Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittees. I am honored to be here, and pleased to have the opportunity to discuss with you the subject of Information Superiority. This is a very important issue to the Department of Defense and, as evidenced by this hearing, the Congress as well. I will provide you with an overview of information superiority in the Department and describe the good, as well as the bad, news and the challenges associated with our information superiority efforts.

What is Information Superiority?

Information and information technology (IT) affect almost every aspect of the Department of Defense, from tactical units to the supply lines that support them. At the heart of the Department’s Joint Vision 2010 is Information Superiority: the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting and/or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same. As a result, Information Superiority is the key enabler for an entire range of operational concepts, from Dominant Maneuver to Precision Engagement to Focused Logistics to Full-Dimensional Protection. Information profoundly influences the entire spectrum of military endeavors including humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and coalition operations.

Why is Information Superiority Important?

Information Superiority is not only necessary, but absolutely essential to achieving JV2010. Here are a just a few examples of why:

Information Superiority makes our combat support more efficient, reducing manpower while improving support, effectively increasing our tooth to tail ratio. This includes such efficiencies as bringing tele-medicine to the front lines so that scarce but none-the-less critical medical skills can be brought to bear on battlefield medical problems. It also includes reach back to depots and other sources of weapons systems expertise when battlefield maintainers confront difficult systems problems.

Our weapons systems have become more information intensive as they have become more precise and autonomous (e.g. ‘fire and forget’). Feeding these weapons systems requires both exquisite (and probably unobtainable) pre-planning and unusually high flexibility to immediately acquire, correlate, and manipulate information and feed these weapons systems to accomplish a specific objective.

Our desires to limit collateral damage and apply only the necessary destructive power needed to neutralize a target calls for highly accurate knowledge of target location and target type so that the proper munitions can be tasked. This knowledge requires rapid tasking of sensor systems and processing, exploitation, and dissemination of sensor data as direct feeds to the targeting processes.

Enemies know the information dependence of the U.S. and are likely to exploit it to obtain asymmetrical advantage in a confrontation. A commander who has trained in an era of information advantage is likely to find him or herself at a substantial disadvantage if those tools are in anyway denied during any phase of warfare. It is therefore essential that our information superiority be full-dimensioned to include protection of our information assets against all threats an enemy can likely bring to the battle. This includes denial, deception, concealment, decoy, or information warfare techniques.

Despite the change in threats from the cold war era to today’s battlefield, the essential nature of war is unchanged. An operational commander must obtain and process information that reveals the opposing commander’s intend and then attack or defend based on his assessment of the relevant advantages each action obtains. The commander with the best information is likely to prevail, even if at a disadvantage in force structure. Information superiority provides the essential combat edge we owe our military and the nation.

Another way to characterize Information Superiority is the right information from the right sources to the right people at the right time in the right format.

Electronic Environment - Characteristics & Challenges

As indicated above, the same information technologies that present new opportunities in our military capabilities and business operations also present new vulnerabilities. DoD’s strength is our use of information technology; our weakness is our use of information technology. Operational readiness as well as the command and control of forces rely increasingly on information systems and technology. The nation’s reliance on information technology now constitutes an attractive target for America’s adversaries, especially those unable to challenge us on conventional fields of battle.

The advantages afforded by smart weapons can be negated if access to the information needed for their use is denied or delayed or, alternatively, if this information is compromised and exploited. A $1 million cruise missile becomes an errant "dumb" bomb without the essential and validated mission data necessary to accomplish its assigned task. Indeed, the DoD cannot fully harness the potential of the electronic age without confidence that: information will be available when needed; the integrity of the data and information is assured: information can be kept confidential when necessary; the identity of those using DoD networks can be authenticated; and, electronic signatures can be validated and are not subject to repudiation.

The Department’s fixed bases, camps, posts and stations are extremely dependent on public infrastructures, both domestic and foreign, including the Internet, public telephone lines, telephone switches and computer systems. With ninety-five percent of the DoD’s communications riding on public networks, today's communications infrastructure is virtually seamless across borders and ownership. And the Department's dependence will only grow over time as we continue to seek commercial solutions and outsource certain functions. This relationship and dependence introduces vulnerabilities and raises the prospect of threats from natural, technological or manmade disasters (for example, a weather storm crippling power lines, a software bug crashing long-distance telephone service, or a hacker "stealing" information from the Internet). Moreover, in an effort to share information via the Internet, it is possible for government agencies to inadvertently include unclassified but sensitive information on their public Web sites. In some cases, this information may be aggregated with data from other sources to reveal sensitive national security information.

