northcom and norad. the guard has done in valuable service in defended the homeland and support to civil authorities. the air force had some tough decisions to make, tough choices that all the combat and commanders had in order to meet the significant budget reductions. what i do as a commander is put requirements on the table, and there is one to support civil authorities and one to defend the homeland. i trust the air force to beat that record with total force. loss of guard will be felt and they are a tremendous asset, and so it is part of the pain that all the commanders will feel as a result of this very important round of budget decisions. >> can you be more precise about it it will be a felt -- will be felt? >> we will be able to mitigate the loss. the loss of the two bases was within the capability of the norad commander and i can mitigate that. it was just sitting alert at that location. >> any other attacks -- defects that you have foreseen? >> no. >> that we go to sidebar, if i may. you answer

northcom and southcom or the primary entities to which the department of defense engages in the western hemisphere. the ability of criminal organizations to outgun civilian law enforcement and buy influence has meant that militaries have been asked to take on internal security responsibilities throughout the region. this expanded role for our neighbors' militaries provides opportunities for our military to improve its advise and assist acivitiy iey iey ies activities. we look forward to your continuing engagement in the hemisphere and respect for the military and respect for human rights. given horrific level of violence in mexico specifically related to the flow of money and guns from our country into mexico, you want to hear general jacoby's assessment of the security along and below our border and the two militaries to defeat the criminal organizations. the southcom includes caribbean and central and south america. general fraser as we discussed last week while there's no traditional military threat emanating f, southcom is contending with an increasingly and powerfule these criminal

northcom and southcom are the primary enemies through which the department of defense engages in the western hemisphere. the ability of transnational criminal on organizations to outgun civilian law enforcement and buy influence has meant that militaries have been asked to take on internal security responsibilities throughout the region. this expanded role for our neighbors' militaries provides opportunities for our military to improve its advise and atsz activities and to enhance our military-to-military relations. the committee looks forward to learning of your continued engagement in the hemisphere and the opportunities it presents for your commands including on matters such as respect for civilian control the military and respect for human rights. given the horrific level of violence in mexico, especially related to drug trafficking and the flow of money and guns from our country into mexico, we want to hear jacoby's assessment of the current situation along and below our boarder and the cooperation between our two militaries to help defeat the transnational criminal organization

let me also say, we had general jacoby here of northcom, he was talking about the importance and the kind of evolving arctic and one of the agreements they were working on, i think he was doing that day, as a matter of fact, between northcom and the coast guard to talk about and sign the agreement of a gaap analysis process and what we need. today you probably saw, maybe not, because you've been stuck here, the snow dragon, the icebreaker. sounds like an appropriate name. i can only imagine painted on it and all kind of things. they're moving up to the arctia. they see an advantage economically and militarily. can you give me your thoughts, first secretary and the admiral, what do you think of the arctic, are we prepared? i know you did an arctic study, are we prepared and if not, what do we need to do? >> senator, you accurately pointed out we released the arctic roadmap in 2009. and we are following that roadmap. both the cno and i have recently been to canada to talk to our canadian allies about what they're doing in the arctic, what we're doing in the arctic, how we can better co

you working with other agencies to to determine what roles and missions would be appropriate for northcom and norad with regard to the cyber security. >> chairman, we're working closely particularly with the good partners with the homeland security and also cyber com and strat com. >> we face a number of for many types of cyber activity from hackers to criminals to intrusions to steal intellectual properties and secrets to also the possibility at least of an attack that could interrupt or damage or destroy our infrastructure, be the infrastructure. they told you that the most strategic are the toing distinguishes 2009 seesher espinage intrusions and providing timely warning of cyber threats and incidents. now, are you involved in an effort to distinguish between these various types of cyber activity in order to determine whether and when our nation is under a cyber attack and to provide timely warning of such an attack. can you give us a status report as to where those discussions are, hoe clous are we to reaching criteria to make that kind of distinction? >> xharm, these are important su

northcom 395 leading edsall road to get to the pentagon looks typical.he weather center. >> before that, i want to share a little video. i had the opportunity to sit down with first graders at martin luther king elementary in southeast. waht a billion -- what a brilliant group of 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds. we talked about women that they are inspired by and we talked about history. i was going to read about rosa parks, but they already knew the details. i figured i would not waste their time. before i left, each one of them gave me a hug and thank me for coming. it was precious. a lot of fun. >> good for them. we had a little bit of everything in the last 24 hours. >> that is the duty of spring in washington. december tours always go up and down. we are on the downswing. we will be back on the upswing by sunday. a few areas of light rain right now just leaving our region. otherwise, cloudy. that will be clearing out. we will have a lot of sunshine but cooler than yesterday. 50's this afternoon. it's cloudy over the bay at chesapeake beach. in the 50's

we're most interested to learn about how are northcom and norad might contribute to cyber security in the home land. it was part of the mission, nor the command must work with other federal agencies, particularly the homeland -- department the homeland security. this requires close coordination with the state governors, the national guard forces to improve their combined federal and state response capabilities to a wide variety of emergencies. we made significant progress on this from last year with several of initiatives including the new dual status command capability, which is intended to allow state and federal military forces to work together to support a gov.'s needs for disaster assistance. as part of this effort, congress authorized legislation to permit the call up of federal military reserve forces to support gov.'s responding to a natural disaster. we would be interested in hearing the general's views on how these new initiatives are working and how they will work. as part of its homeland defense mission, northern command is also a combatant commanders possible for the oper