ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのPentagon Announces COVID-19 Vaccine Mandatory For All Service Members

John Kirby: (00:00)
Bear with me. Okay. I think you’ve seen by now the secretary’s memo to the message to the force about the COVID vaccines. That’s public now, so I’m not going to reread it for you. I think you all can get the gist of it. I would just point out that there’s sort of three elements here to it. One is that he will request approval from the president for a waiver to make the COVID vaccines mandatory by mid-September. He’ll make the request for the waiver by mid-September. I’ve seen some reporting out there that that means that all the troops have to be vaccinated by mid-September. That’s not accurate. He’ll make the request by mid-September, unless or until FDA licensure occurs before that time, at which point the secretary has the authority he needs, upon FDA licensure, to make whatever vaccine is then given that license mandatory. Just want to clear that up. That’s point number one.
(01:02)
Point number two, in the meantime, two things are going to happen. One, the services are going to be tasked to come back to the secretary with implementation plans for how they’re going to get this moving, and there is not probably a lot of time between now, certainly not a lot of time between now and mid September, but if FDA licensure comes sooner than that, and there’s press reporting to suggest that the Pfizer vaccine will be perhaps even completely approved by the end of this month, so the services have a fair but limited amount of time to come back to the secretary with their implementation plans for how they would go about mandatory vaccines for all of their personnel. We have to understand, of course, that they have their own deployment schedules, their own manning constructs, their own differences in unvaccinated numbers, and so we’re going to be respectful of that.
(01:53)
The second thing that will happen in the meantime is that we are going to be developing policies to comply with the president’s direction that the unvaccinated will have to be subjected to certain requirements and restrictions. I don’t have the details for all of that today. We’re working hard on what will be a policy directive to come in the coming days that will make it clear what those requirements and restrictions are and how they apply to everybody in the DOD workforce, including uniformed personnel.
(02:21)
And then the last thing that I’d say about this memo is, and I hope you caught, towards the end of it, where the secretary says we’re going to watch the trends closely. We’re seeing an uptick in cases, uptick in hospitalizations across the force, as we are in the country, and the Delta variant is a factor in that. So we’re going to watch it closely. And as the secretary told the force today, if he needs to act sooner than this timeline, then he’ll do that. So we’re going to watch the trends and make sure that we’re keeping readiness of the force at the forefront. So that’s the memo.
(02:55)
A couple of other things that I want to hit… If I can get this to work. As you may have seen, the Senate confirmed Carlos Del Toro, a former surface warfare officer as the 78th Secretary of the Navy. As the secretary noted in his statement, Mr. Del Toro was a student of the US Naval Academy, Naval postgraduate school, Naval War College. He rose through the ranks to serve as the first commanding officer of the destroyer Bulkeley, DDG-84. And then he later worked at senior levels here in the Pentagon. The secretary is delighted to have him on board. He should be sworn in here very, very shortly, and that will round out our service secretaries. Each of the military departments now have a Senate confirmed, fully installed, service secretary. And the secretary is grateful for Mr. Del. Toro’s willingness to serve his country again here in the Department of the Navy.
(03:51)
I also want to recognize Chris Meyer for his Senate confirmation over the weekend to be our next Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Command and Low Intensity Conflict. Now as many of you know, the secretary signed a directive in May that maintaining that position, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operation and Low Intensity Conflict, otherwise known as SOLIC, and that’s how I’ll talk about it for the rest of this. To sign a directive maintaining that job as a principal staff assistant, who has full access to the same floor that the service secretaries will have.
(04:21)
He also made, SOLIC an integral part of the undersecretary of defense for policy. This special dual hatted approach strengthens civilian oversight of the Special Operations enterprise while ensuring integrated policy advice on special operations, counter-terrorism and irregular warfare to the secretary. And I think you all know Chris. He’s worked on these issues in and around the department for his entire career. Nobody better for this job, and we look forward to his leadership and stewardship in this very, very important position.
(04:51)
On the exercise front, US Indo-Pacific command is now conducting what they call Large Scale Global Exercise 21 LSGE 21 through the 27th of this month. It began back on the second. The exercise is a proof of concept, global command and control pilot exercise with a regional focus, linking existing planned service joint and multilateral exercises to conduct an operational level maneuver. US forces will participate alongside the United Kingdom, the Australian Defense Force and the Japanese Self Defense Force. LSGE 21 is an all domain exercise across the Indo- Pacific in air, land, and sea, field training, cyber and space operations and special operations activities and logistics. It’s going to improve our interoperability. It’s going to strengthen our alliances and partnerships, and it offers a complex and challenging multinational environment for forces to hone their skills.
(05:48)
Now, while the Navy’s Pacific forces are duly nested under LSGE 21, the United States Navy’s large scale exercise, LSE 21, is running through August 16th, with Naval forces operating around the globe to include more than 80 live and virtual units spanning 17 time zones and six Naval and Marine Corps component commands. Units will participate in live and virtual scenario driven globally integrated fleet training. This again demonstrates the flexibility of our distributed maritime operations and expeditionary and littoral operations within a contested environment. And it’ll include, as I said, live and both simulated training, as well as real-world operations.
(06:29)
And then finally, I want to take a chance here to welcome our new, in public affairs, our new Principal Deputy Assistant to the Secretary, Elizabeth Trudeau. She’s coming to us from the State Department, a career foreign service officer at very senior levels. He was a console general just recently in Belfast and before that in Lahore, Pakistan. As some of you know, I worked closely with Elizabeth when I had the opportunity to work at the State Department a few years ago. No finer professional, and I’m really excited to have her on board to help me communicate for the department. So is she in the room? Nope. She’s not here. But I encourage you to come on by and say hi to her. Shake her hand if you haven’t met her before. And again, I just can’t thank her enough for being willing to depart from the normal career foreign service track in the State Department and come over here to the Pentagon for a little while to help us do a better job communicating. So I’m grateful to her and I’m sure you all will have a good time working with her.
(07:32)
So with that, we’ll take questions. I think [Lita 00:07:36] is on the phone.

