This is two hours. [inaudible conversations] good morning everybody and welcome. This morning the Committee Considers the nominations of two very distinguished officers to two of the most active and challenging combatant commands. General lloyd austin United States army nominated to be commander u. S. Central command and general David Rodriguez u. S. Army to be nominated to be commander of the u. S. Africa command. These two combatant commands centcom and africom are the centers of gravity for our militarys operations to counter the threat of terrorism. Oath nominees have served our country with distinction and i want to thank each of you for your decades of military service and your willingness to serve once again. I understand that general austin s wife charlene and General Rodriguez wife jen air with us this morning and i want to a knowledge them and thank them for their sacrifices, their support to our nominees throughout the years which is so essential to the success of our nominees and as is the committees tradition are nominees are invited to introduce any family members or friends who may be with them this morning with their opening remarks. If confirmed general austin will assume command of centcom during it critical transition. Not for military operations in afghanistan. In the coming months Afghan Forces will assume the lead responsibility for providing security throughout their country, the Coalition Forces stepping back through a support role. On tuesday, president obama announced during his state of the Union Address plans for drawing down half of the 66,000 u. S. Troops in afghanistan this year, a 34,000 troop reduction by february of 2014. The president continues to consider options for a significantly reduced u. S. Military presence in afghanistan after the end of 2014, which will depend on many things but in part on negotiations with the government of afghanistan over Legal Protections for our troops. The president has made clear that then missions of residual u. S. Presence in afghanistan after 2014 will be limited to current terrorism operations and training and advising Afghan Forces. General austin would bring exceptional experience in overseeing this transition, having commanded u. S. Forces in iraq during the reduction of u. S. Forces and equipment from iraq. Just this past weekend our forces in afghanistan have had a change of command, with general Joseph Duckworth replacing general john allen as commander of the International Securities systems forces and commander of u. S. Forces afghanistan. I want to take this opportunity to thank general allen for his thoughtful and devoted leadership in afghanistan, for his forthrightness and his interactions with me and the rest of the members of this committee. When senator reid and i visited afghanistan in january, we saw a real signs of progress, including the Afghan Security forces increasingly taking the lead responsibility for protecting their country. Good news stories about afghanistan and the Afghan Security forces dont seem to get the coverage of the u. S. Media that is given to negative stories. For example, it was widely reported that only one of the 23 afghan brigades is rated by isaf is independent. On the other hand we heard from our commanders in afghanistan that 87 of operations in afghanistans critical regional command east are carried out solely by Afghan Security forces. Another Success Story is now the 18,000 strong Afghan Local Police program. These Community Defense forces when coordinated with district Level National police and afghan army forces are more and more effective in powering afghan communities to defend against taliban intimidation and violence. Plans are being developed to increase the authorized size of the alp program from 30,000 to 45,000. The next centcom commander will also play an Important Role in shaping our Enduring Partnership with afghanistan after 2014. The partnership that i fully support. Ike m. Concerned however by the plants to reduce the Afghan NationalSecurity Forces by a third starting in 2015. 352,000 to 230,000 by 2017. I believe that any future reductions in the size of the Afghan Forces should be based on security conditions in afghanistan at that time and this Afghan Security forces make and providing for their country security, we should reassure them that we will continue to support these efforts by deciding that as we withdraw our forces that there wont get drawdown and Afghan Forces. Progress in afghanistan remains fragile and significant challenges to afghanistans longterm stability remain. Among the greatest threat to its stability are the safe havens for afghan insurgents across the pakistan border. The government of pakistan has failed to disrupt or eliminate. In addition the major shortcomings of the government of afghanistan in delivering governance, fighting corruption creates political and economic instability that could exacerbate the challenges in the 2014 transition. In addition to afghanistan sense, as can contend with when the most difficult issues in our security debate, the threat posed by iran in pursuit of its nuclear program. As the centcom commander general austin will be at the tip of the spear with regard to preparing militarily for the detention of an Armed Conflict with iran. He shares the presence view that all options must be some remaining on the table. Including its relentless pursuit of its stability fomenting the violence through proxies such as hamas and hezbollah and through its own covert activities in the region. Already destabilizing events in syria, yemen gaza egypt and sudan are made worse by iraq spending and supply of terrorist organizations seeking to