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Adm. John Kirby Gives Briefing On Chinese Spy Balloon, 3 Other Unidentified Flying Objects Shot Down. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 13, 2023 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

ADM. JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS: The second purpose -- and I talked about this earlier, too -- was even though we had no indications that any of these three objects were surveilling, we couldn't rule that out.

And so you want to err on the side of safety in terms of protecting our national security interests and the fact these objects could have and likely did at some point in their path transit over potential military sites of ours or sensitive sites.

So again, out of an abundance of caution for those two reasons the president, with the recommendation of his military leaders, directed them to be taken down.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Because it's so unprecedented, should the public be hearing from the president directly on this?

KIRBY: We have been, I think as transparent as we can be. I won't speak for the president's personal speaking schedule. But I mean, he has been deeply engaged in every one of these decisions. He's been kept informed, including as of this morning on what's going on with recovery efforts.

And he's very much staying on top of the issue and directing his team to make sure we are properly consulting and briefing not just members of Congress but state leaders as well. And of course, we're also doing what we can in the public sphere.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Wait a second, sir. Excuse me.

Thank you, John.

What is the president's standard going to be going forward about when he orders an unidentified object shot down?

KIRBY: It comes down to one simple formulation. And that's, if at the recommendation of his military leaders, he believes that the safety and security of the United States, the safety and security of the American people, his prime responsibility, warrant that kind of a decision.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It's possible we could see these shoot downs on a regular basis like over the weekend?

KIRBY: I don't think it's useful to get ahead of where we are right now. The president will always protect the safety and security of the American people.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You said we're not flying any surveillance balloons over China. Are we flying any other surveillant craft routinely over China?

KIRBY: We're not flying surveillance balloons over China. I'm not aware of any other craft we're flying into Chinese air space.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you tell us anything more about this octagonal object? How big was it?

KIRBY: We're still trying to assess what that was. I'm not going to get into a description. I have seen the press reports about what it looked like.

I think we all need to be humble here in terms of what our ability is to positively identify stuff from fighter aircraft that are going several hundred miles an hour past, essentially in terms of relative motion, a stationary object that was not very big.

So we don't know what this exactly looked like. And again, we're still not sure exactly what the purpose of it was or who owned it. But we hope to be able to find out more once we can recover the debris from that one and the other two as well.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just a few minutes ago, Prime Minister Trudeau said there's some sort of pattern to the objects over the last few days. Is that something you could elaborate on, what sort of pattern the White House is seeing?

KIRBY: I'm not familiar with the prime minister's comments so I don't know if I should take a swing at that.

I would just tell you that, going back to what I said before, these objects were not being maneuvered. They did not appear to have any self-propulsion.

So the likely hypothesis is they were being moved by the prevailing winds. And maybe perhaps that's what the prime minister is talking about. I don't want to speak for him.

Certainly, as the prevailing winds, particularly at that altitude, go west to east across the North American air space, I mean, there was a general common movement in that regard.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You spoke at the top about kind of reassessing radar given what happened with the initial balloon. Can you give us a sense, can we expect, should we assume this is the regular number of these objects over the United States?

That they have always been there and just haven't been looked at the same way, or is there a reason to expect this is more than usual that are flying over?

KIRBY: Two thoughts there. I think -- I think we can all get our heads around the fact that there are sometimes things floating at high altitudes for various purposes, scientific research, weather balloons.

All manner of innocuous craft can be aloft at high altitudes. I don't think that's necessarily unusual here.

It's difficult for me to say exactly what you can expect going forward.

One of the reasons that we think we're seeing more is because we're looking for more.

As you heard General VanHerck mention last night, they have modified the filters and the gains, as we call it, of the radar capabilities to look more discreetly at high-altitude small radar cross section and low speed objects.

[13:35:17]

And so if you do that -- anybody that's operated a radar will know you can set the parameters. If you set the parameters in such a way to look for a certain something, it's more likely you're going to find a certain something.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Given all you have discussed here and the actions the administration has taken and what people have learned, Chinese spy balloon this year, in previous years. These unidentified objects we shoot down.

They might have a question when it comes to these higher altitudes, are America's borders secure?

KIRBY: The president takes -- as I said earlier, he takes our national security extremely seriously. He has no higher responsibility than the safety and security of the American people.

And I don't think you need to look any further, quite frankly, than the decisions he's made in just the last week to ten days to evidence that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It feels like he's plugging holes. These are vulnerabilities we're discovering in real time.

