NGA: Intel Teams Key To GWOT Improvements

While the increase in troop numbers known as the surge has gotten much credit for the decline in combat and civilian deaths in Iraq one key component of the effort has been underplayed — the changed role of intelligence teams operating in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.

In an exclusive interview with DoDBuzz, the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, said his people are working in teams with DIA, NRO, FBI and other intelligence agencies in theater and those teams are providing improved actionable intelligence to troops.

For example, every brigade combat team has NGA and other intelligence community personnel embedded to provide analysis and information on a 24-hour basis.

“It’s those intelligence community interagency teams that are working hand in glove with the forces that we have deployed forward that are making a difference,” Murrett told me. While he was very cautious in discussing examples of just how those teams have operated, he offered two details: they are embedded with troops, often on the front lines; and the intelligence community teams have been a major factor in helping find IED caches.

One key component of this intelligence comes from commercial imagery. Since it is not classified NGA can supply that data much more quickly to front-line troops than it can provide classified imagery, Murrett said. “However, I would want to emphasize that, particularly when our military forces are involved, we derive the very best data we can from whatever source we can get it from,” he added. Often that means overlaying data from classified sources on to the commercial imagery, which requires that the whole package be classified.

Read the rest of this story and some more gouge on acquisition politics at DoD Buzz.

-- Colin Clark

DT/Buzz at Farnborough Next Week

DoD Buzz Editor Colin Clark will be representing us at the Farnborough International Air Show this year and I wanted to get a couple folks together to give readers an idea of what's going to be happening over there...what's hot, what's not and what you might not know to look for in that Granddaddy of all airshows.

So I interviewed DT contributors Steve Trimble of Flight International, Bob Cox from the Fort Worth Star Telegram and Colin to pick their brains on what to look for as we cover next week's events.

This is a first for me in presenting this podcast, so forgive any technical difficulties or audio snafus. We'll get better at it as we keep posting them.

Listen to the Farnborough Preview podcast

-- Christian

Live Interview with Colin Clark

Don't Miss Today's Interview with Colin Clark

Yeah, I know...it's the day before the July 4th holiday. A three-day weekend is just one whistle blow away.

But when you're killing time waiting for the 5 o'clock release, be sure to join us for a Defense Tech first: a live online interview with DoD Buzz Editor Colin Clark.

Tune in for a Defense Tech First

Okay folks, I have an idea...

In a first for Defense Tech, I'd like to set up an online, virtual interview with the new editor of our recently-launched sister site: DoD Buzz.

For 30 minutes, beginning at 1500 EDT July 3 we'll have a moderated chat session with Colin. He'll be able to answer your questions in real time and give you some deeper insight into his recent scoops, including the botched tanker deal, the flap over Wynne/Moseley/Gates and Schwartz, satellite launches and intelligence community intrigue.

Now, I know all you DT readers will be on your best behavior, but in case you're not, I'll be able to nix any inappropriate questions or comments. Seriously, I thought this would be a cool opportunity for you all to meet Colin and ping him on what's "Buzz"ing around DC in the defense and acquisition biz...And if this works well, I'll set up some more like it with defense officials, industry types and analysts.

So be sure to tune in here at 1500 (that's 3:00pm for you civilian types) tomorrow to chat with Colin catch the DoD Buzz live!

-- Christian

Gates Opposed AF Plans to Deploy F-22 to Iraq

The Air Force wanted to send the F-22 to the Middle East and Defense Secretary Robert Gates nixed the plans, citing the strategic danger from the deployment if it were misread by Iran, among other factors. This comes from a single usually reliable source with knowledge of Air Force policy and operations.

Then-Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne sent a memo to Gates last December in which he made the recommendation, as well as laying out several major arguments for Air Force budget requests for the F-22 and bomber research and development, according to our source.

Central Command had approved the deployment request and we understand several Arab governments were also supportive of the Air Force effort. The main opposition to the request, we hear, came from Ryan Henry, principal deputy to the undersecretary of Defense for policy, who worried that Iran would interpret the deployment of the country’s most capable fighter as a regional escalation at a time when rumors were sweeping the region that the US was planning strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The argument for deployment of the sophisticated fighter was that the US needed to take the lead in the air war in the region. Right now, the United Arab Emirates deploys the most sophisticated fighter in the region, using the F-16 Block 60 50. Sending the F-22 would have allowed the US to field the world’s top fighter and provide ISR and targeting capabilities that no US or allied plane in the region currently posseses.

