Amanda Dory, acting undersecretary of defense for policy; Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., commander of U.S. Central Command; and Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S. Africa Command, testify before the House Armed Services Committee regarding national security challenges and U.S. force posture in the Centcom and Africom areas of operation and related policy issues, April 20, 2021.

Transcript

Right we will call meaning to order. I’ll put my glasses on so I can read what we need to read here. This is the full committee hearing on national security challenges and US military activities in the Greater Middle East and Africa we have with us miss a mandatory who is the acting under Secretary of Defense for policy General Kenneth Mackenzie, who is the Commander of US Central Command and General Stephen Townsend, who was the Commander of U. S. African Command. Um As always this is a hybrid hearing. Uh So I will read the instructions for how to conduct a hybrid hearing. So we’re all on the same page. Members who are joining remotely must be visible on screen for the purpose of identity verification, establishing and maintaining a quorum participating in the proceeding and voting. Those members must continue to use the software platforms, function while in attendance unless they experience connectivity issues or other technical problems that render them unable to participate on camera. If a member experiences technical difficulties, they should contact the committee staff for assistance. Video of members participation will be broadcast in the room and via the television. Internet feeds. Members participated remotely must seek recognition verbally and they are asked to mute their microphones when they are not speaking. Members who are participating remotely are reminded to keep the software platform video function on the entire time they attend the proceeding, members may leave and rejoin the proceeding, but if members depart for a short while, for reasons other than joining a different proceeding, they should leave the video function on. If members will be absent for a significant period or depart to join a different proceeding, they should exit the software platform entirely and we join it. If they return, members may use the software platforms chat feature to communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical support issues only. Finally, I have designated the committee staff member to, if necessary, mute, unrecognized members microphones to cancel any inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceeding. Thank you. As mentioned, we are here today to hear from our Central Command and African Command commanders and there is to put it mildly a lot going on in both of your areas of responsibility and we look forward to getting an update on those challenges. You know, certainly the counterterrorism challenge has been central for a very long time in the region as we’ve dealt with ISIS in the Middle East, between Iraq and Syria and elsewhere. And then various affiliates of many different groups, including ISIS and Al Qaeda throughout Africa. Um, I think educating members on exactly what’s going on with the fights, there will be very important because you know, some of that is not on the front pages, but I know for instance what’s going on in South Holland, West Africa is very concerning. We are working with our partners in the European command, sorry, with our with our partners in Europe who have interests there as well and very interested to hear how that is going and what we can do to be supportive of that. But also as is previewed by the slides that General Townsend has passed out for us, both of these areas of responsibility are also part of the larger great power competition. I think that is very important to understand that both Russia and china are particularly active in Africa, also, obviously active in the Middle East. How does how does our military play a role in those parts of the world with dealing with the great power competition that we’re facing from both china and Russia will be very interested to hear that. And then of course, there is the big issue of the moment and that is the president’s decision to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan. And NATO’s corresponding decision to also withdraw their troops by the by September I, I think this is the right decision. There was no easy, good decision here. There was no win win win where everything was going to be fine, no matter what we did. Afghanistan is a very difficult part of the world. But when you look at the maps in front of us, when you look at just these two areas of responsibility, much less the concerns that we have elsewhere in the world, certainly in Asia, but increasingly in Latin America, as we see the difficulties down there spilling across our border, we come to understand that the level of investment in Afghanistan does not meet where it currently falls in our national security objectives. We have accomplished much of what we set out to accomplish in terms of degrading Al Qaeda, Um certainly killed Osama bin Laden and we have significantly reduced the ability of terrorist groups to operate out of that region and at between 14 and $20 billion dollars a year. Um I I don’t think that investment is justified at this point. I think the president made the right decision in terms of what our current defense priorities are. That is not to say that we’re going to cease to have interests in the Afghanistan region. We will uh but there are other, better ways to meet those interests that are more cost effective. And the final point I would make on this is, you know, we’ve been a bit of a wall in terms of U. S. Casualties over the course of the last year, since the preliminary peace agreement is an overstatement. But the preliminary understanding was was reached with the Taliban whereby they have not been attacking us as we know that expires on May 1st. Uh and and at some point after that we would be back into a hot war and we would once again be losing U. S. Service members lives in Afghanistan given the commitment and given where we’re at in our national security needs. I think the president made the right call. Um the risk of staying outweighs the benefit at this point. But we will want to hear the details from General Mackenzie and the story on how we plan to execute that, what the risks are and how we’re going to mitigate those risks with that. I just want to thank our witnesses again for being here for their service and I will turn it over to Mr. Rogers for his opening statement. Yes, thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our witnesses and express my appreciation for their service and their time to prepare for this hearing. In both Africa comments, sitcom, we’ve made progress in combating terrorists but they’re not completely gone adding to the problem. Many groups have spread out, making them more difficult to locate General Townsend as we discussed last week, maintaining pressure on these terrorist networks remain vitally important, But spending Africom comprises only 3/10 of a percent of our defense budget, spreading those resources even further is increased. Is the increased presence of Russia and china on the continent. Russia is entering uh into a disturbing number of arms sales and strategic agreements with African nations. China is using its belt and road initiative to extract African national resources. The Chinese Communist Party is also building its first overseas military base on the strategically important horn of Africa, alarmingly, it’s only a few miles away from our own base. Given the increased role of china and Russia are playing in in Africa and its geo strategic importance. It’s imperative that we continue to make investments there. I look forward to hearing from General Townsend about how we can maximize diplomatic and military efforts to eliminate terrorist footholds and counter Russia and china’s global ambitions in Africa In Centcom, General Mackenzie is facing tremendous challenges from hardened terrorists and nations bent on our destruction. President Biden’s decision to unconditionally withdraw all forces by September 11 2021 will only complicate matters. I’m very concerned the Taliban will overrun the democratically elected government soon after we withdraw. When that happens, what assurance do we have that Afghanistan will not become another breeding ground for terrorists? I’ve yet to hear how the president tends to conduct counterterrorism operations without any U. S. Troops in the region, there had better be a plan for that and I expect the administration to explain it to us as soon as possible. I’m also very concerned with the ongoing destabilizing actions of Iran. The Ayatollah continues to fund and equip terrorist targeting American troops. His cronies are prolonging a civil war and humanitarian crisis in Syria and his regime is aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons. We absolutely cannot allow that to happen and I’m not convinced that reentering the J. C. P. O. A. Will stop them. I look forward to hearing more about the administration’s plan for ending the ayatollahs quest for nuclear weapons and how they intend to deal with the rest of the regime’s destabilizing actions. Finally, I want to express my deep frustration with the defense budget proposed by President Biden, cutting defense spending below the rate of inflation will mean combatant commanders like General Townsend and General Mackenzie will not have the resources and capabilities they need to do their jobs. I look forward to working with both republicans and democrats on this committee to pass the defense budget that adequately supports our servicemen and women. Thank you. Mr. Chairman of your back. Thank you Miss story. You recognized for your opening statement. Mhm. Thank you. Chairman smith Ranking member Rogers. Can you hear me? Okay? I believe so. Yes. Okay very good. Thank you. And distinguished members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on our defense policy in the U. S. Africa Command and U. S. Central Command areas of responsibility alongside their commanders. General Mackenzie and General Townsend today I’d also like to express my appreciation for the strong support. Congress provides. The Department of Defense as a career civilian and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I’ve seen firsthand how the executive and legislative branches work together to ensure our armed forces have the resources and authorities required to deter and, if necessary, defeat any foe. Secretary Austin has emphasized the need to match resources to strategy, strategy to policy and policy to the will of the American people. The President’s interim national Security strategic guidance speaks to that approach by prioritizing the security of the American people, expansion of economic prosperity and opportunity and the defense of our democratic values. This requires Department of Defense to defend our people and economy deter and prevent adversaries from threatening the United States, our allies and partners and support whole of government efforts to lead a stable and open international system. An early priority for the secretary is to match our resources to strategy by right sizing our posture investments to that end, the president’s direction, the department is undertaking a global posture review to balance operational requirements, risk readiness and international commitments in Africa and the Middle East. D. O. D. Plays a supporting role to broader U. S. Government efforts in an acknowledgement that military force is not the answer to the challenges in these regions. Our policy objective is to increase stability and secure our interests by working by with and through our reinvigorated networks of allies and partners. Africa is a continent ripe with opportunities and challenges in Africa, the interim national strategic guidance directs us to continue building our partnerships and to work towards bringing an end to the deadliest conflicts while preventing the onset of new ones. It also directs us to assist African nations to combat the threats posed by climate change and violent extremism. Under guarded by the investments and tools you have afforded the Department for building partnership capacity and in close cooperation with our diplomatic and development colleagues. The resulting partnerships enable us to support conflict resolution efforts combat the threats posed by violent extremism, improved defense institutions and strengthen democratic norms and the rule of law. These modest investments play an outsized role in Africa and the department’s objectives across the continent in the Middle East, Diode works to deter Iranian aggression, disrupt al Qaeda networks, prevent an ISIS resurgence and protect vital interests such as freedom of navigation. We’ve made progress toward achieving the enduring defeat of ISIS and transition. The focus of operation inherent resolve to advising equipping and assisting partner forces to enable them to manage the ISIS threat independently. The State Department is leading diplomatic efforts to bring Iran’s nuclear program back into compliance with the joint comprehensive plan of action while D. O. D. Focuses on deterring and defending against Iranian threats in Yemen, we ended support to Saudi led offensive operations but continue to demonstrate our commitment to the defense of Saudi Arabia by providing limited noncombat support to help our partners defend their territory from who the attacks in Afghanistan. Our mission has been preventing terrorist groups from using the country to threaten the interests and security of the United States, our allies and partners. After two decades of us and NATO military involvement in Afghanistan, we have accomplished that mission and President Biden has decided to draw down the remaining U. S. Troops from Afghanistan. In closing, I’m confident in the department’s capacity to contend with the range of dynamic challenges facing the United States in Africa in the Middle East, we retain many advantages, including our economic power dynamism, democratic values, military capabilities and global alliances. Thank you to the members of the committee for your continued support and look forward to discussing the topics further in the rest of the hearing. Thank you. Thank you. General Mackenzie, Chairman smith, Ranking member, Rogers, distinguished members of the House Armed Services Committee. I appear before you proudly representing the 70,000 men and women of the United States Central Command. It’s a great pleasure to be with you here today. It’s my duty to testify. Of course I have to say. It’s also a privilege to address this body and all the greater honor to do so. Sitting beside the acting Secretary Defense mystery and the Commander of U. S. Africa Command, General Steve Townsend. Since my last testimony, the region has continued to evolve and it remains as dynamic as ever. With the President’s announcement last week, we are focused on working closely with the Afghan government and our NATO allies to responsibly conclude Operation resolute support in Afghanistan. This is my main effort at present, but it’s not my only responsibility. My prepared statement addresses are other missions in detail. The United States and our NATO allies sent forces to Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago and the president has judged that now is the appropriate time to redeploy and reposition these forces so that they are better arrayed to deter adversaries and respond to threats globally, including those in the central command region are singular purpose in Afghanistan has been to assure that al Qaeda and other violent extremist organizations could never again plot, prepare and perpetrate attacks against the United States and our allies from the refuge of that country. The campaign has evolved considerably over the years from active combat operations with us and NATO forces in the lead to advisory efforts designed to enhance the Afghan national defense and security forces ability to conduct their own campaigns against violent extremist organizations. That there has not been another 9, 11 is not an accident. It is accumulative product of these efforts. We will now conclude our Afghanistan based advice and support mission. We are further planning now for continued counterterrorism operations from within the region, ensuring that the violent extremist organizations fighting for their existence in the hinterlands of Afghanistan remain under persistent surveillance and pressure Ever since 12 September 2001, when our allies invoked Article five of the North Atlantic Treaty, we have done everything in Afghanistan within a partnership framework and that will not change in the months ahead. We are planning collaboratively with our interagency and international partners and will take all measures to ensure the safe and orderly withdrawal of all of our forces and those of our partners from Afghanistan. This includes positioning significant combat power to guard against the possibility that the Taliban decide to interfere in any way with our orderly redeployment. I’d now like to briefly summarize some other challenges in the region. While Iran has itself avoided state on state attacks on US forces. Since last January strikes on the al Assad and mobile air bases, it continues to menace regional partners and the free flow of commerce through the use of proxies and the proliferation of armed unmanned aerial systems and other munitions. Its pursuit of regional hegemony remains the greatest source of instability across the Middle East in Iraq and Syria. The campaign to eliminate the threat posed by ISIS has entered a new phase in Iraq were engaged in a strategic dialogue with the Iraqi government to determine the nature of our security relationship. ISIS, so called physical caliphate is no more, but it’s toxic ideology lives on. The problem is especially acute in communities ravaged by conflict and its sprawling camps for displaced persons where ISIS praise upon vulnerable populations. What is accelerated in the last year is the influence of china and Russia, which each in their own way, are attempting to subvert the rules based international order and to gain strategic influence in the Middle East. China’s activity in the region takes the form of economic investment, arms sales and other overtures. Russia has made an 18th century power play in Syria, propping up the murderous Assad regime. The Middle East remains key terrain and I believe China and Russia will continue to expand their efforts to improve their position in the region and diminish us standing wherever possible. The centcom area of responsibility is the most cyber contested theater in the world. It is also the proving ground for the proliferation and employment of unmanned weaponized systems, many emanating from Iran. This difficult and complex operational environment provides units inside centcom opportunities to operate and to conduct realistic training with an environment that exists nowhere else in the world. I can state as a matter of fact that the units and ships assigned to centcom, we’re as ready as any in the joint force. The weeks and months ahead will see us execute a very complicated and demanding military operation to withdraw us and NATO forces from Afghanistan. This is presently the main effort of my command and we have the tools necessary to accomplish the task with that. