significant resources are required to ensure the special operations forces are properly manned and equipped to operate globally and with unmatched speed and precision and discipline. the command for fiscal year 2010 budget includes the resources necessary to continue to provide full spectrum, global operations forces that will equip the u.s. with a comprehensive set of capabilities. while the command budget has been robust enough, it meets the mission requirement. the success depends not only on delicate budget and acquisition authorities, but also on service parents and partners, special operations forces depends on a broad range of support. . .

this nation assess joint special operations forces will continue to find, kill, or capture our irreconcilable enemies, to train, mentor, and

partner with our global friends and allies, and pursue the tactics, procedures, technologies that will keep us ahead of dynamic emerging threats. i thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. i conclude my opening remarks with a simple statement of pride in the special operations force that i am honored to command. special operations forces are contributing globally well beyond what his percentage of the total force would indicate. every day they are fighting our enemy. training our partners and through personal contact and assistance, bringing real value to tens of thousands of villagers who are still deciding their allegiances. i stand ready for your question, sir. >> thank you very much. several questions, we will at here to the five-minute rule just to keep structure to the questioning. 1208 authority i know has been a critical tool for what you have been able to do in a number of different places. you're asking for an expansion a little bit of the money.

$35 million, now we're asking for $50 million. can you tell us how those funds are used and why they are so important to what you're doing? >> yes, sir. the 1208 authority is peculiar to special operations. it requires that the funds be used to support ongoing special operations. this is really enabling the special operations forces to extend their operations through the use of surrogates and counterparts to conduct activities in partnership or in support of the special operations forces who are on that operation. it is an authority, not an appropriation. it authorizes united states special operations command to recommend. to the secretary -- secretary of defense after coordinating with the geographic combatant commander and chief of commission in the country, to utilize up to currently $35 million of o&m funds from

within the special operations budget, so it is an issue of prioritization within our budget. it's enormously important because it is an agile fund, it's a focused fund. it's used for purposes that are well coordinated and in a closed session i could provide a fair bit of detail about how it has had effect around the world. >> certainly i think it's a program that we strongly support, and i think it essentially contributes to the second area of questioning. that is the importance of the interagency cooperation in what you're doing, which is increasingly important. when we look at this broadly, globally, as a counterinsurgency fight. there are a lot of different pieces that are going to have to be pulled together in order to make this work. i think i have seen special operations command under your leadership and also out in the

field under the leadership of at one point general mcchrystal. i think pulled those pieces together about as effectively as anywhere i have seen in government. as we go forward and you look outside of areas like iraq and afghanistan where i think we're specifically familiar with the struggles there. you look to some of these emerging threat environments around the horn of africa and yemen and a.q. what do you think is most important toward the pushing forward of that level of cooperation between other elements of d.o.d., state, and the intel community? >> the most important thing to push forward are structures that provide a forum so that the community can provide the content to the discussions. these are relationships that are building over time. we are pay better than we have ever been. we're not as good as we will be next year or the year after,

but so much of it has to do with just understanding each other's organizations and cultures and we're even seeing now what i call second or third generation, second or third order effects of people who work together in one place coming together in another place and already having a relationship so that they can move much more quickly together. joe mcchrystal set the standard aggressively at the operational level. the united states special operations command is serving as a model of sorts at the higher headquarters level. we wake up every day with about 85 uniformed members of the special operations command going to work in other agencies of government inside the national capital region. most of the agencies that you would expect and perhaps some that you wouldn't normally expect us to be in in small teams, typically two to four people with an 06 colonel or a navy captain as the team leader. we also wake up every day at our headquarters at macdill air force base in tampa with about

140 members of other agencies coming to work in our headquarters. important members of the team sitting in on all the discussions, thinking in on all the global collaboration kinds of briefings, and this has provided a transparency in the interagency environment that's very helpful. and i -- it's hard now having seen it in action for a few years to imagine to remember back what it was like before we looked -- back when we used to look around a room and see only uniformed members. it real is a good, solid team effort at this point. >> this is something i want to encourage. getting people from the different agencies to actually work together side by side, day in and day out with each other in different forms. you have done an excellent job as you mentioned of sprinkling people out in other places, other agencies need to do that as well. i think the ntc is a good forum

for that. we want to see that happen more and more and look for ways to encourage that. in particular, some of the title 10, title 50 conflicts between intel and d.o.d. can be resolved better if we start having more sharing back and forth. now, obviously we understand all of those different pieces have personnel to manage. that's a great challenge i know for you and your personnel sent all over a bunch of other places, you have a core mission to accomplish. along the way if there are ways that we can help you free up more personnel, please let us know. i know we have an ongoing issue just in terms of the management within your own entity of different service members, and we are communicating that concern to d.o.d. in trying to give you the authority you need to better manage your own personnel. certainly we look for those opportunities also to build those relationships and really just sort of continue on with the goldwater-nichols principle, now aplay the cross agency lines as well as d.o.d.

