FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks With Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota
Remarks Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Itamaraty Palace
Brasilia, Brazil
April 16, 2012
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (In Portuguese.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you so much, Antonio. And it is a great pleasure, as always, to be back in Brazil, especially just one week after the very constructive meeting that was held between our two presidents. We have deepened and broadened our cooperation on so many issues, and our Global Partnership Dialogue is now bringing together our experts on both sides to discuss in depth what we can do advance our cooperation on the economy, on education, on some of the key challenges such as cyber security that we are both dealing with.
And it is exciting for us to be in this partnership because we have a long history together. In the 19th century when Brazil won its independence, the U.S. was the first country to recognize Brazil. And in the 20th century, when a U.S. Secretary of State made the first ever official visit to a foreign country, it was to Brazil – Secretary Elihu Root, who came here in 1906. So we now – Antonio and I decided that we have to have a 21st century partnership, the time for us to be really looking at the opportunities and challenges we face and how we can do better together.
A week ago, Antonio and I were together in Washington at a standing-room-only business meeting at the United States Chamber of Commerce. And earlier today, I was privileged to speak to a business group of Brazilian business leaders. We know that we’re making progress in bilateral trade and investment, creating jobs for both of our peoples, but there’s more to do. I will be sending an innovation delegation to Brazil later this year with some of our top entrepreneurs, educators, and tech leaders to meet with their Brazilian counterparts.
And this is – in addition to the very exciting partnerships which President Rousseff highlighted when she was in the United States, particularly with her visits to Harvard and MIT, through the Science without Borders initiative, Brazil will send 100,000 students to study science and technology at foreign universities. Many of them will be welcomed in the United States. And we, in turn, under President Obama’s initiative, 100,000 Strong, want to send a hundred thousand U.S. students to Latin American universities. And of course, we expect many to come here to Brazil.
In the meeting this afternoon, we received an update on the U.S.-Brazil global partnership. We discussed Latin America, of course. We discussed Africa. We discussed some of the hotspot issues at the time, now of Iran, Syria, and so much else. But I think it’s important to emphasize that at the heart of this partnership are values. We are two of the largest democracies in the world, two of the most diverse countries in the world. We share a commitment to opportunity for all people. And tomorrow, President Rousseff and I will kick off the high-level meeting of the Open Government Partnership here in Brasilia, which she and President Obama launched eight months ago. This Open Government Partnership is intended to fight corruption, promote transparency, empower citizens to make the case that both Brazil and the United States believe so strongly that democracy delivers results for people.
So it’s exciting that we’re building these habits of cooperation between our governments, our private sectors, our universities, our civil societies, and our citizens. And I’m looking forward to the work ahead. We’ve set up a very busy agenda for ourselves, but we are committed to doing everything we can to help lay the foundation for this 21st century partnership.
Thank you, Antonio.
MODERATOR: (In Portuguese.)
QUESTION: (In Portuguese.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, let me say that the United States absolutely admires Brazil’s growing leadership and its aspiration to join the United Nations Security Council as a permanent member. We believe that the long-term viability of the United Nations Security Council depends upon updating it to the 21st century to recognizing that it has to reflect the world that exists today, not the world that existed when it was formed. So for that reason, we are committed to serious, deliberate reform efforts in the UN, not only on the Security Council, but frankly, in a number of areas of UN process and functioning.
And in fact, I think
we believe that the United States has shown a greater commitment to real UN reform than many of our counterparts on the Security Council. But we also have learned that until other countries are committed to UN reform, we’re not going to make the progress that we need, and I think it would be very hard to imagine a future UN Security Council that wouldn’t include a country like Brazil with all of its progress and the great model it represents of a democracy that is progressing and providing opportunity for its people.
QUESTION: Madam Secretary?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
QUESTION: On Afghanistan, a number of U.S. officials have said that the Haqqani Network is behind the attack in Kabul and elsewhere over the weekend. In your conversation with Foreign Minister Khar, what sense did she give you that the Pakistanis would be willing to go after the Haqqani Network? (Inaudible) deepen counterterrorism involvement, but it’s fallen by the wayside.
And if I may on North Korea – (laughter) – double (inaudible) questions. You spoke to Foreign Minister Yang on Friday, and I was wondering what sense you got from him (inaudible) pressure on North Korea, who was about to go ahead with the nuclear test.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first with regard to Afghanistan, the United States strongly condemns yesterday’s cowardly attacks. Once again, we extend our condolences to the victims and their families. I spoke to Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Kabul yesterday, first to check to see how everyone was doing. Thankfully, despite the attacks, the Embassy and our personnel associated with it were safe. We also were impressed by and I conveyed my appreciation to the Afghan National Security Forces for the effective response which they provided. Remember, they were in the lead on this. They were the ones who ended the sieges, captured the insurgents, and are in the process of compiling evidence about the nature and origin of this attack.
Now, I think it’s fair to say that despite how contemptible these attacks were, they were not successful. They were another failed effort by extremists to try to undermine the slow but steady progress that Afghanistan is making to stability. And as the transition to security leadership by the Afghans themselves continues, we know there will be more challenges, because it’s not in the interests of all of these adversaries to see Afghanistan be able to provide security for itself. So they will continue to test, they will continue to assassinate, they will continue to attack, and we are going to stand with the people and the Government of Afghanistan. We are going to continue to work with the Afghan National Security Forces along with our NATO-ISAF partners, and we believe and we have evidence of this that the insurgency is failing despite their ability to launch spectacular attacks from time to time.
The investigation over the origin of these attacks is ongoing, but there are already indications of Haqqani involvement. The Haqqani Network is a very determined foe of the stability, security, and peace of the Afghan people. So we’ll see what the full investigation shows, but it’s not premature to refer to the evidence that is being compiled.
When I spoke with the Pakistan foreign minister, Foreign Minister Khar today, I certainly expressed my strong conviction that there has to be a concerted effort by the Pakistanis with the Afghans, with the others of us, against extremists of all kinds whether they threaten the Pakistani people, the Afghan people, or the American Embassy. And when I was in Pakistan last October, I made it very clear both publicly and privately that Pakistan had to work with us to squeeze the Haqqani Network. And I’m going to continue to make that point, to press it hard, and our consultations with the Pakistanis are proceeding, but the Haqqani Network is a threat to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the people of the region. So we’re going to take it very seriously.
With respect to North Korea, look, we are working to ensure that the new North Korean leadership hears unequivocally from the international community that their provocative behavior will not be rewarded, and the fact that the UN Security Council unanimously approved a presidential statement deploring the North Korea failed satellite launch underscores that it violated UN resolutions and that these actions constitute a threat to regional peace and security and that there will be consequences to this behavior. There unfortunately have to be consequences.
We very much, very much hope to see a different attitude from the Government of North Korea – not with the United States or Japan or South Korea first and foremost, but for their own people. And so as you may know, we were negotiating the potential of trying to assist them and had reached agreement with them to try to provide nutritional assistance since they cannot feed their own people. Unfortunately, they decided to launch this – or to attempt to launch this missile, which was clearly in violation of the UN Security Council. So the Security Council has directed the North Korean Sanctions Committee to designate more North Korean companies for asset freezes to identify further sensitive nuclear and missile technologies that will be banned from sale to Pyongyang, among other measures. And we have all agreed – that includes China – that there will be further consequences if they pursue another provocative action.
So let me say this again: Here in Brasilia, a country that has demonstrated what good leadership, what a partnership between the people and the government can produce, the new, young leadership of North Korea has a very stark choice. They need to take a hard look at their policies, stop the provocative action, open to the rest of the world, work to educate their people, feed their people, put their people first ahead of their ambitions to be a nuclear power, and rejoin the international community. We would welcome that.
QUESTION: (In Portuguese.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, let me begin, and then perhaps the minister would also add some comments.
I did meet with Graca Foster this morning and came away very impressed with her personally and also with the commitment Petrobras has to maximizing the benefits for the Brazilian people of the extraordinary potential of the pre-salt deepwater reserves. And we discussed a long list of issues, because what Brazil is doing is complicated and demanding, expensive, and there are ways in which our government and our international oil companies, along with others from elsewhere in the world who have expertise and experience, technologies, innovative approaches, can partner with Petrobras under the conditions that are set by the Brazilian Government. She is a very knowledgeable person and extremely practical. She knows that a lot of what is going to be happening in deepwater drilling off the coast of Brazil will take a very high level of investment. And insofar as it is possible, the United States and our companies stand ready to participate.
We discussed Chevron. Obviously, we want to be a good partner to Petrobras and Brazil. There are problems in deepwater drilling. We suffered through them in our own Gulf of Mexico. So we know how challenging this path is, but we also know how important it is for Brazil to do this. And it was an excellent discussion. We had some of our experts with us. We’re setting up an ongoing dialogue to get very practical. I am not the person to talk to about wellheads, but there are a lot of people in our government and in our private sector who you could talk to about wellheads and different pressures and the like.
So I think she put it well. She said she wanted a very material agenda, that we would talk about what Petrobras’s needs were; and insofar as we had anything to offer, we would make that available. And it’s of course up to Petrobras and the Brazilian Government to decide the way forward.
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (In Portuguese.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Argentina, Madam Secretary. (Inaudible) Argentina (inaudible)?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh. Well, I think that’s going to be a decision that will be rightly debated, and I’m not going to offer an opinion. I don’t know all the details. But I think competition and having an open market for energy and other commodities is a much preferable model. And the decisions that are taken by nations are ones that they have to justify and live with. But clearly, I think the model of openness, outreach, competition, market access are ones that have proven successful the world over.
MODERATOR: Reuters, last question.
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, in Syria violence is clearly still continuing. There are reports of four people killed in Homs, (inaudible) the two in Hama, all today. Given that the ceasefire seems to be unraveling before it’s even managed to take hold, you must be thinking about what to do if it does indeed fail to take hold. How do you plan to respond (inaudible)?
And on Iran, the Iranian foreign minister said that if the P-5+1 were to start – start easing sanctions, it would be much easier to resolve the nuclear issue. (Inaudible) sanctions before Iran ceases uranium enrichment, as is called for in so many UN Security Council resolutions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Arshad, I’m not going to prejudge the outcome of the process in Syria, because the first tranche of UN monitors is beginning to deploy today. Clearly the burden is on the Assad regime to demonstrate their commitment to all aspects of Kofi Annan’s six-point plan. And we’re not interested in your promises; we’re not interested in new conditions or new excuses. We want action. I think the world wants action. That’s why the Security Council acted in a unified way to support Kofi Annan’s initiative.
Much of Syria is quieter, but I agree with you that the people of Homs continue to endure renewed shelling by the regime. So we know the ceasefire is not complete, but it appears as though the violence is down significantly. So rather than setting conditions on the monitors, what the Assad regime needs to do is to make clear that they’re going to silence their guns, withdraw their troops, and work toward fulfilling the six-point plan. That means, as it has always meant, pulling out of the towns and cities; allowing peaceful demonstrations like what we saw over the weekend, where thousands of Syrians came out to demonstrate peacefully; releasing political prisoners; and allowing a peaceful transition to begin.
So this week will be critical in evaluating the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2024. And we’re hoping for the best. We want to see a peaceful period for the people of Syria and we want to see a political process begin. But if violence is renewed, if the regime reverts to shelling its own people and causing a great deal of death and injury, then we’re going to have to get back to planning what our next step is. So we’re planning for a good outcome, positive results, and we’re talking with others on the Security Council and beyond about what would be next steps if that does not prove successful.
Switching to Iran, look; the initial discussions between the P-5+1 and Iran were serious and focused on the nuclear issue. The P-5+1 was unified in calling for Iran to demonstrate the peaceful intent of its nuclear program and to fully comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran agrees that the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty should serve as the framework for the discussions going forward, and we set the next round for Baghdad for the end of May.
We want this to be a sustained effort. Between now and the next round, there will be experts meetings, there will planning, and we have to address the concerns of the international community. We’re going to take this one step at a time; but clearly, any process would have to have reciprocal expectations and actions, and there has to be evidence by Iran that they would be seriously moving toward removing a lot of their nuclear ambiguities that exists now, that they would be much more open and transparent, and they would take steps to respond to the UN Security Council resolutions and the international community’s concerns.
