 Let me call the hearing to order. Good morning, and the committee meets today to receive testimony from General Michael Erika Carrilla, Commander of the United States Central Command, and General Michael Langley, Commander of the United States Africa Command. Thank you both for your service, and I am grateful to the men and women serving under your commands. While CENTCOM has many responsibilities, the top priority remains deterring the arraigning regime's destructive and destabilizing activities without undue provocation. This is a complicated and urgent mission. Iran is conducting malign activities across multiple arenas, including continuing its own nuclear development, launching drone and missile attacks on neighboring states, supporting proxy groups, violently repressing its own citizens, and deepening a military alliance with Russia, and these threats are likely to increase. In an unexpected turn, last week, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they have restored diplomatic relations in a deal broken by China. Press reports indicate the key parts of the agreement were committed by Iran to stop further attacks on Saudi Arabia and cut back on support for Iranian-linked groups that have targeted the kingdom. The two nations plan to reopen their embassies and reimplement a security pact to cooperate on several issues to benefit their mutual national security. As the New York Times stated, the deal is, quote, a shift that left had spinning in capitals around the globe. General Karela, given the unpredictability of the Iranian regime, I would like your thoughts on how best to respond to its malign behavior in the region, taking into account the new dynamic of their restoration of relations with Saudi Arabia. What opportunities do we have to collaborate with our allies and partners to counter drone and missile attacks, and how can we address Iran's closer alignment with Russia and China? Turning to Afghanistan, although we have transitioned to all forces out of the country, the Biden administration has maintained its commitment to ensuring that Afghanistan cannot be used to the base for ISIS al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups to conduct attacks against the United States or its allies. I would ask for an update on our posture and capabilities and whether additional regional agreements have been reached to ensure we maintain a robust regional counterterrorism architecture to address the threats from these groups. General Langley, AFRACOM's area of responsibility is becoming increasingly important in the United States' strategic competition with China and Russia. Many African countries have longstanding military ties with Russia and even deeper economic ties with China. As the United States manages relationships across the continent, we must be mindful of these preexisting ties and avoid taking a with us or against us approach, or we will risk alienating the very nations we seek to engage with. I would welcome your thoughts on how best to calibrate the U.S. approach to strategic competition in light of these factors. The security situation in East Africa remains dangerously unstable. Since last fall, roughly 500 U.S. service members have been redeployed to Somalia to support the Somali government's fight against al-Shabaab, one of al-Qaeda's most powerful global affiliates. Our renewed presence is an effort to stabilize the Somali government and train their forces after our departure in December 2020 allowed al-Shabaab to grow in size and strength. I hope you will share your views on the status of our engagement with Somali partners and the whole of government's strategy to ensure battlefield successes can be effectively translated into longer-term gains. Finally, the security situation in West Africa also continues to decline. Violent extremist operations have expanded across the Sahil, including pushing down into the littoral states and the Gulf of Guinea. At the same time, Russia and China are seeking to increase their engagement in this region. The Wagner Group continues to seek opportunities to exploit instability in the region, and China has made no secret about exploring basing operations on the West African coast. Both countries are also investing in natural resource extraction across the continent, often at great expense to the long-term health of African partners, ecosystems, and economies. Given these challenges, General Lange, I would like to hear how AFRICOM is seeking to engage with partners in Africa to expose these harmful and manipulative practices. I want to thank you again and look forward to your testimonies. As a reminder for my colleagues, there will be a closed session immediately following this hearing in Room SVC 217. Now let me turn to the ranking member, Senator Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here. In recent weeks, the Committee has heard from top military and civilian leaders about these significant security challenges facing our nation. Our top adversaries, including China and Russia, are testing American resolve, not just in East Asia and Europe, but also across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. In the Middle East, Russia and Iran grow closer. Recently, Iran agreed to purchase 24 advanced Su-35 fighter jets. Today, Russia is deploying Iranian drones to kill Ukrainians. Meanwhile, China works to displace the United States as the partner of choice for many of our longtime friends in the region. The Chinese Communist Party offers more streamlined arms sales and Huawei 5G networks that would undermine our operational security in the Middle East. In Africa, the Russian mercenary group Wagner does Putin's bidding. They sow instability across the continent by supporting coups and spreading lies. They use exploitative practices to get critical minerals. They pressure African governments to move away from the West. At the same time, China is using economic coercion to gain leverage and expand its military footprint and basing, something former AFRICOM commander General Stephen Townsend called his number one global power competition concern. We are right to focus on the growing Russia and Chinese threats, but we cannot take our eyes off the other security challenges coming from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. In Afghanistan, the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops nearly two years ago left a security vacuum. The Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS have filled. The Biden administration assured us that the Department of Defense would conduct counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, even without a limited number of U.S. troops on the ground, but the United States has only conducted one strike in more than a year. The withdrawal from Afghanistan and bold in ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates around the world, not just in Afghanistan. The terrorist threat is real and growing. As a result of the Biden administration's policies, the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, presents an increasing threat to our personnel and partners in the region. President Biden should have focused on countering Iran's missile program and its support for terrorism. Instead, he focused on returning to the flawed 2015 nuclear agreement. In the process, this administration has given them practically everything and got absolutely nothing. According to the Department of Defense, Iran could now produce enough fissile material for a bomb within just 12 days, and its proxies are on the march nationwide. These facts make it clear continued significant real growth in the defense budget top line above inflation remains essential to our national security. I will be looking closely to ensure our security assistance funding remains strong in these theaters and that our counterterrorism and contingency forces are fully resourced. This includes additional force protection measures in both theaters, particularly to protect against more complex Iranian-backed attacks. I would also note that the budget zeroing out of LPD amphibious ships is the exact wrong move when we did not even have the capacity to send one amphibious ship to Turkey to help with their earthquake. Finally, I'm interested in how the Office of Strategic Capital might be leveraged to push back against the CCP in these theaters and elsewhere as they seek to buy ports and raw materials across the globe. I thank our witnesses and look forward to their testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Worker. General Corolla, please. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Worker, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. I'm joined today by Command Master Chief Derek Walters, the Command's senior enlisted leader of U.S. Central Command. On behalf of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and Guardians who serve this command, the Central Region and this nation every day, thank you for allowing me to testify regarding the posture of U.S. Central Command alongside my Ranger Buddy, Mike Langley. CENTCOM serves as the security integrator for an area of responsibility that encompasses 21 nations, almost 600 million people, and serves as the strategic nexus of the world's most important quarters of trade. I'm now 11 months into command. In that time, I have made 14 trips to the region, and those visits have allowed me first-person insights that have informed my strategic approach, which is best summarized in three words, people, partners, and innovation. People are our greatest asset and our most critical resource. Our service members and civilians in the United States and across the region are our nation's best. I know this body keeps them top of mind that right now, in the CENTCOM region, thousands of troops are in harm's way. Our people, who are closest to the problem, understand the opportunities available to solve the region's most complex challenges. That is why we rely so heavily on our partners. Our partners are the nation's comparative advantage against competitors like China and Russia. Across CENTCOM, we cultivate deep, abiding partnerships that can serve as a hedge against the threats in the region while deterring Iran from its most destructive behavior. We have the kind of relationships that elicit candid, sometimes tough, conversations that result in solutions. These kind of relationships make us the partner of choice in the region, and a critical component of that partnership is innovation. Innovation of thought, innovation of process, innovation of concept, and technology extends the value of the partnerships. Innovation allows us to move faster, operate more efficiently, and increase progress across all operational efforts. This is more important now than any time in our history. Forty years ago, the Department of Defense established CENTCOM to counter the malign influence of a revolutionary regime that seized power in Tehran and to compete with the great power in the region, the Soviet Union. The organization's charter directed by this body was a to direct and enable military operations and activities with allies and partners to increase regional stability in support of enduring U.S. interests. That mission remains essentially unchanged to this day. Iran still remains the focus. We now battle file and extremist groups who threaten the region and beyond. The Soviet Union has been replaced with China and Russia as strategic competitors. With these challenges, the CENTCOM region holds the greatest risk of derailing the national defense strategy with a flashpoint international incident that may demand a response using unplanned resources and attention. So today, CENTCOM priorities are to deter Iran, counter violence, extremist organizations, and compete strategically with China and Russia. Four decades after CENTCOM's formation, Iran remains the primary destabilizing element in the region. We've seen rapid advances in Iranian military capability over time. The Iran of 2023 is not the Iran of 1983. In fact, today, Iran is exponentially more capable than they were just five years ago. Today, Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, many capable of striking anywhere in the Middle East. Iran also maintains the largest and most capable UAV force in the region. The regime continues to enrich and stockpile uranium far above what is needed for commercial use, and Tehran can enrich uranium far faster than it could even two years ago. On Iran with a nuclear weapon would change the Middle East overnight and forever. Iran's vast and deeply resourced proxy forces spread instability throughout the region and threaten our regional partners. As Iran continues to destabilize the region, we continue to fight against violent extremist organizations. In Syria, we put pressure on ISIS alongside our Syrian Democratic Forces partners. In Iraq, we advise, assist, and enable the Iraqi security forces in their fight against ISIS. While ISIS is significantly graded in Iraq and Syria, the group maintains the capability to conduct operations within the region and has the desire to strike outside of it. Our progress in Iraq and Syria contrasts with the security situation in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the Taliban's hold on security is maintained through ideology, continued humanitarian aid, and the persistent abuse of human rights to dissuade unrest. Extremist groups see opportunity and ISIS course on grows in bolden, seeking to expand its ranks and inspire, enable, and direct attacks in the region and beyond with the ultimate goal to strike on the American homeland. Amidst these challenges, strategic competition is deeply manifest in the region. The People's Republic of China has chosen to compete in the region. The PRC is aggressively expanding its diplomatic, informational, military, and economic outreach across the region. China, dependent upon the region for half of its imported oil, is also moving beyond energy-based investments to encompass physical and telecommunication infrastructure that advances its Belt and Road initiatives. Over half the oil and more than a third of all the natural gas imported by China is supplied by CENTCOM countries. Nineteen of twenty-one CENTCOM countries have signed a Belt and Road initiative with China. We are in a race to integrate with our partners before China can fully penetrate the region. Russia looks to expand its influence in Syria, seeking permanent basing there and undermining our efforts towards stability and security in the region. The U.S. Central Command juts up against Russia with a border six and a half times longer than their U.S. and border with NATO. Putin seeks to take advantage of this proximity with a foothold of influence in the Central Asian States, leveraging historical relations and a perceived decline in U.S. engagement to challenge our influence in that critical part of the world. With all these challenges and opportunities, the CENTCOM region looks to the United States for assurance as our commitment. For CENTCOM, that commitment is unwavering. In closing, let me thank you for your support to our service members. I would also like to thank the Soldiers, Sailor, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Guardians who serve in sacrifice in CENTCOM and all those who have done so for the last 40 years. It is the greatest honor of my lifetime to be their commander. Thank you. Thank you, General Carilla. General Langley, please. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Wicker, Distinguished Committee members, it's honored to appear before you today to testify on the State of Affairs of the United States Africa Command. I'm proud to testify along my good friend General Eric Carilla, the commander of the United States Central Command. Now I assumed command last August and since then I embarked upon a campaign of learning over the last seven months to inform our discussion here today. I undertook this campaign of learning to fulfill my commitment to this Congress to complete a holistic assessment upon confirmation. I made that assessment and I will continue it throughout my tenure of command. Up front I want to make one thing crystal clear. The team of service members and civilians at AFRICOM is a talented and dedicated body. I am honored to serve among them. I'm joined here today by my State Department Foreign Policy Advisor Mr. Phil Nelson who represents the exceptionally skilled diplomatic team embedded in our headquarters. Our entire team is laser focused on implementing our whole of government approach with our partners from the Department of State, USAID, the Intelligence Community and other US government organizations. We campaign with our allies and partners to advance mutual interest and to promote stability and prosperity on the African continent. You should be proud of their efforts. I certainly am. Now Africa is a vast and dynamic continent of sovereign nations. Collectively and individually these nations are increasingly important players on the global stage. As such, AFRICOM's contribution to American security must be viewed through a global lens. Threats once contained on the continent are transforming into worldwide threats. Terrorism, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and mass migration shatter African lives. They sow the seeds of violent extremists and Russian exploitation. The Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine has aggravated the food and security crisis in Africa by blocking vital food shipments to the same nations that feel the deepest impact of climate change. Russia's Wagner mercenaries turned chaos into cash. It destabilizes entire regions across Africa and cuts at the American interests worldwide. The expansion of the Middle East based violent extremist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, including the biggest franchise, Al Shabaab threatens American lives. Solutions to these colossal problems must be a shared burden. African nations need to be at the helm of a concerted international effort to produce sustainable results, sustainable outcomes. Assisting African nations to achieving their goals while advancing American interests can only be accomplished through a synchronized whole of government approach, a whole of government strategy. We call it the 3D approach, which is a toolkit of diplomacy, development and defense. But one tool does not succeed without the whole kit. So I will advocate for my State Department and USAID partners to receive the resources they need to succeed. Now Africa faces many other challenges. However, put in Africa needs at the forefront of our campaign reinforced by multilateral and whole government engagement will help Africa calm and our partners work towards a sustainable peace, stability and prosperity. Chairman Reed, ranking member Awaker and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for having me here today. I'll look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, General Langley. General Corolla, you've rightly emphasized the critical importance of leveraging allies and partners to counter threats from Iran and Iranian linked groups. And does our posture change with respect to the new agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran? And how will it impact our allies in the region or across the globe? Thank you, Chairman. Appreciate that question. So this agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the culmination really of three years of discussions that have been going on, but just recently by China. And I would say an agreement is not implementation. While these discussions were going on in the last 90 days, we have interdicted five major weapons shipments coming from Iran to Yemen, which those weapons are then used against Saudi Arabia. One of those shipments included components and national navigation systems for short-range ballistic missiles. So again, I think the implementation is a completely different matter on this. Well, China be held accountable by the Saudis if they cannot limit the attacks against the kingdom and weapon transfers, as you described. So I think that remains to be seen, Chairman. What is concerning on this is China's penetration into the region. In the national instruments of power, they already have their economic in the region, their information, their military with an increase in sales of at least 80% over the last 10 years in terms of their foreign military sales. And now we're seeing for the first time really their diplomatic. Thank you. General Langley, you mentioned the presence of the Wagner Group in Africa and their behavior, which is contrary to any decency at all in the world. How are we trying through the information domain to expose them and what they're doing and also obviously expose the Russian government that's supporting them and sponsoring them? Chairman, from the mill to mill perspective in engagement with our partners, we do use information operations to affect and address the negative sentiment in their message to destabilize the countries in which they have messed themselves and especially in Mali. It's been very much present that they have destabilizing activities, but it's been reinforced by the UN force there, illuminating and amplifying some of the atrocities that the Wagner Group is guilty of. So therein lies the whole of government approach. Since I don't have mill to mill because of sanctions at this point, but we still have a whole government approach that can take that mantle and still be able to do information operations. Thank you. General Corolla, we spoke about China. We also speak about Russia. The aid that Iran is giving to Russia now in the Ukraine fight and what would presumably be the reciprocation by the Russians in many different ways is another factor that has recently emerged. What's your response to that? What advice can you give to us? And how can we limit the impact of this arrangement? Chairman, thank you for the question on that. So it is very concerning any time we see adversaries working together. We do know that they have shipped hundreds of their advanced unmanned aerial vehicles to the Ukraine. These are the same ones that have hit our service members in both Iraq and in Syria. They are improving upon them based on what they are learning inside the Ukraine. I am concerned then with the support that Russia can give back. As you know, the Iran State media announced the approval of don't know the exact number yet will come out of the agreement, but the SU-35 with a fourth Gen Plus fighter, which has a lot of our partners in the region concerned as well. And what types of steps are you contemplating or we should be contemplating to try to disrupt or diminish this threat that's emerging? Chairman, I think this will take a whole of government approach to include all of the instruments of national power on this to be able to prevent that. And with respect to the Iranian nuclear program, they've made significant steps since the termination of JCPOA. Is there any indication that either Russia or China would encourage them, sponsor them, or on the other hand, discourage them from moving further? And Chairman, I'll be able to talk about that in the classified session immediately following this. Thank you very much, General. Thank you both. And again, thank the men and women. And glad to see the Master Chief here. So you're well supervised, General Karilla. Thank you very much, Senator Worker, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let's stay with Iran, General Karilla. You can tell us in a non-classified setting, can't you, whether the threat from Iran has grown stronger or less or in the past two years? Iran's malign behavior has increased in the last two years, Senator. Okay. And what do you need from the Congress of the United States to meet this threat? So as we look at the threat mainly that we face is the ballistic missile and their UAV threat in the region. One of the ways that we are countering that is through regional agreements and a regional architecture. As we go towards the integrated air and missile defense in the region, we are making progress on that. So what we need is to continue to resourcing and I want to make sure that I have a sufficient and sustainable posture in CENTCOM so that I can accomplish the missions I have been given to make sure I can mitigate the risk. If there's one area in the world, I believe that can derail the national defense strategy is the currently the CENTCOM AOR. So the resources to help you facilitate these agreements? It is the resources. Okay. Well, help us be specific about that now. After the disastrous Afghan withdrawal, departments assured this committee that countering terrorist groups will still be possible over the horizon. We've only done that once. Is that correct? Senator, we actually all kinetic all finishes in the methodology of fine fix and finish on counterterrorism targets are not kinetic. There is two that are non kinetic that we disrupted and I'll talk about that in a class classified studying that involved over five combatant commanders to disrupt those finishes. Okay, so two non kinetic and one kinetic. You think you think we should be doing more of those? It is difficult right now as I said in my confirmation hearing it is difficult but not impossible. One of the things that we are trying to do is increase our intelligence surveillance reconnaissance over that with putting investment into long duration high altitude. Alternative airborne ISR that can go up for days and weeks because right now I'm spending 80% of my time transiting to the region to be able to collect over the top. Okay. General Langley, tell us what China is doing. How far along are they on their base in Djibouti and where do you think they might likely be making their strongest effort for a military base in West Africa? Thank you, Senator for that question. China's aspirations, especially at Dorley, they're coming across a thinly bailed front that is all for goodwill. But we know that they're establishing, especially with the destroyer that visited Dorley last March shows that they have indications that tell us tell us where that is. Dorley is in Djibouti. I'm sorry. So we can remember their aspirations are pretty clear. That's a strategic line of communication, especially as it embarks upon the Suez Canal and the Bob Mandib, if they wanted to fully militarize that. Dorley is of concern. They're saying it's all about goodwill, but I think the other. They do have other aspirations and in close session, ranking member, I know that I can be able to lay that out where in West Africa is their next military base aspiration. Okay, but tell us then if you can, and I think you can, how that would affect our security as Americans and particularly in North America, if the Chinese are able to establish a base in West Africa, it would put us, they would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland. It would shorten their if they build any capacity on the West Coast geostrategically will put them at an advantage. Right now we have the decisive advantage. They cannot. We can't let them have a base on the West Coast because of a change of dynamics. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Werker. Senator Shaheen, please. Thank you, General Carilla and Langley. Thank you both for being here this morning. General Carilla, I want to pick up on a conversation that we had when we met a couple of weeks ago and I appreciated that opportunity. But one of the things we talked about was the situation and the ISIS detainee camps in Syria. And can you give us an update on what the current conditions are and what you're doing in SENTCOM to help destabilize what's happening there and what you need from us in order for us to be more successful there. Thanks, Senator. So I've been to Syria six times. I was in Syria last week. So as we look at ISIS in Syria, it is three categories. The first category is ISIS at large. That is the ones that we're fighting right now with our Syrian Democratic partners. And I think we have contained ISIS, but the ideology is uncontained and unconstrained. The second category is what you might refer to as the ISIS in detention. I refer to them as an ISIS army in detention. There are over 10,000 ISIS detainees spread across 26 different prisons in northeast Syria. I went inside the Hasakah prison last Thursday. That is the same prison that January of 22 last year. There was 4,400 ISIS detainees in there. They broke out. Over 1,000 made it outside the walls. And in a 10-day battle that involved both our U.S. forces, air power and Syrian Democratic forces, over 400 were killed. Some escaped the exact number unknown. And then the rest were captured, but 121 of our SDF partners were killed in that prison breakout. What we are doing specifically about the detention facilities is we are trying to consolidate them now. This body provided funding for us to build another prison, which we think consolidate the vast majority of the rest of the prisoners. We also train the guards that are on these detention facilities. And the CTF funds help facilitate that. And lastly, the last category is the potential next generation of ISIS. I had an opportunity to go into the Al Roj camp and into Al Hall inside and talk to residents. I talked to women from 16 different countries last week inside the camp to include the woman from Alabama. And then I also went inside the Al Hall camp. And I met three teenagers who had been there for six years. And remember, ISIS really didn't come to Al Hall until about late 2018. These were people that went there to escape ISIS and escape the regime. And then with the fall of ISIS, territorial caliph in really March of 2019, it swelled from about 35,000 to 70,000. And currently right now, there's about 51,000 inside of Al Hall. Over 30,000 of them are children and they're at risk from radicalization. About 50% of the camp holds some espouses, some form of ideology, according to the camp guards, the camp administrators, and the residents and the other half are trying to escape ISIS. Really the only role there is that we can do is there's no military solution. It's the repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration back into the society. And are we having any luck getting some of the countries to repatriate those detainees who came from their countries? Absolutely, ma'am. So we've actually had more success in the first two months this year than the last six months of last year. About half of those IDPs that are in Al Hall are from Iraq. And we work with our Iraqi security partners in the Iraqi government to repatriate