Read the rest of this story and other killer acquisition content at our new site, DoD Buzz.

-- Colin Clark

Gates Reaches Out to Air Force, Again

Don't expect too many bear hugs, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to attend Friday's retirement ceremony for the man he pushed out the door, Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne.

The Pentagon, at least so far, isn't trumpeting Wynne's departure. It is trumpeting the retirement of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden - also known as the director of the CIA - who retires at 10 a.m. at Washington's Bolling Air Force Base. The administration had come in for some criticism for nominating a military officer to head the CIA and appears to have been sensitive to this issue. Gates will spend much of the day doing retirements since Wynne's ceremony begins at 1 p.m.

Combine Gates' attending Wynne's ceremony with his recent trips to the Air Force commands and it becomes very, very clear that the secretary knows he has fences to mend and is trying hard to limit the damage done by his firing of Wynne and Air Force Gen. Mike Moseley. Over the next few months we will get to see whether the new secretary (acting or confirmed by the Senate) and the new chief of staff can, as a congressional aide put it after the GAO tanker protest decision came out, be the miracle workers they must be.

-- Colin Clark

Huge Win For T-Sat Builders

One of the most important program decisions of this administration was made on Tuesday last week. After years of dithering, the Pentagon’s Deputy’s Advisory Working Group (known affectionately as the DAWG) approved Tier 2 -- the next stage of the Transformational Satellite Communications system.

For a program that had just been whacked by $4 billion over the fiscal 2009 Program Objective memorandum’s five years this is a remarkable achievement and is testament to the enduring need for enormous amounts of protected communication bandwidth. Lockheed Martin and Boeing executives, who just four months ago feared the program was headed for the trash heap of history, were elated. Lockheed partners with Northrop Grumman and Juniper Networks on the program. Boeing partners with Cisco and Hughes.

T-Sat, aside from providing the vaunted comms on the move capability, will provide something even more important – enough bandwidth for the Army’s future Combat System and other key joint systems to function. There are two separate T-Sat programs -- the ground segment and the satellite segment. The DAWG meeting approved going ahead with the satellites and the plan is to build five of them and one spare.

The June 10 decision came as quite a surprise to several industry players. One told us Thursday that their company “could not believe” that the Pentagon leaders had approved the program unanimously.

The DAWG’s action spells an end to several years of questions about whether to go with what many people have called T-Sat light, which would have been basically a fifth version of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite. Congressional staff had been leaning increasingly to such a solution to cover what they feared might be an 18-month gap in protected comms coverage as the old MILSTAR satellites began to fail.

The gap is no longer a concern, according to a senior Pentagon source, adding that launch is now set for 2018. This source says that the DAWG locked in the T-Sat requirements. Doing that basically means that this program – barring major technical or schedule screwups – is likely set for a long life.

-- Colin Clark

Pitfalls of the Tanker Protest

We don’t have any inside track on the Government Accountability Office’s decision this week about the Boeing protest of the airborne tanker contract award to Northrop Grumman, but here are some of the possible pitfalls no matter which way the GAO rules. (If you know something about the protest and want to tell us before it's officially released, email me at colin.clark@military-inc.com. No one will know where it came from.)

If the protest is denied, Boeing’s supporters in Congress are clearly prepared to try and make life as miserable for the Pentagon as possible. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a senior member on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and one of Boeing’s biggest boosters on the Hill, made it clear after Thursday’s meeting of the House Aerospace Caucus that he was working hand in glove with Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), dean of the defense subcommittee, to come up with creative ways to stymie Northrop. Although single members such as these can cause heartache and heartburn, I think the relative quiet of most senators (aside from the two Washington state lawmakers) on the issue indicates that – barring some pretty spectacular goof by the Air Force contracting folks – Northrop will probably get the contract through the appropriations and authorization processes

In addition to the congressional angle, there are enormous allied industrial cooperation issues at stake. The award of the contract to Northrop was seen as a bold and welcome move by the Air Force to include allied companies on truly major contracts.

