Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo has been appointed to two House Armed Services Committee panels which will review United States military defense capabilities and requirements needed to address future threats. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Ranking Member Ike Skelton (D-MO) announced a total of six “gap panels” as part of the second phase of a process initiated by the Committee that is being referred to as a “Committee Defense Review” (CDR). The CDR is intended to better inform the Committee in preparation for reception of the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review in February of 2006 and to enable more rigorous oversight of DOD conclusions and recommendations for future force structure, research and development and budgetary allocations. Each of the gap panels will conduct in-depth examinations of focused threat categories that were identified in the first phase of the CDR by a “threat panel.” Congresswoman Bordallo has been appointed as a Co-Chair of the Regional Conflicts Panel and a member of the Regional Powers Panel. Congresswoman Bordallo is one of only two democratic committee members who were appointed to multiple panels.

“The Regional Conflicts Panel and the Regional Powers Panel will be looking at issues in our region and our work will have an impact on the full Armed Services Committee’s review of Pentagon re-alignment plans,” said Bordallo. “The fact that the committee has created two panels to study these issues is significant; and I hope that my appointment as a Co-Chair indicates the important role that the Committee believes Guam plays in regional security.”

The Regional Powers gap panel will focus on major regional powers including China, India, Pakistan and Russia. The Regional Conflicts gap panel will focus on developing countries and ungoverned spaces and will address such regions as the Horn of Africa, Cuba, Haiti and the Caucuses. Each gap panel will identify the most likely and most dangerous threat within its scope of review and will evaluate the types of military resources necessary to address those scenarios and whether those resources are currently or are expected to be available. The gap panels will also address whether the threats are better addressed by other executive departments and how the threats can best be mitigated.

“The Regional Powers panel will look at issues regarding China, an emerging power in our region,” said Bordallo. “The Regional Conflicts panel will look at possible threats and how our forces should be organized to meet these threats.”

The House Armed Services CDR is an independent, bipartisan process that complements the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review. The CDR’s Threat Panel identified and categorized potential strategic threats to U.S. national security over the next twenty years. Following the completion of the gap panels, the CDR’s third and final phase will integrate the gap panels’ recommendations into a report to be released in 2006. The CDR’s gap panels are as follows:

• Regional Powers


• Current and Emerging Nuclear Powers Sub-Panel


• Non-Traditional Missions and Catastrophic Disasters


• Asymmetric and Unconventional Threats


• Terrorism and Radical Islam


• Regional Conflicts
  

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Contact: Alicia Chon in Washington, D.C. at (202) 225-1188 or Joseph Duenas in Guam at (671) 477-4272/4.