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you sir. Thank you very much. General Townsend, Chairman, smith, ranking member, Rogers and members of the committee. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. It’s a privilege to represent America’s exceptional men and women at U. S. Africa Command who are dedicated to securing us interests and preserving our strategic options on the African continent. This morning, I’m accompanied by one of my key staff advisors, Air Force Colonel Jacqueline Breeden. I’m also here this morning with my colleagues and friends. Miss Amanda Dorrie are acting undersecretary of defense for policy and general frank McKenzie, the centcom commander, to discuss our shared challenges and opportunities in our areas of responsibility and the high return the American people get for their defense investments around the globe. Historically, America has not been penalized for underestimating the importance of Africa. Today we can no longer afford to underestimate the economic opportunity and strategic consequence Africa embodies in which competitors like china and Russia recognized. Africa is the crossroads of the globe. The recent blockage of the Suez Canal not only demonstrated the importance of critical sea lines of communication flowing through the Mediterranean and red seas, but also around the Cape of good hope, violent extremist organizations, competitor activities and fragile states are among some of the threats to us interests beyond geography. Global population growth is largely African. By 2051 in four people on the planet will live in Africa. Rapidly growing markets, 60% of the earth’s arable land and vast untapped resources, including strategic rare earth minerals, provide tremendous economic potential. 13 of the world’s 25 fastest growing economies are in Africa. Africa’s tremendous opportunities are offset by significant challenges, including climate change, food shortages, poverty, Ungoverned spaces, historic grievances and other factors that make the continent also home to 14 of the world’s 20 most fragile countries. Our strategic competitors are very active in Africa. China has invested heavily in their second continent or some think tanks call it china’s fourth or fifth island chain. Russia seeks to exploit instability and fragility for their own gain and at US expense. Iran is also increasingly active on the continent. African based videos like Al Qaeda, their affiliate, Al Shabab and ISIS thrive in the continent’s ungoverned spaces. They provide the greatest threat to many of our African partners and aspired to kill Americans in Africa as well as here at home. Across this diverse continent, us Africom operates with.3 of the diodes budget And.3 of Diodes Manpower. This tiny investment pays enormous dividends as just under 6000 service members, civilians and contractors work with our partners, both inter agency and foreign to counter malign actors and transnational threats, respond to crises and strengthen security forces to advance U. S. Interests and promote regional security, stability and prosperity. African works every day to protect America’s security and advance our access and influence. We do this arm in arm with the U. S. Interagency and through coordinated action with allies and partners. What African accomplishes with a few people and a few dollars on a continent 3.5 times the size of the continental United States is a bargain for the American taxpayer, A low cost insurance policy for America. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. Thanks for your continued support to our armed forces. I look forward to your questions. Mhm. Thank you all very much. I think something is very interesting about Africa and our investment there and D. O. D. S. Investment, there is a lot of bang for the buck and as I look around the world, I think with the multiple challenges that we have that’s sort of key to how we approach them is how can we make make a difference and cover all the areas we cover? And that kind of Socom has been very involved in that being president, countries building partner capacity, working with other allies. Can you expand upon that a little bit and how that plays out in Africa as you deal with all the various challenges that are spread out across the continent. Thanks Chairman. So first of all uh we everything we do is through partners. America. America’s military is not really in the lead for anything in Africa. We work first with our African Partners. We work secondarily through other partners like Europeans, uh notably in the in West Africa, the French for example. But many countries actually. So everything we do and our interagency partners of course. So everything we do is through partners. You mentioned Chairman U. S. Special Operations Command. A lot of the troops who have boots on the ground in Africa are us Special operating Forces? Not all of them. There are plenty of general purpose forces there as well. So we don’t try to be all things to all people. We try to focus our efforts in priority areas. There are 53 countries in my area of operation. We don’t have we don’t try to win in all 53 countries but we do try to focus our efforts where it matters the most for America’s security. And now I’ll ask you a question is probably impossible to answer at this point. But I’m curious what you think as we pull out of Afghanistan? I mean the budget in Afghanistan last year was $14 billion 3500 troops. A lot of what we’ve been doing has been about the rotations that are involved in sending our forces in Afghanistan. With that extra money in those extra forces. Have you guys, you know, within the pentagon, started to think about, how do we then distribute them? Do we bring them all home? Are there places in in Africa elsewhere where you could shore up your efforts? How do you see a benefit coming from, you know, reducing that expenditure by that amount? And General Mackenzie, it’s you’re a our starting point. So I’d be curious what your thoughts are and I know this is probably early on, but curious where you see that going. So I think there uh, for our forces come out and were able to re posture. I think first of all, we have to look at what we define as the pacing threats for the department. And I think we looked we looked at china, we look to Russia and we have to look at those areas. I think some of the forces are gonna remain in central command because we are going to look at offshore over the horizon options. And that’s gonna require us to do some things. Nothing on the scale of expenditures that you’re seeing now in Afghanistan of course, but we will send still need to do some things there as well. But I think broadly, it’s going to be a significant uh lever for the department to apply against what I agree with the most, the most significant challenges that we face today. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um with that, I will recognize Mr. Wilson who I believe is with us, virtually. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank our witnesses for being here today and I’m really grateful. Uh Phil Mackenzie, question, I believe the US Israel relationship is of paramount importance to US foreign policy. Given that Israel has now been moved under the purview of sin calm, I want to ensure that our cooperation with Israel continues to be a priority in moving Israel to centcom. It’s important that we don’t undermine the cooperation Israel has in Europe, particularly with NATO. The question would be, how are we ensuring this move does not undermine agreements and understandings that currently exist. So that’s a that’s a great question about Israel. So today Israel does most of its operational business with US Central Command. Their threats typically emanate from the east. Nonetheless, they have brought enduring cultural and other ties to to to the Europeans and to NATO. So as part of direction I’ve been received from from the Secretary of Defense over the next several months, we will work a careful plan to integrate Israel into the Central Command Hor while preserving their unique nature and their unique ties back into back into Western Europe. So we think we have a good plan to do that. But in many ways the movement into the Central Command hor simply reflects an operational effect that’s been in existence for some time. We work closely with them every day. Now the we’ll have a not a divided responsibility for it but rather a single responsibility for it. But I would tell you that I will still be in very close touch with General Todd, Walters and U. S. European command as we go forward. And I think that is an important relationship as you note, but also it’s going to be important to for Israel to have the opportunity to develop normalized relationships with Arab nations. And that’s one of the key things that will accrue from having them in the Central command. A. O. R. Well thank you very much and I appreciate that assurance to our friends of Israel uh Secretary Dori, The US defensive expeditionary operations are enabled by network of American bases and facilities hosted an allied and partner countries, particularly in Afghanistan. Presuming that the withdrawal of all forces results in the loss of control of Bagram and Kandahar airbase is how does that complicate our ability to reenter Afghanistan to combat research and terrorist groups? As we had to do in Iraq? What number of U. S. Forces will be required to reenter Afghanistan without control of existing infrastructure. The attacks of 9 11 by Osama bin Laden were from a cave in Afghanistan In 2001. What assurance does the president have that future attacks will not come from caves of Afghanistan against the American public congressman. Thank you for the question about what our future posture will look like with respect to Afghanistan. Following the force. Draw down. What I can say at this point is that work is underway to adapt to the adjusting security environment and consider how to continue to apply pressure with respect to potential cT threats emanating from Afghanistan. So looking throughout the in terms of over the horizon opportunities, of course, the uh surveillance intelligence component of that is fundamental to ensuring the type of scenario that you just laid out would not persist in the future with respect to individuals in caves who had threatened the U. S. Homeland. What I can say from the decision process that the president lead with his national security team is that there was consideration of a range of scenarios for the future of Afghanistan and our ability to continue to apply pressure. But the commitment is that there will not be threats emanating from Afghanistan against the US homeland looking ahead into the future. And additionally, secretary over the last several years in the conflict in Syria, Iran has entrenched itself deeply within Syrian territory. It has basis factories, weapons storage facilities. These pose a threat to US interests in the region, including our alliance with Israel as well as safety of the Syrian people who often are being used as human shields. Does the U. S. Continue to support the freedom of action for Israel to address Iranian threats from Syria congressman? Our commitment to Israel remains ironclad. I think we have seen through the Secretary’s initial visit to Israel last week and in the dialogues that have been conducted with Israel already in this administration, including a rejuvenated effort led by the national security adviser uh that the relationship remains robust and close, that there is a strong level of dialogue and commitment to one another. Thank you very much. And I yield back Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Landerman is recognized for five minutes. Very good. Do you hear me okay? This chairman? Yes, we got your will turn your volume up a little bit here, but you’re good. Go ahead. Very good. Thank you. Uh, Good morning. I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony today. So we’ve heard uh entities like Special Operations Command say that counter V. E O. Is a form of a great power competition. General Townsend. Do you believe that that statement is true and it’s so lie. Thank you, congressman. I absolutely believe that statement is true. In fact, we say that often in Africa, here’s why. So what is uh we don’t use a term great power competition. There are our partners don’t really like to hear that term. So we use a global power competition in Africa. What’s the purpose of global power competition? But to expand America’s access and influence. So how do you get that? You get that by helping a partner with a problem that they have. And one of the significant problems that many of our African partners have is the scourge of terrorism. Uh, so by doing counter V E. O or counterterrorist operations supporting our African partners, we are gaining access and influence by doing that. Absolutely. In Africa, Counterterrorism operations are a way of global power competition. Thank you. I personally also agree with that statement. I think it’s important that we look at this holistically because uh, terrorism is not going away anytime soon is in my view. But what other forms of great power competition happen in Africa or global competition as you talk about it. And what role does the military players china uh particular makes diplomatic and economic inroads there? So china and Russia are very active in Africa. Um Russia is very active with arms sales, but most of their activity on the continent. I judged to be a self-interested and exploitative in nature. And I think uh though they may be a threat today, I think they are less of a threat. Uh tomorrow china however is of great concern. They are literally everywhere on the continent. Their placing a lot of bets down. They’re spending a lot of money. We know they use debt, trap, diplomacy, coercion with corrupt politicians. They build a lot of critical infrastructure And so most of their competition is through economic means building infrastructure and trapping African countries and bad loans that give the Chinese access to that infrastructure after they build it. They’re also, you know, their first overseas military base that they’re only one is in Africa. And they have just expanded that by adding a significant peer that can support even their aircraft carriers in the future around the continent. They’re looking for other basing opportunities. They’re also doing cooperation in the intelligence realm That concerns me, uh, significantly I would say that they have offered training and arms sales uh, frequently that winds up working out okay for us because their quality of their equipment that they sell uh, frequently is inferior. And uh, the Africans wind up being disappointed with both the equipment they get from china and the training they get with from china. But china is a learning organization and they’re the concern for the future. Thank you. Gerald. Let me try to General Mackenzie if I could uh, general because in your testimony, you list great power competition as your third priority behind containing Iran’s uh, reading influence and C. V. E. O. Operation. What does power competition looks like your uh, what is your timeframe of the shift in your priorities to great power competition? So, we see with Russia disruptive activities, uh, you know, they seized a foothold in Syria that allows them to pursue an age old dream of a warm war report in the Eastern Mediterranean, basing in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also allows them a little pad to go into africa. So Russia is generally opportunistic weapons sales. As general Townsend noted, china is, as in Africa playing a much deeper and a longer game. And it is principally an economic effort, although we believe they do, they do aspire at some point to have basing in the theater, but that’s still ahead of them. But right now we see china is principally economic Gentleman’s time has expired. Mr. Turner is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mystery as Mr. Landerman just mentioned General Mackenzie has in his comments the importance of deterring Iran looking to how do we strengthen our allies and um the importance of intelligence to be able to respond to their malign activities. In your statement uh throughout you reference the malign activities that Iran has done um and has performed. That is obviously of great concern other than the entering back into the J. C. P. O. A which is a flawed agreement of which they have currently breached. Um what else do we need to be doing to deter Iran? Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, congressman. I I would start off by saying the president has chosen to lead with respect to diplomacy when it comes to J. C. P. O. And the nuclear file. That leaves an important role for D. O. D. With respect to deterring malign activity in the other range of activities Iran engages in. So there’s a very important role for the department to continue with respect to the range of allies and partners in the region to backstop them to have forces on the ground, working to advise, train and assist with the different partners. Each partnership has its own character and quality. But the combination of the force presence, the ability to provide the president with options in the event, those are required. Those those are the fundamental roles of the department at this point, john McKenzie you mentioned is are in the tools that are necessary to be able to deter Iran. Uh specifically citing the MQ nine. I know that you know that there is pressure on the committee for the purposes of diminishing the role of of MQ nine and and other deployable I. S. R. Um, I thought you might want to take an opportunity to give a commercial for the importance of that tool. As you look to deterring Iran. Well, sir, let me begin by saying, I recognize that there is a global global demand for for I. S. R. And also we need to move beyond the MQ nine system, which is the backbone system for us. Central command. The future is going to demand bigger, better different kinds of I. S. Are more more more sophisticated than what we’ve got now. However, right now for me, the MQ nine is a very good platform and what we have found that particularly against Iran, They do not like their activities to be exposed in the summer of 2019. We believe we stopped several imminent attacks. Dreams from ships at sea simply by positioning MQ nine overhead so they could hear him operating. I’m confident that the intelligence is very clear on that. So in the intelligence, first of all, the the platform, first of all allows us together intelligence. But second we have been observed and reported upon deterring effect on Iran by simply manipulating those platforms so I use them. But I am not I am not insensitive to the future of this platform. And the fact we’ve got to make some adjustments globally great. And your comments, you emphasize our need to work with our allies. Certainly working with those allies, we need to be strengthening their capabilities. The trump administration had entered into Um a transaction to provide the F 35 to you either. By administration has confirmed its interest in continuing to do so. Um two could you speak for a moment about how important it is for us to have advanced tools and equipment like the F 35 certainly um weapons systems in the hands of our allies that join with us in trying to deter Iran. So one of the key aspects of deterring Iran is an international community that has voted that is devoted to that deterrence. Iran has no friends. So so what we have is lots of friends, friends across the region and friends across the globe as well. But one of the things for supporting our friends in the region is to give them the best capability that we can afford to give them consistent with the other requirements such as reassurance of Israel, which is always in my mind when I give advice on these deals, but it’s not a centcom decision but I think that is a good capability and it will stand us in good stead with our friends and you a thank you general, you’re back. Mr. Larson is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chair General Townsend. I don’t know if I need an answer won’t be it won’t be a comment really on this issue that Mr. Landon and brought up about C. T. And global power competition. My concern with your answer is a concern of expresses so calm. It’s just that sometimes it’s it should only be a ct mission and not creep into something else. And sometimes it should start out as a global power competition mission and not being necessarily based on the ct mission. That may not be the case for everywhere on the continent of Africa for you. But I guess I do a question. Do you have an example where a Socom mission uh, that’s operating under Africom is just a global power competition mission? Yes, congressman. I’d prefer to discuss that. Yes or no. It’s fine with me. And they said yes and I appreciate that. I just want to make the point that sometimes they’re related and sometimes they’re not and I don’t need to, I don’t want to keep hearing CT is GPC because it sounds like an excuse to keep cT all the time and sometimes it’s not appropriate and sometimes it is and we’re just trying to, trying to get so calm to think through this a little bit more than I think I’m getting the impression that they are so, but I’ve been clear to the Socom folks about that as well, awesome Staying on the continent. Um actually specific countries and secretary dori 20 years ago is all Afghanistan all the time when I got here Just in the last three weeks. I wouldn’t have heard this 20 years ago. I’ve heard from Ugandan constituents. You got there from the country of origin is Uganda. Every constituents from to Gary. I think I got to pronounce correctly and I want to be disrespectful About the respective problems in those countries. Wouldn’t heard that 20 years ago, My districts changing the country’s changing. We’re a nation of immigrants and new immigrants. So can you um on those two areas, Can you give us give this uh committee or give me an update something? I can tell my constituents who are both concerned about the elections in Uganda and and my other constituents who are concerned about how their families are being treated in Northern Ethiopia. Thank thank you congressman uh in that period of time, I previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for africa. So for some of us that those were areas we were working even before the recent our renaissance, if you will, in terms of Uganda, what I would say there is. The U. S. Government is very concerned at this point in terms of the quality or lack thereof of the election, the repression against the other candidates who contested the election uh and the the actions of the security services in Uganda in terms of repressing uh participation by citizens and their concerns and governance. So, messages in particular via the State Department are robust with respect to our concerns. We do recognize the positive role that Uganda has played with respect to the amazon mission in Somalia over many, many years on the one hand, but that does not counterbalance the concerns in terms of the repression that’s underway in Uganda proper. Similarly, with respect to Ethiopia and tigre intense concerns on the part of the U. S. Government with respect to the conflict under way there uh and concerns that it’s fundamental to have a negotiated settlement to the conflict at this point. You have participation by regional players in addition to the different groups within Ethiopia and the way forward is through dialogue and that’s something that our our embassy on the ground and the State Department are leaning into robustly. Thank you. General Townsend back to you. Can you comment on Mozambique and uh huh In the last 45 seconds, if we’re how do you assess what’s happened in northern Mozambique and what does that mean for decision and decisions and advisor providing to the to the department? Um The over the last two years ISis Mozambique has been an increasing threat in northern Mozambique and the Cabo Delgado province. As you saw a couple of weeks ago, they launched a 7-10 day siege on the town of Palma. It’s not clear to me if they’re actually more than just local groups flying an ISIS flag of convenience, but ISIS Core has claimed them as their own. My view is that the african partners need to do more, and European partners need to do more before the United States. Does more there. Thank you. Thank you. Ranking member is recognized. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Gentle Mackenzie. In your 2020 posture statement, you noted that without sustained pressure living against it, ISIS had the potential to reconstitute in uh in Iraq and Syria. I’m interested in your thoughts in your 2021st posture statement about that as well as ISIS, the blossoming under a taliban controlled Afghanistan. After we leave that, we leave serving in Iraq and Syria, we have completed the physical destruction of what was the so called ISIS caliphate. ISIS remnants still remain in Syria and some in Iraq as well. They find it difficult if not impossible, to hold ground. They can still conduct small scale terror attacks and they do that. But largely in Iraq and Syria and Iraq, the Iraqi security forces are generally able to handle that problem. We are not patrolling with the Iraqis on the ground. The Iraqis are doing it now. We provide them enabling support, We provide them high level advice and assist. But generally, the Iraqis are doing that themselves in Syria, sort of the same thing. Our Sdf partners there are conducting those operations with our back in the rear advice and support for them. So, those operations are continuing now. The future in Iraq and Syria is not going to be bloodless. They’re ISIS is not going to go away, it’s going to remain. But our objective there is to enable local security forces that we have trained and enabled to be able to handle the problem at a local level without significant external assistance from either us or our European allies. The other component of that is you want to prevent those elements from being able to develop global connective tissue to reach out to other entities and that is not only a physical fight on the ground there, but also a fight and cyber and we conducted in all those domains. So that’s the way I read the picture right now, continued pressure is still necessary. The trends are moving the right way. And the strategic dialogue with our Iraqi partners is just one example of that moving forward. As we go forward, we’ll be able to look to re examine the posture we have in Iraq and that will be, it will be something we’ll take a look look at here in the future with our Iraqi partners in Afghanistan. As you, as you noted, the principal reason that, you know, we see that ISIS and al Qaeda have been so significantly degraded, has been a significant ct pressure that we have been able to put on them over the past several years. ISIS is very small in Afghanistan, probably several 100 several 100 fighters, ISIS K, a little bigger but still disaggregated. They have not been able to hold ground successfully in the east. They look to, you know, they look they look to reassert themselves if they can, but it’s a but pressure is the important component of that and I see that I’m out of time there. Well, so if if we’re gone and the coalition forces are gone, and and Taliban does take a more prominent role in Afghanistan, is it a concern of yours that they may uh increase their presence? So that is there to push back The taliban has undertaken to agree to not allow that to happen uh with the taliban. I’ve learned to not listen to what they say, but rather to watch what they do. So we will watch closely what they do. Great General Townsend, given the massive size of your A. O. R. I’d like to hear more about your additional any additional resources or capabilities unique, particularly in the southern part of the continent uh in western part to carry out your mission. Are you adequately uh resource in that part of the continent? Um Remember as you noted, you know, Africa is 3.5 times the size of the continental United States. And we have about 6000 total troops spread over that area. We don’t have a significant footprint from about the Equator South. I’m not sure that we need that. Um, I would say that, you know, our force posture is under review as part of this global posture review. So I don’t really want to get ahead of my civilian leaders on describing what we might need or might not need. However, there are some perennial things that are always on the razor’s edge of, We’re going to get that or are we not going to get that? Um, One of them is the I. S. R. That general Mackenzie has already mentioned. Uh, we the simple fact of the matter is we do not have enough to do what we assess we need to do in Africa, realize there’s pressure on it across the entire department. Um, and then our Warfighter Recovery network, which is providing timely casualty evacuation and medical care to our troops. Um that’s fairly, we do most of that through contracted. We don’t actually need to put pressure on low density, high demand units like military medevac and personal recovery assets. We can do most of our work through contracted sources that takes money and uh, we’re always waiting to get that money to make sure our troops have what they need. Those are probably two things right off the top of my head. All right, thank you. You bet, Monsieur Mr. Courtney is recognized for five months. Thank you Mr. Chairman. And again, General Mackenzie, thank you for reminding us just a moment ago that there actually was an agreement in place that uh, the sitting government of this country entered into in the last administration. And in many respects, the announcement that President Biden made was really to try and make that agreement More logistically execute herbal um, so that we’re not in a situation like Saigon 1975. So mystery sort of alluded a moment ago to the fact that we are still going to retain over the horizon capability to to make sure that a counterterrorism effort can continue and and protect the homeland. Can you describe just a little bit more detail what that looks like that is? I think the real heartburn that I certainly pick up from my constituents about the decision, is it gonna be at sea? Is it going to be um in neighboring um countries where we again have the ability to to deploy assets to again respond to a terrorist threat? Mm So I’m actually conducting detailed planning by the direction of the secretary to look at those options right now and I will report back to him by the end of the month with some alternatives. But I can broadly state if you if you leave Afghanistan and you want to go back in to conduct these kinds of operations, there’s three things you need to do. You need, you need to find the target, you need to fix the target and you need to be able to finish the target. So three things, all the first to require heavy intelligence support. Um, and if you’re out of the country and you don’t have the ecosystem that we have there now, it will be harder to do that. It is not impossible to do that. It would just be harder to do it. You will have to base your overhead. I. S are from no longer within Afghanistan, where, and I think you and I can take off and be over its target in a matter of minutes, uh, perhaps much further away. We will look at all the all the countries in the region are diplomats will reach out and we’ll talk about places where we could base those resources. Some of them may be very far away. And then there would be a significant bill for those types of resources because you have to cycle a lot of them in and out. That is all doable. However, so there are ways to get to the the find in the fixed part. The fixed part is very important though, because if we were going to strike something, we’re gonna strike it in concert with the law of armed conflict and the American way of war, we’re going to minimize collateral damage. We’re gonna make sure we have a precise target and that we’re gonna be able to control what happens there. It’s difficult to do that at range. It is not impossible to do that at range. And so you have a variety of ways that you could actually strike the target if you chose to do that, you could do it with long range precision fires. You could do it with you can do it with manned raids. All of those are inherently dangerous. But you can still do it. You can do it with manned aircraft. Uh There are problems with all three of those options but there’s also opportunities with all three of those options. So I don’t want to I don’t want to make light of it. I don’t want to put on rose clever glasses and say it’s gonna be easy to do. I can tell you that the U. S. Military can do just about anything. And we’re examining this problem with all of our resources right now to find a way to do it and you know, in the most intelligent, risk free manner that we can. Well, thank you for that answer. And again, I think it is important to, you know, remember that we’re not in the same mindset. We were in uh 19 at the time of 9 11. I mean, I think, you know, certainly