General MYERS. I think it is having one person in charge of it. Right now in the Department of Defense you have several people in charge of this. I think putting one person that says, that is my job, to protect the American people.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You are answering my question by saying that person is going to be in charge. Are they or are they not? The question here is the practical realities involved. Is the Department of Defense going to participate in some way other than consulting? Is the Northern Command supposed to consult with the 50 States? We are already on our way to doing this. The President has already said, or is in the process or has vetoed the supplemental bill that we put forward to try and fund some of these things. Now you have got to make a decision. I don't think you need this Northern Command. I would like to see the $300 million go into financing what Representative Taylor was talking about, so responders can do this under the National Guard all across the country. How is the setup of the Northern Command supposed to aid and assist in one iota what Representative Taylor was putting forward?

General MYERS. I will go back to my original comments, Congressman. Right now in the Department of Defense there are several entities that are responsible for whatever it is the Department of Defense is going to be asked to do to respond to either, as I said, natural disasters or chemical or biological or nuclear attack. What we want to do-and we have one entity, then, that is responsible for their defense.

What we want to do is put that responsibility under one command. We think the situation has changed sufficiently; the strategic environment has changed sufficiently not just since September 11th. This is an issue that goes back, as you remember, Congressman

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Are the local forces to be in charge, General, or is the Northern Command supposed to be in charge of I guess, national civil defense?

General MYERS. As I said, the roles of the Department of Defense will not change; in most cases will be in support of lead Federal agencies or other civil agencies, be they State or even more local. Mr. ABERCROMBIE. So the Department of Defense does not intend to fund in any way, shape, or form all of these requirements at the local level.

General MYERS. I don't know what requirements you are talking about.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. You know, the requirements we are talking about is to be able to respond to a terrorist attack, which you contend has to have a Northern Command in order to respond. General MYERS. The Department is certainly going to fund the parts of that that are the responsibility of the Department and

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. It will fund the Northern Command so that you will have this gigantic new bureaucracy set up initially, drawing on apparently overstaffed other commands, because that is where you are getting the people from. So all the commands now must be overstaffed, because you are able to bring in apparently hundreds of people

General MYERS. Congressman, when we stand this new Northern Command up-I may have to correct this record-my recollection

is it will be the smallest command that we have in the United States Armed Forces. It will be the smallest. As you said, we are not adding people to this. We are taking people from other staff reductions that have been mandated by Congress. By the way, that 15 percent cut-we are going to take the manpower from those positions and put some of those, not all of them, of course, but some of those in this new Northern Command headquarters.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. What are they going to do?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Let me leap in here, if I may, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. By all means, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary RUMSFELD. The Unified Command Plan allocates responsibilities throughout the world. Heretofore, we have not had certain portions of the world covered by a unified or specified commander. They included Russia, the United States, Mexico, Canada, and some other portions, water portions of the world. As we proceeded, we decided that given the changes in the world, we should allocate every portion of the globe to a commander and a command. The cost for this command is going to come out of other commands. And the idea that it is going to be $300 million and a bunch of people milling around wasting money is just not going to be the case.

Second

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Despite the fact-excuse me, Mr. Secretarythat is the way it is proposed right now in the Joint Forces Command budget.

Secretary RUMSFELD. What I said is correct. The change the role of the Department of Defense will not change with respect to the United States of America in this important sense: We are not asking that posse comitatus be changed. We are not suggesting that we go into a role where we are the principal, and other states-state, federal, local agencies support us. We would be functioning as we have in the past, in a supporting role.

The general was exactly correct when he said that at the present time we have got NORAD that functions in a supporting role to some extent. We have got DOMS. The Army manages a whole host of things. We had 5- or 6,000 people at Salt Lake City for the Olympics.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. All of which exists, Mr. Secretary, without a Northern Command, and apparently functioned very well; unless you are saying they have not done a good job to this point.

See, what I am trying to say, Mr. Secretary, is actually we are doing a good job. I can tell you, Hawaii is only one part of the 50State picture which is doing an excellent job of preparing for this, and they have excellent relationships, like with General Smith and the 25th out in Hawaii. The Department of Defense is very well represented and the coordination is already there. What they need is support. And they don't need another command to come in on top of this.

And the question has yet to be answered whether this Northern Command will in any way, shape, or form support what is already being accomplished in all 50 states. How is it to support it other than by standing there nodding its head?

Secretary RUMSFELD. I guess I don't know what you mean when you say how it will support all the things that are already being done so well by the 50 states. Any state can do what it wants. Any city can do what it wants. They can have their fire department. They can have chemical-biological outfits.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. How are they going to pay for what is required of them under the kinds of scenarios that are outlined, which are likely to occur if we go to war with Iraq?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Who pays is a function of what the Congress and the executive branch decide whether it is a federal responsibility. If so, which department or agency, which state or local governments have to do what? That is a mix the Congress and the executive branch sorts out every year as they make their decisions. Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Fair enough. Thank you.

Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Thornberry.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Secretary, General, thank you for being here. Let me also thank you for what I consider a very clear and persuasive statement that effectively deals with a lot of the questions that are on our minds, as well as issues that are swirling around there.

As you were talking I was reminded of a story line in a television program, I don't even know if it is still on, but the main character would get a newspaper delivered to his door at the beginning of the program, and in that newspaper it would have a story of a tragedy which was going to occur two or three days later, and the character's job was to try to prevent the tragedy before the newspaper became reality. It seems to me that is kind of where we are. We know the end of the story; we note the tragedy if we do nothing. The question is how, when, we prevent it from occurring.