Taking it away now – either through congressional action or by reopening the bid as a result of the protest decision – would be read as a slap in the face of NATO allies and raise questions about the viability of the United States as a defense industrial partner. As one defense analyst, who has been in the thick of the contract award process, told me this afternoon, any American attending the Farnborough Air Show in mid-July will need an armed guard should the Northrop-EADS team be denied the contract.

-- Colin Clark

Missile Defense on the Skids

It’s been an entire fiscal year since the Groundbased Midcourse [missile] Defense system underwent a flight test, a congressional aide told me this morning. That failure of the Missile Defense Agency to perform tests for an entire fiscal year has got both Republican and Democratic staff and lawmakers pretty warm under the collar. The congressional aide told me this morning that “we are troubled” because this appears to “be a sign of problems with management” at MDA.

The proximate cause of this unhappiness is the latest cancellation of a GMD test known as FTG-04, scheduled for July. The congressional aide says that a third tier supplier supplied a telemetry unit with an “improperly soldered motherboard.” Since MDA would not have been able to gather any data about the scheduled test – even if everything else worked as planned – the agency decided to cancel the scheduled test.

The Center for Defense Information’s Victoria Samson, who watches MDA like a hawk, sent me an analysis this morning saying that this latest goof “is alarming” because it appears to raise questions about the GMD interceptor’s reliability – not true, according to the congressional aide – and because “it has become one of many missile defense tests that have been called off…” That is absolutely true, said the congressional aide, who ticked off a list of GMD tests since 2001 – six hits; one miss; one no-test, two tests without interceptors.

Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, head of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., said this morning that it is true that there has not been enough realistic testing of GMD in terms of countermeasures and interceptors, but he added that he feels they are now on the right track. The congressional aide did not disagree with Campbell’s statement, but said MDA has not done “enough testing of the basic system, let alone countermeasures and interceptors.”

Campbell also mentioned at the breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that there is increasing recognition that much more “ammunition” needs to be bought for the THAAD and Aegis systems. The congressional aide said this came out of the Future Capabilities Mix study recently completed by the Joint Staff. Look for an amendment to be introduced in the Senate to restore some of the $400 million cut from MDA when the defense authorization bill is considered by the whole Senate, probably next week. The amendment will argue this money should be used to buy more missiles for these two systems.

-- Colin Clark

AF Problems Deep-seated, Says Senior Senator

A senior Senate lawmaker, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), told me this morning that he believes the Air Force suffers from “systemic problems” and must examine how it buys weapons, how it manages its forces and perhaps rebuild its long-term strategy in the face of today’s changing international situation.

Sessions a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and ranking member of its strategic forces subcommittee, said he and his colleagues aren’t certain how to proceed yet to fix the service.

Sessions did praise Gates for his actions in sacking Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne and Chief of Staff Mike Moseley, noting he had helped reestablish personal responsibility among senior leaders.

A congressional source, asked about the likelihood that Congress might undertake a probing look at the Air Force to try and figure out what must be done to rebuild the service said any action was unlikely before the election. Senior lawmakers are already being drawn into daily management of the campaign message wars. And senators such as Sessions, while eager to do the right thing, will find it difficult to muster support from their colleagues for a bipartisan effort such as this would require.

Sessions’ comments came the day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ made extraordinary visits -- well intentioned and well executed –to Air Force commands to deliver the message that he believes the service matters and has his support and to give service officials the chance to ask him questions face-to-face. One of the most interesting exchanges shed some bright light on just how much far apart are the secretary and the Air Force.

Gates, flying to Colorado Springs, Colo., told reporters that he took the opportunity of a “question about the F-22s to address the speculation that, in truth, these changes were due to disagreements over the F-22. And I said that that was not true, that in fact that issue had been settled for some weeks. And that I had essentially made the decision that we would allocate enough money to keep the production line open so that the next administration could decide on the balance between buying more F-22s and buying more joint-strike fighters. And I thought that that was a significant procurement decision that ought not be made in the last six or seven months of an administration.”

You can imagine how much the Air Force officers believed that, no matter how true it is. The gap is so wide that even gates’ spokesman, Geoff Morrell, felt compelled to tell reporters that “despite rumors: the F-22 issue “had nothing to do with the secretary's decision for a change of leadership in the Air Force.”
Gates briefly mentioned the acquisition side of the Air Force’s problems, noting that he is “figuring out how to get the modernization program back on track.” He gave the example of the tanker decision. “I mean, we're 10 years past when we should have started replacing the tanker fleet.”