KIRBY: You're making an assumption. I don't know the analysis will bear out.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you very much.

The president gave the order to shoot down the object over Lake Huron yesterday. Where was he? What kind of information did he have when he gave that order, what was briefed to him? And how did he anticipate the outcome?

KIRBY: He was here in the White House. He was kept constantly informed by his national security team and certainly by the military.

He made that decision, I couldn't give you the exact time on the clock, but it was, I believe, mid to late morning. And then it was executed in the afternoon.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Was there contingencies in place in case there was a reaction from a foreign government in reaction to shooting the object down?

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: The one from yesterday?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The one yesterday, yes.

KIRBY: It was shot over Lake Huron and landed in what we believe to be the Canadian side of the lake. So we were obviously in constant communication and consultation with our Canadian counterparts.

And they're rightly -- because of where it splashed down, they're in concert with U.S. Coast Guard. But they're also involved in trying to locate the debris right now.

There was good communication with our Canadian allies.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is a foreign government taking a special interest in this object from yesterday? Reacting in an unusual way?

KIRBY: No.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks, John.

Two questions. One, you mentioned early on that the China balloon might have been giving limited additive capabilities. I assume you're meaning onto their satellite surveillance.

Can you specify what exactly it's getting from a balloon that they're not getting from orbiting satellites that go over us like dozens of --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: With the caveat we haven't fully recovered everything, although we have recovered some things from the bottom of the Atlantic, and we're analyzing that.

But with that caveat that we don't know exactly what this balloon was surveilling or what its capabilities were.

So just in general -- and that's an important caveat that I would like you to remember -- when you are at a lower altitude than space, you could perhaps get a better fidelity of imagery, for instance, of things on the ground.

When you are not moving at the speed of a satellite and, therefore, you know, only getting seconds over a site, when you can maneuver left, right, slow down, speed up, like this thing could, you can loiter.

If you can loiter, you can soak in a little bit more. You can spend more time over a sensitive site.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Some of their satellites are in geostationary orbit. They're sitting there gathering intelligence. So what is the benefit? I mean, is it just to see what kind of fidelity --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: We're going to learn more. I would rather not go into more detail now. We're going to learn more. And frankly, I think that's a terrific question you should be asking Beijing.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And one last one. You said that the other objects shot down were not able to transmit or were not transmitting signals that they did not have any option.

Did the China balloon, did that have any -- was it emitting signals back?

KIRBY: I'm not going to go into more detail about the capabilities of that. We are going to be studying it and analyzing it.

There is no question in our minds that that system was designed to surveil, that that was an intelligence asset. I'll leave it there.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has there been outreach from anywhere in the administration to the kinds of companies that produce weather balloons or other craft that would fit these descriptions that might be from the commercial or corporate world to say, is this yours?

[13:40:13]

Or any kind of outreach or have you been hearing from anyone who might say, we have ours, they're in this area. Is any of that going on now?

KIRBY: I don't know of any conversations right now, Kelly.

But one of the reasons why the president directed Mr. Sullivan to put together an interagency effort is to take a long look at that and try to learn a little bit better about who is up at that altitude doing what, for a completely legitimate purpose.

I think we all recognize we need to probably have a better picture on that and that's why the president wants this agency to take a look.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What kind of intelligence might be happening in terms of the diplomacy going on or whatever if these are state owned objects?

KIRBY: Not sure I understand what you mean.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is there a network of conversations that might be happening where someone might be able to say, based on this octagonal description, that sound like so-and-so? Is there some conversations that are happening that might be able to

give us some descriptions.

KIRBY: The short answer to your question is yes. I talked about that in my opening statement.

The president also directed Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, Director Haines to have these kinds of conversations with our allies and partners around the world, to share with them what we're learning but also to get their perspective.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Quick to say it's ours, but it was for commercial purposes?

KIRBY: Again, we're going to have these kinds of conversations with our allies and partners to see what kind of experiences they have had, what we can learn from them, what perhaps they can learn from us.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Are we still with object or can we call them balloons?

KIRBY: Still with object.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just to follow up on Kelly's question --

KIRBY: I won't mess that up today.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- on the corporate angle, is there any expectation this is going to affect the executive order on surveilling the U.S. companies and what they're doing in China and the --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I know of no such change to that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: OK. And is there -- you just said a moment ago there's no knowledge of U.S. balloon or other craft over Chinese territory.

