REP. MURTHA: The committee will come to order. We will hold an open hearing on fiscal year 2010 Department of Defense budget request.
As the members of the committee are aware, we have held a very robust hearing schedule. This is the 32nd of 35 hearings this year. It includes Defense Subcommittee hearings as well as those of Select Intelligence Oversight Committee. I will also note this is a historic day, the first time that this room has been used for a hearing. So Mr. Secretary, Chairman, you're the first to use this room.
We're pleased to welcome all three of you to the committee. We intend to work with you on your very vigorous schedule that you have set up.
Stop loss -- very interesting thing, a stop loss. Had to fight with the Army. They didn't want it, they argued with me. You stepped in, and we got stop loss, and we intend to continue stop loss. And we got a glowing letter from the White House saying they supported what we were trying to do.
And this committee feels very strongly that if a person was extended -- and the first thing you said when you became secretary, you came before the committee, you said you wanted to stop stop loss. Well, you weren't able to stop it, but at least we're going to give money to the people who were extended in what I consider a draft.
Outsourcing -- the committee understands outsourced positions cost 44,000 (dollars) more than comparable civilian positions. Last year, we put $5 billion in the budget to cut contracting out. We put $1 billion for direct hiring. We know you're moving in that direction, and we appreciate what's happening.
Acquisition reform is going to be much more difficult. The Congress itself cut a lot of money out of numbers of people in acquisition. We know that's hurt, and we know it's a real problem for you. We want to work with you, trying to get as much as we can and get it up to speed as quick as we can. And I met just yesterday with a contractor who was handling tires. This was a Michelin -- they decide who gets the tire contracts. It looked very fair. I can't argue with the way they were doing it, but it costs us a lot more. And we hope that next time you'll be able to do this in-house, you won't have to go to a contractor in order to do that.
Since last year, we've had significant change in national security focus in the United States. And we have a new president, and we look forward to working with the administration on Iraq and Afghanistan and the rest of the world.
So we appreciate your coming before the committee, Mr. Gates, Chief and the comptroller.
And turn to Mr. Young for any comments he may have.
REP. C.W. BILL YOUNG (R-FL): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
And I want to add my welcome to Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen and Secretary Hale. We appreciate your being here today, realizing that you have an awful lot of work to do. But I think meeting with this committee is a very important part of your work because, as you know by now, you have no better friends on Capitol Hill than the members of this committee on both sides of the aisle. We remain committed to ensuring that our military men and women have the equipment they need, funding and support for training and whatever needed to carry out their mission and do so safely.
Mr. Secretary, you and your staff have described this budget as a reform budget. And as we look at some of the major decisions, it's easy to see why. The termination of many troubled programs, such as the presidential helicopter, major parts of the Army's future combat system and the advanced communication satellite TSAT, just to name a few, shows that you are dedicated and committed to reform.
However, with only 2 percent real growth, even less if you consider the shift of funds from the supplemental to the base budget, I'm not sure how much real progress we're going to be able to make, especially as we look at other agencies and see double-digit percentage increases.
Further, the lack of a five-year plan hampers our ability to review this request for the reform budget it's supposed to be. While we understand the importance of the QDR, the combination of a late budget submission and no out-year data, while not unusual for the first year of a new administration, makes our job a little more difficult.
Despite these challenges, the subcommittee will continue to work with you in a true bipartisan fashion to make sure that we have the necessary resources available to you to accomplish your mission.
Further, I appreciate your commitment to our men and women in uniform and your willingness to make the difficult decisions included in this request, something that is not always easy in this environment.
So welcome. I look forward to your comments and your testimony and commit to continue to work with you in a support role as we work through your fiscal year 2010 budget. Thank you very much for being here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike.)
REP. : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, I don't have any comments on the year's coming budget. I do just want to make one observation about the supplemental. And I hope that you and the administration understand that the number of votes that were cast against the supplemental last week I think significantly understate the concern that a lot of people have in Congress about events in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think that virtually all of us understand the desirability of trying to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. And my comments should not be seen in any way as questioning the, quote, "policy decisions" that the administration is making in that arena.
What I do have substantial doubt about is the capacity of the Afghan government and the Pakistani government to demonstrate that they are useful tools in leading to the stabilization of those two countries.
I do not in any way want to see the Congress impose deadlines or time lines or conditions on the use of the money that we've appropriated for the last year. But I do think we have a right, as the legislation does as it left the House, to lay out certain standards of conduct or rather standards of performance that both governments should be meeting in order to justify continued support.
It just seems to me that the American taxpayers have a right when they're pumping this much money in and when so many of their sons and daughters are being committed in the area, I think they have a right to expect that over the next year we will see some significant progress in the focus, determination, coherence and sense of purpose of both of those governments. So I hope that -- I don't think it's wise for us to be in a position of lecturing either government, but I also believe that they need to understand that the patience of the American public is not inexhaustible. And if they expect us to continue this effort, they need to show a sense of purpose and a sense of unity which heretofore they have not demonstrated.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Lewis.
REP. JERRY LEWIS (R-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, Comptroller Hale, welcome to what is a very, very important beginning of your season.
To say the least, the pressure within the Congress, from my perspective, to raise significant appropriations budgets in every other piece of government and to put the lid on your funding is a challenge that's very real. Frankly, I feel that Secretary Gates' appointment should be encouraging to all of us who care about really impacting that future and maintaining this priority.
In the meantime, as we go to questions, Mr. Chairman, when we get to it, I have a major program I'd like to discuss. But I'll wait until then. Thank you.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Secretary, if you'll summarize your statement, and Admiral and Comptroller. And without objection, we'll put your full statements in the record. SEC. GATES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Representative Young, Chairman Obey, members of the committee, thank you for inviting us to discuss the details of the president's fiscal year 2010 defense budget. There's a lot of material here. I know you have a lot of questions, so I'll keep my opening remarks brief and focus on the strategy and thinking behind many of these recommendations.
As you suggested, my submitted testimony has more detailed information on specific programmatic decisions.
First and foremost, as Mr. Young indicated, this is a reform budget, reflecting lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet also addressing the range of other potential threats around the world, now and in the future.
I was recently in Afghanistan. As we increase our presence there and refocus our efforts with a new strategy, I wanted to get a sense from the ground level of the challenges and needs so we can give our troops the equipment and support to be successful and to come home safely.
Indeed, listening to our troops and commanders, unvarnished and unscripted, has, from the moment I took this job, been the greatest single source of ideas on what the department needs to do, both operationally and institutionally. As I told a group of soldiers in Afghanistan, they have done their job, now it's time for us in Washington to do ours.
In many respects, this budget builds on all the meetings I've had with troops and commanders and all that I've learned over the past two and a half years, all underpinning this budget's three principal objectives.
First, to reaffirm our commitment to take care of the all- volunteer force which, in my view, represents America's greatest strategic asset. As Admiral Mullen says, if we don't get the people part of this business right, none of the other decisions will matter.
Second, to re-balance the department's programs in order to institutionalize and enhance our capabilities to fight the wars we are in and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies.
And third, in order to do this, we must reform how and what we buy, making a fundamental overhaul of our approach to procurement, acquisition and contracting.
From these priorities flow a number of strategic considerations, more of which are included in my submitted testimony. The base budget request is for $533.8 billion for FY '10, a 4 percent increase over the FY '09 enacted level. After inflation, that is 2 percent real growth.
In addition, the department's budget request includes $130 billion to support overseas
In addition, the department's budget requests includes $130 billion to support overseas contingency operations, principally in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I know that there has been discussion about whether this is, in fact, sufficient to maintain our defense posture, especially during a time of war. I believe that it is. Indeed, I have warned in the past that our nation must not do what we have done after previous times of conflict on so many occasions and slashed defense spending.
I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening on my watch. This budget is intended to help steer the Department of Defense toward an acquisition and procurement strategy that is sustainable over the long term, that matches real requirements to needed and feasible capabilities.
As you know, this year we have funded the costs of the wars through the regular budgeting process, as opposed to emergency supplementals. By presenting this budget together, we hope to give a more accurate picture of the costs of the wars, and also to create a more unified budget process to decrease some of the churn usually associated with funding for this department.
This budget aims to alter many programs and many of the fundamental ways that the Department of Defense runs its budgeting acquisition and procurement processes. In this respect, three key points come to mind about the strategic thinking behind the decisions:
First, sustainability. By that I mean sustainability in light of current and potential fiscal constraints. It is simply not reasonable to expect the Defense budget to continue increasing at the same rate it has over the last number of years. We should be able to secure our nation with a base budget of more than a half a trillion dollars, and I believe this budget focuses money where it can more effectively do that.
I also mean sustainability of individual programs. Acquisition priorities have changed from Defense secretary to Defense secretary, administration to administration, and Congress to Congress. Eliminating waste, ending requirements creep, terminating programs that go too far outside the line, and bringing annual costs for individual programs down to more reasonable levels will reduce this friction. Second, balance. We have to be prepared for the wars we are most likely to fight, not just the ones we have traditionally been best suited to fight; or threats we (conjure ?) up from potential adversaries who, in the real world, also have finite resources. As I've said before, even when considering challenges from nation-states with modern militaries, the answer is not necessarily buying more technologically advanced versions of what we built on land, sea and in the air to stop the Soviets during the Cold War.
And, finally, there are the lessons learned from the last eight years -- on the battlefield and, perhaps just as importantly, institutionally, at the Pentagon. The responsibility of this program -- of this department, first and foremost, is to fight the nation's, and win the nation's wars, not just constantly prepare for them. We have to do both. In that respect, the conflicts we are in have revealed numerous problems that I am working to improve, and this budget makes headway in that respect.
At the end of the day, this budget is less about numbers than it is about how the military thinks about the nature of war and prepares for the future; about how we take care of our people and institutionalize support for the warfighter in the long term; about the role of the Services and how we can buy weapons as jointly as we fight; about reforming our requirements and acquisition processes.
I know that some of you will take issue with individual decisions. I would ask, however, that you look beyond specific programs and instead at the full range of what we're trying to do, at the totality of the decisions and how they will change the way we prepare for and fight wars in the future.
As you consider this budget and specific programs, I would caution that each program decision is zero-sum: a dollar spent for excess -- for capabilities, excess to our real needs, is a dollar taken from a capability that we do need, often to sustain our men and women in combat and bring them home safely.