So we are watching. You’ve heard me say before I believe in action for action. But I think in this case, the burden of action falls on the Iranians to demonstrate their seriousness. And we’re going to keep the sanctions in place and the pressure on Iran as they consider what they’ll bring to the table in Baghdad, and we’ll respond accordingly.
FOREIGN MINISTER PATRIOTA: (In Portuguese.)
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON E. PANETTA MAKES REMARKS ON CAPITAL HILL ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT
FROM: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Secretary Panetta Remarks on Capitol Hill
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON E. PANETTA: Thank you very much, and I want to express to you the same, to members of Congress that joined with us to discuss this issue. They have for a long time been leaders on this issue here in Congress. We wanted to meet with them, to brief them on the steps that we wanted to take and to work with them to ensure that legislation that we need is incorporated in the authorization bill so that we can move forward on what General Dempsey and I consider to be a serious problem that needs to be decided at the Department of Defense and the United States military.
Sexual assault has no place in the military. It is a violation of everything that the U.S. military stands for. General Dempsey and I have, I think, made it a point to try to open up the military to everyone who wants to serve this country, and the problem is that sexual assault remains a disincentive for many to become a part of the United States military. We've got to deal with that and we will.
We have taken some steps in the past to try to begin to deal with this problem. We have put forward a number of initiatives. And let me just summarize some of the past issues that we've done. We've assigned a two-star general as the director of the sexual assault prevention and response office to try to highlight the importance of dealing with this issue and increase the command authority in dealing with this issue.
We've implemented a number of new policies that expand legal assistance, that expedite transfers for those that want to move from units, and that also provide extended document retention, something that was not the case in the past. We also have stood up a DoD-wide 24/7 anonymous hotline to be able to encourage victims to report. And in addition to that we've now activated an integrated database that contains all the information with regards to sexual assault.
We need to do more and I've made a commitment that we will move forward to incorporate some of the ideas that have been suggested by members of Congress into additional steps here. We believe that we've developed a set of initiatives that fundamentally change the way the department deals with this problem. Let me summarize some of the steps that we're recommending and that we will work with Congress in trying to include in our legislative package.
First of all, as of the next few days what I will do is change the way these cases are handled in the military. I intend to enter a directive as secretary of defense that will elevate the disposition of sexual assault cases so that at a minimum these cases are disposed of at a special court martial level. That means that the local unit commander is required to report these cases, any sexual assault case, is required to report that to a special court martial level, generally a colonel status, or if necessary to a general court martial level for investigation into the matter to be handled.
And the key here is that at the local unit level sometimes these matters are put aside, they're not followed up with. This requires that any time a complaint is received that it is referred up the chain of command for action. It ensures that we emphasize the role of the chain of command and that we continue to emphasize that all commanders have to exercise good discipline, take control, and they need to understand that everyone has responsibility to deal with these issues. But most importantly we are assured that at a higher command level we will have action taken with regards to the complaints that have been made.
Secondly, to be able to effectively investigate and prosecute these sexual assault cases it requires a particular expertise in gathering the evidence. We are creating a special victims unit or capability within each of the services to be able to do this. This will ensure that we have highly trained experts who are trained in evidence collection, the best way to interview survivors of the sexual assault, and who have – (inaudible) – offender behavior in being able to determine what those behaviors are like.
We also want to ensure that members of the National Guard and Reserve who file complaints are able to remain on active duty once they've filed those complaints in order to ensure that their sexual assault complaint is handled. At the present time, those in the Guard and Reserve, if they're on active duty and make a complaint, they then are moved into their National Guard or Reserve status and they lose the ability to continue that kind of prosecution of their complaint. What we're doing is requiring that they be able to stay on active duty in order to ensure that the case is continuing to be handled.
And fourthly, we have to do everything we can to train and educate the force with regards to these issues. We're going to focus on the newest members, new arrivals, and require that DoD sexual assault policy be explained and briefed to them within 14 days of entering active duty.
Secondly, we also want a mandate that information on sexual assault source such as the DoD self-help line and other things are widely publicized so that members are aware of what's available to them. And thirdly, we are looking to require commanders to conduct annual climate assessment analysis with regards to sexual assault, something that isn't required at the present time.
This is a strong package – (inaudible) – essential to being able to prevent and respond to the crime of sexual assault. There's no silver bullet when it comes to this issue, but what is required is that everyone from the secretary to the chairman of the joint chiefs all the way down at every command level be sensitive to this issue, be aware to take their responsibility to take action on these cases.
The most important thing we can do is prosecute the offenders, deal with those that have broken the law and committed this crime. And if we can do that then we can begin to deal with this issue – not only prosecute those that are involved, but more importantly send a signal that this is not – this is not a problem that we are going to ignore in the United States military.
Let me ask General Dempsey to say a few words.
GENERAL DEMPSEY: Good evening. I'm here actually speaking not just for myself, but for the Joint Chiefs. We realize that the crime of sexual assault erodes the very fabric of our profession. Our profession is built on trust and this particular crime erodes that trust.
(Inaudible) – make a difference and we haven't been able to make a difference. So as the joint chiefs we're coming together with the support of the secretary of defense and in collaboration with this caucus to try to get after it and to actually make a difference. Thank you.
MS. : (Inaudible) – the chairman and the secretary have to leave in just a couple of minutes. I don't know if you have time for a few questions.
Q: (Inaudible.) Can you share with us what you know about military personnel involved in the alleged misconduct in Colombia – (inaudible) – and what you think are the next steps for these allegations – (inaudible) – inside DoD.
SEC. PANETTA: Well, as I indicated, whether any of these individuals in Colombia or any country or in the United States, we expect them to abide by the highest standard of behavior and that's a requirement. So we've asked for a full investigation of the matter. It is being investigated by Southern Command. General Fraser has already deployed an officer to the scene to investigate it. We're awaiting a report from that investigation – (inaudible) – determine that there's been a violation – (inaudible).
Q: Over the weekend CNN reported that – (inaudible) – oftentimes been, for lack of a better term, drummed out of the military who have been diagnosed with personality disorder or other psychiatric problems. And then their charges go uninvestigated. Aside from the dramatic steps that you're taking today and that you've taken – (inaudible) – is anything being done for these victims, mostly women, who are not only were the crimes against them not investigated and punished, but in some cases these women are being expected to pay back the military for the training they got where it's costing them money. Is there any chance of it being addressed on this?
SEC. PANETTA: Obviously our goal here is to try to put in place what we need in order to deal with these cases of assault. There are procedures within – (inaudible) – that allow these individuals to raise these concerns and determine whether or not they have not been treated fairly. But I think – I hope that they'll follow the procedures to determine whether or not that has been the case.
Q: Do these steps take effect immediately, or do you need authorization from the Congress?
SEC. PANETTA: The step with regards to moving it to the special court martial level I can take through executive action, and I will. Obviously if the Congress decides to incorporate it as part of the legislation, that's fine too. But these other steps will require legislation.
GEN. DEMPSEY: (Inaudible) – language is identical to what the secretary is talking about.
Q: To clarify, does the special victim unit include special prosecutors like what the Army has now? And can you talk a little bit about what kind of training they'll get? Will their training be based on the Army model and – (inaudible) – January?
SEC. PANETTA: Let me ask General Dempsey.
GEN. DEMPSEY: A year or more ago we began to give our criminal investigators special training in investigating this particular crime. What the secretary's directive is to do now is actually form a special group of prosecutors who aren't – this is not something they do among all other criminal investigations. It's focused on this. We think that's the next logical step.
MS. : One more question.
Q: I'd like to ask you both about the budget again. General Dempsey, I know you were asked about – (inaudible) – happened. Since then – (inaudible) – a little bit and Senator McConnell came forward saying he thought it was – (inaudible) – that they knew about this kind of budget cut. I wonder if you'd both tell us where you stand on what people who defend – who defended -- the Pentagon can and can't say about the president's budget cuts. Specifically – (inaudible) – should they be given a voice or is this, you know, political theater – (inaudible).
SEC. PANETTA: They sure as hell can be given a voice and they are given a voice. We've had 50 hearings on the Hill dealing with the budget in which they've been asked questions regarding both the strategy and budget decisions, and that the bottom line is that this was a team effort. Everybody worked together on strategy, everybody worked together on budget decisions. And I think the fact that we are a unified team with regards to the strategy and the budget could be an aggravation to some, but it happens to be the fact.
GEN. DEMPSEY: What he said. (Laughter.) I understand. (Inaudible) – climate that we have established throughout this process – very challenging process, so the climate has been one where we – (inaudible).
MR. : (Inaudible) – somehow jeopardizing their careers – (inaudible).
GEN. DEMPSEY: I've never heard of any such thing happening in my entire 38 years. How do I answer that question? Look, all I can say is what I've experienced personally. I don't see that. And if any generals are listening, come and talk to me – (inaudible).
MR. : Thank you.
MS. : Thank you very much.
ADMERAL JAMES A. WINNEFELD JR. KICKS OFF USO TOUR
FROM: AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Vice Chairman Greets Troops, Kicks Off USO Tour
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy, April 16, 2012 - The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thanked service members here today on the first stop of a USO tour.
Accompanied by his wife and a troupe of celebrities, Navy Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr. is bringing a taste of home to troops stationed in Europe and Southwest Asia this week.
"What a great privilege and pleasure it is for all of us to be here with all of you," Winnefeld said. "Mary, my wife, joins me in thanking you for being here today and for doing what you do -- all you young men and women in uniform and your families."
The USO tour is a way to help the nation thank them for all they do, the admiral told the service members here. "And especially for the tremendous work ... that you all have done over the last year -- sending folks to Iraq, helping get rid of a tyrant in Moammar Gadhafi. Good job on that."
The vice chairman also thanked the troops for helping deployed service members on the ground in Afghanistan. "It's been a fantastic year, and I congratulate you for it."
Winnefeld also thanked the celebrities joining him for the USO tour, and told troops they look forward to interacting with them.
Joining the vice chairman on the tour are comedian/actor Anthony Anderson; former Major League Baseball pitcher Randy "The Big Unit" Johnson; performer Jason "Wee-Man" Acuna; actor and pitchman Dennis Haysbert; Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders Allyson Traylor, Brittany Evans and Kelsi Reich; and former "American Idol" contestants Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young.
Winnefeld commended the USO for its decades of service and commitment to troops and for its efforts in coordinating this tour.
"I do want to thank the USO for the fantastic job they have done for decades, to say nothing of the fantastic job they've done putting this trip together," Winnefeld said.
SEC COMMISSIONER COMMENTS IN COLORADO ON SEC'S NEED FOR IMPROVED ENFORCEMENT
SPEECH FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
The Mountains Denver, Photo credit: Tom Lianza
Denver, Colorado
April 13, 2012
Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher:
Thanks George [Curtis], for your generous introduction and years of good counsel – to say nothing of your hospitality. And thank you too, Don [Hoerl], for a great visit to the SEC’s dynamic Denver office yesterday. It’s good to be here among friends this morning – and, as for the rest of you, I’m happy to share my Friday-the-thirteenth with you.
Before I begin, I must tell you that my remarks today are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission or my fellow Commissioners.
It is especially nice to be here with you in Denver because, in addition to enabling my participation in this important conference, it gave me a perfect opportunity to make my first official visit as an SEC Commissioner to a regional office. In meeting yesterday with the staff of our Denver office, I was quickly reminded of the excellent talent that the SEC is able to attract in our regional offices.
Having a regional presence is of key importance to the Commission. Thank heavens, American business and the entrepreneurial energy that drives it are not confined to our financial capitals. Sadly, neither are the misfeasance and outright fraud that we are charged with rooting out in order to promote the vitality of our capital markets and their attractiveness to investors of all sorts.
Our regional presence literally extends our physical reach across the country, making it far more efficient to have Enforcement and OCIE staffers on-site in far-flung places. And history has demonstrated that our well-placed regional offices and our expert staff in each of those locations are wise investments, significantly enhancing our ability to protect investors in a timely and effective manner.
