Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

The 34th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on
National Security Strategy and Policy:
Security Planning and Military Transformation

December 2-3, 2003
U.S. Chamber of
Commerce Building
Lafayette Square, 1615 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C.

Vice Admiral Eric T. Olson, USN, Deputy Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command

Introduction by Captain Peter M. Swartz, USN (Ret.), Director, Strategic and Operational History Studies, CNA Corporation for Strategic Studies

Captain Swartz: I'm Peter Swartz. I'm from the CNA Corporation, where I'm an analyst. And I want to thank Captain Mangold and Admiral Mauney and Dr. Pfaltzgraff and Dr. Davis for inviting me here. This is all to show you that jointness not only is the way the military does things, but also the way we do things in academia and think tanks. Because I went to SAIS, not Fletcher, and I work at CNA, not IFPA, and they're allowing me to moderate this panel.

We've heard from the commentators and the thinkers. We've heard from the planners and the policymakers, and from one doer, Admiral Ellis. And now we come to a whole panel of doers, actually, not just doers, but experienced warriors. But what are they doing, and how are they doing it, and how are things changing? And those are some of the points that we're going to explore on this panel.

The organizers of the conference, IFPA, the Navy, and so on, have put together a series of topics which we should be discussing here, and they're in your program. But I think it would be useful to set the stage by going through them a bit. Command priorities in essential mission areas: What are they for the Combatant Commanders, and where are they headed, more importantly? Sealing the seams: working through cross-regional issues. Third, as Admiral Green pointed out in his remarks this morning, the President has said that his top priority is prosecuting the global war on terror. What does that mean for combatant command planning? I think more importantly, what does it mean for combatant command operations? Because the three panelists we have today are not sitting, waiting for a balloon to go up. The balloon is always up, every day, for their commands. Re-balancing forward presence and support infrastructure. We heard from Secretary Hoehn this morning about that, and perhaps we'll hear some more from the panelists today. And then finally, synchronizing CONUS-based capabilities for regional contingencies.

We've got three distinguished panelists today: General Hill, the Commander of the Southern Command, Vice Admiral Olson, who is the Deputy Commander of the Special Operations Command, and Lieutenant General Anderson, who is the Deputy Commander of the US Northern Commands. And General Anderson is no stranger to those of you that attend these conferences. He was here, and played an important role last year. And you can read his remarks in the program that's available outside.

Well, I told you it was going to be exciting. Thanks very much, General. Our next panelist is Vice Admiral Eric Olson. Admiral Olson, among other things, is an old colleague of mine. At CNA, we assign analysts rather routinely to various shops in OTNAV (?), to support the division director. And it was my privilege for a couple of years to be the analyst assigned to Admiral Olson's office when he was in OTNAV in '51. It's a function that my colleague, Dan Whiteneck (?), now does for Admiral Mauney (?), somewhat better, unfortunately, Admiral, than I did for you. But Admiral Mauney gets all the-- He's a submarine officer. What can we say?

Admiral Olson, in addition to having been, in a minor way, an old colleague of mine, much more importantly is the Deputy Commander of the US Special Operations Command. Admiral Olson has participated in several conflicts and contingency operations, and has commanded at every level, ranging from Seal Platoon Officer in Charge to Naval Special Warfare Force Commander. His primary staff duty was, as I said, the Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policy, and Operations. Vice Admiral Olson is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, and he too wears a Silver Star. He's a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and has received a master's degree in National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Admiral Olson.

Admiral Olson: Thank you, Peter. And your service was grand. And I do want to thank Admiral Van Mauney and Tom Mangold for putting this together. As Peter said, I was in Van Mauney's job a few months ago. Tom Mangold came to me six or seven months ago with the proposal that this conference be held, and be held here. And I was able to be in the early stages of the approval process for that before Van Mauney came in and replaced me so I could go down to Tampa and be the Deputy Commander of Special Operations Command, for which I am eternally grateful to Van. And despite the rocky start, Van seems to have pulled this conference with Tom out of the fire, and made a great success of it.

I am here as the Deputy Commander of US Special Operations Command. I sit here between two geographic Combatant Commanders, SouthCom and NorthCom. US Special Operations Command is, in a sense, a geographic Combatant Commander, but its geography is the planet earth, and it is responsible, in many ways, for filling in the seams that we are talking about, relative to the other combatant commands. Special Operations Command's priorities are just what you would expect. The number one priority is the global war on terrorism, today's fight, in which we are deeply engaged. Our second priority is readiness capabilities, now and soon. Our third priority is transformation to ensure future relevancy and capacity to continue taking the fight to the enemy.