Once again, I thank you for your ongoing support of our men and women in uniform and we look forward to your questions.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike.)
ADM. MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Young, Mr. Obey, Mr. Lewis, distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
Let me start off by saying I fully support not only the president's fiscal year 2010 budget submission for this department but, more specifically, the manner in which Secretary Gates developed it. He presided over a comprehensive and collaborative process, the likes of which, quite frankly, I have not seen in more than a decade of doing this sort of work in the Pentagon. Over the course of several months and a very long -- and a long series of meetings and debates, every Service chief and every combatant commander had a voice and every single one of them used it.
Now, normally budget proposals are worked from the bottom up, with each Service making the case for specific programs, and then fighting it out at the end to preserve those that are most important to them. This proposal was done from the top down. Secretary Gates gave his broad guidance, his overall vision, and then he gave us the opportunity to meet it. Everything was given a fresh look, and everything had to be justified. Decisions to curtail or eliminate a program were based solely on its relevance and on its execution.
The same can be said for those we decided to keep. And I can tell you this: None of the final decisions were easy, but all of them are vital to our future. It has been said that we are what we buy. I really believe that. And I also believe that the force we are asking you to help us buy today is the right one -- both for the world we're living in, and the world we may find ourselves living in 20 to 30 years down the road.
This submission before you is just as much a strategy as it is a budget. And let me tell you why I believe that. First, it makes people our top strategic priority. I've said many times, and remain convinced, the best way to guarantee our future security is to support our troops and their needs and the needs of their families.
It is the recruit and retained choices of our members and their families -- and, quite frankly, the American citizens writ large, that will make or break the All-volunteer force. They will be less inclined to make those decisions should we not be able to offer them viable career options, adequate health care, suitable housing, advanced education, and the promise of a prosperous life long after they've taken off the uniform.
This budget devotes more than a third of the total requests of what I would call "the people accounts," with the great majority of that figure nearly $164 billion going to military pay and health care. When combined with what we plan to devote to upgrading and modernizing family housing and facilities, the total comes to $187 billion, $11 billion more than we asked for last year. And almost all of that increase will go to family support programs.
I'm particularly proud of the funds we've dedicated to caring for our wounded. There is, in my view, no higher duty for this nation, or for those of us in leadership positions, than to care for those who sacrificed so much and who must now face lives forever changed by wounds both seen and unseen. I know you share that feeling, and I thank you for the work you've done in this committee, and throughout the Congress, to pay attention and support these needs.
And I would add to that the families of the fallen. Our commitment to them must be for the remainder of those lives. That's why this budget allocates funds to complete the construction of additional Wounded Warrior complexes; expands the pilot program designed to expedite the processing of injured troops through the Disability Evaluation system; increases the number of mental health professionals assigned to deployed units; and devotes more resources to the study and treatment of Post Traumatic Stress and traumatic brain injuries.
After nearly eight years of war we're in the most capable and combat experienced military we've ever been, certainly without question the world's best counterinsurgency force. Yet for all this success, we are pressed and still lack a proper balance between OPTEMPO and home tempo, between COIN capabilities and conventional capabilities, between readiness today and readiness tomorrow.
And that, Mr. Chairman, is the second reason this budget of ours acts as a strategy for the future. It seeks balance by investing more heavily in critical enablers, such as aviation, special forces, cyber operations, civil affairs, and language skills. It rightly (?) makes winning the wars we're in our top operational priority.
By adjusting active Army BCT growth to 45, it helps ensure our ability to impact the fight sooner, increase dwell time, and reduce overall demand on equipment. And by authorizing Secretary Gates to transfer money to the secretary of State for reconstruction, security or stabilization, it puts more civilian professionals alongside warfighters in more places, like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Having just returned from a trip to Afghanistan, I can attest to the critical need for more civilian capacity. I was shocked to learn there are only U.S. civilian development experts in all of Southern Afghanistan -- where the Taliban movement is strongest and the local economy is almost entirely dependent on opium production. We have twice that many working in the relatively peaceful Kurdish region of Northern Iraq.
I've said it before but it bears repeating, more boots on the ground are important but they are not the complete answer. We need people with slide-rules and shovels and teaching degrees, bankers and farmers and law enforcement experts.
As we draw down responsibly in Iraq and shift the main effort to Afghanistan, we need a more concerted effort to build up the capacity of our partners. The same can be said of Pakistan where boots on the ground aren't even an option; where helping the Pakistani forces help themselves is truly our best and only recourse.
Some will argue this budget devotes too much money to these sorts for low-intensity needs, that it tilts dangerously away from conventional capabilities. It does not.
A full 35 percent of the submission is set aside for modernization and much of that will go to what we typically consider conventional requirements.
We know there are global risks and threat out there not tied directly to the fight against al Qaeda and other extremist groups, and we're going to be ready for them. In all this, Mr. Chairman, we are also working hard to fix a flawed procurement process. More critically, in my view, the nation is getting the military it needs for the challenges we face today and the ones we will likely face tomorrow. Thank you and this committee for your continued support of that important work and for all you do to support the men and women of the United States military and their families.
REP. MURTHA: (Inaudible.)
MR. HALE: I don't have a prepared statement.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike) -- Secretary Gates, but I'm not going to ask any questions. But I just want to say about this presidential helicopter, if it's true it's going to cost us $555 million which is 5,000 man hours at $100,000 a year, I think we have to relook at the first phase of that and I hope we can work together in some form to come up with a helicopter to not only take care of the president but take care of that very vital, vital need.
Mr. Obey? (sic)
REP. YOUNG: On the presidential helicopter I've spent quite a bit of time reviewing the options and I think there are some good options that should be available to the president and the president's party and I'm hopeful that we can work out something that will accommodate the needs and the financial requirements.
And Mr. Murtha and I have spent a lot of time talking with each other on this subject. And it is an important subject. But I want to ask you today specifically about missile defense and the reason I do is because of the latest firing of the longer range missile by Iran and Ahmadinejad's continuing rhetoric about threats to our friends and allies in the region. I note that the missile defense budget, it would be reduced somewhat which I think maybe doesn't put us in a strong case for the booster phase launches. But that's something that we will work on but I want to go to the issue of our radar sites and our interceptor sites in Europe, specifically in the Czech Republic and in Poland. I understand now that based on some of the comments from the administration that the parliaments of both countries are considering whether or not to proceed with the agreement that we thought we had in view of maybe that they have a question about what our intentions really are. So talk to us for a little bit about those, that missile defense sites, the radar and the interceptors in Europe that would be very, very important not only to our friends and allies, but to American troops deployed in that region?
SEC. GATES: I'd be happy to, Mr. Young. We took the money out for the third site in the FY '10 budget because we have enough money left over for this purpose in the '09 budget to be able to cover any potential costs to go ahead and begin construction on both the radars and the interceptors, the radars in the Czech Republic and the interceptors in Poland. As I'm sure you know, the Czech government that agreed to the radars has fallen and the opposition and they're going to have an election I guess this summer or this fall.
They have to rad by -- under the statutes passed by the congress both the Czech Republic and Poland have to pass both a status of forces agreement and the agreements on the sites before any money can be sent on construction. And so depending on how the Czech election comes out, we will see how that goes.
There is considerable interest I would say in the administration in pursuing the third site, but I would say there is also great interest which frankly I've been working on for two years to see if we can partner with the Russians and make this in effect a quadripartite effort of Poland, the Czech Republic, the Russians and ourselves. The reality is that radar is located in Russia supplementing those in the Czech Republic would give additional capability to the sites in Europe.
So we have the money, we need to see what the Czech Republic does in their elections, and I might add that in parallel with the quadrennial defense review, the Department of Defense is carrying out a missile defense review that will address the role of the third site in the overall program. So I think we've got the money and we just need to see now the politics in Eastern Europe goes.
REP. YOUNG: Mr. Secretary, I understand those issues, and I think that you're approaching them in the proper way. On the statement by Ahmadinejad on their missile fire, he said it was a very successful flight and that it hit the target exactly as they intended. Can you comment on that whether that is accurate, where that was a successful flight?
SEC. GATES: The information that I have read indicates that it was a successful flight test. The missile will have a range of approximately 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers. Because of some of the problems they've had with their engines, we think at least at this stage of the testing it's probably closer to the lower end of that range. Whether it hit the target that it was intended for, I have not seen any information on that. I don't know if the admiral can --
REP. YOUNG: Well, thank you very much. And in view of our limited time available, an a lot of questions on ship building, aircraft production, tankers, a lot of important issues but I know that other members want to talk about some of those issues. So Mr. Chairman I will yield back.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Dicks.
REP. NORMAN DICKS (D-WA): Thank you Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, good to see you again. Washington State's still out there I want you to know. (Laughter.) Admiral, good to see you and Mr. Hale.
On the presidential helicopter, you know, this decision -- I hadn't been involved in this program and hadn't followed it but the only question I have is it appears that there was a certain amount of money that's been spent, around $3 billion and we developed a number of helicopters that didn't have the full capability that the final helicopters were going to be. Is there any way to salvage those first four or five helicopters and use them for some purpose?
SEC. GATES: Those helicopters if we completed them first of all, they have relatively limited lifespan -- 10 years, something like that. The current helicopters have a lifespan of about, a useful life span of 30 to 40 years. There is minimum capacity on the new -- on the increment one helicopters to add capabilities. So even if you bought those helicopters, you would almost immediately have to begin a new helicopter program to begin addressing the requirements that the White House has had that were posited under the previous administration.
Now I would just tell you that first of all, those helicopters amortized would be about $1 billion a piece and I just -- you've heard the president speak on this, the reality is in some respects those new increment one helicopters have less capability than the current helicopter. With 10 passengers, the VH-71 has only 55 percent of the range of the VH-3, the existing helicopter.
REP. MURTHA: Would the gentleman yield?
REP. DICKS: I yield.
REP. MURTHA: How could we get this far -- how could we spend all this taxpayers' money and now finally decide that it has less capability than the other helicopter?
SEC. GATES: Well, the first increment of five or six were intended as an increment leading to the second increment, which would have all of the new capabilities. The second to complete the program through the second increment, first of all it's already six years overdue, but it would cost $13 billion to finish it out. So the first increment was never intended to have the capabilities and meet the full requirements that the second increment would. But the truth of the matter is Mr. Chairman is that this program is a poster child for an acquisition process gone seriously wrong.
