you look at iraq, it is right in the center of the middle east. to the west is syria, jordan.

to the east is iran. to the south is kuwait, saudi arabia. to the north is turkey. it was -- it's in a strategic location inside of the middle east. it's a very important location. so for us in my mind it's an important country in the middle east. we are still allies and partners with iraq. we have to build on that partnership. we have to make it a partnership that allows us to build security in that region. and i think that's what we have to do. right now it's not -- it's disappointing what's going on. nobody's going to deny that. but again there's still potential. there's economic potential. i believe there's political potential and we have to continually work hard to help them to reach a state where they can be a good, strong partner of the united states in order for us to sustain the right level of stability. and i would be the first one to admit that today that's looking a bit shaky.

but we have to keep working very hard as we move forward. >> looking over to afghanistan as you prepare for troop withdrawal there, what lessons do you have from the iraq drawdown to apply to afghanistan? >> so i think even though we're very cognizant of the fact that afghanistan is very different culturally, very different security-wise, difference between iraq and afghanistan, there are some parallels that are important. one is i think we have -- the military, the afghan army, the afghan police today are showing signs that they are being very successful in handling the security situation. we turned almost completely over the security operation to them last year in april. they've gone through a very significant fighting season with the taliban and actually performed very, very well. they've proven they can do it. they've proven they have the

leadership to do it. the one thing we have left to do, though, we still have to help them in developing their institutions because it's about sustaining this for the long term. so we have to help them in developing the institutions that help them to sustain an army, through personnel policies, through sustainment policies, through developing leaders in their institutions because that's what makes it long lasting. and that's what we have to focus on now and that's why we're anxious and hopefully we can get the b.s.a. signed and talk about the residual force which their responsibility will be is developing the institution, is developing so it can be a long standing success story. and i think that's important that we do that and i'm hoping that that agreement will be signed so we're able to move forward with that. >> how prepared right now are afghan security forces to operate on their own, and what hurdles stand in the way of them being successful in that?

>> i kind of talked to some of that. i think they're very capable. the one thing they're not ready is enablers. what we talk about is some cases aviation support, logistical support, leadership development. those are the things that we need to help them with with the long-term sustainment of their military. what they've proven over the last 10 months is their ability to be aggressive, fight the enemy, to enlist -- continue to enlist soldiers even though they had casualties. we're seeing a broad success in their leadership at the tactical and operational level, but really what we have to do now, as i said earlier, build the institutions that allow them to sustain this over the long period of time. >> looking to the issue of sexual assault, which you mentioned in your opening remarks, what are the plans to

stop future sexual assaults in the army and should trials be taken outside of the military chain of command? >> so, you know, sexual assault is a complex problem that has to be dealt with on several different levels. first in my mind, there's a long-term issue of culture. it's a culture that frankly everybody understands it's simply not acceptable and it will not be tolerated. whether it be in the military or anywhere else. i'm concerned about the army. that will not be tolerated in the army. the best way tone sure that it's not tolerated is the chain of command's involvement in enforcing the standards and policies that we have today. that includes uniform code of

military justice. that defines how we discipline the force, how people around the world would tell you the army, the u.s. army and all of the military -- united states military is an incredibly disciplined force. that's one of our great strengths. our ability to train, our ability to execute and execute complex problems. we have to put that energy towards solving this problem. by taking away a tool that i think is incredibly effective to us which is the uniform code of military justice is a mistake. what we need to do is hold the leaders accountable who are not using the tools we have given them such as the uniform code of military justice to solve this problem. don't take the tool away. what we have to do is hold those accountable who aren't using the tool properly. the chain of command is the essence of who we are.

my experience tells me i trust the chain of command, i trust our commanders. that doesn't mean 100% of commanders are doing the right thing. and those who are not, we have to hold accountable. that's what we have to do. we have to make sure we are taking care of our victims, we are providing them the resources in order for them to move forward, that they don't become victims again and again and again. what i mean by that is not a victim of sexual assault but a victim of the process. and we have to put procedures in place that ensure that doesn't happen, that we have -- that we protect our victims, that we take care of our victims and the best way to do that is a strong chain of command. this is a problem throughout our society. it bothers me that in the u.s. army we should be the ones who can solve this problem.

