A quick correction, former Us AmbassadorRoy Stapleton will be talking about the party China Congress at 230 eastern, live online at cspan. Org. You can listen with the free cspan radio app. Yesterday the defense of cultivating a recent report about two Navy Ship Collisions in june the uss fitzgerald collided philippine flag container ship off the country of japan leaving seven sailors dead. Over two months later the uss john mccain clapped into a iberian ship near singapore and left ten sailors dead. Here is a look. Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, i will start with an opening statement. I want to thank you first for the opportunity to be here today and review of the recent incidences involving forces in the western pacific. A copy of the review that examines the systemic issue surrounding these incidences and review the corrective action. Before i begin i must say that throughout this investigative process our first and last thoughts have been with our fallen sailors and their families. I want to offer my deepest condolences to those who lost a loved one and assure them that they will always be part of the navy family. A review of your navy today shows that this morning there are 100 ships and 64000 sailors and navies salient point. This includes carriers and Marine Expeditionary units, six Ballistic Missile defense ship on station, 11 marie submarines and the vast majority of these are conducting their missions and some of them actually difficult and effectively and professionally, protecting america from attack, promoting our interest in prosperity and advocating for the rules that govern the vast sea floor space and cyberspace. We do much of this work with our allies and partners enhancing our combined capacity to contribute to Maritime Security and approve were fighting at the in the recent threeweek. We conducted over 19 exercises with our partners involving 30 other nations. This is what you expect of your navy and this is why we exist. The navy has been run hard in the past 16 years of war and the pace is picking up especially in the pacific. Recent experience has shown that if were not careful we can become overstretched and overextended. If we take our eye fundamentals we become vulnerable to mistakes at all levels of command in response to a series of incidences in the event in 2017 the navy conducted independent investigation into the specific incidences to determine what happened on board and also a conference of review to identify any systemic causal and contributing factors as to why these incidences occurred. Both of these efforts develop the actions needed to prevent them in future operations. Be clear, these actions were preventable and the causes for the collisions including a failure to plan for safety failure to adhere to sound practices, failure to execute basic watch standing principles, failure to properly use available navigation tools, failure to respond effectively, a loss of Situational Awareness and high traffic density, failure to follow the International Rules of the road and for john s mccain, insufficient knowledge and proficiency of ships. System. We are a navy that learns from our mistakes. Us Fleet Forces Commander admiral Phil Davidson recently concluded a conference of review which was informed further by other mishaps going back ten years. Conference of review team was made up of 34 personal backgrounds range from specialists in navigation to officers and millions with extensive experience and leadership underway operations from institutional training, equipment and systems research, development, acquisition. It also included million experts and military from other war communities and services. Multiple members also had substantial experience in conducting investigations and audit several distinguished individuals, fourstar retired general and flag officers from the army and marine corps, naval aviator and naval submariner as well as the president of the maryland Harbor Pilot Association and an academic from mit were on the team to advise admiral davis. The conference of review found that over a sustained period of time pricing pressure can meet operational demands led both in command to rationalize declining standards. Standards that were fundamental seamanship and watch standing skills, teamwork, operational safety, assessment and professional culture. This resulted in reduction of operational safety margins. Earlier the demand for ready and certify chips to support operation exceeded the quantity that could be supplied blocking an effective process that clearly defined available supply and associated readiness, steadily increasing risks were not understood were properly mitigated as the ships were routinely assigned to high priority, short notice tasking. This practice became the norm and resulted in situations where individuals and teams could no longer recognize that the processes in place to identify, communicate and assess readiness and risk were no longer working on ships or at headquarters. To address this we have taken some immediate action in these actions include restoring a deliberative scheduling process in the seventh fleet conducting comprehensive Readiness Assessment for all japanbased ships, establishing the Naval Service group in the western pacific, an independent body in japan that will keep their eye on readiness generation and standards for the Pacific Fleet commander. Establishing and using a Near Miss Program to understand and disseminate Lessons Learned and establishing policies for surface ships to routinely, actively transmit on their automatic identification system, system the left other ships in the area know what they are doing. We have other ongoing immediate actions focused on upgrading the training and fundamentals, assessing operational commands against available resources, grading the baseline readiness of all seven