***
In the five months that I’ve been back at the SEC, I have enjoyed the special vantage point afforded to Commissioners. Upon my return, I brought with me an awareness of how things were when I last served at the Commission as Deputy Director of the Division of Trading and Markets until early 2010. During my previous stint at the SEC, I had the opportunity to work directly with each of the SEC’s two most recent Chairmen. So I thought I would share with you some perspectives on where we are, in the context of where we’ve been, as an agency, with a special focus on the Division of Enforcement.
The financial crisis that took hold in 2008 had a major impact on the SEC. In fact, that’s a pretty big understatement. Not only did it call into question the role of the agency with respect to oversight of market participants, but it was the “low tide” that exposed the fraudulent schemes of many scoundrels, Madoff and Stanford in particular. It was into this firestorm that our Chairman, Mary Schapiro, arrived in 2009. Her willingness to return to the federal government at such a time is a terrific example of the strength of her commitment to public service.
One of the Chairman’s immediate tasks was to address perceived shortcomings in the agency’s Division of Enforcement. This task was assigned in large part to one man, Rob Khuzami, who came to us as Enforcement division director in 2009. Like the Chairman, Rob is a committed public servant, having been a federal prosecutor in New York who handled many of the most important cases of the day, including the trial and conviction of the infamous “blind sheik.” Rob has a long and exemplary record of public service – if you don’t believe me, just ask him, he’ll tell you!—and it was this commitment that brought him to the SEC.
I want, in particular, to commend Chairman Schapiro and Rob Khuzami for restructuring the Division into specialty groups and for eliminating what they found to be a redundant layer of management. The securities laws and many of their interconnected implementing rules are far too complex for us to have persisted in pretending that some degree of substantive specialization and knowledge-capture weren’t necessary. The Chairman and Rob [Khuzami] realized that and made the change, despite the reservations of many who preferred things as they had been. We move a bit slowly at times, but, as University of Maryland Terrapin fans back home insist, “fear the turtle!”
Don’t get me wrong; Enforcement already worked pretty well. I do not believe it was “broken,” in any ordinary sense, and so it did not need “fixing.” It didn’t need to be restructured in order to bring good cases, or to attract good lawyers. Many of you are living testaments to that incontrovertible fact. So, making full allowance for the ways of Washington, where a convenient bit of press coverage can be reason enough to do just about anything, the “whys” behind the restructuring are important. But it is hard to disagree with the idea that a change – a new way of approaching problems both old and new – was necessary, and in light of that I believe the restructuring was a success.
Many inside and outside the building asked “why restructure Enforcement?” The answer is, it seems to me, because we need to do more – faster – with the resources, both human and material, that we already have. You may, like me, have noticed over the past few years an SEC refrain that is very Washington – that we need more “resources.” That means money and, derivatively, people and neat, new technology – in that order.
The problem is that the “give me more and I will do more for you” argument is ultimately circular. In practice, it can be translated something like this – “I can’t do better until you give me more” – and in that form, particularly as applied to the Division of Enforcement, this should not be the case. We cando more with – and without overburdening – the very fine staff we have by increasing our efficiency, for example, by choosing our cases carefully, terminating unfruitful investigations quickly, and harnessing the full benefits of technology. Although my mind is still open as to whether we captured all of the appropriate areas with our selection of specialty groups, I find that the Division’s restructuring itself is a good example of positioning ourselves to do more, better, with the expertise and technology we already have.
I assume that, as markets, market participants, and market practices change, so too will the composition and focus of our specialty groups. Indeed, the recent restructuring builds on the successful records of earlier working groups like the “Hedge Fund Task Force” and the “Microcap Fraud Task Force.” In fact, back when I worked for Chairman Cox, I served as his liaison to an interdivisional “Subprime Working Group” he established. I am proud to see that many cases started in that working group are coming to fruition today.
All of these were creative responses to the need to foster, in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement and throughout the SEC, not only greater expertise, but also efficiency. The positive results of these earlier experiments in interdisciplinary analysis were a solid foundation on which to build the recent full-blown specialty group restructuring in Enforcement. The need to increase our efficiency is a way to make our requests for additional resources more credible. The familiar plea for more “boots on the ground” is a good deal more persuasive amidst the competing demands and vagaries of the budget process when we can show that we are using our staff expertise and technology as effectively as possible – even when that may require us to change our longstanding work habits.
Ultimately, of course, our financial condition is out of our control. So, we should focus on what is under our control -- enhancing our Enforcement staff’s expertise and efficiency. Again, organizing the Division into specialist groups is an important step in the direction of enhancing both expertise and efficiency, for obvious reasons.
On the technological side, I want to commend another very worthwhile innovation, creation of a computer-based “tips, complaints, and referrals” system, inevitably nicknamed “TCR.” The primary idea was to get tips and complaints to the desks of those who might need and could evaluate them, quickly and across all internal frontiers. I gather that we’re almost there, with the significant caveat that having a large volume of unevaluated tips hit your electronic desk every day is not a gift in any ordinary sense – especially when, from experience, we know that many of them, for various reasons, will not yield fruit. However, that one tip, that proverbial needle in the haystack, might just lead you to the next major Ponzi scheme.
A secondary purpose of the TCR system is, frankly, not yet realized. TCR has not yielded any useful dataset for analysis. It remains, for us, the ultimate unstructured database. What we hope will someday be a stream of timely information on suspected market misfeasance, prompting not only fruitful investigations, but also guiding our market inspection and market surveillance efforts cannot now be mined. For an apt analogy, that is the difference between a few million sticky-notes and Google. So as to TCR, well begun, but not yet done. I look forward to the day when our experts in the Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation will have brought that system up to its full potential as an interdivisional analytic resource.
* * *
As many of you know, the Division of Enforcement turns 40 this year. Although today’s Division is very different from the group that former Commissioner Irv Pollack led in 1972, some things remain exactly the same. One of those things is the Division’s role in giving effect to the Commission’s commitment to due process.
It was, in fact, just before Chairman Casey established the Division of Enforcement that the “Wells Committee” issued its report – one of whose 43 recommendations endorsed what we now refer to as “Wells notices” and “Wells submissions,” the pre-litigation procedural hallmark of SEC practice. And, although the Wells Committee’s endorsement was the news, what the Wells Committee really did was to underscore the importance of a procedural norm that Chairman Hamer Budge had announced in a memorandum to division and office heads two years earlier – two years before a stand-alone Division of Enforcement came into existence.
Chairman Budge, and later the Wells Committee, simply said that a prospective respondent should be given advance notice of the likely charges and have an opportunity to respond to them in a writing that would accompany any recommendation the staff might make for Commission action. Our “Wells process” is, in other words, a matter of procedural decency and fairness – of “due process” – and, for us, a very good last minute check on investigative enthusiasm. Wells submissions help us decide whether to go forward as recommended, and so assist us in deploying our always scarce staff resources in productive directions.
Now – full disclosure, here – I play for the SEC. That’s my team, and I want us to win. None of us has any other objective when we take the field. But, to extend the metaphor, the game isn’t solitaire and you can’t win it by yourself. There’s no game without, rules, a referee, and – not least – an opponent. And the rules I’m talking about are not SEC rules implementing the Securities, Exchange, and Investment Company Acts – or even Dodd-Frank and, soon, the JOBS Act. I’m talking about the procedural rules that guide and constrain our conduct in the enforcement arena.
The most important of those are administered by the courts; we did not create them and we are not the arbiters of whether we – or others – have met their requirements. The constitutionally assured right to due process is preeminent among such procedural norms. Now, no one would begin to pretend that the Wells Committee invented either due process, or our adversarial legal system. Still, lurking within that obvious point lies, it seems to me, a more subtle point, one that sometimes goes unacknowledged. Procedural due process was already an explicit part of the Commission’s enforcement practices when the Division of Enforcement was brought into being. It is, in a sense, the mark of legitimacy of our enforcement system. Our commitment to it in all we do must be unequivocal. But, we must also recognize that, for most of those who find themselves defendants in SEC proceedings, the assurance of due process would mean very little if it were only observed in the courts, or if they were left to themselves to try to respond effectively to our Wells notices.
I am, of course, alluding to the indispensable role of defense counsel in SEC enforcement proceedings. Without their expert and active assistance to their clients, the SEC’s longstanding commitment to due process for those involved in our proceedings would ring hollow. We expect and encourage defense counsel to act zealously on behalf of their clients – during our investigations, no less than in court. Expert opposition, moreover, contributes indirectly to our own efficiency, encouraging, for example, a client’s cooperation to engender a mutually advantageous settlement and by knowing, in the context of the facts, what would be productive to contest in furtherance of the client’s interests, while avoiding time consuming skirmishes over the tangential and non-germane.
Make no mistake, there is a limit, and last year Rob Khuzami reminded everyone publicly of how counsel have occasionally crossed that line. But in the majority of our investigations, that’s not what we see. Time and again, the careful and creative analyses of defense counsel compel us to examine both how we apply our rules and the limits of their elasticity. Put another way, there is a point beyond which our rules must not be stretched in our effort to enforce the securities laws. The upshot is that we should have to consider and adopt new, closer-fitting rules for truly novel situations. That seems to me implicit, at least, in the SEC’s commitment to procedural fairness.
Let me take a simple, but currently very common example. The Commission is regularly asked to approve sanctions based on the Dodd-Frank Act that would preclude defendants from future participation, temporary or permanent, in the financial services industry – the collateral bars authorized in section 925 of Dodd-Frank. Many cases that are brought to our attention for Commission action still relate to conduct that occurred before Dodd-Frank’s enactment. Where the new sanctions would apply to pre-enactment conduct, we face a question of basic fairness. With that in mind, I believe we should reject as inappropriate a reading of section 925 that would permit us to apply these collateral bars to pre-enactment conduct. In showing such restraint, we would demonstrate that our purpose is not only to deter bad conduct and to safeguard markets and investors, but to afford procedural fairness to those whose conduct subjects them to legitimate SEC enforcement action.
Let’s stipulate, in other words, that a great many of the defendants against whom the Commission authorizes enforcement action richly deserve whatever sanction we can levy on them. Even so, there is a limit. Their due process interests and our commitment to procedural fairness should be vindicated in our imposition of sanctions. Just as defendants should not be held accountable by reference to a standard that makes unlawful conduct that was lawful when it occurred, defendants should not be subjected to sanctions that didn’t exist at the time of their conduct. I want my team to win, and most days I’m pretty sure my team deserves to win, but I want my team to win fair-and-square.
***
Let me close with a somewhat more general thought. It is critically important that our enforcement program be extremely efficient. Each time the Division opens an investigation, which it is free to do without Commission approval, it has made at least a tacit decision to devote scarce resources to it, rather than some other investigation or case. So, recognizing that it is unrealistic to imagine we will ever achieve a one-to-one correspondence between incidents of misfeasance and SEC Enforcement staff, we’d better plan to do everything we can to increase our hit-rate per investigation opened, and should commit our staff resources carefully, which is to say, consciously.
That’s not a question merely of shunning low-percentage investigations, much less low-gain cases. Experience teaches us, for example, that fraud tends to proliferate in smaller entities that may lack highly developed compliance programs. It also means thinking carefully about what we might, borrowing again from the world of sports, call “shot selection.” It can be tempting to tangle with prominent institutions. But chasing headlines and solving problems are two different things. The question is what will do most good – where our focus should be. And the record seems to suggest that we can do most to protect smaller, unsophisticated investors by focusing more attention on smaller entities, where Ponzi schemes and microcap fraud have seemed to flourish unimpeded.
With that in mind, the SEC’s Microcap Fraud Working Group is a promising initiative. It is a creative effort to focus expertise from across the agency to pool knowledge and resources in an effort to detect, investigate, and deter fraud in the microcap market. That’s a practical way to leverage what we have in the fight against fraud in the service of markets and investors alike. I applaud the work of the group, and I am encouraged that such a talented team is on the front lines fighting for investors.
And, finally, while we’re talking about putting more heft in key areas, it is important to note the role played by the Division’s trial unit. Our trial unit has developed into one of the top groups of litigators in the country, and –in addition to their courtroom duties – they are key advisors to the Commission as we consider litigation risk and related strategy issues in our enforcement proceedings. As such, I am glad to see that their ranks have grown in number and expertise over the years, and I hope that trend continues. I will note that we just announced last night the addition of Matt Solomon as the Deputy Chief Litigation Counsel in Enforcement. Matt will report to another Matt – Matt Martens. Go look up their resumes and tell me I am wrong about our expertise in that group!