I'm going to talk today without slides. Again, I'm between two slide presentations. I'm just going to talk, without having slides, and I'm going to strive to hold your rapt attention through sheer forces of dazzling intellect and stimulating personality. I'm going to talk for a few minutes up front about what makes the United States Special Operations Command a unique combatant command. It was established in a different manner than the other combatant commands, and with functions and responsibilities that were intentionally unique. And they're unique by law. We evolved from the failure at Desert One, the attempted rescue of American hostages at the embassy in Teheran. That was a mission that was thrown together using special operations elements of each of the services. But they had not trained together, and when they were pulled together to run that mission, which was conducted in a relatively ad hoc manner, they did so without completing even a full mission profile rehearsal of the mission that they were undertaking. Many of the people involved in that mission met each other for the first time as they were preparing to launch that operation.

The inquiry, the analysis of that failure at Desert One, conducted by Retired Admiral Holloway (?), led to, among other things, a recommendation that a joint Special Operations Command be established, with a unity of command and forces provided by each of the services who had designated special operations forces. And so in the wake of Goldwater-Nichols, what we refer to as the Nunn-Cohen Amendment established both a unified combatant command, United States Special Operations Command, and the associated civilian policy office within the office of the Secretary of Defense, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. This was the first time that a combatant command had been established in that manner, by law, imposed, if you will, on the Department of Defense, over the objection, to some degree, of the individual services, who saw themselves losing part of their organic capability to this new Commander, who was created to take operational and combatant command of those forces.

Now, as a functional combatant command, the United States Special Operations Command is the Combatant Commander. In the terminology, they have CoCom of United States based special operations forces. This was a matter of law, and the law is written-- It's title 10, section 167. It says that the designated special operations forces of each of the services will come under the combatant command of United States Special Operations Command. Well, the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force had designated special operations forces. The Marine Corps did not, and the Marine Corps had many forces with SOF-like characteristics. But it was the decision of the Commandant at the time not to provide those forces to Special Operations Command. And so special operations was born, in a sense, three-quarters joint. Army, Navy, and Air Force components of Special Operations Command when it was established in 1987.

As a functional Combatant Commander, US Special Operations Command is a force provider of special operations forces to the geographic Combatant Commanders, for employment under their operational control. And there is a provision in the law for the Commander of United States Special Operations Command to serve as an operational Commander anywhere in the world, when designated by the President of the United States or the Secretary of Defense. Now, unique do the United States Special Operations Command, and also provided for under the law, are service-like responsibilities. So, there are many times when the Commander of Special Operations Command functions as a unified Commander, a functional Combatant Commander.

And many times the Commander of Special Operations Command functions as a service chief, with service-like responsibilities for organizing, training, equipping, and deploying the force, developing strategy, doctrine, and tactics for special operations forces, ensuring interoperability across the joint special operations force, but moreover between the special operations forces and the conventional service forces, and responsible for monitoring assignments and promotions, which means he has some influence over the career paths of people assigned under the Special Operations Command. And importantly and uniquely to the Special Operations Command, the commander programs and budgets for special operations forces, develops and procures special operations force peculiar equipment, material, supplies, and services, and has a standalone major force program budget line associated with that. What that created back in 1987 was a force that was, again, joint at birth, with organizational agility and significant control over its own resources in order to meet its own requirements.

And the requirements were derived from then seven, and now nine, major mission areas. Those mission areas are: combating terrorism, one of the original missions; counter-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, which was added a few years ago; foreign internal defense, the training of another nation's forces to conduct its own operations; special reconnaissance; direct action; psychological operations; civil affairs; unconventional warfare; and information operations, again, a mission that was added a few years ago. Now, all of those nine mission areas are important in the global war on terrorism. So, United States Special Operations Command has in effect been preparing for the global war on terrorism by focusing its energy, its time, its intellectual and fiscal capital on those nine core mission areas, seven of them for over 15 years, and the other two for over five years. So we have, in effect, been preparing for this campaign since we were born in 1987. And we found ourselves very ready to respond very quickly to the events of September, 2001.

Now, what's different now than then, than a couple years ago, is that earlier this year, the United States Special Operations Command was designated by the Secretary of Defense as the supported command to serve as the lead agent for planning the global war on terrorism, and serve in a supported capacity for doing so. And this, in recognizing that the first word in global war on terrorism is global, and a single command was needed to transcend the boundaries of the global Combatant Commanders, for the purposes of campaign planning against an adversary whose presence and networks were and are worldwide.