Estimates that there will be over 1 billion users on the Internet by 2000 underscore the importance of establishing trust and security in a highly distributed, network-centric computing environment such as the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII).

The importance of protecting our information and critical infrastructures is illustrated by several recent incidents:

In a military test at Fort Bragg, N.C., a year ago, an Army helicopter crew, unaware their Global Positioning System (GPS) signals had been blocked, strayed significantly off course and nearly flew out of the training range. This week the Department plans to disrupt GPS service by interrupting GPS satellite navigation signals in a test that assesses the consequences if there were a real disruption or failure of the system. U.S. Atlantic Command, is running the test as part of a larger military exercise, and predicts minimal impact on civilian users, which includes ships, aircraft, cellular phone providers and radio networks.

Earlier this month, a software problem caused outages on 2 separate days at ETrade Group Inc., a major online brokerage. During those outages customers were unable to buy or sell stocks electronically. ETrade is one of the largest of the online brokerages, and averaged nearly 40,000 trades a day in its last quarter. While it is not known how many investors were affected, the disruption was particularly untimely given that the NASDAQ, which holds some of the issues most heavily traded by on-line investors, suffered its second-worst decline in history on the second day.

Both events illustrate how a failure in one part of the infrastructure affects the delicate and complex balance of the entire interconnected system. Unfortunately the number of these types of events seems to be increasing at the same rate as our reliance on information technology.

The technology or systems that we use to secure critical information, however, must be exportable to our allies and coalition partners so that incompatible security procedures and equipment do not impede the information exchange so vital to coalition operations. In this context, the control, ownership and dissemination of strong encryption technologies remains an unresolved issue that complicates international electronic compatibility and information exchange.

Information and information technology represent a force that may be interdicted for military advantage by an astute enemy who has knowledge of our information vulnerabilities. It is therefore essential we repair those vulnerabilities that are critical and back-up those dependencies that are inherently fragile and can not be easily defended.

C3I Organization and Goals

The Deputy Secretary designated me the Senior Civilian Official for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) a year ago February 5. My first action as the Senior Civilian Official was to establish a new, revitalized organization focused on the broader and increasing C3I mission in today's environment. The new C3I organization, which includes DIA, DISA, DSS, NIMA, NRO, and NSA, was formally stood up in June 1998, and is designed to address Information Superiority in its entirety. The focus of this hearing is the Information Superiority from the warfighter's perspective, but it is equally important to the business or combat support side of the Department that must also be addressed.

I have established ten goals for the new organization to focus our attention on achieving Information Superiority. The Deputy Secretary has approved the 10 goals, and we've made progress on each one.

Goal One: Ensure continuity of mission-essential DoD operations despite Y2K disruptions. We have made considerable progress in systems remediation to date. This was reflected in the achievement of significant milestones late in 1998, and we can credibly project that 99% plus of DoD's mission critical systems will be Y2K compliant by the end of the 1999, with work-arounds available for the few systems that will need it. In sum, the Department will be able to execute all of its mission critical systems during the Y2K transition. That said, there still is much to do. In addition to the systems remediation, mission testing, and contingency planning scheduled for the rest of the year, we are emphasizing on the organizational interfaces, policy guidance, and process changes we’ll need to ensure the Department can meet our national security obligations, while responding to the inevitable outside demands Y2K will place on DoD resources. Between now and March 31 we will have conducted 27 CinC end-to-end operational evaluations that will further assess our readiness to conduct continuity of operations in a Y2K contingency.