it sounds like again, you’re very focused in terms of making sure that a threat like what occurred back then is going to be uh planned for and and and again, addressed as needed as the case may be. Um general uh towns in the last NBA, there probably were at least two or three provisions regarding critical minerals and rare earth minerals, which I’ve been on this committee a while, that was pretty unique. But again, I think from a security standpoint, I think there is now a pretty widespread recognition that china has been very methodical and um successful in terms of cornering the market in terms of critical minerals in Africa I think is clearly a part of the world that they’ve succeeded at that. Again, your map on economic activity I realized was kind of a global view. But is that something that um uh Africom is watching and at least being able to help at least if nothing else educate us back here about the fact that you know, we’ve got to pay attention to this because they have a stranglehold. Let’s face it in terms of things like antimony and cobalt lithium, all of these um minerals that go into everything from our cell phones to platforms that we need for our national defense congressman, you said it great. Uh so the Russians are are looking to me, to me, they’re looking at exploiting and short term gain. The Chinese have a much longer term view that’s more concerning to me. And so they are not only mining rare minerals in Africa for their own use. They are cornering the market on these concerns in Africa to have them under control for a rainy day in the future. Uh that should be of concern to us. If you look at the list of rare earth minerals and you named a few of them, a couple others tantalum and I was just looking at them yesterday. General, I do apologize generally time has expired. Try to get the other folks here. Uh Mr. Lamborn is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I’m concerned because as robert Gates said famously um regarding when joe Biden was a senator and then vice president, he seemed to be on the wrong side of foreign policy decisions at almost every turn. You could go back to the 80s when the nuclear freeze was being discussed and that would have frozen a permanent advantage into Russia’s favor. The Soviet Union’s favor to as Vice president uh promoting the withdrawal of troops out of Iraq. That let ISIS come to the fore or counseling against um the strike against Osama bin laden and on and on and on. And I’m just concerned that we’re seeing this bad decision making today with Afghanistan and Iran So on. Afghanistan. General Mackenzie. Are you able to tell us whether whether or not you advised the president to uh unilaterally withdraw by September 11? All us forces? Or are you able to not? Are you not able to discuss that? So I can tell you that I had multiple opportunities to have a detailed conversation with the president and give my advice. He heard my advice. I’m not going to be able to share it with you here this morning, sir. Okay. Um okay. Regarding the taliban, We’ve talked a little bit about that. The ranking member had some questions. Are they a reliable partner in negotiations? I have grave doubts about the taliban’s reliability. I’ve expressed those publicly going back for a long period of time, but we need to see what they’re gonna do here. Uh, The fact of the matter is if if if let’s say we leave, if they want any form of future international recognition for Afghanistan, if they want any form of international support, they’re gonna have to keep, they’re gonna have to keep the agreements that they’ve made, we will be able to observe that and see it very clearly and directly whether or not they’re able to do it. Well, I am happy to hear that we’re going to be watching them closely. But my concern is that we’ve been watching them closely and they’ve been pretty much uniformly unreliable. Um, mystery. I’d like to ask you about Iran. Um, Recently they made the announcement that they were going to upgrade their highly enriched uranium to 60 and that pretty much goes against everything that we want them to be doing or peace loving people in the world want them to be doing. So. What is the Biden administration going to do about that congressman? I think what we see with that announcement is uh playing now in terms of the public nature of the announcement is the jockeying for leverage with respect to the negotiations that are underway in Vienna right now. So it’s important what is happening in public. It’s also important what’s happening behind closed doors and whether we’re getting closer through the talks that are underway to a resumption of compliance on the part of Iran with the agreement, Would you agree that upgrading their HQ to 60 is unacceptable? Absolutely. And how close does that get them to weapons grade capable? A G you highly enriched uranium Congressman? It puts them farther along that path. The 90 level and above is where you would need to be in terms of weapons grade uranium. Mhm. Um, well, I’ve just got a lot of concerns like you, General Mackenzie, I’m gonna be watching closely. Um, oh, I do have one last question for you, General Mackenzie, my last minute, and this is a concern. I have that where we’re not taking advantage of a capability that we have. We have purchased some iron dome batteries from Israel and we know that these are highly capable units shooting down incoming rockets and missiles. Are there places in centcom where we could be using these iron dome batteries? And my understanding is we’re not using them at all. I hope I’m wrong on that. But if we’re not using them at all, aren’t there places where they could be put to good use? So I prefer to talk to that a little more directly into closed session a little bit later this afternoon. But but I would just tell you this, we look we look globally at the management of our air defense assets. Centcom has requirements. There are other places in the world that have requirements as well and we just need to bear that in mind. And I go in and fight for the resources for CENTcom. But there are in fact other places in the world they need air defense assets as well. And so I need I just I do recognize that. Okay, well let’s continue that discussion later today. Thank you all for being here. And I yield back Mr. Chairman. Uh thank you. Mr. Garamendi is recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman uh Mr. General Mackenzie. Is it true that president trump reduced the number of troops from 10,000 to 2500 B. A. Tweet last year and then via another treat decided that we would leave by May early May all troops out of Afghanistan. So he I believe he tweeted it. But my orders came through the chain of command resulting from the President to the Secretary written orders in the Department of Defense. We moved troops based on exercise, execute orders. So he may have tweeted that at the beginning. I’m not exactly aware of the time when he did or didn’t do it. But the the chain of command which the president sits at the top of is what directs us to move forces. So it was president trump that said all troops would be out by May of this year, conditions based conditions based, okay, just a slight clarification there. Of the way in which we now find ourselves with troops leaving in September. Um My question is to the countries surrounding Afghanistan. What is your assessment miss story first and then Mr. General Mackenzie about the role of the surrounding countries, Pakistan, India china Russia, others, how are they going to respond to the departure of NATO and US troops, congressman? I think you’ll see an array of hedging behaviors as the U. S. And coalition forces began to depart. And as we focus in on a diplomatic first presence in the country, you’ll see behaviors in terms of already we see it with Pakistan, where Pakistan is I applying pressure to an extent with respect to the Taliban, out of concern for the impact on Pakistan. Should civil war break out again and refugee flows affect their country? I think that same dynamic is true with the other neighbors as well. Where each is looking at the situation now to assess for themselves, what are what are the risks? What are the threats and how will we posture ourselves going forward general? Sorry? So I think Mr. recaptured it pretty clearly. I think the country that’s going to be the most affected, frankly, is going to be Pakistan because of the possibility of unconstrained refugee flow, because of the possibility of renewed terrorist attacks in Pakistan that could ramp up as a result of this. All of those things are certainly very possible. I think we should also, the countries to the north of Afghanistan will also be concerned. Tajikistan, the Courage Republic, turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, those countries up there because they’re gonna be worried about refugee flow and the flow of fighters perhaps to the north as well. So, I think all of them are gonna we’ll see what happens when we leave. They look at how we posture after we go and then they’ll they’ll have to decide, you know, the way they’re going to go forward with that. It’s going to be they’re going to face some very tough choices though. So they may or may not be encouraging or engaging in what could be a civil war. I just don’t know. I think that I think they will all be keenly aware of the probable it should’ve civil worker, they’ll be very aware of the population flow, the violence that will certainly spillover from Afghanistan. If that’s the case. Thank you. Let’s turn to africa. General Townsend. Uh Climate change, That’s a hill. How is climate change likely to affect? At least? That’s the hill area and we have time beyond? Well, um first of all, I think Afrikaans role is to support the State Department and U. S. A. I. D. Uh in this area of climate change, but we see clear evidence of that on the African continent. And probably you mentioned this a hell. The biggest issue we see, there’s water shortages and desertification of the farmland there and that spreading southward of the Sahara desert is probably one of our biggest concerns and that sparks all kinds of conflict between herders and farmers, for example. Um I think the ways the Department of Defense is looking at a lot of ways we’ve been charged by the President and the Secretary of Defense to look at ways we can contribute to helping uh mitigate the climate change problem. Uh some of those ways are with unique energy solutions and those kind of projects are are starting to unfold in africa. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Whitman is recognized for five minutes. Thank you Mr. Chairman Like to thank our witnesses for joining us today. General kinsey like to begin with you. You know, there’s there’s a concern that I have about the tension between are our service branch chiefs and our combatant commanders as your demand signal is before you with a global force management allocation plan and generating readiness today. And the service Branch Chiefs focus on making sure that there’s not only readiness today, but there’s modernization and and we’ll call it revitalization for meeting the future demand signal. Um let me ask to begin here when when we look at the gift map today, we see in many circumstances the increased number of our FFS request for forces. Does that reflect that the continuity of what’s happening is changing or is the gift map maybe a little bit outdated? And we need to look at that? Give me your perspective on where that dynamic is today. From your from your thoughts. Certainly, sir. Thank you. So, my last job before I was the Commander of US Central Command, I was the director of the Joint Staff. Before that, I was the J five of the US Joint Staff. So I was at the very core of the Gift Map process. I would consider myself an expert on the Gift Map process. And so there is always going to be a natural tension between those who raise and maintain forces and those who employ forces. That is natural. It goes back as long as we’ve had Joint Chiefs and combatant commanders. Uh so that’s just, that’s just a natural byproduct of that. It is not new. And those tensions are adjudicated by really only one person that is the secretary defense and the process to do that. Adjudication is actually quite good. Now, the gift Map is actually a design for the future. And like any design for the future is based on a set of assumptions that the Gift Map is as good as the assumptions that were made. I would argue over the over the last couple of years, the Gift Map has not completely incorporated the rise of Iran and the White House is thinking and important. So there were a lot of tensions as a result of that. Should should tensions with Iran go down or should we adopt a new policy, then you could have a gift Map that would be more aligned to that. But again, the key thing is the gift map is simply a plan. Any plan is based on assumptions. If the assumptions change, you have to change the plan. Um, So I am not particularly when I was the director, I wasn’t particularly concerned by it now that I’m a coke on. I’m not particularly concerned by it. I ask for forces I need based on the tasks I am given is the secretary advised by the joint staff and by his civilian leadership in the department to determine if they can fix that by either changing the task. They’ve given me giving me more forces or accepting the risk. And then that’s a risk that we all know and understand. So I I would argue frankly the process works pretty good. We might not like the answers from the process, but it’s a pretty good process. Yeah, that’s a constant dynamic. Is mitigating risk today versus risk in the future. How much risk do we take today to make sure we mitigate in the future? Unfortunately, it seems like history looks at us in in a uh in a not so kind way and that many times we’ve not estimated well what the future risk is and we focus too much on what’s in front of us today. So hopefully as we look at what’s out there and I’m glad you mentioned the dynamic element of the environment and how we’re looking at that that that future versus today in generation of force and readiness. Thanks Sean johnson. Let me let me point to you, I know that. And you’re a are you see that Russia is looking to increase influence there? You see their effort in the agreement with Sudan for Essentially putting a naval base there for the next 25 years. My concern is, is again, you see the Chinese presence in Djibouti. Now, you see Russian presence in Sudan, you see them trying to expand their influence in those areas. Are there concerned that this development or this placement of hardware there could go to other areas, Could it go to areas like South Sudan? Uh and areas um in uh the Tigray region of Ethiopia, are we going to see an expansion of Russian influence in that area? What are your perspectives and what we see with Russian activity? Thanks congressman, I am concerned about what Russia is doing on the continent first. Uh they’re uh influence in Libya that seems to be maybe trending in a positive direction. Next concern I have is you just pointed out is Sudan and their efforts to uh in place a naval base there. That project has has been a little fraught with some friction for them, but they seem to be trying to push that forward. Um First of all, I would say that there are two types of naval bases. So here I am an army instrument, talking about naval bases. But my my naval component commander has educated me a little bit. There’s two types, the one type where you can stop the gas and groceries that’s useful for port calls and and steaming around the world. But for war you need a militarily useful naval base and the ability to rearm and repair ships. So it’s not clear to me that there they’re just on the ground stages of trying to get an agreement solidified to get. So we got some time to work this. I am concerned about what they’re doing. And you mentioned that they connect all the way uh Russian activity that connects all the way to the apologize uh the sun has expired my bed. Mr. Brown is recognized. Thank you very much very much. Mr. Chairman, is that my echo? You’re good Miss Sherman, Can you come back to me and maybe tech can help me with this? I know right now. We’re hearing you just fine. Are you hearing an echo? Yeah, I’m hearing an echo. Are you know, we got you loud and clear. We’re okay. Okay. Can I just ask them that my clock be reset to five minutes? Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Now go ahead. Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you to our panelists. Um general towns and a question for you. Um Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Africa Affairs. Um Mr. Myers recently said that U. S. Engagement with the nations of the continent is crucial for peace, democracy and development. Could you describe what additional security resources, military assistance and capabilities that you need to mitigate the risk and support the various diplomatic disaster assistance and humanitarian efforts across the continent. Thanks Thanks congressman. I would uh like to defer my conversation about my answer about forces as we are engaging in this global posture review and I haven’t presented our plans yet or recommendations yet to the Secretary of Defense about forces but other capabilities I’d like to address. Uh those are foreign military sales, foreign military financing 33 section 333 Support I met. Those types of security assistance are absolutely vital to our ability to get our uh mission accomplished in Africa. And uh Africom has seen significant reductions in those types of security assistance over the last couple of years. Uh and one of them I met is a great concern but also 333 uh funding. So it’s those types of things that I am willing to talk about now short of actually talking about forces over Thank you. Can you describe how terrorists and extremist activity uh interferes with the humanitarian missions and how it stalls economic development across the continent? I witnessed that on a codel I spoke with uh representatives from U. S. A. I. D. And the embassy, they said they just can’t do their work uh in a secure enough environment because of terrorist and extremist activities. Can you share a little bit put a little bit of meat on that bone? Sure, congressman, Thank you. Uh So there’s a symbiotic relationship between those three Ds. Diplomacy uh development and defense. And uh one of the ways we assist those two other Ds and getting their work done is providing a secure environment. So our work with the security forces of an african country uh is critical to allowing U. S. A. I. D. Do development work and the Department of State do their diplomatic work and that symbiotic relationship. It’s very evident in Africa and because of the generally uh you know and security and the status of the security environment there, uh the Department of Defense is assistance is regularly needed over. Thank you. And just in what little time we have left for General Mackenzie and General Towns. And if you could take 30 seconds or so each, can you please describe the programs and initiatives within your command that you use uh to foster a culture of inclusion, diversity and equity within our ranks in your command. General Mackenzie. Yeah, go ahead frank sir. So uh there are there are a variety of programs but I would say what absolutely most important is what leaders do by if you go into the front office of a leader who’s who’s in the outer office, who the leaders pick as principal staff officers, who uh people see, see those things. And while the programs are very important, we have variety of those programs that are underway. I think for a high level leader, the most important thing you have to do is act because I think that’s what actually people see and I’ll pause there, sir. And uh I think General Mackenzie said it very well. Uh the only thing I might add is at Africom, we have a gender adviser on our staff to help us with that. But that gets back to what General Mackenzie said. It’s about what leaders do. And I agree with you that people that you have in place and the commitment of leaders to diversity equity inclusion are extremely important. I will point out that in the fy 21 nd a uh this committee along with our colleagues in the senate, collectively, Congress directed the secretary of defense to establish a mentor program among many other things we’ve asked him to do regarding diversity equity inclusion but a mentor program to ensure greater diversity among more career fields and throughout the rank structure. So I know you’re doing a lot of good things. We’re probably gonna want you to do step it up even a little bit more. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I’ll yield back. Thank you. Mr. scott is very honest. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Chairman General Townsend. Uh thank you for your support and could help Panetta in august of 19 Mr. Brown. Mr. Panetta. Mr. Hudson. And I had a great trip, learned a lot and could not have learned what we did. Had it not been for your support at that time, we visited the U. N. Mission in mali and uh many of the people in the meeting that we had discussed china’s activity and expressed concerns that china’s activity was going to lead to civil war uh in many of the countries on the continent of Africa. Yesterday, I’m sorry. Last week, Admiral Fowler had a south com testified and I’ll quote him. Our interagency partners in the United States have pointed out to us the FBI and others. The Chinese money laundering Is the # one underwriting source for transnational criminal organizations. In your testimony, you mentioned on page 12 that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the communist Chinese is the primary contributor to a growing food crisis that will further drive instability in West Africa. And obviously food crisis and instability have um historically led to civil wars. My question, uh, for you is how do we stop this activity from china short of absolute war? Thanks congressman. I think the, the solution there is competition, right? We want to compete before war comes and competition is, is forever task because you’re always trying to stay short Of war. So with China, we have to compete and we don’t have to compete with them. In all, 53 countries of the African mayo are equally, but we have to pick and choose uh, where we’re going to compete. And one of the ways we do that is just simply by calling out, uh, their activity on the continent. You mentioned illegal fishing and they are probably, uh, my assessment is, are probably the number one offender. An eagle, illegal fishing and its commercial. But we all know that china has a command economy. Uh, so uh calling that out has helped us a lot. Another example is helping countries avoid getting the bad deals uh with china. And this is an example where our Department of State does something I’m aware of it. But we offer a free service to evaluate the contracts of any of our African partners. Before they enter sign a contract with china or Chinese entity, the U. S. Embassy will review that contract and point out the inconsistencies and the potential pitfalls in that contract and advise the african partners so they can make smart decisions general. I’m uh I appreciate your question. I will tell you. I also think we need the support of corporate America and the American consumer and that while I recognize that our manufacturing faces become contingent upon our um asia, there are a lot of other countries that share our interests and share our values outside of china. And it bothers me when I walk into a uh store to buy a power tool that virtually every power tool that’s available on the shelves in America is manufactured in china. And so we’ve got to have some help from corporate America uh to to source our products from countries outside of china. one of the other things I want to mention. And is that on that code L we got to witness the the O. D. A. Missions and the and the training missions. And this is something that uh mystery maybe more for you. But we we bring these young men in from Africa there uh 18 or so. They have a uh at best a med school, 6th 7th 8th grade education. We have them on site for 24 months uh seven days a week. And they leave with that 7th or 8th grade education after we’ve trained them to fight. And my concern is that ah without an education that they become the people that uh in the, you know, leave and their ability to fight as their greatest asset. So I would encourage you to work with your counterparts. This is more of a State Department mission and and maybe more of a mission for the French in the area. But while we have those young men on our bases or bases where we’re training them, I do think it would be worthwhile to look at what it would take to educate those men and try to move them from that med school education closer to a high school graduate education. Uh With that said, I look forward to the classified hearing. My uh time is up. Thank you. Thank you all for everything you do for our country. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Karr. Was recognized. Mhm. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for coming in here today. My first question is to a mystery. MS toria. Last Alaskan nd a process this Congress passed a provision section 12 15 that would ensure that any administration at that time the trump administration would actually engage with Congress on the issue of Afghanistan. Specifically, 12 15 requires that the administration make assessments regarding the impeding of counterterrorism missions. Because we saw what happened with the insurgents of ISIS after our withdrawal in Iraq. It talks about the risk posed the U. S. Personnel because these are obviously the men and women that we represent in our communities. It talks about the issue of Afghanistan becoming a terrorist safe haven. Uh the assessments that are required there and of course the impact on our partners allies and humanitarian conditions on the ground. Because we have made substantial investments and capacity building investments in humanitarian aid and the men and women and Children and vulnerable populations in Afghanistan. So with that said, and the fact that this is America’s war and not anyone administration’s war and it is federal law that the administration provide that assessment to Congress in advance of withdrawal from Afghanistan. Is it The administration’s intend to comply with that law and provide those assessments to the United States. Congress congressman is my understanding that the administration will comply with the law. My understanding further the briefings that will be provided later today or a down payment in some respects, with respect to section 1215. Well, just as you know, I don’t expect a briefing would satisfy those requirements. And and when I say comply with the law, the Last administration, the trump administration basically provided a certification invoking an emergency to bypass the intent of the law and not actually provide those assessments. And we would expect this administration to comply in good faith with the intent of that law and that have written and comprehensive assessments. Can you provide any insight into which approach the administration is going to take care, congressman? All I can say right now, based on just the evolving nature of the decision making process of the decision just happened and we’re now moving into implementation, but I fully expect compliance with the law in a manner that’s intended by the Congress. Okay, thanks my story. General Mackenzie over to you. One of my biggest concerns is force protection. Obviously retrograde operations are some of the riskiest things we do. You have testified earlier as to a surge of combat power into Afghanistan to set the conditions for the withdrawal. But I’m gravely gravely concerned as our footprint is smaller, what the QRF capacity looks like in the event the security situation dissolves much faster than our assessments might indicate. Can you speak to what forces regional forces would be available and how we’re going to ensure that the last remaining units in Afghanistan have assistance available to them. So I prefer to talk to specific tactical details in the closed session this afternoon, but I’ll be happy to do that in that session. I would I would tell you that I I spent a lot of time looking at force protection in Afghanistan withdrawal. Such as we are doing is based on three of three components. One is uh the equipment extraction, what you’re gonna do with it. The other is turning over the basis and the infrastructure and the third. And the most important is the force protection itself for our forces. General Miller and I talk every day about force protection in Afghanistan and I’m confident that we will have the forces necessary to protect our forces should the taliban aside to begin attacking us on one May or at any other date. And I’ll be happy to provide the details to you in a classified for Thank you. Look forward to having that discussion this afternoon. And General Townsend. Very briefly, I represent one of the nation’s largest communities of Ethiopians in Ethiopian diaspora and I’m extremely concerned for the security situation, particularly the great uh Ethiopian renaissance Dam project. Could you provide in some insight as to our efforts to ensure that that project does not result in regional armed conflict. Thanks Congressman with the remaining 30 seconds, I might want to give some mystery on this. Uh we’re watching the situation with the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam uh and we’re trying to keep people informed. I think this is mostly a diplomatic led effort and I’ll turn over to mystery there. I agree fully with General Townsend that there is a big diplomatic push at this point. With respect to the GERD concerns. Okay, thank you to all of you appreciate the testimony very much. Chairman of Quebec. Thank you. I want to make sure members. No, I did not announce this upfront. We’re going we have a hard stop at 1 30 for this portion and then we’ll be reconvening at three uh in this room actually for the classified hearing. So I want to emphasize that point because normally we do at the CBC with the CBC is occupied today by extended discussions about Afghanistan. So 1 30 hard stop and three o’clock back here for that. I will be departing shortly and turning the committee over to the capable hands of Mr. laura to go over and do one of the CBC briefings but just want to make sure everyone had that uh scheduling update and with that Mr. Desjarlais is recognized. Thank you Jeremy smith, General Mackenzie with state actor in your area of responsibility. Do you believe to be the United States greatest geostrategic foe? I consider Iran to be the greatest threat to regional stability in the Middle East and with Israel moving from um descent comedy this year, do you believe that they will be your closest partner in the er we have a lot of close partners in the Hor Israel will certainly join the line of dependable friendships and partnerships that we have in the region. We have a unique an old relationship with with Israel but I wouldn’t further characterize it. Okay, uh when you have the political leadership of our greatest foe in the region, Iran threatening our closest ally, Israel and stating that its mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to erase Israel from the map of the region. You believe that one of our top priority should be keeping a nuclear weapon out of Iran’s hands. I believe the president has stated that is a high priority. I also believe that one of the things central Command does on a daily basis is deter Iran from acting against against us and against our partners and friends in the region. That’s if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons, what you believe would be the response from some of our allies in the region. And do you believe such a move could have the potential set off an arms race? I would prefer not to speculate about future contingencies. I can tell you that uh it would be very concerning to us if Iran possessed a nuclear weapon and it was able to possess a nuclear weapon. And it is the aim of the United States policy to prevent that condition from occurring. You mentioned in your opening statement that as a result of the challenges faced with US detection and interdiction, the United States is for the first time since the korean war operating without complete air superiority. What would we what should we be doing to address this gap in our capabilities and retain the advantage against Iranian forces? So I think the I think first of all, the Department of Defense has moved out very aggressively to address this problem. The army is the executive agent for close in protection against these small US US systems that are most concerning to me. Uh but I think we still have a ways to go to get on the right side of the curve with this because right now you can go out and buy one at walmart or some other location, you can weaponize it very readily. Sometimes it is very difficult for us to detect them until it’s too late. We have a variety of systems that we’re testing now in a free market, a competition to find the best and most integrated capabilities. We are not there yet. And it remains a very concerning priority of mine. Okay, can you spell out the implications of China’s 25-year agreement with Iran, which includes expanding military cooperation? Sure. So, you know, that China has had an existing military agreement with Iran for a period of time. I’m not certain that this is going to produce anything new or different. Uh, again, we’ll watch to see what it does with oil exports and I’m probably not the best person to talk about that right now. But a number of sanctions could still come in place against Chinese companies should they elect to do business with Iran? So, again, I’m probably not the best guy to give you an answer an answer. Okay. But the annual threat assessment issued earlier this month By the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that they highlighted Iraq as the key battleground for Iran’s influence this year. And during the next several years, you agree with this assessment. I completely agree with that. And I would go further to say that the year 2020, Iran’s plan was again through political action, the ejection of the United States from the region and principally from Iraq. They failed in doing that. And as a result, we’re beginning to see a tax ramp up from there. She uh from their Shia groups in the region and I think that’s going to continue. Okay, so you kind of partly answered that, But what would be the net effect of the U. S. Were to draw down or completely withdraw troops from Iraq? Well, that move is not contemplated if if there is one of the one of the good news stories in the region is I believe we have a good relationship with the government of Iraq. Recently completed strategic dialogue is going to provide a framework for us to decide what our forces are gonna look like going forward. So