Gates said that no one asked him about his recommendation of Gen. Norton Schwartz, leader of Transportation Command, as Air Force Chief of Staff. A reporter asked about the choice. “He's very process-oriented. I mean, the changes that he's made in TRANSCOM have been pretty dramatic in terms of how you manage all these priorities and the logistics of supporting the war in two theaters with limited capability… But I also liked his experience and mobility and jointness. He has a lot of joint experience. His whole command has been about how do you support all of the services. So that was important. And frankly, also, the Special Operations experience.”

-- Colin Clark

Hot HIre for Top Defense Lobby

If you see the man in the picture grab him and talk to him -- in a nice way and about the military. Fred Downey, military legislative aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), will be joining the Aerospace Industries Association as vice president of national security at the end of this month.It is refreshing to see the biggest defense industry lobby has made a very smart hire.
I’ve known Downey for about 10 years (though we didn’t talk much while I was covering space for the last four years). You can expect a wily and febrile mind that is committed to joint operations, that understands the possibilities and limits of transformation (or whatever we’re calling it since Rumsfeld so tarred the term) and has had one of the highest profile bosses on defense issues on the Hill and knows where to step and where to tread lightly.

Before joining Lieberman, Downey had one job that marked him for life – assistant to the man many reporters call the Yoda of the Pentagon, Andrew Marshall, head of the Office of Net Assessment.
Downey’s hire also appears to mark a return to a more traditional approach by AIA to defense and intelligence issues. It also should mark a return to greater stability at the group, which has gone through four national security bosses in less than six years.

The organization tried combining its highest profile issues – international affairs and defense – under a single person, Mark Esper, who was named executive vice president of defense and international affairs in April 2006. Esper made the decision one year ago to join something many of us can barely remember -- the presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson.

-- Colin Clark

DoD and DNI Battle Over Billions

Very quietly and out of sight of almost everyone but the actual players, the Director of National Intelligence's office and the Pentagon's head of acquisition are battling for the soul of the next-generation of reconnaissance satellites. A decision on this is likely this week, we understand. A draft "Statement of Guidance" is circulating, but it is classified so we cannot tell you what is in it.

The outcome of this struggle may well reshape the relationships between the military and the intelligence community, since the power to determine requirements largely determines what will be bought and how much it will cost - not to mention which company will most benefit.

In addition to the high intensity-low visibility battle between the intelligence community and the military, the future of two companies may depend on the decision: DigitalGlobe and GeoEye.

GeoEye plans an August launch of its high resolution reconnaissance satellite, GeoEye 1, which will be able to provide commercial customers and the national security establishment with better than half-meter resolution in full color. DigitalGlobe plans a launch of its WorldView2 satellite in late 2009.

Both companies need customers for the imagery. If they don't lock in the federal government as a major customer they may find it difficult to convince investors that they should stick with them. And both are spending substantial amounts of money to build these new satellites. And they haven't launched or deployed yet.

Lockheed Martin wants to build what has been termed the "exquisite" solution to this requirement and is reportedly pushing this. However, we understand from a senior intelligence source that Lockheed is unlikely to get this business in the next two to three years.

Let's look at where the major government players in this drama stand. The DNI's director of acquisition, Al Munson, reportedly wants GeoEye to get a contract for providing imagery. But he is being challenged and countered by Don Kerr, principal deputy director of National Intelligence. Kerr, whose last job was running the National Reconnaissance Office, wants to buy -- not lease -- the satellites to do this kind of work...

Read the rest of this story on Military.com's Warfighter's Forum page.

-- Colin Clark

Not Enough People to Man the Sinking Ship

The Pentagon's acquisition czar, John Young, is regarded pretty highly on Capitol Hill but he's got a tough sell when he tells lawmakers and reporters that the military is getting a handle on how well it buys the nation's weapons. See my story on military.com for the details.

After his testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, I asked Young if the acquisition system is broken, as might seem self-evident to those who look at the enormous increase of $295 billion in the acquisition costs of the 95 major defense acquisition programs over the last few years.