we've dedicated ourselves and we'll continue to dedicate ourselves to this. we've had an increase in reports of sexual assault. i predicted that. i knew that was going to happen. because people are understanding now we're taking this seriously and many of the reports that have been increased are ones that happened five years ago, four years ago, six years ago. people are now understanding they can come forward. it's not perfect yet. we still have a long way to go. and the pressure we're getting is good. because that will help us continue to make sure that we stay on point to solve this problem. for me, as the chief of staff of the army, this is fundamental. as a soldier, it's -- we're supposed to have complete trust in each other. for us to be successful, we have to trust the person on our right and our left. it doesn't matter if it's a male or a female. it doesn't matter the color of your skin. it doesn't your religion. we have to be able to trust each other.

and as long as we have sexual assault, sexual harassment, that goes against the fabric of who we are. and that's the trust that we have to have to sustain ourselves. so we have to get after this problem. and we will continue to go after it as we move forward. it's also important because of talent. i want the best talent in the military. and in order to get the best talent, i got to create the environment that allows all of our soldiers to be able to maximize their potential. the number of female serving is growing, and we got to make sure that we create an environment that allows them to be successful, that they can maximize their potential so we can utilize their talent, so we can continue to be successful as a military and to me that's critical to us as we move forward.

>> you mentioned culture change in this area is necessary. to what extent does military culture where women historically was not equal to men contribute to the problem? >> well, there's lots of things that contribute to the culture problem. i remind everybody that we get people from all different backgrounds. when somebody comes into the army, we get people from different fiscal backgrounds. we get people from different family backgrounds. we get people from different religious backgrounds. we get people from different parts of the country. we get people -- we represent the united states. so what's important to us is as we bring them into the army, they have to understand, what are the norms of the army

culture. and we have to make sure that they start doing that from the day they step into the army that we have a different culture and that we're going to enforce -- we're going to enforce that culture. we're not going to tolerate those that don't. we're not there. but that's what's key. that's got to start from the time you come in until the day you leave. it really is in my mind about understanding that. because many people come from very -- you know, one of the things i learned when i came to the army, i was really naive. because i was very fortunate. when i grew up, i grew up, as i said, northern new jersey. i had a strong family. i had a mother and father. i had uncles, aunts. i had grandfather, grand -- who cared about me, who made sure they nurtured me, who set me on the right path of the moral and ethical values. not everybody comes from that background. i didn't -- it took me two or three years in the army to figure that out. because i was sheltered. you know, many of our young men and women who come in the army maybe has one parent, maybe has

no parents, maybe comes from dysfunctional backgrounds and we have to mold them into a force and a culture that allows them to succeed. we have many success stories that i could talk about, that people from those backgrounds today are very successful. but we now got to make sure we do that as a culture. my guess is -- i say this all the time when i go around talking. there's probably 10% of the army who believe women shouldn't be in the army. i want to identify them and tell them that's not the kind of person we need in our army today because that's not who our society is, that's not who our country represents. you always going to have that. but what you have to develop is a culture that doesn't tolerate that kind of an attitude. and that's what we have to work towards as we move forward. >> the defense department sexual assault response panel is holding two days of hearings

this week. why aren't those hearings open to the public and to the press? >> i don't know. [laughter] >> when you find out you can get back to us. [laughter] >> i'd ask that question to congress. i think they're holding the hearing. >> speaking of women in the military, the army and other services have been ordered to lift the ground combat exclusion for women. when do you expect the army will open ranger school and some other schools that remain closed to women? and when they do, will the curriculum or requirements for the courses change? >> so last year the secretary of defense, secretary panetta signed as order that says there's no more exclusion of females from any -- there's no restrictions on females serving in any duty assignments from all the services. as part of that, we are given a

period of time that i have to report back at the beginning of january of 2016, the end of 2015, i have to report back on how we're going to do that. so what we're doing -- what we're doing now is we are going through a very significant process on how we will integrate women into all m.o.s.'s within the army. we have taken outside expertise, inside expertise. we are developing common standards. and it's really basically three the four branches that are affected, artillery, engineers, armor and infantry in the army. and we are now developing those common standards and figuring out what they will be as we begin to integrate women into those m.o.s.'s and specialties.

