[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERVIEW OF COAST GUARD DRUG AND MIGRANT INTERDICTION
=======================================================================
(111-13)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 11, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
(ii)
?
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
CORRINE BROWN, Florida FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
RICK LARSEN, Washington DON YOUNG, Alaska
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Justice, Rear Admiral Wayne E., Assistant Commandant For
Capability, U.S. Coast Guard................................... 5
Nimmich, Rear Admiral Joseph L., Director, Joint Interagency Task
Force South, U.S. Coast Guard.................................. 5
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Coble, Hon. Howard, of North Carolina............................ 31
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Justice, Rear Admiral Wayne E.................................... 33
Nimmich, Rear Admiral Joseph L................................... 41
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
U.S. Coast Guard:
Response to question from Rep. Richardson...................... 19
Response to question from Rep. Richardson...................... 21
Response to question from Rep. Larsen.......................... 29
Responses to questions from the Subcommittee................... 58
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HEARING ON OVERVIEW OF COAST GUARD DRUG AND MIGRANT INTERDICTION
----------
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
House of Representatives
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Elijah
E. Cummings [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Cummings. Good morning. This hearing is called to
order.
Today, the Subcommittee convenes to examine the Coast
Guard's drug and migrant interdiction operations and policies.
Many people in the United States who do not live near the water
or work in the maritime industry may have little interaction
with the Coast Guard and may simply not be aware to the
critical importance of the service's work. However, the Coast
Guard's work touches every community in this Nation, and that
is particularly true of the service's interdiction missions.
I live in Baltimore's inner inner city, and I have seen
firsthand how addiction can blind young people to their hopes
and dreams and possibilities. I have also seen how drugs can
destroy not only people, but communities. I have seen young men
lured into prison, instead of college, by traffickers, and I
have seen young women selling their bodies on our streets to
feed their habits.
It is almost impossible for me to express how deeply I am
troubled by this waste of human lives. However, I am heartened
by the successes that the Coast Guard is achieving in
interdicting illegal drugs.
Put simply, every ounce of an illegal drug interdicted at
sea is an ounce that is kept off of our streets. Every ounce
interdicted is an ounce that cannot destroy a life, family, or
community. And every ounce interdicted is money kept out of the
hands of illegal drug cartels and even potentially terrorist
organizations.
In 2007, the Coast Guard removed just under 356,000 pounds
of cocaine, with an estimated street value of more than $4.7
billion. The Coast Guard surpassed this outstanding record in
2008, removing nearly 368,000 pounds of cocaine.
The Coast Guard, working with its Federal and international
partners, has achieved these record results at a time when the
service is increasingly constrained by the limits imposed by
its aging assets and while managing an ever-expanding workload
arising from its other very critical missions.
It is important for us to understand from today's hearing
the factors that may be limiting the service's ability to seize
additional amounts of illegal drugs. I am particularly
concerned to know whether our intelligence capabilities, which
are centered on facilities like the Joint Interagency Task
Force South, ably represented today by Admiral Joseph Nimmich,
are gathering intelligence faster than we can act on it.
We will also examine the emerging threats we face. In
recent years, smugglers have begun using semi-submersible
vessels, some self-propelled and some towed behind other boats.
These vessels, known as SPSS vessels, can carry large
quantities of drugs. In January of this year alone, the Coast
Guard removed four such SPSS vessels carrying an estimated
combined total of more than 50,000 pounds of cocaine.
The emergence of SPSS vessels and the ships now observed in
maritime smuggling routes testify to the increasing ability of
the Coast Guard and our partner agencies to interdict drugs
carried in more conventional ways. However, they also testify
to the willingness and the ability of smugglers to innovate,
and that is why we must always be a step ahead of the smugglers
if we are to continue increasing interdiction rates.
Congress responded to the SPSS threat by passing
legislation last year making the operation of a stateless SPSS
vessel with intent to avoid detection a Federal felony. This
legislation gives the Coast Guard and the Department of Justice
a new weapon in the fight against drugs. We hope to examine
today whether other legislative changes may be needed to
respond to new threats.
Another critical interdiction mission performed by the
Coast Guard involves the interception of undocumented migrants
at sea. According to the Coast Guard, in the first quarter of
fiscal year 2009, more than 2,700 undocumented migrants tried
to come to the United States by sea, a figure that is more than
14 percent higher than the rates seen in the first quarter of
fiscal year 2008.
Most of the migrants interdicted by the Coast Guard
originate from Cuba, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic. Many of
those seeking to enter the United States put to sea in rickety
vessels or even homemade rafts in an attempt to flee the
desperation of their circumstances. Others are smuggled in go-
fasts operated by organizations and smuggling rings.
The Coast Guard's work interdicting migrants is critical to
preventing unauthorized entry into the United States. In many
instances, the service is also rescuing individuals who may be
at great risk in unsafe boats in open water.
As with drug interdiction operations, we hope to examine in
more detail today the trends that the Coast Guard is observing
in migration, particularly as national economies experience a
deepening world recession, as well as what measures may be
needed to respond to them.
In addition to Admiral Nimmich, we also are joined by
Admiral Wayne Justice, the Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant
for Capability. Admiral Justice is a familiar face to the
Subcommittee, and we welcome you back.
I will be in and out of the hearing because I have another
hearing at the same time, but, believe me, I will be briefed on
what I may have missed.
With that, I will now yield to our distinguished Ranking
Member, Congressman LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this very important hearing.
Among the armed forces, the Coast Guard is the only
military service with the authority to enforce U.S. laws
domestically and abroad. Coast Guard personnel carry out
missions to protect our Nation's fisheries, secure our maritime
border, and stem the tide of illegal drugs onto our streets.
The demands on the Coast Guard personnel to successfully
conduct these missions are extremely high and getting even
higher. However, the service's assets are increasingly
unavailable due to unscheduled and emergency maintenance needs.
I am extremely concerned about the impacts that the
decreasing availability of patrol boats and maritime patrol
aircraft is having on the Coast Guard's law enforcement
missions. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how
the Coast Guard intends to deal with this increasingly widening
gap.
Last year, Congress responded to the Coast Guard's request
for additional authorities to interdict stateless submersible
and semi-submersible vessels, as the Chairman noted in his
statement, that are increasingly being used by Colombian drug
lords to ferry illegal drugs north to Central America and
Mexico, and eventually onto our coast and onto our streets.
Unfortunately, we did not take similar action on the service's
longstanding request for strengthened authorities to apprehend
and prosecute individuals who attempt to smuggle aliens into
the United States.
These alien smugglers attempt to bring thousands of
undocumented migrants to the United States each year by sea,
without any regard for law enforcement or for the health and
safety of the individuals they smuggle in. These smugglers are
not in the business for humanitarian reasons. This is a for-
profit, big profit, dangerous, and illegal enterprise which
needs to end.
I intend to introduce legislation with Congressman Mica--
and hopefully a number of others who will see the merits of
moving forward with this authority for the Coast Guard--to
close these loopholes which give the Coast Guard little choice
other than to return alien smugglers to their countries of
origin, which is an unacceptable alternative.
This bill will generally follow the guide of legislation
which passed the House in the 110th Congress, but would fall
under the jurisdiction of this Committee. Our bill will
carefully target the smugglers who show a reckless disregard
for human life and not the passengers, who are too often caught
up in the tangled lies of the smuggling rings.
I hope that the witnesses will address this and other
important issues which are impacting the Coast Guard's law
enforcement message, and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that you will
look at this legislation closely and decide to join in with me
to ensure that alien smuggling legislation is enacted as part
of the Coast Guard's reauthorization bill during the 111th
Congress.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Larsen. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. LoBiondo.
