Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Senior Command Nominations

Interview

Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Senior Command Nominations

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SEN. WARNER: Thank you, General.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say much of my statement will go in the record. I'm not too strong a voice here this morning. But I recognize 100 years of service to America in uniform before us, and we're fortunate in this country to have individuals, together with their families, that provide this dedication. It's the very foundation of our national security. The men and women who proudly wear their arms -- uniforms -- and their families.

General McKiernan, we had a very excellent consultation when you visited my office. We've visited together, previous assignments you've had. In fact, Senator Levin and I visited you at one of our trips to Kuwait and the Iraqi situation.

Now, in Afghanistan, General, as I talked with you, there is the problem of course of the force levels. The president -- to his great credit, I think -- the president of France is announcing today an augmentation of forces. Two battalions of Marines are going over as a consequence of the shortfall of other nations in their force levels. That was directly testified to before this Committee here not long ago in another hearing.

But this growing concern about the Taliban's resurgence and the presence of cross-border sanctuaries in Pakistan, and the easy access that the insurgents have to cross various parts of that border and severely complicate the ability not only to protect our forces, but to conduct the campaigns over there to return to the people of Afghanistan this country.

I also addressed with you the question of narcotics, related to our distinguished chairman. I have spent a great deal of time in the past couple of months on this subject. I have been -- had the opportunity to consult with prime ministers, ambassadors, a lot of senior officers of our uniformed forces, and junior officers.

And what concerns me is that each year this level of narcotics has gone up. Now, that's hardly the image, the picture, a benchmark of achievement that our forces, together with the other NATO and other combatant forces want to send to the world. We went there to enable that country to reestablish itself, to have a democracy.

But my most severe concern is that the increase each year allows increases in money that is drained off of that from the farmer's field to the ultimate destination of those drugs. Those monies are providing arms. The Taliban and other insurgent groups are able to take their cut and buy arms and use those weapons against our forces.

And there's not any of us in this room who haven't gone to the funerals of our brave men and women who've lost their lives, others who are wounded. And when we try to comfort them, I find it particularly difficult with this Afghani situation. When I say to myself, this soldier could well have lost his life, his limb, as a consequence of weaponry directed at him and paid for out of this drug trade.

Now, I wrote the president a letter -- I don't intend to release it, certainly, at this time -- urging that at this ongoing NATO conference that he ensure that that is becoming a top-level agenda item. I will soon find out whether in fact that letter, or without that letter, those NATO heads of state and government address this problem. I think it's unconscionable, not only for the United States, but for all governments involved in this Afghani operation not to address full-level attention to it.

It's primarily a problem that should be confronted by the Karzai government. I understand that there has been a battalion established, in training, to work on this problem at this time. But that should have been done years ago. And I urge you, General McKiernan, as you take up your responsibilities, to unrelentlessly (sic) bring this to the attention of your superiors and -- civilian -- wherever they may be.

The national caveat issue I think is a subject at the NATO conference. Let's see what is provided, because that -- it puts an instability in the command and control of these forces, where it is well recognized and known that certain nations do not have them, and they're undertaking the majority of the high-risk operations.

And to me, it conveys a completely inaccurate image of NATO and its ability to do out-of-area operations. If some forces are going to be responsible for the heavy lifting and others to do whatever their countries permit them to do.

I commend Secretary Gates.

I think he's one of the finest secretaries of Defense we've ever had. I've had the privilege of working with and known almost a dozen now, and I'd put him at the very top in the way he has stood up for his forces and the principles for which we're fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

General Jim Jones, the former NATO supreme allied commander and commandant of the United States Marine Corps; Ambassador Thomas Pickering of the Afghan Study Group, sponsored by this distinguished organization, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, under the direction of David Abshire.

They published reports on these questions, and I'm going to quote General Jones' report. Quote: "Make no mistake. NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," end quote. I hope you have the opportunity to review those reports. They're very clear in the concerns that they have.

I've also, Mr. Chairman, had the privilege of meeting with the ambassador from Denmark and others connected with that country, and I want to say for the record here today, Denmark has more than 600 troops in southern Afghanistan, standing side-by-side with the British in one of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan.

Again, Secretary Gates went by on his way to this NATO conference and visited the country of Denmark. He singled it out because it's a small country, but those forces are an integral part of the fighting force. They are there with no caveats. And unfortunately, some have mixed them in with that group of nations which have caveats.

But let's make it clear in our record today, as Secretary Gates said, and I quote him, "This is an ally who, in my opinion, is really punching above its weight. And I want to visit and basically thank them for that," end quote.

So General McKiernan, we wish you more than good luck. But your distinguished career ably qualifies you to take on this responsibility and to move it towards the achievement of our goals, and part of that will be (certainly ?) the commencement of a significant lessening of the drug trade. It's not going to go away overnight, but it's been raising in -- production every single year for the last four years.