Lita: (07:38)Thanks, John. One quick thing on vaccines, and then I have a second question. On the vaccines, does the department believe that it has enough of the vaccine to meet requirements if and when the president does approve the waiver or it does become formal? And you may not be able to answer this because the implementation plans aren’t in yet, but are there enough vaccines, and then does it get rolled out in phases? And then my second question is on a different topic. Do you want me to wait?
John Kirby: (08:12)Yeah, let’s wait. So on the inventory, we don’t believe the inventory is going to be a problem. Again, that’s one of the reasons why the secretary is giving the services a couple of weeks to come back with their implementation plans and certainly any concerns that they might have about inventory. And I can’t speak to service inventory. You’d really have to go to them, but we will make sure that the inventory will not be a limiting factor here when these vaccines are made mandatory.
(08:41)
And then as for phases, again, that’s what we’re looking for from the services, Lita, to come back to tell the secretary how best they think they can implement once the vaccines are made mandatory because each service is unique. Each one has a different unvaccinated population. Each one has different deployment and operational and exercise demands. I just went through a bunch of exercises in the Indo-Pacific. So there’s a lot of different intrinsic cultural and operational issues that the services will have to factor in, and the secretary is interested in hearing their plans for doing it in the most efficient way.
(09:20)
There will be a reporting requirement for the services to come back to the secretary on a periodic basis to let him know how they’re doing. Again, we don’t have all the details of exactly what that reporting process is going to look like, but as soon as we get closer, we’ll certainly make sure that everybody’s aware.(09:36)
What was your second question?
Lita: (09:38)Afghanistan. You’re aware, I’m sure, about Kunduz over the weekend with the Taliban clearly rolling along at this point. Does the secretary believe that the US should increase the amount of airstrikes and support it’s giving to the Afghans? And can you say whether or not the Pentagon is making any recommendations to be allowed to do airstrikes beyond August 31st as currently planned? Thank you.
John Kirby: (10:14)On the second part, I don’t have anything to update with respect to what authorities might exist after August 31st. I think when the secretary was last here at the podium, he said that our focus is on executing the authorities and using the capabilities we have through the end of the draw down, which is at the end of the month, and I’m simply not going to speculate what things are going to look like beyond that.
(10:36)
On your first question, the secretary shares the concern of the international community about the security situation in Afghanistan, which is clearly not going in the right direction. And the secretary continues to believe that the Afghan forces have the capability, they have the capacity, to make a big difference on the battlefield. He has maintained that we will continue to support them with the authority, where and when feasible, understanding that it’s not always going to be feasible, but where and when feasible, we’ll continue to support them with airstrikes, for instance.
(11:16)
The other thing is, we’re focused, as we should be, given the president’s direction, we’re focused on completing the drawdown by the end of the month, and by transitioning to a different bilateral relationship with Afghan forces, that will be one of support, financial and logistical maintenance support, from outside the country. That’s the focus, that’s what we’re driving at. But again, as we have the authorities and capabilities, and obviously we have fewer capabilities now than we did before the drawdown, but as we have them and have them available, we’ll use them where and when feasible.

Speaker 1: (11:52)[crosstalk 00:11:52] Appreciate it. As she mentioned, Taliban increased their attacks in Afghanistan and they control most of the key provinces in Afghanistan. Even prime minister said that behind of those Taliban activity, Pakistan, and people ask, Afghan people ask that why United States, especially Pentagon, doesn’t bring pressure on Pakistan, and Afghan people did not understand that Pakistan is their enemy or a friend. The expectation is very hard to bring pressure on Pakistan.
John Kirby: (12:25)We continue to have conversations with Pakistani leadership about the safe havens that exist along that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we’re mindful that those safe havens are only providing a source of more insecurity, more instability inside Afghanistan. And we’re not bashful about having that discussion with Pakistani leaders.
(12:47)
We’re also mindful that Pakistan and the Pakistani people also fall victim to terrorist activities that emanate from that same region. So we all have a shared sense of the importance of closing down those safe havens and not allowing them to be used by the Taliban or other terrorist networks to sow discord. And again, we’re having that conversation with the Pakistanis all the time. [crosstalk 00:13:13] Yeah. Go ahead, Lucas.