Do any other Members have an opening statement? Mr. Coble?
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of
time, Mr. Chairman, I would like my entire statement to be made
part of the record. But I will associate myself, Mr. Chairman,
with the remarks made by the gentleman from New Jersey. He
indicated that currently there are enormous procedural and
jurisdictional hurdles that seem to protect, and maybe even
embolden, alien smugglers, and clearly that deficiency should
be addressed hopefully in this session of the Congress.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Larsen. Without objection, your entire statement will
be entered into the record.
Mr. Olson, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Olson. Mr. Chairman, yes, I do, and I will be very
brief. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Admiral Justice and
Admiral Nimmich. I appreciate your service and I appreciate
your being here today to help us understand how our Nation is
fighting the drug flow from South America and from Mexico.
In my district, the Greater Houston area has experienced a
tremendous increase in violence attributed to Mexican drug
trafficking organizations in recent months. The drug violence
in Mexico, the human trafficking, the gun trafficking going
south from the United States has escalated to the point where
Mexican nationals, in some cases, are fleeing to our side of
the border, to cities in and around the Houston area, to
protect themselves and their families from possible kidnapping
and murder.
Narco traffickers in Mexico are receiving the majority of
the cocaine they distribute in the United States from countries
in South America, particularly Colombia, that deliver drugs by
boat or semi-submersibles in the western Gulf of Mexico and the
eastern Pacific Ocean.
The National Drug Intelligence Center at the U.S.
Department of Justice has even found that Mexican drug
trafficking organizations are using the Padre Island National
Seashore south of the Corpus Christi metropolitan area, in sort
of the Brownsville, the lower South Padre Island, in my home
State as an entry point to smuggle drugs and illegal aliens.
As the Mexican drug wars continue to escalate, the Coast
Guard's drug and migrant interdiction efforts take on an even
more critical role. I appreciate all the good work that the
United States Coast Guard does to stop smugglers from bringing
illicit drugs and illegal aliens to our shores, and I look
forward to hearing your ideas on how we can better enforce our
Nation's laws to ensure the integrity of our Nation's borders.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Larsen. The gentleman yields back.
We are now going to welcome the members of our panel. Rear
Admiral Wayne Justice is the Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant
for Capability and Rear Admiral Joseph Nimmich is the Director
of Joint Interagency Task Force South.
Let me note that Admiral Nimmich is under a time constraint
today; he needs to depart at about 11:20 to attend an event
with President Obama. Therefore, when we get to questions, we
want to be sure that we ask questions of him before his
departure.
With that, we welcome both witnesses to our Subcommittee
and we will start with Admiral Nimmich.
TESTIMONY OF REAR ADMIRAL JOSEPH L. NIMMICH, DIRECTOR, JOINT
INTERAGENCY TASK FORCE SOUTH, U.S. COAST GUARD; AND REAR
ADMIRAL WAYNE E. JUSTICE, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT FOR CAPABILITY,
U.S. COAST GUARD
Admiral Nimmich. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Subcommittee. Thank you. I am Rear Admiral Joe Nimmich, and I
have the privilege of being the Director of the Joint
Interagency Task Force South, located in Key West, Florida.
Mr. Chairman, today, 71 Americans will lose their lives to
illicit drugs. Nineteen will be the direct result of cocaine.
These Americans come from all walks of life; rich and poor,
young and old, rural and urban. And as the Chairman pointed
out, inner cities bear the largest burden.
Also, nearly 17 Mexican citizens will be executed today in
never before seen gang violence against each other and Mexican
law enforcement and military.
Joint Interagency Task Force South is a critical piece of a
national strategy to reduce our dependence on illicit drugs.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has a multi-pronged
strategy to address illicit drugs in the United States. The
strategy focuses both on demand reduction at home and supply
reduction in the source, transit, and border areas.
Joint Interagency Task Force South is tasked with the
interdiction of illicit traffickers in the transit zone.
Illicit traffickers encompass the full spectrum of threats to
national security, presenting a formidable challenge to our
future, as well as our partner nations. Today, we are faced
with a highly mobile, asymmetric trafficking threat with the
advantages of many years of experience smuggling illicit
contraband throughout the region, and now globally, presenting
a truly transnational threat.
In order to move people and cargo towards the United States
and international markets, well resources illicit traffickers
exploit the vast air, land, and maritime domains, using both
legitimate and illegitimate methods of conveyance. Traffickers
have established an agile and viable infrastructure for
transporting large quantities of illicit cargo not only to the
United States and to Europe, but to Africa and Asia as well.
While focusing efforts on the transnational illicit threat,
JIATF South has continued to disrupt record levels of cocaine
bound for world markets, last year yielding 229 metric tons,
statistically, 41 percent of the world's cocaine seizures and
disruptions. This translates into the removal of $4.5 billion
worth of cocaine, and this also reflects the removal of 71 hits
of cocaine for each and every U.S. high school student.
Even with this positive result, we cannot lose sight of the
continuing funneling of illegal drugs across our communities
and the corruption, violence, and instability that remains in
the wake here at home and in the region which affects our
national security. We also don't have to look far to cite these
shared instabilities from illicit traffickers growing
throughout our region. Frequently in the news are the reports
on how Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related
violence, with powerful cartels battling each other and
security forces.
So far this year, more than 1,000 Mexican people have died
in the results of this violence. Mexican anti-drug operations,
however, have not reduced the violence, according to experts,
due to the cartels' ability to buy off police and high-ranking
prosecutors. JIATF South supports the Mexican effort by
stopping cocaine flow before it arrives in Mexico, removing the
money necessary for the cartels to continue the violence.
Violence in Guatemala, although not highlighted in the
media as much as in Mexico, has reached similar levels, with
thousands of assassinations. Violence costs Guatemala the
equivalent of 7.3 percent of its GDP, and it is the fourth
highest rate of violence in Latin America, with a homicide rate
of 55.4 per 100,000 residents.
In 1989, JIATF South was established to focus on the supply
of south-to-north flow of drugs from South America towards the
United States. Since 9/11, the command has grown in operational
perspective to become more inclusive with the demands of the
changing security environment. Daily, we conduct interagency
operations against illicit traffickers by highly mobile,
asymmetric threats originating in the transit zone. Our joint
operating area, through the detection and monitoring of illicit
air and maritime targets intelligence fusion, multi-sensor
correlation, information sharing, and handing off to our law
enforcement agencies and partner nations for the interdiction
and apprehension.
In spite of our challenges, we continue to be successful.
Two primary reasons: first, JIATF South is a dynamic and
evolutionary organization, one continuously adapting itself to
evolving target sets; and second is the national and
international unity of effort found within our command that
spans geographic and functional boundaries, bringing with it
operational efficiency and synchronized intelligence.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our threat and the
challenges we face in combating illicit trafficking. Thank you
for your interest in our national integrated task force. I will
be happy to answer your questions.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Admiral. Exactly five minutes.
Pretty good job. Great staffing.
Admiral Justice.
Admiral Justice. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
distinguished Members. I am honored to appear before you today
to share the successes and challenges of the Coast Guard's
maritime drug and migrant interdiction missions.
The Coast Guard is the lead Federal agency for maritime
drug interdiction in the transit zone and strives, with our DHS
partners, to reduce the supply of drugs by denying smugglers
the use of maritime routes and conveyances, spanning a 6
million square area that includes the Caribbean and Eastern
Pacific, roughly the size of the Continental United States.
I will add to Rear Admiral Nimmich's comments and say that
the Coast Guard and our partners could not do our job without
the tremendous leadership and support of JIATF South.
The Coast Guard continues to improve its capabilities
through its recapitalization program. After successfully re-
engining our HH-65 helicopters. We have outfitted some of them
with an Air-Use-of-Force capability that can disable non-
compliant go-fast vessels, as depicted in the pictures here.
