Briefing by KB
Billy Hutchinson, Permanent Representative of the United States to NATO: Our
Enemies Observe. Our army is ready
FPC BRIEFING
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, U.S. PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY
ORGANIZATION
TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2020; 11:00 A.M.
WASHINGTON D.C.
APRIL 14, 2020
THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.
MODERATOR:
Okay, good morning. My name
is Cheryl Neely, and I’m the moderator for the Foreign Press Center
today. Welcome to the Foreign Press Center’s videoconference briefing to
preview tomorrow’s NATO defense ministerial.
The meeting host will now mute all
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called on to ask a question. You may record the briefing by clicking on
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record.
I’d like to introduce our briefer,
Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison. Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison has
served as Permanent Representative of the United States to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization since 2017. From 1993 to 2013, she served as
a U.S. senator from
Texas and was also elected to a Senate leadership position – pardon me,
leadership position. Ambassador Hutchison gained extensive international
experience and developed a deep understanding of NATO as a member of
the Senate Armed Services Committee. Prior to being elected to the
Senate, she was a practicing attorney and held state offices in Texas.
Ambassador Hutchison will give an
opening statement, and then I will open the session to questions and
answers. Thank you. Go ahead, Ambassador.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON: Thank you, Cheryl, and thank all of you for participating. We are looking forward to having all of our
defense ministers in a meeting tomorrow – virtual, of course, because no one is
traveling. But we do think this is a very important time to have an emergency-called
meeting because of the way the COVID-19 is affecting all of our countries, and
something that we are addressing right now, but we’re also looking to plan for
the future so that if we have another situation in which we have a pandemic
that affects all of our countries at the same time, we will have even more
capabilities to help each other.
We are helping each other.
Allies are adding so much equipment and aid to other allies, especially where
the hot spots are in Europe and in the United States, and Canada of
course. And we are really pleased that NATO could have a
strong role in transporting equipment, because we do have those capabilities in
Europe, and particularly now, NATO is the central
point where allies can call and say what they need, and NATO can find the
transportation and coordinate getting equipment and help for our countries.
Let me say that
we have also our missions that are ongoing throughout the world.
Afghanistan is a mission, of course, where we are focusing on troop protection
and making sure that our forces are safe when they’re in the field. The
mission that we have in Iraq has been put on hold because Iraq has
been affected by the virus, and – the situation in Iran where
the virus is very much a problem and it has gone over into Iraq. And then, of course, we have Kosovo, an enhanced forward
presence in Europe where we are taking all the measures that we possibly can to
protect our troops wherever they are in Europe or in the Middle East.
It is also, I think
– the last point I will make – it’s very important that we also – and I think
Secretary Esper will stress this tomorrow as well – that we look at the role
defense has played in the response of all of our countries. We have seen in America our military building pop-up hospitals, trying to make sure that
we have not only equipment, but also transportation and military personnel who
are so experienced in trying to serve people in time of need. And our
military personnel have stepped up to the plate in all of our alliance, doing
the things that our people need to do, that our publics need to have.
And we’re very proud that NATO could play a
part, but also I want to emphasize that the defense spending that we have
increased in the last few years is making us more ready and more capable to
help our publics in this great time — that they have called on the military for
the added help that our health care systems just couldn’t provide with this
pandemic situation. So I’m very pleased that we will have the defense
ministerial tomorrow, and I look forward to answering any questions that you
might have today.
MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Ambassador. Okay, one more time, if you
would like to ask a question, please raise your raise hand via the Zoom
platform. To do that, click on manage – click on “Participants” at the
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participants screen. If you dialed in as a telephone call, you can unmute
by pressing *6. Please wait until I call on you to do so. Okay, so
let’s see, we have James Hirst first from British Forces. Please, go
ahead, James.
QUESTION: Good afternoon. Thanks for briefing us. The NATO secretary general
this morning made clear that he thinks going forward there are important
lessons to be learned about national resilience. I wonder what your
thought is about that and whether that is something for NATO to be involved
in, and particularly whether you – where you see any weak spots or strong spots
in resilience from this.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON: Yes, thank you, James. That’s a very good question, and I
think there is a unique role that NATO can play in planning for the future. All of us were
surprised that we would have a pandemic affecting every one of our countries at
the same time. Normally we would have a regional issue and we would
address that all together, but now we are going to learn from this experience
that we have to be prepared for something that could affect us so totally at
the same time. So we are going to ask our NATO leaders and our
military leaders to put forward plans from what we have learned in this.