Our willingness to negotiate settlements must be matched by an explicit willingness to take our cases to trial in order to maximize results for investors. The extreme form of that argument, is that the Commission should not approve any settlement recommendation if the staff would not also be able and willing to proceed to trial. On the contrary, a trial-ready posture would alter defendants’ operating assumptions and actually increase the likelihood of prompt and advantageous settlements.
***
I want, in closing, to return to first things – our heritage of procedural fairness and the need to vindicate it in all that we do. What the vision of Chairman Budge and the Wells Committee began forty years ago, our expert Enforcement staff has since fostered. We, on the Commission, derive great benefit from the Wells submissions so carefully prepared by so many defendants’ counsels. They enhance significantly our ability to evaluate facts and the complexities of the law applicable to them in the fair and balanced manner the public has a right to expect, by virtue of both our oath and inclination. We all have complementary roles to play in promoting strong, fair, and effective enforcement to help keep our markets strong and our investors confident in participating in them.
Once again, thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts with you – and I wish you an interesting and enjoyable conference.
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION WANTS TO REDUCE RADIATION EXPOSURE FROM MEDICAL IMAGING
FROM: FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Radiation Exposure from Medical Imaging
Like all medical procedures, computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine imaging exams present both benefits and risks. These types of imaging procedures have led to improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous medical conditions. At the same time, these types of exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, which may elevate a person’s lifetime risk of developing cancer. As part of a balanced public health approach, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeks to support the benefits of these medical imaging exams while minimizing the risks.
Through the Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Radiation Exposure from Medical Imaging, FDA is advocating the universal adoption of two principles of radiation protection: appropriate justification for ordering each procedure, and careful optimization of the radiation dose used during each procedure. Each patient should get the right imaging exam, at the right time, with the right radiation dose.
In support of this goal, FDA will use our regulatory authority and also collaborate with others in the Federal government and the healthcare professional community to:
Promote safe use of medical imaging devices;
Support informed clinical decision making; and
Increase patient awareness.
By coordinating these efforts, we can optimize patient exposure to radiation from certain types of medical imaging exams, and thereby reduce related risks while maximizing the benefits of these studies.
STATE DEPARTMENT FACTS ABOUT THE MISSILE TECHNOLOGY CONTROL REGIME
FROM: U.S STATE DEPARTMENT PHOTO: U.S. AIR FORCE
Originally focused on restricting exports of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and related technology, the Regime expanded its scope in 1993 to cover unmanned delivery systems capable of carrying all types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) -- chemical, biological, and nuclear. In 2002, the MTCR Partners (members) made terrorism an explicit focus of the Regime. Both of those steps were in direct support of the WMD nonproliferation objectives of the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The MTCR seeks to limit the risks of proliferation of WMD by controlling transfers that could make a contribution to delivery systems (other than manned aircraft) for such weapons. More broadly, the MTCR Guidelines (export control policies) and Annex (list of export-controlled items) have become the international standard for responsible missile-related export behavior. The MTCR and its Annex were implicitly endorsed in UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 of 2004, which affirms that the proliferation of WMD delivery means constitutes a threat to international peace and security and requires all UN Member States to establish domestic controls against such proliferation. The MTCR Annex also forms the basis of the list of missile-related items prohibited from being transferred to Iran under UNSCRs 1737 and 1929, and to North Korea under UNSCR 1718.
Over the course of the Regime’s 25-year history, the efforts of MTCR member countries have reduced the number of countries possessing missiles capable of delivering WMD, the global inventory of such missiles, and the number of countries interested in acquiring such missiles. The establishment by MTCR member and adherent countries of missile-related export controls has significantly reduced the availability to proliferators of support from the countries possessing the most and best technology. The export controls, information-sharing, and patterns of cooperation fostered by the MTCR also have resulted in the interdiction of numerous shipments of equipment intended for missile programs of concern. All of these measures have made it more difficult, time-consuming, and costly for proliferators to produce or acquire WMD capable missiles.
As it has done since 1987, the United States will continue to work through the MTCR to reduce the global missile proliferation threat by restraining the missile-related exports of an expanding number of countries and by increasing the pressure on proliferators to abandon their missile programs. The United States continues to encourage all non-member countries to support the MTCR’s efforts and to unilaterally abide by MTCR standards in the interest of international peace and security.
The MTCR currently has 34 members: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
RESTORING POWER AFTER A DISASTER AND KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON
FROM: FEMA
SALEM, Ore. -- In 2006, severe winds and falling trees took out a huge segment of a heavily-wooded transmission line. This wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But with help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the West Oregon Electric Cooperative (WOEC) found a way to end the cycle.
WOEC was facing its most expensive project ever: $6.2 million. Fortunately for the small utility, FEMA was able to cover a large portion using two types of hazard mitigation grants. It took time for the approvals and more than six months of construction, but by December 2009 the newly undergrounded line was fully energized.
Perhaps the greatest system test came during the January 2012 storms.
“The line has not faulted once since it was installed,” said Steve Scott, WOEC’s Operations Manager. “We accomplished exactly what we planned.”
This small power co-op serves 4,300 customers in the remote, timbered lands of Northwest Oregon. It’s a beautiful but a challenging terrain. “We call the trees the blessed curse,” said Marc Farmer, WOEC’s General Manager.
As a nonprofit agency providing essential services, WOEC is eligible for federal disaster assistance during a presidentially declared disaster.
After commissioning a study, WOEC was able to show that undergrounding the line was not only highly cost-effective, it was the most sensible solution to the never-ending problem.
“People expected to be out of service,” said Farmer, “but they weren’t.” In fact, Farmer got only one complaint. “One customer grumbled that he never even had a chance to use his brand new generator.”
FEMA hazard mitigation money has helped the co-op in other ways as well. During a 2007 flood, the co-op offices and substation were inundated. After agreeing to a property “buyout,” the agency moved its headquarters to higher ground. Congress also approved separate money to move the substation out of the flood zone.
Experience has also taught the co-op important lessons about record-keeping. Darlene McLeod, WOEC’s Finance Manager is in demand these days, explaining to other agencies what data FEMA will require after a disaster.
According to McLeod, one of the most important things is to keep track of the county where the work is located since FEMA declarations are always county specific. In addition, McLeod recommends noting the time spent and the equipment used for each job.
“The more documentation you have, the better,” said McLeod. That can be difficult when you’re “in the throes of an emergency,” so McLeod has redesigned their time sheets to reflect the information that FEMA will require for reimbursement.
Other helpful records can include running outage reports, emails, mutual aid agreements and service contracts.
“Your memory will never do it,” said Scott. “You think you’ll never have a FEMA event and the next day it happens,” he said. “That’s why it’s important to be prepared.”
Just ask McLeod. “As soon as the lights flicker we start accounting for our time,” she said.
FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
EMPEROR PENGUIN CENSUS REVEALS SURPRISE
April 13, 2012.
High-resolution satellite images estimate emperor penguin numbers in Antarctica
A new study using satellite mapping technology reveals there are twice as many emperor penguins in Antarctica than previously thought.
The results provide an important benchmark for monitoring the impact of environmental change on the population of this iconic bird, which breeds in remote areas that are very difficult to study because they often are inaccessible with temperatures as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit.
Reporting this week in the journal PLoS ONE, an international team of scientists describe how they used Very High Resolution satellite images to estimate the number of penguins at each colony around the coastline of Antarctica.
Using a technique known as pan-sharpening to increase the resolution of the satellite imagery, the science teams were able to differentiate between birds, ice, shadow and penguin poo or guano. They then used ground counts and aerial photography to calibrate the analysis.
Lead author and geographer Peter Fretwell at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which is funded by the U.K.'s Natural Environment Research Council, explains, "We are delighted to be able to locate and identify such a large number of emperor penguins. We counted 595,000 birds, which is almost double the previous estimates of 270,000-350,000 birds. This is the first comprehensive census of a species taken from space."
On the ice, emperor penguins with their black and white plumage stand out against the snow and colonies are clearly visible on satellite imagery. This allowed the team to analyze 44 emperor penguin colonies around the coast of Antarctica, and seven previously unknown colonies.
"The methods we used are an enormous step forward in Antarctic ecology because we can conduct research safely and efficiently with little environmental impact, and determine estimates of an entire penguin population, said co-author Michelle LaRue from the University of Minnesota and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
"The implications of this study are far-reaching: we now have a cost-effective way to apply our methods to other poorly-understood species in the Antarctic, to strengthen on-going field research, and to provide accurate information for international conservation efforts."
NSF manages the U.S. Antarctic Program through which it coordinates all U.S. scientific research on the southernmost continent and aboard ships in the Southern Ocean as well as related logistics support.
Co-author and BAS biologist Phil Trathan noted, "Current research suggests that emperor penguin colonies will be seriously affected by climate change. An accurate continent-wide census that can be easily repeated on a regular basis will help us monitor more accurately the impacts of future change on this iconic species."
Scientists are concerned that in some regions of Antarctica, earlier spring warming is leading to loss of sea ice habitat for emperor penguins, making their northerly colonies more vulnerable to further climate change.
Trathan continued, "Whilst current research leads us to expect important declines in the number of emperor penguins over the next century, the effects of warming around Antarctica are regional and uneven. In the future, we anticipate that the more southerly colonies should remain, making these important sites for further research and protection."
This research is a collaboration between BAS, University of Minnesota/NSF, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Australian Antarctic Division.
JUSTICE SETTLES ARMY NATIONAL GUARD EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS CASE IN ALASKA
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Friday, April 13, 2012
Justice Department Settles with Air Methods Corporation and Lifemed Alaska Llc to Enforce the Employment Rights to Army National Guard Member in Alaska
The Justice Department today announced that it has resolved a lawsuit alleging that Air Methods Corp. and LifeMed Alaska, LLC willfully violated the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA) by discriminating against and failing to reemploy Chief Warrant Officer Third Class Jonathon L. Goodwin of Wasilla, Alaska. The suit was filed in federal district court in Alaska.
Under USERRA, an employer is prohibited from discriminating against service members because of their membership in the military, past military service or future service obligations. In addition, and subject to certain limitations, USERRA requires that service members who leave their civilian jobs to serve in the military be reemployed promptly by their civilian employers in the positions they would have held if their employment had not been interrupted by military service or in positions of comparable seniority, pay and status.
Goodwin has been a member of the Army National Guard for 20 years, with honorable service as both a fixed-wing and helicopter pilot. The Justice Department’s complaint alleged that Goodwin was employed by Air Methods as a helicopter pilot when he was called upon for a nine month period of active duty, including a period of deployment to Iraq. According to the complaint, at the end of his deployment, Goodwin sought to be reemployed by Air Methods and assigned to a contract helicopter pilot position with LifeMed Alaska. The complaint alleged that LifeMed refused to accept Goodwin for the contract position due to LifeMed’s bias against recently returned service members as well as an unwillingness to accommodate Goodwin’s possible future military obligations. The complaint also alleged that Air Methods furthered LifeMed’s discriminatory action by refusing to assign Goodwin to the LifeMed contract and, consequently, failed to offer Goodwin proper reemployment.
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Air Methods will immediately reinstate Mr. Goodwin, will assign him to the first available position on the LifeMed contract at Wolf Lake Base in Alaska, and will pay him an undisclosed sum of money in back pay and other damages.
“Military reservists provide an important and valuable service to our country, often at great personal sacrifice. No service member should be disadvantaged because he or she answered the call of duty,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department is committed to vigorously enforcing federal laws that protect the employment rights of our service members.”
“Here, in Alaska, we are committed to preserving and protecting the rights of our military and military reserve members. We honor and support their dedication and service to our community and our nation,” said Karen Loeffler, U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska.
The case stemmed from a referral by the Department of Labor following an investigation by the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service and was jointly litigated by the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska.