The overwhelming success of the Air-Use-of-Force program
has resulted in smugglers using routes through Central American
littorals with the attempt to evade U.S. patrol efforts by
operating the territorial sea of our partner nations. The Coast
Guard has targeted this tactic through a series of 27 maritime
bilateral counter-drug agreements and arrangements. Our newest
one, which was signed this past December with Mexico, marks a
significant expansion. Just last month, using a recently
approved operation center information exchange protocols, the
Coast Guard was able to confirm the registry of a suspect
Mexican flag fishing vessel. In less than one hour, the Coast
Guard obtained permission from the government of Mexico to
board the vessel and locate nearly 7 metric tons concealed
within a hidden compartment.
The effectiveness of any drug or migrant interdiction model
requires successful prosecutions to levy consequences. Congress
plays a critical role supporting Coast Guard efforts by
providing legislation to combat illicit smuggling.
Mr. Larsen. Admiral? Apparently, when I talk, the static
goes away. Maybe you could switch microphones.
Admiral Justice. Okay.
Mr. Larsen. We will have that other microphone removed from
the hearing room.
Admiral Justice. I kind of liked that, sir, because the
clock didn't work either.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Larsen. It is working up here.
Admiral Justice. Most recently, Congress's rapid action to
pass the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act offers
another powerful tool to counter difficult-to-detect self-
propelled semi-submersible vessels as a transport of multi-load
tons of cocaine bound for the United States. Since the passage
of this Act on September 13th, the Coast Guard has interdicted
five such vessels, carrying an estimated 25 metric tons of
cocaine. Thanks to this new law, U.S. attorneys are now able to
prosecute suspect smugglers, even if the vessel is successfully
scuttled and no contraband evidence recovered. The Coast Guard
greatly appreciates the work of Congress in passing this vital
legislation.
Like the illegal drug threat, the flow of undocumented
migrants on American shores is both a threat to human life and
violates U.S. and international laws. The Coast Guard migrant
interdiction operations are as much humanitarian efforts as
they are law enforcement efforts. In fact, many of the migrant
interdiction cases handled by the Coast Guard begin as search
and rescue missions. During the first five months of 2009, 5300
documented migrants attempted to enter the U.S. via maritime
means. This number is up 25 percent during the same reporting
period last fiscal year. The largest factor has been an overall
increase in the flow from Haiti. We have had twice as many,
nearly 3,000 rescues, compared to last year's same period.
Just as we do in drug interdiction, we rely on
technological innovation and partnership with other agencies
and countries to counter alien smuggling. In Sector San Juan,
between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, robust
interagency support for interdiction, prosecution, and
deployment of a mobile biometrics capability in our 110-foot
patrol boats has proven extremely effective in reducing the
flow of illegal migration by over 75 percent since 2006. 236
cases have been referred for prosecution that included 40
aggregated felons and 90 aliens attempting to illegally re-
enter the United States after deportation. This initiative
could not have been possible without the full partnership of
US-VISIT, CBP, ICE, and the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Juan,
the State Department, Dominican Navy, and others.
Areas of concern is the potential for mass maritime
migration, such as occurred in 1994, coming almost
simultaneously from Cuba and Haiti. The Department of Homeland
Security has developed Operation Vigilant Sentry Operations
Plan. This fully integrated operation will work to deter
illegal or unsafe migrant departures to interdict, repatriate,
and detain migrant populations as necessary and appropriate to
protect the security of the United States. While no one can say
that we are fully ready for any contingency, I can say with a
great deal of confidence that all DHS components and partner
agencies are cooperating fully and are ready to deter and
respond to a mass migration.
As we look to the future, we are anticipating that DHS's
secure border initiative coupled with Mexico's law enforcement
efforts, will pressure drug and human smuggling organizations
to move their operations offshore. In San Diego, we may be
seeing the first signs of an uptick in maritime smuggling
activity. We are leveraging the Coast Guard's Joint Harbor
Operations Center in San Diego for integrating planning and to
undertake joint operations with our Federal, State, local, and
Mexican partners.
I will add, Congressman Olson, that we have the same joint
effort going on in the Texas-Mexico border off Corpus Christi.
While I am immensely proud of our interdiction efforts, in
recent years, Coast Guard personnel have been saddled with
significant maintenance challenges associated with maintaining
an aging fleet of offshore cutters that are increasingly
experiencing lost operational days. Significant structural
deficiencies resulting from advanced age have resulted in
unplanned maintenance on board several cutters that prompted
cancellation of patrols.
The Coast Guard has undertaken a comprehensive
modernization effort that will centralize key maintenance and
logistics functions under the Deputy Commandant of Mission
Support at Coast Guard Headquarters. This consolidation will
enable more effective acquisition governance and asset
oversight, standardized maintenance processes, and provide a
single point accountability for life-cycle management of
assets. Also critical, the implementation of the rest of the
Coast Guard recapitalization program that will provide the
cutters, aircraft sensors, intelligence collections and
communications capabilities necessary to address adaptive drug
trafficking organizations operating in an expansive maritime
demand.
Sir, whether operating thousands of miles downrange, off
South and Central America or operating right off our coasts in
our Nation's littorals, the Coast Guard, with its DHS and DOD
partners, is playing a critical border security role,
encountering a broad range of illicit activities in
establishing smuggling routes throughout the maritime domain.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today,
and I would be happy to answer questions.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you both. I will start with questions
with regards to the submersibles, obviously an innovation over
the last couple years. Do you anticipate or can you talk about
anything that you foresee in terms of other innovations we
might expect from the drug smuggling community?
Admiral Nimmich. Yes, sir. The drug smuggling community is
highly adaptable, and our successes from 2006 actually drove
them to develop and more successfully utilize the semi-
submersibles. As our success increases this year, we fully
expect to see differences in how they do business, one of which
is to just emphasize past successes. They are taking extreme
advantage of our partner nations' littorals downrange,
distributing their load--rather than carrying 6,000 tons in one
vessel, putting it in four vessels, knowing that we have
limited capacity to be able to react to that--and, finally, we
continue to see a trend towards using legitimate containers--
not to the United States, but to Europe and Asia--as a method
of being able to move cocaine out of the region and then
potentially back into the United States through other
mechanisms.
Mr. Larsen. With regards to the movement towards the
littorals, could you explain the reason for that a little bit
more?
Admiral Nimmich. Yes, sir. They clearly know that our
partner nations downrange don't have the capacity we do, and
they use the littorals. Even with our bilateral agreements, it
requires more time to be able to respond and recognize the
sovereign nature of the territorial waters of each of our
partners. So as they move in and out--as a prime example, we
have had two vessels in the last two days, high-speed, go-fast
vessels run right along the territorial waters of Panama. I
have a Navy vessel that tries to do the intercept and they move
immediately into the Panamanian territorial waters because
Panama restricts my ability to use naval vessels. When I have a
Coast Guard vessel, I can exercise the bilateral and move a
Coast Guard vessel in.
So it is a challenge for me to keep the right assets in the
right place to be able to identify and react to this, but they
use our recognition of other nations' sovereignty as a tool to
eliminate our ability to interdict. Panama will respond, but
they have very limited capability, and often their capability
isn't nighttime capable, and the drug cartels know that and
they use that to their advantage.
Mr. Larsen. In a situation like that, would you track the
vessel until it gets to a place where--even if you are using a
U.S. naval vessel, would you track the vessel until it gets to
a place where you can interdict?