Now, the nature of the adversary and the early successes of Special Operations Command's forces in Operation Enduring Freedom made SOCOM a logical choice to designate as the Department of Defense's lead planner for the global war on terrorism. And at the same time, the Secretary of Defense reinforced the provision for SOCOM to be the supported commander for conducting, for executing specific operations in the conduct of the global war on terrorism. So, with this designation, SOCOM's mission statement changed earlier this year. The mission statement had previously focused on organized, equip, train, and deploy special operations forces in support of geographic Combatant Commanders worldwide. That's now the second part of SOCOM's mission statement. The first part reads, "US SOCOM plans, directs, and executes special operations in the conduct of the war on terrorism, in order to disrupt, defeat, and destroy terrorist networks that threaten the United States, its citizens and interests worldwide," and beyond that, organize, equip, train, and deploy the force.

So, that change in our mission statement caused a change in our organization in response to our new responsibilities as the supported commander. Most significantly, we carved out a large chunk of what's traditionally the J3-J5 (?) organization in our combatant command. And we established a new Center for Special Operations, we call it, with a two-star director. This Center for Special Operations functions effectively as a joint task force for planning the global war on terrorism within the headquarters of the United States Special Operations Command, and the reference documents for the activities of the Center for Special Operations are those that relate directly to the global war on terrorism, and not the other activities the United States Special Operations Command conducts worldwide. The Center for Special Operations is joint. It's combined. And it's interagency. In fact, we have on the Special Operations Command compound of MacDill Air Force Base, over 100 liaison officers from across the interagency arena to ensure that our connection with the other agencies of government are seamless.

So, this organization, this Center for Special Operations, this JTF, if you will, is an organization that comes to work every day focused on nothing but the global war on terrorism, and in effect, has tailored their focus more specifically to the global war on terrorists, as opposed to the global war on terrorism, meaning that the Center for Special Operations at Special Operations Command comes to work focused on those adversaries to which we can put a name, an organization, a network. That's their mission, is to take the fight to that enemy. And we don't believe that we, the Special Operations Command, are going to win the global war on terrorism, which is a national effort. But we certainly believe that we are key to victory in the global war on terrorists.

Now, also as part of this change in responsibilities, one of our priorities is transformation. One of the ways that we're finding ourselves transforming is, if old think, if you will, is the realization that the enemy is not too hard to find, but once you find him, it takes an enormous investment of resources to deal with the enemy-- That's kind of old think. Finding a motorized rifle company coming through to fill the gap was an easy target to find, but a hard target to prosecute. We're finding ourselves reversed now, where the adversary is a hard adversary to find, but then the prosecution of that adversary sometimes comes down to a handful of people going into a house in the middle of the night. So, we're finding the migration of investment of what we have, of our time, or energy, or capital, migrating from that prosecution piece to that find piece, so that we're focusing on the intelligence, the surveillance, the reconnaissance, the pre-strike activities that are part of the global war on terrorism, and which are the core of our responsibility in planning that campaign.

So, we retain our responsibilities to serve across the full spectrum of conflict. We continue to be part of each theater's engagement plans. We continue to do non-global-war-on-terrorism activities, like humanitarian de-mining and medical training. But we're working now to conduct such activities by exception. We used to show a slide in our command brief that showed how many countries we had visited that year, as if the more countries we visited, the more productive we were. Now we're focused only on visiting only the right countries for the right purposes, to prosecute the global war on terrorism.

We recognize that we're in a marathon now. We've had surges of sprinting within this marathon, but we are settled relatively well into a pace that we can sustain for the long haul. We're waking up every day with between a fourth and a third of our rotational special operations forces deployed. This is not as many as the global Combatant Commanders would like, but it's all we have, and it takes time to create more. A soldier, a sailor, an airman who raised his hand on September 12, 2001, and said, "I want to be a member of the special operations forces" is not yet employable as a member of special operations forces. He's still in his training pipeline, because it takes us at least two and a half years to turn a sailor into a Seal, a soldier into a Green Beret, or an airman into a Combat Controller in the special operations forces. And the Marines who will deploy under the operational control of Special Operations Command for the first time in April 2004 are again taking about two and a half years to do that since the commitment to do that was made.

Overall, SOCOM finds itself well suited to the global war on terrorism. It is what we are by nature and by culture, what we were created to be by law, what our mindset has been for 15 years. We understand this type of conflict. We understand that in an environment of asymmetrical threats, an asymmetrical counterforce is useful, and we provide much of that force. So, again, this campaign against terrorism won't be won by SOF. SOF is playing offense, and will be key to the ultimate victory. Thank you.

Questions and Answers

Audience: Rick Middle with the Dallas Morning News. I wanted to ask you, General Anderson, your-- One of your slides suggested that another terrorist attack of the sort we had on 9/11 is inevitable. Do you really think it's inevitable? And why do you think we haven't had something similar happen yet? Is it because you folks are so good, or is it because al-Qaeda is not up to it, or are we just lucky?