U.S. HAS SPACE-BASED INFRARED SURVEILLANCE CAPABILITY
FROM: U.S. AIR FORCEAn Air Force Space Based Infrared Systems GEO-1 payload is launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket May 7, 2011, from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. SBIRS is designed to provide global, overhead, persistent, infrared surveillance capability to meet 21st century demands in mission areas including missile warning, missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness. (Courtesy photo/Pat Corkery, United Launch Alliance)
DOD NEWS BRIEFING WITH DEFENSE SECRETARY PANETTA AND GENERAL DEMPSEY
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and General Martin E. Dempsey, U.S. Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
DoD News Briefing with Secretary Panetta and Gen. Dempsey from the Pentagon
SECRETARY LEON E. PANETTA: Good afternoon.
It's been an interesting few weeks since we last met, and I am sure you'll have some interesting questions, but before I do that, let me -- let me summarize some key points.
On Afghanistan, last week we held extensive consultations with Afghan Minister of Defense Wardak and Minister of Interior Mohammadi. With the two MOUs that we signed on detention operations and special operations, I believe this relationship is on the right path. And we are continuing to make progress on the strategic partnership agreement as well.
There will be challenges, continuing challenges, as we saw over the weekend, but our partnership remains strong, the Afghans are providing greater security, and the strategy that General Allen has put in place is succeeding.
On the Middle East, we hosted Prince Salman, the Saudi minister of defense. We had a productive discussion on security challenges emanating from the Middle East, where Iran's nuclear program remains a pressing concern and where in Syria, the Assad regime's violence is increasingly intolerable. And obviously, they continue to raise questions about their adherence to the cease-fire agreement.
On North Korea, we have been in very close contact with our counterparts in South Korea and Japan as we monitored the provocative, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt by the North Korean government to conduct a missile launch. We will continue to be fully prepared for any future provocations should they occur. We hope that won't be the case, but we continue to be prepared in the event that that happens.
On NATO, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a joint NATO ministerial with Secretary Clinton in Brussels, the last high-level meeting that will take place before the Chicago summit in May. We're at a pivotal point for the alliance as we build on the gains that have been made in Afghanistan and try to chart the course for the future in that -- in that area.
We'll also be working to ensure that NATO itself has the right military capabilities that will be needed for the future in order for NATO to assume the responsibilities that it must as we proceed.
But even as we deal with these global security challenges, we have another great challenge here at home, which is working with the Congress to implement our new defense strategy. Let me just give you a quick update on where I think things stand at this point.
Since the president's budget request was released on February 13th, the budget and strategy that we've developed have been subject to intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Chairman Dempsey and I went up to the Hill to testify five times before the key committees as many of you know. But there have been more than 50 additional congressional hearings with the service secretaries, the service chiefs, the combatant commanders and other senior civilian and military leaders. A lot of tough questions were asked, but I believe that both our strategy and our budget proposals have held up very well under this very intense scrutiny. As a result, we continue to strongly believe that this is the right strategy and the right budget to meet our responsibilities to a strong national security and to tough fiscal requirements.
Military and civilian leaders here at the department all stand unified behind our strategy and our budget because, I think, we believe we've developed that strategy and the budget together as a team. In a word, the key elements of the strategy -- I think they're familiar with -- to all of you -- but let me just quickly summarize those key points.
First, the force will be smaller and leaner, but it must be agile and flexible and deployable and technologically advanced. Second, we will rebalance our global posture, emphasizing the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Third, we'll strengthen key alliances and partnerships through rotational deployments and other innovative ways to sustain our presence elsewhere.
Fourth, we'll ensure our military can confront aggression and defeat any opponent anytime, anywhere. And lastly, we will protect investments in new technologies such as ISR, space, cyberspace, global strike, special ops and the capacity to quickly mobilize.
Of course, in the end, it's up to Congress. In the coming weeks they will begin considering the defense authorization and appropriations bills. Our hope is that Congress will carefully consider the new defense strategy and the budget decisions that resulted from that strategy.
The key is that this is a zero-sum game. Because of the Budget Control Act, any change in any one area of the budget and force structure will inevitably require offsetting changes elsewhere. And that carries the real risk that this is -- if this is not done right, the result could be a hollow, unbalanced or weaker force. Our hope is that our strategy will not be picked apart piece by piece.
If, for example, we're prevented from carrying out all of the six major weapons terminations that we have proposed, the result will be a need to find as much as $9.6 billion in savings from other areas over five years. And that could mean less money to buy high-priority ships or acquire the next-generation aircraft. If Congress rejects all of the modest changes we've proposed in TRICARE fees and copays for retirees, than almost $13 billion in savings over the next five years will have to be found in other areas such as readiness, or we could be forced to further reduce our troop strength.
So the message we wanted to send Congress today is that there is very little margin for error with this package. That's the reality that all of us are living with. The strategy we developed will maintain, we believe, the strongest military in the world by every measure, and that's essential because of the nature of the security challenges that we're facing.
I believe we're at a critical point in our nation's history. We need to rise to meet the challenges that are facing us in this dangerous and uncertain world, and we can't afford to have the Congress resort to bitter partisanship or parochialism at this critical time.
We owe it to the American people to ensure that the right decisions are made to protect our nation and our national security from the full scope of modern threats, including the threat of our debt and our deficits.
Above all, we owe it to the American people to find a way to avoid sequester. The clock is ticking. It's been 121 days since the supercommittee failed, and Congress has yet to find a way to avoid the threat of sequester.
I still remain optimistic that we can hopefully find a way to avoid this disaster. But it's going to take Congress and all of us working together to find consensus and provide strong bipartisan leadership to protect our economy, our quality of life and our national security.
That's what the American people expect of their leaders. It's what we at the Department of Defense have made in an -- in an -- in the effort to do this with the defense strategy that we put in place for the future.
And let me just close by noting that in the spirit of that partnership between DOD and Congress, General Dempsey and I will be meeting tonight with members of Congress, the Caucus on Women in the Military and the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, to discuss the next series of steps that the department will be taking with regards to sexual assault.
As I've said before, sexual assault has no place in the military, and we have made it a top priority to combat this crime. We will continue to develop our strategies; we'll continue to devote our energy and our intention to enforcing our department's zero tolerance policy on sexual assault, and building a zero tolerance culture in the military for sexual assault.
My goal is to do everything possible -- I think our goal has been to do everything possible to open up the military to everyone who wants to serve this country. To do that, we must effectively deal with this kind of threat.
Marty.
GENERAL MARTIN E. DEMPSEY: Thanks, Mr. Secretary.
Good afternoon. Secretary Panetta rightly observes that the past several weeks have been pretty remarkable, actually. These last seven days alone remind us yet again that we live in an extraordinarily complex and increasingly competitive world.
In fact, today we face a security paradox: a time that may appear, on the surface, to be less dangerous but that underneath the surface is actually more dangerous. Levels of violence are by some accounts at an evolutionary low point. But destructive technologies are also proliferating down and out, to groups and individuals as well as formerly middleweight powers. As a consequence, there simply are more actors with more potential to do us harm.
This is not a time for comfort or complacency, which is why our nation's senior civilian and military leaders came together last year to develop a new strategy.
The strategy affirms our solemn duty to protect our country and its citizens. It's informed by a security environment that is changing in unprecedented ways. It applies the lessons of a decade of war. And it calls for a joint force that is ready to deter and defeat any threat along the spectrum of conflict.
As I've mentioned before, the fiscal year '13 budget is an essential first step toward Joint Force 2020. Our strategy and the budget constitute a carefully balanced set of choices. The decisions we made are not about doing more with less, or certainly not less with less. They are about making sure we have the right talent and the right tools to keep America immune from coercion. Put another way, we updated our strategy to responsibly meet the nation's security needs, nothing more and nothing less than that.
I'm confident that this approach honors our commitment to our military family and the American people.
Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.
Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask both of you about the multipronged attacks in Afghanistan yesterday. Is it your assessment at this point that these attacks were organized and led by the Haqqani network? And if so, what does it say about the severity of the threat posed by the Haqqanis and about the inability of the Pakistani government to crack down on the Haqqanis?
SEC. PANETTA: The intelligence indicates that the Haqqanis were behind the attacks that took place. And we had received a great deal of intelligence indicating that the Haqqanis were planning these kinds of attacks. And obviously, we're always concerned about the attacks that take place. They reflect that the Taliban is resilient, that they remain determined.
And yet I think we're also confident that the Afghans have increased their capability to deal with these kinds of attacks.
There were no tactical gains here. These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory. They haven't been able to really conduct an organized attack since last year. And what it told us -- and I think General Allen pointed this out -- is that it confirms that the Afghan army and police did a great job of reacting to these attacks. They quickly restored order, they quickly restored security in those areas, and it gave us an indication that they really are improving in terms of their capability to provide security. Having said all of that, this is clearly the beginning of the spring offensive that the Taliban engages in, and we are, I think, fully confident that, combined with the Afghan army, we can confront that threat.
GEN. DEMPSEY: And I'll just add, Bob, that though the evidence leads us to believe that the Haqqani network was involved in this, it doesn't lead back into Pakistan at this time. The threat -- you know, the Haqqani network exists on both sides of the border. So I'm -- we're not prepared to suggest this emanated out of Pakistan. I mean, the evidence may at some point lead us there, but we're not there yet.
Secondly, you know, you ask, what does it mean? It means we're still in a fight, and I don't -- I don't think any of us have ever suggested there wouldn't be fighting to -- still needing to be done. In fact, we've been talking quite openly about the fact that we've got three more fighting seasons with which to both build the ANSF and diminish the capability of the Taliban and the associated movements.
Thirdly, as the secretary said, we did have intel. But it -- we weren't trying to protect a discrete moment like we were at the loya jirga.
And if you remember, when President Karzai called for the loya jirga, the security was remarkable. I mean, there wasn't a single incident that occurred around that, even though the ANSF was completely in the lead in that regard. And so this is a little bigger challenge, though, when you have kind of intelligence that is vague about timing and you have to, you know, keep you guard up constantly.
And the last thing is -- and I've worked, as you know, with both the Iraqi security forces and the Afghan security forces. And I'll tell you, the Afghan security forces perform their duties admirably when attacked, even though it was on very short notice over the last 48 hours.
Q: (Off mic) -- I want to follow up on what you had to say about the Afghan ministers here last week, the defense minister and the interior minister. The interior minister told us that he received assurances from you about training assistance and equipment assistance after 2014. And I wonder if you could just expand on those assurances. What do you think the U.S. role and mission will look like after 2014?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, we're going to be discussing that in Brussels and Chicago. And obviously, we'll want to work closely with our ISAF partners to determine what that enduring presence will look like. But clearly, it's -- it -- you know, any future presence will focus on areas like counterterrorism and focus also on training assistance and advice, as we've provided and probably will continue to provide in the future.
Q: Do you assume there'll be hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers still on the ground in 2014?
SEC. PANETTA: I don't -- I don't think we ought to comment on what we're assuming at this point, mainly because we really want to engage in serious consultation with our partners as to what that presence ought to look like.
Q: But there will be some U.S. presence, correct?
SEC. PANETTA: That's -- I think that'll be the case.
Q: Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey, I wanted to follow up with -- on the attacks over the weekend. These kind of attacks are -- amount to something like guerrilla warfare. Couldn't that in itself be effective enough to undermine the confidence of the Afghan people, to undermine the effort to try to stabilize Afghanistan in the long run and for the Afghan security forces to be able to deal with these attacks if you're -- you know, every few months you have an attack like this in a major population area?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, look, you know, it's -- I -- as General Dempsey pointed out, we are in a war, and we are going to confront this enemy in these kinds of attacks. But I don't think any of this detracts from the fundamental conclusion that 2011 was, I think, a clear turning point. We did seriously weaken the Taliban. They have not been able since that time to put together any organized attack to regain any territory that was lost.
The Afghan people themselves, particularly in these areas that were once dominated by the Taliban, are rejecting the Taliban, and that's a very good point.
The Afghan army and police are becoming much more capable at engaging in operations and providing security. We have successfully been transitioning areas to Afghan governance and security. We're in the process of completing the second tranche of areas.
That will represent 50 percent of the Afghan people will be under Afghan security and governance. When we complete the third tranche, hopefully this year, we'll have 75 percent of the Afghan people under governance -- Afghan governance and Afghan security.