by the end of 2015, i have to report out to say, yes, we'll integrate them in all those. i have to make an argument on why we shouldn't. we should be able to integrate by the end of 2015. the other thing we're looking at is we're looking at the initiatives it takes in order to set them up for success. how do we shape this in such a way where we just don't throw women into these jobs without the right preparation? and what i mean is not preparation of the individual but preparation of having the right leaders in place, having mentors in place, having an environment that allows them to be successful so we're doing work to study that. and as we moved down this process and as we open more positions to women, we'll review the schools that are open to women. but the one thing i'll say that i have been very adamant about is we will not reduce standards. the standards will remain the same. and all the women that i talk to

do not want the standards reduced. they want it to be standards based, and that's why we need to study this and get it right. so i think we're on the right path. we've opened up actually some artillery jobs that were not opened already this year to female officers and to female soldiers, and we'll begin to do that slowly over time as we work our way through this process. >> looking to spending challenges, can you comment on how sequestration, the shutdown last year and general partisan bickering have affected military readiness?

>> so there's several issues with sequestration. let me first talk about the shutdown. the impact of the shutdown frankly has been on the, in my mind, the morale of our civilian work force. who has been dedicated themselves to the army, to the navy, to the air force, to the department of defense for sometime because there's two things that happened based on sequestration. we had -- originally went from a 12-day to a six-day furlough. immediately after that we had a shutdown. so they have lost their confidence based on the security that they had. we got to regain that confidence in our civilian work force. and so that's one of the challenges we have in sequestration. let me talk a little bit broader about the readiness issues. so there's two issues with sequestration. first in my mind, from my

perspective, the upfront reductions that were part of sequestration made it impossible to properly manage in running the enterprise of the u.s. army, u.s. navy, u.s. air force and i'll talk about the army. you have got to remember our budget is based on really three major things. people, our ability to modernize ourselves, and our readiness, and there's lots of things under readiness. there's several things under modernization, capital investment and other things we do, and you have to keep those in the right balance. sequestration forces us to go right out of balance. because i can't take out people fast enough to get the dollars to put into readiness and modernization in order to keep that balance. and so what it's created in the army, we have about a three-year window, 2014, 2015, 2016 where we're really out of balance so our readiness and our

modernization will take a hit. we are taking out 20,000 a year. if i go higher than that, it costs me more to take them out and so we start reducing the savings that we're gaining from the people. so that's the dilemma that we have. so what it did is it impacted our readiness in 2013. now, the agreement that was made in december, the bipartisan budget agreement, helps us significantly in 2014. so it buys back, it gives us money to buy back some of the readiness. 2015 -- it's a lower number. but the problem is that's great for 2014, and i'm thankful for that, that we've gotten that money, but if we don't sustain it, we're going to go right back to where we were in terms of this problem between the balance of in-strength readiness and modernization. so we have to keep that. right now if we go to

sequestration, i can't get that in balance until about 2020. so what that does is, that gives us a period of about six years of vulnerability because of this imbalance that we have. and that's the struggle that we're having right now as we work our way through this. and that's my concern. now, i would just say on top of that as i believe the sequestration number is too low because i believe it doesn't allow us to do the things in this world as we watch it every day continues to have significant uncertainty. and the american people expect us to respond if something goes wrong and we will. but the cost will be is the soldiers that we send will not be ready like we want them to be or we might not be able to sustain an operation as long as we need to because we don't have the numbers. so up until 2020 it's a readiness issue, a modernization issue. past 2020 it's a size issue. are we big enough to do the missions that we'll be asked to