General Anderson: First of all, I do think that another attack, or another attempt at an attack, is inevitable. Let me say that. Because I'd like to believe that we'll have sufficient indications and warning that we'll be able to, if not see it coming, and if we do see it coming, to defeat it. And I think the reason why-- Or, there are many reasons, perhaps, why we have not seen anything yet. I think part of the reason has been the success of SOCOM, the global war on terrorists, and the other regional combatant commands. There's no question that we have somewhat disrupted the command and control of the terrorist leadership out there. But, I would caveat that by saying, as you saw in the chart there, that the point I made that these folks are adaptive. And so, it's a case of measure, countermeasure, measure, countermeasure, in trying to stay ahead. And so, that's why I believe that, in fact, inevitably they will try again.

Audience: Joe Shirey from Air Force Air Combat Command. General Hill, I appreciated that briefing. Especially encouraging to see the results in Colombia. Your comments about some of the activities that were going on there, where you sent your sergeant major down, and he worked with the enlisted corps, were consistent with some of the earlier panel comments about things we should be doing out there in the future as the military works in post-OIF Iraq. Recognizing that this might be a little bit of a stretch, given that Colombia is not Iraq, I wonder if you've thought any about how the successes in Colombia might somehow apply to Iraq or Afghanistan, given the theme of the conference.

General Hill: Well, we share, inside the military, daily, lessons learned across the different combatant commands, and across the different services and the training events. So any of the things that we're doing have some translation. But there is a translation that does fit more closely to the war on terrorism, and that is what is going on in terms of the organization, and how the integration of intelligence in Guantanamo could be applied to some of the intelligence levels going on in Iraq today. That would be a closer fit.

Audience: For General Hill. I'm Jim Garamone (?) with American Forces Press Service. Last year, I think it was, Secretary Rumsfeld went down to Santiago and proposed a couple of regional initiatives for a maritime force and a peacekeeping force. I was just wondering what kind of progress there has been made on that. And a second question I'd pile on if I could, sir, is, Uribe is the real deal, you said. What's going on with all the resignations in his cabinet?

General Hill: To the first part, what Secretary Rumsfeld talked about in Santiago was working regionally to combat ungoverned spaces, and that goes on at a bilateral and a regional basis daily, in discussions. Also talked about a maritime initiative called Enduring Friendship. And we have been progressing on that, and in fact, we'll run an exercise under the banner of Enduring Friendship later this year in the Caribbean as a model for that.

Along that same line, I was in Chile last year, and in a discussion with the Chilean Chief of Naval Operations, he remarked to me that Chile was the fourth largest user of the Panama Canal. And I said, "That's terrific. What do you do to help defend it?" And he looked at me blankly. A very good man, a very bright guy. And I said, "I didn't mean to stab at that." I said, "But if it's important to you, then we ought to do something regionally to work with it." So, this summer, we ran an exercise with the Chilean Navy and the Panamanian naval forces, a counterterrorism operation to defend the Pacific approaches to the canal. It was a great exercise called Panamex. We're going to expand that next year, and that's some of the regional stuff that's going on in that same regard.

As to the hostages, we do not know where the hostages are. We continue to look with them, with all the intelligence level that we have. And if we can pinpoint them and where they are, then we'll take what appropriate measures as e can. That's really about all I can say about that.

Audience: Ed Bruner from the Congressional Research Service. A question for Admiral Olson and General Anderson. The question involves counterterrorism within the United States by special ops forces. Is that decided, which of you does that, is it not decided, or are we not supposed to know?

Audience: Mazur Sleeman (?), analyst, Global Media. A question about special operation, regarding the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the future operation in Iraq right now. We heard a lot about special operation against the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, and his regime, the task 120 (?), or different names. We heard about regional special operation command in Jiputi (?). What kind of coordination with the regional states special operation is having in success in coordinating their effort with US special operation in that region?

__: The relationship between the special operations forces and the regional national forces varies country by country. It depends on the history of our relationship with them, and their desire to work with us, our desire to work with them. I think what we're seeing in particular now in Iraq-- And there are coalition special operations organizations. These organizations, people with whom we've worked in special operations for many years, some of who have now come together on the battlefields of Iraq. But we're seeing a transition, if you will, from the special reconnaissance direct action piece of special operations back more towards the unconventional warfare piece of special operations. The Iraqis will tell you proudly that the second largest force in the coalition today is the Iraqis themselves. And so we are finding ourselves back in the classic unconventional warfare, work with the indigenous force in order to enable it to fight its own campaign in Iraq. I think that's what you'll see the near to mid term future play out.

Captain Swartz: How about some graduate students or junior officers or something? How often do you get a chance to grill some general flag officers?

Audience: Major Dave Filer from West Point.

Captain Swartz: Close enough.

Audience: Beat 'em, sir. Sir, this is a question for General Anderson. Sir, should Congress look at changing posse comitatus?

General Anderson: Say that again?