So significant progress is being made here. At the same time as we've gone through that, we continue to experience IEDs. We continue to experience, you know, periodic attacks by the Taliban. We're going to continue to see suicide attacks. We're going to continue to see efforts by them to try to undermine confidence in Afghanistan that we're headed in the right direction.
It hasn't worked in the past. I don't think it'll work in the present, mainly because it is clear that we are headed in the right direction right now. And I think the Afghan people believe that.
GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, the only thing I'd add is, you know, it's never been our goal to drive attacks to zero and then hand over responsibility to the Afghan national security forces. The idea here has been to -- you know, to continue to assist them in becoming increasingly more and more capable of taking over the fight. And I think, you know, what you saw them -- how you saw them react today, with very, very -- or yesterday, with very little help from us, I think, is an indicator that that strategy is sound.
Q: Can you -- you said it required air power at the end to --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Not much. The French provided a couple of helicopters. We provided a couple of helicopters. But this was very much an Afghan show.
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, over here.
Q: Mr. Secretary, when you have the kind of failed rocket launch we saw with North Korea, do you expect them to do something provocative to try to save face? And specifically, are you expecting a nuclear test in the weeks and months ahead?
SEC. PANETTA: You know, whether their launch was a success or a failure, the bottom line was that it was provocative and that they should not have taken that step because it violates the U.N. resolution and it was, you know, clearly something that they had been urged not to do by the international community.
They went ahead, did it; it failed. Our hope is that they will not engage in any further provocation. But I can assure you that we have -- we have taken all of the steps necessary to deal with any contingency. But, again, our hope is that they will not engage in provocation, but that they'll go back to the negotiating table and try to resolve these issues, as they should, on a diplomatic basis.
Q: (Off mic)
Q: Did you say a nuclear test?
Q: -- to detonate another nuclear warhead, as they've threatened to do or talked about doing?
SEC. PANETTA: I -- all we've ever -- I heard the same rumors you have. I haven't seen anything specifically.
Q: (Off mic) --
STAFF: Let me start here.
Q: We asked about sequestration. It was eight months ago, at your first press conference, you said you needed to better educate the Hill on -- to avoid the doomsday mechanism. Eight months later, there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement here. When does your optimism turn to just hard-eyed, cold -- this isn't going to work; we need to plan for it? And to both of you, what impact does the specter of sequestration have -- having on the defense industrial base, the contractors you depend on? You don't -- you don't talk much about that but -- (inaudible) --
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah -- (inaudible) --
Q: -- you need to plan for it.
SEC. PANETTA: -- I think, you know, the shadow of sequestration is there. And I don't think we're kidding anybody by saying that somehow, you know, it's not having some impact. Clearly in the -- you know, the industrial community is concerned about the potential for its impact. It continues to be a concern that we have as far as the possibility that that could happen.
But you know, I continue to urge the Congress. There isn't any member I've talked to that doesn't think that sequester is a disaster. There isn't any member who's said to me, you know, oh, it'll be great. All of them understand that it's the wrong way to go. And I just have to hope that ultimately, they will find the courage and leadership to be able to address that issue, de-trigger sequester, deal with the other challenges that are out there and try to do it as soon as possible because frankly, the longer this drags on, the more of an impact it has in terms of the planning process and in terms of the budget process. And frankly, even though we're not planning for sequester to take place because it is such a disastrous step if it occurs, it still has an impact within the department and outside the department for planning purposes.
Q: (Off mic) -- to talk a little bit --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Well, just if the past is prologue, you know, we were -- we confronted a new fiscal reality in late summer last year, and it took us every bit of energy we had to get from there to the budget submission in February. So I mean, I would anticipate that we would have to begin doing some planning in the mid to late summer if we have any chance at all of reacting to it should it trigger.
Q: Do you agree with that, Secretary Panetta? In mid to late summer you're going to have to start planning? Because that is not a strategy that --
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, I would -- I would assume that OMB at that point would have to indicate, you know, to not just the Department of Defense, but to other agencies that we would have to begin to do some preliminary planning. Even though I think all of us believe that ultimately, this will not happen, we still have to take that precaution.
Yes.
Q: General Dempsey, how embarrassed should the U.S. military be that members of the U.S. military were potentially involved in whatever went on in Colombia surrounding the president's visit?
How concerned are you about this?
And Mr. Secretary, a quick follow-up. You've made a very impassioned plea so many times about the budget and spending. With respect, are you thinking about adjusting your own travel schedule out to California, since you have racked up -- pardon me -- assumed a tab of about a million dollars in -- close to a million dollars in taxpayer money? Understanding you require security and communications, sir, nonetheless, the question being the cost that it is to the taxpayer.
GEN. DEMPSEY: We are embarrassed. I mean, I can -- I can't -- you said how embarrassed is the military. I can -- I can speak for myself and my fellow chiefs. We're embarrassed by what occurred in Colombia, though we're not sure exactly what it is, but what we do know is that we distracted -- that several of our members distracted the issue from what was a very important regional engagement for our president. So we let the boss down, because nobody's talking about what went on in Colombia other than this incident. So to that extent, we let him down.
The investigation's ongoing. It'll chart a path for us. And we'll hold those accountable if it turns out that they violated orders or policies or laws.
SEC. PANETTA: Let me just, on that, say that you know, whether our -- whether our forces are in Colombia or any other country, or here in this country, we expect them to abide by the highest standard of behavior. That's a requirement. And for that reason, we will -- we are conducting a full investigation into this matter.
The Southern Command under General Fraser is doing that. And hopefully, we will determine exactly what took place here. I don't want to prejudge it, but obviously, if violations are determined to have been the case, then these individuals will be held accountable, and that's as it should be.
With regards to the other question, as you know, for 40 years that I've been in this town, I've gone home because my wife and family are there and because, frankly, I think it's healthy to get out of Washington periodically just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.
But clearly, in this job, you know, I -- normally, I've flown home commercially; in this job, I'm obligated to be in touch with communications, and that -- I have to fly on a secure plane. I regret that it does -- you know, that it does add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up. The taxpayer would have to pick up those costs with any secretary of state -- or secretary of defense.
But having said that, I am trying to look at what are -- what are the alternatives here that I can look at that might possibly be able to save funds and at the same time be able to fulfill my responsibilities not only to my job, but to my family.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Hey, let me -- Tony, let me help the boss here, because if I couldn't get a hold of him, we'd have a really different relationship. So I mean, there really is a legitimate reason for him to -- and by the way, he doesn't get much rest in California, based on the number of times I know that I'm in contact with him.
The other thing is I've noticed that he consistently finds another -- it's not just he flies from here to -- out to California. He'll go to visit Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines all in and around the United States. So it's not a -- out and back.
I'm -- you know, I just want you to know this is not about him just using that airplane to get himself back and forth to the West Coast every weekend.
SEC. PANETTA: Yes.
Q: Secretary Panetta, why have you decided to make sexual assault a top priority at this time? And can you comment on the size of the problem and the urgency in finding better prevention strategies? And also, you mentioned building a zero-tolerance culture. In your opinion, is there a culture of tolerance now? And what do you think is responsible for that?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, you know, I've been very concerned about the sexual assault issue because the reports we have indicate -- I think we just issued a report that indicates that there's about 3,000 reported incidents of sexual assault, but the fact is that there are a larger number of unreported incidents.
And I don't -- you know, I'm not kidding myself or anybody else. These are tough issues, tough to prove. But the reality is that when they take place and nothing happens, it really is the kind of indication that somehow, you know, we're not going to take the steps that we have to take when these criminal violations take place.
And for that reason, I think there's a series of steps -- we're going to discuss it with the Congress -- that we can take in order to make clear that we're going to go after that kind of violation, because, as I said, we're trying to open up -- the military should be available to all of those who want to serve this country, and if -- if sexual assault is one of those areas that is not being aggressively gone after and dealt with, then it sends a terrible signal to those that want to serve. And that's the reason I think General Dempsey and I want to move as aggressively as we feel necessary to deal with that issue.
STAFF: We'll take one or two more.
Q: General Dempsey, you mentioned you had advance intelligence about the attack yesterday.
Can you be a little more specific about that? Was the intelligence -- did it indicate multiple attacks around the country? Did it indicate attacks in Kabul? President Karzai has criticized NATO for not -- for the -- for failure to act on the intelligence. Can you respond to that?
GEN. DEMPSEY: Sure. Yeah, the -- there was intelligence suggesting that as the winter became the spring and the fighting season reopened on or about the 21st of March, you know, the beginning of the new year in some societies, that the Taliban wanted to make a statement that they were back. And so I mean, that was kind of one thread. And then the other thread was that the simultaneity of attacks across the country would, in their view, have -- you know, kind of attenuate or actually accent that. But there was no specificity regarding location or time. And so that's about as much as I can say about the intelligence.
SEC. PANETTA: Yes.
Q: On the attacks and the Haqqani network, Admiral Mullen said last year that the -- that these Haqqanis were essentially -- or basically a virtual arm of the -- of the Pakistani intelligence. Is that still the case? Or are you saying since they didn't -- since they can't be traced back to them this time, has that changed? Have they distanced themselves?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, you know, I think that there's no question that the Haqqanis have a base in Pakistan. But they also have, you know, moved across the border and have operated in enclaves in Afghanistan as well. But there is a concern that they continue to find safe haven back in Pakistan. And that's the kind of situation that has concerned us and that we have made very clear to the Pakistanis it's not tolerable.
GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, I have nothing to add. They've been -- you know, they've been in Pakistan for 20 years.
Joe.
Q: Thank you. Thank you. I have a question on Syria.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, as you may know, I mean, before your meeting with Prince Salman, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar have both expressed their intentions to arm the Syrian rebels. I would like to know from you what's the Pentagon's position in regards to this matter? And one more thing -- if President Assad keeps in his violence, what's next in Syria?
GEN. DEMPSEY: I think, you know --
SEC. PANETTA: It's something that General Dempsey and I have testified on the Hill, will testify on Thursday, with regards to Syria as well. I think our view has been that, first of all, with the thousands of lives that have been lost there, that the government of Syria has lost its legitimacy and that Assad must step down. I mean, we continue to take that position. At the same time, I think, we believe that we have to continue to work with the international community to keep putting pressure on Assad.
Sanctions have been applied. The international community continues to work to try to do everything possible to try to resolve that terrible situation. And the pressure is continuing, and other countries are applying pressure as well.
I think that's the clear course we ought to continue on. We continue to plan for all alternatives. We -- we're -- we continue to be prepared to respond, should the president ask us to take any additional steps. But, at the present time, this is a diplomatic issue and an international issue, and that's where it should be in terms of trying to resolve this issue.
STAFF: Thank you, everyone.
Q: Secretary, (one) --
STAFF: All right, we're all -- (off mic). Thank you.
Presenter: Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and General Martin E. Dempsey, U.S. Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
DoD News Briefing with Secretary Panetta and Gen. Dempsey from the Pentagon
SECRETARY LEON E. PANETTA: Good afternoon.
It's been an interesting few weeks since we last met, and I am sure you'll have some interesting questions, but before I do that, let me -- let me summarize some key points.
On Afghanistan, last week we held extensive consultations with Afghan Minister of Defense Wardak and Minister of Interior Mohammadi. With the two MOUs that we signed on detention operations and special operations, I believe this relationship is on the right path. And we are continuing to make progress on the strategic partnership agreement as well.
There will be challenges, continuing challenges, as we saw over the weekend, but our partnership remains strong, the Afghans are providing greater security, and the strategy that General Allen has put in place is succeeding.
On the Middle East, we hosted Prince Salman, the Saudi minister of defense. We had a productive discussion on security challenges emanating from the Middle East, where Iran's nuclear program remains a pressing concern and where in Syria, the Assad regime's violence is increasingly intolerable. And obviously, they continue to raise questions about their adherence to the cease-fire agreement.
On North Korea, we have been in very close contact with our counterparts in South Korea and Japan as we monitored the provocative, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt by the North Korean government to conduct a missile launch. We will continue to be fully prepared for any future provocations should they occur. We hope that won't be the case, but we continue to be prepared in the event that that happens.
On NATO, I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a joint NATO ministerial with Secretary Clinton in Brussels, the last high-level meeting that will take place before the Chicago summit in May. We're at a pivotal point for the alliance as we build on the gains that have been made in Afghanistan and try to chart the course for the future in that -- in that area.