them. They've done 1,200 in the last two months. At that pace, it would be about four years to get everybody back. So we're working with them on how they can increase the throughput. But right now, it's their ability to go through the Jeddah-1 camp, which is south of Mosul, as they bring them back. What they don't want to do is just move one IDP camp to another. So they're working through that process. Thank you. Well, I hope you will let this committee know if there are additional resources or other supports that you need. General Langley, the map of Africa shows where the Wagner group is operating. But it doesn't speak to the success or not that they're having with recruitment. Can you speak to that? And maybe Senator Reid asked about the success at information or disinformation efforts that they have underway. Can you also talk about what we're doing to respond to that in a little more detail? Senator First and foremost, let me talk about Wagner's intentions. They're all about power and profit. If they're going to give a false offering of security, it's only for the elites in a particular country. We're seeing that in Mali. Wagner failed in Mozambique. They tried to entrench upon it and that government, albeit developing, did not like that false value proposition. They have continuing actions in the court of Central African Republic. In that vein, I think Central African Republic is kind of getting fed up. So there is no recruiting going on. It's all about profit, making their way to gold mines, diamond mines, or rare mineral mines. That's extension of the Russian Federation. Thank you. I will submit a question for the record on the disinformation efforts. Thank you, Senator Cheney. Senator Fisher, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for being here today and thank you for your service to our country. General Carrilla, how long would it take ISIS-K to generate the capability to conduct external operations? Specifically, ISIS course on Senator. It is my commander's estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning. In a classified session, I will talk about why I make that assessment. It is much harder for them to be able to do that against the homeland. Senator Wicker talked to you quite a bit about Over the Horizon and our capabilities that we have there or don't have there in Afghanistan. Do you think that you need any additional resources in our upcoming budget to increase or improve those capabilities? So we have been funded, like I said, for some alternative airborne ISR that will help us get longer duration but it's not just about ISR. We're also increasing our other intelligence efforts to get penetration into the networks that we want. A part that goes unseen a lot of times is the analytical backside. These are the analysts, the linguists and the production capability that help us make the decisions and there has been a significant decrease shifted from the NDS to go against higher priority targets but I would like to see to make sure that we don't lose so much of that capability that we cannot see the threat. Because knowing that threat is obviously very important as you stated for the existence that we still see in Afghanistan of the terrorist groups that are there. Correct, ma'am. Thank you. Have you requested authority to conduct any strikes in Afghanistan against the ISIS-K targets that have been identified? So in a classified setting, ma'am, I can talk about where we are in terms of the fine fix and finish on them. Okay, do you still have a need for munitions that can hit hard and deeply buried targets? I do, ma'am. Do you have specific requests in that area? That was in my unfunded priority list last year. Do you plan to include it this year? It depends on the full funding, ma'am. Would it be your recommendation and your best military advice to this committee that it would be, that it should be included? So we did receive funding for in my FY23 to include the additional procurement of the mass, it's the massive ordinance penetrator which goes against hard and deeply buried targets. Which are growing in number with our adversaries. Is that correct? That is correct, ma'am. What's your assessment of Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablishing diplomatic ties? You talked about that a little bit, but how does that affect our mil-to-mil relationships that we have with Saudi Arabia? We have very strong mil-to-mil relationship with Saudi Arabia. I think this agreement is, again, is the culmination of three years of talks between them. The more concerning part is that China is the one that was mediating this. As we, as we look at Iran and their proxies throughout SETCOM AOR, do they continue to pose a significant threat to our partners and to our own forces in the region and what more can be done to deter Iran from those malign activities? So we see Iran as the largest malign actor in the region, less than 60 hours ago. We had rockets attack from Iranian-aligned militia group against one of our bases in Syria. What more can be done to deter them? So one of the things that we are doing is increasing our defensive posture in these areas and I want to thank the services providing a capability, so particularly the army has given us some tremendous capability in terms of counter UAS and counter rocket mortar at our bases forward. With Syria and Iraq, what do you assess to be the situation in Syria right now and have you have you seen any change in Russia's present presence in in Syria or has that remained pretty steady since their invasion of Ukraine? So Senator, Syria is very important to Russia. They have taken very little out of Russia since their invasion. They've taken a small number of forces, some munitions, but generally it has stayed about the same. What we are seeing though is an increase recently in the unprofessional and unsafe behavior of the Russian Air Force in the in the region. Can you give us an example of that here? I can. So they they fly over our bases with ground attack aircraft with weapons on them in an attempt to try and be provocative, but really it's unsafe unprofessional. Not what we expect of a professional Air Force. They want to try and renegotiate the de-confliction protocols that they violate every day. This is not this is not new Russian behavior, is it, sir? Especially with regard to the drone incident that we recently have seen. It's not new, but we have seen a significant spike since about one march in in Syria. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Senator Fisher. Senator Gillibrand, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to continue Senator Fisher's line of questions with regard to Iran. If this was a three-year of talks, how recent was China engaged in those talks? Ma'am, I understand it's in the last several months. Well, obviously that raises serious concerns because I just took I just joined a delegation to visit the Abraham Accords countries and the interest of those countries, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Israel, is to broaden and strengthen the Abraham Accords and they were hopeful that they could engage Saudi Arabia in that context. This seems to me that that would make that extremely problematic because if China is involved, it would be very difficult to have the kind of technology shared in the Abraham Accords if they are now in alliance with China. And second, if there are an alliance with Iran, the whole point of the Abraham Accords is to counter Iran's malign threats. So does this make the possibility of extending or expanding the Abraham Accords impossible and what do you recommend that this committee do to focus on how we create more regional alliances? So ma'am, I believe this is a the talks about opening diplomatic relations so much as this is not an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Iran. They have had diplomatic relations in the past while they were still shooting at each other in the past. So this is really about opening embassies and opening diplomatic relations when they closed the embassies back in 2016. What this does do though is with China, the most concerning part about this is that China is the one brokering this because it shows that they are bringing the diplomatic aspect of their national instruments of power. And what we see with China on the military side is that they have a significant increase in bringing their equipment into the region and their foreign military sales. And if there's Chinese equipment there, we cannot integrate it with U.S. equipment. And so as we try and build the regional partnerships, and we've been there for the last 75 years, when we try and build these regional partnerships, you want to be able to integrate with your partner. And if there's Chinese equipment there, we are not going to be able to integrate it. Understood. Can you in this setting give us more detail on where China has integrated its equipment in the region? China has sold equipment all over the region inside the Middle East, and I can take that for the record and give you a specific follow-up for that, ma'am. And then do you have a focused plan on what to do about that? So one of this is to increase our partnership with these elements. So again this this is a race to integrate before China can penetrate. And would you recommend expanding and deepening the Abraham Accords? I would, ma'am. Thank you. With regard to Afghanistan, I'd like an update on what we are doing to get our partners out and whether those operations are continuing. And what are the barriers that you're facing currently? So ma'am, the getting the partners out, the special immigrant visas. That is a State Department run program, but from the US, from the military side, we are responsible for bringing them into a place called Camp Asalia in Qatar. We currently have about 2,600 there right now. We provide the in-processing, the security, and the basic life support. The State Department runs the actual immigrant visa side. They're averaging about 60 days there before they are moved on. And my understanding right now in the pipeline is about 85,000 special immigrant visas, but I would defer to the State Department on the exact number. Again, with regard to Iran, we know that Russia and Iran have escalated their military cooperation over the last year. How is CENTCOM coordinating with UCOM to ensure that our forces are able to respond to threats that touch both areas of responsibilities? So I talk to Chris Cavoli often, the UCOM commander in the SAC year. We have done several operations that I can talk about in a classified setting to create the additional dilemmas for Russia. And then my last question for you, sir, is you activated the U.S. Space Force Central, which is responsible for space operations within the CENTCOM area of responsibility. How are you incorporating the space domain into planning and training so that your subordinate commanders can effectively integrate space into their operations? We think this is a very big positive of actually having a component of space force. Space has always played a large role in the CENTCOM AOR, but now I have a commander that sits at the table that is able to then integrate more effectively, because he has a seat at the table to be able to do that. And we just finished a large, with all the combatant commands in the region to talk about the lessons we've learned over the last decade of doing space operations in CENTCOM. Thank you. General Langley, despite the size and growing importance of the continent, the 21st century wars in CENTCOM, the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the strategic competition with China have dominated much of our focus on this committee. What might we be missing about Africa that you think this committee should take note of in the coming years? Senator, I would say just aspirations of China. The aspirations of China is threefold. One from the geopolitical. They're trying to change international norms and they're using some of the African countries within the UN construct, whether it be General Assembly or the Security Council, trying to affect boats to change those international norms and international ships, the system are at large. And then there's the geostrategic operation, our aspirations for military bases on the continent of Africa. Just talking to my African partners, they don't want to be militarized in that strategic sense. And the last piece, Senator, is geoeconomic. Our future economy is dependent upon a number of rare of minerals and also some of our clean energy technologies depend upon the rare of minerals. About 30 to 40 percent of those minerals are on the continent of Africa. That's forward thinking by the PRC. They're trying to harvest and leverage upon that through shaky deals engaging with some of these countries so they can corner the market if you will. That's what I'm concerned about, Senator. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Gillburn. Senator Cotton, please. Welcome, gentlemen. General Cruella, I want to return to your answer to Senator Fisher about the threat of terrorist attacks originating from Afghanistan. If I heard you right, you said you believe that such attacks could occur in a mere six months out of Afghanistan against American citizens or allies or partners in Eurasia. Is that right? Senator, I said abroad, which I would also include Europe in that. Eurasia. But you said less than more than that against the American homeland. It would be harder for them to do that against the American homeland. If you assess six months against Europe or Asia, what would you assess would be the timeline against the homeland? I think it's hard to put a timeline on that, but again, I assess that they could in as little as six months with little to no warning, and I'll talk about that in the closed session as to why I assess that. How likely do you think a terrorist attack on the United States or one of our allies is originating from Afghanistan? I think it is a higher probability overseas than it is in the homeland. When you add up all the troops you have in your area of responsibility and American citizens who are there for business or tourism or pilgrimages on any given day, what are we talking about? Probably hundreds of thousands, right? At least. So hundreds of thousands within range of a terrorist attack in your assessment in a mere six months from Afghanistan. Okay, I want to turn to Iran. I think we've heard the answer. Yes, I do assess. I want to turn to Iran. You said in your written statement they can produce sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon in less than 14 days. You also say that deterring Iran is arguably more urgent now than any time sent cons history due to one, their cutting edge missile and UAV capability and two, their uranium enrichment program. That's correct. That is correct, Senator. Yet you also say Iran is undeterred from its malign activities. So that's not good. That it's more urgent to deter them than any time in central commands history but they're undeterred. Why is Iran undeterred right now? Currently right now we see them that their malign activity is increasing. We see them again in the last 90 days some of the highest numbers of our advanced conventional weapons and munitions that we've seen going from Iran to Yemen. We see their attacks