Audience: Should Congress look at changing the law of posse comitatus?

General Anderson: We don't think so. We are comfortable with posse comitatus as it currently is, with the changes that have been employed in that, and we see no need for any changes at this time.

Audience: Sir, second question for you. Could you comment on what NorthCom's relationship is with the governors of the 50 states?

General Anderson: Yeah. The relationship with the governors of the 50 states is primarily exercised through the National Guard, and specifically the TAGs. As you know, each state has an adjutant general. You saw the chart here, the organizational chart there that showed the connection to the National Guard Bureau. So, we would exercise, through those organizations. Now, the way the system works, if a crisis occurs, whether it's natural or manmade, in a state, as you know the local folks are the ones who are expected to immediately be on the scene and try to correct the situation. If it exceeds their capabilities, they go to the state. If it exceeds the state's capabilities, which include the National Guard, then that governor would go to the President, and the President would probably go to DHS, Governor Ridge. DHS would then determine whether or not they have sufficient capability, or we in the military have some unique capability that can be used to apply against the crisis. And if that is the case, then Governor Ridge would request Sec. Dev. to use those capabilities, and Sec. Dev. would approve it, and it would come to us. We would then plug back in through the emergency operations center there, but work primarily with the TAG. But it is conceivable that we could work with the governor as well.

One of the things, however, that we are trying to undertake is a campaign to educate governors through the National Governors Association, and various other fora that exist, on our capabilities, and what it is that we would be able to bring for them. So it's a team effort in doing military assistance to civil authorities, let there be no doubt. And we recognize that.

Audience: I'm Colonel Jim Holzerith (?), the Canadian military attaché. I'm sorry I'm not a graduate student nor a junior officer, but I'll pose a question, regardless. Gentleman, I'd like to come back to the question of intelligence, and intelligence fusion, as it applies to the Joint Interagency Task Force, the Center for Special Forces, and the Joint Intelligence Fusion Center, I believe, and it's obviously key across all three of your command operations. And my question really comes to the area of, what areas of improvement, or are there obstacles in terms of sharing, particularly interagency, and practical problems in terms of gathering from the variety of censors worldwide, and the fusion of that, in terms of timely and relevant analysis for execution?

Admiral Olson: Clearly, in today's technologically advanced world, we've got more data and more intelligence than we can fuse and analyze on a daily basis. I mean, it's jus there. there's just so much of it. And you have to continue to work at that, to figure out better ways to sort it. In Guantanamo, we have developed a system that gets us into everybody else's databases, and shares the data that we have with everybody else's intelligence database. That has led, in my opinion, to some significant intelligence gains in the last six months. But it's a process that's got to continue. And we've got to continue doing better interagency sharing of intelligence, and national sharing with our friends and neighbors.

__: I would certainly echo that. I believe that the collaboration of intelligence efforts now is far greater than it's ever been. I mean, we have seen a passion over the past couple of years to improve the intelligence sharing across the board, interagency and internationally. It's changes of liaison officers, the opening of doors that had previously been closed. Some--

Admiral Olson: -- moving toward. Across the board are these intelligence fusion centers in which many different organizations are represented, all of whom have pipes laid back to their headquarters, so that we don't need everybody's database in our system. We just need access to the person who can access their database. And that's led to a much more rapid machining, if you will, of intelligence to make it a product the operators can use.

General Hill: Can I add to that too? Because I think that what you said, Eric, is right on the mark. This intelligence sharing is kind of like jointness. The United States military became joint in 1986 at the point of a Congressional gun. And clearly we're not as joint today as we should be, but we are more joint in just the last two years than we were. We are certainly doing better intelligence sharing, interagency-wise, than we were two years ago, and we'll be better two years from now. But it's been an iterative process, and one that visionary people are pushing every day.

__: The challenge for us, as you know, is the fusion of intel (?) in law enforcement information. And intel has not been a problem. I mean, we have worked very closely, and have established relationships, and exchanged personnel, so on and so forth, with the traditional sources of intel, CIA, DIA, NRO, and that kind of thing. So, we have those for looking outside our borders. However, the other element is the law enforcement piece, and that's the new piece. And so we are making progress. I would say we are probably at about seven on a scale of 10 in terms of information sharing. We've made tremendous strides, as has been alluded to here earlier.

But there is still work to be done. Part of that is, of course, the fact that some of these organizations are just getting established, TTIC and other organizations. And so as they get established and undertake to do what they do, our responsibility is to make sure that we work with them, and explain to them what it is that we can provide them, and solicit from them their assistance. And that's all, I think, coming along very, very well. But it's not a technological problem for us. It's a cultural problem. I mean, there are just barriers, cultural barriers, that have been developed over the years. And every time we come across one, we break it down, and the leadership of those various organizations are right there to support it, and it works, and it happens.