We'll also be working to ensure that NATO itself has the right military capabilities that will be needed for the future in order for NATO to assume the responsibilities that it must as we proceed.
But even as we deal with these global security challenges, we have another great challenge here at home, which is working with the Congress to implement our new defense strategy. Let me just give you a quick update on where I think things stand at this point.
Since the president's budget request was released on February 13th, the budget and strategy that we've developed have been subject to intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Chairman Dempsey and I went up to the Hill to testify five times before the key committees as many of you know. But there have been more than 50 additional congressional hearings with the service secretaries, the service chiefs, the combatant commanders and other senior civilian and military leaders. A lot of tough questions were asked, but I believe that both our strategy and our budget proposals have held up very well under this very intense scrutiny. As a result, we continue to strongly believe that this is the right strategy and the right budget to meet our responsibilities to a strong national security and to tough fiscal requirements.
Military and civilian leaders here at the department all stand unified behind our strategy and our budget because, I think, we believe we've developed that strategy and the budget together as a team. In a word, the key elements of the strategy -- I think they're familiar with -- to all of you -- but let me just quickly summarize those key points.
First, the force will be smaller and leaner, but it must be agile and flexible and deployable and technologically advanced. Second, we will rebalance our global posture, emphasizing the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Third, we'll strengthen key alliances and partnerships through rotational deployments and other innovative ways to sustain our presence elsewhere.
Fourth, we'll ensure our military can confront aggression and defeat any opponent anytime, anywhere. And lastly, we will protect investments in new technologies such as ISR, space, cyberspace, global strike, special ops and the capacity to quickly mobilize.
Of course, in the end, it's up to Congress. In the coming weeks they will begin considering the defense authorization and appropriations bills. Our hope is that Congress will carefully consider the new defense strategy and the budget decisions that resulted from that strategy.
The key is that this is a zero-sum game. Because of the Budget Control Act, any change in any one area of the budget and force structure will inevitably require offsetting changes elsewhere. And that carries the real risk that this is -- if this is not done right, the result could be a hollow, unbalanced or weaker force. Our hope is that our strategy will not be picked apart piece by piece.
If, for example, we're prevented from carrying out all of the six major weapons terminations that we have proposed, the result will be a need to find as much as $9.6 billion in savings from other areas over five years. And that could mean less money to buy high-priority ships or acquire the next-generation aircraft. If Congress rejects all of the modest changes we've proposed in TRICARE fees and copays for retirees, than almost $13 billion in savings over the next five years will have to be found in other areas such as readiness, or we could be forced to further reduce our troop strength.
So the message we wanted to send Congress today is that there is very little margin for error with this package. That's the reality that all of us are living with. The strategy we developed will maintain, we believe, the strongest military in the world by every measure, and that's essential because of the nature of the security challenges that we're facing.
I believe we're at a critical point in our nation's history. We need to rise to meet the challenges that are facing us in this dangerous and uncertain world, and we can't afford to have the Congress resort to bitter partisanship or parochialism at this critical time.
We owe it to the American people to ensure that the right decisions are made to protect our nation and our national security from the full scope of modern threats, including the threat of our debt and our deficits.
Above all, we owe it to the American people to find a way to avoid sequester. The clock is ticking. It's been 121 days since the supercommittee failed, and Congress has yet to find a way to avoid the threat of sequester.
I still remain optimistic that we can hopefully find a way to avoid this disaster. But it's going to take Congress and all of us working together to find consensus and provide strong bipartisan leadership to protect our economy, our quality of life and our national security.
That's what the American people expect of their leaders. It's what we at the Department of Defense have made in an -- in an -- in the effort to do this with the defense strategy that we put in place for the future.
And let me just close by noting that in the spirit of that partnership between DOD and Congress, General Dempsey and I will be meeting tonight with members of Congress, the Caucus on Women in the Military and the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, to discuss the next series of steps that the department will be taking with regards to sexual assault.
As I've said before, sexual assault has no place in the military, and we have made it a top priority to combat this crime. We will continue to develop our strategies; we'll continue to devote our energy and our intention to enforcing our department's zero tolerance policy on sexual assault, and building a zero tolerance culture in the military for sexual assault.
My goal is to do everything possible -- I think our goal has been to do everything possible to open up the military to everyone who wants to serve this country. To do that, we must effectively deal with this kind of threat.
Marty.
GENERAL MARTIN E. DEMPSEY: Thanks, Mr. Secretary.
Good afternoon. Secretary Panetta rightly observes that the past several weeks have been pretty remarkable, actually. These last seven days alone remind us yet again that we live in an extraordinarily complex and increasingly competitive world.
In fact, today we face a security paradox: a time that may appear, on the surface, to be less dangerous but that underneath the surface is actually more dangerous. Levels of violence are by some accounts at an evolutionary low point. But destructive technologies are also proliferating down and out, to groups and individuals as well as formerly middleweight powers. As a consequence, there simply are more actors with more potential to do us harm.
This is not a time for comfort or complacency, which is why our nation's senior civilian and military leaders came together last year to develop a new strategy.
The strategy affirms our solemn duty to protect our country and its citizens. It's informed by a security environment that is changing in unprecedented ways. It applies the lessons of a decade of war. And it calls for a joint force that is ready to deter and defeat any threat along the spectrum of conflict.
As I've mentioned before, the fiscal year '13 budget is an essential first step toward Joint Force 2020. Our strategy and the budget constitute a carefully balanced set of choices. The decisions we made are not about doing more with less, or certainly not less with less. They are about making sure we have the right talent and the right tools to keep America immune from coercion. Put another way, we updated our strategy to responsibly meet the nation's security needs, nothing more and nothing less than that.
I'm confident that this approach honors our commitment to our military family and the American people.
Thank you, and we look forward to your questions.
Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask both of you about the multipronged attacks in Afghanistan yesterday. Is it your assessment at this point that these attacks were organized and led by the Haqqani network? And if so, what does it say about the severity of the threat posed by the Haqqanis and about the inability of the Pakistani government to crack down on the Haqqanis?
SEC. PANETTA: The intelligence indicates that the Haqqanis were behind the attacks that took place. And we had received a great deal of intelligence indicating that the Haqqanis were planning these kinds of attacks. And obviously, we're always concerned about the attacks that take place. They reflect that the Taliban is resilient, that they remain determined.
And yet I think we're also confident that the Afghans have increased their capability to deal with these kinds of attacks.
There were no tactical gains here. These are isolated attacks that are done for symbolic purposes, and they have not regained any territory. They haven't been able to really conduct an organized attack since last year. And what it told us -- and I think General Allen pointed this out -- is that it confirms that the Afghan army and police did a great job of reacting to these attacks. They quickly restored order, they quickly restored security in those areas, and it gave us an indication that they really are improving in terms of their capability to provide security. Having said all of that, this is clearly the beginning of the spring offensive that the Taliban engages in, and we are, I think, fully confident that, combined with the Afghan army, we can confront that threat.
GEN. DEMPSEY: And I'll just add, Bob, that though the evidence leads us to believe that the Haqqani network was involved in this, it doesn't lead back into Pakistan at this time. The threat -- you know, the Haqqani network exists on both sides of the border. So I'm -- we're not prepared to suggest this emanated out of Pakistan. I mean, the evidence may at some point lead us there, but we're not there yet.
Secondly, you know, you ask, what does it mean? It means we're still in a fight, and I don't -- I don't think any of us have ever suggested there wouldn't be fighting to -- still needing to be done. In fact, we've been talking quite openly about the fact that we've got three more fighting seasons with which to both build the ANSF and diminish the capability of the Taliban and the associated movements.
Thirdly, as the secretary said, we did have intel. But it -- we weren't trying to protect a discrete moment like we were at the loya jirga.
And if you remember, when President Karzai called for the loya jirga, the security was remarkable. I mean, there wasn't a single incident that occurred around that, even though the ANSF was completely in the lead in that regard. And so this is a little bigger challenge, though, when you have kind of intelligence that is vague about timing and you have to, you know, keep you guard up constantly.
And the last thing is -- and I've worked, as you know, with both the Iraqi security forces and the Afghan security forces. And I'll tell you, the Afghan security forces perform their duties admirably when attacked, even though it was on very short notice over the last 48 hours.
Q: (Off mic) -- I want to follow up on what you had to say about the Afghan ministers here last week, the defense minister and the interior minister. The interior minister told us that he received assurances from you about training assistance and equipment assistance after 2014. And I wonder if you could just expand on those assurances. What do you think the U.S. role and mission will look like after 2014?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, we're going to be discussing that in Brussels and Chicago. And obviously, we'll want to work closely with our ISAF partners to determine what that enduring presence will look like. But clearly, it's -- it -- you know, any future presence will focus on areas like counterterrorism and focus also on training assistance and advice, as we've provided and probably will continue to provide in the future.
Q: Do you assume there'll be hundreds if not thousands of U.S. soldiers still on the ground in 2014?
SEC. PANETTA: I don't -- I don't think we ought to comment on what we're assuming at this point, mainly because we really want to engage in serious consultation with our partners as to what that presence ought to look like.
Q: But there will be some U.S. presence, correct?
SEC. PANETTA: That's -- I think that'll be the case.
Q: Secretary Panetta and Chairman Dempsey, I wanted to follow up with -- on the attacks over the weekend. These kind of attacks are -- amount to something like guerrilla warfare. Couldn't that in itself be effective enough to undermine the confidence of the Afghan people, to undermine the effort to try to stabilize Afghanistan in the long run and for the Afghan security forces to be able to deal with these attacks if you're -- you know, every few months you have an attack like this in a major population area?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, look, you know, it's -- I -- as General Dempsey pointed out, we are in a war, and we are going to confront this enemy in these kinds of attacks. But I don't think any of this detracts from the fundamental conclusion that 2011 was, I think, a clear turning point. We did seriously weaken the Taliban. They have not been able since that time to put together any organized attack to regain any territory that was lost.
The Afghan people themselves, particularly in these areas that were once dominated by the Taliban, are rejecting the Taliban, and that's a very good point.
The Afghan army and police are becoming much more capable at engaging in operations and providing security. We have successfully been transitioning areas to Afghan governance and security. We're in the process of completing the second tranche of areas.
That will represent 50 percent of the Afghan people will be under Afghan security and governance. When we complete the third tranche, hopefully this year, we'll have 75 percent of the Afghan people under governance -- Afghan governance and Afghan security.
So significant progress is being made here. At the same time as we've gone through that, we continue to experience IEDs. We continue to experience, you know, periodic attacks by the Taliban. We're going to continue to see suicide attacks. We're going to continue to see efforts by them to try to undermine confidence in Afghanistan that we're headed in the right direction.
It hasn't worked in the past. I don't think it'll work in the present, mainly because it is clear that we are headed in the right direction right now. And I think the Afghan people believe that.
GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, the only thing I'd add is, you know, it's never been our goal to drive attacks to zero and then hand over responsibility to the Afghan national security forces. The idea here has been to -- you know, to continue to assist them in becoming increasingly more and more capable of taking over the fight. And I think, you know, what you saw them -- how you saw them react today, with very, very -- or yesterday, with very little help from us, I think, is an indicator that that strategy is sound.
Q: Can you -- you said it required air power at the end to --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Not much. The French provided a couple of helicopters. We provided a couple of helicopters. But this was very much an Afghan show.
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, over here.
Q: Mr. Secretary, when you have the kind of failed rocket launch we saw with North Korea, do you expect them to do something provocative to try to save face? And specifically, are you expecting a nuclear test in the weeks and months ahead?
SEC. PANETTA: You know, whether their launch was a success or a failure, the bottom line was that it was provocative and that they should not have taken that step because it violates the U.N. resolution and it was, you know, clearly something that they had been urged not to do by the international community.
They went ahead, did it; it failed. Our hope is that they will not engage in any further provocation. But I can assure you that we have -- we have taken all of the steps necessary to deal with any contingency. But, again, our hope is that they will not engage in provocation, but that they'll go back to the negotiating table and try to resolve these issues, as they should, on a diplomatic basis.
Q: (Off mic)
Q: Did you say a nuclear test?
