WITNESSES:
DONALD RUMSFELD, PRESIDENT-ELECT BUSH'S NOMINEE FOR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
BODY: SEN. LEVIN: (Sounds gavel.) The committee will come to order.
Senator Allard?
SEN. WAYNE ALLARD
(R-CO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would echo the
comments that have been made by my colleagues on this committee, Mr. Rumsfeld,
about your qualifications. I don't think anybody can legitimately question your
qualifications. And I am absolutely delighted with the president's appointment,
and appointing you specifically as secretary of Defense. I'm kind of interested
-- (inaudible) -- to see how you're going to apply the Rumsfeld Rules over there
as secretary of Defense, and when you testify before this committee. And I
respect your administrative capabilities, and I think everybody here also
recognizes those.
When you visited my office, we
shared our experiences. I shared my experience on the NRO Commission. You shared
your experience as chairman of the Space Commission. And both reports are coming
out with a recommendation -- I guess the Space Commission report is coming out
today, and ours on the NRO Commission is already out -- that there needs to be,
in fact it's critical that there is a dialogue between the secretary of Defense
and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
I
just would hope that you just for a moment, at least, express to me how you feel
about this and what you plan to do to improve communications?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I thank you. And I know of your service on the NRO
Commission and, of course, have discussed it with you.
The intelligence community is really not a community, as you know. It
is a set of organizations -- the CIA and the NSA and the NRO and the DIA and Air
Force, Army and Navy intelligence, the State Department, the FBI -- there's all
kinds of pieces to it. And I think to use the word "community" is an
overstatement, and what it -- because of the way the legislation is and the way
the funding works, it is something that I think takes a lot of senior level
interaction so that things do not get bottle-necked.
There are some very complicated issues in rearranging our intelligence
gathering to fit the new century, to fit the new circumstance with
proliferation. And I think that bureaucracies don't like to change; they're
terribly resistant to change, and the only way they're going to change is if the
very senior people meet regularly, understand where each is going, and recognize
the fact that each has responsibilities that can't be performed unless the two
of them work together.
And, you know, I suppose you can
have perfect organizations and people who aren't too good, and you're going to
not have very good organization -- operation, and vice versa. You can have
organizations that aren't perfect, but you could have people who really care
about it and are willing to force those issues through the bureaucracies, it
could work pretty darn well. And I just think that that's a start.
SEN. ALLARD: With this election there was a lot of
discussion about voting by members of the military. And I don't know whether you
have given this any thought or not, but I was disturbed, I think as many members
on this committee were disturbed, about credible reports of attempts to
disqualify certain military votes. And most of these were due to hypertechnical
kind of reasons. But, you know, in the legal community they're real reasons. And
I'm wondering if you're going to give any thought about how it is that we can
make sure that that problem doesn't get repeated again on military votes.
MR. RUMSFELD: Senator, I've been -- I've discussed this
with the president-elect and thought a bit about it. As you suggest, it's
complicated because of the role the states play, and not one state, but 50
states. (Laughs.) I do think it's just an enormously discouraging thing for
people who are serving overseas in the United States Armed Forces to read in the
paper that because there may not be a postmark or some other issue that their
vote might not be counted. It's just not fair. It's not right. And we've got to
figure out ways to do it. And I quite agree with you that in -- if confirmed
that the secretary of Defense should address the issue and put in place some
people to think that through and figure out what kinds of recommendations might
be made so that there is a high confidence that the men and women in the armed
services in fact vote and have their votes counted.
SEN. ALLARD: Yeah. We're -- I mean, in our own -- I just don't know has
anybody ever really thought through, you know, just how those ballots may be
handled getting from the base or wherever where there won't be a post office or
maybe even a postmark, getting them to their state where the individual is
registered to vote. So I appreciate your answer on that.
On emerging threats, I think your 1998 Ballistic Missile Threat Report,
you say that there is an emerging threat and maturing more rapidly, that threat.
And do you still believe that the threat is emerging and maturing more rapidly?
And also, what do you perceive as our greatest threats?
MR. RUMSFELD: Maturing more rapidly, of course, is relative, and more
rapidly than the intelligence community at that time had anticipated or had
described. Our report, as you may recall, followed the 1995 NIE, which -- the
National Intelligence Estimate, which the Congress decided they wanted a second
look at. So they impaneled the Ballistic Missile Threat Commission. We did take
a second look at it, and we came to a number of distinctive disagreements with
that national intelligence estimate. I don't think I would say it's currently
evolving more rapidly than the intelligence community believes because since our
report we then followed it with an intelligence side letter to the intelligence
community, and Director Tenet impaneled the entire intelligence community, and
we presented it, and they have been addressing the kinds of things that we
suggested. And my impression is that more recent NIEs have begun to take account
of some of the suggestions we made.
And that I would
think if you dropped a plumb line through the intelligence community today and
asked where they are on this issue, I would think that they're probably a lot
closer to where we were than they used to be.
SEN.
ALLARD: I haven't had a chance to completely review your Space Commission
report, but from my briefings, I'm going to be, I think, pleased with its
findings. One of the areas that you talked about is the vulnerability of our
space assets. I'm wondering if you could comment about the vulnerability of our
space assets and how you would manage that?
MR.
RUMSFELD: (With a chuckle.) Well, I've not had a chance to see the final report
either! I was asked to become the nominee, and I had to resign from the
commission. In the following days, they have completed it, printed it, and they
are now in the process of briefing members of the House and Senate and the
executive branch on that report. One of the things that --
SEN. WARNER: If I can interrupt, we're going to release it at 2:30, and
I'm going to absent myself to go over there for a few minutes --
MR. RUMSFELD: (Chuckles.) Is that right?
SEN.
WARNER: -- if you'll excuse me.
MR. RUMSFELD: Admiral
Dave Jeremiah and Dr. Steve Cambone (sp), the staff director, and other members
of the commission are going to be doing that.
But one
of the things that became fairly clear is that we have seen a significant growth
in the use of space assets for all kinds of things, clearly from a military
standpoint, but also from a civil governmental standpoint, as well as a
civilian, private sector standpoint. And as you end up with this greater degree
of dependence on these assets, you obviously become more vulnerable to
interruptions of those capabilities.
I forget what the
number is, but something like 70 or 80 or 90 percent of the pagers in the
country were out for a period because of an interruption on a Galaxy Satellite.
We know that Russia, or former Russian Republics are selling, in effect,
hand-held jammers that can jam satellite signals. We know that there is an
organization in England that makes and puts in space micro-satellites that have
a variety of capabilities for lots of countries. They do it for -- China has a
relationship with them, and many other countries do as well.
And if you are as dependent as our country is on space, you are, by
definition, vulnerable, more vulnerable than others. And it seemed to the
commission, unanimously, I might say, that that calls for attention on the part
of our country to see that we have the ability to preserve those assets and
defend the assets in a way that we can have reasonable assurance that we're
going to not be dramatically inhibited, for example, in presidential leadership
during a pre-crisis buildup; that we're going to be able to communicate with our
military forces in a way that's appropriate in a conflict, to say nothing of the
fact that our economy is so dependent today that significant economic
disruptions could occur from -- and I'm not just referring to space assets in
space, but space systems; I mean ground stations as well as these systems.
SEN. ALLARD: Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. Thank
you.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you very much.
Senator Landrieu is next.
MR. RUMSFELD:
Hello.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA): Mr. Secretary,
congratulations on your nomination. I look forward to working with you through
these hearings. And I just want to say that Senator Durbin's and Senator
Fitzgerald's comments go a long way with me.
They are a
ringing endorsement in my own personal knowledge of your good work.
I just have a few questions. The first two have to deal
with the nuclear policies of our nation. In your opening statement you made an
excellent point about our need to invest more money and more resources in our
defense. I couldn't agree with you more, and have a voting record to support
that. We need to make sure our money is spent wisely and well, but the need to
make new investments to shore up our defenses and to modernize them I think are
crucial. So I want to commend you for that.
One of the
ways, though, that we'll be able to do that -- there are really only two ways --
to either identify new monies or to redirect some of the monies that we're
spending now in new ways to make that goal that you've stated actually come to
pass. And of course one of the big cost-drivers is our nuclear strategic
defenses.
Given that, and you are aware because you've
served in this position before, that we are prohibited by law from falling below
our START II levels. But we're coming upon several crucial and costly -- and I
underline costly -- decision points, particularly regarding our peacekeeper
missile system which the Defense Department has recommended that we move past,
if you will. I believe that our nation -- it would make sense for us to
establish a cost-effective and appropriate deterrent, independent of anything
Russia may do, because they have already sort of provisionally ratified the
levels indicated by START II. But it doesn't' comport with our law, as you
know.
So my question is, do you believe that we need to
hold to some artificially-mandated level of nuclear weapons or, in light of our
great need to find resources within our budget as well as add to them, that
there's some potential here for not only strategic thinking, but some good cost
savings that could be applied in other ways? And would you be willing to explore
or to comment today about some of your thoughts regarding that?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I certainly agree with you that we're going to have
to do both. We're going to have to find new dollars in non- trivial amounts and
we also have to see that the defense establishment functions in as
cost-effective a way as is humanly possible, and that we find savings. And
third, we're going to have to, undoubtedly, not do some things we've been doing
because the nature of our world has changed and we're going to have to do some
other things. And it is certainly is at least logical -- although I can't tell
you what that is -- it's logical that we ought to be able to not -- not keep on
doing some of the things we have been doing.
With
respect to the numbers of weapons, it is not a subject that I have engaged since
the announcement a week or so ago. The president-elect has commented on the
subject of numbers of weapons. We know that the Russian systems are very likely
to be declining in some numbers, apart from negotiations, apart from agreements,
simply because of their economic circumstance.
We also
know that Russia is not the only nation in the world that one needs to be
attentive to. The Chinese are increasing their -- they have very modest nuclear
capability at the present time, but they are increasing their budget in double
digits. They do have a -- at least a publicly pronounced desire to be a factor
in strategic nuclear weaponry. I don't know whether we can reduce or not. I
suspect that that is -- will be part of the review, and in what numbers. I'm
afraid that the likelihood is that any reductions -- there is a minimum below
which you can go and maintain the kind of target list that rational people think
is appropriate. My guess is there are very likely not a lot of savings in that,
but I don't know that.
SEN. LANDRIEU: Well, I look
forward to working with you on that, I think, to be open to evaluate these
questions from the bottom up because it brings me, actually, to my next point,
which is our targeting plan, which is our Single Integrated Operational Plan,
our SIOP plan, which actually lays out the nuclear targets and is one of the,
for obvious reasons, one of the most carefully guarded secrets of our nation.
And I raise this issue to you today because one of our
most distinguished departing members, Senator Bob Kerrey, who served for many
years on the Intelligence Committee, has been very frustrated, and publicly and
privately, and many times publicly on the floor of the Senate and other places,
has expressed his great concern -- and I wanted to express it for him as if he
were here today -- that this particular plan of targeting our nuclear weapons
has been unavailable to be reviewed by the leadership of our committee, either
Republican or Democrat, or even to the highest level of Congressional
Intelligence Committee members.
And while, you know,
it's claimed under our law or rules that it's as "reason to know," he, as the
highest-ranking member, was not given the information in order to make rational
decisions, exactly what you said, about not only what can we afford, but what is
an effective deterrent, what we need to do to maintain the safety of our
citizens.
So my question would be, if you wanted to
make a comment about it today, but at least could you assure this committee that
you would be willing to work with the appropriate members of Congress -- and not
all members would be on equal footing here, but the leadership of our committee
and the Intelligence members, particularly, to jointly review that because it
has a direct bearing on the strategic posture that we either, you know, take or
not take is driven, really, by the targets. So could you make a comment, please,
for the record.
MR. RUMSFELD: Yes. For the record,
those are decisions that I think are the president's, and it's not for me to
opine as to what extent, if at all, the current procedures ought to be changed.
I do know that the U.S. plans are reviewed, admittedly by a very small number of
people in the executive branch, the national command authorities. They are
reviewed regularly. They are changed as circumstances change in the world. As
you suggested, they are highly classified. And that's about all I could say.
SEN. LANDRIEU: My second question is, again commending on
your opening statement, my third question, on your phrase that you'd like to try
to help us develop weapon systems, I think -- I don't know the exact term you
used, but taking it off the shelf as opposed to sort of the more traditional
ways that we've developed to try to get weapon systems more quickly and more
cost-effectively, I want to share with you that there is an idea, and I want to
commend our current undersecretary, Rudy deLeon, for suggesting that we apply
that same principle to the Reserve units in trying to combat terrorism in
cyberspace, to actually be able to access the brain power of the American people
by developing a more strategic, smart Reserve units, instead of developing that
intelligence within the Defense Department, to actually, if you would, Mr.
Secretary, be able to pull it off the shelf.
So have
you given any thought to perhaps strengthening our Reserves in this way, that we
could get the best and the brightest minds in the United States to apply their
great ability and intellect to help us to fight this new front in a smart,
cost-effective way for the American people, and one that I think would tend to
be more successful, perhaps, than the old ways that we're used to doing it? And
have you been briefed much about this, or know much about what I'm
suggesting?
MR. RUMSFELD: I have not been briefed on
it, and it's not a subject that I've engaged personally. There's no question but
that cyberattacks and information warfare are an exceedingly important subject
for the country. They're important for the private sector, they're important for
the government, they're certainly important for the military.
I have not addressed the subject as to what role the Reserves or the
Guards might play in that, but it certainly is worth exploring.
SEN. LANDRIEU: Well, my time has expired, but I would just urge you to
think about the strategy to solicit service from a core of very talented and
well-skilled individuals to bring to bear the new abilities and talents we're
going to need to fight the threats of the future.
Thank
you very much.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Landrieu.
Senator Sessions?
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL):
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I ask a question, I wonder where we are on the
possibility of moving this nomination. I think it would be well if we have as
much support as it appears we have today for this extraordinary nominee. I think
the world would well receive the fact that we could promptly confirm him. Do you
have any thoughts about how we can move this nomination if there are no
objections, as they appear to be? I think it would help the president and his
team to get started as early as possible.
SEN. LEVIN: I
think technically the nomination has to be submitted by the new president.
SEN. SESSIONS: Once he is -- takes office.