I don’t think there’s a I I don’t see us withdrawing completely from Iraq in the future. Okay, well thank you general, both generals for your service and the story. Uh Mr. Chairman, I go back thank you. Mr. Carver Hall. Thank you. Mr. Chair and thank you to all the witnesses here today, Miss Dori. Uh I welcome this administration’s decision to strategically withdraw US forces from Afghanistan By September 11 2021. I must say though, that the difference between this administration and the previous administration is that it seems that we’re doing it with our allies and we’re doing it in close coordination and collaboration instead of hearing about a tweet uh and our commanders not really being in the loop. So I appreciate that. But still, the question that stays as a significant issue is, well, what is our plan? That was my criticism before with the previous administration? And that’s I think what we’re all looking to better understand what is the plan as we leave Afghanistan. Um So if you could answer that and then help me understand what President Biden meant when he said will reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities and the substantial assets in the region to prevent re emergence of terrorism? Well, can you elaborate on that statement? Mhm. Thank you, congressman. This administration has reinvigorated a focus on alliances and partnerships and I think you see it in the work that has been underway to support taking a decision with respect to the future of the U. S. Uh force posture in Afghanistan. So the intensive engagement that we saw most recently with NATO and coalition partners with respect to the decision to draw down in Afghanistan in the in the very near term, there is detailed planning underway, as you heard General Mackenzie referred to a few moments ago, with respect to how the force drawdown will proceed in conjunction with Allies and partners, separate planning underway with respect to what the counterterrorism footprint will look like going forward given the focus i in Afghanistan the primary vital interest that has sustained us over time being. To ensure that there are no attacks emanating from Afghanistan with respect to the U. S. Homeland. And we will have in the classified briefings later today we’ll be able to get into that into a lot more detail. Okay does that include what our footprint will look like moving forward? Well I think what we understand is from here into September that will have we will not have combat forces, us or coalition combat forces there and we will transition to a diplomatically oriented footprint with the U. S. Embassy. Thank you. Can you provide us with an update on where the intra afghan peace talks are at at this point? I think uh Ambassador Khalilzad will be one of the panelists in the briefings later this afternoon and will be well postured to give just just a fresh update on those talks. Great, thank you General Mackenzie in your testimony, you comment that centcom is committed to working with inter agency partners to develop mechanisms that ensure continued oversight of an accountability of the Afghanistan security forces fund. What oversight tools do we currently use that will be important to continue after the withdrawal. How will our our oversight adapt to having a limited presence on the ground? The principal tool that we use to manage the oversight of the disbursement of those funds and the proper use of it or the people on the ground that see what happens to it and and monitor that as we draw down. That’s gonna become our principal challenge. How do we do that from a remote location? A lot will depend on the size of the U. S. Embassy that remains and we have not yet finally determined that. And that’s something that we’re in talking about planning right now, the smaller the embassy is, the more difficult it will be become to manage the A. S. F. F. As we go forward. We’re keenly aware of that. That is right at the centerpiece of our planning and we’re working very closely with the Department of State to make those determinations. Thank you very much. Mr. On your back. Thank you represent Carvajal. The chair now recognizes wraps up gates in Florida for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. All right. I want to talk about chad. General Town Senate appears in the last several hours the president of chad was killed on engaged in front line fighting against rebels who had based in Libya and had crossed the border. What do you know currently about the situation in chad and particularly any change to the counter terrorism cooperation that we’ve been able to rely on from that government. Thanks congressman. As you know, it’s sort of breaking news story. As I walked in here this morning, we learned about the reported and confirmed death. President Deby, he’s a retired general and he has in the past, uh, gone to the front where there was action and we don’t know exactly how he got killed. But the report is, he was killed in action up there, uh, facing off with a column of rebels that are not terrorists. They’re not ISIS, they’re not Al Qaeda. Um, they are anti, they were actually anti regime in chad. They were based in southern Libya. Uh, they mounted up in several 100 vehicles and they transited a long way across the chadian desert, uh, towards the south. The chadian government forces started engaging them. They were supported by the French. We observe this. Um, and then President, it looked like that the column had made the decision to withdraw. This has happened before. They were about to withdraw, we think, and then the news of the President Debbie’s death became known. It’s unclear what this means for our relationship there. His son, President Deby son, former intel intel chief has been appointed as the interim president. Um We expect that he, he is inclined towards good relationships with France and the United States. Uh, we think that will continue. There could be some potential for violence and we are working closely with our country team. There are embassy did a precautionary drawdown of personnel uh, to a minimum staff. And we also have some military folks. They’re working with the French and the embassy. So we’re watching this very closely to keep Americans safe. While this becomes a little more clear, it seems tactically significant that these rebels were able to base in Southern Libya that they were able to traverse such a distance and then execute this mission. It might suggest that the situation in Libya is getting worse as well with a failed state following the Gaddafi regime. With this transition council that has President Deby Son now in some position of leadership, I guess the position of leadership in the country. Um what do we expect from the French? I know that they were very supportive of the regime. Is there anything that we would expect as a change from regarding their involvement with the country? On your point about the situation in Libya, we know that the chadian government had been supportive and there were also factions uh in chad that supported various factions in Libya um regarding the future with this uh interim President, the son of President Deby, uh the interim President Deby. Um right now I anticipate that it will he will be favorable to good relations with France and France I anticipate will continue to do what they’ve been doing up to this point supporting the government of chad. But I have to be honest with you, this is breaking news and it’s not clear, it sort of seems when a president who took power through a military coup then dies in a battle against political rebels, not religious extremists and then gives rise to his son being selected by the National council. That it’s not the strongest case for emerging democracy in africa. It seems to suggest more of a move toward authoritarianism and I think that’s something we should all watch carefully. I think the Chairman and I yield back. Yeah, mm. Thank you. Uh Chair recognizes represents lock in michigan. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Um, happy to see all three of you here. Um, some of our really foremost experts on the Middle East and africa that we have in our government. Um, my questions are going to be primarily for General Mackenzie on Afghanistan. Um, you know, I think for the most part, most of us feel at least I feel from my constituents that they want to be out of Afghanistan. We have fathers who are sending off their sons to fight in the same war they fought in. But what holds people back is this fear that the exact reason we went in, you know, a threat of terrorist attacks against our homeland and our allies could creep back up again. Um, so help us understand, I understand we’ll talk more of the classified stuff in a separate session, but general kensi help reassure my constituents that by pulling out, we won’t be doing right going right back in because we have a threat that impacts us here in the homeland. Thanks. Thanks mom for that. And I appreciate the concern of your constituents like them. I’ve sent my son twice to Afghanistan, so I’m very much aware of those concerns. Uh, uh, as we’ve talked a little bit before, we’re going to go to zero in Afghanistan. That means there’ll be no U. S. Forces on the ground there. We will use a variety of means to monitor Al Qaeda and ISIS in Afghanistan. It’ll intelligence will decline A Director of National CIA Director has said that, but we will still be able to see into Afghanistan. There still will be ways to do that. Much of that will depend on the embassy platform that remains and that is yet undetermined. But that will be helpful if we maintain an embassy there. Well, we’re gonna be able to continue to look into Afghanistan and I think the president’s been very clear, we’re not going to re enter to reoccupy Afghanistan and or any conceivable circumstances. What we will retain the ability to do is to find and fix those people who plan attacks against us that we can detect and then when appropriate we will be able to strike them. I don’t want to make that sound easy because it’s not easy. It’s going to be extremely difficult to do it, but it is not impossible to do it. So I’m deeply impacted by our experience in Iraq as someone who grew up as an Iraq specialist um and who didn’t agree with the decision to go to zero in Iraq. Um And then watched in the years after we had pulled out how difficult it was to get Washington to pay attention to what was then a growing threat of ISIS. We couldn’t get the intelligence support, we couldn’t get the overhead imagery support. We couldn’t get the attention of folks um when we saw things creeping back in the wrong direction, please help me understand how this will be different. Well, speaking of the future, I don’t know, but I will certainly be a relentless advocate to keep the focus on Afghanistan. We are going to shift assets out of central command. That’s a given that’s going to happen at the same time. We need to balance against what we know the known aspiration of these groups to launch attacks against the United States that hasn’t gone away and it’s there right now, they’re they’re depressed. They have very little ability to do that. Certainly, it’s possible they could, they could re establish themselves in the future. It’s also possible the Taliban will do some of the things that they’ve said they’re going to do. I’ll just watch that very closely to see that it happens. I think that is a reasonable concern and I share that concern frankly. And I know that you know, we’ve learned in the past 20 years that are best attempts in these wars is through coalitions, through alliances, doing things with partners and allies. So I’m heartened that we’re having the conversation with them. But is there anything planned on the regional security architecture a formal plan with our allies and partners to have a conversation not just about how to end the war but how to contain the situation after the war has ended. So I defer to Mr. Dorian for some of that. But I would say what’s been very impressive to me has been a complete and comprehensive degree of consultation that went into this decision and the execution of this decision, both with our NATO partners or other coalition partners on the ground and in fact regional partners. So I think that sets the stage for some former regional architecture, but I did for the mystery for further comments on that. I’ll go to Missouri in just a second. But just to finish out your, one of our most seasoned experienced four star generals with experience on the ground in the Middle East tour after tour, do you feel confident that the American people will stay safe and not be attacked again Emanating out of Afghanistan? The key thing that’s different in 2021 from 2001 is not only what’s going on in the theater, but our ability to harden the country here. The steps we’ve taken here to protect ourselves. It’s a very different country in terms of ability to enter and operate in the United States than it was in the fall of 2001. So we worked very hard to ensure that attacks are going to come from Afghanistan or from africa Or from any other place. It begins on the ground there, but there’s also a broad in depth defense that is in place that was not in place before and in my last remaining 20 seconds. Do you know of any discussions with the Afghanis about the Afghans? Excuse me. On a status of forces agreement or diplomatic security agreement for our embassy. I know that I know that’s actively being work now, but I don’t have any details beyond that. Thank you. General, appreciate it. You’re back. Thank you. Representative Chair recognizes representative waltz florida for five minutes represented waltz. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I want to make. Okay. You’re good. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Uh, General. I just want to pick up all the slackens questions. I certainly share her concerns. And it was good to spend some time with you a few weeks ago. Can you talk to me? What about or or mystery? What basing agreements do we have from any of the stands? Uh Tajikistan were obviously we no longer where we have no basing Kyrgyzstan. Where we no longer have Manas Uzbekistan where we no longer have K two. What agreements we have with any of the neighboring countries to be able to base our forces and conduct lethal strikes or even surveillance back into Afghanistan. Do we have any? Currently at this time? We have no. We have none of those agreements in place. General. Do you think it would have been optimal to have those agreements before we announced to the world that we’re going to zero in a few months? I can’t speak to that. I would tell you that right now we’re engaged in a significant effort to evaluate where we want to put potential CT forces where they would be best. Optimize some geography and also the diplomatic angle of it as we go forward. I I think we need to be clear with the American people that when the military goes, our intelligence assets go. Uh the agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies are dependent on that military backbone and basing also our contracts on our contractors go with estimates of 15 to 20,000 currently there providing logistics maintenance and other critical support of the Afghan security forces. What’s the plan for the continuing presence of those critical contract support services? So right now most of the contractors are going to leave, certainly the U. S. Contractors are going to leave. We’ll try to develop ways to do distant distant contracting where we can clearly there’s gonna be some things that we’re not going to be able to do any more as the contractors leave and I don’t want to minimize that. And and and it’s important for everyone to understand that those contractors were providing maintenance, for example, for the Blackhawks that we provided to the Afghan security forces to the limited close air support capabilities that they have and again critical logistic and advisory functions. All of that is going to be gone in the next few months. Uh And both a number of reports, both think tank intelligence community and even afghans themselves have cast real doubt on the ability of the afghan security forces to continue to hold without that support. So, I fear to to add on to Miss Larkins questions if the Taliban does take over, or we do even have a power sharing agreement with the Taliban will now be reliant on them for any basing overflight or or any type of authorities that we need to go after Al Qaeda, assuming that they’ll give them. Is that, do I have that wrong? So, that’s a lot of future hypotheticals that I’m probably not the best person to talk about. I would tell you right now, though, there’s still the possibility of inter Afghan dialogue that could still continue. We can all have our own assessment about the probability of that reaching success, but that still continues well. But general that I want to be clear with uh with with everyone that it is not a hypothetical that the State Department has introduced a draft power sharing agreement into the dialogue where the Afghan government would dissolve as it currently stands and share power with the Taliban. So it’s I don’t think it’s it’s elite to say, we would then have to negotiate them for any any ability to return and go after Al Qaeda. My question is what military, so assume they have the will uh to uh to turn on and and and conduct operations against al Qaeda? What military capability does the Taliban have? That 300,000 men, Afghan army and 42 coalition nations have struggled in terms of containing Al Qaeda. What military capabilities the afghans have? So the afghans would have significant residual capability. It would depend on if the nation is whole, if the nation is fractured, if there’s a civil war, their variety of future contingents that would uh that would directly affect the ability of the afghan, whatever whoever is leading the afghan afghan government and whatever state it is, their ability to actually concentrate combat power. Some of those scenarios you’ve outlined, it would be a fractured state. They would not be able to do it. Other scenarios, they might be able to do it. No, thank you. General. Just at the time I have remaining would bagram airbase be valuable to you being where it’s located geographically west of China, south of Russia, east of Iran. Bagram is keeping in great power contingencies. Bagram is key terrain tactically in Afghanistan. Operationally and strategically is the definition of key terrain and and it’s notable that we’re about to just give that away with nothing in return. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I you Gentlemen. Time’s expired. The chair recognizes represent Hoolahan of Pennsylvania for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chair. My questions first to the General Mackenzie and General Towns and I have to do with china, which is obviously significantly invested in Pakistan and parts of Africa as part of their belt and road initiative. And I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit if you have any concerns about them in terms of national security in the region. Uh, and also, if you might be able to tell us if you have heard any whisperings of the fact that they are, may be interested in sending peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan. If we indeed, you leave the region. I’ll begin briefly, just talk about the Central command before handing over to the general towns. And so we see china operating in central command principally from an economic perspective, they offer a number of apparently seductive and attractive uh, infrastructure and other development loans and projects to countries in the region which then have on the back end of that or not, don’t appear to be such a good deal. After all, they want access to the region. They would, I think eventually want to seek naval basing in the region because they do import a significant amount of their hydro carbons through the strait of hormones and out of the region. But for now, for the short term to the medium term, it is printed, it is principally economic engagement going forward. And you’re right, we see it in Pakistan, but also in some of the gulf states, it is significantly concerning to me. They are playing a very long game and they’re playing it with vast amounts of resources. And so do you see any concerns or significant concerns as a result of that? I am very concerned about where we’re going to be in a few years with china in the region. I believe that some of the nation states in the region are also waking up to this and becoming aware of it because they see what’s happening in africa. They see what’s happening in South America and other parts of the globe. And as you know, there are nations in the region that actually do have significant resources themselves. So they don’t need to fall into the debt trap with china. Others are susceptible to that. Uh, that to that predatory diplomacy and General Townsend, do you have anything as well? I’d say our concerns are very similar to those expressed by General Mackenzie. I don’t know if you receive the placemats, we handed out placemats here in the room and I told we distribute them electronically as well. One of them is on general. We do have those placements. Thank you. Uh, the uh, what, what china is doing in Africa and that kind of gives you an idea. I think the only thing I’d add to what General Mackenzie said is, they very much have intent to establish additional overseas bases in Africa, whether that beyond the atlantic coast of Africa or the indian ocean coast of Africa, they’re working hard to establish a naval bases and or air bases and that is of great concern to Africa. And so with regard to, you know, a potential build up of china, do you anticipate General Townsend um with the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, that we might increase our troops in Africa? Uh given that there, as we know, is a constant threat of extremism, how will we possibly do that? I think, indeed, that is our plan. Do you think, um Congresswoman, I don’t, as an economy of force effort for the Department of Defense, I don’t anticipate significant uplift of resources to Africom despite the drawdown in Afghanistan. Uh so I’m not anticipating that, but we’re going to undergo this global posture review and we’re gonna work through all those questions. Uh huh. I look forward to that. I do have concerns. I know I don’t I’m not alone and sharing those concerns with that, that particular part of the world, Africa seems to be a rising opportunity for terrorists to land there in the absence of other places around the world that they could land. And I just want to make sure that we’re keeping our eye on the region. I appreciate your time, gentlemen. And I’ll yell back thank you. Representative Chair now recognizes Representative Ice of Oklahoma for five minutes, thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you, General. I’m sorry, thank you for being here this afternoon. Um My first question revolves around china and Russia and there continue to reach into the African region. One of the things that I have learned in my very short time here is that rare earth minerals are becoming a very big concern and the Chinese and Russians are tapping into uh the African region to try to mind those. What are the is the drd taking any steps to facilitate um access? Uh She goes rare earth minerals for domestic ease. Okay, thanks to your question, congresswoman, the on the topic of rare earth minerals. Both countries, as you pointed out, are seeking to exploit those on the African continent. The Russians are sort of near term exploiters uh and the Chinese are more strategic exploiters in my view there very carefully seeking out mineral deposits that they want to um lockdown for the future. Uh The Department of Defense is supporting the U. S. A. I. D. And the Department of State in this effort. We don’t have a particular effort directed at securing rare earth minerals on the video decide. But we are supporting our interagency partners in that regard. Do you feel like that’s being effective? I know that it has the energy of this administration. It’s a great concern to this administration. I think it’s a legitimate concern um pivoting just debate here. We’ve also heard a lot about technology and the use of technology across the region. How are centcom in africa addressing the emerging threat of drones and transform tactics? I’ll uh and that can really sort of apply to yeah centcom or African? Sure I’ll answer and hand it off to General Mackenzie in my first encounter with drone delivered munitions was in the Battle of Mosul in Iraq two or three years ago. Uh So this is an area of great concern to us. We haven’t seen significant employment of weaponized drones in Africa yet, but we are working very hard to be ready for that and head that off the Department of Defense. As General Mackenzie explained earlier, the Department of Defense has a great program focused on that threat. I’m concerned about the small armed you drones as well as the larger one way attack drones that we’ve seen employed in the region. Uh, so, uh, I think we’re focused on it and we’re employing as much technology as we can uh, to prepare for that. General Mackenzie thanks so small, commercially available drones, one of the most persistent and dangerous threats that we see in the central Command. They are, I am very concerned about it. We have ways to deal with a larger land attack cruise missiles, they’re equally there concerning, but we can deal with them as an air defense problem. It’s a lot harder to deal with something that small, perhaps commercially off the shelf bought modified and uh, we’re on the wrong side of the cost in position curve when it comes to these systems. So were a lot of a lot of great work is being done in the department. We are not there yet. Um, and that sort of leads to my next question, which was the factors that are limiting your ability to deploy counter us systems within centcom in africa. So within Sym com, there are a variety of systems out there. I’ll tell you, I take any system and employ it immediately. What we would, what we where we need to go is an integrated system. Because the system in an integrated system would give you early warning of launch perhaps through a variety of means. It would give you an idea of where they’re coming and they’re altitude, then it would give you an ability to engage them kinetically and non kinetically. We do not yet have a single system that can do all that. What we have are a variety of systems that all do part of this and that’s part of the problem. We were not integrated so we pushed very hard to get an integrated system but one that is not delivered late behind them behind need. That’s the problem. When you push for an integrated system this story, do you have any comments on that? I would just add to that congresswoman that the issue of counter us is something not just within the department at this point, but has a profile in terms of the inter agency discussions on how to deter and defeat that threat. So within the Department of Defense there is the joint effort underway that the generals have referred to. But there’s also a broader whole government approach that is recently initiated. Thank you. Well thank you miss story General Mackenzie and General Townsend for your time and your back. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Before I go to the next uh questioner, I do want to just stop as well. Thank General kinsey for his hospitality a few weeks ago. That said comma appreciate that and I did not take that opportunity earlier. I wanted to thank you for that chair. Now recognizes drops in Lauria of Virginia for five minutes. Well, thank you gentlemen for uh historic for your testimony today, I’d like to first address the issue with General Mackenzie of mine warfare in the centcom you are. Um Iranian mining capability is obviously a vulnerability for US and allied military forces within the region as well as for commercial shipping and free trade. Um And the navy plans to soon decommission um It’s remaining for NCM platform station in the gulf um and bahrain. And as we know the material condition and capabilities of these aging M. Cm has been severely degraded over time. However the Navy’s planned replacement of a mind for capability through the mission modules on the L. C. S. Class of ships is neither fully developed nor has it been successfully deployed from the L. C. S. However, testing the N. C. M. Suite of platforms on on platforms of opportunity um such as provided by allied navies um in 2019 Royal Fleet auxiliary mounts bay um successfully tested this and then the T. S. B. E. S. Before herschel woody Williams Also in 2019 proved successful and these ad hoc capabilities are not resident in the centcom kor which is gonna leave a significant gap and mm cm um capability once these ships are decommissioned um as the combatant commander, are you confident in the current and future mind warfare capabilities provided by the navy and your A. O. R. Thank you for the question. I am very concerned about Iranian mine warfare capabilities. I think it’s one of their great asymmetric weapons and they employed in two areas up in the strait McKenzie. I’m sorry, could you just get that microphone pointed right at your chin. How’s that better? Better? Uh I’m very concerned about, about Iranian mine warfare capabilities. It’s a significant asymmetric threat that they possess and they possess it not only up in the strait of Hormuz, which is where we always think about it, but also down in the bab el Mandeb at the in the Red Sea. Their ability to to to deploy a wide variety of thousands of minds is very concerning to me right now. We have a very limited mine warfare capability in the theater. Our ships, as you have noted and are in the in the ships of our british partners uh are also about all we have if we had to sweep and open the strait of Hormuz which is a vital international international passage and it would take us an extended amount of time to do it with the resources that we have now I to have noted the L. C. S. And and and the problems that have that have attended it as a possible mind sweeping variant. Regardless it’s not gonna be available in a reasonable amount of time from me in my requirements and U. S. Central Command. So I would share your concerns. I uh we talk about this all the time. This is an area of Iranian capability that remains vexing and concerning to me so general. Um since there was a successful test of these new advanced my warfare capabilities using the TSB platform which is something that is already deployed in your theater. Would that be a valuable addition in the sitcom? A are we were able to leverage that capability on the TsB centcom will be happy to leverage any any capability that’s out there right now given the significant gap between our available resources and the scope and scale of the problem. Okay thank you. And then the time remaining general Townsend I wanted to focus on as some of my colleagues already have in the rapidly expanding Chinese influence on the African continent. Um We’ve already referenced the strategic location of the Chinese overseas base in Djibouti, adjacent to the bab el Mandeb and the entrance to the Red Sea. Uh, but more than a strategic positioning from their maritime perspective, I wanted to focus on focus on some of the infrastructure and transportation um investments that they’re making reaching into Ethiopia. Um it appears that the Chinese who arguably want to grow their position on the world stage and in Africa are engaging in their own version of a modern day colonialism on the African continent. As they venture, you have to find cheaper labor markets and use infrastructure debt to leverage as the leverage tool. Can you comment on the domestic and regional impact of the Chinese economic expansion into Ethiopia and then maybe a little bit at a time remaining on how the recent unrest in the Tigre region has changed any Chinese activity in the area. Thanks congresswoman. So that you mentioned Chinese an example of their investments on the african continent. Transportation infrastructure is certainly one of those seaports, airports and rail lines in particular. Uh, and you see that with Ethiopia, with rail lines, uh, running to the Red Sea from the country. You see that in kenya as well. Uh, in some places, these investments have worked out okay. I don’t, I haven’t seen any of them that have worked out really well as the Chinese had hoped they would um, regarding your question about Tigre. Um, we haven’t, I haven’t seen a connection to Tigre in china, represents time’s expired. Thank you. Chair. Now recognizes, represent Franklin from Florida for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. And in the interest of time, I do have a couple questions for General Mackenzie first following up on Representative Waltz’s dialogue earlier regarding basing in the region And the changes we’re now going to face with Afghanistan not being there with physical presence on the ground. I think back to just after 9-11, I was in Bahrain were planning some of those initial strikes into Afghanistan. The challenge we had with long distances to make those happen. And we had carrier Pilots that were flying 8-10 hour missions with multiple refuelings to get there. Um that’s obviously going to be a challenge if we find ourselves having to go back in and that kind of scale in the future. But in your testimony, you mentioned pursuing opportunities to enhance expeditionary basing and less vulnerable areas of the Hor. Could you expand a little bit on those and where they may stand? Certainly when we talk about that, I am primarily talking about the Iran problem and the fact that our bases now, such as how you did it. Al Dhafra Manama bahrain, as you noted, have the virtue of being close to the area you might want to fight. They also have the problem being very close to the Iranians. So we would seek to do is examine alternatives further to the west and the Arabian peninsula. That would make it more difficult for the Iranians to target our bases there, it would increase the range. Many of their weapons would not actually have the range to reach out there and get to those bases. The problem will be, the tanker bill is associated with that. On the other hand, if the tanker can survive out to the west is probably better than it being close where it can be struck. So there’s a trade off that we make and we look to our partners to help us on this with these bases. And we’ve never looked at based permanently there. Whether you’d like to have the ability to go in there, as you noted in an expeditionary manner in a time of crisis, around the time of war, just to make it harder for an opponent to threaten the force. Right. Thank you. Um, switching gears to the displaced persons camps in Northeast Syria, particularly. Alan all I guess from your testimony general, we talked about 61,000 people there, 94% women and Children, two thirds under 18. In addition to obvious humanitarian crisis, I know there’s a big problem with, uh, radicalization of a lot of these Children. So this I guess it would be a question for you, General Mackenzie and also mystery what’s the way ahead and that How do we fix this problem? I know a lot of the countries that these people are coming from don’t want to back. What’s the endgame for this? Sure. So I’ll defer to this door here in just a minute. But I will say it is not a military problem, but it will manifest itself in 5 to 10 years as a military problem unless we solve it now because the Children are gonna grow up radicalized and we’re going to see him on the battlefields fighting us. So it is an international problem. It requires repatriation, It requires nations to step up to the plate, claim their citizens, bring them home, reintegrate them back into their communities and it demands de radicalization which is extremely difficult to do. It is best done and practiced by nations in the region who have a cultural affinity for the people that are largely in this camps. It is it’s a tough problem. Our diplomats, Department of State U. S. A. I. D. And a lot of ngos are working at this very hard. It is one of the most pressing problems we have in the centcom region right now. Without I’ll defer to history for anything she’d like to add. I think General Mackenzie put it beautifully. It’s not a military problem. It is an interagency issue. And it’s a question of political will in terms of uh host nations for the individuals who are in the camps. So what pressure do we have that we can apply to get these folks to step up and accept these people and we can’t leave them there in the in the desert forever. I think it depends on which countries you’re talking about in the state of the dialogue with them. What what forms of dialogue and leverage we have at our disposal to encourage stepping up to that responsibility. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman and go back. Thank you represent Franklin. Chair recognizes representative Strickland before he goes Strickland. Just uh, the next Questioner will be represented VZ. So represent Strickland. You recognize a Washington state recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chair General Townsend. You notice that your testimony that Africom supported us efforts to provide COVID-19 assistance in 43 countries, including the delivery of nearly 500 million in medical supplies. The United States is often at its best when it leads in crises, as it did during the Ebola crisis. Can you tell me please how Africom is working alongside the whole of government efforts to respond to COVID-19 and specifically have we, along with USG started to develop a plan to distribute vaccines for covid partners on the continent. Thanks congresswoman. So as you saw in the testimony there, there have been significant Department of Defense efforts, but those are small in comparison to the US government’s Covid assistance on the African continent that’s been led primarily by the U. S. A. I. D. Uh and the Department of State. So there are some military or V. O. D. Capabilities that we have employed to the maximum extent possible um things like medical supplies and mobile field hospitals that are being fielded two military partners that are being used by those partner countries to treat covid. Uh so that’s all been part of uh the larger U. S. Government response. And it’s a small part compared to what the State Department and U. S. A. I. D. Have done on your question about vaccines. I’ll defer to mystery. But uh the U. S. Government is going to provide eventually vaccines internationally and and in Africa. But we’re making sure we’re we’ve taken care of the American population. First we have been asked for input to provide that input to the Department of Defense and the government for decisions about where vaccines might go first. Mystery. Thank you. General Townsend. Just to to add on that that with the state of vaccination at home in in a much better place than it has been plans are underway. With respect to how the U. S. Government will be able to help overseas. R. A. I. D. Colleagues and State Department colleagues are at the forefront of those efforts and I think we’ll see the results of those in coming months. All right. Thank you. Then one more question. Mystery will stay with you. The Prior administration chose to close us defense attache offices in several West African countries. Defense attache perform a vital role in representing the U. S. Military and removing them can send the wrong message to host governments about the importance that we put on the relationship and how much we value it. As you review the decisions of the prior administration. Can you tell me about the status of these defense attache offices? Congresswoman? I’d be glad to and I can imagine General Townsend might like to add on to this as well. Defense attaches are fundamental to the way the Department of Defense does business in the inter agency context. On the ground. In our missions across the world. We have the continued challenges as we see in every other type of personnel category of supply and demand and insufficient supply relative to demand has led to some difficult decisions with respect to how we’re represented in different countries and whether individual attaches are responsible for more than one country at a time, Abbott would very much like to see sufficient attaches to go around General Townsend. Thanks congresswoman. So uh as you heard, uh congresswoman in the the last administration did make a decision to close uh six defense attache offices on the African continent. Some of those were hub that did several, several smaller countries as well. That decision was overturned actually before the end of the by the acting secretary of Defense Miller before the administration ended. I suspect it may get reviewed during this global posture review. Uh The problem is between the initial decision to close those offices, we had a personnel assignments cycle go by, so no backfields were identified. So now that the decision was overturned, we have we’re gonna probably have a gap potentially of a year or two in some of those defense attache offices. Uh Anyway, that’s the current state of that and mystery covered very well the importance of defense attache offices in africa. Right, thank you. Thank you, both of you. I yelled at my time. Mr. Chair. Mhm. Thank you represent Strickland turnout recognizes representative easy of Texas for five minutes. Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. General Townsend. You testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2020 and warned that videos were expanding at a very rapid rate across West Africa, noting that substantive external assistance from Western partners was critical to help our African partners make progress To contain these videos. At the end of September 2020, African reported that videos in the saddle were either degraded uh and nor contained uh were neither degraded nor contain. And the videos in West Africa continued to expand geographically, uh conduct attacks and threaten uh people and that our partners in the region, uh what do you believe were the driving factors behind the lack of progress over the past year and how can we better leverage USG resources specifically uh in Nigeria, where violence threatens the prosperity of Africa’s largest democracy, uh and making sure that we keep Nigeria as stable as as possible because they’re so important for the entire continent. Quite frankly. Thanks congressman, you’re right. And my last testimony, I said that the video threat in West Africa was expanding. I don’t know if I use the analogy then, but it’s appropriate like a wildfire uh coming south from mali and towards Burkina Faso and the littoral states. Um and I believe the reason for that is that the international efforts there by the African partners and and foreign partners were both insufficient and uncoordinated. Uh they might actually be sufficient if they were better coordinated, but it was impossible to tell because they were uncoordinated. Um Now that advance has not progressed at the speed that I feared it would a year ago, that advances still north along the northern borders of the littoral states, which we have a great deal of concern about. Um I think that’s partly because of a number of factors. One of them though is the European partners led by the French have initiated a couple of things to try to improve the coordination between all the international efforts that are going in there. They’re also doing a much more effective advise and assist operations Partnership for West Africa is one of these things to increase coordination. Uh Task Force to CUBA is a advise and assist organization. The French have stood up. They they have asked for European partners to join in that effort. They have joined in that effort and it’s uh starting to be more effective. So I think they’ve done some work to improve the coordination of the international effort that has slowed that spread. Some that said that that forest fire is dancing along the northern borders of all those littoral states and I’m of the view that we need to do. I would like to for once I’d like to do something to prevent a fire, prevent those littoral states from gaining, getting fully engulfed like Amalia’s for example. And I think there’s some fairly low impact things that could be done there in the littoral states that might do fire prevention there. So I think a firebreak across the saddle which largely is with the resources we have there now, uh mostly African and European and then some fire prevention efforts in the littoral states. Let me also ask you several years ago myself and Representative Panetta and mr scott from Georgia, we visited Camp Lemonier and several other countries there in africa and one of the areas of concern was exactly where the Chinese base was being built. I know that they there was strategically where it was at seem to be a very good location for the Chinese and what they’re trying to do to expand, you know, their naval operations and their presence in the continent with uh the Chinese and the fact that, you know, they don’t care about, you know, human rights violations, corruption. You know, they’ll fly, you know, prime ministers and presidents from the continent over to china and put them up in nice houses. What can we do to counter that? As, you know, as more and more countries in Africa seek to be able to um, you know, uh, come into the uh continue to grow economically and and prosperous as they want to like any other nation does congressman. The African nations are not blind to what the Chinese are up to. Uh They have fallen prey to some of these debt trap diplomacy traps but they’re not blind to it. They can see it. They believe they can, many of them believe they can manage it and I think that’s probably the biggest thing we can do is help them try to manage their interactions with the Chinese on the content. Gentlemen. Uh Next up will be represent Panetta followed by a representative spear and so represent Panetta from California’s recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen and ma’am thank you for uh obviously your service, your time, your preparation and for being here today and your and your answers to our questions. Um As my colleague just mentioned uh we get a code L did I forget what that was maybe 2018 summer 2018 where we had uh we definitely had a One of the top models I’ve been on and that we were based in Djibouti and obviously flew C130s all around one of the places we went to with Manda Bay. And obviously uh subsequent to that you’re very familiar with the attack that occurred in Manda Bay. Unfortunately uh not just because of the attack but unfortunately we’re trying to get uh the review of what happened in regard to the initial investigation because obviously I’ve been there and obviously the tragedy that happened as well. But what’s going on with the report? I know it’s been 15 months since the attack took place and I know that Secretary Austin has ordered a now another review of it. Can you give us some insight as to what’s going on with that report and what do you think? We’re gonna get this report as to what the heck happened there? Thanks Congressman. Your visit was in uh the summer of 2019 2018. It was my first coddle. After I took command at Africa. Um now that was a different one. This was command Obey Manda Bay was before we went to West Africa. Another excellent code. All facilitated by you general. And I appreciate that. But before that we were in, we went to the the east side of Africa. That was the West side of Africa. Thanks congressman, correct? So Amanda Bay report. So uh first of all, let me reassure you and the other members that all the steps that have been needed to take corrective action, immediate corrective action had been taken long long ago. Not only did we take those steps at Manda Bay, we took that report and apply those lessons learned at every base across uh, africa. Now, uh to answer your specific question about the status of the report, Africom concluded its investigation in december of last year. Of course. The timing of that, trying to get that through the Department of Defense and released became problematic because it was over laid on top of the change of administration. Uh The new Secretary of Defense came in. He received this report, he didn’t have all the depth of background on it. So I think he very rightfully said okay thanks Africom. I think I’d like to have a separate look at this. Um And Africom supports that separate look. So uh the Secretary of Defense has appointed a disinterested uh four star from the army to look at uh the report of the investigation and give him advice on it. Uh This is also necessary because many of the fixes are uh pertain to other services and other co coms. So they weren’t with all within all the recommendations and findings weren’t within Africans purview to see through. Uh So the Secretary of Defense has to do that. So that’s the current status of it. I think he gave the army a target of 90 days to report out. Uh and I think this current situation outstanding. Great, thank you for that very thorough answer. General appreciate that. Now go into the summer 2019 when I did when we did the Code Delta West Africa which once again completely appreciate you facilitating that. Um Let me let me read you something that that really kind of summarizes what I came. Came away with an article in the economist last month, two months ago. So basically talked about French is France excuse me Frances challenge uh there in that area and it said basically uh France is challenges faced by others who have recently fought insurgencies in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. It is that of trying to improve security which is almost impossible to do without development and also drive development, which cannot happen without better security. Um I think you know, that was the impression I had coming away from that trip to West Africa. My question to you is is how do we get out of that catch 22? What what can we do? Obviously, you gave an excellent answer to my colleague, MArc Veasey about coordination and cooperation. Is there anything else that we can do in order to provide security and development as we go forward? Especially in the health congressman? I’d say that the thing that’s probably the easiest to solve is the security challenges, but they can’t be solved without better development. As you pointed out, and better governance. That is the root of all of this. And as we’ve seen that from from Afghanistan uh to Africa the root causes of poor governance, insufficient development which needs a secure environment to proceed and I think probably expired. The you have to finish up for the record. Thanks. The international efforts are really focused on security, unfortunately. Thank you. Thank you. General. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Chair recognizes represents fear from California for five minutes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Thank you for your great service. General Mackenzie. Let me start with you. I’m very concerned that the May deadline is upon us and I don’t know that we have any assurances that the taliban will not start attacking us forces in Afghanistan. Can you provide us any consolation regarding that? I can tell you that we’re prepared for those attacks should they occur and we’ll be able to defend ourselves. But we don’t have any subsequent agreement then it appears I have no we have no agreement on that past one May and I’m not certain what decision making is going on inside the taliban pursuant to what actions they might or might not take. We’re ready for whatever they choose to do and do we have any intention to maintain defense contractors in Afghanistan After we depart, everyone will leave. All us defense contractors will leave as part of the withdrawal. All right. Um I think that answers my questions. Mr. Chairman I go back. Yeah. Mhm. Represented yields back just a moment for everyone. I’m just checking with staff on other um members. Okay. It looks like we’re all good. Uh So I want to thank the panel for coming today. Well, I think Adjourn or a recess till three pm And meet back here at three p.m. for classified portion of the hearing. I’ll give you all some time to uh, have some lunch. So I appreciate your patience with us And uh, answers to our questions. Very much appreciate that. With that, uh, we will stand in recess till three. We will adjourn until three pm. I apologize.