Q: -- to detonate another nuclear warhead, as they've threatened to do or talked about doing?
SEC. PANETTA: I -- all we've ever -- I heard the same rumors you have. I haven't seen anything specifically.
Q: (Off mic) --
STAFF: Let me start here.
Q: We asked about sequestration. It was eight months ago, at your first press conference, you said you needed to better educate the Hill on -- to avoid the doomsday mechanism. Eight months later, there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement here. When does your optimism turn to just hard-eyed, cold -- this isn't going to work; we need to plan for it? And to both of you, what impact does the specter of sequestration have -- having on the defense industrial base, the contractors you depend on? You don't -- you don't talk much about that but -- (inaudible) --
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah -- (inaudible) --
Q: -- you need to plan for it.
SEC. PANETTA: -- I think, you know, the shadow of sequestration is there. And I don't think we're kidding anybody by saying that somehow, you know, it's not having some impact. Clearly in the -- you know, the industrial community is concerned about the potential for its impact. It continues to be a concern that we have as far as the possibility that that could happen.
But you know, I continue to urge the Congress. There isn't any member I've talked to that doesn't think that sequester is a disaster. There isn't any member who's said to me, you know, oh, it'll be great. All of them understand that it's the wrong way to go. And I just have to hope that ultimately, they will find the courage and leadership to be able to address that issue, de-trigger sequester, deal with the other challenges that are out there and try to do it as soon as possible because frankly, the longer this drags on, the more of an impact it has in terms of the planning process and in terms of the budget process. And frankly, even though we're not planning for sequester to take place because it is such a disastrous step if it occurs, it still has an impact within the department and outside the department for planning purposes.
Q: (Off mic) -- to talk a little bit --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Well, just if the past is prologue, you know, we were -- we confronted a new fiscal reality in late summer last year, and it took us every bit of energy we had to get from there to the budget submission in February. So I mean, I would anticipate that we would have to begin doing some planning in the mid to late summer if we have any chance at all of reacting to it should it trigger.
Q: Do you agree with that, Secretary Panetta? In mid to late summer you're going to have to start planning? Because that is not a strategy that --
SEC. PANETTA: Yeah, I would -- I would assume that OMB at that point would have to indicate, you know, to not just the Department of Defense, but to other agencies that we would have to begin to do some preliminary planning. Even though I think all of us believe that ultimately, this will not happen, we still have to take that precaution.
Yes.
Q: General Dempsey, how embarrassed should the U.S. military be that members of the U.S. military were potentially involved in whatever went on in Colombia surrounding the president's visit?
How concerned are you about this?
And Mr. Secretary, a quick follow-up. You've made a very impassioned plea so many times about the budget and spending. With respect, are you thinking about adjusting your own travel schedule out to California, since you have racked up -- pardon me -- assumed a tab of about a million dollars in -- close to a million dollars in taxpayer money? Understanding you require security and communications, sir, nonetheless, the question being the cost that it is to the taxpayer.
GEN. DEMPSEY: We are embarrassed. I mean, I can -- I can't -- you said how embarrassed is the military. I can -- I can speak for myself and my fellow chiefs. We're embarrassed by what occurred in Colombia, though we're not sure exactly what it is, but what we do know is that we distracted -- that several of our members distracted the issue from what was a very important regional engagement for our president. So we let the boss down, because nobody's talking about what went on in Colombia other than this incident. So to that extent, we let him down.
The investigation's ongoing. It'll chart a path for us. And we'll hold those accountable if it turns out that they violated orders or policies or laws.
SEC. PANETTA: Let me just, on that, say that you know, whether our -- whether our forces are in Colombia or any other country, or here in this country, we expect them to abide by the highest standard of behavior. That's a requirement. And for that reason, we will -- we are conducting a full investigation into this matter.
The Southern Command under General Fraser is doing that. And hopefully, we will determine exactly what took place here. I don't want to prejudge it, but obviously, if violations are determined to have been the case, then these individuals will be held accountable, and that's as it should be.
With regards to the other question, as you know, for 40 years that I've been in this town, I've gone home because my wife and family are there and because, frankly, I think it's healthy to get out of Washington periodically just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.
But clearly, in this job, you know, I -- normally, I've flown home commercially; in this job, I'm obligated to be in touch with communications, and that -- I have to fly on a secure plane. I regret that it does -- you know, that it does add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up. The taxpayer would have to pick up those costs with any secretary of state -- or secretary of defense.
But having said that, I am trying to look at what are -- what are the alternatives here that I can look at that might possibly be able to save funds and at the same time be able to fulfill my responsibilities not only to my job, but to my family.
Q: Mr. Secretary --
GEN. DEMPSEY: Hey, let me -- Tony, let me help the boss here, because if I couldn't get a hold of him, we'd have a really different relationship. So I mean, there really is a legitimate reason for him to -- and by the way, he doesn't get much rest in California, based on the number of times I know that I'm in contact with him.
The other thing is I've noticed that he consistently finds another -- it's not just he flies from here to -- out to California. He'll go to visit Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines all in and around the United States. So it's not a -- out and back.
I'm -- you know, I just want you to know this is not about him just using that airplane to get himself back and forth to the West Coast every weekend.
SEC. PANETTA: Yes.
Q: Secretary Panetta, why have you decided to make sexual assault a top priority at this time? And can you comment on the size of the problem and the urgency in finding better prevention strategies? And also, you mentioned building a zero-tolerance culture. In your opinion, is there a culture of tolerance now? And what do you think is responsible for that?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, you know, I've been very concerned about the sexual assault issue because the reports we have indicate -- I think we just issued a report that indicates that there's about 3,000 reported incidents of sexual assault, but the fact is that there are a larger number of unreported incidents.
And I don't -- you know, I'm not kidding myself or anybody else. These are tough issues, tough to prove. But the reality is that when they take place and nothing happens, it really is the kind of indication that somehow, you know, we're not going to take the steps that we have to take when these criminal violations take place.
And for that reason, I think there's a series of steps -- we're going to discuss it with the Congress -- that we can take in order to make clear that we're going to go after that kind of violation, because, as I said, we're trying to open up -- the military should be available to all of those who want to serve this country, and if -- if sexual assault is one of those areas that is not being aggressively gone after and dealt with, then it sends a terrible signal to those that want to serve. And that's the reason I think General Dempsey and I want to move as aggressively as we feel necessary to deal with that issue.
STAFF: We'll take one or two more.
Q: General Dempsey, you mentioned you had advance intelligence about the attack yesterday.
Can you be a little more specific about that? Was the intelligence -- did it indicate multiple attacks around the country? Did it indicate attacks in Kabul? President Karzai has criticized NATO for not -- for the -- for failure to act on the intelligence. Can you respond to that?
GEN. DEMPSEY: Sure. Yeah, the -- there was intelligence suggesting that as the winter became the spring and the fighting season reopened on or about the 21st of March, you know, the beginning of the new year in some societies, that the Taliban wanted to make a statement that they were back. And so I mean, that was kind of one thread. And then the other thread was that the simultaneity of attacks across the country would, in their view, have -- you know, kind of attenuate or actually accent that. But there was no specificity regarding location or time. And so that's about as much as I can say about the intelligence.
SEC. PANETTA: Yes.
Q: On the attacks and the Haqqani network, Admiral Mullen said last year that the -- that these Haqqanis were essentially -- or basically a virtual arm of the -- of the Pakistani intelligence. Is that still the case? Or are you saying since they didn't -- since they can't be traced back to them this time, has that changed? Have they distanced themselves?
SEC. PANETTA: Well, you know, I think that there's no question that the Haqqanis have a base in Pakistan. But they also have, you know, moved across the border and have operated in enclaves in Afghanistan as well. But there is a concern that they continue to find safe haven back in Pakistan. And that's the kind of situation that has concerned us and that we have made very clear to the Pakistanis it's not tolerable.
GEN. DEMPSEY: Yeah, I have nothing to add. They've been -- you know, they've been in Pakistan for 20 years.
Joe.
Q: Thank you. Thank you. I have a question on Syria.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Chairman, as you may know, I mean, before your meeting with Prince Salman, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar have both expressed their intentions to arm the Syrian rebels. I would like to know from you what's the Pentagon's position in regards to this matter? And one more thing -- if President Assad keeps in his violence, what's next in Syria?
GEN. DEMPSEY: I think, you know --
SEC. PANETTA: It's something that General Dempsey and I have testified on the Hill, will testify on Thursday, with regards to Syria as well. I think our view has been that, first of all, with the thousands of lives that have been lost there, that the government of Syria has lost its legitimacy and that Assad must step down. I mean, we continue to take that position. At the same time, I think, we believe that we have to continue to work with the international community to keep putting pressure on Assad.
Sanctions have been applied. The international community continues to work to try to do everything possible to try to resolve that terrible situation. And the pressure is continuing, and other countries are applying pressure as well.
I think that's the clear course we ought to continue on. We continue to plan for all alternatives. We -- we're -- we continue to be prepared to respond, should the president ask us to take any additional steps. But, at the present time, this is a diplomatic issue and an international issue, and that's where it should be in terms of trying to resolve this issue.
STAFF: Thank you, everyone.
Q: Secretary, (one) --
STAFF: All right, we're all -- (off mic). Thank you.
Monday, April 16, 2012
FDA'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HAND HELD X-RAY DEVICES
FROM: U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION
Hand-held Dental X-Ray Units: FDA Safety Communication - Unreviewed Products May Not Be Safe or Effective
[Posted 02/10/2012]
AUDIENCE: Dentistry
ISSUE: FDA notified healthcare professionals, including dentists, dental care professionals and veterinarians, about the illegal sale of hand-held dental X-ray units that have not been reviewed by the FDA. The FDA is aware of hand-held dental X-ray units being sold online by manufacturers outside the U.S. and directly shipped to customers in the U.S. These devices may not be safe or effective and could potentially expose the user and the patient to unnecessary and potentially harmful X-rays.
BACKGROUND: All hand-held dental X-ray units that have been certified by the manufacturer to meet the FDA’s radiation safety standards bear a certification label/tag, a warning label, and an identification (ID) label/tag on the unit's housing. All labels/tags should be in the English language and permanently affixed or inscribed on each product so that they are legible and readily accessible when the X-ray unit is fully assembled for use.
RECOMMENDATION: Healthcare professionals should:
Verify that your device bears certification, warning and ID labels as described in the FDA Safety Communication.
Ask your vendor whether the device has been reviewed and cleared by the FDA.
Access the FDA Medical Device Approvals and Clearances searchable database to verify that the X-ray unit you are using has been reviewed by the FDA.
If you become aware of a device that you think is hazardous or does not meet FDA’s radiation safety or premarket clearance requirements, contact your state regulatory agency, which will then notify the FDA. The Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD)  website has a list of contacts for each state
Hand-held Dental X-Ray Units: FDA Safety Communication - Unreviewed Products May Not Be Safe or Effective
[Posted 02/10/2012]
AUDIENCE: Dentistry
ISSUE: FDA notified healthcare professionals, including dentists, dental care professionals and veterinarians, about the illegal sale of hand-held dental X-ray units that have not been reviewed by the FDA. The FDA is aware of hand-held dental X-ray units being sold online by manufacturers outside the U.S. and directly shipped to customers in the U.S. These devices may not be safe or effective and could potentially expose the user and the patient to unnecessary and potentially harmful X-rays.
BACKGROUND: All hand-held dental X-ray units that have been certified by the manufacturer to meet the FDA’s radiation safety standards bear a certification label/tag, a warning label, and an identification (ID) label/tag on the unit's housing. All labels/tags should be in the English language and permanently affixed or inscribed on each product so that they are legible and readily accessible when the X-ray unit is fully assembled for use.
RECOMMENDATION: Healthcare professionals should:
Verify that your device bears certification, warning and ID labels as described in the FDA Safety Communication.
Ask your vendor whether the device has been reviewed and cleared by the FDA.
Access the FDA Medical Device Approvals and Clearances searchable database to verify that the X-ray unit you are using has been reviewed by the FDA.
If you become aware of a device that you think is hazardous or does not meet FDA’s radiation safety or premarket clearance requirements, contact your state regulatory agency, which will then notify the FDA. The Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD)  website has a list of contacts for each state
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