SEN. LEVIN: Once he's in office. I think the first thing he actually --
usually does after being sworn in is to fill out a bunch of nomination sheets
and nominate his cabinet officers. So we -- that has to be received technically
by the Senate, and then I believe it'll be Chairman Warner's plan at that time
-- probably the same day, but I don't want to speak for him -- that we try to
meet even on Inauguration Day, if possible, to confirm, if we're ready at that
point to confirm. There is some significant paperwork which must -- we must go
through, and the nominee is working very hard on it with all of us. And that has
to be finished, too. I hope we can complete the hearing today, but there's no
guarantee of that. It depends on how many questions need to be asked that
haven't had a -- we haven't had a chance to ask. But hopefully that is our goal.
But I agree with your point in any event, even though it's not technically
possible to even receive a nomination until Inauguration Day or act on it then
that we act promptly after we're legally able to act on this nomination, because
it does have, indeed, broad bipartisan support.
SEN.
SESSIONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really believe we should move on that, and
I think there might be some uncertainty in the world among those who -- we have
a prolonged election process, and I think it might be good for stability if we
could move as promptly as possible.
SEN. : (Off
mike.)
SEN. SESSIONS: What's that? (Laughs.)
You know, I remember when I was at -- back in college got
a new president in my -- Huntingdon College, where I attended. And they
introduced the old president as a president-proven and the new one as a
president-challenged. And you are both a proven secretary of Defense and a
challenged secretary of Defense.
MR. RUMSFELD:
(Laughs.)
SEN. SESSIONS: We're delighted to have you
here. I think your testimony has been superb. It's been wise and thoughtful and
strong. And I know you know that there's some real challenges out there that
have got to be met.
One thing I would say is that
Senator Lieberman's comments really went to the heart of where we are, in my
opinion. I think this nation has a serious problem with our defense funding and
structure, that in the past decade we failed to maintain adequate funding
streams. We're paying salaries and the likes, and that kind of thing. But
really, recapitalizing the military has not occurred as it should. And I asked
Secretary Cohen, your predecessor -- who, by the way, was extraordinarily
cooperative with this Senate. I was a new member of this committee, and he was
-- just did a great job of being forthcoming and helpful. And I'd ask you to do
the same and want to compliment him on the work that he did. But he said this in
answer to a question of mine. He said:
"As I indicated
before, Senator Sessions, ever since the height of the cold war we've seen a
tremendous decline in defense spending." This was last year. "And many on this
committee and throughout this body were urging a peace dividend. And we have
been enjoying the fruits of that peace dividend. But it has come at the cost of
relying on what President Reagan did in the 1980s as far as the build-up.
We've been living off that, and now we're at the point
where we've got to replace it." Do you understand what he's saying, and would
you tend to agree with that?
MR. RUMSFELD: I do,
indeed. I mean, it's a surprise to me, when you think about it, but when I was
secretary of Defense I went to the roll-out for the F-16. I made the decision on
the M-1 tank and the B- 1 bomber, and they're there. And that was a long time
ago.
SEN. SESSIONS: What we've got is a question of how
much needs to be spent. It is my understanding that the number of ($)45
billion that President Bush was reported to have estimated that he would have to
spend in addition was based on several programs he intended to initiate; did not
represent his full commitment to spending more for defense. But I think Senator
Lieberman rightly suggests it's going to take a lot more than that and a lot
more than the $100 billion over 10 years that was --
And I think, Mr. Rumsfeld, that -- and I'll ask you to respond to it
-- it's going to be your duty, and I think you have the credibility and the
competence to evaluate this Defense Department, to analyze the threats we're
facing in the world, to comprehend what can be done technologically, and how
much money can be saved wherever it can be saved. And then I think it will be
your duty to come back to this conference and use all the credibility that you
have to sell this committee and this nation on the amount of funding we're going
to need to maintain the strength of the United States in the 21st century. How
would you respond to that?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well,
first, your understanding of President-elect Bush's comments about budget are
exactly mine, that he identified some particular things he wanted to see were
funded, he priced them, and he mentioned the price tag. I do not believe that he
suggested that that was the totality of what he had in mind, because he has
asked for a defense review and promised that as well, and that's something that
of course has not been done. Until that's been done, it's clearly not possible
to come up with the numbers.
I think second,
with respect to the numbers, I don't know what the number is, but I have an
impression that goes not to the total number over the five-year period, but the
impression is that we need some money up front. And we may very well have to
come back with a supplemental or something that would indicate the needs that
exist now so that -- because there have been things that have been pushed off,
as has been mentioned here; for example, the shipbuilding budget and some other
things, science and technology and others that have been mentioned.
SEN. SESSIONS: There's been a lot put off and, in fact,
we had testimony from one Defense -- one general, on research and development.
He used the phrase, "We are eating our seed corn." I'm now looking at a National
Association for the Advancement of Science survey historical table on the amount
of money spent for research and development since 1989, in real dollars -- not
inflated dollars, in actual dollars. The amount of DOD research has dropped 20
percent, while other research in non-Defense departments and agencies are up 50
percent. That is a -- Senator Bingaman raised that point.
I really do believe that we got squeezed to pay for lights, to pay
for salaries. We were cutting, eating our seed corn. We were cutting back on
things that are going to come back to haunt us and are going to cost us more
money today than it would have if we'd started on a six- or eight-year program
of research and development.
One more thing, and
I'll give up this questioning.
The -- just as well;
I got -- one expert has said that the post-Cold War -- the references to the
post-Cold War foreign policy are really a statement, an admission, that we
hadn't developed a post-Cold War foreign policy. Is it your opinion, briefly,
that we do need to develop a more comprehensive foreign policy in this post-Cold
War environment that the American people and this Congress can rally behind?
MR. RUMSFELD: I certainly agree. But by agreeing, I don't
want to suggest that it's easy. There are some who look at our current period
and characterize it as a transition out of the Cold War into something that's
still ahead. There are others who suggest that possibly history might indicate
that this is it, that we're not transitioning to something else, that what we
are in now is what we will be in for a period, and that that -- if that's true
-- and I am certainly not one who can suggest that I know the answer, but if it
is true, it puts a much greater urgency on fashioning policies and standards and
some flags we can plant down ahead, so that we as a country can point
directionally and know how to arrange ourselves to function and live with the
maximum degree of safety and stability during that period.
SEN. SESSIONS: Thank you.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank
you, Senator Sessions.
Senator Byrd?
SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D-WV): Mr. Secretary, you've been around this track
before.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Chuckles.)
SEN. BYRD: And I appreciate your presence here today, and I compliment
the president on nominating you. It's certainly my present intention to support
you.
My time is brief, and so I'll get right into a
question. The Department of Defense continues to confront pervasive and complex
management problems due to its inadequate financial management systems. This can
greatly diminish the efficiency of the military services' operations.
Since 1995, the DOD's financial management has been on the
General Accounting Office's list of high-risk areas vulnerable to waste, fraud,
abuse, and mismanagement.
While the department has made
progress in a number of areas of its financial management operation, no major
part of DOD's operations has yet been able to pass the test of an independent
financial audit.
The Chief Financial Officers Act of
1990, as amended by the Federal Financial Management Act of 1994, requires the
Department of Defense to prepare annual audited financial statements.
Nevertheless, 10 years after the enactment of the CFO Act of 1990, the
Department of Defense has yet to receive a clean audit opinion in its financial
statements.
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times,
written by a retired vice admiral and a civilian employee in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, accused the Department of Defense of being unable to
account for the funds that Congress appropriates to it. The authors wrote, and I
quote in part, quote, "The Pentagon's books are in such utter disarray that no
one knows what America's military actually owns or spends." That's the close of
my extract.
The thrust of this LA Times article is
backed up by the DOD's own inspector general's financial audit for FY 1999, and
I have a copy of that here in my hand.
I assume you
have seen it.
MR. RUMSFELD: I have not, but I can't
even say I look forward to seeing it. (Laughter.)
SEN.
BYRD: Well, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it after you've
seen it.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. BYRD: That audit report found that out of $7.6 trillion in
department-level accounting interest, 2.3 trillion in entries either did not
contain adequate documentation or were improperly reconciled or were made to
force buyer and seller data to agree. This DoD-IG report is very
disturbing.
Last year, according to the General
Accounting Office, the Pentagon reported that it did not expect to have the
necessary systems in place to be able to prepare financial statements for three
more years. That was last year. I'm now advised that the Pentagon is currently
telling the Office of Management and Budget that it will take them until the
year 2005 or 2006.
Now, I also note in the
Washington Post of January 9, 2001, this sentence, which I extract from an
article titled, "Bush Talks Defense with Key Members of Congress." Here's the
sentence: "The chiefs of the armed services have said that they need a budget
increase of more than $50 billion a year to modernize their forces. That
figure dwarfs the $4.5 billion in added defense spending proposed by Bush
during the campaign."
Now if the Pentagon cannot
account for what it is doing this year, how can it hope to improve its
operations next year? As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, thank God,
now for 17 days --
MR. RUMSFELD:
(Laughs.)
SEN. BYRD: -- I seriously question an
increase in the Pentagon budget in the face of the department's recent inspector
general's report. How can we seriously consider a $50 billion increase in
the Defense Department budget when DoD's own auditors -- when DoD's own auditors
say the department cannot account for $2.3 trillion in transactions in
one year alone.
Now $2.3 trillion I would
readily assume is a large amount of money. According to my old-style math, there
have been 1 billion minutes, give or take a little, won't make much difference,
since Jesus Christ was born, 1 billion minutes. And according to that same old
math, $2.3 trillion, which the department can't account for in one year
alone, would amount to $2,300 per minute for every minute since Jesus
Christ was born.
Now perhaps we can begin to
understand the magnitude of 2.3 trillion.
So why is this happening? Of course I wouldn't expect you to be able to
answer that question. This state of affairs didn't occur on your watch, but
you're inheriting.
Now, my question to you is, Mr.
Secretary, what do you plan to do about this?
MR.
RUMSFELD: Decline the nomination! (Laughs.) (Laughter.) Ah! Senator, I have
heard --
SEN. BYRD: I don't want to see you do that!
(Laughter.)
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. LEVIN: (Sounds gavel.) We'll stand adjourned, in that case!
(Laughter.)
MR. RUMSFELD: Senator, I have heard some of
that and read some of that, that the department is not capable of auditing its
books. It is -- I was going to say "terrifying." It is such a monumental task. I
have met with two former officials of the Pentagon who served in the budget and
comptroller, and those areas, and I've mused over the fact that I've read some
of these things, and asked what they thought. One insight that I got was that it
-- to a certain extent, the financial systems have been fashioned and designed
to report on requirements that they receive from various organizations, and they
have not been fashioned and designed for financial management the way you would
in a corporation.
I don't know if that's a useful
insight or not, but it is something that is rattling around in my head, and
certainly something that I think -- I doubt, to be honest, that people inside
the department are going to be capable of sorting this out. I have a feeling
it's going to take some folks from outside to come in and look at this and put
in place a process that over a period -- and I regret to say, but I've seen how
long things take -- I think it's going to take a period of years to sort it out,
and I think it will probably take the cooperation of the Congress to try to get
this system so that you can actually manage the financial aspects of that
institution rather than simply report on things that have happened
imperfectly.
Now, that is not a satisfactory answer.
But I hear you; I recognize the problem. And if it isn't solved, I hope at least
that when I leave, if I am confirmed, that it will be better than it was when I
came in.
SEN. BYRD: Well, I -- my time is up. But, Mr.
Secretary, I have every confidence in you. And I think I have the duty to
request and to urge -- and I'm sure that my colleagues on both sides here join
me, and I'm sure as well that you do, because you've indicated the enormity of
the task, and I think this may have come perhaps not as a surprise to you, but
you haven't seen it -- will you pledge to make balancing the Pentagon's books a
top-most priority? The simple answer is yes, but I'd like to hear your
answer.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I don't know that I can
assure it will be the top-most priority, but it will certainly be among the top
priorities. It simply must be done for the national security interests of the
country as well as from the standpoint of the taxpayers of the country.
SEN. BYRD: Absolutely. And let me close by saying that as
an appropriator, I cannot have much confidence in the budget request when we
have such a track record as we see here. When the Joint Chiefs come up here and
ask for $50 billion more, even $4.5 billion more, or whatever it is, I
as an appropriator, and I would think that every member of the Appropriations
Committee, would have to look with a jaundiced eye, perhaps not on some specific
items which they perhaps are more acquainted with, but with the overall, that
it's a terrible record.
And it's preposterous that
the Defense Department doesn't know what's happened to this money.
But I thank you for your testimony.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
SEN. BYRD: And I
hope you will do everything you can to set this thing in order, put the
Pentagon's house in order in this regard.
MR. RUMSFELD:
Thank you, sir.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Byrd.
Senator Collins.
SEN. SUSAN
COLLINS (R-ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rumsfeld,
I want to start by echoing the praise of my colleagues in congratulating you on
your appointment, which I hope very much that you won't decline -- (laughter) --
and to also commend the president for making -- the president-elect for making
such an outstanding choice.
I want to start with a
comment before going to a couple other issues, and I want to follow up on the
exchange that you had with Senator Kennedy, in that I share both yours and
Senator Kennedy's concerns about the current shipbuilding rates. They do not
support the goal of a 300-ship naval fleet as identified by the last QDR. And
the Clinton administration's defense budgets have been gradually taking the Navy
not toward a 300-ship Navy but ultimately toward a considerably smaller fleet.
To make the challenge confronting the new administration and the new Congress
even more stark, even a 300-ship Navy has been increasingly recognized as
inadequate to meet the increased operational and deployment requirements that we
face.
In addition, recent press reports indicate that
the DD-21, the Navy's revolutionary new destroyer program, may be among the
Pentagon programs most at risk of procurement budget cuts. Now, I know
from our great conversation that you've not yet had an opportunity to review
specific procurement programs, but I do want to express my concern about
the direction that shipbuilding is heading in, or has been heading in, and seek
your commitment to reverse the direction and to look to increase our
shipbuilding budget.
And I believe you gave that kind
of commitment to -- (inaudible) -- Senator Kennedy's secretary, but -- Senator
Kennedy in your earlier exchange. Is that correct?
MR.
RUMSFELD: Indeed. I certainly share your interest and concern in seeing that we
understand what we're doing. And if we're each year building fewer ships than
are necessary to maintain the kind of Navy that this country needs, then we're
damaging ourselves and we damaging our national security.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. I look forward to working with you closely in
that area.