But we are very careful. In the Combined Intelligence Fusion Center, we have included in there a legal section, to ensure that we are not violating any responsibilities, laws, rules regulations, in the context of intelligence oversight. And we train our people very, very carefully, to make sure that we don't inadvertently do something that is illegal. Because we can't. So, we're very, very cautious there about that.

Audience: My name is Brice Harris , OSDC 2 Policy. My question is for you, General Hill. I wonder if you could tell us, how important do you believe it is, strategically, that the Chinese are becoming, and in fact to a great extent already have become figured so prominently in the Western hemisphere, particularly in such places as Panama, and in Cuba?

General Hill: Well, it's an excellent question. I think that it's important that we continue to monitor that. The Chinese have made inroads throughout Latin America. They do it, I think, for two reasons. One is because a lot of Latin America countries are still recognized from Taiwan. And they want to get a wedge in on that. And the other things is, they want to make sure that we're not left in our own front yard, front porch, with the sole power moving around the area. They are there. Every place I go, the Chinese have made visits into the countries, have invited militaries to go visit China. They're there. So we watch it on a very careful basis.

While I've still got the floor, can I do one thing? And it's a totally different issue.

__: It's nice to have four stars.

General Hill: Thanks. But I want to go back to the question back here, on the hostage issue in Colombia. I gave you a factual, crummy answer. What I'd like to do is give you a little bit better answer. We do not know where the hostages are specifically. And the reason is because if you take a look at Colombia, if I asked, if I went out on the street, and maybe even in this room, to describe Colombia to me, you'd probably describe El Salvador. In point of fact, though, Colombia is the size of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and a little bit more. About one-half of it is complete jungle, very much similar to the jungle triple canopy that I wandered around in Vietnam, to where if I was walking right here, and there was 100 people where the flag is, we would not see each other, and we could pass, and just go our separate ways. That is the area where the hostages, one, were taken, and where they are, in some size area we believe them to be today. We just simply can't pinpoint it.

It goes back to the intelligence piece, too. There are lots of things we simply can't do. One of the great things of being thought of as having all this technology is when you simply don't have it, or you're not omniscient in it, that people don't understand that in point of fact, you cannot look down through triple canopy jungle and find stuff. And that's where they are.

But the Colombian response was terrific on this. They were over our guys within 30 minutes. They had 7,000 people in the jungles out there looking for them within a matter of days. They stayed out there. We think we bottled them up between 45 and 60 days, in a pretty good little box. We simply couldn't find them, and rescue them. And then, we knew that if they ever got out of that box, they would in fact be very, very, very difficult to find, one, and incredibly difficult to go rescue. And therein lies the dilemma that we're in right now. So I hope that's a better answer than the quick, factual one I gave you before. And as I thought here and thought about it, I almost was flip on that. And I would not be flip with those lives. They are a major priority to us. They are important to us. And we are doing everything we can to find them, and when we do, we will take what steps we can to rescue them. Is that better? Thanks.

Audience: Natalie Wisseel with Crescent Investment. I have a question regarding the unprecedented levels of opium production that's taking place in Afghanistan right now, which is bringing in billions of dollars of revenues that is now the primary source of funding for the neo-Talibans and the al-Qaeda elements that are operating in Afghanistan and around Afghanistan. Is the United States military getting involved in this, and doing something about it, or are they kind of leaving it to the international forces and the international community?

__: We seem to not know the answer to the question about the level of US military involvement in that. I'll tell you, the United States Special Operations Command is not necessarily involved in it.

Audience: Alan Zinn from Johns Hopkins. Commentators have mentioned a great deal about the permeability of our southern borders, you know, hundreds of illegals crossing the border on a daily basis. Does NorthCom consider this to be a threat? If so, is there any area of responsibility that NorthCom can place to help stem this tide?

__: Protection of our borders is a DHS responsibility, as I think you know, with the border patrol and the Customs folks, and so on and so forth. Through JTF-6, specifically on the southern border, when requested by the law enforcement folks, we do provide support to them in a variety of ways, which for operational reasons, I just can't go into detail for you. But as I mentioned, one of the things that we are doing is to take JTF-6 and expand its charter so that it goes beyond counter-narcotics and in fact is intended to address transnational threats, which would include terrorists coming across the border, weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics, for that matter, because that is considered to be a subset of the transnational threat, so it's an expansion of their charter.

Now, we have to do that in partnership, as I indicated as well, that what we're looking at is a JIATF North, Joint Interagency Task Force North. It's the interagency piece that is the operative there, and that's where we are working with DHS to bring that about. Our expectation is that we'll start to see that come about probably next spring, the initial stages of that, and then go from there.