on our U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria increasing and we see the threat streams that I can talk about in a higher classification. Those are more the results of the lack of deterrence against Iran. Do they feel undeterred because they feel safe that neither the United States or our partners are going to threaten anything that they hold dear? I can't say the exact reason why they feel that but I know right now when I look at them I believe they are undeterred. I mean there is a history you write throughout your statement there's a history of Iran being deterred by the credible threat of military force or actual military force that's right isn't it? I think deterrence is always temporal so you can deter for a period of time and then it will wane. I do believe the Sulamani strike was a deterrence. We go back much further than that Iran waged war with Iraq for eight years and Iran and Reagan sank half their navy in the spring of 1988 and surprisingly that war ended just a few months later and Iran also stopped its enrichment program in 2003 after the United States had invaded and toppled governments on both its east and its western border and then as you say they took only very tentative steps towards higher enrichment in 2019 and then after we killed Qasem Sulamani they did nothing at all for most of 2020 is that right? They it was a higher level of deterrence after that. Last week on the Intelligence Committee we had our annual worldwide threats briefing and the director of national intelligence cited the killing of Mosin Fakrazata a notorious Iranian nuclear scientist in November 2020 as the reason Iran accelerated its enrichment program. Do you agree with that assessment? Senator I think any talk of the Iran nuclear program would be best in a classified setting. I pointed out there's also something that happened in November of 2020 besides the killing of Mosin Fakrazata that might have been Muldan Iran and that was the election of Joe Biden that gave the Iranians confidence that they were no longer going to be held militarily at risk. Speaking of that time frame in I think it was December of 2020 didn't we face threats to our personnel in Iraq from militias and the former president tweeted what he called some friendly health advice to the Ayatollahs that if a single American was harmed in Iraq he would hold them responsible. I'm not familiar with that specific tweet senator. I think that did happen. It's okay there are a lot of them you don't have to be familiar with every one of them but also I don't think those attacks happen so I think what we can learn here whether it's from Qasem Soleimani or the Tanker Wars or anything else that the only thing that will deter Iran is the credible threat of military force. One final question I know you've added Israel to your AOR and you write in your statement that you readily partner today with Arab militaries and the Israel Defense Force alike. In fact the inclusion of Israel presents many collaborative and constructive security opportunities. One of the opportunities I see is having Israeli Air Force personnel training alongside American personnel on KC-46 tankers which we expect to be providing them into the future and that's training that we can provide them so they'll be ready to operate those aircraft as soon as they get them do you think that would be what you call a collaborative and constructive opportunity between the United States and Israel? I think when they get closer to getting their aircraft starting to train those pilots so they can retain that training and go right into the execution of operating them. Thank you. Thank you Senator Cotton Senator Hirono please. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'd like to turn to another part of your missions in both Central Command and in Africa Command U.S. diplomatic efforts are at the diplomatic efforts are at the forefront of your missions and military to military engagement is one very important aspect of your responsibilities but your organizations are just one part of a whole of government approach. General Langley I note your team's work in implementing the 2017 Women Peace and Security Act amid the many extremist threats in both of your areas of operations it is more important than ever as far as I'm concerned to work for equality for women and girls around the world generals how are your commands supporting and protecting women and girls in your AOR? Senator thanks for that question as a Women's Peace and Security Act surpassed in 2017 I've seen from afar what AFRICOM has started to do we didn't wait for the plan or the construct over years excuse me AFRICOM got after it I saw this because I was at CENTCOM and I was the J5 and we got after it as well at that time but how far that CENTCOM that CENTCOM and AFRICOM has gone in the vein of the intent of Women's Peace and Security Senator I'd like to just make note we have it we've been to our AFRICA campaign plan to affect in working with the Department of Defense to finish out the construct but we just didn't we didn't wait for the word to go just just for your information Senator across the Horn of Africa our JTF we have Major General Charlie and she has affected that in every exercise that we do all the way down from from Djibouti down to Kenya and even her Valerie Jackson Brigadier General United States Marine Corps as they work with other countries they get it President Osama Sheikh Mohammed sees a representation of our talent base in our military and in our U.S. military that 50% of the talent base of women and they are showing that it's effective and it's and for our partners on the African continent they realize that so it's changing culture General I think we have to be very intentional about the support we provide to women and girls because wherever there is instability and certainly both of your AORs are characterized by what I would call instability women and girls are the ones who bear the brunt of the the challenges General Langley would you like to add to what General Kurely said because you are doing a I would say a pretty good job ma'am I think please ma'am I think you're referring to me on that so the I value the program I'm sorry yes I was referring to you General Langley go ahead yes senator and so in execution as we work with even in the west in our exercises we ensure that we we do represent in within the spirit in a letter of intent of the act of a WPS that we that our partners and ensure that their culture is changing and women and women and girls get meaningful opportunities within the overall governance and in society and that's that's why I brought up Major General Shawty as she makes her travels across they see that America gets it and they start to get it as well it's very compelling senator thank you General Langley further question for you you noted in your testimony climate as a as a challenge in Africa can you describe the destabilizing impact of climate change on African nations and what we can do to counter this impact or these impacts absolutely senator that's a driver of instability especially with your regular patterns across the Sahel we're seeing that but across a whole of government approach as I work with USAID I would say just more flexibility trying to predict where the effects are going to go we need to stay ahead of this and that's why administrative power is action asking for non-humanitary action so she can move resources so we can address the effects of climate change because it's hard to predict even the USAID being being an evidence-based organization can't predict where the next two years out where the next atrocity is going to happen as a result of climate change so there needs to be a flexibility across state department and USAID then backed up by military by building a capability adaptability within our partners in the military so they can go out and assist the affected people as a result of climate change thank you Mr. Chairman I'm particularly interested in what we are doing to counter climate change impacts and in Africa because I agree that this is a very destabilizing situation so I will continue to pursue inquiries along these lines thank you thank you Senator Roan Senator Brown please thank you Mr. Chairman gentlemen first of all thank you both for your service to our country and to your teams as well a question for both of you with regard to our country's refocus with regard to the threat that we see from both the other major powers in the world specifically China Russia to some degree as well what impact has that had in terms of the discussion and the clear evidence that we have turned from literally more than 20 years of fighting terrorism to where we are now focusing on this major power competition what's the impact in terms of the countries within your AORs and how are they perceiving the United States interest in your regions of the world General Carrillo so Senator we are concerned again as I said this is about a race between integration with our partners and Chinese penetration into the region there's been a significant increase both in their economic 460 billion in infrastructure development in the last five years 2.6 trillion in trade and really we see their military capability where they're trying to sell military equipment and foreign military sales in the last 10 years we've seen a 30 percent decline in the U.S. but an 80 percent increase in Chinese on foreign military sales and when they buy a Chinese system we cannot integrate it into our systems General Langley Senator you know as Eric just alluded to we have the same effects on the continent as well as far as investments by from a military standpoint both both both the PRC and Russia and you know how we partner that that really segues the main issue as far as how slow our triple three program of arm training and equip our partners so they do know that they have choices as we saw down in South Africa they want to show the world that they have choices and that's why they had Mosey to exercise but up in our partners in the Gulf of Guinea region they are pressurized by all kinds by the extremist organizations threatening their borders and they come in they ask and they said hey General Langley we don't want your boots on the ground we want your equipment we need help so we can put up a good fight and take care of this violent extremist organization across all the affiliates but as slow as our processes are with triple three and also three three two our other title 10 authorities is moving too slow Senator just moving too slow and they make the wrong decisions let's dive into that just a little bit more for both of you the foreign military sales or FMS is a critical part of our foreign policy it requires not just the availability but also the approval process could each of you share with me your opinion about the approval process and whether or not there needs to be a more expedited process in order to allow us to continue with FMS General Carrillo so Senator they say about 95% of all FMS goes according to plan 5% doesn't 80% of those 5% are in the CENTCOM AOR the challenge we have is the time it takes to get equipment to our partners and there's you know the DOD Department of State Congress and industry all have a role in that but what China does is they come in they open their entire catalog they give them express shipping they give them no end user agreement and they give them financing which at the end of the day can end up being some type of predatory financing but they are much faster to need and our security partners have real security needs and we are losing our ability to provide our equipment so that it can integrate into the region they'd prefer to have our equipment wouldn't they absolutely so when you buy us equipment you buy you get the quality you get the training the sustainment the upgrades but you're also buying into the bureaucracy right now they just can't get up because of our bureaucratic process is delaying the delivery of that product if it's available it's still a bureaucratic mess to get it there there is some that goes very fast and some that goes very very slow General Langley absolutely senator we see that just along and I fully concur with Eric about our training and the capacity it's more of a quality but the sense of urgency especially in west of Africa across the hell across Ghana Cote d'Avorel and Benin and Togo they need equipment they need weapons now so even with our significant security cooperation initiatives that process is not any faster it's designed to be faster so they make choices and they make the wrong choices inside with going with either PRC or Russia for especially the late thank you thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator around Senator Warren please thank you Mr. Chairman so the Biden administration announced last week that it's requesting 842 billion dollars for the Pentagon budget it's one of the largest budget requests ever despite this already massive number every year DOD pushes to get even more money by using unfunded priority lists or what I call wish lists that don't go through the other budgeting screens the services and combatant commands ask Congress for billions more in funding for programs from these lists other federal agencies have to balance their must haves and their nice to haves but DOD doesn't instead it games the system by submitting a second list of items that they want so that their budget can grow even bigger I know that there are colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are concerned about this and want to see this practice stop last year both your predecessors at AFRICOM and CENTCOM submitted these wish lists so what I'm asking today is about whether you plan to do the same general Langley AFRICOM requested an additional 353.6 million dollars in unfunded priorities last year in its submission AFRICOM argued that if some of these programs weren't funded it would result in quote unacceptable risk so my question is this year will AFRICOM be putting all of its priority projects if it's that important if it's putting us at unacceptable risk will you put that into your base budget request Senator and just to be transparent I will be submitting a unfunded party list and here's why because of the murdered threats when President Biden directed us back in last May to return to a persistent presence in Somalia and I took command a few months after that and I asked them being a former programmer I said okay what is the fully burden cost I need to communicate to Congress what the fully burden cost I need to communicate to the department first and and I did that I did that after budget submittal two from the services to the department so that emerging cost was informed by the risk that we have so you're telling me that this request the ink is not dry on the budget request from Congress from the president and you're already saying that you know that it's not enough and I want to remind you about emerging threats DOD already has transfer and reprogramming authorities to deal with emerging threats you have the ability to come back to Congress if you can justify an emerging threat we have a panel looking at whether or not there are more changes that are needed but these unfunded priority lists are just another way to gain the system if it is a