Executive Sesson

Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I commend the chairman for his very clear and thoughtful conduct of these hearings with respect to Dr. Carter. The reason we are here today on the verge of a very strong vote for Dr. Carter to be the next Secretary of Defense is due to the contribution that Chairman McCain has made to this process, which was extremely thoughtful and bipartisan. I thank him again for that.

Mr. President, I join Senator McCain, and I not only commend him for his leadership but I also wish to express my strong support for the nomination of Dr. Ashton Carter to be the 25th Secretary of Defense. Dr. Carter is uniquely qualified to lead the Department of Defense at a time when--as Henry Kissinger recently said in a hearing before the Armed Services Committee--``the United States has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War.''

Dr. Carter was born and raised in Philadelphia. He received a bachelor's degree in physics and medieval history from Yale and a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

During his career, Dr. Carter has already held three critical positions in the Department of Defense: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global and Strategic Affairs in the Clinton administration; Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics from 2009 to 2011; and most recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013. He is well aware of, and has already been deeply immersed in, many of the significant challenges facing this Nation and the Defense Department.

As Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Carter was a critical player in the discussions and decision making on a myriad of international issues--issues that will continue to need the close attention in his tenure as Secretary of Defense.

I wish to name just a few. While the Secretary of Defense is not a party to the negotiations relating to Iran's nuclear program, the Secretary will undoubtedly be responsible for any number of potential contingencies. In the event of a breakdown in the negotiations, the consequences could alter the face of the region for generations and generations to come, and the Secretary of Defense will be intimately involved in shaping the reaction.

Another area of deep concern is ISIL. Their violent campaign in Iraq and Syria to establish an extremist caliphate threatens to erase borders, destabilize the region, and create a breeding ground for foreign fighters willing to return to the West to carry out attacks against the United States and our allies. The Department must provide critical leadership in a coalition effort that includes Arab and Muslim States to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL while being careful to ensure that the United States does not end up, as Brent Scowcroft and Dr. Brzezinski indicated to us in a hearing before the committee, ``owning'' some of these conflicts in Syria and elsewhere.

In Afghanistan the hard-won gains of the past decade are significant but remain fragile. As the Afghan National Security Forces continue taking over responsibilities to secure Afghanistan, the United States and coalition forces have transitioned to a more limited mission of training and assisting the Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations. Yet it remains to be seen whether conditions on the ground in Afghanistan will improve sufficiently by the end of 2016 to warrant the pace of further reductions under the current plan. Dr. Carter's participation in evaluating that plan will be absolutely critical.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine has raised tensions in Europe to a level not seen in decades. Recently separatists in eastern Ukraine, with substantial Russian equipment, training, and leadership, have abandoned any pretext of a cease-fire, although there were discussions that were held overnight that perhaps might indicate a cease-fire. But in any case, the United States must determine the best way to support the Ukrainian people and their forces in defending their country.

Political instability in Yemen has caused the United States to evacuate its Embassy and created a vacuum, allowing the free reign of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is intent on striking the United States and its interests. Again, the Defense Department plays a key role in supporting our partners in Yemen and navigating the complex political situation and continuing to have a presence there--which they do--which can effectively help to preempt any attempt to use that as a launching pad for operations in the region or across the globe.

The same brand of violent extremism in the Middle East can also be found in parts of Africa--al-Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Countering the threat posed by these groups will require building partner capacity and enabling support to foreign security forces at a time when resources are scarce and those capabilities are in high demand.

In North Korea, Kim Jong Un's regime has increased tensions on the peninsula with his provocative and belligerent behavior. The recent cyber attack on Sony is just the latest in a string of destabilizing actions. The regime is playing a dangerous game that could have disastrous consequences--especially for its own civilian population which has already suffered untold hardships and deprivation under his leadership. The North Korean regime is painting itself into a corner where it will be left with few friends and few options, and again, the United States, and particularly the Department of Defense, must be ever vigilant.

While the United States and China have many areas of coordination and cooperation, our future relationship remains uncertain. We welcome the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China. Especially in this new century of global commerce and economies, a prosperous China is not only in the region's best interests but also in the world's best interest. China's increasingly controversial claims of sovereignty in the South China Sea and dangerous altercations with its neighbors raise serious concerns. While legal and peaceful avenues for dispute resolution are available, China has instead chosen to pursue, in too many cases, adversarial and unilateral actions that raise questions about its intentions.

On the cyber front, China is engaged in massive theft of U.S. intellectual property from American industry and government, which threatens our technological edge and sows distrust and profound misgivings. China will remain one of the Department's most persistent and complicated challenges. With the focus on so many crises overseas, it is easy to overlook the challenges on our own continent. We have a violent threat of transnational organized crime in our own hemisphere. When the United States faced a threat stemming from violence and the drug trade in Colombia in the 1990s, it dedicated significant resources and entered into a decade-long commitment to provide training and other enabling assistance.

Colombia is a success story, but the problem has simply moved, in many cases, to other nations in the region. General Kelly, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, leads the Department's efforts in the hemisphere, but he operates with scarce resources, a situation that may have serious consequences.