Last month, Mr. Rumsfeld, I accompanied
Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen on a holiday trip to visit our servicemen and
(service)women in Kosovo and Bosnia. We brought with us entertainers such as the
Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, which I will readily concede the servicemen were far
more interested in talking to than they were in talking to United States
senators and members of Congress. Nevertheless, I did have the opportunity to
speak with members of our active-duty components as well as Reservists and
member of the National Guard who were stationed in Bosnia and Kosovo. And while
morale generally appeared to be high, I nevertheless heard many, many accounts
of the effect of the increased operational tempo upon the lives of those who are
serving, their families, and in the case of Reservists and guardsmen, their
employers.
I was concerned about what I heard because
of the implications for retaining and recruiting men and women to serve in the
military. For example, I spoke to one young Reservist from my home state who had
returned to his family after an assignment in the Middle East only to be called
up again to be sent to the Balkans. In addition, a young naval officer from my
home state recently resigned after 12 years in the Navy because continuous
nine-month periods of sea duty proved too great a burden on his growing
family.
I'm told that the Army is currently considering
reducing its overseas assignments to periods of 120 days, and that other
services, including the Guard and the Reserves, may adopt similar models.
I realize that this issue really ties to the underlying
issue of peacekeeping forces and the daunting and protracted missions that we've
undertaken. But I wonder if you support looking at ways that we can ease the
burden on our young men and women who are serving so far from home for such
protracted periods?
MR. RUMSFELD: Yes, indeed. In any
organization that doesn't use conscription or force to have people work there,
you have to fashion a set of incentives that will enable you to attract and
retain the people you need to run that activity in an efficient and cost-
effective way.
I don't know what the number is, but I
think it was Senator McCain who mentioned the attrition rates with respect to
young captains. I think it's something like 12, 13, 14 percent. My goodness,
that has to tell anybody that we're doing something wrong. We simply cannot have
that kind of churning when you train and you develop and have this fine talent
and then lose it. I mean, it costs so much to bring people through the intake,
bring them along, get them experienced, train them and educate them, and then
you lose them.
So we have to arrange ourselves so that
we are -- have a high confidence that we can attract and retain the people we
need. And that is a mixture of things. It's a mixture of how they feel about
their government and how they feel about the defense establishment. It's partly
how their families are functioning and whether or not they feel that they're
able to do what they need to for their families. It's, as you suggested, the
operations tempo that can be a difficult thing; the time away from families,
it's pay, it's health, it's education. It's a whole host of things --
opportunity. And it's also feeling that the country cares and appreciates what
they've done and what they are doing.
SEN. COLLINS:
You're absolutely right about that. And I did, in my discussions with the young
men and women whom I met -- I was so impressed with their pride and their
professionalism and their dedication to their jobs. And many of them want to
stay in the service.
MR. RUMSFELD: You bet.
SEN. COLLINS: Or they want to continue in the Guard. And
we need to figure out ways to deal with the very real family concerns that they
have. And I appreciate the fact that you obviously acknowledge that and are
committed to looking at that.
I want to raise, just
quickly, one final issue. The Defense Department has for years tried to take
steps to reduce the physical and electronic security of -- or the vulnerability
of its communication satellites. But in recent conflicts such as Kosovo and even
in peacetime, it's my understanding that the military has come to depend more
and more heavily upon commercial communications satellites.
It seems to me that the Defense Department needs a stronger effort to
work with the private sector and other appropriate parties to improve the
safety, not just of our military satellite communication links, but of civilian
ones as well. And I'd be interested in knowing whether this is a priority area
for you, and whether you have any plans in this regard?
MR. RUMSFELD: It is an area of interest to me. I'm certainly not an
expert. We do know that commercial capabilities in this area have, for the most
part, no hardening -- or no ability to survive mischief and attack. We also know
that, properly in my view, the United States government, including the military,
are using more and more, and should use more, civilian capabilities -- for
communications, for imagery, for a variety of things. It's efficient. They're
good at it.
On the other hand, we have to be certain
that we have secure systems so that we're not blinded at critical times.
It is an area that I do intend to interest myself in, and
I thank you for bringing it up.
SEN. COLLINS: Thank
you, Mr. Rumsfeld. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. LEVIN:
Senator Collins, thank you. Senator Akaka.
SEN. AKAKA:
Mr. Chairman -- (off mike). Might I ask consent that the audit report to which I
referred in my questions be included in the record; report number D-2000-179,
dated August 18, 2000.
SEN. LEVIN: It will be made part
of the record. Thank you, Senator Akaka.
SEN. AKAKA:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman, I ask that my opening statement be
placed in the record.
SEN. LEVIN: It will be.
SEN. AKAKA: Mr. Chairman, we happen to be sitting in this
hearing with a man who has tremendous experience --
SEN. LEVIN: Senator Akaka, could you pull that mike closer, or get
closer to the mike? We can't hear you.
SEN. AKAKA: Yes.
Thank you. Sitting in a hearing with a man who has had tremendous experience and
has had lots of confidence given by others and is now being considered as
Defense secretary. And I tended, after reading your bio, to think that this is
the kind of person that we expect much from, because of his experience. And I
think we -- talking about deals, I think we have a good deal in hand with
you.
In the Pacific and in other areas, we've had some
issues, and besides issues of appropriate funding, issues of criteria for
deployment of U.S. troops in necessary situations, there have been issues in the
community of encroachment, including the importance of dealing with communities
surrounding military installations and training ranges and the environmental
constraints on training ranges.
I must tell you that in
Hawaii we've had, over the years, as long as I can remember, very, very good
relationships with the military. We work well together, we live well together,
we respect the leadership of the military and they've helped us out in many
ways. And they've really tried to deal with our communities as well. So
encroachment is an issue. I understand you intend to deal with these issues in a
more comprehensive and systematic fashion, and that you are open to working with
all parties involved.
So my question to you is, How do
you intend to implement a more comprehensive approach to these issues?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I wish I had an answer that
represented a solution to the problems. As you properly point out, not just in
the United States, but in Puerto Rico and in Japan and other parts of the world
where the United States armed forces has a presence, there are pressures and
difficulties that run to this issue that's characterized as encroachment. I
don't know which way the encroachment goes, whether it's that the base is
encroaching or the community is encroaching on the base, which happens to be
historically, at least, the case in most instances.
But
it is a problem that is real. It is serious. The United States needs bases. It
needs ranges. It needs test ranges. And it can't -- it cannot provide the
training and the testing that people need before they go into battle, unless
those kinds of facilities are available. And each year that goes by, there are
greater and greater pressures on them.
Admittedly, I
suspect -- and I don't enough to say, but I suspect that as with many things,
there are ways that technology can assist us in these areas, that will enable
the military to do things that they need to do, that they used to do physically,
that they will be able to do with computers and various other types of
technologies. Certainly that's true with all kinds of simulations and what have
you. But you can't do everything, and you do need live fire for people, before
they go into battle, to have some sense of what that's like.
And I'm afraid it is not a problem that gets solved. It is -- it's not
so much a problem as a fact of our times that -- not to be solved, but to be
coped with over a period of time. I think it is going to be a constant pressure
on the defense establishment, ad all we can do is our best.
SEN. AKAKA: I was glad to hear about your commitment to research and
development, and how you feel about not standing still and static; that in order
to move ahead, we must move in the areas like that.
You
also mentioned in your response to Senator Kennedy the book on the Corona
satellite program. And I feel that space and the military, of course, works --
can work so much together. What role, if any, do you see for the commercial --
for the new commercial satellite imaging industry, to supplement our classified
systems?
MR. RUMSFELD: My impression is that the United
States government, including the military, will be -- will and should be
increasingly using commercially available capabilities, satellite capabilities,
whether it's communications and imagery. It is -- there are a great many
instances when you can take available, off-the-shelf products and services of
that type and use them to great effect.
SEN. AKAKA: I
know you are well versed in missile defense. In your response to the committee's
advance questions, you state that before deploying a national defense, missile
defense, a factor to be considered is, and I quote, "the urgency of the
ballistic missile threat to the United States," unquote.
How do you assess the urgency of that threat now? And has it changed
since the Rumsfeld commission report?
MR. RUMSFELD: The
Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, I think, got the subject right. And I think
that's been agreed to by Secretary Cohen and by others.
What's happened in the intervening two years is that time has passed.
Proliferation has continued. People have advanced in their development programs
of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. It is -- I do not believe it is
possible to stop the proliferation of things we don't want proliferated. I think
we ought to try, and we ought to work hard at it, but the reality is today that
in this relaxed environment, and so much available on the Internet and so many
people willing to sell almost anything for a price, that we have to learn to
live in that world. We -- and we're capable of living in that world. There's no
question but that we can do it.
So I think that time
passes and capabilities grow.
SEN. AKAKA: Well, thank
you very much. My time is up. And I just want you to know that you have my
support.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Akaka.
Senator
Bunning?
SEN. JIM BUNNING (R-KY): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. First of all, I want to say that I'm honored to serve with all of the
other people on this committee, on this esteemed Senate Armed Services
Committee. It's been a promise I made to my constituents, and a desire of mine
since coming to the Senate two years ago, to serve on this great committee, and
I'm very happy to be here.
Secondly, Secretary
Rumsfeld, welcome. It's good to see you. Assuming you are confirmed as the next
secretary of Defense, I'm looking forward to working with you and your
Department of Defense.
Of course the United States has
the strongest military in the world. There is no arguing that fact. However, our
biggest challenge may be to keep it strong and to redefine it in this new
century. It has been said that our military is stressed, overdeployed, and
undefined. Many talk of the last 10 years of the "Decade of Decline" for our
military. I hope you find it not to be true.
I look
forward to this committee and the Congress working with you to take on the tough
issues regarding missile defense, the readiness of our military, particularly
recruitment and retention, and the overall well-being and safety of our citizen
soldiers and nation.
Over the past eight years, I have
watched generals and officers come before this committee and testify about the
readiness and overall strength of the military. Time and facts have proven that
they were either ill-informed or not giving the Congress the full picture as to
what really was happening, for whatever reasons, with our military. I simply ask
you that you urge those under your watch to tell us the truth -- the good, the
bad and sometimes the ugly -- for only with the truth can we help to shape a
military through policy and funding that is strong and ready to protect this
nation with peace through strength throughout the world.
And I'm looking forward to working with you. As I stated, over the last
eight years, many generals have testified before this committee regarding the
overall readiness, strength and quality of our military. Time and facts have
proven the generals were either ill- informed or not fully up-front with the
committee, and things turned out worse than they had testified. Therefore, we in
Congress made decisions about funding and policy based on the words of those
generals.
What will you do to make sure that this
doesn't happen again under your watch?
MR. RUMSFELD:
Well, I suppose for one thing, if I find people are telling the Congress
something that isn't so, you won't find them back up here telling the Congress
anything.
SEN. BUNNING: We can count on that?
MR. RUMSFELD: Yes, sir.
SEN.
BUNNING: Okay.
Senator Allard talked about this, but I
think it needs to be reiterated, about military balance, particularly voting by
our soldiers on bases. You know that there was a proposal to not allow our
military to vote on bases and the Congress stopped it and allowed it to happen
for one more year?
I would like to ask you the question
if you think that is the right or wrong thing to do, that we continue to extend
the privilege to our military to vote on base.
MR.
RUMSFELD: I do not know enough about it to answer. I'm not an attorney. I don't
know the extent to which state law governs, and I am simply not current, and I
should be, and I'll get current.
SEN. BUNNING: Can you
give me a general idea about your thinking about military people voting on
bases, if it's legal?
MR. RUMSFELD: Oh, if it's legal.
Sure. I just don't know enough about the legalities. But I think that our -- in
our country we like to have people participate in the elections of our country.
And certainly, people who are serving in the armed services ought to be treated
at least equally in terms of having an opportunity to vote. To the extent the
defense establishment can find ways to facilitate the ease of that voting, I
think we ought to try to do that. And to the extent we can't because of
legalities, I think it's perfectly proper to recommend to other entities,
whether it's the White House or state and local governments, that this is our
view and we'd hope they would take steps to provide so that men and women in the
armed forces can, in fact, vote.
SEN. BUNNING: This is
more localized question. This is about Fort Knox, which is a TRADOC -- training
and doctrine post -- and the U.S. Army Recruiting Command is headquartered there
as well. When initial entry trainees come to Recruiting Command at Knox, they
see 50-year-old barracks that are run down and literally patched together. Fort
Knox has the oldest entry trainee barracks in the Army with no barracks being
built since before -- before the Korean War. Despite that fact, Knox has been
absent on TRADOC's list of recommended posts to receive new training barracks or
a star base complex, which integrates, as you know, barracks, classrooms and
dining facilities and other soldier components. How will you go about assessing
the condition of trainee barracks and recommending new construction of training
barracks, complexes for the Army?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I
suppose the first thing to do would be to try to see if we can find the best
possible people to serve in the posts of leadership in the Army and that share
the concern you have expressed about the circumstances of these barracks. That
is a part of the broader question we were talking about earlier.
SEN. BUNNING: Yes, it is.
MR. RUMSFELD: This
establishment will not function if we do not have talented people. And talented
people are simply not going to accept an environment for themselves and their
families in a circumstance that drives them away from the military. We need
people who we can attract and retain and who are proud to be there and available
to be there.
SEN. BUNNING: Okay. Last question. I read
in your answers to the committee policy questions that you cannot fully give
your opinion on whether you do or do not support another round of base closures
because you are awaiting the DOD's next defense review. I have been seeking
answers as to whether or not the last round of BRAC has saved money, or whether
or not we have reduced our strength and readiness. I have never received any
real answers with numbers either way.
We all know the
policies of BRAC. But I hope in your tenure as secretary of Defense you can
illustrate to us the realities and simple facts as to how past base closures and
possible future ones have and will affect the taxpayers and the military.
Because no one has ever shown me actual numbers on the actual savings of the
last BRAC.
So before I ever look at anything new, I
want to see the old.
MR. RUMSFELD: I see. Well, I'm
sure that there must be data. My general impression of the subject is that
there's no question but that savings result from adjusting base structures to
fit force structures. There's also no question but that they cannot occur in the
first or second year. They tend to come out over a period of time. And so
there's a cross-factor. There's also a factor of military efficiency. And both
benefit, the former being somewhat more easy to quantify than the latter.
SEN. BUNNING: Thank you very much.
MR. RUMSFELD: Sure.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you,
Senator Bunning. Senator Nelson.