fleet cruisers and destroyers, optimizing the authority and accountability for readiness, implementing schedules that ensure everyone gets a sufficient rest and defining the fourth Generation Model for the japanbased ships. We also have midterm actions that are focused on developing the process that generates sustainable ready forces, starting with japanbased ships. Reviewing the qualification standards, establishing comprehensive policies on managing fatigue, revising Readiness Assessment, aligning the Operational Requirements to available resources and accelerating the Electronic Navigation system upgrade. We have additional longerterm actions so there is immediate action, shortterm and midterm and then longterm. Longterm actions include improving individual and Team Training skills with an absence on seamanship, navigation and integrated bridge equipment, evaluating curricula with an emphasis on fundamental navigation skills. I have yet to say that fundamental to all of this is how we prepare leaders for command. We will deeply examine the way that we prepare officers for increasing leadership challeng challenges, culminating in assumption of command with the capability and confidence to form, train and assess war fighting teams on the bridge and the combat Information Center in engineering and throughout their command. Our navy, from the most junior sailors from a Senior Commander must value achieving and maintaining high operational and war fighting standards of performance. These standards must be embedded in our equipment, individuals, team and our fleet. The navy is absolutely committed to do Everything Possible to prevent a tragic loss like this again. We should never allow an accident like this to happen to take the lives of magnificent young sailors and inflect and inflict the grief on their family and the nation. We must get this right and we will. We own this and we are moving out. Thank you for your time again. I look forward to your questio questions. Admiral, this review was about seven fleet but as you look across the navy and the ships of the whole dont have these problems also exist and what are you doing to look at some of those and how do you replicate some of this across the other ships in your fleet or is it just the seven fleet and you need more ships there to get started we have to contain the scope of the investigation and we did concentrate on where we were seeing the problem which was the cruiser and destroyers out in the seven fleet. That is where we started, both the incident investigation into the company the review. Now that we have that investigation fleet is my intention that i just transmitted a message to all twins Commanding Officers similar to what i transmitted for the pause message to study this at all levels of command and to determine where they might be vulnerable to the findings in the company to review and also to take a look at what of the recommended actions might apply to them. Ask them to put together a report a report to their superiors and how we see the consolidated result of that effort. Do you think it likely that some of these problems the ultimate test for our effectiveness is combat operations. As i pointed out we have a floor plan deployed fleet and not in the distant past concurrently right now they are performing exclusively in the highest degree of combat and we will come out the sense that we want to look at everybody and find vulnerabilities and put them where they exist. You say that you and the navy own the problem and we understand [inaudible] you describe a series of ongoing very comprehensive problems that underlie all of this. The question is why you didnt you know about these problems because if you knew you would have to fix them. How is that that you did not know and as chief enable operations you serve at the pleasure and what responsibility to bear on this with all due respect. Do you believe that you still have the confidence of the sailors and of nearly under Navy Families . Barbara, i think there is no doubt and i made clear from the very beginning that as the cnl i own this and i will not judge from that ownership. As we studied similar catastrophes incidences in the past was in the navy and outside the navy there is this slow segregation that happens and what you end up is a process where you become a situation where it becomes normalized and if you cant meet where you dont meet the standard that you come up with in the system of standards that you do meet. We are aware of this and i do own it and were taking firm corrective action and we will get this right. I understand it, admiral. The question professionally is what responsibility is there with the chief enable operation for not knowing about all of these problems that led to the loss of so many lives next again, i feel responsible. Do you thank you could remain with the confidence of the fleet of the sailors. I do admiral, thank you for your time with us. You mentioned sleep deprivation and you mentioned managing a key and could you get the sense if sleep depression had anything to do it with the two accidents and what are the Navy Recognition for sleep. Is a four or five hours fatigue did play a role in these incidences. We have recently gone throughout the navy and the Service Force made it mandatory to execute their at sea schedule with respect what we call the circadian rhythm, a 24 hour cycle inside that cycle getting sixeight hours within a 24 ho hour. So it is not mandatory for yes, you should be getting that type of sleep every 24 hour cycle. When you agree to review you see there are institutions and organizations and additional oversight and what wasnt readily apparent when you read it was how do you say no to a combat commander and former said earlier this week that the problem particularly with the navy is a simple one and if there are not enough ships to the missions