REP. MURTHA: So what do we do? I mean, are we just going to use the existing helicopters and --
SEC. GATES: No, our plan -- first of all we have programs underway to extend the life of the current presidential helicopters, and the termination cost of the VH-71 plus the cost of additional life extension, which would actually take these helicopters for another decade or more, is $1.2 billion. And our intent is immediately to sit down with the White House and look at the requirements and come up with a new program that will be reasonable and meet the requirements.
And I will tell you one of the ideas that I heard this morning that I think is worth pursuing is that they, what we may have tried to do in this VH-71 is put too many, too high a requirements on a single kind of aircraft in terms of protections and the number of passengers and so on and so forth.
So one is idea is that you look at two different helicopters. That you look at one that the president basically uses here in town to go to Andrews and on regular trips here in the United States and things like that, and an escape helicopter that has different kinds of capabilities and that could perhaps be a modified kind of helicopter that we use now in combat.
So we're going to be looking at a lot of different ideas on how we can get this program back on track, get a -- help the presidential helicopter program back into the budget and get the president and his successors helicopters within a reasonable period of time.
REP. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we've got limited time, so I want to make sure everybody gets a chance.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Secretary, I lined up 13 people -- two from the White House -- telling them, why does this cost this much? It's the White House that put these requirements on from the former administration. They said, well, we'll push it over to the Obama administration. But it's going to cost more than 1.3 billion (dollars), you can be assured, because I've never seen an estimate yet that didn't cost a lot more.
So I wish you'd really look at the present money we've spent and see if we can't adapt something to that.
Mr. Lewis.
REP. JERRY LEWIS (R-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Mullen, you and I have communicated a bit about the priority that this committee feels relative to our challenges in Pakistan.
Our initial communications suggested that the administration was on the right track. That is, they're asking for redirection of funding to Pakistan to help stabilize that government. The administration's direction, I thought, was appropriate.
The '10 decisions made by this committee would take us off that course. That is for '10, they would have money to go into Pakistan handled through the State Department. I'd like to have both the secretary and Admiral Mullen give us the administration view on this for the record and this committee here.
SEC. GATES: The proposal that we have put forward -- if you're speaking about the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund, which was $400 million in the '09 supplemental and our request is for 700 million (dollars) in the '10 budget -- what we have proposed is that it be voted in the '09 supplement as a Department of Defense fund, but obviously, with the dual key with the secretary of State.
For '10, we have proposed -- the basic problem here is that State lacks the authorities and the capacity to implement this program. So what we've suggested, because of concern in the House Foreign Affairs Committee and elsewhere, is that for FY '10 that the money be directed to the State Department as a pass through to the Department of Defense, but at least the money would come through the State Department. And our hope would be that it would come through without restrictions so we have maximum flexibility and agility as we do when we implement these programs and that it doesn't become subject to all of the restrictions and so on of the Foreign Assistance Act and so on and so forth.
Then in '11, we would hope that during '10, the Congress and the State Department could work together to make sure that the State Department had the authorities and the capacity to implement this program, but the idea would be that beyond '10, this program would increasingly be run through the State Department in partnership with us. And we still anticipate that a substantial part of the money would come to us just because of the nature of the projects. But this would allow for the State Department to basically receive the money.
REP. LEWIS: Admiral Mullen?
ADM. MULLEN: If I could just add: I think one of the most important parts of this in a bridge strategy to get to that point is speed of execution.
And I think, Mr. Obey, to your point earlier about both visibility and understanding the American people, we have in DOD mechanisms to put this money to work right away. And in Pakistan, there is, I believe, a requirement for patience on the part of us in dealing with them. And yet, I know there are in many places strong feelings that we've got to get moving quickly.
So what we asked for in '09 -- what the secretary laid out is a strategy to be able to execute as quickly as possible on the ground. And the vast majority of this money is military money. And keeping that in mind is what makes me thing that this strategy that Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates had worked out is the right strategy.
REP. LEWIS: It occurs to me that as we go forward towards conference, following regular order, we're going to really want to have your help paying careful attention to the language that actually ends up being in conference regarding this matter. I personally believe it is a Defense matter. And State Department, as of this moment, at least doesn't have the capacity to follow through.
So I agree with your statement, yes.
Moving to one more question: The kinetic energy interceptor. As you know, KEI -- the program's been terminated in the FY '10 budget and the Missile Defense Agency is moving fast to shut it down. In fact, a stop work order was issued on May 11th, '09 for the program.
I'm told that they will immediately being the termination process and the program will be de-staffed by July 1. In partnership with the Department of Defense, Congress has supported the requested budgets for KEI. In past years, Congress went beyond that and requested and provided the department with additional dollars to accelerate this critical boost-phase capability. In total, the department has expended more than $1 billion towards this effort to date in providing the nation with a technically viable solution to boost and ascent engagement of a ballistic missile targeted at our country or at our troops.
Six years of development and testing, with most of the more than $1 billion of funding spent to date, was to culminate in the first booster flight in the fall of '09 -- less than five months from now. With the issuance of the stop work order, the department is walking away from this investment without benefit of knowing what the technology has to offer.
Why would the department kill a program four months before its booster flight? Why not allow the program to execute the FY '09 funds?
SEC. GATES: Actually, this is one decision that I can't take credit for. The Missile Agency itself last fall, during the Bush administration, essentially eliminated the kinetic energy interceptor from its FY '10 POM.
And the reasons for that are as follows: First of all, this was to have been a five-year development program and it now looks like it's about a 16-year development program. As you suggest, there's not been a single flight test. There are a couple of more static tests, as I understand it, that have to take place before a test of the booster. There's been little work on the third stage or the kill vehicle, which are obviously critical.
But a big part of the problem with this program is that it needs to be close to the launch site to be able to be effective. And so it has -- the only potential country where it could have a role with some confidence would be North Korea. It has poor capability against Iran and virtually no capability against either Russia or Chinese launch facilities. And so you have a very limited capability here at considerable cost. The other problem that we have is we don't know what to put it on. The missile's 38 or 39-feet long. It weighs 12 tons. There's no extant ship that we can put it on. We would have to design a new ship to put it on. And as I say, it would have to operate in close proximity to the territorial waters of these countries.
So for all these reasons, the decision has been made that this is not a productive way to look at the booster problem.
General Cartwright and I were here on the Hill this morning talking to several senators about this program. And the fact is, we have a very strong and very capable terminal phase missile defense and it's getting better. And this budget devotes a lot of money to that program to make it even more robust.
We have a strong ground-based interceptor program in Alaska and California -- the Midcourse Intercept Program -- and we're going to keep funding the development of that to keep improving that capability.
The boost phase is really the hardest, and that's because we have to get -- you either have to have an extremely powerful beam, or you have to be fairly close to the source of the launch.
And frankly, some of these programs -- and the airborne laser is another example -- where the technology is lagging very behind what were decisions to go ahead with an operation concept and a procurement program. We basically got way -- on the boost phase, we got way out in front of our headlights in terms of going forward with a procurement program before we really had mastered the technology.
And so we have a number of programs -- one of the reasons I'm keeping the first -- the prototype airborne laser is to keep working the directed energy kind of solution to the boost-phase program. But overall, all these things considered, I think that's why the Missile Defense Agency made this decision actually last fall.
REP. LEWIS: Well, Mr. Secretary, the Chairman has already expressed the reality that a $1 billion here, $1 billion there -- sometimes it gets very expensive. In this program area, we've seen the department go in several directions over a reasonably short period of time. And taxpayers' monies have been spent in the meantime.
So I would hope that you'd recognize that the committee does have some priority in this item and want to hear more from you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Visclosky.
REP. PETER VISCLOSKY (D-IN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you very much.
And as Mr. Young indicated, I have a number of areas of concern that as questions are answered for the record, I would be focused on. One is the Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine, the other are your shipbuilding programs. But this afternoon I have two questions for you, Mr. Secretary.
The first is on acquisition programs costs.
Although the Department of Defense is required by law to conduct an independent cost estimate on major acquisition programs, these programs can be funded to lower confidence levels of the estimates, presumably to fit more program within a given year's request.
Recent examples of programs that have not been funded to full independent cost estimates include the DDG-1000 program, the Joint Strike Fighter, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite Program, the CVN-21 aircraft carrier, the VH-71 helicopter that has been spoken about.
When the inevitable cost growth is realized, it creates ripples throughout the rest of the budget, and somewhere monies have to be shifted to pay for the growth. Funding these major acquisition programs to their full cost estimates from their inception might, as the alternative, go a long way to creating more stability in the budget.
In the manager statement for the fiscal year 2009 bill, this committee asked for a report and the department was forthcoming. The department indicated that in 2004, only 13 of 29 major acquisition programs were funded to the independent cost estimate level.
My question is, do you not find the disruption caused by these faulty estimates -- and there's been a protracted conversation this afternoon on one of those -- to be much more severe than the constraints you'd face if you had hopefully more accurate cost estimates going forward, even though they might be higher?
SEC. GATES: Well, I think that -- let me respond and then the admiral, who has probably more direct experience with this sort of thing than I do. I think this is really one of the focuses of the acquisition reform, both the bills here in the Congress and our efforts in the department itself.
And I think one of the innovations in the legislation that is moving is to get at the question of better cost estimates and more reliable cost estimates, along the lines that you're describing.
ADM. MULLEN: I've been on both ends of this problem, both -- if you talk about the 13 (of ?) 24 programs -- and I don't know what that list is right now. But I've seen programs that have been, I think, funded to the full estimate, and, in fact, sometimes that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because that estimate was out there, we figure out a way to spend that money. I've also seen programs that were underfunded, below the full cost estimate, in order to put pressure on them. And so that's to say, for me, there's no magic bullet here about just getting the cost estimate right. I think it's the totality of the acquisition approach that's got to be taken into consideration, which includes accurate cost estimates, holding people accountable once we get to a point where we agree this is what the cost should be, holding requirements down, which has a tendency to make cost estimates whatever they are, whether they're underestimated or fully estimated, explode.
And it speaks for the need for the entire requirements process, as well as getting at all of acquisition. There are examples on every end of the spectrum here. But the need to get good cost estimates and properly assess risk in programs at the right time is absolutely critical.