Admiral Nimmich. Within the limited resources we have, we
track as long as we can. It is hard to be able to maintain con
activity when they go into the mangrove rivers and streams on
the eastern pacific coast, so we do--in fact, we have had very
good cases where we have been able to direct a partner nation's
assets right into the interdiction, including Mexico,
Guatemala, Nicaragua. All are providing capability within the
realm of what they are capable of.
Mr. Larsen. In terms of the level of intelligence that you
can gather, level of information you can gather but you cannot
respond to, respond to that intelligence, what are your
limitations in response?
Admiral Nimmich. It is a difficult question to answer
because a lot of our intelligence starts out as human
reporting, and human reporting's reliability needs to have
validation, second or third sources. So often there is a lot of
information out there, but its credibility is in question.
I would say that we are about 50 percent capable of
responding to actionable intelligence, where I can get
validation, second source or some sort of a national technical
capability that tells me, in fact, drugs are moving. I have the
assets to be able to detect about 50 percent of that, sir.
Mr. Larsen. So an estimate of what the gap between actual
intelligence and ability to act might be about 50 percent?
Admiral Nimmich. Yes, sir, and that is a combination of
better intelligence capabilities within my command, and we are
working very hard at using capabilities and techniques
developed in Iraq and Afghanistan on networking and information
management. Our intelligence community partners are bringing
that capability to us in JIATF, so some of it is better
intelligence and then some of it is just purely more assets,
primarily maritime patrol aircraft.
Once I have an area that intelligence leads me to, it is
usually a fairly large piece of ocean, and if I can't fly an
aircraft to physically find the contact that I am looking for,
it is awfully difficult to move a ship to do the interdiction.
Mr. Larsen. The next question I have sort of relates to the
Deepwater Program, acquisition program. What particular assets
coming out of that over the next several years are most fitting
for the interdiction work?
Admiral Nimmich.. Yes, sir. Clearly, the national security
cutter is going to be in a phenomenal increase in capability
not just by its endurance and the ability to proceed at a
higher rate of speed, but its ability to do collections as
well, things we can't quite talk about in this room, but they
have national technical capability that will greatly enhance my
ability to collect on communications intercepts.
Additionally, the maritime patrol aircraft of the C-130Js
are already proving themselves downrange and those acquisitions
in long-range maritime patrol aircraft. The short-range
maritime patrol aircraft have a value for me in terms of the
Caribbean and work out of both Guantanamo Bay, but mostly out
of Borinquen in Puerto Rico.
And I will pass it off to Admiral Justice to add to that,
sir.
Mr. Larsen. Admiral Justice?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir. Thank you. I will just continue
again. Our Deepwater recapitalization program focused on the
offshore capability, whether it is cutters that can deliver
helicopters in boats on-scene or long-range aircraft that are
going to find, support the intelligence to get us where we need
to respond to, is our focus.
I would add, on the aircraft side, in addition to the C-
130s, whether it be the Hs that we are going to upgrade with
center wing boxes or if it is the C-130Js, as we get as many as
we choose to get of those, or its our cast, the other piece
would be UAS, the unmanned aerial systems. And we are
approaching that challenge with a DHS national asset construct,
where CBP, who also operates the same asset, we are co-joined
with them in a joint program office to move forward with both
land and maritime variance of potentially a predator that will
also add the ability to get this data that we need to respond
to intelligence-wise.
On the ship side, in addition to our national security
cutters, we have been fortunate to be able to let the contract
for our fast response cutters, an extraordinarily capable and
advanced, and it will be new cutters that replace our 110s.
And then our next step, sir, is the offshore patrol cutter,
that middle band which is going to replace our 210s and 270s,
the 40-year-old ships that are just neither big enough nor fast
enough, and absolutely are not reliable enough now to continue
moving forward and addressing these challenges.
Mr. Larsen. Sure.
Admiral Nimmich. If I could just add on to that. The
offshore fast response cutters, the patrol boat replacements,
come from a Dutch design that I have actually sailed on in the
Caribbean, one in Curacao and one in St. Maarten,
extraordinarily capable. And the one in Curacao is responsible
for several interdictions that we have provided information
down to the Dutch. These will make a great improvement in the
Caribbean for me.
Mr. Larsen. Just one more question from me, then I will
turn it over to Mr. LoBiondo.
With regard to helicopters, the Coast Guard doesn't have
enough 65s to ensure that each large cutter deployed to
interdict drugs has a tactical squadron, so what are the
alternatives for acquiring additional squadron capacity for the
Coast Guard?
Admiral Justice. Sir, I appreciate the question. Yes, you
are right, as we balance our aviation assets with the missions
that we have, whether they be coastal or search and rescue or
security, pollution response or putting one of our cutters
offshore, we need to continue to look at that balance and to
assess the amount of resources that we have and that we need.
The way we do it now, of course, is that we outfit two or three
cutters with support supplies, and then we might share that
helicopter with those cutters. That works if they are in range.
And that is not a panacea, that is just a tactic. So we
appreciate that issue, sir, and we understand that challenge.
Admiral Nimmich. Mr. Chairman, from my perspective, having
a vessel without a helicopter is extremely limited,
particularly when you talk about the small boat threat that we
talked about. A vessel never can stop them, it is the airborne
use of force capability that the Coast Guard has developed that
is my ace in the hole when it comes to interdicting go-fasts. A
vessel that I have in contact within 150 mile square box, a
Coast Guard cutter without a helicopter has about a 7 percent
chance of detection. With a helicopter, that goes up to about
40 percent. And when I put maritime patrol aircraft over the
top, if I know there is a contact in that box, I have about an
80 percent interdiction rate. So the helicopter becomes a
hugely critical factor for me, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Pretty clear. Thank you.
Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Olson is
under a time constraint, so I would like to yield my time to
Congressman Olson, if that is okay.
Mr. Larsen. Without objection.
Mr. Olson. I would like to thank my colleague, the Ranking
Member, and thank the Chairman for your patience and your
making allowance for my time constraints.
Admiral Nimmich, it sounds like the Drug Trafficking Vessel
Interdiction Act has been very successful and has given you
another tool in your toolbox, so to speak. I just was wondering
if you have seen--now that it has been implemented, as you
know, you have a measure and then a countermeasure comes. Have
you seen a change in the way that the drug traffickers are
using their semi-submersibles and any evidence that they are
taking it to the next level and actually having fully
submersible vehicles?
Admiral Nimmich. Sir, we have had four interdictions this
year, the Colombians have one, for a total of five
interdictions. That puts us from what we believe out there at
about a 70 percent--that puts the smugglers at about a 70
percent success rate. That is down from an 80 percent success
rate just last year. Of the four we have interdicted, 12 of the
crew members are here in the United States under indictment,
none have gone to trial yet; and the 4 others are waiting
transport back to the United States. We expect that they will
have to go to trial to test the law and test what the
sentencing will be. But they are already providing valuable
information back into how the semi-submersible structure works,
how the drug traffickers use those, and we believe that we will
be more successful this year than we have in the past because
of the focus and the success that Congress has given us in
being able to bring those crew members back and use the
information they provide.
Going from a semi-submersible to a submersible is an
extraordinarily technologically difficult event. In 2000, you
may recall that there was reporting on a truly true submersible
being built in Bogota. That was being built with the industrial
capability of a major city. Unfortunately, you can't sequester
the people that are building it. People talk, they talk to
friends, and suddenly there is a clue that allowed the
Colombian police to find the building site. That was a Russian-
designed submarine. They can't build submarines in the jungle.
The technical capability, the requirements for being able to
pressurize the hull just don't exist. We believe that it is
possible, but highly improbable, in the current environment.