Just being cognizant of the fact China has a different definition of what their territory is than the United States, is there any U.S. surveillance aircraft over Taiwan, over the South China Sea, that would fit into that?

KIRBY: There's no U.S. surveillance aircraft over Chinese -- in Chinese air space.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Even Chinese claimed air space?

KIRBY: No U.S. surveillance aircraft in Chinese air space.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Finally, is there any new formal approach that's being developed as far as how you're going to deal with these things on a systematic basis going forward? KIRBY: Again, that's exactly what the president wants Mr. Sullivan to

run, is a process, an interagency process to help us get around the policy implications here, and whether or not there needs to be any policy changes going forward.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) taking down objects over U.S. territories, as far as I'm aware of.

My question is, you talked about the tweak in the radar systems.

KIRBY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has there been a tweak in the threshold for the Pentagon presenting to the president, the president signing off on military action related to anything over our air space?

KIRBY: Not sure I'm following what you mean?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Chinese spy balloon, the radars were tweaked, which is why you think you're seeing so many of these things.

KIRBY: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has the decision about or has the threshold for the U.S. fighters to take down objects also been tweaked? Has it been lowered, changed? We have never seen this before.

KIRBY: No, actually -- I'm sorry, I didn't understand it at first.

No. And you heard the general talk about this last night. He's using established protocols to engage craft in the air, aircraft in the air that can be legitimately be brought down.

As he said last night, the best way to do that certainly in a timely and efficient effective way was through fighter aircraft and through the Sidewinder air to air missiles.

And they looked at, and he talked about this. They looked at other options to try to bring them down to include gunfire, but that would have presented a greater risk to the pilots themselves. This was the safest most effective way to do that.

Now, where we go from here, I think we just don't know right now. In terms of whether there needs to be threshold changes, as you put out.

I think it's important to just take a step back here and remember, what the president did was order these actions with the safety and security of the American people foremost in his mind. And there were very good reasons to do it.

The military then, once given an order, determines how they're going to execute that order. General VanHerck decided the best way to do that was with Sidewinder missiles and aircraft.

[13:45:07] UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) -- this isn't reactive to the Chinese spy balloon. There's political pressure so we're going to act quickly to take down any objects over our air space because of the pressure that came from, say, Republicans on Capitol Hill.

KIRBY: These were decisions based purely and simply on what was in the best interest of the American people.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks, John.

John, does the U.S. government have video or imagery of these latest intercepts and will you be releasing it?

KIRBY: You have to talk to DOD about that, Jackie. I don't know what kind of imagery might exist. And they would be the one to talk about whether they're releasable or not.

Obviously, certainly with respect to the spy balloon, we want to make sure that we are gleaning what we can from this imagery so that we can answer your questions better.

And so to what degree there is or will or will not be public release, I want to stress that we're going to want to make sure that we have had a chance to analyze that imagery for ourselves as much as possible.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Following up on Phil's question, I guess what we're trying to discern is you said earlier, we're looking for those, we're finding more.

KIRBY: I said that could be one reason why we're finding more.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: One reason. What we're getting at is, why are we, all of a sudden, shooting them down?

And to add to that, the NORAD commander, for instance, said that when the first spy balloon was crossing over American, then Canadian air space, one reason he couldn't take action is his assessment was it didn't pose a military threat or have a hostile intent so he couldn't take action there.

KIRBY: It seems like maybe that protocol has changed or his ability to make that call where there is not an imminent threat militarily or physically might have changed.

So can you explain to us what changed, why are we shooting them down all of a sudden?

KIRBY: I kind of feel like I took care of that in my opening statement, but I'm happy to revisit it.

Really, two reasons here. And these are certainly -- well, in both cases they're different.

We need to separate the Chinese spy balloon. We knew what it was. We knew where it was going. We knew what it was trying to do. And by not taking it down -- I mean, it was also a huge payload, like

I said, the size of three school buses. So really the option of shooting that down over land wasn't a legitimate option because somebody could have gotten hurt.

We used the time available to us, knowing what this thing was all about, we used that time to study it, to learn from it, to collect on it. Then taking it down at the earliest opportunity in the water. And we have retrieved some of the debris and we're studying it.

I'll be right there. Let's separate that from these other three. These other three, what are some of the differences? Altitude is a big difference.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A risk to civilian aircraft?