undermine governments to spark further conflict among sectarian and tribal groups. Centcom has a Critical Role to play in leading efforts across the region to counter irans aligned influence. Events in syria continued to deteriorate. The impact of the assad regimes increasing dependence on support from iran and desperate actions to hold onto power can be seen in the thousands of refugees that flow into the towns and villages that syrias neighbors. While the United States is focused on providing humanitarian relief and nonlethal assistance to the syrian opposition, the centcom commander will be asked to advise on the situation to syria including whether to provide Legal Assistance to the opposition, with eight the United States should conduct limited strikes against key Syrian Military capabilities and whether the United States should seek to build a coalition of nations to take more significant military action. These are extraordinarily complex issues that general austin will be asked to share his views on today. Centcoms area of responsibility remains a Central Location of many of the nonstate terrorist threats to our nation faces. In addition to core al qaeda in pakistan and the reemergence of al qaeda in iraq, al qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula remains focused on attacking United States and our interests. Our centcom forces continue to assist our Yemeni Security partners in preventing al qaeda from taking advantage of areas in yemen where the government has limited control. The offense and ghazi benghazi were powerful reminder of our need and public expectations for a capable capabilities to respond quickly to crises around the world. This is one of the major evolving situations that general rodriquez has to address and it will consume a great deal of his time. It is far from limited to benghazi and libya. We have struggled in africa to find a foothold to allow for the responses to the type of events that occurred in benghazi and will allow us to conduct day to day operations lech intelligence collection. Africom has received less in the way of resources and support and other geographic commands and this disparity indeed may grow in a resource constrained environment. These challenges combined with these destabilizing effects of terrorist and Critical Networks will make general rodriquez task at africom among the most complicated in the department. An additional matter in the africom aor is committee watches closely is the ongoing u. S. Support operations in Central Africa to assist the multinational effort to remove joseph kony and his top lieutenants from the battlefield. This committee and general inhofe has been very active in this effort and assad to ensure that this mission is adequately resourced including additional Intelligence Surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. General rodriquez i know you are familiar with this mission and the committee looks forward to hearing from you about it and to working with you on it and so many of the other challenges he will be facing. Im going to turn the gavel over to senator kaine who has agreed to take over because i must go to the floor and i i will call upon the senator inhofe. Thank you mr. Mr. Mr. Chair i join you in welcoming our witnesses. Ive had an opportunity to get to know them in the past personally and im very anxious to mo vaughn with this and i think thanks charlene and jenny for being here. You are the ones who work harder than they do so we appreciate your sacrifices if they are concerned. General austin will be in charge of overseeing arguably the most volatile region in the world and in the midst of the declining defense budget. Just last week secretary panetta announced the indefinite array of a a deployment in the middle east in development that was a darkly welcomed by the regime in tehran and egypt despite all the best hopes of the arab spring president morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government has shown hostility toward the opposition groups and have taken an increasing bellicose tone towards our ally in israel. These developments require us to think long and hard as we will be sharing with them the controversial f16 transfers and frankly i didnt agree with that but its a tough area and i think if you look through that area, general austin you have iran and it maintains a determined to acquire Nuclear Weapons capability. Its been going on for a long time and we found our intelligence about the capability but they have developed so far. Its serious. And iraq are premature withdrawal has contributed to to a deteriorating situation and allowed al qaeda to establish a foothold in syria and assads rain and brutality is claiming the lives of over 60,000 syrians and risks spilling into neighboring countries. In pakistan was a nucleararmed government teeter im on collapse or a militant groups such as all the military groups that have enjoyed the safe haven and afghanistan men combat responsibilities to the Afghan Security forces. Without a doubt we have got to make sure that the core structure and mission is driven by the facts on the ground and not arbitrary. We talked about this in my office. General rodriquez, hugh and i have spoken about the middle east and i have often said it is kind of the neglected continent and instrumental that we establish africom so there were no longer three different commands but one unified command its a tough area and its a tough area that has never had adequate resources to carry out what i consider adequately carrying out the mission and certainly the chairman mentioned the problem with the lra and that is a problem and is one that is not confined to as few. This