do? and i am a bit worried about that number in the end, especially in the army. >> for that end number, is the army trying to have its instrength at 420,000 given with the budget? >> so there's no decisions made on that. we'll continue to work that. what we have done is we have -- the army's going to move to 490,000 by the end of 2015 instead of 2017. the reason we sped that up is to better balance the readiness and modernization a bit quicker and that equals 20,000 a year that i talked about. as we -- as i stand here today we are at about -- we started at 570,000. we're about 527,000 or so. we'll be down to about 510,000

by the end of this year. by the end of 2015 we'll be down to 490,000. then we'll have to make decisions on where we go from there, and we are constantly working that internal right now to the building as we look at the resources that will be made available to us. >> the national guard is advocating for an expanded role saying it can provide combat troops at the fraction of a cost. general grass is our speaker at this podium in two days. what is your view of this proposal? >> for the army for many years now is structured to become complementary. what i mean by that you have a national guard that has a certain capability. the capabilities are not interchangeable.

there's a reason why the active component is more expensive. it brings you a higher level of readiness because they're full time. they are trained and ready to do things at a higher level because they spend every day focused on that. our national guard, who has done an incredible job in the last 10 years, trains 39 days a year. and that covers personnel training. so when you're talking about integrating organizationally, it's not interchangeable. so to say that the national guard's cheaper, they are going to replace the active component, it's not true. the active component cannot replace the national guard. they bring us a capability that allows us to operate in the states. they are complementary to each other. so it's about getting the right balance between the two. in the 2000's when we were involved with two wars in iraq and afghanistan, we increased the active component and the percentage of it was 51% in the active, 49% in the reserves which includes the national guard and u.s. army reserve.

as we get finished with our reductions, which are mostly almost all coming out of the active component, we will go to 54% in the reserve component and 46% in the active. we think that's about the right percentage that we need to go forward and meet our national security needs. so what that means is as we go forward, and we have to go lower than 490,000 in the active component, we will have to take a percentage out of the guard and reserve as we move forward. and we're still working on what those numbers are. but it's about keeping that right percentage, about 54% in the reserve, about 46% in the active and based on the analysis we've done, which is quite substantial, that gets us about the right level of active readiness. it also gives us the ability for the national guard to respond over longer periods of time. and it also allows the national guard to continue to be responsive within their own states. and we think that's about the

right balance. now, if we have to go to the lowest numbers, which is full sequestration, nobody agrees with those numbers. but that's based on the budget levels that we were given. and as i mentioned earlier, i think they might be a bit too low. it's not something that will happen tomorrow. this reduction will continue to happen between now through the end of this decade as we move forward. >> the proposed cuts to military pensions have been of course a lightning rod on both sides of that issue. tell us if you make the cuts that have been proposed to recent retirees who are not yet of retirement age, is that breaking a promise that was made to those people when they joined the military? >> so the issue of paying compensation is a big issue and

an important issue. i will not discuss specifically what was passed in the last bill. i'm going -- i want to talk about paying compensation in general terms. so the way i would describe this is that back in the late 1990's and 2000's there was a pay gap between those serving in the military and those with equivalent education levels, experience, etc., in our civilian sector. so everyone has worked very hard to close that gap. and i would argue in fact we have closed the gap. in fact in some cases you could argue we've exceeded that. so it's time for us to look at pay and compensation to make sure it's in line and something that can be sustainable. i believe that if we continue along the path that we're on that the cost of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines will be at such a level that we'll have to even reduce our in strength more because we can't afford

them. and so what we're trying to do now is do something that's reasonable. we're not cutting pay and benefits. we're trying to reduce the rate of growth of pay and benefits. and so we're looking at packages that allow us -- it's got to be a comprehensive package that allows us to do this. what i'm worried about is we can't be piecemealed because we have to worry about the impacts on our forces and is it enough to keep our all-volunteer force? we need to look at it as a total package. we're attempting to do that. we're still working our way through it. but it's something that -- you have to be very careful about how you do this, because what you don't want to do is under -- what you don't want to do is undercut the foundation of an all-volunteer army or volunteer navy or volunteer air force so

