yes sir thank you I yield pack thank you very much Senator Kane Senor cotton please thank you gentlemen congratulation on your nominations and congratulation and thank you uh to your families and your mentors and the ncos across the course of your career who brought you to this point uh General nous obviously the National Guard plays a very critical role for our nation we see them at home responding to natural disasters or crises but we also rely on them for our national security as some of the other Senators have said about their National Guard uh the Arkansas National Guard was just last year in Germany providing critical support and training to Ukraine's Armed Forces where I visited with them and just next week we'll have a ribbon cutting ceremony at ebing Air Force base for the new foreign training mission for the F35 um these are very vitally important not just for the Arkansas National Guard but also for our nation's security and and I know that I have your commitment to support that just as much as your predecessors have correct yes sir support those important programs that you talked about thank you um I want to turn to an issue that's kind of at the intersection of your current role at NORAD and that might be uh in your role at the National Guard Bureau um you're familiar obviously with the high tempo of drone incursions over our military installations um not just in places like Iraq and Syria but here in the United States to include National Guard bases uh what's your view of the National Guard's role in defending installations and domestic infrastructure from such drone incursions Senator uh you raised an important issue uh counter small uas and uh protecting our bases is absolutely vital uh we are seeing uh increased uh incursions uh through uh nor northcom Commander General guo uh which sets the force protection across the United States uh bases uh have that responsibility to uh defend and secure their U and protect their bases uh the same would be for the National Guard in the bases and so I'd work whole of government approach and certainly with uh the services that has taken this uh issue very seriously and on weekly uh meetings to make sure we get after the problem okay um do you have the relevant Authority you need right now to support DHS and doj when we see drone incursions violating us airspace controls over US military inst ations Senator authorities are different in the United States than they are overseas and so I know General guo nor northcom as the synchronizer uh for the Department of Defense certainly looking at those and working those authorities to make sure uh if additional ones are needed that that's brought forward um we want to make sure that uh we have the right capability both either kinetic or non-kinetic uh to understand and domain awareness so that we can sense uh the incursions and then that we have the problem set right in the authorities uh to use whatever need to protect our people and our equipment thank you any thoughts on what you might do have confirmed about the long-term procurement and sustainment of of capabilities needed for a Homeland counter drone Mission oh for the counter drone uh drone Mission uh yes Senator we'll work with our services who are the procurement Authority so I'll certainly work with General Alvin and General George as we look forward to the best way to uh defend our bases and protect our people okay thank you edore I want to talk a little bit about Haiti um there's a current un plan under the multinational security support mission to deploy around 2500 Personnel to Haiti mostly from Kenya and Benin but also some Caribbean Nations I have to say this strikes me as a totally hairbrain scheme uh Porto Prince for instance has 1.2 million people it's overrun by gangs and militias and it lacks a functioning government um I I know that in your current role or your future role you don't shapee policy as it relates to Haiti but I do want to know from your military expertise and your role as the current Deputy commander in southcom what do you think is the prospect of success for a force of 2500 Personnel to stabilize uh an city of 1.2 million people without an Effective Government Senator thanks for that question as I look at the current layout right now we're planning for approximately 1,000 at this point is what we're looking at uh so it's a very challenging problem set right but I will share with you as I look at uh at least one metric uh right now we have the uh about 350 almost 380 so uh kenyons on the ground when I look at the number of Haitians coming through the Darion I've seen that number trending down for the last couple of months I think that's somewhat send a signal to at least the Haitians that they're willing to wait and see how this plays out but it will be a very challenging problem yeah I think it'll be challenging as well and what concerns me most is there's a a fairly long history of our interventions or the un's interventions in Haiti and they don't have a very good good end stories especially the United Nations and what some of its officials have done in Haiti um I just worry very much that other nations are biting off more than they can chew under a hairbrain un scheme and where are they going to turn turn in a crisis they're going to turn to you and to the United States and our personnel and we might end up in a situation where we have to put American forces at least into the ports to help evacuate people and I think that would be very very unwise for our nation so I I agree that 200 troops or even a few more than that is unlikely to do much in Haiti and puts our own Personnel potentially at Great risk in the future thank you congratulations both sir thank you very much Senator cotton Senator King please thank you Mr chairman