charge in northern uganda has spread through the ca are in south sudan i might add that its connected. Its all terrorists and its all connected to yemen and it is a serious problem that we are going to have to deal with. Its the smallest of the regionally focused combat and command with less than 5000 boots on the continent and thats a huge continent so your work is cut out for you. We have talked about that, you and i in my office in detail so the challenge is to both face are very down not daunting but i am sure the both of your app to the task. Its going to be heavy lifting. As i said to you general austin my office, are you sure you want to do this and you said yes. Thank you mr. Chairman. General austin and general rodriquez we are ready to hear your Opening Statements and testimony and we appreciate you being here and your service and we will begin with general austin with general rodriquez to follow. Good morning says. Ranking member in half, distinguished members of the committee, i want to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today and i also want to thank you for the steadfast and strong support that you have shown and continued to show to our men and women in uniform are Army Civilians and their families. It is remarkable all that they have accomplished over the past nearly 12 years of war and it was made possible in no small part through your personal efforts and those of your colleagues. So my thanks to all of you. I would like to take a moment to introduce my wife, charlene. Ive been incredibly fortunate to have her as my partner for more than 30 years and she represents the many wonderful spouses who are the true Unsung Heroes of these conflicts. These conflicts. The supporters back home and in doing so enable our success. I think Steve Charlene for your love and support and your sacrifices and happy valentines day. [laughter] im glad to date today to be joined by my teammate general rodriquez. He too is accompanied by his bride jenny who like charlene has done a tremendous amount for our soldiers and families over the years. David nice served a number of times over the years to include combat. He is a gifted leader that the great soldier and im pleased he has been nominated to command u. S. Africa command. Ladies and gentlemen it has been a tremendous privilege for me to serve my country in uniform for nearly four decades. Im grateful to be able to continue to serve. I am honored, humbled to have been nominated by the president to serve as the commander of u. S. Central command and if confirmed ive pledged that i will apply all of my experiences, judgment to the best of my abilities to help preserve and advance our nations interest in that region of the world. General mattis has led Central Command master really over these two nephews. The impact of his leadership and the efforts of this team during this period of an tremendous if confirmed i intend to sustain and continue this important work the reality is that while much progress has been made in the centcom area of responsibility, quit there is still a great deal more to be done. Our National Interest and those of our allies and friends command vigilance as well as our continued commitment to do our part to help address the many challenges that exist to achieve and maintain security and stability throughout the middle east and south and central asia. Of course our foremost priority remains the Ongoing Mission in afghanistan. Soon we will be required to complete the transfer of responsibilities to the afghans and also transition our people and equipment out of the country just as we did in 2010 and 2011 when i served there just as we did in iraq in 2010 and 2011 when i served as the commander of u. S. Forces iraq. This represents a herculean undertaking and if confirmed i will do everything within my power to help set the broader conditions for success in this most important endeavor. Meanwhile, one must simply watch the evening news understands that the world we live in remains complex and extremely volatile. Much of the instability and associated challenges remain in the centcom area and what we have to be pragmatic we must always be prepared to respond to contingencies whenever and wherever they occur around the world. If we truly want to have an effective and Lasting Impact in the region, our friends and allies must be assured of our support and our potential adversaries must understand that there will be consequences for their actions. As this past decade of conflict has clearly demonstrated, success, success and our many endeavors would require effective application of the full continuum of our nations instruments of power and influence. The military as well as economic and diplomatic and having worked closely with senior military and civilian officials in the various u. S. Agencies and organizations, and also having worked closely with leaders from other countries and partner nations while serving in iraq as the commander of forces, i can personally attest to the effectiveness of these kinds of collaborations and if confirmed i will continue to cultivate my existing relationships while pursuing additional opportunities and partnerships that will surely prove beneficial. Senator kaine, senator inofe these are historic in difficult times. The many challenges that exist provide opportunities and certainly a shared desire people to seek peace and harmony and prosperity and even in those places that have never before experienced. I fully appreciate the work ahead will be great and the road will not be easy but if confirmed ive pledged to give all that i have towards ensuring our success and the success of our allies and friends around