priority to cover something like this then I think you should be covering it so are you telling me that the only things that will be on your unfunded priority list are things you couldn't have known about when you submitted your budget senator I even my predecessor also put the other piece of that cost on there on ISR we never had enough I'm not hearing a yes or no are you telling me that your unfunded budget priority list will have nothing except things that you could not have known about when you submitted your budget there is a persistent threat that we have to account for so on that list that's what your budget is for accounting for the persistent threat let me ask general Carilla the same last year CENTCOM submitted a request for 35 million dollars in its unfunded priority list are you planning to submit a wish list again this year senator I am but on last years I'm the one who signed last years that was for the massive ordinance penetrator for heavy deeply buried targets I do not have procurement dollars in my baseline budget that is why I requested it so what you're really telling me is that this unfunded priority list is just a way to say I need a bigger base budget I don't have that color of money senator to ask to request that but on what I what I do as a commander is I mitigate risk and I go through my priorities and the missions I have and then when I have any risk left over by the law I will submit per the the yupul you know look I I appreciate this you all know I have raised this issue before if we're going to have a budget we ought to have a budget and there's no reason that DOD shouldn't be able to work within the budgeting process like every other part of government I'm out of time on this but I'm going to be submitting more questions for the record Mr. Chairman on what these commands are doing to prevent civilian harm DOD is on the right path but I remain concerned about whether or not we're getting accurate and honest reporting thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Warren Senator Mullen please thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you both for being here General Cruller I just want to personally tell you how much I appreciate your service upon reading more about you I was even more impressed any of us that have been in situations like you were in Mosul and been on to keep your head in the in the fight after being shot three times and still be able to direct fire I commend you for that that's why it should be common everyone in front of you or in behind you knows that's not always common so thank you for doing that I want to talk about about Afghanistan a little bit the American withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 as you know was a complete disaster and brought in systematic failures from the top down across multiple agencies but it's not enough to just say this was a disaster and move on lives were lost and our posture on the world stage has been forever changed as as you reach one year in your current position can you explain what you've learned in the aftermath of the Afghan Afghanistan withdrawal and how we can prevent these types of failures moving forward Senator just for clarity specifically about the withdrawal or the overall lessons we learned from the withdrawal and how we can prevent this from happening again and how this changed your position so in terms of the actual withdrawal one of the top lessons we learned is the importance of partners access basing overflight we would not have been able to execute the actual execution of the withdrawal without all of our partners that we have in the Middle East I think executing would be a hard word to say it would not have been possible to the scale at which we did it without our partners who provided the access basing and overflight I think one of the other big lessons learned initially it was just the mission was given to CENTCOM it became a five combat and command mission and then also with our partners bringing them all into that planning session do you think people should be held accountable from that withdrawal I think anybody should be held accountable for if there is failure on something you know as you know there was a tit for tat going on between a couple people during that whole situation General Mackenzie General Donahue I found myself caught in the middle of that as we was trying to get AMSETs out which is a team that I was part of at the end of the day we did end up getting over 300 Americans out but it wasn't from the assistance of our government in fact I found that it was easier to work with the Taliban because I knew the price I was going to have to pay for each one and it was to get them out and dealing with unfortunately us in fact Ambassador Promogene that was over to Chikistan literally told me Mr. Mullen I was told not to assist you or your group in any way unfortunately it costs a life of a three-year-old young girl and at the same time I've seen no one not a single person held accountable in fact General Donahue is now over 18th airborne the irony of that is he's looking over Europe now and deterrence in Europe General McKenzie retired no one in the State Department has been held accountable what does that say to our partners our partners that lost lives I was with his highness in UAE and he was even upset about it he said that if America is willing to walk away from the billions of dollars that they spent in Afghanistan what does that say about our region and then he went on to say that I fought him that was a real heinous fight in Afghanistan his two sons fought in Afghanistan and every single soldier that they lost he visited their house personally and yet we pulled out lost the lives of assets that didn't have to be lost not to mention our 13 soldiers Marines and no one not a single person has been held accountable you think that's right senator if I could I have great respect and I've known Frank McKenzie and and Cristana I know you I know I'm very familiar familiar with the relationship it doesn't make any differences underneath their command and no one was held accountable in fact the only person that was chastised about it was the one colonel that came out and chastised the withdrawal mechanism and how dare him speak out negative about something I get it I get the chain of commands I remember I know he broke protocol but don't you think someone you cannot sit here and tell me that that was successful withdrawal don't you think that someone should be held accountable it was an absolute disaster senator I serve five years in Afghanistan every year from 2009 to 14 I'm aware of it I am I am vested in in there so why the actual thing I was not part of the I know the force provider but I would say that the execution you were there before Donahue and you came back you know it intimately I'm just asking you once again shouldn't someone be held accountable someone's below your command and they went through this and they had an absolute disaster like this losing marines don't you think someone at that point be held accountable I think it's an absolute travesty that we lost those 13 marines that abrogate but you don't think anybody should be held accountable I don't know if accountability has been assigned to anyone senator well you know it hasn't I mean I get what you're saying but you know there hasn't at some point we got to our our adversaries and our allies are both taking a look at this and we look weak and I know you're dealing with this and we are dealing with this and it's time for someone to be held accountable and what I'm looking for is your help and your assistance and moving forward we got to right this wrong with that I yield back thank you Mr. Chairman thank you senator mullin this issue of accountability is a serious one but it would take in a 20-year history of the struggle in Afghanistan and based on the operation Aneel is one of the most difficult operations in general for a lot evacuating over 120,000 people was something I think was remarkable would you concur I absolutely agree again I think the execution of the of bringing the people out was was done very effectively in terms of the numbers we would not have been able to do the numbers thank you senator Kelly thank you Mr. Chairman General Langley good to see you again thank you for being here as you know I recently returned from a bipartisan Codella Africa we had the opportunity to travel across the continent to Niger, Zambia South Africa Morocco Botswana Cote d'Ivoire and had conversations with a lot of experts senior leaders on a wide variety of topics that we care about including food security conservation efforts critical minerals and defense and while we the United States is doing a lot of great work across the continent I worry that it's not well known that we're providing this at the same time it's clear that China and Russia have a lot of influence in Africa and this concerns me a lot and I know it does concern you too I mean Africa has strategic importance to us for a number of reasons including that many critical minerals that our defense industry requires our mind in Africa and this is something that China knows and they have begun to exploit last year Senator Cotton and I introduced the Reshore Act to reduce our reliance on China for these critical minerals but the important work on securing U.S. supply chains need to continue so General Langley what are you seeing in Africa with respect to China's mining activities and their infrastructure development First of all Senator thanks for that question and and thank you for going on the CODEL as I saw in Munich when you were on your way down there that that really matters that shows those are assurance actions of our our nation's leadership going on to the continent and thank you for that and it pressurizes and it makes causes hesitation in countries that are thinking about picking the PRC or even Russia as their partner of choice because those are the assurance actions that matter and resonate yes I agree we're not telling our story well enough and that's why I you know when the CODEL came through right after I took command on their way to the continent they asked what was being done on the continent show us we know what the PRC is doing their investments they're showing show us what we do and that's why I provided the blue map just to show our investments so all that folds into collectively across a whole of government approaches I engaged across the interagency and also State Department USID how we can be able to coalesce this into actions that resonate General can you talk a little bit about what China's doing and how it's impacting countries that we have had relationships with you know I don't want to you know lead you into but I'm really interested in the negative impact that China's mining and infrastructure activities have had on the continent Yes, Senator so yes as I also provided the foreign actor reliance on that on the African mental stores and that is a very compelling story so for economic reasons and also how they go about striking deals with some of the countries on some of our critical assets for not only for our rare earth minerals that feed into our clean energy but also into the military as far as our high technical type of arsenal and equipment China is trying to harvest that so as they're engaging with countries laid out on that on the slide the last slide that we have on the critical reliance on foreign minerals this is our new economy this is going to be in big demand as we start to modernize our forces and China realizes that so those are actions they're trying to take on the illustrated countries that we have highlighted on here so yes it is a strategic consequence that we need to be able to face and in turn to these countries to ensure that they're a partner of the choice in general how do we do a better job telling our story because you got China in there making bad deals building bad infrastructure this isn't good for you know the African nations you know at the same time the Russians have Wagner in there supporting you know essentially you know terrorism what can we do to better tell our story on the African continent center illuminate and amplify I saw a good story this morning in in in the press about the Kenyans have gone to the street tired of some of the stuff that the PRC is doing for them how how they're taking advantage of their economy and taking advantage of their environment new stories like that resonate they change ideas I guarantee you the rest if it happened in Kenya it's happening all across the continent of Africa and people read these stories and it resonates people are taking action thank you general and Mr Chairman all the couple of questions for the record thank you thank you Senator Kelly Senator Scott please thank you chairman the first one I agree with Senator Mullen that we need to have some way to you know hope people accountable for what happened in Afghanistan so I've had a bill that would have a bipartisan committee that would investigate exactly what happened there I want to thank the military for what they did but the decisions that were made don't seem to make much sense what what does the American public not know about China that if they knew would change because I assume you spend a lot of your time thinking about what China is doing all over the world so what does the American public need to know about China that they don't know right now that maybe would impact would have a positive impact on impacting their ability to spend the resources to impact Africa anywhere in the world for both of you Senator so I would go to what one of the chiefs of defense told me he says you have no idea how much they've closed the gap on you and your technology and this is someone who is buying Chinese equipment I also think that the American public don't have an understanding of how much they have penetrated into the Middle East in terms of their diplomatic informational military and their economic instruments of national power Joe Lively Sarah I agree with my good friend Eric here China we have enjoyed for a number of years a decisive overmatch but that gap is closing because of China's advancements or stealing a technology you name it how they're the procedures they are executing to close that gap that's what has me concerned and even in the economic realm as they're trying to harvest a lot of the critical minerals on the continent of Africa all that folds into them being able to from an economic standpoint to actually try to close the gap on that decisive overmatch as well and then also changing the international order and international system as they try to get some of the African countries to vote or abstain something that is not along social norms or the right the right thing to do in voting especially especially with mining or other things that are or of humanity or human rights because they commit some of those atrocities back in China or some of the activities they do in Hong Kong so just changing the economic system so in those three areas this was most pressing of the list of activities of the PRC so if if elected leaders spent more time explaining exactly what China was doing with the end result that that every American would call out China for their human rights violations or stop buying their products or not putting