“The hearing will come to order. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations’ hearing on the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), better known as the Locher Project, after its Executive Director.

 “I wanted to hold this hearing because of the Subcommittee’s continuing interest in interagency issues.  As we’ve heard Secretary Gates and others say over and over again, our national strategy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan require ‘whole of government approaches.’  However, the question remains, how exactly do we do that?

 “Some people do not think we need reform of structures, but simply better leadership.  Others believe we have good people who are working hard, but our current structures and processes, largely built in 1947 to win the Cold War, do not serve us well now.  And these structures and process certainly won’t serve us well in the future as we face more numerous and complex challenges.  

 “An independent review on this subject was required by the Armed Services Committees.  The two year project we’re talking about today was funded by both government funds, including some from the Defense Department, and private funds.  The full study is over 700 pages long and includes a history of the National Security Council and about 100 case studies that seek to identify problem areas.

 “More than 300 people participated in this study in one form or another including retired General Jim Jones, our current National Security Advisor, and retired Admiral Denny Blair, our current Director of National Intelligence.  Their report was delivered to President Bush and the Congress in December.

 “The Project on National Security Reform focuses on how the National Security Council (NSC), the Departments and Agencies, and the Congress contend with national security issues.  We can all probably acknowledge that there is a gap between the NSC and the Departments.  We could call this gap the interagency space where true ‘whole of government’ action might best be achieved. 

 “However, right now there is no structure at the interagency level that ensures integration of all of the tools of national power. The authors of the PNSR Report propose strengthening the National Security Advisor (to be called the Director for National Security) and the National Security Council ( to be called the President’s Security Council) to fill the gap.  This will have certain implications for the rest of our national security system so I hope our witnesses can help us sort through some of these implications.

 “In this report, the ‘Guiding Coalition’ of national security professionals and thinkers have tried to make a case for urgent and broad reforms.  They argue that all their recommendations should be taken as a whole.  Some of these include:

• Creating  a new Director for National Security;
• Instituting a QDR like interagency National Security Review;
• Decentralizing management of national security issues by creating interagency teams and task forces;
• Establishing a President’s Security Council (PSC) to replace the National and Homeland Security Councils;
• Creating an integrated national security budget;
• Developing an interagency National Security Professional Corps; and
• Establishing House and Senate committees on national security, and strengthening the Foreign Relations and Affairs Committees.

 “Our panel of witnesses consists of: Dr. Andy Krepinevich, President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis; Dr. ‘Mac’ Destler, Director of the Program on International Security and Economic Policy, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland; and Mr. Walter Oleszek, Senior Specialist, Congressional Research Service.

 “I’d also like to acknowledge a guest we have today, Claude Bachand, a Member of the Canadian Parliament representing the Bloc Québécois.

 “Welcome to all of you and thank you for being here.  After Mr. Wittman’s opening remarks, I’ll turn to each of you for a brief opening statement.  I ask that you keep your oral statements to 5 minutes.  Your entire prepared statements will be made part of the record. 

 “On an administrative note, we will use our customary five-minute rule today for questioning, proceeding by seniority and arrival time.

 “With that, let me turn it over to our ranking member, Mr. Wittman, for any comments he would like to make.”