Goal Two: Implement effective programs for establishing information assurance (IA) and critical infrastructure protection (CIP). Milestones in the area of IA and CIP include the stand-up of the Defense-wide Information Assurance Program, we worked through the Solar Sunrise intrusion event and its follow-up, accomplished initial stand-up of the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense, and integrated the DoD computer forensics labs. We assisted in updating U.S. encryption policy and had successes in reaching international agreement on encryption policy at Wassenaar. We have developed web security policy, and are standing up a Joint Web Risk Assessment cell using Reserve Components to conduct ongoing security assessments of DoD web sites. We have also taken a series of steps in support of Critical Infrastructure and DoD critical asset protection, including holding a joint summit with the Department of Justice and supporting the stand up of the National Infrastructure Protection Center by providing the Deputy Director and additional DoD personnel to staff the Center. We have a number of efforts underway, including a review of how to protect sensitive but unclassified information; establishing Integrated Process Teams to look at Information Assurance R&D and manpower issues; examining training and certification requirements for information systems users, administrators and operators; assessing how we can make the IA Vulnerability Alert process more effective in establishing positive control over our networks; and coordinating a Department-wide policy on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

Goal Three: Build a coherent global network. An important initiative that cuts across several goals is the Global Networked Information Enterprise (GNIE), which incorporates change management, advanced technologies and process reengineering to move us toward a ubiquitous, secure, available network to support information superiority. We’ve taken several important steps in this direction with the Defense Information Systems Agency's telecommunication backbone initiatives; various information assurance activities; and the approval of a new version of the Joint Technical Architecture, which extends a coherent architectural approach into modeling and simulation as well as weapons systems. We have also established an Enterprise Software Initiative Working Group, which has developed innovative solutions to achieve cost savings through wholesale bulk purchasing and discount pricing of computer software and licenses. The GNIE initiative defines the overall network approach and architecture, and it will be rolled out in several phases over the next few months.

GNIE is currently being defined under the auspices of a Senior Steering Group, chaired by the Deputy CIO and having three-star representation from each of the Military Services, the Joint Staff and the Defense Information Systems Agency. As GNIE evolves, it may take on a different name that reflects changes in the initiative, but we believe the underlying concept is sound and will endure.

Goal Four: Plan and implement joint and combined end-to-end C3ISR and space integration. I established the C3I organization along functional lines, independent of the altitude of the platform carrying the sensor, and this has brought big dividends in the reevaluation of the Future Imagery Architecture and Integrated Overhead SIGINT Architecture. C3I has led the successful effort to define licensing criteria for commercial hyperspectral imagery. The National Security Space Architect Office has been established, and the initial project of Mission Information Management is underway. Collectively, these are setting the stage for truly fundamental changes in the way we do business in space. Internationally, we supported the development of an anti-satellite arms control approach for the US-Russia summit, and have been engaged in several space initiatives with key allies. Great progress has been made in spectrum management that promises continuing dividends in the future, and we are working towards a solution on Global Positioning System. Together with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Technology we have worked on unmanned aerial vehicles, seen the contract award on the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle and received approval to proceed with the Army’s Tactical Command and Control System Management Initiative. The Joint Tactical Radio System early acquisition strategy has been refined and architecture development is underway.

Goal Five: Promote the development of a knowledge-based workforce within DoD. We are working with the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness and the Services on attracting, training and retaining the technologically skilled workforce the Department will need in the years ahead. We are developing a plan to address this critical issue, and we plan to put increased attention on this in 1999. On the other hand, we are making considerable progress in making better use of the reserve intelligence component, not only in the virtual linking of reserve intelligence centers, but also in the testing of our web site security.

Goal Six: Establish policies and procedures that will lead to the reinvention of intelligence for the 21st century. I mentioned above the importance of the work on the Future Imagery Architecture, Integrated Overhead SIGINT Architecture and Hyperspectral Imagery. In addition to their implications for space, all will have significant impacts on intelligence. Re-dressing the Tasking, Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination problem will help address the imbalance between intelligence collection and analysis. We are also placing more emphasis on addressing the intelligence needed for tactical users and on MASINT. We have initiated an evaluation of clandestine capabilities within the Department and have begun to implement critical initiatives related to foreign material acquisition. An important memorandum of agreement has been completed for the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and dramatic breakthroughs have been made in the acquisition of several highly classified programs. Initiatives in the coming months will focus on relationships with defense agencies, and improvements to the Department and Intelligence community's resource review processes.