their devices on our phones with that you think that would impact their ability to to do the bad you know to spend the money on their on the resources that to counteract our military not be able to go into places around the world and lend money on and unreasonable on unreasonable terms senator I think education is very important that people understand what China is doing and senator I think it will impose costs on them as well that they have to reckon with yeah your acrylic what is the optimal cooperation you envision among the U.S. Israel and the Arabian or Abraham Accords members is it air defense what would you hope out of that so I think there's several areas senator that we can do so the Abraham Accords are also economic and I think that's going to the economic benefit you get in terms of job creation also is a reduces instability in some of the Abraham Accord countries we do have we talk about Middle East air defense we talk about maritime security and cyber defense as well during Langley you you talked about what's happening in Kenyan our on top of the the public being up in arms about what's going what China is doing are the governments pushing back at all in Africa senator that's that's part of the problem because what they invest in and when they strike these deals they strike the deals for mostly autocratic or authoritating type governance those of democracies have a voice because they know that the people are watching so I think it's it really matters what particular country that they're pressurizing Joe Crilla do you have do you have the resources and personnel that you need to conduct your counterterrorism mission you know that's laid out the national defense strategy so senator we are currently balancing the missions that we have with the resources we got and I'm adjusting risk every day dynamically with the resources that I have I'm requesting the additional resources I would need to be able to accomplish all of my tasks and what you requested is adequate the what I've requested is adequate then it's up to the allocation of those resources in accordance with the national defense priorities thank you thank you chairman thank you very much senator scott senator rosin please thank you chairman reid appreciate it I appreciate you holding this hearing and I'd really like to thank generals Carillo and Langley for your service and for being here today and I'm just going to kind of get right into it about Iranian aggression of course top of everyone's mind so general Carillo the Pentagon estimates that hundreds of American troops have been killed by Iranian back militias in Iraq and Afghanistan yet Iran's regime has never been held accountable for orchestrating attacks against Americans the men and women who gave their lives for the taken by these state forces there are thousands of families they're without their loved ones as a result and so today Iranian aligned militias they're increasingly targeting U.S. installations service members in Iraq in Syria the Iraq and drone attacks on a regular basis we know Iran the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism threatening the U.S. and our allied interests in the Middle East and around the world again via both direct attacks and also through their support for Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic's other terrorist proxies so could you discuss in this setting some specific threats the Iranian aligned militia groups posed to the U.S. and our coalition forces and what can we do to proactively not just defend against them what can we do to proactively maybe push them back Thanks Senator for the question so again Iran is the number one malign actor in the Middle East the latest attack we just had was less than 60 hours ago on one of our bases in Syria that we know that it was Iranian aligned militia groups that conducted this attack we do see the threat that we've faced from them are from rockets from unmanned systems that are increasingly longer range and more accurate just in January we had three UAVs attack our base and on Tomf Garrison in Syria that was Iranian drones that did that so we do see that across the region and also against our allies and partners whether that was from the Houthis coming out of Yemen against Saudi Arabia and the UAE or from Lebanese Hezbollah against Israel or from elements coming out of Iraq and Syria against Iranian aligned militia groups what we can do is it's going to take a whole government approach to be able to go after this problem set as it's not just a military solution so we can work with you on the resources we need to take care of that because I want to get to something we talked about a little bit earlier Task Force 59 and some other interesting things we're doing but really Israel's transferred to SENTCOM it's now within your area of responsibility and it's my sincere hope that this realignment is going to potentiate even greater military cooperation between the U.S. and our shared goals as well as greater cooperation between our Arab and Israeli partners as we see with things like the Abraham Accords coming forward so I know that I'm pleased to see the increasing pace of joint exercises between the U.S. Israel Arab partners and so can you tell us a little bit about the progress you've made in advancing the integration of Israel into your multilateral maritime partnerships like the very exciting Task Force the development they're doing I was able to learn about them when I recently visited NAVSENT in Bahrain so thank you Senator we think it's going very well with the integration of Israel into the SENTCOM AOR and including our exercises and our training as well we did have a bilateral exercise called Juniper Oak that we just did in January which was the largest exercise with 142 aircraft that we participated with them in January when you talk about Task Force 59 that is our maritime security innovation Task Force is an unmanned and undersea unmanned vessel Task Force where we basically are enhancing the manned platforms that we have so one police car one destroyer in the Red Sea is the equivalent of one police car patrolling the State of California when we take a bunch of unmanned platforms like sail drones and other unmanned surface vessels and undersea vessels they act as a series of indications and warnings with sensors out there in a mesh network they can feed it back into a structured database that then we run algorithms against to help us make decisions is that normal behavior abnormal behavior to then use our manned platforms better to be able to get after the problem set I'm gonna hopefully you'll come and show us all a briefing on what you're doing there it's pretty exciting but in the few seconds I have left we're talking about the region integrated air missile defense naval maritime partnerships how is SINCOM reassuring our regional partners that the U.S. is really committed to regional stability and security when we were there leading the Abraham Accords caucus delegation when I was there this was the number one thing people wanted to know are we committed to the region how are you showing them that I spend 50% of my time in the region we have a series of exercises and training events so last 41 training and exercises that we do multilateral and bilateral and that is the way we are trying to build up our partner capacity with them by integrating them into the systems that we have as well thank you I see my time's up Mr. Chairman thank you very much Senator Rosen Senator Bud please oh excuse me Senator Toverville has arrived Senator Toverville thank you Mr. Chairman General Sinc for being here and thanks for your service you've got your hands full General Corella in your organization Task Force 59 has had some great success building unmanned systems that I'm familiar with one of their platform Seldrone it seems like these systems have a lot of potential for both SINCOM and the Navy and it's encouraging to see your command taking advantage of cutting edge technology out of the commercial sector what do you think has contributed to the success of Task Force 59 work with systems like Seldrone I think what's successful is the people it's the people that we hire that are innovative and creative and critical thinkers and when we push these systems into their hand they're using them in ways that we never thought possible a lot of the systems and the unmanned and the undersea that we use they're used for commercial fishing when fishermen go out they're not going out to find fish they're going out to catch fish and so we use a lot of these systems with their integrated sensors I think Seldrone initially was an environment was used for maritime oceanographic capabilities and we've turned that into something that can act as indications and warnings with the sensors that are on it yeah we almost lost a couple of Seldrones I think Iran tried to load a couple on one of their ships was that during your it was yeah how'd that go out we got them back got them back good well that's good to know at one time we had 60 balloons over Kabul Afghanistan our ISR is very limited how confident are you in the intelligence you have to see new threats rising from the Taliban so currently our intelligence is degraded since we are no longer in Afghanistan I believe we can see the broad contours of an attack sometimes we lack the granularity to see the full picture and we're working to close that gap with our alternative airborne ISR and some of our other intelligence that we're working to penetrate into those networks it seems like for some reason this administration is going to accept Iran developing a nuclear weapon if Iran does develop a nuclear weapon a mass destruction which the United States spent three years trying to keep out of the hands of dictators in the Middle East how will that scramble your AOR it would change it overnight and forever General Langley I'm aware of several vacancies in key diplomatic posts I was in South Africa recently China is there daily trying to move in is that important to you the diplomatic posts being filled center absolutely is it builds capacity as I talk about the 3D construct having a full fledged bolstered capacity at our diplomatic posts is essential it makes a difference of us being able to maintain our partnership and capacity moreover ensuring our strategic access could you talk a little bit about South Africa and what you've done since you've been there your relationship that you've made and what you see coming from China and maybe even Russia Senator I haven't been to South Africa yet I will be gone there in the coming months but right now what I'm really concerned about is Mosey 2 that exercise that naval exercise that was just a messaging campaign by the Russian Federation and also by the PRC so I've been having discussions with Ambassador Brigadier down there and saying what's South Africa's story South Africa they are they have been a good partner we're building that relationship they don't want to be pressurized in who they choose so I have to use assurance actions to compel them that we are the partner of choice don't you think it's vital that we keep China from overtaking that port there in South Africa absolutely so sir because as we look at the Cape of Good Hope and look at how much transit that our commerce goes across and it's also it can also be a power projection point as well so we can ill afford from a geo strategic opposition allow either the PRC or even Russia to use that as a platform yeah I know it's not your purview but they're trying to do the same thing in Argentina you know which is the point of South America and we definitely don't need to lose lose those two-point contacts in terms of navigation thank you thank you very much thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Tauberbill Senator Peters please thank you Mr. Chairman General Groff welcome good to have you here I along with my colleagues on the committee have worked to strengthen our partnership with Israel in particular the collaboration and synergies between our two countries in the innovation space I believe probably has never been greater and it certainly it's an area that I believe the United States must do more to take advantage of our friendship with like-minded I guess you could call them techno democracies that are highly sophisticated in that area I was proud to sponsor legislation creating a U.S. Israel Operations Technology Working Group to help further the DOD efforts in that area and my question for you is if you could please speak to the strategic advantage that our relationship with Israel offers in a global environment where rapid innovation and the fielding of emerging technologies rapidly is absolutely key to our national security Thanks Senator Israel is one of the world leaders in technology in terms of the innovation and how to take that to the areas of national security I have been over there several times I have seen how they are implementing that I do find that the relationship that we have with them is already bearing fruits in terms of that I look at that in the counter UAS field where I've been all the way down from Iron Dome all the way up to the exo-atmospheric Arrow 3 and it's the ability to understand their technology and be able to proliferate that as well Great General at the end of this month we will mark the eighth year of the war in Yemen this conflict has been a humanitarian catastrophe for hundreds of thousands of deaths millions displaced and tens of millions Yemenis suffering from both famine and disease the war has been exacerbated by the role of a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran and has been the people of Yemen who unfortunately have been the victims and have suffered as a result of this geopolitical strategizing Congress has been active in ensuring that U.S. support is not the cause for any innocent suffering in Yemen a June 2022 GAO report regarding civilian impacts of U.S. military support for the Saudi Coalition provided recommendations to the DOD on measures to help mitigate civilian harm from our support so my question for you sir is has the department developed and implemented guidance for reporting any indications that U.S. made defense articles were used in Yemen by Saudi Arabia or the UAE against anything other other than legitimate military targets Senator I'm aware of that GAO report I have read it I've seen it and my understanding right now is the department is working through any implementation instructions from it you're very good General Angley drug trafficking and the cartels profiting from that trade are without question a global threat Africa is certainly not immune to these issues with West Africa in particular now serving as a popular vector for cartels to move products from Latin America to Europe the drug trade destabilizes lawful governments undermines public safety and provides critical funding and resources for other transnational criminal organizations so my question for you General is what efforts is Africa making to strengthen the ability of local governments to conduct counter narcotics operations and to attack this insidious trade Senator thanks for asking that question because that is of a particular concern with our partners the Gulf of Guinea is like the Wild Wild West elicit activity especially the drug