MR. HALE: Can I add just one thought to that? I can assure you that we see the Cost Analysis Improvement Group numbers, which is the (intended ?) group you're referring to, in all cases. They do enter the debate, and they are fully considered. And as the comptroller, I'll be sure that continues to happen in the future.
REP. VISCLOSKY: Thank you.
My final question relates to my service on another subcommittee, and that is the Energy Subcommittee, along with Mr. Frelinghuysen. As you know, we have jurisdiction over the NNSA and the nuclear weapons program. That budget for the weapons program is about $6.3 billion, and obviously we have nonproliferation.
For fiscal year '08 and fiscal year '09, we have been adamant that before the Department of Energy, that does not have a stellar track record as far as managing major construction projects, those down the road as far as reconfiguring the complex, we would want to have a strategy in place formulated by yourselves, the intelligence community, the Department of Energy, as far as the proposed use of nuclear weapons, conventional weapons, non-kinetic means to protect ourselves going forward, realizing that the world changes every day.
The point of that is, before we would provide monies for the Department of Energy, we would want to know a strategy and then the types and numbers of nuclear weapons that fit the strategy you determine, which would then lead us to make sounder financial decisions for DEO -- Department of Energy; I'm sorry.
The concern I have is Defense doesn't pay for that complex over at Energy. And I'm just wondering where you are with that strategy. I know you have the Nuclear Posture Review coming. But I must tell you, Mr. Secretary, I'm not just looking for that annual report, if you would, but some confidence before we start down that road with the Department of Energy that there is a sense of a strategy in the world we exist in today and some -- (inaudible) -- decisions. You've made some very difficult decisions on programs already at Defense as to what are those weapons types, what are their numbers. So then -- and we'd be happy to proceed with DEO -- Department of Energy; I'm sorry.
SEC. GATES: I think that, as you suggest, the key here in terms of the administration having an overall and longer-term strategy --
REP. VISCLOSKY: I might just, parenthetically -- and not for the Obama administration any more than we asked for for the Bush administration, but one that, as a government, we would proceed with.
SEC. GATES: I understand. And I think that the basis for an administration review of these policies and development of a strategy will be the Quadrennial Defense Review and the Nuclear Posture Review. These are being compressed in time because I want them available, the conclusions available, to be able to help shape the FY '11 budget. So I am hoping that by the end of the summer or very early in the fall, we would have the information available -- the analysis available to us not only to help shape a longer-range administration strategy in this area, but to inform the kind of decisions you're talking about.
REP. VISCLOSKY: I appreciate that, and would encourage you in the good work. The strategies obviously weren't as critical as far as Department of Energy. So I thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Secretary, I think it goes beyond even the cost estimates. LCS is a perfect example of that. The Navy said we could build it for $188 million, and it went way beyond that. I remember saying at the time, "You'll never build that ship for $188 million." And there's all kinds of examples where -- well, the F-22. They said, "We're going to build 600 of them." So that gets the cost down per unit.
So I think we have to have the departments be more honest in when they're putting forward these projections. And then the industry counts on the requirements changing, and so they can up the price. I mean, it's not simple, but I think that's the complicated part of this problem.
SEC. GATES: It is, as Admiral Mullen said, a combination of several things. It's more realistic cost-estimating. It is better control of the requirements problem. I mean, anybody who ever added a room onto their house knows what happens when you change the specs. And that's what happens with these big weapon systems. People keep adding capabilities -- or requirements, rather -- and it keeps driving the cost up. We need better execution in the Department of Defense. And we need to negotiate better contracts.
REP. MURTHA: Well, the taxpayer has to pay the bill, and that's our problem. And so we hope that -- we wish you well and we want to work with you in trying to get this thing under control. Mr. Lewis was deeply involved in the F-22, and the department fought him tooth and nail because he wanted to make sure that research was done before we put the thing out there in the field for production. And we had one hell of a fight with the Senate and other people.
Mr. Frelinghuysen.
REP. RODNEY FRELINGHUYSEN (R-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your service.
Now that the president has made his decision and outlined a new strategy for Afghanistan, directing more troops there, we need to be successful. We need to support those troops. I worry about the drumbeat that accompanied our efforts in Iraq, the drumbeat for six years that we should withdraw from Iraq; sort of the issue of timetables, benchmarks. I'm afraid we're going to -- and maybe this is what Chairman Obey was alluding to -- we're going to get the same sort of refrain in Afghanistan.
I'd like to know where you think our involvement in Afghanistan is going. Obviously we're going to be supportive of our troops, the president's mission. But how is this going to turn out? And do we have the resources? Do we have enough soldiers to do the job, and do they have the capacity with enough equipment to be successful in their mission?
SEC. GATES: This is one we should both take a crack at.
It actually was a view of mine, as we were putting together the Afghan-Pakistan strategy, that the administration needed to develop its own measures of effectiveness so that we could evaluate, over a period of time, whether we were actually making progress or not. And so we weren't rolling our goals in front of us and pretending that we were making progress when maybe we weren't. So part of this process has been an interagency development of measures of effectiveness, benchmarks, whatever you want to call them, to see how we can measure progress.
My own view, sir, is that I think that there needs to be, on the part of the administration at least, an evaluation of where we are about next March of April to see if we have begun to change the momentum, in some respects, to see if we are making progress. And I think future decisions in terms of troops and things like that should depend on that. I think that even if this goes well it is a multiyear undertaking.
The ultimate outcome really is, the way we would see it evolving is, in many respects, the way it has evolved in Iraq, which is the Iraqis increasingly taking more and more responsibility for security and our taking a narrower and narrower view until finally we leave. And that the same thing would happen in Afghanistan, which is one of the reasons there's money in this budget for supporting the expansion of the Afghan army.
I would tell you I think our troops have the equipment that they need. In terms of the numbers of the troops my experience on this is shaped very much by my experience in CIA and fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980's, where the Soviets with 110, 120,000 troops didn't care about civilian casualties and they still lost. And so in a country like Afghanistan I think each of these countries has to be taken one at a time in terms of what the traffic will bear and at what point, at what level of foreign troops do we become, instead of partners and allies, do we become seen as occupiers by the Afghan people.
So personally, I'm going to take some convincing in terms of going beyond the troop levels, going significantly beyond the troop levels the president's already approved. But I think these troops are flowing in now. I think we will see them make a difference and I'm confident that they're going to do a great job.
Admiral.
ADM. MULLEN: I have confidence in the strategy. I think we need the benchmarks or the measures so that we can accurately assess where we are and adjust and doing that towards the end of this year and the first part of next year, I think is absolutely critical. We do have enough people. I think the strategy is about right. It also offers, I think, great potential for success in terms of what we've learned in Iraq, rolling those lessons in, whether they're how to move through this and recognize it's not all about military, that we can't, you know, we can't forfeit the security of the people we're trying to protect. And we've got to have a development program. And we've got to have a rule of law governance program that's delivering a capability to the Afghan people.
I think we've got to work rapidly this year and next to stem the violence, to start to turn this around and I think that's doable with the troops the president has supported so far.
REP. FRELINGHUYSEN: It's ironic that we are depending on the Russians for two supply routes, the other route being the Khyber Pass, and the Russians lost in Afghanistan and have made life so difficult for us in Kirgizstan, that we would rely on the people who lost Afghanistan earlier. I hope that we have a greater degree of reliability because, obviously, to supply our troops those overland routes are pretty vital to us.
ADM. MULLEN: Well, and we have developed some alternatives to those as well.
I think one should not underestimate Russia's concern about Afghanistan being taken over again by the Taliban and being a refuge for extremists, violent extremists, and especially religious extremists. And also the Russians are seeing firsthand the consequences of the drug flow out of Afghanistan and that's a big concern to them.
REP. FRELINGHUYSEN: Thank you both.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: (Inaudible).
REP. JAMES MORAN (D-VA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
All the subject matter that has been addresses today is of great interest and importance. I want to bring you back home a bit though, if I could, Mr. Secretary, to the BRAC decisions. I voted against the 2005 BRAC realignment because I thought that the operational benefits were grossly overstated and the costs understated. And this budget shows that that turned out to be the case.
The cost to implement BRAC increased to over $32 billion, up from the original estimate of about 20 billion (dollars). And the savings decreased to only $4 billion annually. The GAO calculates that the long term savings for BRAC will save less than half of the 36 billion (dollars) that was originally estimated.
There are 230 locations scheduled to be completed, only within the last two weeks of the statutory deadline. It's not going to happen. And yet we continue to budget under the assumption that it will. The -- this includes, and this is why I'm particularly sensitive to this, more than 6,000 Washington headquarter service employees who are to move to Alexandria. Again, they say it's going to be completed in the last two weeks of 2011. Eight thousand five hundred employees to the new NGA facility at Fort Belvoir and the realignment at Walter Reed.
These decisions relocated 20,000 workers away from transit accessible locations to sites where there is no public transportation. And as a result the Army corps of engineers estimates that the traffic around these new facilities, primarily at the Fort Belvoir 395 beltway area, is going to result in an extra three to four hours of delay in each direction when these employees are trying to get to work and leave work.
So, given the estimates that we now know are far more accurate than the rosy projections back four years ago, do you have any intent to reconsider the September 15th 2011 deadline? And I guess that goes to the controller. My guess is you're going to butt that to the controller, Mr. Secretary. Go ahead.
MR. HALE: I think I'll be glad to try this.
We are committed to BRAC and I understand your concerns but we feel we have fully funded it in a way that will allow us to meet the September 15th 2011 deadline.
REP. MURTHA: Gentleman yield.
Are these figures accurate, in your estimation of what Mr. Moran just explained?
MR. HALE: Yes.
REP. MURTHA: In other words, there'd be very little savings and a big cost and who pays it?
MR. HALE: Well, when you say very little savings we still believe it will be in the order of 4 billion (dollars) a year, that's our best estimate. And these are in perpetuity once they occur. So when you look at it on an at present value basis, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Moran, I think they'll be more impressive than -- in a year's time.
REP. MORAN: Well, if I could suggest, Mr. Hale, the decision was made on the basis of information that proved to be wrong. And the 4 billion (dollars) savings is much less than we were told when we made the decision to go forward with BRAC.