Goal Seven: Develop and implement revised policies for information operations, security and counterintelligence. In the past few months we have stood up the Bilateral Information Operations Steering Group, completed a cross-cutting review of Service information operations programs, initiated the development of a DoD information operations strategy and framework, improved coordination with the Intelligence Community to address information operations policy issues and begun a bilateral foreign relationship on information operations issues. Challenges ahead center on completing the DoD information operations strategy and framework, clarifying the role and funding of the Information Operations Technology Center, and developing an international engagement strategy. The consolidation of Special Access Programs and collateral security promises significant benefits, and the development of new concepts for counterintelligence and security offers great payoff, though there will be challenges in translating the concepts into practical actions. The standing up of the Joint Counterintelligence Evaluation Office and securing resource support for Service counterintelligence organizations were major developments. In 1999 we will continue to emphasize new concepts in counterintelligence and security, pursue ongoing counterintelligence cases, address security at DoD labs, and focus on the "insider" threat.

Goal Eight: Promote electronic commence and business process change throughout DoD. The Joint Electronic Commerce Program Office has been stood up and is operating well. We formulated Deputy Chief Information Officer (CIO) goals, plans, and programs and secured additional out-year funding; established the CIO Working Council; set up an information management and technology policy framework; and obtained CIO Council ratification of the CIO Action Plan. We also made great progress in implementing paperless contracting. A critical challenge in the year ahead will be to increase the security of electronic commerce networks.

Goal Nine: Foster development of an advanced technology plan for information superiority. Activity in support of this goal needs to be accelerated. In conjunction with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Technology, DARPA, Defense Agencies, and others., we are cataloging IT-related R&D efforts to minimize overlaps and work out a division of labor as we move forward. We have strengthened C3I involvement in, and oversight of, Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations.

Goal Ten: Build OASD (C3I) ("Space and Information Superiority") into a nurturing, caring organization that is a model for attaining the above goals. We are making progress, mainly through internal steps, but also through SecDef and DepSecDef support and enthusiasm for our mission areas and our people. In 1999 we will emphasize improved information technology infrastructure and working conditions within C3I, training, and better integration into the POM/budget process (which often is perceived as goal accomplishment). We also will work to provide more depth and analytical resources for C3I people.

A focus throughout the past year has been to enhance our contacts with the CinCs and allies. This outreach is essential to coalition interoperability and holds the promise of extensive dividends. We've also strengthened the CIO and resource functions. which underpin virtually all of our other goals, within the organization. Those are just some our recent accomplishments -- the good news story; nonetheless, there are some areas that still need improvement, what I call the bad and the ugly news.

Impediments to Achieving Information Superiority -- the Bad and Ugly News

Achieving Information Superiority is not simply a matter of acquiring information technology -- buying more computers or more telecommunications capability. It requires a variety of elements including people, processes, policy, and other factors. Achieving information superiority is made harder by those and other factors, some of which are described below.

Visibility of the Infostructure.

The Department as a whole lacks visibility of the entire information infrastructure ("infostructure"). Much of the infostructure has evolved with time, using principles that are no longer relevant in today's technology-based world, such that ownership and control of the infostructure is splintered among many actors. Thus, an overarching architecture, which includes technical, systems and operational architectures, needs to be refined and implemented. We have established a group to do this in the name of end-to-end interoperability.

Service and Program Centric Programming.

We are limited in our ability to oversee collections of programs and the details of the operating budgets and execution of those budgets by the services and agencies. In part because the Information Technology budgets are not aligned cleanly along traditional program lines -- it is a fact of life. For this and other reasons we recently established a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to focus on programming and budget issues associated with the wide collection of systems and activities necessary to achieve Information superiority. We are also addressing information superiority in the Department's Front End Assessment process. This year the Department is conducting ten Front End Assessments on major program issues -- four of those are related to information superiority. Those four will study information assurance, Global Network Information Enterprise, airborne intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance sensors, and what we call the "last tactical mile" (communications/connectivity). Our goal is to identify alternative solutions to these issues and ultimately provide programming guidance to the Services and Defense Agencies.

Research & Development.

Many technologies, particularly the ones that influence information systems, are progressing faster than ever. In the past, government led the way in new information technology and was able to control the most sensitive of them. Today, rapidly changing commercial innovation is the source of the latest breakthroughs. We need to encourage information technology research and development, and then bring that technology into DoD where it can be used in the most efficient way to ensure our national security. DoD also must continue to work with industry so that the Department’s needs and requirements can influence industry's future technology developments.