In addition to these traditional challenges that nation-states have faced for many, many years, the United States now faces new 21st century threats. For years we have devoted significant attention to the complex challenge of cyber warfare. The attack on the Sony Corporation was a watershed event in many respects, and it should and must stimulate fresh critical thinking. This attack demonstrated that a relatively small and weak rogue nation can reach across the oceans to cause extensive destruction to a U.S.-based economic target and very nearly succeed in suppressing freedom of expression through cyber space.

The real and manifest advantages of the offense over the defense in cyber warfare that enable militarily inferior nations to strike successfully against the homeland are a new and worrisome factor for our national security and that requires not only the attention of the Department of Defense but the attention of the Congress.

All of the issues I have talked about are external, but there are local issues that the Secretary of Defense has to deal with. Senator McCain pointed out probably the most significant one, and that is the budgetary and programmatic challenges that have been forced upon us by sequestration.

The most immediate threat facing the Defense Department is, indeed, sequestration because without resources, the programs, the policies, and the initiatives which must be undertaken to confront these national threats cannot be done.

General Mattis, former Commander of Central Command, recently testified before our committee. He said: ``No foe in the field can wreak such havoc on our security that mindless sequestration is achieving today.''

Only one-third of Army brigades are ready to fight. Less than 50 percent of our combat squadrons are fully combat ready. Sequestration threatens not only our national security, but it risks damaging our public safety, our health, our transportation, our education, and our environment. In the world we face, there is not a neat distinction between what the Department of Defense does, what the Department of Homeland Security does, and what other civil agencies such as FEMA must do. It is something that we have to consider, not just in the context of the Department of Defense but in so many other agencies of the Federal Government--in fact, in every agency of the Federal Government.

When the Budget Control Act was passed, Dr. Carter organized the Strategic Choices and Management Review to find options for implementing the required defense cuts. The results of this review have helped the Defense Department navigate through difficult fiscal constraints, but Congress must find a balanced and bipartisan solution and a repeal of sequestration across the entire government.

Even without sequestration, the Defense Department has to tackle the rising personnel costs which could crowd out other items in the budget. Currently, military personnel benefits, including health care and retirement, consume approximately one-third of the Defense Department's budget.

If we are to adequately train and equip the force we have, to ensure they are capable of performing the arduous task we ask of them, and to modernize weapon systems, we must slow the growth of these costs within the Department in line with the slowdown of the overall top line. The congressionally mandated Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission recently released their recommendations. They are far-reaching and would fundamentally change military personnel benefits. They did so with the idea of improving the benefits available to many of our forces. They did it with the idea of insisting that our recruitment and retention efforts continue to be successful because we are a volunteer force. Their focus was really on the troops, but one of the effects of the recommendations was to make these costs sustainable over time.

As Secretary of Defense, Dr. Carter will have to work with Congress to carefully consider these recommendations to ensure that the Department has the resources to properly train and equip its fighting men and women.

The other major cost driver in the Defense Department is acquisition. To put it succinctly, defense acquisition takes too long and costs too much, but the Defense Department has undertaken significant reforms in recent years and many of these were personally led by Dr. Carter.

As Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr. Carter oversaw implementation of the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009, and again, I must commend Senator McCain and Senator Levin for their leadership in this effort. The largest restructuring of DOD acquisition policies in more than two decades resulted from this initiative.

He also oversaw and contributed to improvements in a number of major acquisition programs, including the major restructuring on the Joint Strike Fighter program, the largest DOD acquisition program; efforts to reduce the cost of the Virginia-class submarine program and to improve contract performance, which has allowed the Navy to begin a two-per-year procurement program for these submarines, which are under budget and ahead of schedule--a remarkable achievement; improvements to the littoral combat ship program, which was experiencing major costs increases and delays, with Dr. Carter's participation DOD shifted to competitive fixed-price contracts in 2011;

restructured procurement for the Air Force's KC-46A strategic tanker program, which led to a competitive procurement, incorporating a firm fixed-price development production contract for buying up to 120 tanker aircraft; and cancelling of the VH-71 program, an out-of-control program to replace the current Presidential helicopter fleet.

Clearly not all acquisition problems have been fixed and the Defense Department can and should do more to streamline and improve the system. I believe, from what I have just indicated, that Dr. Carter as Secretary of Defense will do just that. He has already demonstrated he can do it and he will do it.

Finally, and most importantly, as Senator McCain indicated, if confirmed as Secretary of Defense, Dr. Carter will be leading 1.3 million Active-Duty military, 820,000 Reserve and Guard, and 773,000 civilians. They are under strain after over a decade of war and years of fiscal uncertainty. They are wrestling with many of the same issues as civilian society--issues such as sexual assault and suicide. Yet they are committed to protecting this Nation and remain the finest force in the world.

Every decision Dr. Carter makes, I know he will make it thinking ultimately about what is in the best interests of the men and women in uniform and the DOD civilian workforce who give so much to this country every day, and that, I think, is one of the factors that compels all of us to support this nomination.

Dr. Carter has proven time and time again his commitment to the men and women who serve this Nation. I believe he is the right leader at the right time for the Department of Defense, and I urge my colleagues to support his confirmation.

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