that are out there so in 1999 there were 330 is with 100 ships deployed and now theres 276 deployed. How do you tell us Combatant Commanders and what responsibility do you have to say no to them and how do you do that. This is the responsibility and accountability and it comes with command. It is fundamental in the nature of command that if youre not ready to execute the mission that you are assigned you have to make that clear. Have another of examples again where that happens and every level of command. Davidson and i have those conversations and animals and i have those conversations. That happens all the way down to unit level commanders when we fail to do that weve got we become vulnerable and become we have to ensure that we create a climate and this is the idea of culture that is discussed in the comparative review that values these discussions and is open and listening to those commanders who were saying ive been stretched too thin. You talk about the culture in improved training and obviously none of this wouldve been possible if there wasnt a culture of ignoring some of the things that happened. How do you build a culture where people start listening and it takes decades and i disagree that it takes decades. There are a number of examples with forcible acts that can at this and turned much more quickly than that. This is what it will take. Its a forcible effort by every level command in the navy and thats what we hope to catalyze through this company to review and keeping our leaders in this discussion from the fourstar level. Thank you. To get back to the culture question. The high pace of operations led to a cultural accepting a lower grade of readiness and lower standards. Were you part of that culture . Did you get to the point where you felt sure that you couldnt say no to something you needed to resource . I never felt the sponsors. Reported that culture, certain chief of naval operations. Just to barbaras point, its hard to escape that level of responsibility and everyone on the Navy Including leadersh leadership. Can you talk about the lack of training. [inaudible] in 2003, after decades they changed that and gave 21c ds and they sent some of these out to ships and basically said you will learn how to do it on the job and that lasted for seven years and admiral john harvey who iran the Atlantic Fleet grant to the hill in 2010 and said this was a mistake and this did not work. First of all, talk to the lack of training and do you have dozens, if not scores of officers out there, that simply do not know how to drive a shift because of that lack of training and you talk about overextended and overstretched and about sleep deprivation and rising pressure but the report said that the Commanding Officer of one of the ships didnt know how to operate a consult when there was a steering mishap. He didnt know how to drive the ship so what does that have to do with the sleep deprivation or being overstretched and this officer couldnt drive the ship. These are. These are failures of commands. When you talk about training to your point we have moved away from that system and we did all that training on the job and we reinstituted the basic Division Officer corps and instituted an officer Division Course and made steady improvements to the officer enlisted training throughout. Weve got more work to do here and identify several areas where we can do that. Then these ready for c assessments are going around and doing that look, that grading to ensure that we get a solid look and understanding of what the proficiency is at sea. Again, there are many, many examples of where our ship and the Commanding Officers and crews are doing very well but if its not monitored on a continual basis these skills can at the very quickly. My question is during that sevenyear period when you had lacks training we gave these people cds and are you worried there are too many officers out there in the fleet simply do not know how to drive a ship . We are doing in these assessments to determine that. Im concerned enough that i support these and will get a solid baseline of the positions he. One of the biggest mistakes that your sailors may that led to the these fundamentals of driving. Basic responsibility to maintain a Situational Awareness of the ships around you and to know the basics of the rules of the road and how to respond when you get into a situation and the basics of understanding ship control council is the operator who did not know how to do it, not the Commanding Officer. Those are some pretty fundamental things. [inaudible] in some areas, yes. They have more training than when they it was a box of compact discs and onthejob training so we have been reinstituting that training sally. In the company to review theres an appendix that list that journey that we have been on. And compared to 15 years ago are you convinced your officers aboard the ship more training than 15 years . Is more than just about hours. Its about the quality of the training and overall. Ours is a false metric. This is exactly what the conference of you looked at and identified areas we can move to be that. All the failures you just described human failures and as you know [inaudible] is now looking and testing an unmanned ship that can follow rules of the road as for safety potential and did the committee that looked at this make recommendations in terms of duration software, autonomy, things like that to produce the cognitive load being put on [inaudible] weve done a lot of examination about certain navy wide already outside the scope of the conference of review and we will continue that effort independent of the contents of review. It is making progress and we are monitoring that closely. Context of it . We are studying that outside the context of the review. You use the word failure anytime. You have not used the word negligence. Was there neg