SEN. BEN NELSON
(D-NE): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this opportunity to appear at today's
confirmation hearing, even though my membership on the committee is not fully
official. And should I serve on the committee, I will be honored to be a part,
and I look forward to it.
I've been tremendously
impressed, Mr. Rumsfeld, with your knowledge of the full subject of national
defense: your concern about readiness; your concern about budget realities; the
external and internal security risks and those unpredictable circumstances which
are always there.
And at this point in time, virtually
every question that could be asked seems as though it has been asked. And I
don't want to be redundant, but there are a couple of questions that I would
like to ask you. First of all, I think it was Senator Cleland who mentioned that
defense doesn't poll very high among the public. Maybe that's because the public
seems to be falsely secure when we're not. There are different kinds of threats
today, as you've indicated, and there are limited resources to deal with those
threats. So my first question is, do you have some plans that would engage and
raise the public awareness and interest in the importance of the kind of defense
that we need to provide for today's world, to get more resources and more money
to be supported for national defense? It's always a challenge when there are
limited resources, there seem to be unlimited demands in all kinds of areas. And
I wonder if you do have some specific plans to make the public far more aware of
the need for these increased resources?
The second
question is, it's been often said that someone who takes on a new challenge can
bring to it one big idea. And while you have been very generous with your
thoughts about all the realities of what we're dealing with and what you propose
to do to the extent that you know at the present time, I'd like to ask, do you
have one big idea? And if you do, what is it?
You can
choose which order you prefer to respond.
MR. RUMSFELD:
Well, let me just make a comment on the first point you've posed while I think
about the second. With respect to the first, I don't think that there is any one
person who is going to help our country and indeed our allies' people as well
fully understand what needs to be done and why. It is a task that takes a lot of
people, multiple centers of leadership in Europe and Asia and in this Congress,
in the executive branch. I give President-elect Bush high marks on the
pronouncements he's made with respect to national defense. And I think that
that's a good start, that that bully pulpit of the White House is an important
place, and we need leadership there that is sensitive to these issue and
concerned about them.
We all know that history is
filled with instances where people were surprised. There were plenty of signals,
plenty of warning, plenty of cautions, but they weren't taken aboard. They
didn't register. They weren't sufficient to cause a person to act on those
concerns.
It wasn't that the information wasn't there;
it just didn't register. It happens to people in businesses. They go along, and
pretty soon they don't see all those warning signs out there and they don't act
on it. We see it in families when a youngster goes wrong, and when do you step
in and do something or try to do something?
We know
that the thing that tends to register on people is fear, and we know that that
tends to happen after there's a Pearl Harbor, tends to happen after there's a
crisis. And that's too late for us. We've got to be smarter than that. We've got
to be wiser than that. We have to be more forward-looking.
So I would throw that back and say it's going to take you and it's
going to take every member of this committee and it's going to take presidents
and it's going to take our friends in other countries to make sure that we
understand that it is a world full of hope and opportunity, but it's also a
world filled with dangers, and there are different kinds and we need to be
attentive to them. And I think we can be wise enough to do that.
There's a wonderful book on Pearl Harbor by Roberta Wolstadter (sp),
and a forward by Dr. Shelling (sp), that talks about this problem of seeing
things happen and not integrating them in your mind and saying, "Yes, we need to
be doing something about that now," that I reread periodically because it's so
important.
As to a single big idea, I don't know, but
it may be this: It may be that one of the biggest things we have to do is what I
mentioned earlier, and that is, recognize that the deterrents of the Cold War
worked; those deterrents very likely will not work as well or as broadly as we
will need during the period of this era of globalization, or post-Cold War
period, or whatever we're going to end up calling it. That the problems are
different and the demands will be different, and that we as a people have an
obligation to be smart enough to think about those things and to see that we get
arranged as a defense establishment with our allies so that in fact we dissuade
people from doing things. We don't want to win wars, we want to prevent them. We
want to be so powerful and so forward looking that it is clear to others that
they ought not to be damaging their neighbors when it affects our interests, and
they ought not to be doing things that are imposing threats and dangers to
us.
And I think we can do that, but I think it's going
to take some fresh thinking.
SEN. NELSON: Thank you,
sir.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you very much, Senator
Nelson.
Next in our "early bird" rule is Senator
Dayton.
SEN. MARK DAYTON (D-MN): Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. And I want to thank you very much for your support in gaining a slot
on this esteemed committee. I can understand Senator Warner's dismay about the
expansion of the membership after seeing how long it takes to move once around
the cycle here. But given --
SEN. WARNER: I expressed
appreciation to so many senators who want to come on.
SEN. DAYTON: All right, sir. I'm sorry.
SEN.
WARNER: In years past, we used to be like the old Navy; went out and impressed
them out of the bars and dragged them in and got them on this committee.
(Laughter.)
SEN. DAYTON: Well, I'm fortunate --
SEN. WARNER: (Off mike) -- senators in bars, by the way.
(Laughter.)
SEN. DAYTON: I'm fortunate that that's your
view, sir, because as you can see, if you were to cut it any finer, I'd be the
one who would be -- (laughter). Befitting my lofty 100th position in seniority,
I can see I'm going to be sitting at the end of a lot of tables for the next
couple years.
Mr. Rumsfeld, I join with the others in
congratulating you for your willingness to take on this huge responsibility.
Your career in both the public sector and the private sector is certainly
admirable. As a citizen and as a public servant, I think, to combine those
throughout a career with the longevity of yours is really extraordinary.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you very much.
SEN. DAYTON: And I wish you well.
And I don't
presume to have the expertise that my colleagues here or you have, so my
questions are inquisitory, not meant to be presumptive. But I noted you said on
your opening statement, you talk about the timetable -- the cycle time for the
development of new major projects, now eight, nine years, and how that pace has
slowed while technology has accelerated. To what do you tribute that lengthening
delay? And what would you think might be some of the approaches to improve
that?
MR. RUMSFELD: It is interesting to me that this
is the case. We have seen, in the '60s, things could go from concept to
deployment in a very short period of time. They had much more flexibility with
respect to acquisition rules. There was much greater secrecy, and there was much
greater "urgency", quote, unquote, perceived urgency, which allowed much more
flexibility in acquisition rules and much greater secrecy.
So at a time when those numbers have gone from a year or two to eight
or nine, and in a period when the technologies -- in those days, technologies
took five, 10, eight years to change; today they're changing in a year. And so
you've got these two things conspiring to produce equipment that when it's
there, is not the most advanced possible. There has to be a way to shorten that
process. Business is finding ways to do it. Silicon Valley has got dozens of
ways to do it.
I don't know, beyond what I have said,
that in some cases I think you leap-frog systems, but in other cases I think you
probably keep platforms and leap-frog elements of that and provide flexibility
as advanced technologies come along. We're going to have to do it. We can't
simply be spending, you know, money to produce things that are going to be
behind the curve. We've got to find ways to do it. It sure won't be Don Rumsfeld
that will figure it out, but if I'm lucky, we'll find people who are smart
enough, and a lot smarter than I am, to put down and screw their head into it
and then come up to the Congress and talk about how we can adjust these systems
so that they'll work in the environment we're in, which is much more rapidly
paced.
SEN. DAYTON: I've also heard that a lot from
Minnesota businesses, the difficulty, the length of time, the cumbersome
procurement requirements, bidding contracts, procedures. Anything that
could be done, it seems to me, to reduce by two-thirds or more the amount of
paperwork, reporting requirements, oversight, and then, therefore, the timetable
involved will benefit the private sector as well as the government.
MR. RUMSFELD: Exactly.
SEN.
DAYTON: Perhaps related to that, you talked also about the need to try to have
the technological systems of the various services better coordinated. You talk
about born joint, I think was your phrase, born jointly, where they would start
-- again, given the disparity of the services and the contracting procedures,
and the like, how realistically are you going to effectuate it? I can't get my
Washington office computers and my Minnesota office computers joint at this
point yet. So when you talk about the complexity of what you're dealing with, I
mean, I wonder, isn't that problem just going to get worse?
MR. RUMSFELD: I'm having the same problem with my computers!
It could. I mean, we've got to see that the services can
talk to each other. They simply must be able to do that. And the effort that
occurred, really well after my watch, on, quote, "jointness", has, I think, made
strides in that direction.
But, I mean, your point
about the private sector -- the government of the United States has not been a
good customer; we have not been a good interactor with the defense industry.
It's not an accident; the last time I looked, the three top defense contractors
in size, Boeing and Raytheon and Lockheed, had a market cap that was less than
Wal-Mart.
Now, why is that? It's -- because it's not --
doing business with the government is not a great deal.
SEN. DAYTON: I'd prefer you to stick to the analogy to Target, but I
wouldn't quarrel with the point you're making. (Laughter.) In your response to
the questions you were asked about the International Criminal Court and,
particularly, the Rome Accord, and you said that you opposed it. Is that,
opposed that concept in entirety, or opposed the particular framework of the
Rome Accord? What is your position, sir?
MR. RUMSFELD:
I don't have the letter that I signed, along with George Schultz and a host of
Republicans and Democrats, expressing our concern about that, but the -- if I'm
not mistaken, President Clinton has recently signed that and announced he was
not going to send it to the Senate. Is that correct? I think that's right. He's
-- yes. And again, I'm not an international lawyer, but my view of it was that
it posed a risk to the men and women in the armed services that they could be
doing the bidding of the United States government and the United States Senate
and be hauled before an international court for war crimes. And it concerned me
and it concerned a whole series of former secretaries of State and secretaries
of Defense, which is the reason we signed the letter.
The current status of the situation, as I understand it, is that the
president has signed it and said that he had concerns about it and was not going
to send it to the Senate for ratification. I am further advised that a signed
agreement like that, even though not ratified, has standing; standing in the
sense that if you sign it and it is not ratified, you take unto yourself the
obligation not to undermine it and to support it and to behave reasonably in
accordance with it. That concerns me, so I'm uncomfortable with the position
that President Clinton has taken.
I am not the nominee
for secretary of State, nor am I the president-elect. It is up to them to make,
in the National Security Council context, to consider this. And my understanding
is that President-elect Bush has indicated that that is what will happen; that
he would not send it up either, but whether or not he wants to leave it stand, I
think, is an issue that the National Security Council would engage at some point
in the future. And I would need to know a lot more than I currently know.
SEN. DAYTON: My time has expired. Just quickly, we're
sending you up there with all of these responsibilities, all of this good
advice. We talked just before we resumed this afternoon about your going there
essentially by yourself. What can this committee do to help you get underway
most effectively over the next couple of months?
MR.
RUMSFELD: Oh, if I get through this process and it looks like I'm going to be
confirmed, the next order of business is two- fold. One is to get briefed up by
the fine people who have been serving there and understand what the circumstance
is, and the second is to come to some judgments as to who I think ought to be
recommended to President-elect Bush for nominees. And there are an enormous
number of critical jobs that need to be filled, and with the backlog in
clearances and the backlog in FBI approvals and the amount of time it takes to
get through the Office of Public Ethics and the amount of time it takes to
process a human being through this thing, the odds are I will -- if I get there,
I will be there alone, without another soul that has been brought in to help.
And it's -- you have to be very careful about bringing people in on a temporary
basis to help you because of the assumption, the presumptions, and because they
have not been confirmed by the Senate, they're really not in a position to make
decisions.
So it is -- we've got a strange complication
here where we're kind of tangled up in ourselves. We have a -- we're going to
have a -- on the 20th we're going to have a president of the United States in
office, and who knows how many of his Cabinet will be there? He can't even
nominate until he's sworn in, as Senator -- the chairman said.
So, I don't know what the answer is but, as I said earlier, I know that
I am just one human being, and there is no way I can do that job down there. The
only way I can ever do anything in my life is to find the best talent around --
(pauses) --
SEN. DAYTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. RUMSFELD: -- and get him at it.
SEN. LEVIN: Senator Nelson.
BILL NELSON
(D-FL): Mr. Chairman, this is a pleasure for me to be a member of your
committee, one in which you and the next chairman operate in such a bipartisan
manner. And I am privileged and honored to be a part of the committee. Mr.
Secretary -- I'll call you that ahead of time -- welcome.
Clearly, the issue of terrorism is going to be one that's going to be
facing us quite a bit in the future. As we look back in the breakup of the
Soviet Union, it's questionable whether the United States moved quickly enough
to do what we could, as -- in the resulting chaos where people, utilizing money,
perhaps spirited away nuclear weapons -- tactical nuclear weapons, the command
and control system -- all of the temptations that came into the system at that
time.
I'd like to have your comments on that, and what
you think that we should be thinking about in this committee, assisting you as
we try to confront this issue of containing this proliferation.
MR. RUMSFELD: The problem of terrorism is an exceedingly serious one.
It's a problem for us in our homeland, it's a problem for deployed forces, it's
a problem for our friends and allies. And I think it was Lenin who said that
"the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize." And that's what it does. It changes
people's behavior. And the wonderful advantage is a terrorist can attack at any
time in any place, using any technique, and it is physically impossible to
defend at every time, in every place, against every technique.
In Beirut I watched the process where they first used trucks with
explosives to drive in and -- into a barracks and kill 241 American Marines. The
next thing, people started putting barricades up like we have around the White
House. And what do they do then? Well, you can change your method. What you do
is you start using rocket-propelled grenades and lobbing them over. So the next
thing you could -- you looked at the embassy -- the British embassy in Beirut --
and they had wire nets hanging off the building to reject rocket-propelled
grenades. Fine. Didn't happen again. Next thing they do is they go after soft
targets. They go after people -- families going to and from their place of
work.
So it is not something that ends. It is something
you need to be attentive to. It's something we need to have vastly better
intelligence than we do today. And it's something that needs to not simply be a
Defense Department problem or a homeland defense problem, but it's also a
diplomatic problem. We have to find ways to function in this world where we work
with people and try to create an environment that is less hospitable to
terrorists and to terrorism.
I don't know the number
but I have something rattling in my head that we're spending today something
like $11 billion on this problem. And I don't have any idea if that's the
right number or the wrong number, but it's a lot. And it's a lot more, for
example, than is being proposed to spend on some other defense
techniques.
But it's a problem.
SEN. BILL NELSON: Well, we're looking forward to working with you on
this.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
SEN. BILL NELSON: You know, down in Florida, we had an interesting
election this year, and part of the problem --
MR.