At the same time DoD clearly needs to focus Defense R&D efforts on the most critical information technology problems that are unique to the defense sector and are not being researched or developed adequately in the private sector. Many information technology areas, such as the ‘hardening of information systems against enemy attack’ will require focused investment on the part of the defense R&D community. We should look, however, for non-traditional partners in many of these areas. For example, the banking industry has many of the same requirements defense has for privacy and authentication of transactions. The robotics and medical instrument industry, like the military, has requirements for computers that can operate in high electrical noise environments. By leveraging buying power across these non-traditional market sectors, defense needs can be met with lower defense investment.

Technology Cycles.

The Department needs to do better at capitalizing on the results of technology demonstrations and warfighting experiments. These activities often reveal immediate technology opportunities that respond to only a portion of the user needs and require unplanned resources to implement quickly. The dilemma for the military is whether to proceed with the more limited but demonstrated capability and evolve it over time or whether to take the additional time needed to redesign the capability to more fully meet the user’s need. In either case, we must find a way to make the transition from experimentation to implementation for information technology solutions, faster.

At the same time we need to be able to respond quicker to user's information technology needs. The current processes used to identify and validate requirements and to design, test, implement and field information technology systems take too long, often extending through several information technology cycles. As a result, our weapons systems frequently end up fielding older technology than what is currently available ‘off-the-shelf’ at the local computer warehouse. We need more flexibility in the requirements and acquisition processes -- mission area analysis, mission area deficiency identification, mission needs generation, operational requirements identification, needs/requirements validation, funding prioritization, and development/testing/production/training/fielding processes -- so that we can keep pace with technology advances.

Interaction with Allies and Coalition Partners.

Interoperability with our military partners is key to battlefield success and the political realities of today’s world. Yet many of our partners are constrained by legacy systems and do not have the resources to equip themselves with the latest technology—at least not on the timetables that the U.S. military needs to pursue. Intelligence sharing restrictions and encryption device export controls also limit coalition operations. We must consider these limitations in our action plans. Whatever we deploy in this area must be backward compatible, which is an added expense, but we cannot afford to slow down and wait for our allies to catch up.

Competition for Frequency Spectrum.

Much of our information superiority depends on access to the radio frequency spectrum. The priority we place on mobility, range, and speed dictates that much of our information technology be wireless and consequently we value access to the radio frequency spectrum which provides us the essential media for communicating information, unhampered by mechanical connections or hampered by weather and other natural phenomena. The U.S. military has an incredible investment in systems that exploit the spectrum and attempt to deny its use by our adversaries. We are frankly not surprised to find that the many attributes we value in sensing and communicating using the radio spectrum have private and commercial value as well. There is increasing pressure for the government to reduce its spectrum usage and to make this resource available for private sector development. We understand the resolution of who should use and how the spectrum is used is an important one. It is equally important we consider the impact to national security in these deliberations and understand the full costs in terms of security and dollars spectrum reallocation incurs. The DoD is committed to using the spectrum allocated to it more efficiently, but new military requirements for passing video and detecting low observable threats exacerbates an already difficult problem.

Today there is no international mechanism for resolving spectrum allocation disputes, and we find ourselves not only competing with commercial interests but with international entities for spectrum. A number of foreign nations are considering charging the Department for spectrum usage. This approach has been blunted by the NATO C3 Board, but we need a national strategy for dealing with these kinds of issues.

One thing that Congress can help us with is updating existing legislation in this area. Frequency spectrum matters are subject to the 1934 Telecommunications Act and it is time to update that legislation so that it reflects today's realities. The Department is ready to work with Congress to accomplish that.

Security Policy and Business Practices.

Information technology merely enforces and implements the decisions we program them to make. If we don't think through the problem and solution carefully, information technology will only provide us a bad answer faster. If we deny critical information to a coalition partner who is working with our forces, then we will have less defense. If we apply information technology to an inefficient business process, then we will have automated inefficiency. There are many natural tensions in the exploitation of information superiority, and we must be resolved to address these tensions as we employ the technology. We also must examine our security policies and determine what we need to protect and how best to protect it. We are currently studying this issue and will keep the Congress informed of our progress.

Knowledge-Based Workforce.