it could impact the significance of the future. it's something that has to be done in a comprehensive way and we're looking that as the joint chiefs, and our hope is to put together a package is one in a will sustain the all-volunteer army and be fair to our soldiers and families and retirees but look to the costs of the future. >> what do you think of chairman issa's proposal to link rolling back the cuts in military benefit increases to being able to end saturday delivery at the postal service? is it a wise move to link the future of army benefits with the future of the postal service? [laughter] >> i concern myself with what i just said. it's taking care of our soldiers and our families and our veterans and our retirees, and

my focus is on ensuring we do that properly. so, you know, i'm not -- i have not thought about being linked to anything else. what i'm worried about is making sure we have the right compensation packages for our men and women who serve and make sure that we're able to sustain an all-volunteer force. that enables us to sustain the level of national security that's necessary for our country. >> looking to asia, what is the army doing to support the defense strategic guidance call for a rebalance in the shift -- in the asia pacific region and what does that mean for other regions, especially the middle east? >> so what a lot of people don't realize is today as i stand here, we have about 80 -- somewhere between 84,000 and 88,000 soldiers assigned to the

pacific command. that's quite an investment that we have in the army. that's available to the pacific commander in order for him to prevent conflict, shape the environment within the pacific command. and we're doing that through a variety of ways. we're doing that through rotational presence. we're doing that from building partner capacity. we're doing that from building relationships throughout the region through several different exercises that we do on a regular basis, and we're going to continue to do that. what happened, though, in the years of the wars of iraq and afghanistan, many of those soldiers that were assigned to pacom were off in iraq and afghanistan. last year we stopped that so they are now back in the pacific region conducting these proper operations. that's our rebalance, as we call it. i mentioned quickly before about our concept of regional alignment of forces. what we'll do is those units that are assigned to our forces command which are most of the commands in the continental united states, they will then be

aligned to centcom. they will be aligned with africom and be aligned with other areas in order for them to be used in order to support those combatant -- we have about 28,000 soldiers in africa based on the concept. we have 45 soldiers who's been there now for several weeks at the embassy in sudan, providing security for the embassy. those are the kind of missions that we'll use that we have from the soldiers in the continental united states, using them in an expeditionary manner, to build security capabilities around the world. an example i'd like to use is about three or four weeks ago we deployed a 15-man platoon commanded by a female soldier to ethiopia to conduct training and humanitarian assistance in ethiopia. those are the kind of things that we'll do to continue to

support combatant commanders as we come out of -- we have rotational forces currently in the middle east. in various places in the middle east. we'll continue to support that as long as there's requirement from the combatant commands. we allow them to become experts in that region so they're better able to execute the missions that are given so we have significant soldiers assigned in the pacific which helps us with that rebalance. we'll use forces that are in the continental united states ford in order for us to engage in order for us to engage in very key areas such as north africa, such as places in the middle east which will enable us in order to continue to provide what's necessary for them to prevent conflict in the future. >> how do you resolve the conflict with marines related to the asia pacific? >> there is no conflict. i find this very interesting. this is a washington thing. it really is. this is a washington thing.

gosh. marines and army can't operate in the same -- we've been doing it in afghanistan and iraq for about 12 years. this is about utilizing every part of the services to accomplish the mission. this is not army versus marine corps. this is about us utilizing -- we have very distinct assets. they have very distinct assets. about using it available to the pacom commander to execute the mission. we don't based on the size. it's about responding in case we have to win in a war. that's what our size is based on. this is a washington thing. so this is not a competition between the marine corps and the army. this is about providing the capabilities that we each have to support the combatant commanders who are given their responsibility to maintain security around the world. >> can you comment on the deployment of a calvary brigade that was announced to korea

today? is that a temporary increase or just replacement of forward- based units? >> so what's going on is as we have -- as we're coming out of iraq and afghanistan, one of the decisions we made in the army is we are restructuring our brigade an combat teams. during the iraq and afghan wars, we went to two battalion brigades. i don't want to get too into the weeds here. we did that in order to meet our requirements in iraq and afghanistan. in the past we had three battalion brigades. through all the analysis we've done it allows us to do what we need to do. we have a two battalion brigade in korea this is rounding out this brigade to be a third battalion in the brigade like we're doing in the rest of the