Audience: My name is Martin Burkhart. I'm the US correspondent for a newspaper in Denmark. A question to General Olson. I wanted originally to ask you whether the Iraq war was not a distraction for the war on terror. There is a widespread view, I think, in Europe and other places, that it was. But then I heard you say that special ops are active in Iraq, fighting along with indigenous forces. And I suppose that you were saying that they were fighting the guerilla fighters, who then would be labeled terrorists. So I wonder, what kind of terrorists are you actually fighting? Because I suppose that in about 60 or 70 countries around the world, there are sleeper cells. In Afghanistan, you had, before the war, camps that trained terrorists, but they're gone. And so the fight that you have to fight is outside of Iraq, would have to be a fight that's very, very difficult. Because it's basically, as you said-- I think you mentioned six or eight people in a house who may be planning some type of attack. But you don't have any camps anymore. So, it's a bit of a mystery to me, besides Iraq, what you actually do. Could you kind of elaborate on that.

Admiral Olson: Let me answer what I think the question was. United States Special Operations Command has responsibility for planning the war on terrorism on a global level. And we are engaged in that planning. We are engaged in some activity against terrorism in certain areas of the world. In addition to that, US Special Operations Command is fulfilling its traditional role of conducting special operations across the nine mission areas of special operations in support of regional Combatant Commanders. And there is a war in Iraq. There is a fight in Iraq. There are people whose intent is to harm American soldiers who are in Iraq, and the United States Special Operations Command are serving the Commander of Central Command in prosecuting his campaign in Iraq. And so a method of doing that, a classic special operations mission, is to work with indigenous forces, in this case the Iraqi forces who are becoming their own Army, in order to enable them to better prosecute operations in their territory for their purposes, which also serve ours. Does that answer the question?

Audience: You know, I talked recently to an assistant to the Secretary of Defense about the whole question of, how do you actually fight this war on terrorism if it's a war not against people who gather in military camps, but basically, it's an invisible enemy. Are you involved in that kind of activity?

Admiral Olson: Again, I'm not sure I heard the question clearly. Is your question, how do we fight a war against an invisible terrorist enemy?

Audience: Yes, because as I said, before the war in Afghanistan, it was a rather clearly definable enemy, in that Osama bin Laden had camps, and you could hit them with a missile, as Clinton did. But they are not there anymore. So, how do you deal with that kind of enemy?

Admiral Olson: Well, that's the very difficult challenge. And it's an intelligence-driven solution. And so we are striving to gain the intelligence in Iraq on who the enemy is, where they're located, what they look like, so that we can take some actions against them on behalf of the geographic Combatant Commander who is running that campaign. There is no easy answer to finding the enemy in Iraq, certainly, and that's one of the reasons that we are accepting the fact that we are in a marathon campaign, not just a sprint through Iraq.

Captain Swartz: Two of our panelists can stay on for a bit more, for a couple more questions. General Hill has got another engagement and has to leave. Thanks very much, sir.

General Hill: Thank you very much.

Captain Swartz: Yes, sir, and I hope your question wasn't for General Hill.

__: I hope it was.

Audience: Ray Stuchel. I'm a graduate student at Catholic University. And my question was in part for General Hill, but the Navy is still here, so we can handle it, sir. General Anderson mentioned money laundering is one of his concerns, and General Hill mentioned flow of cash to the drug cartels. I think we probably all recognize that drug cartels, like terrorists, are easily transportable from one area to another. If we cut off the drug pipeline from Colombia, they'll move to Vietnam. The terrorists would probably do likewise. My question is that I believe the way to decapitate both of those organizations is by cutting off the flow of money, and I wonder if you have any ideas that haven't already been put to use on how to stop the flow of money to those organizations.

__: From a NorthCom perspective, I would tell you that that's not something that we address. We depend upon the other federal organizations who have that responsibility, the United States Interdiction Coordinator, Roger Mackin (?), and some of the other bodies, to address that issue. So, we do not look at that in NorthCom. That's not to say it's not important to do. It's just that we don't do it.

Audience: Dale Caruthers (?) with Systems Planning and Analysis. This is for the panel. We heard earlier this morning, in one of the sessions, from Bob Kaplan that in his discussions with the men in the fields, that one of their biggest concerns was freedom of action, that the burden of the layers of the decision making process were causing targets to get hit 72 to 96 hours late. I was wondering if the panel agreed wit that assessment, and if so, what was being done to correct it, and what are the future capabilities in freedom of operations?