Mr. Olson. Thank you very much. One more question, a little
closer to my home in Houston. As you know, the Houston area is
experiencing an increase in drug trafficking and drug-related
violence. Drug and migrant trafficking organizations seem to be
getting bolder in the manner in which they try to move illicit
drugs and illegal people in the United States. The National
Drug Intelligence Centers found drug traffickers are using
short distance maritime routes from Mexico to the remote parts
of Padre Island, again, south of the Corpus Christi
metropolitan area and north of the Brownsville area. Has the
Coast Guard examined the use of these routes and potential ways
to shut them down?
Admiral Nimmich. Sir, we have known about and worked on
those routes for a considerable length of time. JIATF South, as
well as the interagency partners, are part of the ongoing surge
efforts now both in San Diego and around the Brownsville, Texas
area. Those are areas we are going to need to continue to
watch. The real answer for me, sir, in the world I operate in
is preventing the drugs from getting in Mexico in the first
place, and that is what we do in the transit zone, when those
drugs are in the multi-ton load, where you have the most
impact. Once they enter Mexico, even across the borders in
terms of Brownsville, they come in 100 kilos, 50 kilos, 75
kilos. It takes far more infrastructure to be able to interdict
them. So I focus on trying to take out the largest loads before
they get to Guatemala and Mexico. If we can be successful in
that, that eliminates the benefit to the drug cartels and
eliminates their ability to fund the violence.
Mr. Olson. One more final question. I am sorry, Admiral
Justice?
Admiral Justice. Sir, just to add to that, to put a local
flavor on that, I can absolutely attest to the DHS partner sort
of attention that that area gets, whether it be the border
patrol on the river, the port ops people from CBP, or the Coast
Guard station that handles the littoral piece there, it is an
integrated effort. We know the challenge. There is a fisheries
challenge as well as there is the drugs and migrants that
potentially come in there. It is absolutely on the radar, sir,
and we are working at it as efficiently as we can.
Mr. Olson. Great. Thank you for that answer. One final
question. You mentioned how successful the arrangement we have
had with Mexico has been and the cooperation in fighting the
war against drugs. Have you seen any evidence that the current
unrest could jeopardize these efforts or that drug trafficking
organizations will have assistance from elements of the Mexican
government to avoid interdiction?
Admiral Nimmich. Clearly, sir, the resources that the drug
cartels have in terms of money allows for an extraordinary
amount of corruption and instability in any country, and you
saw that in Colombia four to six years ago. The place that
Mexico is at is a turning point. They will either survive or
they won't. I have not seen any in my interactions with either
their Navy or their Air Force that work regularly with me. In
fact, the Navy, if anything, has become far more proactive in
giving me ready access to Mexican vessels, and when I can't
find the drugs on them, taking them ashore and literally
stripping them down to bear metal in order to see if there are
drugs on there based on the information I provided. That was
not true even just two years ago.
Mr. Olson. Thank you for your answers. Thank you for your
service.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the floor.
Mr. Larsen. Gentleman from New York, Mr. McMahon.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you, Chairman Larsen.
And thank you, Rear Admiral Justice and Rear Admiral
Nimmich for your testimony this morning, and thank you for your
service and dedication to our Country and to the men and women
whom you lead every day.
My district includes Staten Island and portions of
Brooklyn, New York, as you know, the gateway to New York Harbor
and, as you know, the home to a very proud Coast Guard base at
Fort Wadsworth. I grew up in Staten Island; I am a lifelong New
Yorker. I lived through the terrible crack epidemic of the
1980s and watched crime skyrocket in New York, at one point
reaching more than 2,000 murders per year. And while the crime
rate has dropped considerably since that time, the flood of
cocaine and other illegal narcotics still causes great
challenges to the residents of my district and the people
across this Country.
The hardworking men and women of the New York City Police
Department and the police forces of all our localities put
their lives on the line each day in fighting crime and getting
drugs off the streets, but we all know that so much of their
success and so much of the safety of our communities depends on
the hard work that is done by all of you in the Coast Guard to
stop drugs from entering the Country in the first place. So on
behalf of all those people and New York and around this
Country, I thank you.
Hand in hand in stopping illegal drug trafficking is the
need to stop illegal immigration. We are a Nation of laws and
we must protect our borders. We need to protect the integrity
of our immigration policies and we cannot permit people to
enter our Country illegally. The Coast Guard and the men and
women who protect our borders from illegal immigration provide
our front line of defense, because if we fail to protect our
borders, then we will never be able to protect the American
people from the threats of terrorism, crime, or disease.
But we are also a Nation of immigrants, and the U.S.
continues to be the great hope for so many people looking to
make better lives for themselves and for others. When we in
Congress debate how to deal with immigration, we need to
remember that immigration is a very human issue. In fact, I am,
myself, the son of immigrants. My mother flew war torn Europe
at the end of the second World War and settled here to raise me
with my brothers and sisters. My hometown in New York City is
currently undergoing a major surge in immigration.
Approximately 40 percent of the city's residents were born in
another country, close to an all-time high.
Immigrants give New York, and the Nation as a whole, a
wonderful mix of culture that makes being in America such an
incredible and rich experience. But we cannot have people
coming onto our shores who violate our laws and undermine our
stated immigration policies, because doing so would undermine
the security of us all. Again, therefore, we are all grateful
for the great service and the valor that you exhibit every day.
I would just like to ask you a question from your very
important perspective in the Coast Guard. How would you
describe the levels of cooperation you receive with other
Federal, State, and local law enforcement officers, and how
would you describe the cooperation you receive from foreign
governments as well?
Admiral Nimmich. I thank you very much for the question,
sir, because that is the value and that is the nature of the
business I do at JIATF South. JIATF South is an interagency and
international command. I have 13 foreign liaison officers from
11 countries throughout Central America, South America, and
Europe. I also have all five Federal law enforcement officers
that have authority in drug law enforcement, as well as six of
the intelligence agencies, all located in the same command. It
is that location and the ability to work together for a common
end that make us as successful as we are. I find that when you
get to the tactical level, it doesn't matter what agency you
are from or what country you are from; you are looking to make
the difference, and we have a great story to tell down at JIATF
in that regard.
As far as the partner countries, within their capacity,
they operate as well as can be expected. Most of the countries
in Central and South America have very little capacity and,
with the downturn in the economy, find themselves even strapped
for something as simple as the gasoline to run their boats.
When they have the capacity, they respond and they respond in a
very effective manner. There is not a country in the region
that I have not had a report on that actually entered into a
firefight in order to prevent the drug cartels from moving
their product. These are people who put their lives at risk in
terms of actually being shot trying to interdict the drug
cartels. While the drug cartels choose not to move to that
level of violence against U.S. assets, they are very quick to
respond violently against our partner nations.
Admiral Justice. Sir, I would like to first make a quick
point. I am a Curtis High School Graduate in Staten Island.
Mr. McMahon. Go Warriors.
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
I would like to make it local. The Safe Port Act, two years
ago, has asked for Department of Homeland Security to develop
interagency operation centers. We have one of those on Fort
Wadsworth. The Coast Guard Sector Command Center there is also
manned with CBP, with city police, city fire, State reps. We
take that model and it is a regional sort of effort to fuse
both intelligence and then fuse our operations. And it wasn't
drugs or migrants, but I think you saw the response to the
downed aircraft, that integrated response, and that was handled
out of that Command Center, and I think that is a good example
of how we are serious about interagency operability.
Mr. Larsen. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, good to have
you all with us. In my opening statement, I alluded to the
procedural and jurisdictional hurdles, and I want to follow up
on that, Mr. Chairman.
