Mark Kelly Responds To Republicans Defending Leaked War Plan Chat As Non-Classified

2 days ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) spoke about the contents of the leaked Signal chat the Trump Administration claimed was not confidential.

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Transcript

00:00Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to comment on some

00:06of the comments that my colleague from Missouri made about the signal chat

00:13chain, talking about war plans. Well, I have planned and conducted strikes off

00:21of aircraft carriers, multiple strikes, into harm's way over Iraq and Kuwait. And

00:27I would agree with the senator from Missouri, this is not an entire war plan.

00:33What this is, is an operational plan for very risky combat operations off of an

00:41aircraft carrier. And it's not all the information, but the most critical

00:45information that we have in our government are things like launch time

00:51off of a platform, in this case of an aircraft carrier, type of airplane, F-18s,

00:58MQ-9s, weapons like tomahawks, time on target. It is very critical information.

01:07Somebody could argue that the piece of paper it came off of, the signal chat, it

01:12did not say secret or top secret. When you have pilots that are about to go

01:17feet dry over a foreign nation within an hour or two hours, and that

01:26information is being shared on a non-secure system, it puts those pilots

01:31at great risk. I agree it is not all the information, but some of the most

01:38critical information that you would not want to be released is what was in that

01:44signal chain. So, where I do agree with some of what you said with regards to an

01:51entire plan, sure. But the most critical pieces were shared publicly by, on an

01:58unsecure system, by the Secretary of Defense. So with that, I've got some other

02:01questions about maritime industry and the Ships for America Act, which is my

02:08legislation with Senator Young of Indiana. So Mr. Duffy and Mr. Michael, one

02:13issue I've been focused on for a long time is the state of our maritime

02:17industry. TRANSCOM relies on U.S. flag vessels and American mariners to

02:22provide strategic sea lift, and right now we don't have enough vessels or mariners

02:26to support sustained operations overseas. It's a national security issue for us. We

02:31also have a hollowed-out shipyard industrial base in the United States, and

02:35the only ocean-going ships we build in the United States now are Navy vessels,

02:40and that means constrained supply chains and increased costs for the Navy.

02:44These are all really pressing issues for our national security. So, Mr.

02:49Duffy first, and then Mr. Michael, what steps would you take to ensure that

02:55our cast-and-forged industrial shipbuilding base, from forging to supply

03:00chains and production, are ready for competition, crisis, and conflict?

03:05Senator, thank you for your concern about this very important issue. I had a chance

03:10to read the GAO's testimony this week with respect to shipbuilding, and one of

03:15the major concerns that sort of was revealing to me in reviewing that was

03:20that since 2003 we have not increased the number of ships in our Navy, which

03:24really puts us at a disadvantage when maritime supremacy is

03:28absolutely critical in terms of deterring our adversary and preventing

03:32future conflict. My understanding of the challenges in the shipbuilding

03:37industrial base include workforce and supply chain. If I'm confirmed into the

03:42role, it would be absolutely a priority for me to work with this committee and with

03:46you, and thank you for your leadership on the ships legislation, because I think

03:49where we've seen success in the defense industry is where we can leverage

03:53capability in the commercial industry, and I think that's one of the proposals

03:57of your legislation is how do we enhance both defense and commercial ship

04:01building within the United States. And then, Mr. Michael, would you agree that

04:05there are lessons that we can learn from the private sector when it comes to

04:08shipbuilding best practices? There are a lot of lessons learned. I think the

04:14most sophisticated manufacturers today have a very sort of dashboard-like

04:21understanding of where their supply chains are. Every supplier, they're

04:26required to build something so that they can eliminate bottlenecks, they could do

04:30just-in-time ordering, they know what's backlogged so they can start on other

04:34processes while they wait for the parts that are in short supply to come in. AI

04:39can help with that and look through and down the supply chain across countries

04:44and figure out where the materials are that we need and schedule labor to be

04:48efficient on that, and that's done very effectively in lots of industries today

04:53that we should be borrowing that technology or buying it or building it

04:56ourselves to do that in these industries given the amount of money we spend. And

05:00do you think having a vibrant commercial maritime industry is going to help us

05:06build Navy ships? I think you can. I think the the ancillary technologies that are

05:12built to manage supply chains and manufacturing and labor can be used to

05:17do the same thing in the military. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:22Thank you very much.

Mark Kelly Responds To Republicans Defending Leaked War Plan Chat As Non-Classified

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