REP. MURTHA: And if the gentleman would yield again, Bethesda alone -- when I sat in the hearing was $200 million, it's already well over $1 billion. How do we get these kind of estimates? How can you say you're going to reform an acquisition and we have these kind of estimates from the department? REP. MORAN: Of course it wasn't these guys, in all fairness, Mr. Chairman.
MR. HALE: I was going to offer that defense.
Part of the growth is because we grew the force and then increased it. But I think you're right, I mean, I know you're right. Part of this is we did not estimate these clearly, or well, at the beginning. We use a rough model called the Cobra Model and it doesn't have a great deal of ongoing attention because we do BRAC so episodically. I mean, right now if we were going to do BRAC every year we would be hard at work revising the model. And yet, who knows, when or if there'll be another BRAC rounds?
I don't offer that as an excuse but, you're right. I mean, costs have gone up significantly.
I just repeat my point, once you start saving, let's say it's two or three or hopefully four billion a year you're going to save it forever unless you have to reverse the decisions. So it does start to add up. I think BRAC is one of the few areas where we can really achieve, or have achieved some substantial long terms savings in the Department of Defense.
REP. MORAN: In the Washington area you didn't. And to create a four hour traffic jam every single day has even national security implications. You've got tens of thousands of people trying to get to Fort Belvoir, trying to get in to work in Washington and it's because you move 20,000 people from metro to a fort that has no public transit.
It was a dumb decision to make. You didn't make it but I don't think it would be responsible for you not to reconsider it.
MR. HALE: When you look at it, it is the law, as you're aware.
REP. MORAN: I understand it's the law but it's a law that was made because you gave us -- the Pentagon gave us estimates that turned out not to be accurate. And I'm talking about one area where I know this was not a thoughtful decision and it can still be rectified and that's what should happen.
And I'm going to tell you right now, we're going to be here next year and these numbers are going to be worse than they are today.
I have one other area, Mr. Chairman, but do we have time to do that?
We don't, okay, that's fair.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Tiahrt. REP. TODD TIAHRT (R-KS): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, thank you for your service to the country.
Mr. Secretary, in your budget the tanker program seems to keep lingering on. Hopefully we'll have a decision in 2010. You also shut down the C-17 production.
And, in light of the, I think, the uncertainty of Russian influence, the instability in Pakistan and the current situation in Iran, I think there may be a good argument that there is some risk that Afghanistan could become land-locked.
And if that is the situation, how will we sustain our troops, and how will we maintain the air-bridge back and forth into Afghanistan?
SEC. GATES: Well, when we were contemplating the loss of (Manos ?) we looked at a number of different options. And, first of all, I think the loss of all of the land-lines simultaneously is probably not very likely, but we did look at a number of options, including a lot of flights from facilities in the Middle East -- in Kuwait and elsewhere. And certainly the cost goes up fairly considerably, but it was deemed to be a manageable challenge.
REP. TIAHRT: But, it is still something we have as a contingency plan. I'm glad that you're planning on having some fall-back position.
One other program that concerns me is, in the Airborne Laser -- if you look at the current situation in Iran with their most recent launch, with launches from North Korea, it seems that the greatest deterrent would be the ability to knock down an airplane in the initial phase of the launch and leave the debris in the country of origin.
The Airborne Laser is the only tool that we have that could do that. And we have reduced the amount of funding, even though there is -- they're on schedule for a shoot-down this coming fall. So, I'm concerned that we're short-changing this program that has a great need today and even greater need in the future. And I'd also like to note that even though the F-35 hasn't completed its testing, we are moving forward into a production program.
So, I'm concerned that we're short-changing the ABL program when we have such a huge need that's very apparent in current world events, and we're on track for completion of not only what's been proven in the lab, and on the ground, now to be completed in the air.
Is there any consideration in how we're going to get this tool on-line more quickly when we've delayed the second purchase -- aircraft purchase, and -- (inaudible) -- SEC. GATES: I don't think --
REP. TIAHRT: -- short-change the program?
SEC. GATES: -- I don't know anybody at the Department of Defense, Mr. Tiahrt, who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed. The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire.
So, right now the ABL would have to orbit inside the borders of Iran in order to be able to try and use its laser to shoot down that missile in the boost phase. And if you were to operationalize this you would be looking at 10 to 20 747s, at a billion and a half dollars apiece, and $100 million a year to operate. And there's nobody in uniform that I know who believes that this is a workable concept.
I have kept the first -- the prototype, because we do need to continue the research on directed energy and on lasers, and that will be robustly funded because we do need to continue developing a boost- phase capability. But, operationally, this first test, for example, is going to be from a range of 85 miles.
REP. TIAHRT: Well, thank you for the information. There's a less -- a comment I'd like to leave you with -- there are a series of comments.
In the competition for the tanker, during the last go-around, we saw that there were some inequities in the request. There was no accounting for subsidies in the bidding process. There was no accounting for cost accounting standards, International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for our European allies. There was no accounting for the industrial base. There was no accounting for the lifecycle costs, long term, as required by (DFARS ?).
And as we go forward with this tanker procurement I hope that we will take these things into consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: Ms. Kaptur.
REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country.
These questions can be answered very quickly.
Admiral Mullen, how dependent is the United States economy and our military on foreign sources of oil and imported petroleum to meet our national economic needs and our military needs? Are we 5 percent dependent, 20 percent dependent, 50 percent dependent, or 80 percent dependent?
ADM. MULLEN: I don't know the exact number. I would say, from a national security perspective, we are proportionately as dependent as the United States is.
REP. KAPTUR: I beg your pardon?
ADM. MULLEN: That the percentage that -- the proportional dependence we have, in terms of foreign oil in the Department of Defense, and in the military, is consistent with the proportion that we have as a country.
REP. KAPTUR: Are you aware that we import about 80 percent of our oil?
ADM. MULLEN: Of course I am.
REP. KAPTUR: Well, that seems to be a serious vulnerability.
Let me ask you, how important are Iraq's oil fields, in terms of global oil reserves? Are they not important; are they somewhat important; or very important?
ADM. MULLEN: I think they're very important.
REP. KAPTUR: Who is guarding the oil facilities in Iraq at this juncture -- the U.S. military or through contractors?
ADM. MULLEN: Actually, I don't -- I mean, I don't know the specific answer to that.
REP. KAPTUR: All right. Is it possible that you or Secretary Gates --
Secretary Gates, do you know the answer to that?
SEC. GATES: I think that the Iraqis are guarding them.
REP. KAPTUR: Through some type of contract, or directly through their security forces?
SEC. GATES: I think through their security forces. But, we will get you an answer to that question.
REP. KAPTUR: And if there are private firms involved somehow in the guarding of those facilities, could you provide that for the record, sir?
SEC. GATES: Sure.
REP. KAPTUR: Secretary Gates, what is the actual number -- -- or, Admiral Mullen, the actual number of contracted personnel that the U.S. military anticipates will remain in Iraq this year and next year --
SEC. GATES: We expect the number to be, the high number was in the 160s -- 160,000s. We expect them to be down to about 138,000 by the end of this year, and about 90,000 at the end of 2010.
REP. KAPTUR: And could you provide for the record, as well, in terms of security forces, what happens to those -- as those numbers come down? Are you removing cooks or are you removing contract security forces?
SEC. GATES: I think it's across the board. But, we'll get it for you.
REP. KAPTUR: I thank you very much.
In Afghanistan, the bulk of the Taliban are Pashtun. Are we fighting the Pashtun now, Secretary Gates?
SEC. GATES: I think you're fighting several different enemies. The Taliban are clearly the principal force now in Afghanistan, but you also have the Haqqani network, you have a variety of different groups, including Pakistani insurgents, al-Qaeda, foreign fighters, and so on.
REP. KAPTUR: Are they under a central command-and-control structure?
SEC. GATES: I would say, loosely.
REP. KAPTUR: They are loosely. Who's the commander?
SEC. GATES: Well, Mullah Omar is still -- he's alive and, to the extent that anyone oversees the whole operation, that would be him.
REP. KAPTUR: Is bin Laden an objective of the war?
SEC. GATES: Yes, but I would say secondary.
REP. KAPTUR: What is the platform of the moderate Taliban, and is it something we can live with?
SEC. GATES: Well, I think we have to figure out who the moderate Taliban are first. Right now, in terms of a potential reconciliation, I think that the odds are against us. I think that as long as the Taliban think that they have the upper hand it's going to get -- it's going to be difficult to get them to reconcile, at least on the terms that are acceptable to the Afghan government.
We do believe that a significant number of the Taliban fighters are doing it mainly for money. And so if we can rehabilitate, help Afghanistan rehabilitate their agriculture and find jobs for these people, you could get a number of those people who are doing it just for money to walk away from that movement. But, there will be a certain hard core that will be totally irreconcilable.
REP. KAPTUR: How do we know when we've won in Afghanistan?
SEC. GATES: When our troops are out.
REP. KAPTUR: After they've achieved what?
SEC. GATES: After they have achieved a situation in which the Afghan security forces, with international help, are able to maintain the security of their own country against both the Taliban and any external threats.
REP. KAPTUR: Finally, let me ask Admiral Mullen, for the record, in your testimony at several points you inject the word "partner" -- page 2, page 4, page 6, "networks of partners and allies expanding the sets of partnerships." Could you, for the record, clarify what you mean by "partnerships," as opposed to allied support?
ADM. MULLEN: I would say that in many ways they overlap. It would depend specifically on the relationship we had with a given country. I think both of them are critical in the world we're living in now, and the world we're going to be living in in the future.
REP. KAPTUR: Is it possible for you to provide for the record what you mean by partner -- a partnership is not a country?
ADM. MULLEN: Say that again?
REP. KAPTUR: A partnership is then not a country?
ADM. MULLEN: Sure. A partnership "with" a country is exactly what I mean.
REP. KAPTUR: Then why would, on page 6, you say "steadily expanding the sets of partnerships," as opposed to allied engagements available to address future challenges. On page 2, page 4, page 5, page 6, this word partnerships keeps cropping up. I don't understand what that means. Could you clarify that, for the record, and explain how that is distinct from allied support?
ADM. MULLEN: Yes, ma'am.
REP. KAPTUR: Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike.)
REP. KINGSTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, in April you announced that there would be 45 brigade combat teams and not 48. And I have the honor of representing Fort Stewart, Georgia and Hinesville, and, of course I have a lot of pride.