we look forward to do that. with that, i yield to mr. miller. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i serve on the nato parliament assembly. i have had an opportunity to visit with some of our nato allies. they are indeed proud of the contributions that they are making certainly within the community. certainly within afghanistan. what i would like to ask you for the record, if you would, explain the impact of the soft capabilities of those partners in the current fight as it exists in afghanistan, and if you could update as well on iraq as we transition out. >> yes, sir. from your visits to the nato soft coordination center, you understand how this team is coming together and there is bonding that is occurring across the special operations forces of nato at the headquarters environment. i think it's inspired, certainly stimulated the activities of some special operations forces being

provided to the isaf effort in afghanistan. so i'm not the expert on how individual nations special operations forces are performing, what their activities are in afghanistan. that's outside my realm of responsibility. i'm not sure my monitorship is strong enough to give a coherent and accurate answer on that at this point. i will say that in my discussions with nato's soft leaders, there is a sense of community that is forming within the special -- across the nation's special operations communities. i would term it loosely, perhaps operations forces, special operations flag is something around which nato forces can rally. it's a relatively inexpensive, relatively low level investment in a much broader military capability that nato can

provide. the nato soft coordination center now, as you know, is less than three years old, but it has got its legs up under it pretty well. >> what can we do -- what do you think we can do to assist our allies as they develop their soft units? >> sir, i think there is already robust activity in nato, and we're seeing some nato countries step forward in terms of presenting their special operations forces as subject matter experts in particular disciplines and then serving -- using that to attract others to exercise and train with them. so there is a synergy that's occurring bilaterally in areas where the united states isn't involved and multilaterally and bilaterally where we are. i think that my shortest answer to that would be to explore ways to operationalize the nato

soft coordination center, and i'm not knowledgeable enough about how nato works organizationally to understand the details and nuances of that. the nato soft coordination center director is now a dual hatted american two-star general who serves in his primary role as the commander of special operations command european command. so i would suggest exploring ways by which we might form a separate director for the nato soft coordination center. >> one question moving away from nato involves where we are with our gunships. certainly with asoc in my district, it appears that there is a shortfall. but the budget doesn't request any additional funding for

gunships this year. can you talk about our plans or your plans to address that particular shortfall along with your plans to maintain, modernize, and upgrade the existing aircraft that are out there? >> yes, sir. we have a recapitalization program for most of the rest of our c-130 fleet, 37 -hcmc-130-j's will come into our program. that was a higher priority initially than the ac-130 gunship for recapitalization because of the ages of the air frames involved. the recent level of activity in afghanistan is causing us to understand again how important our precision firepower is in that tactile environment, and we have -- we are understanding clearly that our capacity is

insufficient and that other platforms, substitute platforms simply don't bring the same response to troops in contact that an ac-130 does. ac-130 is not a precision fire platform. it's actually an area fire weapon that's extremely accurate with its sensors and guns. so what we are doing to augment the ac-130 fleet, what we are seeking to do immediately is modify our mc-130-w fleet to serve as a platform for a standoff precision-guided munition as a primary weapon and a 30-millimeter gun as a secondary weapon. all proven systems. it's simple a matter of integrating them in a platform that hasn't been used for that purpose before. we are seeking funds to do this . we think that because the

technology risk is so low that we can deliver it very quickly. >> thank you. that's all for now. >> thank you. >> mr. mcintyre is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. thank you for being with us, admiral. thank you again for your hospitality. last year when i was able to join you down in tampa. thank you for the service you give to us here at home and around the world. the concern about wear and tear on equipment i know is one that we have had especially since the situation occurred in iraq. tell me with regard specifically to the special operations forces equipment and resources, what resources are you finding under your command that are experiencing the greatest wear and tear and to what exactly do you attribute this extraordinary aging process, and do you have some thoughts you could share with us about how we can might best help you address that situation? >> yes, sir. i don't think it will surprise anybody. the answer is that it's our

