2010 Posture Statement
Every year, the commander of U.S. Southern Command presents a "Posture Statement" (PDF) to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees explaining how the regional unified command views threats in the region and how it plans to address them. On March 11th, General Douglas Fraser, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, presented his first annual Posture Statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He did the same in the House on Thursday. General Fraser's written testimony included a lengthy section about Southcom's relief efforts in Haiti. The topic was not a point of focus during the question and answer periods of the House and Senate hearings. Instead, Iran's and Hezbollah's influence in the region, violence in Mexico, and the Venezuelan government's alleged links to the FARC came up repeatedly during both hearings. Here are some excerpts from the Q&A portions of both the Senate and House of Representatives hearings. Testifying alongside General Fraser was General Victor Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, who answered many of the questions on Mexico. The webcasts of both hearings are available online: Senate | House Venezuela: Senate hearing: Exchange between Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and General Fraser: Senator McCain: "How do you assess the threat of the cooperation between Iran and Venezuela.... As you know last week Spain's High Court said the Venezuelan government facilitated contacts between the FARC and ETA to plan the assassination of Colombian officials visiting Spain, including President Uribe. Do you have any information on that? And other activities on the part of the Venezuelan government?" General Fraser: "I do not have any direct information on that. We have continued to watch very closely for any connections between illicit and terrorist organization activity within the region. We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify that there has been direct government to terrorist connection. We are concerned about it. I'm skeptical. I continue to watch for it." Senator McCain: "You have seen evidence of relationship between the FARC and the Venezuelan government. That's been published many times." General Fraser: "I know that there is evidence of FARC (McCain interrupts: "I mean they got the hard drives when they raided the FARC camp..."). There has been some old evidence, but I don't see that evidence and I can't tell you specifically whether that continues or not." Exchange between Senator George LeMieux (R-FL) and General Fraser: Senator LeMieux: "Do you consider Venezuela to be the biggest destabilizing factor in region in terms of our national security interests?" General Fraser: "I wouldn't take it as far as the biggest destabilizing factor. They are continuing the pursuit of reducing U.S. influence in the region, and they are working with various countries and entities to try to enable that." House hearing: Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) "To your knowledge is helping assistance from Venezuela coming to the FARC in Colombia? There is a group known as FARC in Colombia, are they receiving help and assistance from anyone in or out of the government in Venezuela?" General Fraser: "We do see a long-term relationship that exists between the government of Venezuela and the FARC. That has been evidenced if we go back and look at the computer records that came out of ... the capture of that computer. That continues on. There is safe haven, there is financial logistics support, there is safe haven for the FARC provided and ... all the evidence that I have says that continues. The evidence that I have doesn't explicitly say that it is continuing, but I can't say it is explicitly not continuing... So, based on evidence up to date I would say that support still continues." General Fraser: Venezuela "continues to have a very anti-U.S. stance and looks to try and restrict U.S. activity wherever they have the opportunity to do that. They are continuing to engage with the region, if you will, and continuing to pursue their Bolivarian socialist agenda. That continues to be a concern and they remain a destabilizing force in the region." Iran & Hezbollah: Senate hearing: Senator LeMieux: "What's your focus... and the plan going forward to combat this narco-drug trafficking and do you have any concerns that with the projection of influence of Iran in the region, the idea that we know Hezbollah and Hamas have set up shop in the region, that there could be a combination between those groups and the narcotraffickers?" General Fraser: "From a destabilizing standpoint the biggest concern I have in the region is illicit trafficking. I think it is growing as a regional issue ... and spreading to other parts of the region. Brazil is now the second largest cocaine user in the world. It is the criminal element of that, the illicit trafficking that really is my biggest concern... We are looking at illicit trafficking as a regional enterprise, not just what is effecting each individual country ... to try to understand that enterprise as a regional enterprise ... and to see if we can start squeezing that balloon effectively down." House hearing: Q: Is there any evidence ... that say Hezbollah has been engaged in the drug trafficking business to raise money for some of its operations in the Middle East?... Are there any reports to that effect? General Fraser: "There have been some reports within the southern command region ... of Hezbollah starting to get engaged with illegal trafficking area, so I have that indication. It is primarily right now a focus on logistics support, financial support to their parent organizations in the Mid East." Q: Iran being involved in Nicaragua? Building a mosque..., but sponsored by Iranian government? General Fraser: "Iran has been engaging on a political and commercial level throughout much of Latin America. Over the last 3 to 4 years they have increased embassies from 7 to 11, going to another one this year. They have engaged very directly with Venezuela. They are also engaging consistently with Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, ... and also with now Brazil. So they are actually working across the region to engage in both a political and commercial endeavor. Our concerns are just watching to understand what those relationships are and . I don't see any evidence that they are beyond that right now. But we are very skeptical and watching that closely." Mexico Senate hearing: Senator McCain: "Could you describe to me, ... in terms the American people can understand, just how dangerous is our situation on our southern border vis a vis drug cartels...and the possibility that that violence can spill over the border?" General Renuart: "President Calderón has courageously put his military in the field to take this on where local law enforcement officials have been corrupted or intimidated.... That is not the traditional role of the Mexican military and it does put some strain on them.... As you know, the violence in places like Juárez has been substantial. I think we are close to 7,000 murders that occurred 2009....I must say, drug related murders generally were cartel on cartel, but as you know that spills over into the general public." "I know we have had people involved who we have trained in the past and were corrupted.... I'm cautious when we talk about level of threat to the Mexican government. I think Calderón is strong and he enjoys support, ... and he is growing an interagency team that can tackle this." Senator McCain asked General Renuart to provide for the record recommendations for what more we need to do for, including the success and failures of, the Mérida Initiative. General Renuart replied, there will be a "good news story" on law enforcement cooperation along the border." General Renaurt: "Mérida shouldn't just be a one or two year event, but should be a cooperation over time." House hearing: General Renault: "One of my concerns is that Mérida was a term limited set of money... We need to expand that beyond the term limits. We request the help of Congress as we move forward... Whatever the 'son of Merida' may be, this is really an 8 to 10 year problem." Colombia Senate hearing Senator Carl Levin (D-MI): Uribe is not running for a 3rd term. "Has there been a fallout from that? Is there enough time to have an appropriate election...?" General Fraser: "There is adequate time and a number of candidates are actively running, so I am confident Colombia will be able to run a fair and equitable election." House hearing: General Fraser: "Our relations with Colombia are very good and they continue to grow on a continual basis. There has been over the last eight years, since 2002, roughly $5 billion of United States money invested in the fight to help support Colombia in their fight against the FARC as well as illicit trafficking.... Overall, I see our relations with Colombia as strong and I see them continuing to grow." Cuba Senate Hearing: Senator McCain: "Is there any doubt that Raul Castro and Fidel Castro have been more oppressive in past year or two than they have in the past?" General Fraser: They "I think they have continued to remain fairly strict on the populous, but I cannot quantify whether that has been more constrictive than in the past few years." (Senator McCain proceeds to advise General Fraser to read the recent reports and testimony from various human rights organizations).