Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Fiscal Year 2009 Defense Authorization Request, Future Years Defense Program, and Fiscal Year 2009 Request for Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

Interview

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SEN. E. BENJAMIN NELSON (D-NE): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And let me add my appreciation to your service and to -- particularly for the candor that you've been able to express in your position, Mr. Secretary. And Admiral Mullen, as you continue in your role, I know you're going to give us your best estimate on what we need to do to keep our country safe in the midst of growing concerns and different kinds of challenges.

Mr. Secretary, I dropped a letter your way today about the budget. And my concern is the concern that was raised initially and one that you've responded to. I understand the difference between precision and accuracy. I don't know why they have to be at odds, as far as they are, in terms of the numbers. And my concern is that we continue to bring together our desire for precision and getting it right accurately as well, so that the distance between the bid and the ask isn't quite so great, because it makes it very difficult to have anything back here called a budget.

And I don't know if I coined this word but we came up with it in office; it looks like a budget, is now a fudge-it. There's fudging in it, just because you don't know certain things. But I think we need to narrow down those differences as much as we possibly can. I know you told us that you were going to try to do that.

The system here is broken, and it's not your fault, but it is an opportunity for you to try to help us fix it, so that we don't go through the rest of this decade with a broken system to be inherited by the next administration. It just isn't going to enable us to get something that we can deal with.

And on high technology, let me say that I really think that whether it's asymmetrical war or whether it's cyber concerns, that we have to be not only in a defensive posture, clearly we have to be able to defend what we have -- if we lose our high-tech capability, you're right, we better have some low-tech response capability to be able to deal with that -- but I also hope that we're in a position where we're not bragging but making the world aware we have the ability to be on the offense on this as well.

If the rest of the world understands that we can take out their, assuming we can, we can take out their cybercapabilities, perhaps we can ultimately agree to certain things and reduce that risk to both sides, so that we don't continue to face the uncertainty of what high- tech cyberwar might look like.

What I'd like to do is go, just for a minute, on to Pakistan, military aid funding. I've been watching the media reports: the coalition support funds, the CSF, and foreign military financing aid that have been provided to the government of Pakistan. And it seems to, according to the reports, this funding seems to have been used for means other than to fight al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Waziristan.

According to a New York Times article on December the 24th, quote, "Military officials believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not al Qaeda or the Taliban, the official said," the end of the quote. In another article from the LA Times on November the 1st, they also talk about the billions of dollars that have been made in U.S. military payments over the last six years, but raising the question as to where those dollars have gone.

So my first question is, are U.S. funds being used effectively, and appropriately as well, by the Pakistani government in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban?

SEC. GATES: Based on the information that's available to me, Senator, I think they are. They have, the funds have been used to help support, I think, something like 90 Pakistani army operations, to help keep about 100,000 troops in the field in the Northwest.

We have a process where the Pakistanis come to the embassy when they have an operation that they're going to perform. The embassy has to validate that it is in support of U.S. military and security objectives. It is then reviewed by Central Command, that not only further validates whether it's a legitimate military operation but also whether the cost is reasonable. And then it's finally reviewed and approved by Ms. Jonas here.

They have made airfields and seaports available to us. Half the material going into Afghanistan goes on Pakistani roads, convoys that are protected and so on. But as to some of the specifics, maybe I could ask Ms. Jonas to respond.

MS. JONAS: Senator Nelson, I would just like you to know that I often talk to the IG on this. And when the program was initially set up, we set it up in conjunction with them. And he's looking at the program also to see if we can, if there are any management reviews that we can, or additional things that we can tighten up.

I will tell you that my office in particular spends a lot of time testing the reasonableness of the costs, and there are plenty of things that we would turn down as well.

But we do rely on the field to tell us and to CENTCOM as to how that is supporting the objective.

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Would that involve trying to decide not simply whether the use is appropriate but are we getting results from it as well? Because I think that's the concern I have. How much do we need to provide to get the results that we are hoping for? And that is to avoid having the buildup in Waziristan and in the border -- the non-border area where you've got a reconstituting going -- reconstitution of the Taliban and the expansion and redevelopment of the -- of al Qaeda.

So even if the money is being spent appropriately, under the way in which it's been designated, are we getting the bang for the buck that we really ought to be getting? And if we're not, is it because it's not enough, or it is because it's not being used -- while appropriately, not in the most effective manner possible to get the results we're after?

MS. JONAS: Well, sir --

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Do we ask those kinds of questions, or do we just go through -- I don't mean to be pejorative here, but go through and check the boxes to see that it's done appropriately, but what about effectively?

MS. JONAS: Well, certainly that would be the responsibility of Admiral Fallon and CENTCOM, to judge that, along with the field.

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Well, if that's the case --

ADM. MULLEN: Senator Nelson --

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Yes, Admiral?

ADM. MULLEN: -- if I may, I know -- Admiral Fallon and I have specifically talked about this. I know he's a -- he has addressed it with the leadership.

To the secretary's point, there has been a tremendous investment, and we think generally it has flown in the right direction.

Your question about results or output or effects, I think, is a very valid question, particularly at a time, as was pointed out earlier, the threat seems to be both expanding as well as turning inward. We know that General Kiyani, who heads their army now, is -- and we all think is a very, very -- a great leader and has the right focus; it's going to take him a while to get the focus where it needs to go; it's going to take him years to get at this as well; and that our continued support is really important.

To the level of detail that -- where these dollars are going, I think it's -- it is a great question to look at from the standpoint of the effects. What we've seen from here, that's the case.

Admiral Fallon is asking the same questions, and I know they are in the field. And I would hope that we would have detailed or -- answers to that down the road that would answer that, that could put your concerns at ease.

SEC. GATES: Senator, maybe we could ask Admiral Fallon to do a report for the committee for the record on his view of the effectiveness of this investment.

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Well, because if it's an investment and let's say it's effective, to a certain level, would we -- I suppose I'd like to ask the question, if we doubled the money, would we get triple the results? I think, you know, there are certain kinds of questions you ask about a program like that. And when we don't seem to be getting where we want to be and they're reconstituting themselves and they're gaining strength in certain areas, we have to ask the question, if we always what we've always done, we'll always get what we always got. I think we need to break that and take a look at how we move forward to get the results we're after. If it's money, then we need to address that. If it's commitment, we need to address that. I'm not talking about our commitment, but I'm talking about the commitment of the other government.

And the other question, which I hope to find out, is what do our friends in Delhi think is being done with this money, because there are also reports that they're concerned that a lot of the money that we're giving that's supposed into Waziristan is just simply being used to build up the military strength of the Pakistan military to -- on the border of India.

So there are a lot of issues here, and I hope that we could get from Admiral Fallon a pretty detailed explanation of that. Also with -- if he had his druthers and an open checkbook and an open opportunity, what would he ask for?

SEC. GATES: I think one of the concerns that we're dealing with right now is there's a -- I think it's quite a bit of sensitivity in Pakistan to the American footprint and presence in Pakistan, particularly an American military presence, and I have said publicly that we are ready, willing and able to help the Pakistani army should they need help in training for the new kind of mission and so on. They're very proud. They have a long history of sort of being representative of the nation, and I think until -- just further to Admiral Mullen's point -- until General Kiyani sort of gets on top of the whole situation and what their needs are, I think we're kind of in a stand-by mode at this point, other than this program

SEN. BENJAMIN NELSON: Well, the two wars costing us, what, $12 to $16 billion at a pretty fast clip. One wonders what some of that money diverted to a stronger presence to attack Waziristan might get us and be cost savings in the long term, plus less threat -- now my time's -- less threat to our troops if we were able to bring down the pressure there in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

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