mobility systems that are suffering the most wear and tear because of the ways that they are used and the pace that they are used. so i asked my staff just recently to give me the top five items in terms of what we're seeing wear and tear. it's exactly what you would think. it's our fixed wing and rotary wing aviation. it's our ground mobility fleet. in one case, it's a maritime platform. we're simply flying more hours. we're driving more miles. we're spending more time on the water. and this is just at a pace beyond what we had predicted when those systems were procured. so we are refurbishing them more often, and we have been resourced adequately to do that . my person looking ahead is simply that we sustain the level of resources that will permit us to keep this equipment going as we look

forward to some forces perhaps drawing down in iraq especially. we don't see that happening with special operations forces at all. so as we have come to depend on some special funding means to keep this equipment going and the operational environment, we're going to have to find a way to work that into our base line budget in order to sustain this equipment over time. >> on that point, as we were drawing down our conventional forces, i know there were some challenges in terms of you staying there in the same numbers and mitigating sure you continue to get the support equipment you get. a lot of that you get from the conventional forces in the field. how is that playing out? are you satisfied those concerns are being met or is there more that need to be done? >> i think it's playing out well. recently, we have had service chief level talks with the commandant of the marine corps and the chief of staff of the army. we are in complete accord about what the challenges are and seeking ways together to resolve those. i think there is a broad understanding that whether it's

a small force in an area or a large force in an area, you still need somebody to control the airspace, operate the airfields o'provide the quick reaction for us, provide the medical support, do all the rest of it that it takes to look after the force that is forward. and so we are helping them help us by doing the detailed analysis of exactly what it is we think will have to be left behind, if you will, by the forces that draw down in order to sustain the activity that stays behind. so i think we're on a good track with that in our conversations with the services. >> all right, thanks. i apologize. >> thank you tell us what the typical rotational cycles are of soft personnel particularly in centcom and how that may be affecting what you feel you can best do with regard to keeping up with the pace in terms of the rotation of personnel? i know that's come up in the

broader context of our military. i specifically am concerned with how that's affecting you in special operations forces. >> yes, sir. the service components have sort of evolved into different rotational paces depending on the type of equipment they use, the nature of the operations they are conducting. it ranges from about 90 days on the short end for some of our aviators who fly an awful lot of hours at night on night-vision goggles and who burn up their allotted flying hours more quickly and therefore need to come back and sort of reset. through about seven months for our special forces operational detachment a teams, the green berets who are at battalion level rotations at that pace. then it extends beyond that to one-year rotations for many at the headquarters to provide a campaign continuity at the effort of the more senior

levels. the right now is sustainable. our predictions about how long we could sustain it are wrong. we didn't think we could sustain it at this pace for long. but the force is proving resilient beyond our estimates. i think personally that we are at about the fax rate that we can sustain, but i think we can sustain this rate for some time longer. it has now become the new normal. it is the way we operate. people who have been doing this have been doing it long enough to know this is what they can expect to do. our retention rate remains high and our recruiting remains healthy. so if the demand didn't increase, we're probably pretty ok, but what we're seeing is an

increasing demand for special operations forces, so we have a growth plan in place to accommodate that. >> thank you. good to have you here. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize for being late. i had some hoosiers in the office that didn't want to let me go. if this question has been discussed, just let me go and i will move on to something else. could you talk, admiral, a little bit about the interoperability between the agencies. if things are being done in the most efficient manner between the interagency cooperation, some of the challenges you might have faced, what's the best practice and what are our successes and what challenges are you facing in the meld there? >> we did address that at some level, and what i said very quickly was it's better than it has ever been. it will get better. we are now at the point where the structures have evolved to provide the venues for these kinds of interactions to occur.

now it's a matter of the people getting the knowledge of each other's organizations and traditions and frankly languages in order to talk to the efficiency of it. the trend is certainly one in the right direction. we are way ahead of where we thought we might be a couple of years ago. >> this is totally unrelated. but an area of particular interest for me. discuss what you can about our attempts and our movement to the nonlethal field. where we're at on that. whether vehicle stops or personnel stops -- i know that's not normally what would be discussed in special ops, but certainly it would be a valuable part in winning hearts and minds. if you wouldn't mind telling me where we're at and what we need. >> we are all in favor of every applicable nonlethal technology. we understand as well as anybody, i think, that killing people is not the way to success in either iraq, afghanistan, or anywhere else

that we work and that a nonlethal effect that can then give you time to sort out the situation, sort out the people would be a great advantage on the battlefield. special operations is in favor of any feasible appropriate technology. our position, though, is that those followings have a much broader application than special operations forces. we are advocates of it, we are champions for it, we are supporters and cheerleaders for it. but we have very few of those programs initiated within the special operations budget itself. >> i am embarrassed being in congress and armed services. i'm watching the discovery channel and seeing some of the new following about the heat projecting apparatus. i don't even know what to call it. very interesting. is that on the edge of being used?

