General HANDY. I think that first off, VISA is the program that targets levels of activation-stage I, II and III. Under stage III, MSP is a subset.

A critical point of MSP is it is the entire ship, you are actually taking an entire ship. In VISA, you are taking capacity. And so stage I, for example, is a small percentage-around 15 percent, less than 15 percent

Mr. HUNTER. And thereby, a small disruption.

General HANDY. That is right.

Mr. HUNTER. And maybe no disruption.

General HANDY. That is right, capacity. The reason it is phased the way it is, it is designed to take advantage of the existing routes that the shipping companies have. And so we are buying capacity on a ship that is already heading our way, to put it sort of colloquially.

Mr. HUNTER. Yeah, I understand.

General HANDY. Stage II increases that capability. When we get to stage III, we are using a significant capacity of the ship, as well as if we rely on our MSP partners. Then we are taking the whole ship.

It gets down to the question of by stage III then, do we anticipate there might be some economic disadvantage to our VISA partners. That possibility certainly exists. We see it in the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) program on the air side.

Mr. HUNTER. Sure.

General HANDY. And so it is easy to create the scenario that says, by stage III of VISA, that you would have some economic impact on that particular company. And the other nuance therethere are a lot of metrics, but the other nuance is how many ships does a particular company have committed to stage III of VISA? If it is a small number, then the impact is somewhat mitigated. But if, in some of our partners, it is a significant number, then the impact is even greater.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Saxton.

Mr. SAXTON. General, I am bedeviled by details on this MSP. I have found that it is so complex and very complicated. And I usually catch on to things pretty quick. But I need to ask you one more detail.

Do you know the term "citizen trust" as it relates to the MSP program? And if you do, we can discuss it. If not, we will talk about this later.

I heard this term recently. And I was informed that the term citizen trust is involved here. And Rusty and I talked about it earlier today, I think. And it is related to documentation vessels and citizen trust vis-a-vis American ownership.

And I honestly do not understand the concept. But I think it may be pertinent to the subject that we are discussing in terms of the reliability and the access that we have to these vessels.

General HANDY. I have to tell you, Mr. Saxton, that citizen trust is a term that is entirely new in this discussion for me. We will ask the right questions and try to go to your same source-Rusty— and then we can

Mr. SAXTON. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. HUNTER. For the record, I want the record to reflect that when you brought up the citizen trust issue, Rusty reflected only a blank stare. [Laughter.]

General HANDY. Then I am not going to Rusty for my source then.

Mr. HUNTER. Anything else, Jim?

Mr. SAXTON. No.

Mr. HUNTER. Okay.

Mr. Taylor.

Mr. TAYLOR. General, I am curious if we were to have a mobilization that is, 75 percent of the force that was sent to Saudi Arabia last time-how long would it take you, given the medium-speed RO/ROS, given the prepositioned ships, realistically, how long would it take you to accomplish that goal?

General HANDY. Now you used the term "mobilization." You are talking about not in terms of mobilization of Guard and Reserve. You are talking about mobilizing the ships that we have at our

Mr. TAYLOR. I am talking about actually getting the equipment there. Obviously, the force is not as large as it was 12 years ago. But let's say that 75 percent of the force that was sent 12 years ago were to be sent now, how long? And one of the things we had last time was the luxury of time, a lot of time.

How long, given what you have now, would it take to get the force over there?

General HANDY. There are a number of estimates. And we have looked at all kinds of planning scenarios. There are a number of estimates. But let me give you a couple of real good points that have happened over the last 12 years.

A lot of lessons learned. You know, we certainly were fortunate to have six months to mobilize. And we have no doubt that they have learned the lessons in that part of the world, as well as the rest of the world.

Therefore, we we have done a considerable better job of prepositioning specific assets in the area of responsibility (AOR) far greater than we had back then. We have also moved an awful lot of force structure forward by virtue of Shield and Storm and Operation Northern Watch, Southern Watch, the other endeavors going on in that part of the world.

There is a considerably more force structure and resources forward today than we found at the start of Desert Shield. There is no question about it.

As we have built up in Afghanistan, we have also moved considerable force structure forward, far greater than we would have seen from the cold start of Desert Shield. All that puts us in a position that mitigates that somewhat cold start, "now we have got to go do it" scenario that we all worry about. So if there is any positive news, it is that, from a mobilization or deployment process perspective, we at TRANSCOM have seen a lot of that force structure move forward and a lot less of it left to have to move.

Having said all of that, some of the estimates for the total force size that we might use in any engagement in the world suggests that it could be anywhere from 60 to 90 days to move the force that we need. Now that is not a force that is necessarily comparable to the size of the Shield or Storm force. And so the roughly 75 percent

number, it is-I do not have any metrics that measure what we are doing today against what we moved back then.

I will tell you that we moved an awful lot that did not need to be moved. And so that inflates the size of what people saw in Shield and Storm. This time, we are looking at all of those scenario plans and are prepared to move exactly what we need in far less time than we would have done back then.

And so, that 60 to 90 day metric is still a pretty good walking around bumper sticker for what has to be done. And I will tell you one other thing is that does not necessarily determine when you start the conflict.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think the key element last time was the-I was absolutely amazed at the capability of some of the ports I saw in Saudi Arabia. I think I am probably going to say it wrong, but I believe Dammam had about 24 container cranes. It was just mindboggling, compared to some of the ports I have seen stateside.

Are you getting the full cooperation of the Saudis for the use of those ports?

General HANDY. We have not seen any reason to doubt the support or use of key seaports in the area that we operate today. We use those ports routinely. It is certainly not to the degree that a significant surge might require, as we see it today.

