Defense Intelligence Enterprise Posture Hearing
House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations
2025-05-15
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Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
We have a couple of factors in play. One, we have a couple of factors in play here. One is that boats were canceled tomorrow, so folks are preparing to get out of town right now. And number two is that we have some other hearings going on with all the reconciliation stuff, including several of our members are on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and they have a full committee right now hearing with the Secretary. So we'll have members that come and go, and I just wanted to make sure everybody kind of knew what was going on. But we have myself and the ranking member here, so I think we'll be good to go. Okay, today we'll hear from our witnesses on the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, or DAI, and how the DIE is postured for fiscal year 2026 and beyond. The Department of Defense is focused on strategic competition, particularly countering the People's Republic of China and ensuring our armed forces have the tools, capabilities, and the training needed to succeed in any environment. But we know the strategic competition is only one of the many challenges our forces are called to address. We must also ensure that we are supporting all the geographic combatant commands to counter whatever threats may arise.
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Unknown (SPEAKER_03)
Intelligence enables leaders to make informed decisions, especially in an increasingly complex world, thereby enhancing their lethality, survivability, and capability to provide for our nation's defense. Ensuring we have a defense intelligence enterprise that is capable, robust, and synchronized is critical to all of us. This is a challenging task at hand and one we look forward to working with the department on to make sure that we're accomplishing this. Understanding each of your roles in these efforts will help us ensure your organizations have the capabilities needed and the resources required to accomplish your individual missions. We look forward to hearing from you about DIE, the priorities, the strengths, the challenges, and the ongoing synchronization efforts within the Defense Intelligence Enterprise. I would like to welcome today's witnesses from across the Defense Intelligence Enterprise. Mr. Dustin Gardweiss, performing the duties of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. Welcome, sir. Lieutenant General William Hartman, Acting Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, performing the duties of the Director of National Security Agency and Chief Central Security Service and Welcome General. And lastly, but not least, Lieutenant General Jeffrey Crews, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In the interest of time, I ask that the witnesses will keep their opening remarks to five minutes or less so that we have sufficient time for questions and answers. I would also like to point out that we have an open session and a classified session. What we'll do here is we'll, as soon as we're done asking questions, which based on the limited number of members that we have here, could go quickly. we will go immediately to the classified session and get that started. If we go a full hour, then we will break because we have votes scheduled at four o'clock and then we will come back for the classified section in the classified area after votes. With that, let me thank our witnesses again for appearing today. And now I recognize Ranking Member Crowe for any opening remarks he would like to make.
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Unknown (SPEAKER_11)
Thank you, Dr. Jackson, and thank you to our witnesses for their testimony today, for coming in and answering our questions as well. The focus of this committee, which is a very bipartisan committee, is on the products and deliverables to the folks downrange. As a former Special Operator, and there are many who sit on this committee, this is a mission that we take personally. that cuts to the men and women who we know, we serve with, and we obviously have a deep obligation to serve. And those of you who are in uniform, I know, share that mission deeply. You have committed your lives to that. But we also know the global security environment is increasingly volatile, and we can't overstate the need for an agile, capable, and synchronized defense intelligence enterprise. Malign actors like China and Russia are adapting their strategies continuously, learning from lessons in Ukraine and fragile places around the world and conflicts that continue to rear up day to day and week by week. That's why the focus of this committee, again, is making sure that we cut through partisanship, that we focus on the deliverables, and that's why I'm also increasingly concerned by some of the proposals and actions of this administration. some reports of politicizing personnel cuts, of slashing very critical positions, of potentially manipulating intelligence if it doesn't fit a specific narrative. I want to try to get to the bottom of that. We're not gonna do that in this hearing because a lot of that's sensitive stuff. We'll take that up under closed session. but just to let people know these are important questions that have to be answered because the men and women who are not here, who we have an obligation to serve, obviously deserve the best materials and the best products. I'm also very concerned by some of the proposed cuts of up to 8% in some of your agencies. I am for government reform. I am a government reformer, and there are always efficiencies. There's always fat to be found.
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Unknown (SPEAKER_11)
There's always ways of doing something better. But I've been doing this for a while, and I know that your agencies are some of the leanest and meanest and most efficient within the government. And an across-the-board arbitrary cut of 8% goes into muscle and bone and not just fat. And the result of that could be an America that's substantially less safe in operators and military around the world that don't get the products and the deliverables that you all are charged with delivering for them. So those are some of the questions.
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