The Department must also develop the skills of the civilian and military personnel who operate, maintain and manage information technology. The demand for skilled information technology professionals is high and the Department competes with industry for the best talent -- and is too often the loser. The Department therefore will continue to pursue a personnel strategy that offers its employees the best training, opportunities to work with the best technology, improved compensation and, perhaps most critically, unique intellectual challenges and the knowledge that working for the Department is critical to the security and well being of the United States. The recruiting, training and retention of a skilled and motivated, knowledge-based workforce is essential. I fully endorse Secretary Cohen's TRAID request to address pay raises, retirement reform and modernization for the military, and request the Congress to support his efforts as well.

Interoperability.

As indicated earlier, joint and coalition warfare is the essential attribute of today’s military. The requirement and challenge of interoperability extends to our industry partners and the American People as well. They are backbone of defense preparedness. We must consider interoperability as a key parameter in all operational and systems architectures we pursue, and design interoperability into our systems. We need to think jointness and interoperability from the start. We must define who we must be able to exchange information with and characterize that exchange effectively so that our systems can be engineered, tested, and fielded with the essential interaction we require. We must accept the challenge and the seemingly impossible task of maintaining interoperability where it has been achieved even as new technology takes us beyond those systems by which we first attained functional interoperability. The path to interoperability will be costly, complex, and frustrating but we must resolve with our partners to a future where interoperability is built-in from the start. If information superiority is the enabler we believe it to be, we must train and operate with systems that afford us the sharing of all pertinent information, regardless of which partner brings it to the fight. We simply can't achieve Information Superiority without achieving interoperability.

Assured, Secure Global Network - Global Networked Information Enterprise (GNIE).

Much of today’s DII architecture and management have failed to provide the security, interoperability and economy originally envisioned. Most of the underlying problems are chronic and have been the subject of increasingly intense criticism within the Executive and Legislative Branches. As a result of these problems, a strategic assessment of existing Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DII COE) policies and programs was conducted and the results indicated the need to take a broader, enterprise approach to managing information technology. In response, we have created the Global Networked Information Enterprise (GNIE) initiative. Its objective is to provide a protected, integrated and modern networking and computing information enterprise to achieve Information Superiority for the warfighter, the intelligence community and combat support providers, worldwide. The GNIE effort is designed to achieve this by creating a DoD-wide network management solution, comprised enterprise network policies, strategies, architectures, focused investments, and network management control centers that bring order out the currently, highly fragmented Service-centric and Agency-centric DoD infrastructure environment.

As examples, the GNIE will enable movement from inflexible "long haul" communications to networking and also from segregated and non-interoperable computing to interoperable computing based on a family of common operating environments. The DoD will achieve economies of scale through the procurement of enterprise software licenses and practical consolidation of client-server communications to ensure that base level modernization remains affordable and can effectively and securely support and sustain deployed and expeditionary warfighting.

There are other examples of impediments I could cite, but the message is the same for all: unless we remove or otherwise address some of these obstacles to progress, we will not get the kind of infostructure our warfighters deserve and we will be unable to exploit the full advantages of information superiority.

Conclusion

The United States now relies on information systems to such an extent that an attack against those systems would present a genuine threat to U.S. security. In fact, the DoD’s 1997 "Eligible Receiver" exercise highlighted the vulnerabilities of some U.S. systems, and the February 1998 Solar Sunrise was an actual attack on DoD’s networks. These events showed that it was possible for computer hackers to break into DoD systems using only publicly available information. The military "hackers" showed they could access the National Military Command Center and critical logistics systems, among others, as well as the systems that controlled the electrical power grids for cities all across America. Hackers are not the only threat, however. The trusted insider, the Aldrege Ames or Teresa Squillacote of today, poses an equally dangerous threat, one that we need to protect against while at the same time protecting our employees' rights.

DoD, and the C3I organization in particular, has had many successes during the past year. I am very proud of our people for their dedication, and professionalism throughout this process. To this end, we will continue to do the best possible job of achieving information superiority while denying any adversary the same. The larger challenge to the DoD, and the United States as a whole, is to keep pace with rapidly evolving information technology so that we can cultivate and harvest the promise of information superiority among U.S. forces and coalition partners while exploiting the shortfalls in our adversaries information capabilities. I hope I have your support in improving our efforts in these key areas.