EXCERPTS FROM GEN. PETRAEUS' TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE REGARDING THE POSTURE OF THE UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND

1 APRIL 2009

Improving the overall effectiveness of our security efforts requires strengthening each country’s ability to maintain security inside its own borders and to participate in joint endeavors. This capacity building includes collective and individual training programs, educational exchanges, and the development of security elated facilities and infrastructure, as well as equipment modernization efforts. These programs benefit from the talents and resources each partner brings to the network, and they can be tailored to the nature of each country’s participation. In addition to military programs, this also will require increasing the civilian capacity in the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development.

Already, there is great breadth and depth to the cooperative activity that is underway, and there is more design and coherence to this network than is commonly understood. In addition to our ongoing partnerships with the Iraqi Security Forces and the Afghan National Security Forces, numerous multilateral counter-terrorism, maritime, and coastal security initiatives are ongoing in the region. Additionally, many countries participate in an extensive array of combined ground, maritime, aviation, and special operations exercises, each designed to respond to different types of threats. There are partnerships in the region for improving coordination and information sharing through, for example, air and missile defense initiatives with several Gulf countries and border cooperation programs with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lastly, many countries are working together to fund or provide military equipment to underdeveloped security forces, with our own Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Foreign Military Funding (FMF) programs playing a large role in these efforts.