army and we'll continue to rotate those units in and out of korea. so this is something we planned for a while. it's something that we're executing now. and it allows us then to make sure we're consistent as we apply the resources of our army not only in korea but in other places around the world. >> i want to be sure to talk a little bit about china before we run out of time. you've expressed your concern about cybersecurity threats from china and of course china has declared a new air defense identification zone. can you talk a little bit about your concerns there and what the army's role will be in addressing those two issues? >> what i'd like to do is talk about cyber in a more general aspect. i think it's an important topic. you know, how i -- cyber is -- cyber operations is important as we move forward.

in some cases you consider it a new form of maneuver. you know, what it is is it's relatively now inexpensive way to attempt to impact issues around the world. and i'm not going to point fingers at china, iran, russia or anybody else, but it's about a capability that people can now exploit in order to try to gain advantages. and from a military perspective, it's about how do we use that in order to -- how do we understand that to protect our networks, to protect our systems and how does that impact future warfare, because it is going to impact future warfare and we have to understand that. from a national issue, i'll just say this is about our ability to protect our financial networks, our infrastructure and it's an important issue and we have to recognize this is a new form of people attempting potentially to influence what's going on in the united states. so it's incumbent on us to improve our capability.

in the army we stood up an army cybercommand. we're reorganizing ourselves. we are going to stand up a cybercenter of excellence soon and we're doing this in order to create the capabilities and expertise to deal with this. we already have some significant capability, but we are going to expand it as we move forward. but as you know, as you're watching playing out every day, there's some very important and fundamental legal and policy issues that have to be worked through as we continue to deal with this new threat. and so for me that's probably the most important thing. in terms of the china and the establishment of a -- what they consider to be a sovereign fly zone to china, again, this is about us working and working through some very difficult issues in order for us to ensure

that we sustain a level of security that's necessary for us and in the best interest of our allies and in the best interest of building strong relationships with china so we main a level of security that allows economies to grow so in is something that we have to constantly work with them and constantly work with our other partners in the region as we work together. >> we are unfortunately almost out of time. but before asking one last question i got, just a couple of housekeeping matters. first, i'd like to remind you of our upcoming speakers. on january 9 we have general frank jay grass of the national guard. we'll follow up with some of your questions, i'm sure. and we have joseph boardman, the c.e.o. of amtrak. on january 15 we have christine

legard, the head of the i.m.f. secondly, i'd like to present you with our traditional national press club coffee mug. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> you never have too many coffee mugs. thank you very much. >> thank you. and one last question. we try to end on a light-hearted note. so i am told that you are a big new york giants fan. and that you -- >> that's not light-hearted. [laughter] >> eli manning preceded you a couple years ago as a national press club speaker. i want to know if you have any lessons learned from your army service, strategy, drone strikes, anything that can help that you can use as advice for the giants? >> well, first off, i actually am very close friends with tom coughlin, who is the coach, and i also had the opportunity to know and get to know very well eli manning. they have some work to do. [laughter] the only thing i'm positive up

is we did beat the redskins twice this year. i know that's not saying much but you got to live on whatever you got here. but what i'll say, i think actually we saw some great leadership by the leaders of the giants during very difficult times. they played hard right down to the last game even though they were out of it. i think that will help them as they move forward. that's the kind of spirit we have in our army as well. we'll continue to fight until the last possible minute in order to be successful. so i'm confident the giants will be successful next year. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, general, for coming today. i'd also like to thank our national press club staff, including our journalism institute and broadcast center for helping organize today's event. finally, here's a reminder, you can find more information about the national press club on our website at www.press.org. you can also find a copy of today's program on there. thank you.

we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

[indistinct conversations] >> it was announced early this morning that ariel sharon has died. he was in israel's 11th prime from 2001serving until 2006 before suffering a stroke that left him comatose.