RUMSFELD: I noticed that!
MR./SEN. : You heard about
that.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Chuckles.)
SEN. BILL NELSON: -- part of the problem was military overseas ballots.
And I want to work with the committee particularly in devising a way that -- in
Florida, for example, 42 percent of the ballots were not counted -- of the
military overseas ballots were not counted because they didn't qualify under
Florida law, even though the attorney general issued a ruling, in the midst of
all the controversy, actually changing the effect of the law so that it didn't
have to be just a postmark, that it could be a signature, a date, and a witness.
And what we need is some uniform procedures, and I'm going to propose to the
committee that we have voting by military overseas personnel by the Internet.
It's interesting that just today a consortium of
companies, both software and hardware companies, are proposing to do software
for Internet voting for the entire country. Well, that's on down the road. But I
think we ought to look at the Internet for our military overseas personnel, and
we can discuss that later.
And finally, I would -- I
have some knowledge of launch vehicles and the competition of American launch
vehicles with foreign launch vehicles. And we're getting into a situation, as
you have responded to other questions on space-based assets, of we've got to
have the assurance that we can get those assets to space, and now it's not
necessarily the DOD payloads that we have to have on expendable booster rockets,
which are government vehicles. But we have a great reliance now of getting our
commercial satellites on orbit, many of whom perform a function that is
absolutely essential to the functioning of the free world. And we're relying on
foreign competitors getting over half of those payloads to orbit.
So I'm going to look forward to working with you and your
staff on this in this committee as well, on that. I'd love to have any comment
that you have --
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, you're of course
exactly correct. There's no question but that the launch capability of the
United States has been diminishing relative to the rest of the world. And there
have three or four studies that have analyzed in some depth the nature of the
problem with respect to U.S. launch capabilities. And I think it's important
that you've raised it. And certainly I am aware of those studies.
Our Commission on Space Management and Organization did
not go into detail on it because it had been addressed by so many previous
organizations. And I think the problems are fundamentally rather well known.
They're not being attended to, but they're rather well known.
SEN. BILL NELSON: Did your report get into the transfer of technology
by putting American spacecraft on the top of foreign vehicles, particularly the
Chinese?
MR. RUMSFELD: It did not. There have been
others who have looked at that, and there is no question but that if you're
going to marry a payload with a launch vehicle, that it requires, inevitably, a
certain amount of technology transfer.
SEN. BILL
NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
SEN. LEVIN: Senator Nelson, thank you.
Senator Carnahan?
SEN. JEAN
CARNAHAN (D-MO): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rumsfeld,
you have certainly shown this committee impeccable credentials. And you have
shown a great deal of candor and forthrightness in answering all the questions
that have been presented to you today. And I thank you for that and for your
patience.
Because of the length of the day and the
brevity of my seniority, I will confine myself to just one question. As you
know, Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri is a major part of the Army training system,
with a chemical school and an engineering school and a(n) MP school.
And I've been told that -- from Congressman Ike Skelton
that the readiness level at this TRADOC post is not all that it should be, as it
is not in other posts as well. I was wondering what your thoughts might be on
how we would address the readiness levels at TRADOC posts.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I'm certainly not knowledgeable about that
particular situation. But people are aware of their circumstance. And to the
extent readiness levels in an institution like that, an organization like that
are not what they ought to be, the people there know they are not what they
ought to be. And it affects their attitude, it affects their morale, it affects
their feeling about their jobs and whether or not they want to stay in the
service. So it seems to me that it is part of a much broader problem that we
must address. And certainly if it's true there, as I understand it is, it is
very likely true in other locations.
I would say one
other thing about readiness. It's one thing to say, Here are our readiness
categories, and here are the levels of readiness that we need to meet. And
that's well and good, but the first thing to do is to say, Ready for what? And
we need to make sure that what we're getting ready for and that they aren't
simply categories that existed and fit the prior period but are not well adapted
to the future because people understand that, too, the people who are -- have
the responsibility for that. It is not good for morale if you know you're
breaking your neck trying to get your readiness level up for something that, in
fact, made a lot of sense yesterday but may not make as much sense tomorrow.
SEN. CARNAHAN: Thank you.
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator
Carnahan.
Mr. Rumsfeld, let me go back to national
missile defense. I want to press that issue with you. I want to follow up on a
number of questions which I asked, Senator Cleland asked, Senator Reed and
others have asked here.
First, you said this morning
that your experience led you to the view that in a crisis that a president
should not be presented with just two options: either capitulation or a
preemptive strike. I couldn't agree with you more. But there's a third option,
and it is missing from your response, which is to pursue the policy of the
United States and not be deflected by any threat with a real level of confidence
that it would be a totally irrational act for anybody to carry out that threat.
You this morning said those dictators you enumerated are rational folks. We
don't like them, we don't like what they do, but that they act rationally.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, they're not rational in our context,
but by their standards what they're doing is -- .
SEN.
LEVIN: Right. But we've been told over and over again by our intelligence
sources and otherwise that the first goal of these regimes is survival:
self-perpetuation. And this third option which you didn't address this morning,
which is to pursue the course we're on and not be deflected by that threat, it
seems to me is a very important and the most likely option, and that we should
not signal in any way to any of these folks that one possibility of their having
such a weapon of mass destruction would be that we might acquiesce. And I think
Senate Reed made reference to that point. It seems to me it's absolutely
critical, number one.
Number two, you indicated that we
should consider certain adverse effects if we fail to deploy a national missile
defense. And I agree with that. I think that the pros and cons of deployment at
a time when we have a technologically feasible missile defense, when that time
comes, if it comes, that the pros and cons should be all on the table.
MR. RUMSFELD: I agree.
SEN.
LEVIN: And what is essential is to consider the effects that you made reference
to, it seems to me those are important effects; that we also have got to
consider the negative effects of a deployment, if it is unilateral, if it
requires us to pull out of a treaty that we have with Russia -- the ABM Treaty;
if it results in larger number of weapons on Russian soil and Chinese soil.
We had a report yesterday, referred to in this morning's
paper, by the writers Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, which I referred to this
morning. But I just want to read this one thing to you: That the most urgent,
unmet national security threat to the United States today is that weapons of
mass destruction, or weapons-usable material located in Russia, could be stolen
or sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and used against American troops
abroad or citizens at home.
Now, whether that is the
most urgent unmet national security threat or not -- and I happen to think it
surely ranks near the top or at the top -- I think you would agree that is a
serious concern.
MR. RUMSFELD: You bet.
SEN. LEVIN: And if, in fact -- and I qualify it. I say if the effect of
our deployment of a national missile defense would be to increase the
proliferation threat of a weapon of mass destruction or material that's involved
in a weapon of mass destruction by Russia responding to our unilateral
withdrawal from this treaty by no longer reducing the number of weapons that she
has, or increasing the number of weapons that she has, that is a factor which I
would hope you would consider.
Would you agree that
it's a legitimate factor to consider, however you come out at the end?
MR. RUMSFELD: Right. I agree completely that in this
process, the advantages and disadvantages of deployment should be considered,
and the advantages and disadvantages of not deploying should be considered.
SEN. LEVIN: Now, I welcome that. It seems to me that's
important. But there are some other disadvantages I just want to throw in there.
And in saying so, I happen to agree with you that we should look at all the
advantages and disadvantages. But I want to mention a couple others.
Our allies. Our allies have urged us not to unilaterally
deploy this system; not to leave them out of any system. They have not urged us,
as far as I know of, in any case, to unilaterally deploy -- and I use the word
"unilateral" to mean that we would pull out of a treaty with Russia and proceed
on our own without being able to modify.
Now, you have
said, in your answers to the questions of the committee, that you would seek
modification of that treaty with Russia. I believe that was in your answers. And
it seems to me that is the course which should be followed. If it wasn't you in
your answers, then it was the president-elect who made reference to an effort to
modify the treaty.
MR. RUMSFELD: It may have been the
president-elect.
SEN. LEVIN: Now, there's one other
factor which I think should be placed on the table.
MR.
RUMSFELD: Am I going to get a chance to comment on some of these --
SEN. LEVIN: You will. Absolutely.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) Okay.
SEN. LEVIN:
Absolutely. I wouldn't do that to you. And if you can't remember all these
points --
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughing) That's my problem, I
-- (laughs) --
SEN. LEVIN: If you can't remember them
all, I'll remind you of them.
MR. RUMSFELD: All right.
(Laughs.)
SEN. LEVIN: But there's another consideration
here which it seems to me should be put on the table. Even if we're willing to
take those adverse effects because we think that the positives outweigh the
negatives, we are still left with the fact that there are other means of
delivery beside missiles -- trucks and ships -- which are cheaper, more
reliable, have no return address, in the case of a truck. We could be threatened
by one of these dictators with the kind of ultimatum: "I just invaded Kuwait. If
you try to throw me out of Kuwait, there's a truck going around on the
Interstate of the United States. It's got a biological or chemical weapon on it.
You're going to lose part of your major cities, or you're going to see you air
poisoned, or whatever."
We're going to face those
potential threats even if we successfully create a national missile defense
technologically, and even if we decide to take the risk of proliferation, which
might result, if Russia's response is what she said that it will be, which is
forget the reductions, forget START-II, forget START-III. Rather than building
down, she's going to build up, creating the threat which Baker and Cutler talked
about in their report.
So all I really am asking you,
and I would urge you to read the president's signing statement on his -- when he
signed the National Missile Defense Act, by the way. I think it's really
important that you read that statement. I mean, you made reference, and I made
reference this morning to the National Missile Defense Act, that those factors
which I've tried to enumerate in the last couple minutes are all on the table
before a deployment decision would be made by the current administration. Of
course, it later on decided to delay it because of the failure of the tests. We
weren't there technologically. But I would urge you to read that statement
before he signed the act relative to the meaning of those two clauses before you
reach any final conclusion on the meaning of those two clauses yourself.
I will stop there. I'll help you remember all these
factors if you weren't able to write them all down. But we surely want to give
you a chance to respond.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you. I
think I've got them down. The question is can I read my handwriting. I was
writing so rapidly here.
I think we have to begin with
the fact that the president-elect has indicated that he intends to deploy
missile defense capability. I don't want to get ahead of myself and argue in any
way that suggests that I know what the outcome of the review will be or what he
means by that or what the National Security Council will end up recommending.
And I understand that the Congress has a role in this. The authorization and
appropriation process is there.
First, with respect to
the concept of unilateral, I may overstate for emphasis a little bit, but I have
the impression that for at least a period of four or five or six years, the
argument has been made by the United States government that missile defense
would be destabilizing, that missile defense would be a bad thing, and that it
could be -- and the feedback we got was yes, that's right. The Russians say, "We
don't like it," and the allies say, "We don't want the Russians to be unhappy,
and we don't want the agreements between the United States and Russia to be
ruptured by the United States doing something unilaterally."
I personally -- there's no way I can prove what I'm going to say, but I
have a feeling that once the Russians understand that the United States is
serious about this and intends to deploy, that they will -- as opposed to the
reverse of that -- that they will in fact find a way in the negotiations -- I
don't know quite how or when or in what way -- in the discussions that take
place, to accept that reality, recognize that there are threats from states with
capabilities that not only threaten us and our allies and our friends, but over
time will threaten the Russians as well.
They're
worried about terrorism. They're worried about military capabilities.
Second, the implication has been set forth that we would
do something precipitous or unilateral with respect to our allies. That's just
not going to happen. We understand how important that alliance is. We understand
that our allies need to be consulted. We also understand that to some extent,
the allies' concern is two-fold. One is that Russia -- and I'm kind of
meandering off into the secretary of State-designate's area of responsibility,
and not mine, and I'll tighten this up a little bit. But the allies are
concerned, and I've talked with a number of them, about being disconnected. Our
program as it's currently on path could conceivably have the effect of providing
the United States with protection but leaving our allies with less protection.
And that kind of decoupling would be unwise by us, it would be unhelpful to the
alliance, and I don't think you'll see things happen. I think you'll see a much
closer consultation take place.
Next, you mentioned the
Baker-Cutler thing and connected it to this some way. I don't see the
connection. My impression is -- and I did not read the article. I was so busy
getting ready for today that I did not read it carefully. But I was under the
impression, at least, that they were talking about the "loose nuke" problem, the
risks that in fact nuclear materials and nuclear weapons and nuclear competence,
in terms of people, could and are and may to a greater degree lead to
proliferation. I agree with that completely. The Russians have been telling us
they're not doing it, and they have been doing it. They have been helping Iran.
They have been helping other countries. Certainly they've been helping India.
And we know it and they know it, and they know we know it. And is it because
they're actively trying to make mischief? Is it because they're making money? Or
is it because they don't have the kinds of controls over what's taking place in
that country and there's a demand for that kind of assistance, or is it some
combination of those? I don't know for sure. But I know that they in fact are
active proliferators.
The Baker issue is, I think, a
somewhat different one, is my impression. You're right, there are other means of
delivery. We know that. We know that anything other than fighting armies, navies
and air forces is attractive because they're all cheaper, they're all more
readily available, and they all offer the prospect that even without doing it,
you can affect people's behavior because you can threaten the use of a terror
weapon and terrorize others and alter their behavior.
My view of that is, simply because you can't do everything doesn't mean
you shouldn't do anything. I mean, I agree, to the extent it is unattractive to
work one end of that spectrum or some place along the spectrum, it inevitably
will lead people to look for the weak link, to look for another part of that
asymmetrical spectrum to assert their influence. I agree with that. That's a
fact. And yet that does not say to me that it makes sense for us to remain
vulnerable to ballistic missile attack if we don't have to.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you. I'm sure my time is up. I don't have a card, but
I'm sure it's over.
Senator Warner?
SEN. WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think everyone understands
we're on the second round at six minutes apiece. Yes.
SEN. LEVIN: I should have announced that.
SEN.
WARNER: That's all right.
SEN. LEVIN: That is correct.
We're on six minutes, second round. Thank you.
SEN.
WARNER: And I thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I certainly want
to compliment you and others. This has been an excellent hearing. I've moved
about a little bit in the course of this hearing, wanted to go over and welcome
your Space Council, and they're carrying on, as you might expect, quite well,
and others.
And throughout the hallway there's
compliments being paid to this committee as a whole for undertaking a very
thorough and in-depth hearing. I shall proceed quickly under my six months --
six minutes. (Laughter.)
Did you want a seventh inning
stretch here, Mr. Secretary?