For instance, we are suggesting
that we have a warehouse in which we would have nonperishable equipment, but
the things that we all know we were short of in this epidemic. And if we
could have warehousing of that, which NATO certainly has the capability to do, and then if the NATO forces could
inventory transport capabilities – that could be air, it could also be train,
rail, it could be highway – but we have capabilities at NATO to coordinate
something like this and get the equipment in much faster. And I think
what our military has shown is the ability to do these instant hospitals so
that if we have large numbers of people affected, our military experience is
going to show us how we can do this even more effectively and more quickly so
that we are more prepared.
So I think NATO is going to take
a role. I think we can look at this as a service for our publics.
This is a health care crisis, but it could be a security crisis as well.
It could be a security crisis if we let down on our defenses and deterrent
activities. Our adversaries will be watching to see if that is the case,
which it is not at this time, but we can also prepare for that in the
future. But it could also be a security risk if this kind of eventuality
is an eventuality that is used in warfare or to attack each other. These
are the things that we must learn from and prepare for, that it could be health
care today but it could be defense tomorrow.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ambassador. Next question comes from
Robert Papa with Albanian TV.
QUESTION: Hungary, Albania, and Turkey are so
harsh on their people. What do you think about Albanian Government
lockdowns? They are asking for 15 years in prison if somebody get out.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON: I’m not sure I understood the question. Cheryl, did you
understand what
–
MODERATOR: No, but he – Robert, could you ask again the question?
QUESTION: Yeah. Albanian Government is so
harsh on the people about lockdowns. They’re asking 15 years in prison
for the people getting out.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON: Oh, I see. Yes, I understand that this is harsh. The
national governments are able to make their own decisions, of course, on how
they would punish people who are not wearing facemasks or who are not
protecting not only themselves but people around them, and I think that has to
be a sovereign decision. I do think that the message is such an important
one that we all have a responsibility to protect ourselves. Even if we
don’t have formal masks, I think the makeshift coverings of our faces are also
very important. I thought – I think many people are giving good
examples. Our First Lady is giving a good example of wearing a mask and
how you would put one on, and I think that our leaders need to reinforce this
very important safety measure that it not only protect each individual but it
affect all of the people around us. We know that this is an airborne,
unsee-able virus, but it is having a deadly impact and it is incumbent on all
of us to listen to our leaders, to take their example, and to go forward
helping each other in this very important but very easily accomplished way.
MODERATOR:
Okay, thank you. Next let’s
take Marcin Wrona from TVN Polish TV.
QUESTION:
Thank you. Thank you, Madam
Ambassador, for doing this, and good evening.
Now, with the outbreak which is present basically everywhere, including
military bases and recently it’s even present on board of Navy ships, not to mention
the aircraft carrier, is U.S. military and NATO in
general fully operational? Does it still
have full capabilities? And
aren’t you afraid that some bad actors might try to use this crisis to their
benefit?
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON: I think that, again, this is very
important. Our adversaries are watching. Our military is ready and
all of our missions — except for Iraq, which is temporarily on
pause – but we are ready to go. We are continuing to do our deterrence
and defense capabilities and our adversaries should be put on notice that we
could certainly respond to any kind of aggressive measure that might be taken.
At the same time, we are also
trying to help each other. We are trying to make sure that in a
humanitarian crisis we are doing everything we can to support our troops who
are in the field doing these jobs, so we’re taking every measure. For
instance, in Afghanistan, if there are troops coming in, they have a 14-day
quarantine before they enter. We are working very hard to assure that our
troops do have that backup and it’s very hard in some instances when our troops
are used to working together, living together, and we’re working through
that. But make no mistake: Our deterrence is absolutely intact and
ready to respond to any military crisis that we might face.
QUESTION:
Thank you.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, Ambassador. Next
we’ll go to Nicholas Fiorenza from Jane’s.
Nicholas Fiorenza?
QUESTION:
It’s on mute. Okay.
Oops.
MODERATOR:
Yes, can you please start again?
We just unmuted you.
QUESTION:
Yes. Hello, Ambassador.
Thank you for taking our questions. My question was – in fact, there was
an interesting piece by the Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe
a couple of weeks ago proposing that the U.S. invoke Article 5
of the NATO treaty on – for
COVID-19, as was done after the 11th of September, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Well, yes, the only time Article 5
has been invoked of course was after 9/11. I think all of us are coming
together right now to fight COVID, and they are – COVID, the virus, is our
enemy, but there has been no discussion of an Article 5 being necessary because
we are already coming together to help each other and try to provide the
provisions that our separate countries need. And I think we’re in
different phases in our different countries on the enormity of the
situation. Most certainly the United States is now topping all of our allies in numbers of deaths, and so we
are focused on trying to make sure that our Americans are taken care
of, and we’re reaching out – our President, our governors are all reaching out
to do the most that we can, and our military has stepped up to the plate.