I guess the primary question on my mind-and General Meyers, I may direct this to you-is if the President decides to take military action in Iraq, are we ready? And, in particular, are we ready to have forces in an environment where weapons of mass destruction may be used against them? Maybe not initially, but eventually if things all fall apart, as we think they will for that regime, desperate people use desperate measures. I am concerned we have not given adequate consideration to our troops dealing in that environment for the last decade-not under your watch-but I guess I would ask you, are we ready to deal with that environment and to do what the President orders you to do?

General MYERS. Congressman Thornberry, let me first say that the short answer is "Yes". The longer answer is over the past decade, and I would admit earlier in the decade, our capability to deal with weapons of mass destruction for our soldiers and sailors and airmen, marines, coast guardmen was uneven. But, in the last part of this decade, for the majority of it, we have made very good improvements in terms of sensors that detect attacks, in terms of being able to net those sensors together to provide area warning for collective protection, and in the kind of protective suits that our troops wear. So, we have made improvements in all those areas.

And without getting into much more detail, obviously our forces are prepared for that, they train for that, and would be ready to deal with that type of environment.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me ask you one other question which goes to the issue of can we do both-or the existing war on terrorism as well as this other aspect of the war on terrorism? There are reports today that the command for the existing war on terrorism may be shifting to the special operations folks. Are you able to comment on that? Is that happening and, if so, why; and what you hope to gain by it?

Secretary RUMSFELD. You are addressing that to me?

Mr. THORNBERRY. Whoever wants to.

General MYERS. I think what is being reflected in the paperand I haven't read the article, I read the headline and maybe a couple of paragraphs-is the fact that, and the realization, of course, that this is a global war on terrorism. And the combatant commanders, as they are organized today, most of them, the theater ones, are organized on a regional basis. We have some that cross regional countries: U.S. Space Command, U.S. Transportation Command, the current Strategic Command and the new Strategic Command that is proposed to stand up or that will stand up here on 1 October.

Another one of those commands that can look globally is Special Operations Command. It has a global view of things. And for some aspects of the war on terrorism it is useful to have that global view. And without getting to the operational details of that, that is I think what we are seeing. I don't know that this reflects a great change in our strategy. And there are some elements-and again I haven't read the article but there are some elements that have not been finally decided yet that the Secretary and the rest of the National Security Council will have to decide on. But what we are trying to do is ensure that in a global war we have the kind of view-in some cases a global view is required, because these networks-I mean they don't respect any boundaries, and as we know, they are in over 60 countries-is actually a network, and it has to be addressed kind of in this total.

Secretary RUMSFELD. I skimmed the article and it is fairly typical of articles that are reporting on something that hasn't happened. It wants to be first, not right. And my guess is that when it is sorted through by the Chairman and others and by me and the National Security Council, it will look somewhat different than that article characterized it. But the general is obviously quite right; you have got global problems, and having a global view of that is useful in some instances. But the idea that there is going to be a massive change, and the Special Operations people will in every instance be the supportive CINC or combatant commander is just not the case. They are going to be both, one would think, sometimes supporting and sometimes supportive.

Mr. HEFLEY [presiding]. Mr. Meehan.

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and General, for your testimony. Appreciate it very, very much.

Mr. Secretary, can you tell me what you envision a weapons inspection, or perhaps I should call it a disarmament regime in Iraq, how would you envision that? I understand, and agree totally with the notion, that weapons inspections are really not the goal. The goal really is disarmament. How would you envision that? And

also, should that vision of disarmament be included in a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for such disarmament?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Those are questions that the President and the Secretary of State have been addressing in the United Nations over the past period and are ongoing, and I have really no idea how what will evolve. There have been a whole series of thoughts about what the U.N. might do, and I know that Secretary Powell is discussing those with people up there. So I guess I am really not in a position to know what either the U.N. will ultimately decide or what the President will ultimately decide with respect to what it looks like the U.N. might be marching toward.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Secretary, could we accomplish disarmament, in your opinion, short of declaring war on Iraq? In other words, is there is there a disarmament strategy that could be accomplished, short of declaring war?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, sure. Saddam Hussein could decide that his future is limited and he would like to leave, and you would have a regime that decided it wished to cooperate with the United Nations with respect to those resolutions. And if you have a regime that does in fact want to disarm, which is what the stipulation is, what the U.N. has said, then obviously, you could have inspectors participate and assist in that project and an international coalition to do it.

Another way to do it would be to persuade enough people in Iraq that the world would be a lot better world if that regime weren't there and they decided to change the regime. That is another option.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Secretary, how would we know we had a regime that really wants to disarm?

Secretary RUMSFELD. Well, you would have to have enough people from the international community physically in there, disarming them, to know. And you probably wouldn't know for a period of time. But any idea that a regime like the current one would be sufficiently intrusive, which is much less intrusive than the one that existed previously, the one that is currently up there on the drawing boards. I mean you are not going to get people to defect and give you information about where these capabilities are if their families are in Iraq, for example. How could you have a person who has a family in Iraq and relatives walk up to U.N. inspectors, with this regime sitting on top of that power, and say, "Hey, fellows, here is where you ought to go look? I know this tunnel or that area is an area of opportunity for you." They are going to be killed. Their families are going to get killed. It is a tough crowd.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Secretary, to follow up on my friend from Texas, the comments that he made relative to the war against terrorism and the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And let me first of all congratulate you and the general on the tremendous job that our men and women in uniform have done in Afghanistan. I had an opportunity to travel there to see firsthand the outstanding job that they have done, getting rid of the Taliban and putting al Qaeda on the run. At the same time, I am troubled about reports of various terrorist cells that are still active in that country.

Indeed, earlier this month, the attempted assassination of President Karzai-terrorists have already killed two ministers. It seems