MR. RUMSFELD: No, I'm
fine.
SEN. WARNER: You're fine. Let 'er rip.
As you can clearly see, the diversity of views on this
very important subject for the 23 years my good friend and I have been here in
the Senate together we have from time to time been on opposite sides on this
question of missile defense. But listening to this very important colloquy
between the two of you, let us also include the following category, and that is
accidental. Military men and women training all over the world on all types of
systems, accidents happen. No treaty's going to stop that.
MR. RUMSFELD: Right.
SEN. WARNER: No form of
deterrence is going to stop that. And I've often said that every president
better have a draft statement on his desk to explain to a half a million
American people who have lost their lives and their families and survivors why
we weren't prepared to stop an accident. So that's a factor we'd better have.
Now, to my questions -- get your pencil working there so
we can get it going.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. WARNER: I want to cover very important subjects. We
touch on our very valued ally Israel. We've had a strategic relationship with
them for many, many years. Unfortunately, that area of the world is embroiled in
a conflict, one which you as a former negotiator and troubleshooter have a clear
understanding of the origins. Regrettably, many of those origins are still
there. I'd like to have your views on that. And in the gulf region, we have done
our best. We formed a magnificent coalition under President Bush. Some 13
nations came together to stop the aggression of Saddam Hussein, send his forces
back in-country. And we are in there alone today except for some help from Great
Britain in the air campaign and from some other nations in the sea campaign to
contain him. I'd like to have your views on how we approach that.
As I started this morning, President-elect Bush has put
together an extraordinary, superbly well qualified national security team. These
questions are going to be on their desks on the day of arrival.
I'd like to also explore with you the relationship between the People's
Republic of China and Taiwan. Again, we have had a long- standing relationship
with the people of Taiwan. We have in place certain agreements.
And lastly, I think we should cover the policy that you would hope to
recommend to the president with regard to withdrawal of our peacekeepers, the
time table. Maybe not specifically, but the general discussion of the withdrawal
from Bosnia and Kosovo. This is a subject that I've been active in. Last year I
and other colleagues -- Senator Byrd joined with me, and I joined with him on
separate pieces of legislation to try and bring to the attention of our allies
the commitments they had made, the fact that we were trying to fulfill our
commitment. And somehow if they didn't continue to live up to those commitments
we'd have to address a withdrawal policy. Well, guess what happened. Very
quickly the allies came in and fulfilled their commitments in terms of money in
Kosovo and troops and police and likewise, and that situation righted itself.
I think it's important that the United States keep some
presence in both the Kosovo and Bosnian military forces so long as our allies
are there; perhaps not to the level that we have today, but we don't want to
give the perception that we're not a reliable partner to all of these.
So if you'd sort of kick off, and we'll take the first
one.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) Okay. Most of what you
have posed, as you know well, is -- falls over in the area of the Department of
State and the National Security Council as much or more than it does the Defense
establishment.
SEN. WARNER: But you're a team, and
you're at that table.
MR. RUMSFELD: I understand. I
understand, and I'm going to reach out and comment, but I want to preface it by
saying that we're not in office, we have not had meetings, we have not talked
about these things, and --
SEN. WARNER: I understand
that.
MR. RUMSFELD: -- and it would be wrong for me to
try to think I could sketch out policy. So whatever I say is coming from
Rumsfeld.
SEN. WARNER: Clear. But we have an obligation
in advise and consent to get your views, because you're one of the most
experienced, if not the most experienced, person on that team.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, with respect to Israel, the situation is very
difficult. The hostilities are obvious. People die in that region regularly.
Israel is a very small country. They cannot make many mistakes about what they
give up. There is a feeling I've had watching that process that to the extent
someone leans forward, someone leans back, and to the extent someone leans back,
someone leans forward. And it goes that way.
I don't
think it's possible for the United States of America to go in and grab people by
the scruff of the neck and think they can put them together and have something
stick. It has to make sense on the ground. It may -- I have questions about Mr.
Arafat's ability to manage his affairs, his circumstances, and I think to be
dealing with him as though he were a state in control of his circumstance may
not -- may be somewhat unrealistic. I am hopeful. I think that it is an
important issue that I'm sure Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell and
Condi Rice and the president will engage, and certainly I will be happy to be a
participant.
The Gulf coalition is, in fact,
unraveling, and there's no question but that Saddam Hussein's appetite for
weapons of mass destruction has not disappeared. Under the agreement, he was
allowed to continue working on ballistic missiles below a certain range and, of
course, the weight of the warhead affects range. So he has his team together,
and he is working aggressively to make better relationships with Syria and the
new Assad, Bashir Assad, and I suspect that we will not have heard the last of
him, by a darn sight.
The control over assets and
funding, I think, is rather important and fundamental and ought not to be let
go. There's a lot of pressure from various coalition partners to ease up, but I
think that central principle is one we ought to think about.
SEN. WARNER: We have over 20,000 U.S. troops in that region, containing
these powers.
MR. RUMSFELD: And they're risking their
lives in the North and the South with flights. It is a dangerous situation.
The PRC and Taiwan, so much has been said I think it's not
much I can add. Clearly, we have laws, we have obligations, we have hopes and
that situation also seems to ebb and flow in terms of the volume on the words
coming out of the PRC on that subject, and at the moment, they seem to have
ebbed, rather than flowed.
But --
SEN. WARNER: But the one thing certain is the steady buildup in the PRC
military capabilities?
MR. RUMSFELD: Not just
generally, but in that area.
SEN. WARNER: That's
correct.
MR. RUMSFELD: Third, peacekeepers in Bosnia.
The first thing I would say is that we have forces on the ground, we have troops
there, and we ought to be supporting them.
And I worry
about forums like this, where we talk about altering what we have. The
government, the president, the Congress -- we have to decide what we want to do
on these things. But discussions that lead to uncertainty harm the people on the
ground, who are trying to do things.
And I went into
Bosnia some time back and visited with people from various factions. And they're
either leaning forward or they're leaning back, and you can be sure the more
there is talk about departure, the more they wait you out. It's true across the
globe.
I've never been a fan of deadlines. I mean, the
original deadline, that we'll be out by Christmas, was not wise, not good
policy, in my judgment. We ought not to do that. It told everybody, "Wait for a
year. You're gone."
I think what we ought to do is --
and I know the president has said he will review it. He will. He -- when he has
a view, you can be certain he will not do anything precipitous. He understands
the importance of the relationships with our allies. What he will decide, I have
no idea. He will certainly consult with the Congress, as well as allies, and
we'll all know when that process is complete.
SEN.
WARNER: I think that term "consult with the Congress" is a very reassuring one,
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. And I thank the distinguished witness
for those replies.
SEN. LEVIN: Senator Lieberman?
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
I had to leave for a while. I apologize for that. I must
say, coming back, I thought I'd find you weary --
MR.
RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. LIEBERMAN: -- mentally worn.
But you know, I'm discouraged to find that you're as sharp as you were when I
left this morning.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I want to thank you particularly for some
of the sort of straight talk, as another member of the committee was fond of
saying earlier last year. You've been on the Straight Talk Express here for part
of today, and I appreciate it. Chris Williams (sp), sitting behind you, worked
with Senator Lott. And Senator Lott and I have sponsored some legislation on our
concern about proliferation to Iran. And you are dead right that the Russians
have just continued to do that. Sometimes we don't like to deal with that
reality, but it is real. And I appreciate the straight talk that you gave, and I
hope that we'll continue to work on that, because it threatens our security and
the security of our allies.
The same is true of your
answer just now on the question of our forces in the Balkans, and I thank you
for it.
We made a serious mistake here some years ago,
under political pressure, where we did set a deadline, and it created a real
credibility gap that we'll still fighting to overcome.
Believe it or not, I want to come back to the national missile defense,
in a slightly different way, and make this statement to you and ask you for your
reaction.
I accept the reality of the threat. I think
it's a serious one. I was an original or early co-sponsor of the National
Missile Defense Act, pleased when it went through Congress, and glad when the
president signed it.
And I was up in my office for
meetings, listening to one area of your earlier testimony. If I understood
correctly, in response to a question from Senator Akaka, you indicated logic
would tell us that in the time since your commission's report, the threat has
just naturally become more serious, because proliferation goes on.
My concern is about the timeliness of a response, and just
to say that I am concerned, as the new administration comes in and thinks about
the layered approach to the national missile defense, that if you think about
the 2005 date or whatever date, even earlier, by some estimates, in which some
of these folks who have hostile intent toward us could get capacity to do our
homeland damage, I think that one of the reasons -- not all, but one of the
reasons the Clinton administration chose the land-based alternative for the
national missile defense was because it was possible, assuming technological
feasibility, to get it, if you will, on line earlier.
Sea-based is essentially a concept now, and estimates I've seen say it
won't come on line any earlier than 2010; space-based probably even later than
that.
So my concern is, as you think about the
alternatives you have as you come into office, that you take a look at the fact
that while the land-based system of missile defense may not be the best, it may
be the one we can get operating earliest.
MR. RUMSFELD:
I don't disagree with that. I don't know enough to know of certain knowledge
that that's right, but I have a set of impressions and they are these: that the
current program may very well have been something that could be done sooner than
some of the other alternatives, such as sea-based or space-based capabilities.
On the other hand, my further impression is that the current system was designed
to fit within the treaty. And I've never believed -- I mean, that treaty is
ancient history. It's almost -- it dates even back farther than when I was last
in the Pentagon. That's a long time. Think what's happened to technology in the
intervening period. I mean, to try to fashion something that fits within the
constraints of that and expect that you're going to get THE most effective
program, THE earliest to deploy, and THE most cost-effective, it's just -- it
boggles the mind. That isn't how people do advance technologies, is to sit down
with those kinds of constraints and try to fit it in the straitjacket.
I don't disagree that at this stage it may be something
that could be done earlier than other alternatives. But I would say it may very
well be that pieces of it might very well fit in what one might ultimately want
to do.
Now, this is all sheer speculation on my part. I
mean, the press has kind of played me up as an expert in missile defense, and
I'm not. I know a lot about the threat and I spent a lot of time on it, but I've
spent much less time on the ways of dealing with it, and that is something I've
simply got to wrap my head around.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I
have one more question. Incidentally, enjoy whenever the press plays you up as
an expert on anything -- (laughter) -- because it won't last long.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughing) Exactly! Exactly!
SEN. LIEBERMAN: I want to come to the fifth of your priorities in the
opening statement you made: Reform of DOD structures, processes and
organization.
One of the things that struck me in my
years on the committee is the extent to which the goals of the
Goldwaters-Nichols Act have not yet been realized; that is one of them, which is
one of the central ones, which is based on the conclusion, I think correctly,
that warfighting would be joint; that, therefore, more of the operation of our
military should be joint. And there's been a natural institutional resistance to
that. And look, the four services have extraordinary histories of capability and
unique functions to play.
But I was thinking in terms
of your background, in this case in the private sector, that too often,
probably, I find myself saying, "I don't think any CEO of a big company" -- and
there's no company as big as the Pentagon; you're about to become the CEO of the
largest company in the world -- but "would tolerate that kind of overlap." And
we've made some progress lately on -- and particularly through the establishment
of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, and I really commend it to you and hope
you can get to know it well.
END OF TODAY'S COVERAGE
But ideally, we should be having more joint
experimentation, joint acquisition, joint training, so that when we come to war
fighting, we will not only have avoided redundancy and saved some money along
the way to do some of the many things that we've all said today we want you to
do, but we'll be better able to fight jointly.
MR.
RUMSFELD: I don't disagree at all. I think that war fighting is inevitably going
to involve all the services, and to the extent they have not trained and
exercised and equipped for interoperability, in that kind of an environment,
they're not going to do what they could do, had they done that.
SEN. LIEBERMAN: My time is more than up. Thank you very much.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Lieberman.
Senator Sessions?
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL):
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I know that the chairman has
been a skillful questioner, let us say, on national missile defense. And we went
through a long battle on it. Senator Lieberman and Senator Cochran formed an
opinion, as did a number of us, that we needed to move forward. We accepted your
bipartisan, unanimous report that by the year 2005 we did have a threat we
needed to be prepared to defend against, and the Senate, I think, as Senator
Roberts, said, voted over 90 votes -- maybe three dissents -- to deploy and
follow through on that.
The president did in fact drag
his feet. We did not do the Alaska radar work that we hoped to have done this
summer, so we've already missed the 2005 year that your commission -- your
report suggested we should try to meet. And so we're now to 2006. And I believe
this summer we'll have another date, that we'll need to make a decision soon,
just get started with the Alaska base. We'll be at 2007.
I just wanted to say, to follow up on Senator Roberts, I believe this
Congress is for this. I believe we've voted overwhelmingly for this. And with
determined leadership, the technology -- technological problems will be
overcome, and I think we need to move forward.
Most
Americans have no idea we have no defense to incoming missiles, absolutely none.
They saw in Israel, in the Gulf War, some Patriot and Scuds, and they think
maybe we have that here. We really have none of that here. And I believe we need
to move forward on that.
I salute you for coming to it
with the background you do, and I salute you for the report that you issued, and
your fellow members, which we acted on and the president did sign.
You know, I'd like to pursue a little bit of South -- and
by the way, on national missile defense, are we talking about a $3 billion a
year expenditure, maybe 4 (billion)? That's hardly 1 percent of the total
defense budget. It's not going to drain our defense resources to deploy national
missile defense.
You know, Colombia's 38 million
people. It is a significant trading partner of the United States. But 40 to 50
percent of that country is now being held by Marxist guerrillas who are working
with the narco-traffickers.
Venezuela is showing
some strange activity, at best.
I do believe we
need to give more attention to our hemisphere.
And
when you compare that to Kosovo, where they have 2 million people we have no
trading relationships with, and it's clearly in the backyard of the Europeans,
would you share with us your view about the importance of our involvement in
this hemisphere, in general?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, "in
general" is about what I can do. Again, I am reluctant to be continuously
infringing on my friend Colin Powell's areas of prospective responsibility.
We live here. It is important to us. There's no question
that this hemisphere is. And I think that successive administrations of both
parties have recognized that and addressed that over my adult lifetime.
That is a very complicated problem down there, and I need
to get steeped in it. We've talked a bit about what's going on. I understand
there's a limited number of U.S. military forces; that the State Department has
the lead; that a lot of what's being done down there is being done by contract
personnel; that there's fear around the periphery that whatever is done in
Colombia is not going to end the problem but move the problem geographically.