Our National Guard and our active duty military are filling in where hospital
workers are overworked and strained and sparse.
And I think all of us are saluting
our health care workers wherever we are. Every one of our allies now has
health care workers in the field and our military are in many instances helping
them and augmenting the services they are providing.
So there hasn’t been a formal
Article 5 on this virus, but there certainly is an informal one that all of us
are allied and fighting together.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, Ambassador. Next
we’ll take Danila – I hope I pronounce this correctly
– Galperovich from Voice of America.
QUESTION:
Thank you. Thank you very
much. Good afternoon, ma’am.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Yes.
QUESTION:
Voice of America Russian service.
MODERATOR:
Thank you.
QUESTION:
I have – I have a question as a
follow-up to this morning press conference of Secretary Stoltenberg. He
said that one of the major topics for discussion will be disinformation.
And can you please give us first your perception of what disinformation
campaign is going on now, what kind of it, from what countries, what
examples? And second, what practical measures could NATO take to deter
this disinformation, to fight it? Thank you very much.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Yes, I think that is a very valid
observation. We are concerned about disinformation that is being put
forward by Russia and China about how this all started, and I think there is a
lot of criticism of our different government leaders trying to sow
discontent in our alliance and with our partners. And we at NATO, this is one of
the areas where we are asking all of our allies to push back with the facts. NATO will do the
same. And we also think we can do better for learning from this
experience. No one thought that our adversaries would try to sow
discontent at a time like this, but they have and they’ve also falsely reported
that they are trying to help. They have falsely reported that this virus
started either in Europe or in the United States, depending on which outlet is providing disinformation. All
of this is absolutely false and we are trying to answer the misinformation with
facts.
This is all part of the hybrid and
cyber warfare that we see constantly within our alliance, trying to sow not
only discontent but trying to devalue our leadership at a time when our publics
need to look to our leadership for the protection and the help that they
need. So we are vigorously pushing back and we think that we can even do
more through the alliance in a concerted way to say, “Knock off the
disinformation in this humanitarian crisis.”
QUESTION:
Thank you very much.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Thank you.
MODERATOR:
Thank you, Ambassador. Next
we will take Boris Kamchev from the North Macedonian Information
Agency. Boris, are you there?
QUESTION:
Let me see. Yeah, I just
turned on my microphone.
MODERATOR:
Okay.
QUESTION:
Thank you for – thank you for doing
this, Mrs. Ambassador. I have a question regarding the North Macedonia
started to use next-generation incident command system, NICS instrument for
response in emergency situations. Can you explain for all of us what is
this instrument and how it works, especially for those countries in the Western
Balkans who are dealing with the coronavirus? Thank you.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Yes. Well, first of all,
we’re very pleased to have our 30th member of NATO, North Macedonia –
QUESTION:
Thank you.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
— and are pleased that we have
already been able to send help, equipment to North Macedonia, and I was glad
that – because you’ve been a member for just a few weeks, that you did call NATO and we were able
to deliver equipment into your country. Also, of course, you’re right –
there has been a lot of this disinformation in North Macedonia and others in
the Western Balkans because – and I have to say, that has been ongoing for a
long time because Russia in particular has tried to sow disinformation, really
tried to keep North Macedonia from seeking to be a member of NATO and then when the
accession was accepted has continued to put disinformation into North
Macedonia, which we are trying to direct against with the facts that North
Macedonia is being supported by NATO. They are a full-fledged member of NATO, they are an ally,
and we are helping them in this crisis, and we will continue to help them with
the disinformation that is coming in from Russian sources.
MODERATOR:
Thank you. Next we have
Nick Turse with The Intercept. Nick, are you there?
Okay. Go ahead, Nick.
QUESTION:
(No response.)
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
If we don’t have Nick, let me go
back to the North Macedonia question and just say we also have counter-hybrid
support teams that have been put together. The first group went into
Montenegro, one of the neighbors for North Macedonia. And I think that
those will be available to Northern Macedonia as well to prepare the North Macedonian
media to repel these disinformation campaigns.
So I should have answered that more
fully about what you could expect, because we do have those working in
Montenegro, and we will certainly look to answer requests from North Macedonia
of these hybrid support teams to train the people there to repel these
disinformation campaigns coming in.
QUESTION:
(Inaudible.)
MODERATOR:
Thank you. Let’s take the
next question from Guido Lafranchi from The Diplomat, Netherlands.
