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American Patrol Report
Partial Transcript - Speech of Brigadier General Bob Felderman
Border Management Summit - Tucson, Arizona, May 25, 2010
[Opening comments about his background not included]
We're working with Homeland Security and the government of Mexico and they're like agencies. And the idea there is to that support on behalf of the unity of effort for the whole operation going on down there. A lot of the focus here lately for us has been the inter agency information and intelligence capability.
Most recently - 29 March, you can see there we had an executive level dialogue event or ELD - that we will talk with later on. And we focused in on the efforts that were out there - trying to not only bring in the leadership of the interagency efforts that are working here in the southwest border, but also using those efforts that all of us are in support of the government of Mexico, and then as well providing the Department of Defense - and then it's not just Northern Command, it's not just DHS org, it's not just Army or Air Force or Marine Corps orgs, it is that entire spectrum of capabilities and capacity that we have in support of the different agencies that are running - as well as bringing everybody - just like this - actually a group about this large- that were sitting around a table in Colorado Springs.
We developed a strategic guidance statement - The Partnership for the 21st Century - U.S. Southwest Border Security. It was drafted, and before we left that day ever body had a better understanding of each other's role was - what the capacity was and what the capabilities were. But it brought together a unified approach to improve border security and support the government of Mexico.
Now, one of the things that really came out of that too was that Commissioner Bersen, recently appointed to the position of border protection, produced and finished the document, published the document, and then General Enwaret (?) right before he changed out here, literally two days before, endorsed it. So he got back efforts from both efforts of both of the two parties that were hosting it, to be able to work it.
Some of the challenges, as you can see here, what we recognized is that the whole of government needs to exploit the different strategies that are out there, and see these synergies that are out there, across all the different agencies. Just as you have come here to be able to interact with your partners that are out here working on the border, we needed to insure that higher level that that focused was being looked at.
One of the things, as I discussed earlier, was that typically when the military comes in we look at being in control. Well, since Katrina, since three commanders ago, we were very fortunate to be there when the light bulb went off in his head that he said it's not about being in control - of the military it is, yes, but we need an effort that is CCI - Coordination - Cooperation - Collaboration and Integration.
Everyone talked all the time about being out there coordinating what they're doing. All that means is usually agreeing that you're going to talk. Cooperation means that not only are you going to talk, you're gong to bring something to the table. And then that collaboration means that as you sit at that table with equal partners, working towards integrating the values from your agency or your organization, towards success. And that's what we're all trying to do.
All that is a communications strategy towards putting together an immediate effort, so that, as DHS worked out because their piece on the Hill to raise money for of border protection, border patrol, that the Border Patrol reach across to commanders at Juarez or Tijuana, and have that dialogue with them. A cross-channel effort. We're out there to be able to support that.
And, just as in the military, we haven't been able to operate for the last decade plus without all the services through a joint effort to be able to come together. We're there to able to help facilitate and help achieve that piece of the cross-global government.
When we responded to Katrina, it was a lot if individual disparate that were doing that responding. Out of that the lessons learned that we came out of there that we know during Ike and Gustoff, they did not only begin (?) the U.S. government effort, but it became an international effort and we had the last medical evacuees flown out of Texas on a Hurricane C 17s that were flown by Canadian C-17 pilots. So we're working across that piece and that's what the military can do. We've got that set of values - that set of ideals that we have worked for decades and centuries and to be able to bring a lot of those folks to the table.
For the multi-agency effort, that of course is working across local, state, tribal and federal pieces to allow them to go and do that. While we're not the ones doing that, we're the ones helping to facilitate it. A fine example of that, and I have to read it because I'm terrible at acronyms here, is the Operational Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats, ACTT.
And that is an example of this program where we work across the Arizona - Sonora corridors, stretching from Hermosillo to Tucson and Phoenix, and that effort bringing those different levels together. And when we talk federal, state and local, we're really talking strategic, operational and tactical and so you can work that language and work that across. And now were trying to take that effort and that's being looked at across Ciudad Juarez, efforts at expanding it from Arizona into Texas.