Lucas: (13:14)John, why aren’t you doing more to help the Afghan forces?
John Kirby: (13:17)As I said, Lucas, we are continuing to support, and I assume you’re asking about airstrikes, I’m guessing, because we are helping Afghan forces in a myriad of other ways, but I’m assuming that’s your question. And as I said to Lita, nothing has changed about the fact that we have the authorities to do it throughout the drawdown. We have some capability to do it from obviously over the horizon, and the strikes that we have taken have all been from over the horizon. And we’ll continue to use those capabilities where and when feasible. But as I said, Lucas, it’s not always going to be feasible in every case. And the Taliban have been making advances. There’s no question. The Afghans have capacity. They have capability. They have a capable air force. And as I said weeks ago, I think whatever the outcome here-
John Kirby: (14:02)
I think whatever the outcome here, when we look back, we’re going to be able to know, we’re going to be able to say that it was driven by leadership. Afghan leadership. Political and military leadership. That’s what’s vital here.
Lucas: (14:14)When you say that the Afghan forces have the means to defend themselves, what proof do you have? They’ve lost now six provincial capitals in Afghanistan.
John Kirby: (14:23)I have proof that they have a force of over 300,000 soldiers and police. They have a modern air force, an air force by the way, which we continue to contribute to, and to improve. They have modern weaponry. They have an organizational structure. They have a lot of advantages that the Taliban don’t have. Taliban doesn’t have an air force. Taliban doesn’t own airspace. They have a lot of advantages. Now they have to use those advantages. They have to exert that leadership. And it’s got to come both from a political and from the military side.
Lucas: (14:55)Is there any sign that they’re using those advantages right now in the country?
John Kirby: (14:59)I’m not going to get into an assessment every day here, Lucas, district by district provincial capitol by provincial capitol. As I said, at the very beginning of my answer, the secretary is watching this closely and we’re deeply concerned about the trends and where it’s going. The reason why not is because it’s their country to defend now. This is their struggle. The Commander-in-Chief has given us a new mission. And that mission is to draw down by the end of this month. And that’s where we’re moving to. What it looks like beyond that, I’m simply not going to speculate. But this is their country. These are their military forces. These are their provincial capitols, their people to defend, and it’s really going to come down to the leadership that they’re willing to exude here at this particular moment. [crosstalk 00:15:41] Yeah, go ahead. Go.

Speaker 2: (15:45)John, as far as the United Nations are concerned, have United Nations asked all their members any role in Afghanistan now after the US leaves Afghanistan? And also, what role you think now, India and Pakistan should or are playing there?
John Kirby: (16:02)I won’t answer the UN question. That’s really for my colleagues at the state department and the UN ambassador up in New York City. That’s out of our lane. But to your second question, we want all neighboring countries to not take actions that make the situation in Afghanistan more dangerous than it is already. And to continue to try to use international pressure to get a negotiated, peaceful political settlement to this war.
Speaker 2: (16:35)Just quickly follow, as far as the NDA is concerned, since Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State both were in India, and also now Prime Minister Modi means India is chairing the United Nations Security Council chairmanship now. You think US have ever asked India or India asked US about India’s role in Afghanistan now?
John Kirby: (17:00)I’m not aware of discussions between the US and India bilaterally at the UN level. As you know, India has played a constructive role in Afghanistan in the past in terms of training and other infrastructure improvements. Clearly that kind of work, that kind of effort to help Afghanistan maintain stability and good governance is always welcome. But in terms of the specifics, I would, again, refer you to my state department colleagues. I got to go to the phone, guys. I’m sorry. Let me just do a couple here. Dan Segallon, PBS.
Dan Segallon: (17:36)Thanks. Are you surprised that Afghan security forces are unable to stop Talibans onslaught? Or is this kind of momentum that the Taliban has something that is expected?
John Kirby: (17:50)I would say we’re, again, deeply concerned by the security situation in Afghanistan. I would remind you, Dan, that even before the president made his decision about withdrawal, even before the president took office, the Taliban had been making advances on the ground. Now, clearly those advances have accelerated and deepened. Nobody’s walking away from that, but it’s not that their desires… We weren’t seeing the kinds of things that they were interested in on the ground.
Dan Segallon: (18:27)Okay. But you’re concerned, but what about surprise? You’re not surprised?
John Kirby: (18:30)I think I’ve characterized it appropriately, Dan. We’re concerned. And we’ve made that concern clear about the deteriorating security situation on the ground. JJ Green.
JJ Green: (18:44)Yeah. Thank you, John. So you’ve outlined what the advantages are that the Afghan forces have and what the Taliban doesn’t have. Then what can answer to your knowledge, and to the Pentagon’s understanding why they’re not having more success in dealing with what the Taliban essentially has been rolling out systematically for a while now? Why is it that they’re not able to respond to the higher level?
John Kirby: (19:12)JJ, I’m not going to speak for another military and give assessments here\ of their battlefield performance on a day-to-day basis. As I said at the outset, I think whatever the outcomes are, when we look back on this, we’re going to see that leadership in the field, leadership in Kabul were really the keys. And I think I’d leave it at that. And one more from the phones here. Stephen Losey, military.com.

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