General Odierno, we've had the opportunity, Senator Levin and I, to visit you many times. I remember, on my first trip, you were in the room. At that time you didn't have quite as many stars as you have now, and you were among the general officers who were in the back row. But I remember your impressive statements to us at that time. It's funny how you can remember those days to this day.

Your career has won the hearts and minds of the soldiers and the families that you've been associated with these many years, and you will join the chief of staff of the Army in this challenging task of rebuilding our Army.

I'd like to say at this time, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I think General Cody has done a fine job. One of the things I admire about Cody, he grabs that telephone -- certainly in the six years I was chairman -- and he rifles through his message without hesitation. I hope we'll follow on that same way.

All the members of this Committee -- and I think, throughout the Congress, other members -- are very conscious of the need to put a lot of emphasis on rebuilding this Army, to do what we can to see that our forces who are deployed not only have all the equipment they have, but have some certainty as to the time of that commitment they'll be overseas.

And while you may not be able to speak with specificity this morning, I did hear the chairman of the Joint Chiefs last night state that in his professional judgment we monitor daily the situation over there, but thus far the turbulence that we've experienced -- I say "we;" all the Afghan fighting forces -- experienced here in the past month or so in the Basra region. That's going to change the schedule to bring back those brigades and take it down to 15 in July.

Now, he had to leave the door open, as any prudent chairman would and I'm sure you would. But I hope we can achieve that and simultaneously with achieving that, I hope we can go from the 15-month tour to the 12-month tour and a -- (practically ?), a slightly larger period of time than 12 months back at home in the retraining and spending some time with the families.

Mr. Chairman, I will close out here with a comment or two about General Sharp. I've had the privilege of visiting with him, and you're taking on an interesting job in an area which I spent a little time as a youngster many years ago, at age 22. It's still as cold over there today as it was when I was there, and I expressed that to your lovely wife.

But what troubles me about that situation over there is that we've been working -- my God, I left there in 1953 -- now I can't add up the -- (inaudible) -- but it's been a half a century that our forces have been in there. We went in there in '50. I left in '52. A half-century plus. And yet we still cannot get their command and control, their training -- the South Korean forces -- up to a level where they can take operational control.

As I told you, the latest estimate is 2012. 2012. That's 62 years, if you add it up from the date that we went into South Korea to help liberate that country. I find that unacceptable, and I hope that perhaps you, together with our diplomatic representatives over there can shorten that time and let them get on with it.

Because the people of our country, while we are ready to make the sacrifices to help others achieve their freedom and stability, certainly South Korea has an enormous economic stability. It ranks in the top 10 nations of the world in terms of their GNP. And they ought to be able to have a commensurate military establishment to support the growth and progress of that country.

I hope that -- I hope you'll accept my comments this morning as a challenge to work on reducing that date down from 2012.

I thank the chair and the indulgence of members, because I chatted a few minutes here

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SEN. WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General McKiernan, when I look back on the history of the United States' participation in terms of operating as a part of a coalition force, we certainly did it in France, we did it in World War II, did it in Korea, as a matter of fact. NATO evolved out of that concept of coalition forces operating together. And it took a long time for NATO to realize that it had to expand its authority to what we term out-of- area operations. And you know the history of that as well as I do. Europe has certainly an imperative period of stability that enabled NATO to take on these out-of-area.

First was the Balkans. And I believe on the whole that the record of NATO's performance there was quite good and continues to some extent. But this question in Afghanistan has not worked as we had all hoped. And I'm wondering if you would join me in saying that if we do not succeed, I don't call it winning and victory and things like that, but just succeed with the basic goals of enabling the Afghan government to establish a democratic form of government, they have it in framework now, and they're trying to work the pieces together. As a matter of fact, in my last trip over there, they just finished putting the legislature together. I remember President Karzai grumbling about the insubordinate members of their legislature.

Do you recall that, Senator?

SEN. LEVIN: I do. It reminded me of home.

SEN. WARNER: Yes. Yes, it did. But I fear that if NATO does not enable this country to succeed its goals that the commitment of the nations of the world to continue NATO will be truly tested. Or to put it in a blunt way, this could end up with the demise of NATO as we have known it these many years, half a century. Where do you rank the seriousness of the attaining the goals in Afghanistan in relation to the continuation of NATO?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Well, first of all, I share you sentiments. I think that the success of the NATO mission of ISAF in Afghanistan is directly linked really to the relevancy of NATO as a global security means in the 21st century. As you know, sir, I served in the NATO headquarters in the early days in the Balkans. And I think NATO was successful and continues to be successful in the Balkans, specifically Kosovo, today.

I think there is certainly the capacity and the capability for NATO to succeed in Afghanistan. However, there is a question of will in terms of getting all the right contributions so that we build the right capacity to execute the mission.