Under BRAC they were going to get another brigade. It's a community that, as you know, does everything they can to support the post, as does Savannah, with the (hunter ?) part of it. Fort Stewart is the four-time winner of the Community of Excellence Awards.
And the community, after the BRAC announcement, has spent the last couple of years spending lots of money in preparation for a new brigade -- hotels, and new roads, and putting in investment on the post itself. Actually, millions of dollars have been spent on it. But, now everything's a little bit on hold, up in the air. The banks won't lend money anymore.
The community's not sure if this is going to happen or not -- definitely, maybe not another brigade, or maybe more troops will come back filling the existing brigade. Developers and investors are now back on the side-lines. And so there's a lot of angst down there.
And I was wondering if you could comment, what kind of direction can we give the folks there, both the people in uniform and then the civilians who support the post?
SEC. GATES: Well, as you know better than I do, there were some significant additional units that were deployed to Fort Stewart last fall. And with respect to where the additional Army brigade combat teams will go, my understanding, as of this morning, is that the Army has not yet made that decision.
But the one thing that I would explain is that -- or hope to make clear is that one of the reasons we're doing this is that, had the Army gone to 48 brigade combat teams, they were doing so with the same number of people that they had, regardless. And so you would have had a thinning out in the brigades and it would have hindered our effort to get rid of stop-loss.
So, this is to make these brigades more robust so they're more fully staffed, manned, if you will. And so they're -- these units will all be filled in, if you will, in a way that we have not seen, at least in the last few years.
But, in terms of an additional full brigade moving in there, the Army just hasn't made that decision yet.
REP. KINGSTON: Well, the community does share your vision and the caring for our troops. And, yes they do. They are 100 percent behind you on that, and the stop-loss, and getting everybody up to full strength. So, that's very important.
When do you think the Army will make that decision?
SEC. GATES: I just don't know. We can try and get something for the record for you.
REP. KINGSTON: And we actually do have a delegation letter outlining this in more specifics, that's going to be coming to you Friday. We've given you an advance copy of that right now.
But, we are totally in support of your vision, and Fort Stewart, and the soldiers. But, it's very difficult, when the banks that were starting to lend money during these economic times, it was important that here was a bright spot, and now all of that is side-lined again. So --
REP. MURTHA: Excuse me just a minute, Mr. Kingston. I'm going to go vote. Mr. Dicks is going to take over. But, I'm impressed, Mr. Secretary, you have been deeply involved in this budget. You answered the questions. You know what the hell's going on. That's --
SEC. GATES: (Laughs.)
REP. MURTHA: -- interesting, for a secretary.
SEC. GATES: (Continues laughing.)
REP. KINGSTON: Very unusual.
REP. KINGSTON: Mr. Secretary, on another subject, I want to make a comment that when Americans think about IEDs -- and I think members of Congress -- we would think about Iraq and don't realize that there will be, and there already is an uptick of IED incidents in Afghanistan, but that IEDs are not going to be isolated to those two countries, they're already around in other nations and people are more familiar with them but IEDs could start taking place in -- you know, on domestic soil.
Your budget has a lot for IED research and training, but I just want to say that I think a lot of us would certainly support IED continued research beyond 2010. And regardless of what happens in Afghanistan I think we want to support your commitment to the IED task force.
SEC. GATES: Mr. Kingston, I think that this a program we have now moved from the supplemental into the base budget so that it'll be a sustained effort over an extended period of time because I share your view that the IED unfortunately is a very cheap weapon that is very effective. And I worry a lot that, as you just said, that Afghanistan and Iraq are not the only two countries where we'll see this.
REP. KINGSTON: I thank the gentleman --
REP. DICKS: The gentleman's time's expired.
REP. KINGSTON: Thank you.
REP. DICKS: Mr. Secretary, tell us, you've restructured the Army's future combat system. Can you tell us about that?
SEC. GATES: Sure. We're going forward with the first increment of the future combat system which has the UAVs, unmanned ground vehicles, sensors and the networking. And instead of limiting it to 15 FCS brigade combat teams, we are going to expand it to all 73 brigade combat teams of the Army. So all of this networking technology that has been developed and spun off will all be put back into -- will all be filtered into the entire Army.
The Army already is looking at a new -- the only -- well, the part of the future combat system where I said we need to start over is the vehicle part. And the reason for that -- there're a couple of reasons for that. One is we were applying a lot of band aids trying to figure out what this system was going to look like because we were having trouble absorbing the lessons of war. So this program, which began nine years ago -- for example began with an 18-and-a-half ton vehicle so it would fit into a C-130. Then in 2006, the weight went to 26 tons. In 2007, it went to 27 tons. It has now gone to 30 tons and is probably headed toward 35 tons. So we were putting band aids on as people were trying to figure out how to accommodate these vehicles to the lessons of war.
And -- for example, they identified a couple of years ago that the infantry fighting vehicle had a flat bottom and was going to be 18 inches off the ground. So it contained none of the defenses against IEDs that we've just been talking about. The plan also had no place in it because it had not -- because MRAPs didn't exist when the program was first initiated, the program had no place in it for the $26 billion the taxpayers have invested in the MRAPs for a role there.
And, frankly, we had a -- we did not negotiate a very good contract. All eight vehicles were allocated to two builders so there was no competition for the vehicles. We were paying a third party a passthrough fee to acquire the vehicles for us instead of the way we bought the MRAPs, which was directly with the manufacturers, and 90 percent of industry's performance fee was guaranteed at critical design review leaving very little incentive when it came to building the prototypes or final testing.
So for all those reasons we have restructured the program. I have told the Army and I have told the authorizing committees an Army vehicle modernization program is a very high priority. And I believe -- the latest I heard just this morning or yesterday was that as early as this fall the Army may have an alternative proposal coming forward in terms of some of these vehicles.
So I think relatively little time will be lost but if in a program that potentially will cost $150 billion it seemed to me important to get it right.
REP. DICKS: In Pakistan, there's been a lot of discussion about trying to get -- and Admiral Mullen, I know you've been there many times -- trying to get the Pakistanis to focus more on the insurgents and the Taliban and less on their concerns about India. Are we making any progress in that direction?
ADM. MULLEN: Yes, sir, I think we are. In fact -- and I'll cite two examples, the level of activity in the last couple of weeks in Bonaire, Indire(ph) and Swat and it has been a sustained level of activity. Clearly there's a history in Swat and it's a big challenge. And so we're going to -- you know, part of the future assessment in judgment is are they going to be able to sustain it and have an impact, and can they in fact in classic counterinsurgency hold the territory that they clear the insurgents from. And we're in that phase right now in some places and we just don't know because it hasn't been long enough. Secondly, when I was there about three or four weeks ago, General Kayani who's the chief of staff of the army took me through -- took me out in the field with two of his divisions who were doing counter insurgency training, training that he's put in place over the last 12 to 18 months for his entire army. These two battalions that I was observing were actually battalions preparing to go to the west and spend upwards of one or two years up in the west. And when I say they were doing training, they built the training ranges, they've look at best practices here and other countries to build these training ranges, done it very rapidly, so they're starting to move in that direction.
All of that said, it's my view they're not going to lose their focus on India and they've got a challenge of literally two fights, a conventional fight or a conventional challenge and threat along with a counter insurgency challenge which they increasingly recognize, it's just going to take some time and our patience level with them is key to establish the long term relationship with them to one counter this threat, and two to have a relationship with them in that part of the world, which I think is absolutely critical.
REP. DICKS: Let me ask you this. You were talking, we had this debate, I actually was at the White House several times when Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Rice would clash over you know, the role of the State Department wasn't playing in Iraq and you've talked about this a little bit earlier, but do you think there needs to be legislation to give more authority to the Secretary of State to get her people into the field? At that time, they were saying they only could stay for 75 days or 90 days, some very short period of time. And if we're going to, and I believe it is true, you can't win this thing military, it's got to be, you've got to help this economy change, we've got to get rid of these drugs, and we've got to develop their agricultural capability, what do you think about that?
SEC. GATES: I think mainly what the Secretary of State needs is resources. She does need some authorities to give her more flexibility, for example, she needs to be able to provide the kind of benefits and pay to people in combat situations, combat zones that we pay to the military. She makes the point that, and I won't get the numbers right but I'm going to be in the right ballpark, but and maybe you remember it, but there's a higher significantly higher percentage of civilians who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than military, given the number of people who were there.
And so she does need the authorities to be able to be more flexible in paying these people in terms of providing benefit and family care like we have an so on. But above all, she needs more people and more dollars.
REP. DICKS: Ms. Granger. REP. KAY GRANGER (R-TX): Thank you. Chairman Mullen, I have two questions for you please. The first question has to do with the Merida Initiative and we've worked closely together to ensure that the key equipment was delivered to Mexico as part of that initiative.
I was disappointed to discover how our bureaucracy led to some significant delays in delivering the equipment that was essential to President Calderon as he fights these drug cartels and I thank you for your efforts to get this process back on track. My question first is are you aware of steps we're taking to make sure that that doesn't happen again and to make our bureaucracy more efficient and prevent similar situations from arising in the future?
ADM. MULLEN: Ma'am, in my recent visit there is when I really got exposed to the delays, this was its first year. In fact the money which was '08 money didn't start flowing until December and once that starts, and this is something they don't understand, I mean, and this is not unique to Mexico, I see it all over the world, it's you said you'd do this, you know, can we start moving this quickly? And our bureaucracy can be pretty cumbersome at times. The areas I was focused on specifically were helicopters which they need and then when I pulled the string on it, in fact there were discussions about we were going to give you five and now it looks like three and putting pressure at least looking into it, it looks like they're going to get the five helicopters late this year, at least that's the last input that I have.
And some other equipment that they need to fight these cartels and there's, as many have said, there's dual responsibility here, this isn't just a problem in Mexico because clearly it's been supported by money, supported by weapons here, it had a big impact obviously particularly on the border states, although not exclusive to there, our own country.
We're into our F&S system which can be very, very cumbersome, take a lot of time. And the secretary has actually asked the Department to go look at ways now to make this much more flexible because of the world that we're living in and it was originally designed to be slow, the law sort of set in place was this was we don't want this system to move very quickly.
But when I have needs like Mexico and I can talk about Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan, we need to move stuff through much more quickly than we have.