Young said he did not think the system was broken. He pointed to comments at the hearing by the Government Accountability Office's acquisition expert, Katherine Schinasi, who said the structure of the system was sound.

Then Young launched into a lament about the paucity of acquisition officials available to manage the growing number of large programs. He pointed to the enormously difficult process he faces in trying to hire mid-career people from industry to bolster the ranks of weapons buyers. Part of the difficulty the Pentagon faces, he made clear, is that there just aren't enough new ideas and improved processes moving back and forth between government and industry because of this lack of mid-career people.

To someone who has covered acquisition since 1996, much of what Young said had the ring of truth. At the same time he didn't answer the unasked question: if you don't have enough buyers, then why don't you ask Congress for permission and money to hire a whole bunch more.

Perhaps that will come next.

-- Colin Clark

Shakeup at OSD Acquisition Coming

Alert for those who sell and build the nation’s military and intelligence satellites. You know that space programs have been wallowing in hip-deep trouble for most of the last four years. Well, John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (in the picture), is trying to do something lasting about it by signing a memo by the end of the week creating a new director-level position – one of only seven in the department reporting directly to him – for space and intelligence capabilities.

My source says the position is being created because there just isn’t enough focus on space and intelligence programs (a lot of the big intel programs are space programs) at the OSD level. It will oversee not only satellites but the enormous and often underfunded ground systems they depend on.

Some of the responsibilities being placed in this new slot are coming from John Grimes’ office. He is assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration and his main job is to serve as principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for non-intelligence space and information superiority. But the position also ensures that intelligence data is as fused as possible and can be distributed. And he oversees DISA, which provides commercial and military satellite communications services.

A congressional aide who follows space and intelligence issues said the new position is “a good first step to try and reintegrate black and white space and strengthen the idea of an executive for space.” For those who don’t follow space acquisition closely, the executive agent for space is Mike Wynne, who also serves as Air Force Secretary. The executive agent is supposed to make sure that unclassified and classified space programs are run well and meets the nation’s needs. He is supposed to be the one-stop shop for most space acquisition and budget issues and is supported by the National Security Space Office. But the black and white sides of space have drifted pretty far apart over the last four years, with the NRO withdrawing its personnel and budgetary support about two years ago from the space office.

But the congressional aide does not think the black and white sides of space are going to be well integrated “during Bush because of issues” in the office of the Director of national Intelligence. But the new position “should help keep the need for a strong executive agent for space front and center.”

-- Colin Clark

Gen. Speakes: FCS Will Work And Helps Troops Now

The Army, unhappy that the House Armed Services Committee plans to cut $200 million from its top modernization program, plans a June 11 assault on the House side of the Capitol using elements of its Future Combat System. Relax! It’s a joke.

But the Army really does want to show the Hill just how effective FCS can be and how much it is beginning to produce capabilities soldiers use in Iraq now or in the near future. And it does plan a June 11 demonstration on the Hill.

Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, spoke Thursday afternoon with reporters and one of his first points was that the Army does have a “vision” when it comes to FCS. I asked Gen. Speakes how the Army is answering the HASC, which made a fairly compelling argument. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Service airland subcommittee, said he cut 5.5 percent of program funding “to reduce concurrency of network and manned ground vehicle development and reduce program management costs.” On top of that, the subcommittee shifted $33 million from “long-term portions of the program to near-term elements that have a chance of being fielded by 2011.” Abercrombie made it clear that technical reasons weren’t the only justification for the reduction. FCS, he said, “continues to operate in violation of many major Department of Defense acquisition policies, including the basic and long-standing policy requiring full and adequate testing of equipment before production begins.” If that sounds to you like the Democratic complaints about the Missile Defense Agency’s approach to acquisition, you win a Kewpie doll.

Gen. Speakes very respectfully offered this justification when I asked him how the Army is answering the House criticisms: “This is an integrated program. You can’t break it apart and still deliver the capabilities.” Also, Speakes said the service plans to show lawmakers just how much FCS is influencing the fight, citing the FRAG kit 5 armor used on Humvees, which he said is the “precursor” for FCS armor. The first version of the crucial FCS network, progress on which has been criticized by the Government Accountability Office in recent reports, is being tested at Fort Bliss. Most of all, Speakes said, “the pressure in on us to deliver and to make the capabilities we are talking about and make them real. We think we are answering that test.”