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Listen to me. Let me get through this.

Altitude is different. The Chinese spy balloon was at 60,000-plus, well outside commercial air traffic concerns. These three were right on the border of it. So there was a legitimate concern there.

Chinese spy balloon, we knew exactly what that thing was. And we knew what it was trying to do. And we saw it, Jackie, as it slowed down and sped up, maneuvered a little bit, trying to get a look at what we believe to be sensitive military sites.

These other three, they didn't have propulsion, they weren't being maneuvered. Basically, they were being driven by the wind.

We don't think -- we don't know for sure whether they had a surveillance aspect to them, but we can't rule it out.

There was a little bit, enough uncertainty there that again, out of an abundance of caution, doing the prudent thing, the president directed they be taken down.

And I get where you're going. Is this the standard going forward? We're going to dive into this.

We're going to learn from these three events. We're going to continue to study what happened. We're going to have an interagency effort, and we'll see where this goes.

Bottom line for President Biden is you have to do the right thing for the American people, for our safety and security.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is it strange that no one has claimed these yet as theirs?

KIRBY: I can't say whether that's strange or not since we're sort of in uncharted territory, no pun intended. We don't -- we don't know. And I suspect that -

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Go ahead. I'm basically done. I'm basically done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's your name, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDBILE) -- from CBS.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Has the payload been recovered from South Carolina yet?

KIRBY: The --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The large so-called payload that --

[13:50:59]

KIRBY: As I said, some of the debris -- certainly they were able to take things off the surface like the next day. Actually, that afternoon. Some of the balloon fabric.

And in the days since, they have been able to recover some, not all, of the payload that sank to the bottom of the Atlantic.

It's in 45 feet of water. Weather condition, pretty tough. For instance, they were not able to get in the water and dive on it.

Over the course of the weekend, they were able to raise some of the debris, including some of the electronics and some of the structure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have expectation when all of that payload is going to be collected?

KIRBY: I don't. If I could tell you that, I would be a very wealthy man. It could take a long time, given the sea state and weather conditions, and we have to protect the safety of the divers.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: One last question. You said uncharted surveillance capabilities of these objects.

Last week, we were told several times that every precaution was taken to make sure the sensitive installations were covered. I don't know exactly what you all did.

But has there been --

KIRBY: Nor are you going to find out.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But has there been a posture change nationwide, regarding all of these sensitive sites, proactively?

KIRBY: If you're -- let me just put a fork in this. If the implication is that, you know, there's some sort of blanket now security policy for every base in the continental United States, the answer is no.

We do have protocols, particularly when we know that surveillance is going to occur, like in the Open Skies Treaty with Russia, for instance.

When all of that is scheduled and laid out and when you know there's going to be an open skies strike by Russia, you take the appropriate actions. And that's what we did in the case of the Chinese spy balloon. We'll always do that.

I will never talk about what precautions we're going to make at any given base, any given time, but we always do what we do to protect our nation's secrets. I won't talk about it anymore than that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Way in the back. Way in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You started the briefing by talking about the president's involvement in this, the report from ODNI recently that goes over this.

And in that ODNI report about unidentified aerial phenomenon, it said there were 297 reports since March 2021, some of which, quote, "demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities."

Can you say why the president, just in the last couple of weeks, started ordering some of these objects to be shot down? And why there weren't any others throughout 2021 or 2022?

KIRBY: It's very simple. It comes down to what sort of safety and security threats and risks we're talking about. And also, it comes down to, a lot, to our ability to track, detect and engage.

Having come from the Pentagon, I can tell you that some of these UAPs, while we may not be able to know what each and every one is doing, some of the big concern there was that a lot -- many of those reports were happening around our training ranges, were happening around air training ranges.

So combat pilots were seeing these things. And it was -- there was a now potential impact to the safety of our pilots. But you may not have but a fleeting moment on some of these things to see it. And so, it's different.

In these cases, we had time to detect, time to analyze, time to engage, time to make those kinds of decisions.

But it all comes down to safety and security, first and foremost.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But the time, though, is it a matter of capability? We have better capabilities now than we did back then? KIRBY: We're certainly improving our capabilities now. As I said, the

president has directed the national security team to dig into this deeper from their agency, to see what other improvements they might need to make.

Look, just by adapting the way the radar parameters are set, we have improved our ability to detect. And again, I said that could be one reason why we're seeing more.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you so much.