Under current law, Federal prosecutors typically must prove
that a smuggler made a profit, actually induced migrants to
make the voyage, or that a migrant was seriously injured, in
order to pursue a felony charge. What prosecutorial tools,
gentlemen, are required to aid in reducing maritime migrant
smugglers and, therefore, improve the effectiveness of Coast
Guard migrant interdiction operations?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir. The Coast Guard supports
legislation that would simplify the elements of what it is
going to take to prosecute these people. We would like to
eliminate the for-profit requirement that has to be currently
proven; we would like to have a minimum sentence for basic
smuggling for three years--we have got to put some teeth into
this, sir--we would like to request that Good Samaritans who
claim they picked up people, they have to tell us right away,
not use that as an excuse; and we would like to enhance seizure
and forfeiture provisions in the act. A legislation that brings
that to the table, sir, is what we are looking for and we are
excited about it happening.
Mr. Coble. And are you proceeding along that line now,
Admiral?
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Formulating it?
Admiral Justice. That's correct, yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, sir.
Gentlemen, the Coast Guard cutter fleet is experiencing
severe readiness challenges, which you all had mentioned
earlier, which are therefore decreasing the amount of days the
Coast Guard is able to actually be on the water performing
counter-drug and alien migration interdiction operations. I
think you mentioned 149 lost days, Admiral, due to the GALLATIN
and DALLAS being taken offline. What is required to address
these gaps in availability of assets?
Admiral Justice. Sir, as we recapitalize--and that takes
time--we have got to keep these old ships running. To do that,
what we are doing, to use the word modernize, but we are
attending to the maintenance challenges in a different way. We
are going to have asset oversight. We are going to have
acquisition governance, much better governance in our
acquisition. I won't get into that right now, as to the
details, but that is very important. We are going to
standardize our maintenance procedures and we are going to have
a single point accountability for the life-cycle of these
vessels.
I have spent my career, as has Admiral Nimmich, sailing on
ships that we have maintained in an ad hoc, almost haphazard
manner. We have changed in that and we are going to have one
person in charge of maintaining these ships nationwide, and we
are going to do it in a consistent, repeatable, and a more
efficient way. And we have got to do that now to keep these
ships around while we recapitalize, sir.
Mr. Coble. Admiral, I sailed on the same type cutters a
long time ago, so they were probably plagued then too.
Mr. Chairman, one final question, if I may.
Admiral Nimmich. Mr. Coble, if I could add to that from my
Coast Guard perspective, as opposed to my current job as the
Director.
Mr. Coble. Sure.
Admiral Nimmich. And Wayne makes the point. We have always
been responsible for operations and maintenance and training in
a single entity, and our ethos drove us to do more operations
rather than maintenance and training. By splitting the
maintenance and training to a single individual who is
responsible for that, then providing a well trained, well
maintained asset to the operator to operate within those
limits, breaks the paradigm of us sacrificing the future for
current day operations.
Mr. Coble. I thank you for that.
Mr. Chairman, one final question.
Gentlemen, what is the role of the maritime border when
discussing a national concept or model of border security?
Admiral Nimmich. Sir, as Admiral Allen, in his role as not
only the Commandant, but the Chairman of the Interdiction
Committee, which is responsible to ONDCP for coordinating at
the policy level the Nation's response, he chartered us to look
at exactly that mission set from a land, sea, and air
perspective. There is a lot of work, as you would expect, on
the Southwest border and land, and what is going on at EPIC and
JTF North are testaments to DOD, DHS, all of the interagency
coming together. A similar situation resides at the AMOC out in
Riverside, California, CBP's Air and Marine Operations Center.
Unfortunately, there is no common entity in terms of a
similar view for the maritime. This past January, Admiral
Allen, along with Admiral Roughead, stood up the National
Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland. That Center
is designed to bring all of the interagency together to look at
the maritime borders the way we do land and air, sir.
Mr. Coble. I thank you, gentlemen. Good to have you with
us.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
The gentlewoman from California.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, it has come to my attention that the Coast Guard
does not have enough HH-65 helicopters to ensure that each
large cutter deployed to interdict drugs has a helicopter
interdiction tactical squadron, called the HITRON helicopter on
board. What are the alternatives for acquiring or leasing an
additional HITRON capacity for the Coast Guard and what are the
proposed costs of buying or leasing HITRON--and I apologize if
I am not pronouncing it correctly--HITRON helicopter for these
interdiction operations?
Admiral Justice. Yes, ma'am. What we have done with the
HITRON helicopters, we were leasing those helicopters, and what
we have been able to do through an acquisition success, a good
news story, is we took our regular fleet of HH-65s and we re-
engined 102 of them. We got those helicopters upgraded and we
transitioned them to the ability to use force from them. We
have outfitted some of them with machine guns and sniper
rifles, and now we use those aircraft to do the HITRON mission.
The challenge we have is we have got to continue to
transition to get more of those helicopters outfitted so then
we can use more of them down where Admiral Nimmich needs them,
in the transit zones, doing this mission.
We have continued to grow our helicopter fleet. We have got
some new ones that have helped us do the mission in the
Washington, DC area, the rapid response mission, so that fleet
has grown. And since it is the same helicopter that we do many
missions with, we have the ability to balance and use them
where we are able to. We, unfortunately, had a tragic accident
last year off of Hawaii, where we lost one of our helicopters,
and we are looking to replace that. So that is sitting out
there, but I think the goal is having our flexibility to be
agile in how we use these helicopters to get as many as we can
downrange to support the mission.
Ms. Richardson. How much does it cost to retrofit?
Admiral Justice. I would have to get that exact answer back
to you. It is a few million dollars, but I can't give you the
exact number, so if I could respond to that.
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8204.016
Ms. Richardson. And how many do you think you need, sir,
based upon what you have?
Admiral Nimmich. Madam Representative, I still get cutters
without helicopters, so the exact number the Coast Guard would
need to provide the answer for the record. What I will tell you
is that the conversion from the leased HITRON to using Coast
Guard assets has increased the number that I have in the area.
I had more ships with less helicopters in the past than I have
now, but I still receive ships without helicopters, and, for
the record, we will tell you what our fleet mix would need to
be in order to have every ship have a helicopter on board.
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8204.017
Ms. Richardson. So how many do you need?
Admiral Nimmich. It depends on the number of ships I have
at the given time, ma'am. We receive about half of the ships
come with helicopters, and some of them it is not as easy to
just say there is a set number. I receive medium endurance
cutters which I utilize in a different way, our old 210s, I
utilize them in a different way than I would our 270s or our
378s in terms of carrying ship riders that allow us to be more
flexible than even with a helicopter. So we balance it in
multiple ways. But we will get you a number of what it would
take to have every Coast Guard cutter with a HITRON helicopter
on board.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, sir.
My last question is, in December 2008, just a couple months
ago, there was a report that was issued, the annual review of
the Coast Guard's mission performance. This review found that
there has been a trend towards providing emphasis on homeland
security missions--which I happen to also serve on that
Committee--while the performance of non-homeland security
missions continue to fall short of performance targets. In
fiscal year 2007, both drug interdiction and migrant
interdiction performance goals were not met. Only one homeland
security mission performance goal was not met. By comparison,
only two of the six non-homeland security mission performance
goals were met.
Are the Coast Guard's efforts to meet drug and migrant
interdiction goals and sustain performance at an increasingly
high level taking resources way from the performances of other
missions? And keep in mind I only have 20 seconds left.
Admiral Justice. That is a tough question. Ma'am, I will
say that----
Ms. Richardson. Welcome to Congress.
Admiral Justice. Ma'am, the Coast Guard, across our 11
missions, we are absolutely focused on the performance of each
and every one of those missions, and whether we get the X
number of percent of drugs off the table--and we wish we could
get more--or whether we rescue as many people as we hope we
can--and we obviously wish we could get more there--or whether
we can do our security mission and how well we do that--I know
you hope we do that as well--we attempt and we absolutely
balance as best we can the risks associated with failure and
the successes that we need to have.