QUESTION:
Hello? Thank you very much
for your briefing, madam. I wanted to ask you, beyond cooperation there
have also been some reports of tensions between NATO members. So
there have been these reports of the U.S. outbidding some European partners on some medical supplies and
there has been some polemic on this issue. Will this be tackled by the
defense ministers tomorrow, or will it be tackled elsewhere by – at some
different levels? Thank you very much.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Well, we have certainly tried to
answer that ridiculous assertion, and it doesn’t even bear repeating that America would steal
equipment from any other country, even one we didn’t like, but especially not
our own allies and partners. So that was repelled forcefully. We
hope it didn’t go very far. But it is things like that that are just
amazing that anyone would say something like that, but there are so many other
things that are being said that seem ridiculous, but if people don’t have the
facts, they can’t make the decision that this is something that would never
happen.
MODERATOR:
Okay. We have time for one or
two more questions. We have Lailuma Sadid. Could you
please make sure to state your country and outlet?
QUESTION: Okay. Thank you very
much. Lailuma Sadid, freelance journalist for different media
in Afghanistan. I would like to ask question about how does assess –
attacks by Taliban, which is continuous violence against ANDS, and what is the
impact in the peace process?
And second question, I am asking
about one billion cut, which is – foreign minister announced a one billion cut
aid in Afghanistan. Could you please give some information about
this one billion cut? Is cost for the military section, or it’s in
the other part? Thank you very much.
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
Yes. Let me say that all of
our countries are looking forward and pushing forward for the Taliban to keep
its word, both in spirit as well as in detail, that the violence would
subside. It has not, and we are calling on the Taliban, all of us, to
lessen the violence, to cease fire, especially in this humanitarian crisis,
when the people of Afghanistan are affected. And most certainly the
Afghan troops, who are fighting valiantly for the peace for their country, to
have to have attacks against them by the Taliban is outrageous.
On the other hand, the leadership
of Afghanistan, the – President Ghani and Mr. Abdullah need to come together
and show the strength of a unified government. It will take that to start
the peace process and for the Taliban to sit down with the government
appointees, who are representative of the different factions and areas of
Afghanistan. The two leaders have both blessed that negotiating group as
representative of the people of Afghanistan, and we call on the Taliban to stop
the delays, to stop the violence, and to begin the peace process.
Some progress was made this weekend
with the exchange of prisoners. That was part of the agreement that was made. Those
exchanges were made. That is one step in the right direction. We
need all of the Afghan people to encourage their leaders and the Taliban to
continue forward for the sit-down around the table of the Afghan people to make
a peace that they can all live with so that they will have what they rightly
deserve, which is freedom, human rights, equality, education for all in that country.
That’s what we want for the people
of Afghanistan, and none of us who are helping to bring that together want to
be a factor that would be the deciding factor in that peace agreement. We
want the Afghan people to speak for their government, to be as it should be for
them as they want it to be, and we’re very much hoping that all the sides can
come together to begin that process in earnest.
MODERATOR:
Thank you. Do we have time
for one final question, Ambassador? Okay. We’ll take one final
question. Evelyn Kaldoja, could you please be sure to state your
outlet and country?
QUESTION:
I’m Evelyn Kaldoja from
Estonian daily Postimees, and I have a question about defense expenditures.
Considering that all the GDPs of NATO countries are now probably going to decrease, and also many
citizens will probably like their governments to spend rather on health or
social issues, you think NATO would also have to adapt the message on defense expenditure?
AMBASSADOR HUTCHISON:
I think it will be more important
than ever for our defense expenditures to stay at the higher levels that we
have committed to do. All of us have committed to increase defense
spending. And we need to continue to keep those commitments, because we
now see that, first of all, security is our most important asset. That is
what makes for the democracies and the peace that we all live in.
And secondly, I think we have seen
that the defense spending has been such an important part of the response in
this humanitarian crisis, in this health care crisis. And the defense
techniques for dealing with the pandemic have been an asset to all of our
countries. So both our partners, as you are, and our allies – I think the
defense spending is going to be essential that we keep in our priorities, and
that all of us have also gotten such a benefit from the added military
component of the response that I think that in itself would say that we need to
keep that training and that equipment ready to go for any kind of pandemic or
defense capability that we would need in the future. That’s what we’re
doing together.
MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for your time
today. We really do appreciate you being with us. I’d like to thank
all of our journalists as well. We did not get to all of the questions in
the time that we had, so if you would like to send a question or a follow-up,
please route your question to DCFPC@state.gov. That’s “DC” for Washington, D.C., “FPC” for Foreign Press
Center, “@state” for State Department, “.gov” for government. And we will
route those to our mission to NATO for follow-up. And we hope to have the transcript ready
this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. The video will also be on
our website at www.fpc.state.gov. Thank you all for
participating, and that ends our briefing for today. Thank you.
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