And so, as that strategic guidance came out with a purpose, it was to provide that strategic direction in protecting our national interest and supporting the strategic partnership with the government of Mexico.
At the end of the seminar, at the end of the dialogue, it was agreed that this was the purpose we really needed to focus in on.
Now, while we were there, the participants all recommended a set of strategic priorities. You kind of see where they are here, but those priorities were in terms of a blocking - the building of a building-block approach that the goal of, as I said before, was a unified approach to border security. Building on that Arizona - Sonora ACTT.
Starting that the operation at Ciudad Juarez and south Texas and combining those efforts, as we are working with the interdiction committee, to build an arrival zone task force. We don't know we work the source out there in South America, Latin America, and Central America, where the crops grow or produced, we've been working the transit zone as they kind of come into the United States and further into Mexico (?) and Europe which I added (?) South in Joint Task Force North, working with their interagency task force. Working with Southern Command, to work the source and to work and to work those transit zones.
But what we don't have is a collaborative effort to start working that arrival zone, and our tasking from the president and the national drug control strategy that was just released, is that by November we're going to have a road map of how we're going to develop that. It is more than likely going to be built on either the backs of or in collaboration with a virtual or brick and-motor entity that will include air maritime operation, El Paso Intelligence Center, Joint Task Force North and south which I add West (?) and we build and put those folks all together.
And so that 's what the idea here is to develop and align all of those processes. The end state here is that the entire homeland - and even though when the homeland was first brought up as a term there were a lot of folks that thought it should have been at a national level and so we're defending on the mission, we're defending the homeland, in the Western Hemisphere, North America is a little bit more than that. It is our partners who came to that in Mexico, in the Bahamas in Central America and South America - them all building up their national security, their national defense and then enabling each of those from us from the station here on the Southwest border - enabling Mexico to have their national security, national defense, have national resiliency and helping support that entire continental resiliency.
We're the one entity - the Department of Homeland Security and those agencies that are able to bring out those continental security goals. And don't be surprised if you don't start seeing some issue papers that are kind of talking in those realms.
Even though I hope to (?) the Colorado rains, it is still dryer down here I have kind of lost my voice.
Now that I have kind of talked about that and I have discussed what we can agree upon here - developing that strong and that effective interagency and international partnership with (?) the border. I could take some of this dialogue and role in some other efforts here, primarily into the beyond Merida strategic framework, Not sure if you've seen this or not, but Ambassador Pascual, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, and his team developed these four pillars here. Obstructing the capacity of organized crime to operate, - you should be able to read it - institutionalize the capacity to sustain the rule of law - creating a 21st Century border structure - and building strong, resilient communities.
The little bullets down below you can see we brought up some of those - a lot of your speakers this morning and the rest of the conference are going to be focusing in on these in different areas. And where I am going to kind of discuss a little bit more is the key actors that are involved in this strategic framework, and then how the whole of government is working to promote this strategic framework. So as we (?) across the capacity to organize tribes that brings your intelligence, that brings your law enforcement equipment, aviation, eradication equipment Bring that - the Department of Defense has been working in providing equipment and training to the government of Mexico so that they have the pilots trained (?) last December working the eradication and their surveillance.
On the aviation side, with some (?) with the Navy, we have just moved up production, taken out of the priority of the aircraft that are going over to other nations - we've just moved three UH 60 [Blackhawk] (?) model from 2012 into a 2011 delivery - early 2011 delivery. We've got the (?) surveillance aircraft for the Navy that were set for delivery in 2013 - we've been able to move those forward into the late 2011 time period no later than 2012. So we've been really focusing in on that. Delivered ion scanners.
We're working right now on communications package out of the advanced (?) narcotics - and extra fifty million dollars - I say its extra but it's something we've been trying to work for about four or five years now on a two-year basis - that we're going to put in the Centris (?) communication system, so our commander in North Command can pick up the phone and have a direct line to General Galvan (?) or Admiral Sinez (?) so as we're working across the border, we're working.