So, you said that the debris in the waters are in remote areas. And there are also huge objects and they were shot down by missiles. So how optimistic are you that you would be able to collect enough debris to get an idea what the objects were?

KIRBY: We won't know until we get onsite to see, you know, how much damage was done, not just by the missile strike, but by the fall from a very high altitude. And as you said, one case on sea ice. So, we'll just have to see.

[13:55:06]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yes, thank you, John.

Does Secretary of State Antony Blinken plan to meet with his Chinese counterpart at the Munich conference?

KIRBY: I'm afraid that's State Department, that's the secretary of state's schedule. I don't have visibility on that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have you been able -- what have you been able to learn more, or not you, but the government, since these objects were shot down?

I mean, you just alluded to the fact that you've not been able to get onsite yet. I mean, has there been any official information since one was shot down on Friday and over the weekend?

KIRBY: Because these just happened over the last few days, we haven't found the debris. There's still a lot more we expect to be able to learn.

And I think once we get to the debris -- and I'm not forecasting how easy that's going to be. They all three have fallen in pretty remote, difficult areas to reach. But we're going to do everything we can to find them. And that will tell us a lot.

Since -- you didn't ask about this -- but in the case of the Chinese spy balloon, we have been able to recover some debris and some of the electronics. And even some of the structure from the bottom of the Atlantic.

And that will also tell us a lot. And we are -- we're learning from it right now.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we got to get everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guys -- guys --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When do you think that you'll as much debris that you can get from all of the sites?

KIRBY: I'm sorry?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When do you think you'll be satisfied to get all the debris you can from all the sites?

KIRBY: I wish I could give you a date on the calendar. I can't do that. We're working to surveil them right now. In fact there's a Navy P-3 flying over the site in Alaska.

The Canadians are in charge obviously in the one in Yukon. And now the Coast Guard is working with the Canadian Coast Guard to do the same thing there.

So we're working this as hard as we can. And we will keep you informed as we learn more.

As I informed you today, divers in the water over the weekend. We have recovered debris off the coast of South Carolina. We'll keep you informed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will you brief Congress this week?

KIRBY: There have been additional briefings and we'll perhaps do additional briefings this week, perhaps later today.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Have they been harsh? Was it the first balloon? Was it an accident? Has the White House had conversations with Beijing about this, can you share a little bit about that?

KIRBY: We know the first one was Chinese. They admitted it. They claimed it was a weather balloon. We know it's not.

These three, we don't have attribution for them. We don't know who owns them. I'm not going to take anybody's face value until we get a chance to look at them.

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: Are we in touch with the Chinese? We have an embassy in Beijing. We maintain routine diplomatic conversations. And over that spy balloon incident, we did have private discussions with senior Chinese leaders.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks, Admiral.

I know you said that you're in touch with the Chinese. Is there any effort to arrange a call with President Xi?

KIRBY: I'm not aware of any plans for that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I have a question on Israel. Does the president plan to speak with the P.M. Netanyahu about the moves his government is making to try to weaken the Israel --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I have no calls or conversations to read out, but we are deeply concerned by some of the moves here with respect to settlements.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The Moldovan president just recently has said that there was a Russian plot to sort of to overthrow her government and break Moldova's path to Europe. It was something that President Zelenskyy himself had also warned about.

What is the U.S.' assessment of this possible plot? And more broadly, what are the concerns about Russia's attempts to sort of influence these pro-European governments in the region, even though it's right now focused on Ukraine, about other countries in the region?

KIRBY: So, what I'll say about that is, deeply concerning reports. Certainly not outside the bounds of Russian behavior. And we absolutely stand with the Moldovan government and the Moldovan people.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You have no confirmation from the U.S. --

(CROSSTALK)

KIRBY: I have no independent confirmation. But we're certainly not questioning the capacity, the will of the Russians and Mr. Putin to try to do that. It's perfectly right -- a page right out of his playbook.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yes. I was going to ask you a question. Just one quick question.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just one quick question.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- is it lighter than air or heavier than air?

KIRBY: We have not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. (INAUDIBLE) I know you have a question. Go ahead.

[13:59:58]

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: All of the three shootdowns occurred offshore but the one in Canada was occurred over land. Is it effective U.S. policy to not shoot over land because of safety concerns?

KIRBY: I wouldn't read into some kind of policy decision.