But we have no constraints on it from a port perspective. And I would certainly anticipate that only time will tell what any of the governments might decide in the future if we find ourselves engaged over there. It would be impossible for me to predict how they might react.

But today, we have great support from all the countries around the entire peninsula, which certainly exceeds just the Saudis.

Mr. TAYLOR. What level of confidence do you have that these foreign-owned ships that are part of the American prepositioned fleet, if the Iraqis started launching scuds at Saudi Arabian port cities and if those scuds were somehow able to carry the chemical or biological weapons, how confident are you that companies that are owned by other than Americans would send their ships there?

General HANDY. One thing to certainly we keep in mind, both air and sea, is the scenario of a chemical or slimed port, airport or seaport, as we talk about. Both those scenarios, for a short period of time, depend upon how bad it is.

We do not continue operating in that port. We move to alternate ports, both air and sea, and use other methods for reception and onward movement of those same supplies. Granted, we are talking about a finite part of the world, which leads to some problems in that if we all focus just on the Saudi Peninsula, you will draw some conclusions that you might find you realize are not very useful anywhere else in the world.

But in that scenario, we tend not to-we choose not to go into those ports until we have been able to clean them up and operate there. And so then the subordinate question becomes: would you send anybody in there? And the answer, I have said, is we move to an alternate port.

So we somewhat mitigate the question you are asking. But we face both those questions for all the methods of transportation we have.

It would be theoretical for me to try to decide whether or not someone-it gets back to the same question of the chairman. Would they support us or not? And in fact, it may have nothing to do with the status of a chemical attack or some other type of biological attack at a port. It might be that someone just chooses not to go support us in that war.

But for the scenario you describe, we move to alternate ports, is the solution. And we have been supported, both air and sea, in the case of the scuds flying even back in Shield and Storm. We did not know what they contained at the time. We still were able to support those initiatives, using the same partners that we have today. Mr. TAYLOR. General, my last question is I believe the ratio of thing delivered by sea versus things delivered by air was about 90 to 10.

General HANDY. Absolutely.

Mr. TAYLOR. Is that still what you plan on it being? Even with the addition of the C-17s? I would imagine any future conflict would still be with the great preponderance of goods delivered are still going to be delivered by sea?

General HANDY. Again, I would have to start out and say it is certainly scenario-dependent. But we have seen in the last year that operations in Afghanistan have been virtually, until very recently, totally air centric. And so we have relied on C-17s, C-130s and C-5s to get the vast majority of equipment, men, supplies, everything into Afghanistan.

It is only recently that we were able to-and certainly by the strong help of our sealift partners, have access to Pakistani portsport-and move things over land into Afghanistan. As we look at generically, over time, aside from Afghanistan, the figures that you quote are about right. Invariably, we end up trying to get the biggest bang for the buck on the mode of transportation that gets stuff there.

And it is sealift. Sealift is by far the greatest contributor to our force projection capability over the long term.

That is short, surgical, very quick high demand stuff goes by air. And that ends up being 10 to 15 percent of what is moved. Sealift does it. An average FSS or LMSR will handle 250 C-5 equivalents. So that gives you a walk around number that tells you it is no wonder we rely on sealift.

We just do not have the numbers of airlift at our hands today. But regardless, scenario-dependent, sealift is the main method of

movement.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank the gentleman.

Ms. Davis? All set?

Okay, Mr. Saxton? Okay.

Well, general, thank you. And we obviously have a lot of work to do. And we look forward to work with you.

There is actually one last thing that I think is kind of the message from us to you. But I think you already know it. And that is that it is going to take your weight, the weight and the force and effect of DOD arguing and working strenuously with the Administration, those that do not think that we should put as much of a

priority on this lift as you know that we have to have in order to get the dollars to make it work in the relevant program.

You know, the Administration is not a great friend of some of these programs. And unless you weigh in on this battle, it is going to be very difficult to increase the dollar amounts that we know need to be forthcoming-for example, for the MSP program. And we are going to have to go far above that $100 million cap.

You are aware of that, I am sure?

General HANDY. Absolutely.

Mr. HUNTER. I hope you weigh in on this argument. Do you plan to do that?

General HANDY. Sir, we have not been bashful about our views on MSP reauthorization at all. We have engaged every level that we possibly can, a la junkyard dog style, to be very blunt about it, to make sure that people understand clearly, throughout all levels of government and within the DOD, that MSP reauthorization is a critical element of the nation's defensive capability for the reasons that Mr. Taylor points out.

Mr. HUNTER. Could you weigh in with the White House on this? The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)? Seriously, I think that you need to get into this battle. And you need to educate the folks in OMB, Director Daniels and his deputies, as to the importance of this program. Because this program is going to be given short shrift by OMB, in the absence of some pretty strong expert advice.

I think you folks have a great deal of credibility when you go over there and talk to those folks. If you do not talk to them, the program is going to be written off as a creature of subsidies that is supposed to be identified as an enemy by a lot of folks in the Administration and dealt with accordingly. I think you need to weigh into this fight with OMB specifically.

Have you talked to them about

General HANDY. I assure you that-let me lay the marker down for you. I assure you that I personally will communicate directly with Mr. Daniels. We have a good relationship.

I will press the case at his level, from my level—

Mr. HUNTER. Great.

General HANDY [continuing]. Very directly so that he is aware of the issues firsthand and not through any of our staffs.

Mr. HUNTER. Great. I think we need to do that. And we will try to work hand in hand with you on those efforts.

So I thank you for being with us today. And I want to thank the members for their excellent questions. And the panel is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 10:15 a.m., the panel was adjourned.]