And then that's going to allow us to be able to better share information and then, using our intelligence capabilities for information sharing that will promote that.
For sustaining the rule of law we are very fortunate to kick off Operisco (?) down in Mexico City a conference that was put on by our lawyers - don't do anything without a lawyer (?) today especially when we're working here on the border. We kick of on the (?) rule of law and then also working on values. And their military, -- the general officers down there -- came up and said what values, what are values? And they didn't understand would go over related to the military. And so we're working that aspect. And we're going to be working, not only in the military professional aviation side, but we're working with them to reform, so as they work with human rights under the rule of law.
The 21st Century border structure - kind of what I talked about with ACTT - working with the Ports of Entry airport security - and then on building the strong, resilient communities - if we - we have learned in the military that as we work and serve them of the population (?) if we can't gain their support and their trust then our efforts are not going to be successful. So after that first issue (?) that deals then with the president of Mexico and the president of the United States. (?) we should be talking economic areas - talking human rights talking the border and etc (?) and that way working on the demand reduction from our end.
These are some of the key actors that are there. On the U.S. government side I think you will all recognize most of those. acronyms. On the government of Mexico side SRE State Department SEDENA is their army, their military. Some of the other ones - I'm terrible at acronyms but I'm not that familiar with them. The CONRAD (?) is their national council against addiction and it works with their Mexican Secretary of (?) and Health. So, again, those are some of the key actors that we are working through.
Now, as I discussed some of the different areas that are military links in here, it's really important to see those different bullets. So, as I discussed, some of those (?) are surveillance interdiction equipment that we are working on organize trying on the capacity to sustain rule of law we do a lot of civilian and military training. We're able to open those doors and build those trusted relationships with the government of Mexico - their military with SEDENA and SAMAR (?) that we're able to do a lot more military professional development.
So as we're working with the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security, we're working with the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, one in Washington, D.C., and one down in Georgia. We bring a lot of the military, not just from Mexico, but from Latin America and Central America. That we bring in these folks to try to push our ideals and our values - our lessons learned that we have put together from the states (?) and Iraq and (?) that we have learned on to be able to bring those out.
So the 21st border structure began focusing on the interdiction capability side - maritime surveillance equipment - working with our partners within our U.S. government so that as they talk to their partners on the other side of the border to determine what they need. And, then again, just a little bit more - on the strong resilient communities - it's not just doing it, but it's getting that message out (?) communications message. From working with some folks recently that have some direct link to the White House that are feeding us these in (?). And one of the things they're taking back to the government of Mexico is that you need to talk about the successes.
You need to let the community - the civilian population - you need to let them know what you are doing - at the same time not hide those efforts in putting down the drug trafficking organizations aren't the flamboyant the money the gold the etc, that you see that they are just a bunch of dirt bags out there trying to make a living - it's all about money but that their eventual efforts could do at taking down the government.
So that's the important part of (?) and you're going to be seeing more out of the government of Mexico.
As we work through those efforts and with it the strategic guidance statement focused in on participation statement here. This is our mission statement in support of that - that we're going to work toward enhanced Department of Defense of the government of Mexico - Enhanced partnership on the U.S. Southwest border, yet we're still going to maintain our homeland defense, our defense in support of civil authorities - missions that we have with NORAD and U.S. Northern Command both.
OK, we'll focus on the support and capacity and ability of the United States and Mexico partners to enable the government of Mexico to establish more effective security and degrade and effect the drug trafficking organizations. Now, one of the things taken and used that is that we have determined a line of effort - a line of objective - a line of operation. I'm not going to go through and read all of these but you can kind of see that the idea right here - I've got a couple of them that I'm going to pull out - is that we're trying to link them to those four pillars. So that it's not the DOD leading in this, but it is our support of the whole of government efforts in each of these different areas here.