Speakes’ approach on all this may have been influenced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), ranking member of the airland subcommittee. In a recent blog about FCS, Saxton said the Army “needs to spend less time trying to save the FCS program; and more time explaining how soldiers want and need the capabilities that FCS brings to the fight.”

Speakes also addressed the challenge in Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s May 13 speech in Colorado, when he said the military must beware of planning to fight the next war and find itself unready for the current one.

He said that FCS, which he saw in action at Fort Bliss, “must continue to demonstrate its value for the types of irregular challenges we will face, as well as for full-spectrum warfare.” Speakes said FCS will be able to go anywhere and handle any fight. It is, for example, being modified to better cope with the threat from IEDs, he said.

We’ll see whether the House Democrats and Gates buy in. Reminder – the Senate Armed Services Committee fully funded the administration’s $3.6 billion request for FCS.

-- Colin Clark

The House Panel With No TIARA

One of the least understood “reforms” by the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership was its creation last year of a Select Intelligence Oversight Panel within the House Appropriations Committee.

In these days when the intelligence budget is one of the few still growing, this new panel is especially important. On top of that, it is considering one of the few big new classified satellite programs, known as BASIC, being considered by the Pentagon and the Director of National Intelligence.

So I wanted to make sure we all knew just what this panel actually does. We asked someone who works with the panel. First – and most important to those who know about the tremendous battles over money and power between the military and IC -- the panel oversees all intelligence activities and it does not matter whether the funding comes from the Military Intelligence Program budget or the National Intelligence Program budget. This makes the House panel, led by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) (that's him in the photo), the only single body in the House and Senate responsible for overseeing all intelligence funding. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee only oversees the National Intelligence Program, which mostly covers so-called strategic systems, such as the NRO’s radar satellites.

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee oversees both defense and intelligence spending. Traditionally, defense spending has trumped intelligence spending when it comes to the number of subcommittee staff involved and in terms of who gets what. In other words, if the Pentagon wants funding for an intelligence function and it’s a question of whether the military gets it or the CIA or DNI want it, the military is likely to get what it wants.

On top of being the only panel exclusively responsible for overseeing all intelligence spending, the panel makes annual recommendations to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee about classified defense appropriations. On top of that, the panel works with the senior leaders of the overall appropriations committee on all intelligence matters. So members and their staff can try to modify legislation at any point in the House’s lawmaking process, through to and including floor action.

Footnote – for those who grew up with the old triptych of national intelligence, the Joint Military Intelligence Program and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (known as TIARA), things have changed. Now there’s just national or military intelligence money. And that is being set in legislative stone in the pending intelligence authorization and spending bills.

-- Colin Clark

Stryker update, straight from Iraq

At the end of January, Christian posted some trenchant criticisms from troops in Iraq about the Stryker system, focusing on the 105 mm Mobile Gun System built by General Dynamics Corp. He cited a litany of problems, with probably the biggest being the tropical heat generated by the system.

I got an update from Col. Jon S. Lehr, commander of 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry. Lehr told reporters today that he has signed a two-page memo to the Army leadership saying the Stryker has some “warts but it is clearly a piece of equipment we need to keep.” He admitted the heat problem, noting that the temperature climbs to 130 degrees in the crew compartment. In addition, the coaxial machine gun has some “feeding problems.” But overall, the troops told him the system works, and, with improvements, should do a decent job.

Another system that Lehr’s units used was the ever-evolving Land Warrior. This one earned much higher marks from Lehr: “I think it’s a great piece of gear.” And he’s sent another memo to the Army leadership recommending that it be deployed throughout the Army. There are a “few warts, in particular the day optic system, which Lehr said actually made things worse for soldiers. They “got rid of that” and lightened the system’s weight – always a key factor in winning praise from always over-burdened troopers.
Perhaps most importantly for the system in the long run, Lehr said Land Warrior “integrates nicely to the mobile” data systems carried by things like tanks and Strykers.