We appreciate that Congress, last year--excuse me, this
year, in the 2009 budget, provided us 400 extra people for some
non-homeland security missions. We want to thank Congress for
that. Those are important and those people are going to be put
to use and will help us get those stats where they need to be.
Ms. Richardson. As I conclude, I would just say that I have
been on this Committee now just under two years, and I think
the Chairman and both sides are very supportive of you doing
the excellent job that you do and you want to continue to grow
to do. So this is a new day. Tell us what you need and I think
you will find your requests met, hopefully. Thank you.
Admiral Justice. Thank you, ma'am.
Mr. Larsen. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Young was unable to be here, but, with your permission, he
would like to submit questions for the record to be answered.
Mr. Larsen. Without objection.
Mr. LoBiondo. Thank you.
I thank you, gentlemen, for being here and for the
tremendous job that you do and the Coast Guard does. Mr. Coble
asked a couple questions that I had an interest in, but on your
maritime patrol aircraft, we talked about the gap between the
assets and what your needs are. Can you talk a little bit about
how this gap is impacting the Coast Guard's intelligence and
interdicting capabilities?
Admiral Nimmich. I can give you a firsthand example, sir.
Earlier this year we were flying--we had identified a go-fast
that clearly had cocaine on board, the bales were obvious.
While we maintained an MPA aircraft overhead in order to be
able to interdict that and move an interdiction asset in place,
we flew assets for almost 18 hours, vectoring in the vessel. We
had a 15 minute gap because a plane had to do some minor
repairs in order to get off the ground. In that 15 minute gap
we lost contact with the vessel and never reacquired it again.
Eighteen hours of hard flying as a result of not having enough
MPA to get that overlap in a time frame that we could keep
hands-on control of it, sir.
That is just one of many examples. We don't have enough MPA
to search the entire area.
Admiral Justice brought up a good point: in my world, it
doesn't really matter what flies, it is what sensors are on it.
A year and a half ago, the Navy, along with the Coast Guard,
the problems with the air wing boxes on P-3s and the challenges
we have with C-13Hs, what they call red-striped, put on the
ground or grounded 31 of their P-3 aircraft. Those were the P-3
aircraft with marine radars, maritime radars on them. They
replaced them hour for hour with a capable aircraft hull, but
the aircraft had an air-to-air radar. Reduced my capability by
one-third. So it is not just the hours, it is not just the
aircraft type; it is really the sensor capability it carries.
And unmanned vehicles, unmanned air vehicles truly have a
capability that we are going to have to take advantage of.
Mr. LoBiondo. You answered the second part of my question
there, about the capabilities of maritime patrol. I want to
switch now to Ecuador. We know that the government there has
formally informed the United States that it will not renew the
lease. I am curious, from your perspective, how the loss of the
facility will impact our counter-drug operations through your
organization.
Admiral Nimmich. The biggest challenge for me, sir, is
going to be able to provide support to the aircraft that do the
MPA mission. We can fly MPA aircraft, at least Homeland
Security MPA aircraft, out of other locations that give me as
much range, such as Pokemon in Panama City and Perrier in Peru.
My problem is, when one of those aircraft has a casualty, the
ability to respond to that casualty is greatly lengthened
because I don't have the infrastructure and the parts in place
that I have in Manta.
So we are working very heavily now at locating the right
aircraft in the right place, trying to make sure our logistics
systems are as robust as possible. But it is clear that we will
have some additional maintenance and logistics challenges
without Manta.
Mr. LoBiondo. Is there a way to replace the logistical
support that you are going to lose?
Admiral Nimmich. Not without another facility like that.
Any commercial airport will have some logistics capability, but
the ability to have hangar space, the ability to have spare
parts stored there, the ability to have repair personnel
husbanded there is what we are going to be challenged with. And
most of the partner nations downrange are very acceptable of
Coast Guard and DHS aircraft; they have become far more
resistant to DOD aircraft. So my aircraft mix, we have already
got a plan in place to address my aircraft mix to have the
right aircraft in the right place, flying more of my Department
of Defense aircraft out of Curacao and Comalapa, our other two
forward operating locations, as well as Gitmo, and utilizing
the tremendous infrastructure in the Guantanamo Bay area, sir.
Mr. LoBiondo. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. LoBiondo.
I have some questions regarding bilateral agreements. We
talked about some of the gaps in assets of helicopters, as a
for instance, but one of the gaps you have identified--you
didn't identify it as a gap; I want to be careful how I word
this, but there are some things that some of our partner
nations can do and then they can't do it as well. So what level
of patrols are our partner nations able to undertake and what
are their interdiction levels in their countries as smugglers
move to littorals?
Admiral Nimmich. Clearly, sir, Colombia and Mexico are
tremendous partners with a lot of capacity and a lot of
capability, and very responsive. With the globalization of the
cocaine flow, we find more and more of our European allies are
bringing significant assets. Our Canadian partners are going
to----
Mr. Larsen. Are they bringing the assets into the region?
Admiral Nimmich. Physically bringing assets. Over 13
percent of my assets are provided by foreign nationals. We are
now working with the Canadians to have a 1.0 presence after
this summer in the Caribbean; that is one ship permanently down
there at all times. We just finished discussions with the
Australians, and they are coming over to test Australian
operations in the Eastern Pacific under my tactical control. I
have had a Brazilian vessel under my tactical control, the
first time the Brazilians have given tactical control to one of
their vessels since World War II. And the Spanish are also
increasing their interest, particularly with maritime patrol
aircraft. The British provide Nimrods, the French provide E-2s,
the Canadians provide Auroras. I have a robust international
association that is only growing both in their self interest
and the fact that they want to try to stop the drugs as close
to the source as possible, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Does the command and control on those assets
differ by country?
Admiral Nimmich. Clearly, it does. And we worked very hard
with countries that have robust infrastructure to provide them
some of the ability to do the command and control. I have sub-
task groups with the Dutch in Curacao who operate their
vessels, as well as Coast Guard vessels, under different
operational scenarios. I have just signed, last June, a sub-
task group with the French out of Martinique. The French have a
frigate permanently stationed there and, as a result of that
sub-task group, we fully expect that they will permanently
station a second frigate in Martinique in 2010.
Mr. Larsen. Is this an increase in these relationships?
Admiral Nimmich. It is an increase in relationships in
terms of the amount of assets being provided. Some of the
relationships are as old as JIATF itself is; the Dutch and the
British have been with us from the very beginning. The French
have participated, but not to the level that they are
participating now. We have never had the Australians, the
Brazilians before. The Canadians are now working through their
judicial system to ensure that they can legally carry Coast
Guard law enforcement attachments so that they are fully
capable of not just doing the detection and monitoring, but
switching their TAC on to Coast Guard oversight in order to do
the interdiction and the apprehension. This international surge
is making up for some of the lack of capability that we have.
When I say lack of capability, it is not the days. Admiral
Justice and I often talk about the fact that about 60 percent
of the time Coast Guard assets are not fully mission capable.
That means they are out there patrolling, but they may be on
engine; they may be on their emergency generator; the aircraft
may not be capable of flying. While they are there and the
numbers show that the days are in location, the stress on the
assets are causing them to be less than fully mission capable.
Admiral Justice. Sir, I will just add another piece of
support of these other nations that the Coast Guard brings to
the table is we have training teams we deploy down to these
countries to help them maintain their law enforcement
capability and to help them maintain their boats and to surge
out and support the missions.
Mr. Larsen. Are there other aspects of technical assistance
you provide?
Admiral Nimmich. Yes, sir. We provide training teams that
go all the way from being able to run their small boats to how
to do a case package to how do to an appropriate interdiction,
as well as do port calls with our vessels and then do training
with our vessels.