trade two exercises just have just happened in the past month Obigami Express Obigami Express is where we had a number of countries to come together to focus on elicit activity across adult across the Gulf and the drug trade is one of it smuggling is another and trans transiting citizens as well across that region but it's inextricably linked to South America as well so I work with General Richardson on that and I think there's Congress for legislation to gave us 200 million dollars to address this issue but building partnership and capacity with African nations especially in the Gulf of Guinea addresses that issue as they build their maritime capacity but that's also an opportunity for another ask Hershey Woody Williams and even the Coast Guard when they when they bring a cutter in it makes a difference this is naval diplomacy at its best if we can get an assignment of another ship I wish I had another Hershey Woody Williams to cover the other side of Africa continent but just naval activity and bolstering our partners ability for their maritime expertise build upon that building capability is essential going forward thank you thank you General thank you Mr. Chairman thank you Senator Peters and now Senator Butt thank you Chairman good morning gentlemen I want to thank you both for your your leadership and your service particularly your commands of the units in North Carolina at Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune so I recently returned from both of your overseas areas of responsibility common complaint from our allies and our partners is that the foreign military sales process it's overly complicated and slow it's just downright bureaucratic so in that vein I have a series of questions and if you would just if you would give me a simple yes or no to the answers and then at the end hopefully we'll have a little more time and I'll give you some time to elaborate so General Crilla is the current FMS process fast and flexible enough to meet our foreign partner security needs in your respective AORs in Sencom no General Langley Avricom no Does the transfer of U.S. defense products build our partner's capacity to provide for their own defense and respond to threats General Yes, Senator Yes, Senator Given the success of Western arms against Russian equipment in Ukraine is there an increased interest in U.S. defense products in your AOR? There is a very strong interest in U.S. products Very strong in Africa Africa as well Thank you Thank you Is China increasing arms exports to any countries in your AOR? General Crilla Yes, Senator General Langley Senator, is kind of flat line right now? But they have been before They have been before in the past Thanks Is the United States still the security partner of choice in your AORs? It is Senator Absolutely Senator It is in Africa Is the United States at risk of losing that security partner of choice status to either China or Russia? China is making inroads I do not assess Russia is It is at risk, Senator So if you elaborate a bit if you could each explain how FMS challenges are impacting strategic competition with China and Russia in your AORs if you'd elaborate on that please Sure, Senator So in the SENTCOM AOR with the number of attacks that we see in there our partners have real security needs and so they want to have the equipment they need fast What China is able to do is come in very quickly open up their catalog let them pick from anything in it very quickly deliver it there is no end user agreement but what they don't do is they don't follow up with it and they don't have the training the expertise the sustainment the upgrades and what we do find with our partners is when they buy Chinese equipment a vast majority of it becomes a non-mission capable a year or so after they have that equipment and we do see a complaint from that they want to buy U.S. equipment but sometimes it is the timeline to get it that is a hindrance and the process which it will the process is what takes the time to do it and there are I know that the Department of Defense has a Tiger team to look specifically at what the Department of Defense can do to increase it's like there's four levers Department of Defense State Congress and Industry and I know the Department of Defense is looking at the their lever Thank you, General Langley Senator, I've characterized in my assessment since taking command that West Africa is at a tipping point and what I mean is how these extremist groups whether we're talking about ISIS West Africa or even JNM or Boko Haram they're all at the door especially at the Gova Guinea States as I've done my travels and I was in Ghana they said we don't want your boots on the ground but we would like your equipment all we need in Ghana all we need is to affect the Accra initiative which is a coalition of willing of states of Togo, Benin and Cote d'Ivoire but they want equipment before they go across the line of departure they need equipment they want U.S. equipment but they know how long it takes so they're considering because that these affiliates are at their back door they need something now they want to come with us Senator but the process is too slow and they need to be able to affect a viable offense to help Cote d'Ivoire excuse me to affect Burkina Faso save their own country so we're showing a good what we would like to see partner led U.S. enabled but we need to step with the U.S. enabled at this point you know that matches conversations with our allies recently can you please discuss how your requirements for special operations forces has grown and what cuts to SOF in strength would have on your operations Senator I rely very heavily on our special operations forces in the CENTCOM AOR they are doing tremendous work any cuts to in the CENTCOM region would affect me significantly you would take the heart out of our efforts both in the east and the west with our special operations forces by AFRICOM thank you both chairman I yield back thank you very much senator but senator king please thank you Mr. Chairman general language we've been having a lot of discussions today about China's activities and in Africa is there any buyers remorse China has sort of scaled back on on Belton Road to some extent and and some of the debt issues are now coming to the four are there are the countries in Africa starting to rethink some of those commitments buyers remorse is probably the best term senator great question and and I I traverse for that for any indicators of that and I lo and behold I saw a story this morning out of Kenya they've taken to the streets of how China has been taking advantage of them in the deals that they strike there's other indicators across the continent other stories of depth trap diplomacy that I call it debt colonialism oh yeah absolutely senator well so let me follow up if that's the case and it appears that it is does this create an opening for us to be more active in infrastructure projects support for for development in these countries that that we can come in and show that it can be done in a much more efficient and and skilled way absolutely senator that we do have that we see that as an opportunity as we call it a consolidated strategic opportunity and we need to match it up with key strategic activities and whereas we can use a whole government approach we can use prosper Africa digital Africa and get these programs off the ground and going I know that I met with you know assistant secretary Molly fee last week and also I was over at USAID and they we have a plan of action collectively whole of government to be able to put it in motion you use the term whole of government and I think the private sector also has to be included in this in terms of development of resources you used a phrase earlier that I that I noted about the Chinese efforts to to monopolize and get a hold of these rare earths and minerals forward thinking by the PRC we haven't been doing that forward thinking we've allowed them to take to take control of for example lithium an essential element for EV batteries 87% of the processed lithium that goes into EV batteries in this country comes from China and we haven't been doing that forward thinking I'm suggesting that that's something we should start to think about and and it should be a combination of government action but also the private sector we don't do everything by the government here sir that's that's correct we don't tell the good new story enough and that's why I provided well this the the blue chart here but on legislation passed force affect us such as prosper Africa is also a message to our private industry to invest in Africa that's that's what I talk about when I talk to the country teams as they are heavily recruiting back in the U.S. for investment in the African nations and states thank you General Sherlock King Abdullah was here about a month ago and he said the this was the most dangerous moment in Israeli Palestinian relations that he'd seen in decades give me a analysis of of the status of that it's it seems like it's a very heightened sense of of of danger in terms of open conflict senator I agree with the statement of King Abdullah on that and we watch this very closely we think the conditions are there the tender and the kindling is there and we don't know what it could take for what spark to be able to start a larger conflict in the West Bank let me just ask a sort of parenthetical question often we get the question about Iran's nuclear capacity in Europe do you have a military analysis of what a strike an airstrike a significant substantial airstrike on on Iran's nuclear capacity would actually what would be the impact of that on their ability to move toward a nuclear weapon I do senator but I best believe that would be in a classified setting okay thank you one other question in your AOR about stability and that is Pakistan a nuclear armed country they've had a lot of political issues lately an assessment of the of the stability and long-term prospects for stability in in Pakistan so I have they have a idea with the military relationship there I have a great relationship with the chief of the army staff general moneer I think the concerns right now in Pakistan are their budget their their their financial situation the current political situation and the counter-terrorism situation as they see the trikey Taliban Pakistani the TTP the attacks are significantly increasing with the end of a ceasefire there are you confident of their nuclear security procedures I am confident of their nuclear security procedures thank you that may be the first good news we've heard today thank you general thank you gentlemen thank you senator kank senator schmidt please thank you mr chairman thank you all for being here I appreciate it I want to follow up a little bit on the question that senator scott asked about I think part of our challenge right now is you know as the newest or one of the newest members of this committee it has become very clear to me that China is an immediate threat long-term threat intermediate threat how are you going to characterize that China is should be a very very important focus of ours and so one of their tools obviously that they deploy around the globe is the debt trap and I'd like for both of you if you could help us communicate back home to the folks who are wondering what are the most pressing needs of the the country what is the the most concerning thing from a national security perspective how that affects what you guys do and what are some of the most egregious examples that you've seen in your roles so senator thank you what I see again is the penetration economically where they go in and they provide infrastructure with the financing that goes with it and I can use an example in one country where they went in they provided infrastructure and it was almost like a balloon mortgage payment in the peak of the COVID crisis overseas at the worst point of their economy in this one country they came and they demanded their payment and that absolutely crushed that country to do that and it caused them to see the way that China does in terms of their their debt trap and there's several other examples also through the Central Asian States as well it's important to understand though what China is doing they're doing it for their own benefit not for the others benefits it's in the same things taking place on the continent of Africa as well whether in the vein of debt trap the policy here's the difference that makes us a partner of choice we go with aid first financing last China does it financing first and that financing puts at a disadvantage of those that are asking for the funds very few times will they actually do any type of aid so that's the assurance action that it causes those our partner countries on the African continent to side with us there's a number of initial deals struck in the memorandum of agreement in the Belt and Road Initiative across 40 countries across the continent of Africa that's very compelling it hasn't matured yet to actually show the negative effects but in aggregate we do communicate cautionary tales from signing such agreements 18 months ago Israel was integrated into SINCOM and I just wanted to find out how that has gone what you're as they're you know fully integrated into that theater how you view that it's going exceptionally well and we view it as a net positive center okay that's great I guess finally because I've got about a a minute and a half here we talked about the debt trap but I think that you know the the building of the islands in the South China Sea being fully weaponized with the spy balloon that traversed over the you know Alaska and the continental united states it has certainly raised awareness I think at a at a point now that we've not seen before I think in a these are these are terrible things that have happened but I think the American people now recognize the threat that China poses to the united states and not just I think you know obviously economically some of the the the theft from an intellectual property perspective has been well documented for a while but but clearly as they try to project that strength into the Indo-Pacific and the South China Sea and those islands are fully weaponized beyond the the debt trap that you you know illuminated what are a couple of other examples that you see that maybe most people don't know about that that certainly raises a lot of concerns and the alarm bells are going off about how serious China is about global domination so I'll focus just on them trying to change the international order trying to change the international system that is very compelling and how they engage with African African nations on the continent and how they vote in the UN General Assembly that's that's an indication that they cannot gain a strategic advantage unless it's along their norms what they consider their norms then the economic piece is very compelling of how they're trying to corner the market on what we call some of the rare earth minerals or even resources that are on the continent of Africa and how they're how they're trying to strike bad deals with these countries extracting these resources without the benefit of the African nations that's a cautionary tale that needs to be told Senator, we see 19 of 21 countries in the Senkomei or have