SEN. WARNER: And I would go so far as to say that that will which you properly and carefully pointed out is not among the uniformed persons of NATO. It, frankly, resides in the several governments that train, equip and send those troops to NATO. And I'm not about to open up all the chapters of European history, but, frankly, their legislatures, the heads of state and government of many of the European nations simply are not able. They may well have the will, the heads of those governments, but the legislatures, for whatever reason, are not giving those heads of state and government the type of support they need.

But I think, from time to time, some of us have to sound the alarm, because while NATO is the most extraordinary and the most successful military alliance in the history of mankind, in my judgment, there could well be a reexamination of the very significant participation, about 25 percent, of this nation in NATO.

I can remember, and I'm sure the chairman can remember, if you'll listen to what I'm saying here, when we were young senators, I can recall going to the floor to defend NATO. And there were some of our most distinguished colleagues questioning the continuation of NATO at a great cost to the American people and the major portions of our military. I won't name the names, but it's in the record if anybody would want to look at it. They said that NATO has finished its mission, Europe is secure, and it's time that we redirected those expenditures and those forces to other requirements of the United States.

So maybe out of this hearing can come some little message to NATO. They're not there forever. They're there only so long as they can perform and achieve the goals that we've assigned to them. I say "we" I mean collectively the 25 member nations. So unless you have a comment, I'll move to another question. Do you basically endorse what I have to say?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: I do, Senator Warner.

SEN. WARNER: Thank you.

General Odierno, another great institution that we have is the all-volunteer force. And some of us are somewhat concerned about the absolute necessity of the Army to begin to somewhat lower the requirements of those recruits coming in to meet the needs as established by quotas. I, for one, and I would state it right here, would rather have a smaller Army composed of the right people who can continue to preserve the concept of the all-volunteer force than to begin to bring in people that fall considerably below the standards that we've been able to maintain for this Army and the other military forces -- the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines -- these many years. First, your own view about the all-volunteer force.

GEN. ODIERNO: Senator Warner, first, I think it's critical that we continue to maintain an all-volunteer force.

I think it's proven, over time, the quality of the force that we've been able to put together and the dedication of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are part of it and how they've been able to perform over specifically here recently the last seven years. I think it's important that we want to maintain that for the long term, sir.

SEN. WARNER: Well, I can just speak for myself. You'll recall, in World War II the draft was adopted by Congress by one vote. Today, I don't think the Congress would consider, under the current circumstances and the commitments we have abroad now, any, any concept of returning to compulsive military training, be it a draft or some other concoction that we might come up with. That's not going to be the case.

And that puts a special responsibility on your shoulders. You're a trustee of that Army. You're not just a vice chief. You take the long-term view that what you're doing today is going to shape that Army of tomorrow and the future. And I frankly urge you to make certain that whatever requirements you have to readjust, let's say, in terms of recruiting will not -- will not -- result in any risk to the all-volunteer force or bring the perception in quality of the Army down.

After all, the concept of military training, military operations is very simple. It's dependent on the person that you're working with. You call it an "Army of One" which is quite a good slogan, but it's really in that foxhole one sleeps while the other's on duty. Aboard ship, you know, some sleep while the others are on duty. You're dependent on your fellow soldier, sailor, airman and Marine to do their duties at such times that you may have to get the needed rest that you need to carry out. And if you begin to put into that foxhole people who cannot establish that mutual trust and bond, I think you will see this thing getting worse. And that's a problem.

How would you judge the moral or the Army today? I was rather interested, the quotes of Eisenhower and George Marshall. I love history. Marshall said, "Moral is a state of mind. It is steadfastness in courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal in loyalty." Eisenhower once said, "In war, moral is everything." And after six years of now conflict, what is your judgment as to the moral of the United States Army?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: I would just comment, Senator Warner, that over the last 15, 16, 17 months, as I've observed up close and personal the performance of all our service members of all the services in Iraq, that their dedication, their steadfast commitment, their loyalty to their mission and their dedication to complete their mission has never wavered. And we can talk a lot about how you show moral, but how you show it is doing your job every single day without hesitation, the fact that you want to follow your leaders, the fact that you'll do anything for your teammates -- the person to your right, the person to your left -- under very difficult conditions. And we witness that every single day.

And I used to tell people when I was the corps commander over there that when I was feeling bad or I thought I was down, the first thing I'd do is go visit our soldiers or our Marines.

SEN. WARNER: That builds you back up.

GEN. MCKIERNAN: And it would build me back up when I had a chance to hang out with them because of their dedication and loyalty.

SEN. WARNER: Let me close out of here on my time. We've talked this morning about the necessity to go from the 15-month to the 12- month tour. To what extent can you say now, your level of confidence, that we can achieve that transition from 15 to 12 by early this summer?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Senator, I'm going to leave that to others to make that determination. But I would just say that --

SEN. WARNER: Well, you'll be a part of that decision-making.