I just came back, yesterday I was in Trinidad and Tobago.
Trinidad and Tobago is making one of the largest investments of
any Caribbean island in terms of interdiction capability,
interdiction capability that will not just be for Trinidad and
Tobago, but for the entire Caribbean island chain. They are
looking to partner with us and the U.S. Navy on how to build
the skill sets to run these assets that they are buying. These
assets are the equivalent of one of our 270-foot medium
endurance cutters, but, yet, they haven't had an ocean-going
vessel for over 10 years. So it is up to us to be able to
provide the technical capability for them to make effective use
of those assets.
Mr. Larsen. Is this interest from the other countries,
like, say, Australia, Spain, France, is it because they have a
new will to participate or----
Admiral Nimmich. The largest growing cocaine market in the
world right now is in Spain. The price of a kilo of cocaine in
Colombia is about $1700. In Miami, that is $23,000. In London,
that is $70,000. The capabilities of the West African countries
where the drugs are moving into are absolutely nil compared to
even Central America, so they are going to a more lucrative
market with less capability or less likelihood that they are
going to be interdicted. Our European allies are recognizing
that and coming to the source and trying to stop it before it
gets out of the Caribbean.
Admiral Justice. To further answer your question, sir,
about other support we give, on a tactical basis, when we have
a vessel that the country may have picked up and needs some
support in doing the boarding or doing the search, we will
actually fly the Coast Guard people down into the country to do
technical assistance in the boardings and help them find secret
compartments, help them find sometimes very intimately hidden
contraband.
Mr. Larsen. Just a couple more questions.
I note Mr. Ehlers is here. Did you have some questions? I
am not quite done.
Mr. Ehlers. Yes.
Mr. Larsen. Okay. All right.
All this interest in the Caribbean East Pacific is great,
but there is another maritime border that we have in the
Country, and I want to just ask a few questions about that. I
know we don't get a lot of attention paid to it in terms of
certainly not migrant smuggling, but drug smuggling, certainly
there is a fair amount of that going on between the U.S. and
Canada, a lot of it at the land border, certainly some of it on
the maritime border. Maybe, Admiral Justice, you can talk a
little bit about how the operations differ, if they differ at
all, on the maritime border for drug interdiction.
Admiral Justice. Yes, sir. Thank you. I had the opportunity
to spend some time in Bellingham and be part of our ship rider
effort that we had up there with the Canadians. The challenge,
of course, is the short distances, the international border,
the distance, the magnitude of that border. The name of the
game up there, of course, is the interoperability, the effort
that we all put together toward the mission: communications
planning, intel sharing. And I would submit that our people in
Seattle are working all the interagency State and local, and
with the Canadians through their IPED system, is the way we
have to tend to business up there. We almost wish we can take
an eraser and just erase that line between us and the Canadians
and share our interdiction capabilities, which is kind of the
road we are trying to be on. A different challenge, but one I
think we are familiar with and working hard at.
Mr. Larsen. I think perhaps one of the things that you
heard up there with the smaller scale drug interdiction is that
the small boats aren't equipped with thermal imaging systems
that maybe larger cutters have. Can you comment on why that is
and if that might be changing?
Admiral Justice. Sir, that is a good point. We are
replacing our 41-foot patrol boats with the RBM, built in
Seattle, as a matter of fact, and world-class vessels that are
both pursuit, search and rescue, heavy weather, multi-capable
assets that we will look to have enhanced thermal imaging
capabilities on there. So, sir, that is an accurate point that
we are attempting to address.
Mr. Larsen. Just so folks know, in 2003--and I am sure the
numbers are updated--Station Billingham was responsible for
seizure of about 1300 pounds of BC bud, 170 pounds of
ephedrine, and about $713,000 in U.S. currency. Pales, I am
sure, by the numbers here, but I noted in the staff memo that
the marijuana that comes out of the growing operations in
Canada actually has much more potency than the marijuana coming
north out of the area, out of the Central American area. We
don't know that cocaine and heroine drug smuggling problem, in
terms of magnitude, but clearly the folks who work the border
on the northern border, our border with Canada, both on land
and sea, are doing their dead-level best up there to
participate in this effort to interdict drugs, while we are
doing the things we need to do on prevention, education, and
treatment here in this Country.
Congressman Ehlers from Michigan?
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have a
question so much as a lament. I deeply lament what this has
done to our Country and to our young people. I often point out,
when I speaking in schools and other places, that we are in a
unique position, for example, in Afghanistan, where we are
paying both sides of the war that is being fought. The drug
money that flows from the United States to Afghanistan to buy
the poppy and other drugs is diverted immediately to the
Taliban, to others, and I just fail to understand how so many
of our citizens can use drugs and think it is okay. And I
recognize they get addicted and it is hard to break the
addiction, but the entire culture that has grown up is, well,
this is not so bad. You shouldn't do it and you can get hooked,
but if you are careful you won't be.
I just find that intolerable and I think--although you are
doing a remarkably good battle of interdiction and trying to
stop it, the basic problem is still the demand is there, and it
doesn't matter whether it is the U.S. or Spain or Great
Britain. The demand is still there, and as long as the demand
is there, the price is going to go up, outrageous prices. And I
bemoan the fact or lament the fact that in many cases the
children of a family suffer because a parent is spending all
the available cash on drugs, instead of feeding the kids. It is
just such a sorry story all the way around, and you really
wonder what happens, why people go down this track. I know a
lot more knowledgeable people than I have spent a lot of time
on this, but it is really a national tragedy. We are losing
some of our best and brightest young people this way and we are
wasting huge amounts of our resources, tax money, and other
ways, and it just tears at my heart to see this happening to
our Country and to other countries when there is no good reason
for it whatsoever.
So, having said that sermon, I will yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
I have one more question, but two items of business.
Admiral Nimmich, the question I have is for Admiral Justice, so
why don't we excuse you at this time?
Admiral Nimmich. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I
appreciate the opportunity to testify today on what is truly a
national and international problem that I think we have more
opportunity to have a positive impact on. Thank you for your
questions, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
Before I get to my question, I want to recognize--this may
be a surprise to him--a former Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from Florida who served here for about a decade
or so, Representative Louis Frey is in the audience.
Representative Frey, why don't you stand and be recognized?
Thanks for your service, sir.
Mr. Frey. [Remarks off microphone.]
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, sir.
Finally, Admiral Justice, last Congress, the House did pass
the Alien Smuggling and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 to
help address the smuggling of aliens in a comprehensive manner,
whether it be by sea or by land. You, I think, addressed some
of these issues, but does the Administration support this
comprehensive approach to alien smuggling that seeks to ensure
that all smugglers can be prosecuted in the same manner,
whether it is by attempting to smuggle people through the
deserts in the Southwest or across the Caribbean?
Admiral Justice. Sir, I will have to get that answer back
to you. The new Administration is still looking at that, so let
me please owe that one to you, sir.
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Mr. Larsen. Okay. Can we get a time line on when you can
get back to us?
Admiral Justice. I would say a week, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Okay.
Admiral Justice. Does that work, sir?
Mr. Larsen. Okay.
Admiral Justice. It can be quicker if it needs to be; we
can push it.
Mr. Larsen. You can always get it to us sooner. No problem
around here.
Okay, with that, thank you very much.
Admiral Justice. Sir, my pleasure. Congressman Ehlers, I
have a 17 year old son at home and I have a daughter at the
University of Florida, sir, and those same concerns are right
at home as well, so I appreciate the chance to articulate our
efforts today in front of you, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen. Appreciate it very much. This hearing has been
very helpful to the Committee.
With that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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