I've read the same speculation you have about the Venezuelan involvement. I
don't know much about it beyond that.
It's going to
take a lot of careful thought and a combination, probably, of the kinds of
things that are being done, as well as diplomacy, to see if we can't have that
situation begin to get better rather than worse. Thus far, as -- I've seen the
maps that show the minimal control that the government is currently exerting in
the country, and it tends to be urban areas, as I understand it.
SEN. SESSIONS: It's a disturbing situation. And i don't know the answer
to it. I don't believe it requires troops. But I do believe we need to say,
which Ambassador Pickering would not say in one of these hearings when I asked
him, that we endorse -- perhaps they have since -- but we need to endorse
unequivocally the oldest democracy in the hemisphere except ours, Colombia, in
their struggles with the Marxist guerrillas, in my view, and we need to
encourage them to be aggressive. And if they're not going to defend their
country, I don't see how we can defend it for them.
But
I believe they're going to be reaching a point soon where they're going to
decide they've got to fight to preserve their democracy, and if they do not
fight, they're going to lose it. At that point, I think we're going to need to
be -- we're going to have to help them. I wish we didn't. I wish it wasn't a
problem. But I'm afraid it is.
And finally, I would say
I agree with you totally that this treaty with Russia and the missile defense
question is ancient history. It was with a dead empire that no longer exists.
Surely we will deploy the best system and work and just deal with the Russians
in a fair and objective way, tell them we love them, we want to be partners and
friends with them, but we're going to do what's in our interest to protect our
American citizens. And I think they'll accept that if we'll quit waffling and be
clear. And I hope that you will do that.
MR. RUMSFELD:
Thank you.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Sessions.
Senator Cleland.
SEN. MAX CLELAND
(D-GA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Just for the
committee's information, I do understand that in terms of the voting of military
ballots and the counting of military ballots overseas, with your help, Mr.
Chairman, and myself and Senator Hutchinson and Senator Warner, we've asked for
the GAO to do an independent investigation of this whole issue of military
ballots being counted and how the military votes overseas, and that that report
will be to us in a matter of months.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank
you -- (inaudible).
SEN. CLELAND: Mr. Secretary, let me
just say thank you very much for waiting us out and for being so patient. A
couple of years ago, you signed a letter, along with Dick Cheney, supporting
full funding for the F-22, which is advanced technology for our tactical
aircraft. I'd like to, Mr. Chairman, submit that letter for the record if no
objection.
SEN. LEVIN: It will be made part of the
record.
SEN. CLELAND: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your
support of the F-22 in the past. I hope that we can count on your continued
support for the F-22. Any remark you'd like to make on that?
MR. RUMSFELD: No, sir, other than that I said what I said, I believed
it when I said it, and I'm now in a circumstance where I've got to undertake a
review and look at that and other things and try to come to some rational
conclusions. And I shall do so.
SEN. CLELAND: Thank you
very much.
In terms of airlift capability, it's
interesting that the FY2000 Defense Authorization Bill did direct the secretary
of defense to submit a report to this Congress no later than February. The
airlift requirement report is in. The current requirement for airlift in the
Pentagon is almost 50 million ton miles, and the mobility requirement study
estimates the requirement may rise to around 54-55 million ton miles.
With the move away from more forward-deployed forces, and
airlift and air mobility more and more important, the C-130J
is integral to our rapid deployment operations. The last administration proposed
some 24 new C-130Js over the next four or five years. I have a
special interest in this program, Mr. Chairman -- I mean Mr. Secretary. We hope
that you continue to look hard at the C-130J program,
particularly in terms of its critical role in moving our forces abroad.
And finally, Warner Robins is one of three remaining Air
Force depots. There used to be five; now there's three. Part of the challenge
here, it seems to me, is to determine if the Pentagon is going to continue to
keep core capability in its maintenance and depot facilities. And in determining
that core capability, I just hope you'd work with all of us so that our military
commanders will have the ability, in terms of a crisis, to ramp up and work
seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to meet the needs of our service men and
women overseas.
So I just have those thoughts, and any
response, sir, from you would be welcome.
MR. RUMSFELD:
I have not engaged this subject of depots. I understand that, among all the
caucuses in Congress these days, the depot caucus may take the cake as being the
largest one. It's a subject that -- let me rephrase it this way: There's no
question but that the United States military needs to have what they need to
have. And the question is, in what way can they assure that they have that so
that the capabilities, and our capability as a country to contribute to peace
and stability, are assured? I haven't looked at it. I understand it's there. And
we'll certainly address it.
SEN. CLELAND: Thank you
very much.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
SEN. CLELAND: We've talked about one big idea. And when I
heard that, I thought about maybe a question on deterrence and deterrence in
this new globalized era, and defining what could maybe determine -- deter the
terrorist or the biochemical attack and so forth. And I appreciate your views on
that. I look forward to that continued discussion.
But
one of the big ideas I'd just like for you to think about: In the challenge of
dealing with an all-volunteer force, and now a married all-volunteer force -- in
terms of a big idea, over the last few years -- and looking at the GI Bill and
its power to attract young men and women to the military -- maybe one of the big
ideas we ought to explore together is that the American military becomes the
greatest university in the world.
In other words, we're
going to have to train constantly, and it probably already is the greatest
university -- certainly the biggest university in the world. But education
begets education. The American military can become known not just as a good
place to get a couple -- three or four years' education, and then get out, but
someplace to educate yourself and your family over the long haul.
Then maybe we can work in a wonderful way on our retention
problem as well, because the people who get out that contact me get out
basically with tears in their eyes. They love the military, they love the
service, but they get out because they have pressures on their families. One of
the pressures on their families is their kids' education.
So I'd just like to throw that out as an interesting big idea that we
can explore as we walk down this road together, because it does seem to me that
the power of the G.I. Bill or the power of education and the military can be a
powerful tool to keep people -- I mean to attract people and to keep people in
that otherwise would get out. But we have to broaden it so that it includes
their families as well.
I might say one of your
colleagues in the Cabinet will be Tony Principi, who was the author a couple of
years ago of the Principi commission report, which actually recommended the
concept that a serviceman or -woman could take their unused G.I. Bill assets and
transfer them their spouse or to the young -- to their kids, thereby creating a
college fund for them. Tony Principi was the author of that idea, and he'll be
in the Cabinet with you, as head of the Veterans' Administration.
So I wanted to throw that out as a big idea that you might
consider.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you very much.
SEN. CLELAND: Thank you very much for your patience, Mr.
Chairman. No further questions. Thanks.
SEN. LEVIN:
Thank you. Senator Cleland, also let me just add our thanks for your continuing
leadership on the broadening of the G.I. Bill. It's a very important initiative.
You've had a little success, and you deserve a lot more success and hopefully
will achieve a lot more success in that area. I think we want to just thank you
for it.
Senator Nelson?
SEN.
BEN NELSON (D-NE): Mr. Secretary, in Nebraska, we've got the joint command of
Strategic Command, and I commend the military over the last several years under
civilian leadership to work toward finding ways to marry the military
establishment in a way that certainly will work better for cooperation,
collaboration, and obviously under a joint command you tend to get that.
It surprised some people in Nebraska to see the Strategic
Command under the control of an admiral from the Navy, because Nebraska may be
nearly landlocked, except for the Missouri River.
I've
got a question that really relates to how you develop an exit strategy without
showing your hand. We have a civilian military, we've got a citizen government,
and yet we know that the right of the public to know is there, and this body
will provide oversight, so that when you come with an idea that you would like
to provide some knowledge about, the first question is, what's your exit
strategy?
Once you've tipped your hand, there's no
going back. The genie doesn't go back into the bottle, whether you say we're not
going to use any land forces, we're going to be out by December. Are we somewhat
relegated to going back to 1968, when President -- when nominee President Nixon
was running and said, "I have a plan to end the war," but wouldn't tip his
hand?
I think when you have this challenge, it's very
easy for people to put you in the box where they want to know that you have a
plan, they want to know what it is, but once you've told them of it, it's like
the coach giving his playbook to the other team, the other coach.
MR. RUMSFELD: You've put your finger on an enormously
difficult problem. I was chief of staff for the White House when Vietnam ended,
and you had all of these fine people who had supported that effort. And at some
point, you pull the plug. And when you do, people are killed, people are hurt,
people are damaged, and the reputation of our country for following through and
for consistency and for being a reliable partner is damaged for a period.
I was the one who had to go tell President Gemayel of
Lebanon that the United States president and the National Security Council had
decided to withdraw support. And I walked into his office and it just was a
heartbreaker, absolute heartbreaker. Here are a whole host of people who had
stepped forward and relied on us to help him try to get the Syrians out of his
country, and at a certain moment, gone.
You're right,
if you talk and if you telegraph something, more people get killed, more people
are damaged and the hardship is much greater. What's the answer? Well, I don't
know what the answer is. I think part of the answer is, let's try not to get
into things we can't get out of. Let's try not to get into things we can't
finish well. We're still going to have this happen. We're not always going to be
right. We're going to end up trying to do things because we're concerned and we
care, and it won't work because we miscalculated. We thought there was a greater
possibility that there could be an institutional capability to sustain itself
and create a nation that could build and go forward.
But that's hard. I mean, we're not geniuses at nation-building,
institutional capabilities. There has to be something that's there. People say,
"Well, my goodness, the Marshall Plan." Goodness gracious, those countries were
there. They were capable. They were competent. We gave the money. They did what
they did. And the analogy of the Marshall Plan to some of the kinds of
continents that we've been dealing with and the problems we've been dealing
with, I think, is a mismatch.
You're right, I think
that we -- about all you can do is, if you've been wrong, do it fast, confess,
and get out. That's all you can do. And try not to get yourself in a situation
where you cause other people to support you and then you leave them in the
lurch, which is just a heartbreaker.
SEN. BEN NELSON:
Thank you.
SEN. LEVIN: (Off mike.)
SEN. BILL NELSON (D-FL): I believe it was a member of President
Kennedy's Cabinet who said that as a secretary, you have one boss and 535
advisers.
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.)
SEN. BILL NELSON: And I think you've received enough advice for one
day. I wish you well and cede the rest of my time, if you have anything final
you want to say, sir. But nothing further to ask.
MR.
RUMSFELD: Well, I would like to say something, Senator, and I thank you for that
opportunity.
SEN. LEVIN: By the way, there will be
another round of questions soon.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well,
maybe I'll save it, then. (Laughter.) Maybe I'll save it.
SEN. LEVIN: Didn't want to interrupt your flow here, but -- feel free
to --
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I'll say -- I'll say it right
now. I must say, if I know anything, I know that you do not tackle Defense
Department problems and issues and challenges by political party; you do it on a
bipartisan basis.
And I respect the way you and Senator
Warner have handled your back- and-forth chairmanships, and I admire it. And I
assure you that I approach these issues in a non-partisan way and intend to work
with the committee in that way and look forward to it.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you.
We're going to have a
third round for those who might be interested in asking additional questions.
First, on the space policy question, there was a report in
Defense Daily recently that referred -- that quoted -- I don't know who was
saying these words, but here are the words: "Rumsfeld understands the need for
militarization of space."
And my question is, do you
see a need for the, quote, "militarization of space," close quote?
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I didn't say it, and I don't know who
wrote it, and I don't know quite what it means. Let me see if I can put some
words around my thoughts on this subject.
We know
what's been done on land by way of military conflict, we know what's been done
on the sea, and we know what's been done in the air. I think it would be a
stretch to suggest that space will not at some point in the future find itself
receiving similar attention. Why do I say that? Well, for example, if we have an
interest on sea to maintain the sea lanes open and to create an environment
that's hospitable to sea traffic for international intercourse, and we have a
lot of assets in space, one would think we would feel or share a similar view
about having the assets in space free to provide the services and the
capabilities that they do. And to the extent we do as we do, both civilian and
military space assets, and to the extent they conceivably, as with ships and
tanks and planes, become a target at some point, there's no question in my mind
but that it's in our interest to create the kinds of deterrents and capabilities
so that it's not attractive to disable the United States and our enormous
dependence on space assets.
I don't know quite what
that means in answer to that article, but those are my views. And I should say,
these were my views as a member of the commission; they're not the views of the
administration, since I've not had a chance to even discuss these things with
President- elect Bush or the National Security Council.
SEN. LEVIN: Thank you.
As you know -- and
you've made, I think, brief reference to it today -- the United States and North
Korea signed an agreement in 1994 which provides that North Korea will end and
dismantle its plutonium production capacity -- and by the way, I actually went
up to Yongbyon to see with my own eyes that that was being done. It also called
for the United States to lead a coalition with South Korea and Japan to provide
North Korea with proliferation-resistant light-water reactors, if it complies
with every step of the agreement. And it also provides for some fuel, I believe,
to substitute for the loss of that capacity.
Assuming
that both sides comply with this agreement, in your judgment, does this agreed
framework serve our national security interests?
MR.
RUMSFELD: I'll offer some personal views, but I have to again begin with the
beginning, and that is this is quite a distance off my turf, and certainly the
National Security Council and the president and Secretary-designate Colin Powell
will be addressing it.
My view on North Korea is that
they have been as active a proliferator of technologies across the globe as any
country that I know of. It's hard to believe that a country that can't feed its
own people, that has a dictatorship that is repressive and damaging to its
country as anything on the face of the earth, could be developing and marketing
and benefiting financially from the proliferation of these technologies, but
it's a fact.
I was very impressed with the senator's
photograph of the Korea peninsula earlier today where it showed lights in the
South and lights in China, and black. And it's a wonderful metaphor for the
problem.
I think talking -- fine; I'm glad they're
talking. I think that there has not been, to my knowledge, changes in their
military posture with respect to South Korea or with respect to their activities
of proliferation. It's good to be hopeful, it's good to talk. I'm not an expert
on the agreed framework; I've not been there, as you have. I'm not sure I'd be
welcome, but --
SEN. LEVIN: Well, are they dismantling
-- or have they dismantled, as far as you know, their plutonium-production
capacity?
MR. RUMSFELD: I know that -- I know what I
know and I know what I don't know, and I don't know what I don't know.
Specifically, they are world-class tunnelers. They have gone underground across
that country in a way that few other nations have done. They have underground
implacements of enormous numbers of weapons. For me to sit here, having never
been there, and not being a sufficient expert to know anyway, and say that I
have high confidence that they are doing what the agreed framework suggested,
would be foolhardy. I mean, they do not have --
SEN.