REP. GRANGER: Thank you.
SEC. GATES: What we're trying to do in this review -- and I've told the president about it because it really does hinder our ability to help other countries who are our allies and partners in these fights. And so the study really has two pieces to it, what is there in the Pentagon bureaucracy and the executive branch bureaucracy that slows this stuff down? And what is there in the law that slows it down? And when we figure out, when we get the answers to those questions, we're going to need your all's help to try and fix this thing.
REP. GRANGER: Thank you. My second question was, has to do with the Pakistan counter insurgency capability fund and we've talked about that already today. Your staff Admiral Mullen has been very helpful in helping me understand the details of that and why it's so critical to our war fighting component and we agree that the situation and the strategy demand enhanced capacity from the State Department as well. Help me understand the military components of the PCCF that will endure, may endure after we increase state capacity.
ADM. MULLEN: It actually for the PCCF the vast majority of the money is focused on the military and it gets that training capabilities for the Pakistani military. It gets it requirements like helicopter requirements, not just the helicopters themselves but Pakistani military aviation side has a very, very difficult maintenance challenge and so supporting that as well. The kinds of intelligence surveillance and recognizance capabilities, night vision goggles, training facilities so all of which, all of which focuses on counter insurgency and the vast majority of which we'll be enduring I believe in their country for a significant period of time. And it breaks down across those various kinds of capabilities and there's not an insignificant amount that also goes to state to the State Department to support the kind of developmental needs that also must go hand in glove with the military requirements.
REP. GRANGER: I would encourage you, I happen to sit on state foreign operations and defense but we will continue to look at that and make sure that you continue to keep us apprised of that joint capability in this SD.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
REP. MURTHA: There's a vote on right now. Your last vote's on right now.
Admiral, a lot of older guys like me see in the Pentagon people running around in jumpsuits, running around in utility uniforms, do we not have enough money for class A uniforms?
ADM. MULLEN: Yes, sir, we have money for class A uniforms.
REP. MURTHA: Are we ever going to get back to people not going, I remember the day when we were constrained from even leaving the base wearing uniform -- I mean you had to wear a uniform, you didn't wear the field uniform, field uniform's for the field. Are we going to get back to that? ADM. MULLEN: Well, we went to this a few years ago, as I know you know, Mr. Chairman, because we are at war. And that was really the intent of the change. And I can't remember exactly when it happened. I was in the Pentagon at the time.
There's no guidance right now to reverse that, although I share your concern that some of these uniforms aren't necessarily the right uniforms for the workplace in every kind of situation.
REP. MURTHA: Well, I appreciate the endorsement of the White House for our version of the supplemental. I hope the Senate agrees with the amount, because we're going to be constrained -- I figure we're going to get a lot less money in the allocation for the '10 bill. And so I would hope that we can convince the Senate that they need to at least look at the possibility of going a little higher in their estimate than where they are right now. And I've talked to Senator Inouye. I know he's constrained by a lot of other things.
But Mr. Secretary, do you have all the tools you need? You remember Mr. Obey keeps talking about the tools that you need in order to fight this war. Do you have all those tools in place? And I heard the first briefing, and I liked the briefing. I think you're going in the right direction. I think you've got the right idea. You're going to train the Afghans. You're going to put the State Department to work. I mean, you're not going to, but the president is.
Have you got the tools? Is there anything we need to do? I know you're constraining the other services coming to us, and I agree with that. We told you a couple of years ago we're going to try to work through the comptroller. We appreciate that. But is there anything you need that we're not doing that should be included in the supplemental?
SEC. GATES: I don't think so, Mr. Chairman. I think we've got -- one of the projects we're working on right now is an interim solution for MRAPs in Afghanistan, to give them more off-road capability. And until we can get a new vehicle out there, the request for which is in the budget, the MRAP all-terrain vehicle, we're looking at a program that is working for the Marines, which is changing out the suspension on the Cougars, and it costs about a tenth as much as the vehicle -- as a new vehicle and gives you about 80 percent of the capability. And we're looking at how we can accelerate that over the period of the next months to provide more protection for the troops until we can get this ATV. But on the whole, I think, you know, the truth is you all have been very generous to us. Like when I came up here 18 months ago, two years ago, and asked for the money for the MRAPs, you all just stepped right up to the plate.
Yeah, go ahead.
ADM. MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, could I mention one issue with regard to the supplemental I think you're aware of? We have a significant shortfall of military personnel funding in fiscal '09. Before your actions, it started at about two and a half billion dollars associated with the services being (over strength ?), partly because the recruiting environment was good. They were trying to cut back on stop-loss, a variety of reasons. That's about half of it; the other half, higher than expected budget for pay raise. There's a lot of other reasons.
You were very helpful; solved more than half of that. But we're still about $1.1 billion short this fiscal year in military personnel and have --
REP. MURTHA: Well, wait a minute. We put two and a half billion in.
ADM. MULLEN: Well, there were also some cuts that you made in military personnel, principally in bonuses. So the net effect still left us short.
REP. MURTHA: You're not talking about the bonuses.
ADM. MULLEN: Yes. I mean, you made some cuts or the committee made some cuts, primarily in bonus payments in various accounts.
REP. MURTHA: With the environment you have -- I mean, you know, bonus has never been one of my favorite subjects, and when you get on that subject, I get worried. I mean, we still have to have bonuses?
ADM. MULLEN: Well, actually, some of the cuts there actually went to even the anniversary payments for past bonuses, and in some cases the cuts are below what we've already obligated for this year. I understand your general point, and we have tried --
REP. MURTHA: Work with our guys and we'll try to work that out.
ADM. MULLEN: We'll do that. Thank you.
REP. MURTHA: We've got some other people that haven't asked any questions, so I'm going to let them ask questions.
Mr. Rothman.
REP. STEVEN ROTHMAN (D-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, Chief, Mr. Hale, thank you for being here.
President Obama reiterated on Monday that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons capability, it would be a grave threat to the region, including our number one ally in the region, the state of Israel, but also many Arab nations in the region. It probably would start a nuclear arms race in the region. Such a weapons capability would threaten our allies in Europe and would also threaten the national security interests of the United States of America.
I know that the president -- and I'm glad to see the president will begin new diplomatic conversations with Iran, directly or indirectly, in the coming weeks and months and has said he will give it to the end of the year and then to reassess how Iran is doing with regards to reversing its position on acquiring nuclear weapons capability.
But we're in the business on this subcommittee of contingency planning. And if, as the president and others have described a nuclear weapons-capable Iran are accurate, and I believe they are, and that would be an unacceptable threat to U.S. national security, do you feel, Mr. Secretary, Chief, that this present budget and our present military capabilities can fully accommodate a worst-case scenario where Iran would not step down from its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon and military action was necessary?
SEC. GATES: Let me just say in open session here that I believe we have the resources in the proposed budget that would allow us to deal with all possible contingencies.
ADM. MULLEN: I agree with that.
REP. ROTHMAN: Thank you, gentlemen.
The other issue -- and I know others want a chance to ask question as well, so I'll limit myself to one other additional question regarding nuclear weapons now in possession of Pakistan.
It has been discussed that one threat to U.S. national security and the region's security in and around Pakistan would be if, God forbid, those designed (at ?) terrorists and those designed on the death of Americans and innocents were to get hold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
Are you confident that our present capability and the resources you are asking for in the 2010 fiscal year defense budget are adequate to assure, guarantee, that those nuclear weapons possessed by Pakistan are secure and will be safe from interception by terrorists?
ADM. MULLEN: I'm comfortable that the security measures the Pakistani military in particular is taking ensures their security. We, the United States, have invested in improving their security over the last -- measures, program -- over the last three or four years -- that's not done through the Department of Defense; it's done through the Department of Energy -- and that they've improved dramatically.
That said, it's a sovereign country, very sovereign program, very well-protected from a proprietary standpoint by the Pakistani people, the Pakistani government. And there are limits to what our knowledge is. They certainly are aware of the concerns. And one of the biggest concerns -- I mean, at the top of my list for threats right now globally would be terrorists getting hold of nuclear weapons. And I've certainly expressed that concern both publicly here and privately to the leadership in Pakistan.
REP. ROTHMAN: Admiral, beyond the sovereign issues and your expressions of concern -- again, we deal in worst-case scenarios -- in open session, can you comment on our capability to address the worst- case scenarios --
ADM. MULLEN: I --
REP. ROTHMAN: -- with regards to Pakistan?
ADM. MULLEN: I wouldn't comment on that in open session.
REP. ROTHMAN: Thank you.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike.)
REP. : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome.
Mr. Secretary, in the recent change of our leadership in Afghanistan, you cited the need for, quote, "a fresh approach" in Afghanistan. Tell us what you mean by that.
SEC. GATES: Well, first of all, I wanted to follow the model that we followed as we implemented the surge in Iraq, which was when we started the -- when the president decided to implement the surge in Iraq, he moved forward, by not much, but some, a change of commander in Iraq. And General Petraeus took General Casey's place. So General Petraeus was able to manage that strategy from the moment it began to be implemented through significant success.
I was very concerned about changing commanders midway through a few months or seven or eight months into this strategy and having somebody brand new come in, in effect, in the middle of the stream. And so one of the considerations for me was having a commander who was there from the beginning of the implementation of this new strategy. I also think that with the new forces coming in, I think that with the 68,000 troops that the president has approved -- and I go back to my comments earlier about my concern about a significantly higher number of troops in Afghanistan -- I wanted fresh eyes in terms of are we using the troops that we have there in the most effective possible way? And are there other ways in which we can make better use of them?
I think another piece of this is the fact that we are sending a team in. Both General Rodriguez and General McChrystal have a broad range of experience, not just counterinsurgency. And General Rodriguez, when he was the commander in Regional Command East, was very successful when he was commander of the 82nd Airborne there. And so it is this combination of talents between McChrystal and Rodriguez that I think creates some opportunities for us. And so it's in that context that I was referring to fresh eyes.
REP. : With what you can say in an open session, how will what we're doing in Afghanistan now change under this fresh approach?
SEC. GATES: Well, I think that's really for them to get out there and get involved, you know, talk to the commanders, the brigade commanders, talk to the Afghans and make their own decisions in terms of what changes in our campaign strategy do we need to make.
The admiral may have something.