General Anderson: I'm not going to say anything about how they feel over there. That's the CENTCOM Commander's responsibility, as to whether or not they are layered or whatever. But here, as I mentioned to you in the briefing, because of our area of responsibility, and specifically being the homeland, we do have a different operating environment that certainly that exists within CENTCOM, for example. But we have not, at this point, experienced any difficulty in terms of responsiveness or delays in the processes of approving requests, and so on and so forth. You heard me describe a little bit earlier the process that brings our support into a local crisis, whatever that may be, whether it's a hurricane or terrorism. And as much as that sounds heel to toe, and rather lengthy and bureaucratic and so on and so forth, it can be handled like that with a phone call. And that's all it takes. And we've done it. General Everhart will call the Secretary of Defense and request authority to do this or whatever, and the Secretary of Defense will make a decision, if that's what's required at that moment, and we go from there. So we really have not had that much of a problem here in NorthCom.

Audience: McVaden, IFPA. It seems to me that we've set an example for the world, in jointness, special operations, and now homeland defense. And I wonder whether our allies and friends are keeping up with us in such a way that we can hope to cooperate and so forth. You know, we worry about the area of technology, and getting so far ahead of them, and so forth. So I wonder, is the gap growing? Does it matter if they keep up with us? And then on the other hand, is anybody else getting good in these things who are not friends and allies, so, you know, for example, Chinese, North Korean special operations forces. Are they any good now, compared to us?

__: I haven't trained with them, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of their capabilities. Certainly the special operations capabilities of our potential adversaries is a concern to us. We track it, and special operations capability in general, across the world is increasing. There is a renewed energy, I think, in most of the countries that we observe, in enhancing their special operations capability. I'll tell you, the countries that we do work closely with are moving very quickly, in terms of both special operations capability and jointness. We're seeing our influence take hold in the countries with whom we work closely. And it seems the more closely we work with them, in a grand way, the faster the migration of concepts is. I'll tell you, I'm very encouraged by what I see in the nations with whom we work closely in both of those areas. Certainly there's a gap, and the gap is going to take a long time to close, if it ever closes. That has a lot to do, frankly, with the level of resources being invested. But I think in general the trend that we're witnessing is a good one.

General Anderson: In NorthCom, with regard to, as I mentioned in the briefing, the ones we are primarily affiliated with are Canada and Mexico. And certainly, the Canadians are just absolutely fantastic. We enjoy a very, very good relationship with them, as I mentioned. And they, by virtue of establishing the Bi-National Planning Group, have recognized the importance of homeland defense, and being a part of that. And so I think ultimately they'll be moving in that direction, along with missile defense, as they've indicated.

On the other hand, Mexico we're still working with. We don't have the foundation with Mexico that we have with Canada, and so we've got to establish that foundation, and we'll do that. And ultimately, we'll come to it. But it would be interesting, I think, to see at some point in the future, whether that's five, 10 years from now, whenever it may be, to see a tri-national NORAD, where you had Canada, United States, and Mexico providing true North American defense. And I would say, don't dismiss that as a possibility. But there are some hurdles that we're going to have to get over, and a lot of work that's going to have to be done. But we'll do that.

CAPTAIN SWARTZ: We have one more, and then we've got to get out of here. There was a hand over here. All right, you're it.

Audience: Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Dahl, US Army. I'm a National Security Fellow. All three panel members mentioned interagency effort at the Center for Special Operations, 100 LNOs, and of course in homeland defense in the NorthCom, and also General Hill. We've created a very, very high demand requirement for experts from the other government agencies and departments. My question is, are you unhappy with the quantity and the quality of support you're getting, outside of DOD, for this effort? Or should our national security transformation be looking at creating greater capacity in the other branches of our government to support that?

General Anderson: From a NorthCom perspective, we're pretty satisfied that in fact, with the reorganization and specifically the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, that that is the right move. I mean, it's the same thing for the federal organizations responsible for homeland security that we have done in NorthCom. We've brought them all unity of command, in our parlance. And so that I think is a good step. Now, it's going to take time. I would tell you the Department of Homeland Security has a bigger challenge than we did. We started from scratch. They've got about 22 different cultures that they're going to have to try to realign into a single culture. And I would say that Governor Ridge and those folks are making great progress.

But I think where we gain a lot is through the exercise program. I mean, when we have the opportunity to work together, and we identify where those seams are, if they exist, and the operating procedures, and so on and so forth, and we develop a sense of trust amongst each other, and so on, it just pays tremendous benefits for us. And so that's why we are such strong advocates of this national exercise plan, because, of course, being in the military, all of you who have been know the benefit of exercises, and what you gain from that. And now we can extend that to this very important area of homeland defense and homeland security. And it truly will be a great step forward.

CAPTAIN SWARTZ: Well, you've been an aggressive and intelligent audience. It's been fortunate that we've got combat veterans up here who could hack it. It's been an excellent session, I think. How about a hand of applause for them? Once again, please remember to take everything that belongs to you, and your papers and so on, at the end of the session. Thanks very much.