LEVIN: Let me try a different way --
MR. RUMSFELD: They
don't have a record of behaving well, and we know they are a secretive, closed
society. And it's perfectly possible for Americans to go milling around there,
think they see something, and it's over there. It's a shell game with those
folks.
SEN. LEVIN: Let me try a different question.
MR. RUMSFELD: You bet.
SEN.
LEVIN: Is it in our interest to try to find a way to eliminate North Korea's
plutonium-production capacity so they can't build nuclear weapons? Is it in our
interest to do that?
MR. RUMSFELD: I think -- I would
broaden it. It is in our interest, and our Asian allies's interests, and our
anti-proliferation interests across the globe that North Korea stop
proliferating, stop threatening South Korea, and begin to behave rationally to
its people and stop having them die of starvation.
So I
guess the answer is sure, it is in our interest. But there are a lot of things
that are in our interest with respect to North Korea, and I don't know that I'd
stick one ahead of the other.
SEN. LEVIN: I agree with
you; there's a lot of things that are in our interest. But it is in our interest
to end their plutonium production?
MR. RUMSFELD: Yes.
You bet.
SEN. LEVIN: A lot of other additional things
are in our interest as well, I couldn't agree with you more. But at least you
would agree that that is in our interest?
MR. RUMSFELD:
Yes, sir.
SEN. LEVIN: Senator Warner?
SEN. WARNER: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let's put on our old Navy hats for a minute, and that's the ship-
building program and the Navy. Any reasonable analysis of the curves in the
outyears, current projection, we're going to be moving down precipitously close
to the 300 level. And I just think at this moment, the most you can say is --
again, climbing back into our purple suits so we're fair to all -- we've got to
address the level of Naval ship construction.
And we've
got to do it early on. Do you not agree with me?
MR.
RUMSFELD: I agree.
SEN. WARNER: That's good.
MR. RUMSFELD: I think that the pressures we face around
the world with respect to bases suggests that we do need to be able to have
capabilities that are afloat.
SEN. WARNER: A follow on
with that, of course, is that -- and these are true stories -- president's when
they are awakened at night by that phone either you are on the other end, or
someone else -- the secretary of state -- advising them of a crisis somewhere in
the world. As Senator John Stennis, the very valued and wonderful chairman of
this committee, used to say, "The presidents would always say to me, 'Well the
first thing that comes to mind, where is the nearest U.S. aircraft carrier?'"
You recall that?
MR. RUMSFELD: (Laughs.) I do, indeed.
Mr. Stennis was chairman when I was last in this job.
SEN. WARNER: That's correct. I testified before him, as did you, many
times.
We've got to keep that carrier level up. We have
12 now -- one in training capacity, several in upkeep, some in transit, four to
five, max, on station throughout the world. And I would hope that you could
indicate to me now that your preliminary thinking is, we've go to maintain that
minimal level, in my judgment, of that key asset of our arsenal of
deterrence.
MR. RUMSFELD: Senator, I, as an ex-Navy
pilot, I'm not unaware of the value of aircraft carriers, but the last thing I'm
going to do is start speculating about one weapons system. I've got an enormous
task to gather some folks and look at the whole picture and see that they come
into a coherent whole. And I'm reluctant to start piecing things out
prematurely.
SEN. WARNER: That's all right, my good
friend. You maintain your reluctance and I will not have any reluctance to
continue to bring that subject up with you, repeatedly, from time to time.
(Laughter.)
South Korea: It's so interesting -- my very
modest experience in the U.S. military, where the military -- and I've said this
before -- did a lot more for me than I was able to return to them in active
duty. But anyway, with South Korea and the Marines in 1951 -- we're still there
-- 50-plus years. And we have a very significant number of our troops there.
Now, you've covered the North; let's talk a little bit about the South and its
importance as our strong ally, its importance for the forward deployment of our
troops to be in that region. I think this record should reflect some of your
views on that.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, I think the U.S.
presence in Asia since -- essentially since the Korean War and World War II has
been a superb investment in this sense; that we have, without question,
contributed to a more stable region. Their presence there is still useful in
that regard, and I think that -- I'm trying to think where I heard it or read
it, but there is -- there have been comments to the effect that in conversations
with -- between the North and the South, both have indicated that the U.S.
presence is a useful thing. And I find that very interesting. The rhetoric,
sometimes, from the other side -- the North -- is a little different, but I'm --
my impression is that, realistically, we are wanted and it is a good thing for
us to be there. I also think it's been helpful from the standpoint of Japan.
SEN. WARNER: And I do too. And, indeed, they are a very
valuable asset for the security of that region out there.
MR. RUMSFELD: Yes, sir.
SEN. WARNER: And we
should really touch a little bit on our valuable ally, Australia -- and New
Zealand. And you will undoubtedly be visiting that region of the world where we
had to dispatch some of our troops not long ago for a contingency situation. But
they are valued allies.
MR. RUMSFELD: As you look at
what's happening in that part of the globe and the periodic difficulties that
the People's Republic of China has had with it's neighbors, whether it's the
Spratly Islands or difficulties with India or difficulties with Russia;
difficulties with Vietnam, there is no question but that Australia is a truly
important nation.
MR. RUMSFELD: And it is important to
that region. It's important to us. And it seems to me that it merits a priority
from the standpoint of the United States of America.
SEN. WARNER: Mr. Chairman, again, an excellent hearing. I'm going to
yield back the balance of my time. I think our witness has more than fulfilled
our expectations. And the endurance test he's withstood indicates that he can
handle that department pretty well.
SEN./MR. :
(Laughs.)
SEN. LEVIN: Just a few more questions.
Senator Sessions, would you like to go first or not?
SEN. SESSIONS: You go ahead.
SEN.
LEVIN: Okay.
The Army's been in the process of
transforming itself into a lighter and more agile force that can deal with the
challenges posed by threats in the uncertain future. In response to the
pre-hearing questions, you stated that you would not be in a position to
evaluate the Army's plans until you've conducted a complete review of all the
services' investment programs. And that review's expected to take several
months, and therefore I have the following questions.
Does your answer mean that we should not expect any changes to the
Army's transformation plans in this budget cycle?
MR.
RUMSFELD: I just don't know.
SEN. LEVIN: All right. And
are you open to the possibility of reallocation of resources among the military
departments if your review points in that direction?
MR. RUMSFELD: It would be foolish for me to say I wasn't open to
anything at this stage, because I really am coming out of civilian life into an
institution that is not easily understood.
SEN. WARNER:
Or managed.
MR. RUMSFELD: Or managed.
SEN. LEVIN: You've been asked a number of questions about U.S. and
China, and I just had one additional one in that area at this point, at least.
What approach would you take with respect to military-to-military contacts
between the United States and China?
MR. RUMSFELD: I
haven't --
SEN. LEVIN: Do you have any feelings -- we
have now --
MR. RUMSFELD: We have had some --
SEN. LEVIN: That's correct.
MR.
RUMSFELD: -- and I've been there myself.
SEN. LEVIN:
And do you have any feelings about continuing or expanding those contacts?
MR. RUMSFELD: I haven't thought about it. I off the top of
my head have no reason to believe that they're undesirable.
SEN. LEVIN: That they're what?
MR. RUMSFELD: I
have no reason to believe they're undesirable.
SEN.
LEVIN: Just a couple questions to follow up Senator Sessions' questions on the
missile defense issue.
I want to read just a portion of
the statement of the president when he signed the Missile Defense Act. I think
it's important that you --
MR. RUMSFELD: I'd like a
copy of it, if you have one there. I would like to read it.
SEN. LEVIN: And we will provide that to you.
MR. RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir.
SEN. LEVIN:
Before I do that, though, I wanted to ask you a question again. I think you
answered it clearly this morning, but given something which was said just a
little while ago, did your report on the North Korean -- or on the missile
threat in general suggest anything relative to deployment of missile
defenses?
MR. RUMSFELD: Not that I can recall.
SEN. LEVIN: Okay. Now, on the president's statement --
this is just a part of the president's statement, and I'm going to give to you
the whole thing to read after the hearing, and I'm going to be putting part --
I'll put the whole thing in the record.
Relative to the
second section -- it's really Section 3, but we've been talking about two
sections.
MR. RUMSFELD: Right.
SEN. LEVIN: One is the intent to -- is the "policy of the United States
to deploy as soon as technologically possible an effective national missile
defense system with funding subject to the annual authorization of
appropriations and the annual appropriation of funds for NMD.
"By specifying that any NMD deployment must be subject to the
authorization and appropriations process, the legislation makes clear no
decision on deployment has been made." That's -- we've called that the first
point, the policy to deploy as soon as technologically --
MR. RUMSFELD: This is reading from the statement?
SEN. LEVIN: I am. And this is part of what the president said relative
to the second policy that was in that National Missile Defense Act. Section 3
puts the Congress on record as continuing to support negotiated reductions in
strategic nuclear arms, and that -- he also said, "Our missile defense policy
must take into account our arms control and nuclear nonproliferation
objectives." And at the end he said, "Any national missile defense system that
we deploy must be operationally effective, cost effective, and enhance our
security. In making our determination, we will also review progress in achieving
our arms control objectives, including negotiating any amendments to the ABM
Treaty that may be required to accommodate a possible NMD deployment."
And I'll offer you an opportunity to react as to whether
you disagree with any of that. It's kind of hard, because it's -- maybe I read
too many excerpts for you to follow -- but in any event, whether you wish to
comment now or not as to whether you have any disagreement with that, I really
would urge that you read the president's statement after this hearing so that
you're familiar with the thinking, both the administration in signing that act,
but also the thinking of at least many of us -- I won't say a majority,
necessarily, but many of us -- in supporting that act after Section 3 was added
in the Senate. It's a very important part of the history of that National
Missile Defense Act.
So let me give you an opportunity
to comment, if you want.
MR. RUMSFELD: Well, Mr.
Chairman, I'll read it. As you went through it, I was trying to parse it in my
mind, and clearly, while President Clinton is president, that is his view. We
have a president-elect coming in who has expressed some views that are somewhat
different from that.
SEN. LEVIN: His -- I'm talking
about the view of the president who signed the act, about the act he was
signing. It's not about --
MR. RUMSFELD: Exactly. I
understand.
SEN. LEVIN: I don't know if the
president-elect has any different view about this act. He hasn't spoken, as far
as I know, on that issue. Maybe he has. But I'm talking about just what the
president who signed the act said --
MR. RUMSFELD:
Right, and I'll read it.
SEN. LEVIN: All right. Now,
the -- Senator Sessions. Do you have anything more?
SEN. SESSIONS: I don't.
SEN. LEVIN: You don't.
Thank you. Any more over here?
SEN. : You don't. (Well
done. ?)
SEN. LEVIN: Let me just make a very quick
final statement, then. First, we will include any statements by committee
members in the record that were not able to either be here today or who were
here today but who would want to expand on any statements that they made. There
were a number of members here who had other commitments and this hearing came up
quickly enough so that at least a number of our members were unable to make it,
although they are occupied on business, in a number of instances, that relate to
this committee's work.
MR. RUMSFELD: Right.
SEN. LEVIN: Secondly, several senators have indicated that
they have some questions that they'd like to submit to you for the record, and
we will ask for those questions, if possible, by the end of this week. You've
got many things to do. I don't expect that there will be a lot, but there could
be some, and I want to keep that record open. I know Senator Thurmond
particularly asked me to keep the record open for questions that he wanted to
ask, but there may be others also that want to ask questions, and the record
will be kept open for that purpose.
We will get those
questions to you by the end of -- we'll keep the record open at least through
tomorrow. We urge everybody to get their questions in by tomorrow, and then urge
you to respond by the end of the day next Wednesday. But if any questions come
in after that, we'll just give you additional time, and we don't expect there
will be a lot.
We look forward to getting all that
paperwork that you made reference to.
MR. RUMSFELD:
We've got it over at the other places, and apparently, before they want to
release it, they want to try to massage it.
SEN. LEVIN:
And as always, there's an FBI report which we receive and which we review.
MR. RUMSFELD: Right.
SEN. LEVIN:
We again want to recognize your family for your attendance and your patience.
You may not have noticed, but the audience has significantly dwindled.
(Laughter.) What hasn't dwindled is the love, affection and support of your
family. (Laughter.) And we thank them for that.
And
what we will do now is stand in recess at the call of the chair. We don't expect
that we're going to need another hearing, but I don't want to preclude that
possibility because we don't know what events may transpire, and we will
therefore stand in recess at the call of the chair.
We
want to thank you for your testimony today. And again, I think you feel that
there's broad support to move this nomination quickly out of this committee as
soon as that can legally happen, after receipt of all the materials and after
the president-elect formally sends in your nomination after he is inaugurated. I
made a reference -- I don't think you were here at the moment, at that moment,
but I'm sure that our chairman-to-be will move expeditiously within moments
after receipt of that official nomination on the 20th to convene this committee.
But that is going to be his call because it will again be his gavel.
Until then --
SEN. WARNER: Just
before you hit that -- it's yours, but let's elaborate because a lot of people
are quite interested in that. What we did last time was President Clinton came
off the dais after the inaugural ceremonies, went up and signed a series of
documents. Among them were the nominations of several Cabinet members. The
committees voted, and then the Senate voice-voted that day. And I've, in
discussion with our distinguished majority and, indeed, minority leaders, I
think that's their intention to do just that. So I think we will follow the
protocols as we've had through the years. And, the good Lord willing and your
endurance and that of your family, which is exhibited today, things should be in
place Monday afternoon.
It's important we do that, that
the security team particularly of the president of the United States,
irrespective of the president, be in place. I remember our old boss one time,
president Nixon, I happened to be with him one day, and he said that the order
of the succession of the presidency should never be in doubt for a minute. I
remember that very well. And the same way with the team in the national
security.
So I congratulate you. I join my colleague in
congratulating you for a very, very good hearing. Both of us have been through
hearings now for 23 years, and we'd put this one at the very top. And again,
your family has stood the task right with you, side by side.
SEN. LEVIN: If this ideal process works as outlined, the Inaugural Ball
that you'll be going to next Saturday night, a week from Saturday night, will be
in the Pentagon.
MR. RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman, Senator
Warner, thank you, members of the committee. I appreciate it.
Document 95 of 95.