ADM. MULLEN: I would comment -- first of all, General Rodriguez has spent 15 months in the eastern part of Afghanistan and did exceptionally well; is immersed in their culture and in what the requirements are there.
In my position as chairman, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out who should go to what jobs. And in this case, long before the decision was made or even on the table to change leadership in Afghanistan, General McKiernan and General Odierno, both due to rotate out of those jobs next year, I had done a considerable amount of work across contacting and discussing with leaders from all services who the best individuals would be for the future. And Generals McChrystal and Rodriguez have come out at the top of the Army list, and lots of other people as well, for the last 18 months that I've been in this job, and obviously -- and before that as well.
They're the best we have right now. And so -- and I'm greatly dependent on great leadership. They are great leaders, and I think they will change the calculus and move us in a way that will create potential for success.
REP. : Well, what I'm trying to get at is, what will be this new strategy? Will it be similar to the surge in Iraq, or just what does it amount to? ADM. MULLEN: It will be lessons taken from Iraq. It is counterinsurgency strategy. I was just in RC East and I was taken by how much our troops have absorbed that almost as a way of life. So we have enough troops in the east. We just put in a couple -- an additional brigade in January. We are putting more troops in the south.
But it's not just the military. It's got to be the civilian side. It's got to be putting the Iraqi security forces, army and police, in a position to provide for their people and in creating a secure environment, allow for the other things that need to be done to get done, including, you know, a dramatic reduction and elimination, if possible, of the opium problem. So there's an agricultural piece here that lays down right over where they're growing poppies, and that's got to happen as well.
The government of Afghanistan at every level has to get to a point where it can provide for its people, and they are falling short there now. And also there's a terrible amount of corruption. So those are things, all of which have to be addressed, not just by the military, but by the whole of our government and other nations who are involved there.
REP. MURTHA: (Off mike.)
REP. SANFORD BISHOP (D-GA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, Hale, thank you so very much for your service.
For the record, I'd like to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Kingston to the extent that we jointly support the 4th Brigade Combat Team at Fort Stewart. I just want to do that for the record.
I'd like to talk with you for a moment about outsourcing. I'm sure that you are aware that on March 23rd, the committee wrote you expressing concern about DOD's outsourcing.
Can you remind us or refresh our memories on what the response was if there was response?
SEC. GATES: I don't know about the specific response, but I will tell you that this has been of concern to me as well. And part of the proposals for the FY '10 budget is to begin in a fairly dramatic way replacing contractors in management services -- in management support and professional services to replace contractors in those areas with full-time civil service employees.
Our goal is to replace 13 -- is to hire 13,000 new civil service employees in FY '10 and overall through the next five years to hire 33,000. Our goal is to take the percentage of contractors in those areas from the current 39 percent of the work force back to 26 percent, which is where it was before 2001.
REP. BISHOP: Mr. Secretary, can I ask you then why the department has not suspended it's a-76 outsourcing efforts in '09?
SEC. GATES: Well, we can't get rid of outsourcing altogether. And if there's a specific aspect of this, I'm happy to take a look at it.
REP. BISHOP: Well, the A-76 study's an ongoing, presumably, to continue the outsourcing while at the same time, you're budgeting for '10 to reduce the outsourcing.
SEC. GATES: Well, as I say, in these particular areas we're reducing from 39 percent to 26 percent. So there's still 26 percent that are going to -- even at the end of five years there's still going to be some kind of services outsources.
REP. BISHOP: I guess -- I appreciate your comment there, but it is a very serious concern for the subcommittee and we have had this concern for some time at the large amounts of outsourcing. And of course, we've expressed and of course, we appreciate very much the fact that you are responding in '10.
And of course, if you still have a need for it, I guess you have to go forward with the remaining outsourcing needs. But I'm very uncomfortable with the A-76 studies, because I really feel like we probably need to do as much in-house as we can possible do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. REP. MURTHA: I just want to reiterate my concern. Last year we took 5 billion (dollars) out of contracting services. We put a billion in for direct hire. The department objected strenuously to what we had done. I appreciate the fact you're now going the right direction after a little bit of prodding.
Mr. Hinchey.
REP. MAURICE HINCHEY (D-NY): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I'd like to return to a subject that was mentioned a few times earlier and that is the VH-71 helicopter.
And it seems to me, based upon all the information that I've been able to obtain, that it really makes perfect sense for us to continue that project for a variety of reasons.
First of all, for the safety and security of the present president. The helicopter that he's using now, that system was designed more than a half century ago. And the helicopter that he's using was manufactured about 35 years ago. The effectiveness and efficiency of that device, based upon its age, is not nearly what it ought to be and the safety and security of it is diminishing. That is a vehicle that is becoming weaker and weaker and in some cases it seems to be even falling apart.
So the need for a new system is, I think, very, very obvious. And the project that was initiated after the attack of September 11, 2001 and then a contract that was put into play in 2005 brought about this VH-71. And the VH-71, frankly, seems to make perfect sense.
It is much more effective and efficient than the existing helicopter. It can travel further -- I think about 200 miles more, we've been told. And the new information that has come out indicates clearly that the structural integrity is stronger than what some evaluation of it came out erroneously earlier. And that the service life is much longer -- the service life being -- anticipated to be approximately 30 years.
So the fact that this system has already experienced approximately $4 billion in expenditure and the documents themselves or the helicopters themselves are essentially ready to go. Five of them are almost ready to move. They've been all through the tests and all through the operations that lead to the final movement. And then there are four behind that. And it would take a minimal amount of money to bring this whole system into play.
And bringing this whole system into play would make the safety and security of the president much more sound and secure, would enable him to engage in the kinds of things that he would have to do under threats and dangers that may occur and his response to that. We have to keep in mind that on September 11th, that helicopter that was crashed down in Pennsylvania as a result of the courage of the people who were being transported in that and overcoming the hijackers -- that that helicopter was likely to slam into the White House.
So that means that it may be that something like that or something similar to that in some way may be threat to this president or future presidents.
So it just seems so obvious, based upon the amount of money that has been spent, based upon the improvement to this helicopter design -- much more so than the existing one; based upon the age of the existing one and the fact that it doesn't function effectively -- all of these things and more; and much of the "more" is classified and can't really be talked about in this particular context -- all of that and more makes it clear that this VH-71 -- this Marine One helicopter really is needed.
I would just ask you, deeply, if you would go back and take another look at the facts -- particularly the information that has come out more recently on the strength, the solidity, the length of the life of these helicopters and the ability of them to function effectively.
Go back and take another look at this and I think and hope that you would decide on your own -- as many of us have -- that this is something that really needs to take place.
So I'm just asking you sincerely to engage in that. We really need this new helicopter.
SEC. GATES: Well, first of all, I would say that there is no question about the fact that the current helicopters that the president is flying in are safe and secure. The Navy has confidence in that and I don't think the Secret Service would allow the president get on it if there wasn't complete confidence in it.
And the reality is that it may be that the airframe on some of these helicopters is 30 or 35 years old, but virtually everything else has been replaced. For example, they're replacing the rotors right now. So there is life extension.
If you're talking about going with the whole system -- if you're going with both increments one and two for the VH-71 helicopter --
REP. HINCHEY: I'm talking only about increment one not about increment two.
SEC. GATES: Okay. That still, under the Navy's estimates, would be a $9.4 billion program. We currently have spent 3.2 billion (dollars). It has 55 percent of the range of the current helicopter the president's flying in in the increment one. It does not meet a lot of the requirements in terms of other protections -- whether it's chemical, biological, nuclear, communications and some of the other things. We would -- even if we bought increment one, we would have to then initiative a new presidential helicopter program anyway to get to some of the capabilities that were going to be in increment two. So whether or not you do increment one, you're going to end up with a new presidential helicopter program.
And we believe that the helicopters he's flying in our safe. The Navy believes that their life can be extended until we can get a new a helicopter. And frankly, if we went -- if we went with increment one with 23 aircraft, the cost per aircraft would be $485 million a piece and I think the president has a real problem with that.
REP. MURTHA: Time is expired.
I just want to say one thing: One question I asked these 13 people. I said, we're not going to pay that much for a helicopter -- meaning the two -- I said, we all appreciate the president. We all appreciate his safety, but what about us? They just laughed. I don't know if they laughed because "the hell with you", but what about the secretary of Defense? What about the chief?
I mean, you know, this is -- the Secret Service went way too far on this thing. You have to keep them under control as you go forward with this program. I mean, that's all there is to it.
SEC. GATES: Well, we do have to deal with the requirements. And as I said, one of the things that we're thinking about is that in fact, all of the requirements that are being placed on this helicopter may not be feasible in a single helicopter. And maybe we look at one for escape and one for regular every day use. But we'll go back and look at it.
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Young, any questions?
REP. YOUNG: (Off mike.)
REP. MURTHA: Mr. Dicks has one question.
REP. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask you about the C-17. This is an important program. And you know, as I understand it, we're coming to the end of it, but there's going to be some in the supplemental.
But there's another issue tied to this, I think. And that is the fact that Congress has kept some C-5s in service that should be shutdown. And I wanted to give you a chance to talk about that. I think our committee has supported you on this. I think the House Committee has supported you -- the House Armed Services Committee. But we simply -- we don't seem to be able to get this done.
And can you explain why it's so important? SEC. GATES: Well, there's a restriction. There are significant restrictions on our ability to retire the old C-5s. And there isn't -- there is -- we believe that the current -- that the mobility force that we originally -- that we sized a few years ago -- two or three years ago of 293 aircraft -- 180 C-17s and 112 C-5As -- would meet the needs for two simultaneous conventional conflicts, major conventional conflicts, three domestic disaster events here in the states and a number of lesser contingencies.
We now have 205 C-17s. It looks like we may be headed for a few more C-17s and we've still got 112 C-5As. This is more than the Air Force believes they need. And it goes back to what I said in my opening statement: Every dollar we spend on excess capability is a dollar we can't spend on something that the Air Force really does need. And so that's what our problem is.
And we have worked with the House. And our hope is that with the Armed Services Committee in the House -- and also, we're working with the Senate -- to try and get the restrictions that would allow us -- lifted us that would allow us to retire some of the C-5As and save some money in that respect.
REP. MURTHA: The time of the gentleman has expired.
We agree with you, Mr. Secretary.
And the committee adjourns until tomorrow at 10:00.