Opening Statements

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, made the following statement on the Committee's hearing titled, "National Security Challenges and US Military Activities in the Greater Middle East and Africa":

"Thank you Mr. Chairman. I too want to welcome our witnesses and express my appreciation and respect for General Votel and General Waldhauser. My understanding is General Votel's change of command will be at the end of this month, General Waldhauser's is sometime this summer.

"I think it's worth just stopping for a second and reflecting on the significant progress that has been made against certain terrorist networks in in recent years. To me 2014 doesn't seem that long ago but ISIS controlled in area of the size of Great Britain and today we are talking about the last village and a tremendous change of affairs on the ground.

"Somalia has been a challenge for us when it comes to terrorism for a long time and my sense is that we have made tremendous progress there as well. Now this progress is the result of a lot of folks, including some decisions by this administration, to untie the hands of our military to be more effective. But the two gentlemen before us have been at the center of those efforts in various capacities, SOCOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, commands on the ground and each of them has played a leading role in making this progress and I think it's important to step back and reflect.

"Like you, Mr. Chairman, I share the concerns about where we go going forward. We made a lot of progress on terrorists but they're are not gone. As a matter of fact in some ways they've spread out and are more difficult to locate and so we can--we must maintain pressure on terrorist networks and yet because of the rise in great power competition our resources have to be spread in a variety of different ways and while we maintain pressure on terrorist networks in CENTCOM and AFRICOM, there is great power competition going on in both of those regions as well which we cannot lose sight of. Many of us have seen that firsthand as we travel to Africa as well as to the Middle East.

"So there's a lot to talk about. I want to again just return to appreciation for the--not only their service but the successful results of their leadership in these challenges that we've faced and I look forward to the conversations to come."