GEN. MCKIERNAN: I will, I will. I would just say our goal is to get down to 12-month tours as soon as we possibly can. We fully realize that 12-month tours is the maximum length that we should have our tours. And so our goal is to push that as fast as we possibly can.

SEN. WARNER: Good. And General McKiernan, back to the drug thing, we've had programs here in American agriculture where we've put land into retirement and pay farmers a certain amount of money for keeping it in retirement. Now, it seems to me that we could establish sort of a delta between what that farmer's getting for opium crop and what he would get for another crop which is less cash, and we'd just go in there and subsidize the difference between those two crops. And if you look at the dollars involved, it is nickels and dimes compared to the overall value of that crop as it begins to move up and eventually disbursed, a lot of it, into Europe. I can't understand why Europe doesn't see this Afghanistan operation as central to their security, not only from the standpoint as a breeding ground for terrorism but also the drugs that's infiltrating into Europe.

Start with some very simple program, all right. Stop the poppies, try turnips, whatever, potatoes, and whatever you get for that crop of potatoes and if it's less than the poppy crop, here's the cash. If we can choke it off right there in the field, I think we could make some progress. I don't feel that we should do the spraying. I've done some agriculture myself. That could result in working to the detriment of the water supply for human consumption if you put that much spray around some of those provinces.

So I just think we ought to come up with some innovative ideas. And I do hope and I'm ensured by our discussions together and your testimony this morning you're going to devote your time to it. As one old farmer who lost a lot of money farming, I can tell you that's one way to get at it. Retire that land or pay them the delta between the crops.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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SEN. WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to ask this additional question.

General McKiernan, as we look back over the history of our operations in Afghanistan -- I say "our"; that's a combined operation of forces that are aligned with us -- we see, I think, an ever- increasing dependence upon support, a strong partnership with Pakistan. And the relationship between Karzai and Musharraf was not the best at times.

It's a little early, I expect, for us to try and assess how the new government is going to work in this area, but I think this record should reflect what you know very well. Our supply lines are dependent in large measure on the cooperation of the Pakistan government and people. We use its ports, its airfields, to logistically care for our forces, and I presume a greater proportion of the -- the greater proportion of the NATO forces.

Now, you're going to have to be part-time ambassador. Let me ask that question. Are you prepared to become a part-time ambassador? Should we call the Foreign Relations Committee up and just have you have a second hearing on this?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Sir, I'm not advocating a second hearing on anything.

SEN. WARNER: (Laughs.)

GEN. MCKIERNAN: But there is a quarterly tripartite commission which, as you know, the commander of ISAF and the chief of defense in Afghanistan and the chief of staff of the army in Pakistan get together and talk about mutual security interests along the border. And I, for one -- and I know General McNeill agrees that there can be no successful, by any metrics, outcome in Afghanistan without dealing with the sanctuaries right across the border in the Fatah and the North-West Frontier province.

SEN. WARNER: We currently have, the United States, a very competent U.S. ambassador, Ambassador Wood, a personal acquaintance, as I understand, of our chief of staff, with Mike Costy (sp). We were talking about him yesterday. I would hope that -- have you worked with him thus far?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Sir, I have not. But I could tell you, if confirmed, I would hope to have an absolutely linked-at-the-hip relationship with the United States ambassador.

SEN. WARNER: Well, I appreciate that. I think one of the great high-water marks has been Petraeus and our U.S. ambassador in Iraq. And I would hope, and I think it's essential, that you have a comparable relationship with Ambassador Wood.

Thank you very much, and good luck to all of you, each of you. I think the record should also show, how much time have you spent in your AOR before your new AOR, Afghanistan?

GEN. MCKIERNAN: Sir, I've probably made about half a dozen trips over there to see U.S. forces that we've provided from Europe that are operating in Afghanistan.

SEN. WARNER: Mm-hmm. And General Odierno?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, sir, I've spent a little over 30 months in Iraq over the last several years, both serving there, then also several months visiting around the region.

SEN. WARNER: When you were in your capacity --

GEN. ODIERNO: As both --

SEN. WARNER: -- as a military adviser to the secretary of State, you spent a lot.

GEN. ODIERNO: I've spent a lot of time in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, all those countries, sir.

SEN. WARNER: General Sharp, you had a tour in Korea.

GEN. SHARP: Yes, sir, almost two and a half years working for a former boss, General Tilelli, who was the commander in chief there at that time, and then also in 17, 18 months up in the 2nd Infantry Division as an assistant division commander.

SEN. WARNER: All right, thank you.

We're fortunate, Mr. Chairman, to have that background of experience. I thank the chair.

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