Our detection centerization (?) enabling the integration of U.S. government efforts - the northern border training the Mexican military, The southern approaches along the borders with Guatemala and Beliz and then using a regional effort across the air, maritime and land (?)
So, in this area here the idea is that we are going to support against these processes. We want to enable the U.S. government interagency intelligence efforts to be able to share as we encounter illicit trafficking.
I was very very fortunate to hear last week - to participate in counter-illicit trafficking at the White House office of National Drug Control Bill Bukoski put on. LIstening to those speakers it was quite evident that everybody is in synch with what we want to do - it is just a matter of leading us there. But what was identified was that working with intelligence efforts, working with our planning and our tacticl support to efforts like the Department of Homeland Security APGG (?) but across and kind of made awareness (?) is what the military needs to do. And that's going to include equipment and training in these collaborative efforts where we advocate for each other and we go ahead and work across.
In fact the Department of Homeland Security and DOD has the largest interagency collaborative effort on the joint (?) capabilities that tactical demonstration going on right now that's going to bring together common operating pictures - bring together communications efforts and work through a... [inaudible on tape recording]
The northern border - I've covered a lot of different things in that area here enabling our U.S. government efforts.
I wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a better flavor on some of the things we are doing. And now to mention some of the equipment that we are doing. - some of the trainging that we are working. But we have recently United naval excercise in April or May last year. It's the first naval major naval excercise with SUBAR (?) that we have ever had. It included several ships, helicopters, 40 Marines and observors. Working on the link to the civilian side, back in Iowa, we had a vigilant guard armed excercise last spring that worked with chem bio response. And we brought in folks from the Bahamas, from Japan, from South Korea and Mexico and we were fortunate to have contact with them. And they escorted them in Iowa and they got to see the efforts that were beamed down from the tactical level. And then we took them to NorthCom so they could see where BULLIT (?) is operational at the strategic level.
I've already talked about some of the equipment that we're working with - the UA 60s [Blackhawk] and moving up their timelines. You can see the Mexico satellite communications subject matter. The extra exchange where we actually brought the Mexicans up to Northern Command and sharing our information so they can help build their system.
We're working with the North American Maritime strategic initiative along the borders in Guatemala and Belize and Canada participated with us so we could work those efforts.
So a lot of these things different things are going, including war games and there are seminars as we work through.
Everything I’ve been talking about – these are some of the things on the interagency side with our interagency coordinating directorate that has a two or three star level lead for that. We ordered personal protective clothing (?) About 100,000 of those white suits and the masks and the gloves that you see.
We got those down to Mexico just as the H1N1 was starting to kick in. And we’re actually getting a couple of hundred thousand more getting ready to send down there. And this whole mess that could have been a pandemic. By having these suits available to them as they went in, it helped keep and contain the effort.
We’re working with flood warning systems in Mexico, one is in place and two more that we’re getting ready to work with. There’s thirteen – the first time we’ve ever had – knowledge exchange between the United States and Mexico – the first responders – kind of working in that – working that emergency preparedness and response capability. We’ve had training in that regard on fifteen border cities and ten more that are non-border cities.
Kind of working along – fighting here working with the hoses for fire trucks and crash trucks. And then, again, just reaching in across all of the different support, knowing that urban search and rescue – knowing that we can probably learn as much from them because the Mexican Navy and the Mexican Army are high credibility doing that kind of response, as we know with the Madrid fault potential, that we’re working across earthquake planning with them and we’re sharing that.
So, what I want to leave you with is that time is of the essence. U.S. as a whole – we’ve got unprecedented time that we can take this opportunity to develop strong interagency, international partnership. And what Northern Command and the Department of Defense want to cross our sevices and cross our efforts to be able to facilitate that to be in support of the Department of Homeland Security – other inter-agencies that are out there working and we can do that.
I want to finish up by thanking all of your that are out there working the front line. Know that you’ve got a partner here with the Department of Defense and Northern Command and Joint Task Force North and with RD North and, again, thank you very much for your effort and I’ll finish up with any questions.
[There were no questions]
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