signed Belt and Road initiative agreements with China that is for China's benefit we've also seen 20 of 21 countries have Huawei contracts in them they're building smart cities and a lot of this is for Chinese advantage Thank you, Mr. Chairman Thank you, Senator Spitz, Senator Blumenthal please Thanks, Mr. Chairman Thank you both for your extraordinary service to our nation I want to focus on the Wagner Group which I think is kind of the elephant in both of your rooms, so to speak I am a strong supporter of designating the Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization which will have a constructive impact I would think in both of your commands General Langley if I remember correctly in your testimony you talk about the price of the Wagner Group in Africa as being quote the failure of government institutions the withdrawal of stalwart security allies the extraction of mineral wealth and long-term resource concessions and debt that chip away at Africans future in Ukraine as we well know the Wagner Group poses a very severe and immediate threat not only at Bakhmut but throughout the country it's probably one of Putin's most effective fighting forces right now a mercenary murderous organization the argument that I've heard against it is that designating Wagner as a foreign terrorist organization complicates our interests in Africa because governments doing business with the Wagner Group could suffer sanctions as a result of that business I think that is totally a bogus argument I see no valid reason not to designate Wagner's foreign terrorist organization please give me your view General Langley and then General Carilla Thank you Senator for asking that question because I do need message some of the atrocities going on for the Wagner Group not only in the Central Africa Republic but also in Mali since this past summer and they have been reported on by the UN multinational force there of the atrocities and egregious actions are taken on the on the public this is very serious the Wagner Group even though we know that Benny Bergosian everything is about power and profit but they're inextricably linked to the Russian Federation so the further they're on the more they're on their continent preying upon fragile governance will be a problem and destabilizing across the African continent So would you feel they should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization? Well Senator I'll just say this collectively They are a foreign terrorist organization are they not? Senator I think that's if we have a policy representative like stay out of that and I'd like to just focus on what we need as AFRICOM to be able to do this and we do it in the information space but across all the rest of the whole of government we do have pressurizing things and I can take that into if you let me bring this up in the in closed session of course let me ask you both maybe I can ask General Kirill first Israel is going through domestic unrest protests I've been visited by a number of members of the Israeli military on a number of occasions some personally who feel that this unrest is impacting their readiness Do you have any views on that topic? So I talk to the Israeli Chief of Defense often I talked to him yesterday morning what we talk about is he's trying to ensure that his military stays out of the political conversation Do you think that the recent proposals for changes in their judicial system is in any way undermining their readiness or preparedness? I think as you look at the Israeli system they have reserve units and that is where we're seeing some of this manifest itself but I do not want to make a statement really on their judicial system without knowing all the facts of what they're doing Let me ask to follow up I think it was Senator Mullen who was asking you about our Afghan at-risk allies I've been a leading advocate of the Afghan Adjustment Act I have played a part in trying to extract the translator's guards security personnel my own son served there in Marine Corps and actually was able to get his translator out of Afghanistan but there are thousands still at risk targets on their backs having served there repeatedly with great distinction are we doing enough to get them out? I think we have a moral obligation to get those out again we think the number is you know I would defer to the State Department the exact number on the State Department works the aspect of getting them out once they come to us in Camp Osley we provide the in-processing security and basic life support for them I agree totally we have that moral obligation veterans groups agree steadfastly and passionately about it and I'm hoping that not only will pass the Afghan Adjustment Act but also take greater measures to enable them to escape the persecution torture and death that many of them are at risk I do applaud our veterans groups that are doing taking that action on as well thank you thank you Senator Blumenow Senator Ernst please thank you Mr. Chair and gentlemen thank you very much for your service and your leadership General Carrilla just a few quick questions some of this has been covered briefly by a number of other senators but we do have the great powers that are out there very putting a lot of pressure on us in Asia and in Europe we also have competing priorities here at home we've got a fentanyl crisis we've got southern border issues and then the very sobering fiscal outlook right now so we're entering into an era where being able to support defense with everything we've got has really slowed down significantly the belt is tightening and you've heard concerns today so I know that the NDS has directed the department to right size your forward military presence and your AOR and of course doing that accepting prudent risk as necessary so how has CENTCOM improved the economy of force in your theater so thank you Senator CENTCOM is 85 percent smaller than at the peak in 2008 that was in the midst of two conflicts after the withdrawal from Afghanistan even in 2022 we reduced by 15 percent post-Afghanistan withdrawal what we require in CENTCOM is a sustainable and sufficient force structure to be able to accomplish the missions we've been given again I go back to if there's one place that can derail the NDS it could come out of CENTCOM with a flashpoint yeah I absolutely agree with that I know the president during the Afghanistan withdrawal told us that if we withdrew from Afghanistan there would be a windfall of resources to prioritize China so what resources did this action free up in our budget and then how did DOD reinvest those? I really Senator would defer to OMB and the Department of Defense on any cost savings but I believe those resources were then moved to against the higher priority of IndoPaycom and UCOM okay thank you and I would I would be willing to bet there weren't as many cost savings maybe as as we would have thought but you different topic but you've heard a lot of discussion about the Abraham Accords today I also am a co-chair with Senator Rosen on the Abraham Accords caucus and I'm very proud that our legislation on air and missile defense cooperation did get passed last year in the NDAA and it does help our partners with their security burden so you've talked a little bit about this but when you're implementing this or trying to implement this integration framework what challenges are you running into now that we might be able to iron out without legislation and is there an area where we might need legislation I can tell you where we are right now we're making progress we're going towards a shared air picture between a group of countries and the challenge we have though is if there is Chinese equipment that we cannot integrate and so whether that's a radar or whether that's an actual air defense system we can't let that touch our network based on the on what we know about the Chinese equipment and so it's just it's not compatible with it either so that's the one challenge that we have to be able to do that and so I'm not sure what legislation the legislation that could help us potentially is how do we get FMS faster so they don't have to choose to buy a Chinese system excellent and this has been a discussion as well about FMS and whether it should be the jurisdiction of armed services or another committee here in the United States Senate and that's something for us to iron out so you don't necessarily need additional authorities for implementation then that you're aware of I believe I have all the authorities I need right now ma'am okay I would just encourage our partners in that region to buy American maybe that's the message though that we need to send I'd be happy if they just bought Western Western well compatible with all of our systems no excellent point excellent point general I do want to thank you for your tireless efforts to build partnerships in the region I was recently on a Kodal where we visited Israel the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and I heard over and over again your name mentioned specifically and we describe that or we have described that in the past as leadership by walking around and you did state earlier that you spend 50% of your time in the AOR and I know that that is greatly appreciated by our partners so thank you for doing that truly appreciate your leadership presence is power and general Langley I know that you're out there and engaged as well I do have a question I'll submit for the record for you it deals with the 127 echo program which I think is incredibly important in your region to maintaining stability so thank you gentlemen very much my time has expired thank you Mr. Chair thank you Senator Ernst let me note that the vote has begun and recognized Senator Sullivan thank you Mr. Chairman gentlemen thank you for your service testimony today very much appreciated and in your team members behind you I know how much they put into these kind of hearings General Langley I wanted to begin by also mentioning you probably getting the picture we had a number of Senate codels to the region recently I think that's actually important I was part of the Codel was Senator Rosen and seven U.S. senators to the Abraham Accord countries started in Morocco really impressive ally one of our longest standing allies anywhere in the world I don't know to what specificity you can provide thoughts and maybe this is kind of even against your own interests but it did occur to me that I think it's time to have AFRICOM headquarters in Africa somewhere Morocco I think they'd be a great candidate what do you think about that Senator this has come on numerous times in the past I know and it's been blocked by some members of the committee and they're always like well we don't know where to put it so let's keep it in Germany that's not a good answer right come on we don't know where to put trick and send comes forward headquarters but we chose cutter so like real countries make real tough decisions what do you think we should do I don't think that's a good answer which is too tough too many good countries so let's keep it in Germany what do you think Senator I see the I will see some utility being on the continent but at this time just with our processes of getting down to visit to numerous countries has been beneficial as far as how we are laid out now I think we're right-sized because when we are in Europe there's other partners there in proximity that we can plan how about like a SENTCOM is headquartered in Tampa and as a forward headquarters and cutter what about a forward headquarters for AFRICOM somewhere Senator I can talk about that in closed session because we do have something established to that construct let me both of you keep talking the military loves the phrase whole of government all instruments power we've been talking about critical minerals which is really important and big part of the discussion how much sense does it make for the United States to shut down our critical mineral production capacity as the Department of Interior has done in Alaska and then you guys come here and say boy oh boy we sure got to work on critical matters like that we have not you guys but other agencies literally shutting down there's something called the Ambler Mining District in Alaska one of the resource rich critical mineral areas of the world we had a environmental impact statement EIS seven years ten million dollars ready to go and then the Department of Interior came in and reversed that said hey America Alaska start all over we'll keep getting critical minerals from China were you guys informed of that were you informed of that interior making that idiotic national security decision no senator you think it makes sense for us to look at areas of critical mineral capacity in America and say ah we're not going to do that because lower 48 environmental groups don't like it you think that makes sense for a national security perspective to shut down our critical mineral production when this whole hearing has been about critical minerals does that make sense general in your personal opinion so i'm just here to pass a cautionary tale about China and their listed activities on the continent of trying to corner critical but if we can help uncorner it by producing our own doesn't that make sense senator i'll have a position on that come on general you do have a position you just don't want to say it what's your personal opinion on that does it make sense to produce more critical minerals in America if we have them senator we can discuss that in that closed session about essentials for this is the problem we talk all instruments of power a whole of government and then we don't do it and again that's not you but it's biden it's the administration it's national security suicide and we do it every damn day and we shut down resource development in our own country it's idiotic that's the right answer by the way real quick general curlup you mentioned Iran taking you know shots at our troops are we retaliating against them I think one of the lessons we learned you know when they were providing very sophisticated IEDs to kill and wound thousands of Americans in the 2005 2006 2007 time frame that that was a bad signal to let them just kill our people best and brightest in America I'm sure you lost soldiers to the coulds force IEDs and until we killed Sulamani which I think was a really important message we weren't retaliating so I hope either covertly or overtly when these guys are trying to kill Americans which they're pretty good at and they do a lot that we are sending messages like all right you want to try and kill Americans game on what are we doing to retaliate against these guys senator I'm prepared to retaliate overtly but also not all responses are overt okay but can you assure this committee that we're not just letting them try to attack Americans you already mentioned that they are senator I out some form of retaliation senator we have all the capability to be able to retaliate but not all not all retaliations are overt good thank you thank you mr chairman thank you senator Sullivan and thank you gentlemen for your testimony we have a vote on so I would encourage all my colleagues to vote and we will reconvene within about 15 minutes an svc 217 for the closed session of this hearing I will now adjourn the open session thank you man