>> my staff is telling me it's called the active denial system. >> that's a great name for that. couldn't have named it better myself. is that in the prototype stage? is it being used in those kind of things? >> i saw that demonstrated but it's been a couple of years ago. i don't know what has happened actually since then. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> a couple more areas i wanted to ask about. then we'll go back to the members as well. piracy has been emerging as a threat and a challenge. i guess congratulations is the word on running a very, very good operation in rescuing the mersk crew. about a month or so ago, we had an opportunity to get briefed by captain moore and a couple of others who had participated in that operation. very impressive accomplish many. it's great. all those years ago, it's what you were trained to do. basically we're set up so if there was a hostage situation anywhere in the world, you would respond very, very quickly. you have been doing a lot of other things in between, but it

was very impressive to see that that training paid off and we knew what to do. going forward in terms of how we confront piracy, certainly it's a challenge in that part of the world off the coast of somalia and it has huge implications that we need to try to confront. tame as we have mentioned in this hearing, you have a wealth of other responsibilities that are also important in afghanistan and pakistan, a variety of other places. one of my concerns is that with the media attention on piracy coming up, if we shift too much of our focus in that direction, we distract from the other very important missions as well. just wanted to know if you could comment on how you see their role in combating piracy in that part of the world and any concerns you may have about how it may distract from some of the other missions? >> we have -- obviously, across the military, there is robust capability to take on piracy in different ways. special operations contributes some of the capability to that

as was evidenced here a couple of months ago. how that force is used is a matter of policy. it's my responsibility to train the force to do what it is it is asked to do. we do keep some elements of our force on standby, on alert to respond to that kind of situation so that if they are infrequent, then i think we would consider it not to be much of a -- much of a burden on the course. >> even with everything that's going on the last eight years, that has always been the case that you have had that standby for us. >> yes, sir. >> i didn't mean to interrupt. >> again, it's more of a policy issue. the question is really are we going to prevent piracy or are we going to respond to piracy with the military force? today we have been more in the business of -- with my force, of responding to those -- of

providing those who respond to it and we're able to continue that mission without impacting on our others. >> certainly. mr. miller. >> i will pass. >> i have got more questions. mr. mcintyre, do you have anything you wanted to add? >> i just want to ask you if you feel like that the partnership with nato and their special operations capability is working well. >> we did address that briefly earlier, but the nato special operations coordination center, the nscc headquarters is an up and running organization. it's not fully manned. it's not fully capable yet. but the relationships that have occurred within that organization have developed quite strong bonds among the nato special operations forces. i was able to attend their first annual conference last year. 28 countries, i believe, came to that conference.

it was remarkable how similar the conversations were, the vision is across the special operations forces of nato. some of which say they feel that they have more in common with the special operations forces of other nations than they do with other forces of their own nation because of the way that they train and exercise. together. i think there is an opportunity to take that to the next step. i'm just not certain what the next step is and what i mentioned before is that we might explore a way to talk, to operationalize the nato soft coordination center in some way and provided an independent director who is now a dual-hatted officer. >> thank you. >> following up on that, a trip i took in january with some members on the way back from iraq. we visited the special operations forces, nato command. i just can't tell you how impressed we were by the degree of coordination. without getting into too many

detailed aspersions here, we did not find similar coordination in other parts of nato that we had met with. that's a major, major challenge in afghanistan, figuring out how to get all of our partner nations. it would be far too ambitious to say on the same page or at least in the same book when it comes to how we're going to confront afghanistan and pakistan. nato is set up the way it's set up. it's an important alliance. it's very difficult to manage that many different countries coming from that many different perspectives. i certainly have a fair amount of respect for the difficulty that the organizations faces. we went to all these meetings on that with increasing frustration. naturally the last meeting we had which regrettably we didn't have as much time as i would have liked was to visit the soft force. it was inspirational. we saw it can work. you can bring that many different nations together to coordinate in a way that is effective. i guess my plea would be the soft forces over there try to spread that