As to how Kehr’s unit has fared during its deployment in Diyala Province, get a load of these stats:

220 high value targets captured
1,700 insurgents captured
500 insurgents killed
25,000 miles of roads cleared
2,100 IEDs cleared

Lehr's bottom line: “Overall, Diyala has seen a 70 percent reduction in violence over the last year.”

-- Colin Clark

House Jams Alt Engine Down Pentagon's Throat

The House Armed Services Committee has forcefully reminded the Pentagon that it has been ordered several times by law to build and fund a competing engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. To make sure the Pentagon gets the message, the House has added language authorizing an additional $526 million for 2009 to the program to pay for the second engine.

Taking aim at the heart of the Pentagon’s resistance, the House committee report accompanying the defense authorization bill, mentions the August 2007 and February 2008 test failures of Pratt and Whitney’s F-135, the main engine.

"These test failure events… cause the committee to remain steadfast in its belief that the non-financial factors of a two-engine competitive program such as better engine performance, improved contractor responsiveness, a more robust industrial base, increased engine reliability and improved operational readiness strongly favor continuing the competitive propulsion system program," the committee report says.

It adds a nice bit of tough love, saying that "the committee strongly urges the Department of Defense to comply with the spirit and intent of section 213 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181) by including the funds necessary for continued development and procurement of a competitive JSF propulsion system in its fiscal year 2010 budget request." For those who may not remember, the administration did not request any money for a second engine program in its 2009 request.

In addition to its forceful language, the House upped the ante over the Senate’s version of the bill. The Senate only boosted the spending by $35.0 million for long lead items for the F-136, being built by a team of General Electric and Rolls Royce. Let’s see what position the appropriators take on this one.

-- Colin Clark

Top Congressional Money Man Dismisses Gates Heritage Speech

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Congress and the Pentagon to keep their eyes on the ball, namely the war we are fighting now, instead of the war we might face later, maybe.

It sounded rational and, perhaps, even seemed a sound reminder that the nation can't spend everything it might want to spend on the military.

Gates' message was heard loud and clear on the Hill. Today, the top defense appropriator -- read money man -- in the House of Representatives boldly stepped in front of the nation (also known as the floor of the House) and said Gates' speech was "simply a rationalization of short-term budget decisions made in the waning months of this Administration. Now when Rep. John Murtha, (D-Penn.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says something like this, you can bet he has a larger point to deliver. And he did. Murtha said the administration is effectively waging a war without a strategy to guide it.

"We need a National Security Strategy to identify both the near-term and long-term threats to this country. We need a vigorous debate to achieve this strategy -- this hasn't happened since the Cold War," Murtha said. Then he sent a zinger that must have sent some shock waves through intelligence community budgeters: "This country spends more money on intelligence than all the nations of the world combined, and as I've observed our intelligence is about as accurate as Punxsutawney Phil -- 50 percent. 50 percent is unacceptable." Perhaps Murtha has his eyes set on at least one major cut to an IC program.

But in the longer term, Murtha said, "It is time to look beyond Iraq and focus on future threats." To that end, he claimed the emergency supplemental spending bill being introduced on the House floor "provides our military with equipment that will prepare them to face future threats under any scenario; not only to fight a war, but to prevent a war." Then he listed some of the bigger ticket items in the supplemental, including:

$3.6 billion to procure 15 C-17 aircraft
$2.5 billion to procure 34 C-130 aircraft
$750 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment
$1.5 billion for Humvees
$3 billion for Medium and Heavy Tactical Trucks
$500 million for Army and Marine Corps Facility Maintenance and Repairs (including the barracks that need repairs)
$300 million for facility maintenance and repairs at military medical facilities
$570 million for treatment and research activities within the Defense Health Program.

-- Colin Clark

Committee Maneuvers

Nothing is official yet but Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), may throw his hat in the ring to become ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, responsible for overseeing space, missile defense and nuclear weapons programs.
Two senior Pentagon officials have asked Franks to make the try.

After all, the Arizona conservative may be the GOP’s most outspoken missile defense advocate remaining in the House after the election. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), former presidential candidate and the departing ranking member of the whole committee, Jim Saxton (R-NJ), current ranking member of the powerful airland subcommittee, and Terry Everett (R-Ala.), current ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, all plan to leave the House at the end of the year.

The ranks of missile defense advocates will be further reduced by the departure of Democrat Bud Cramer of Alabama, who is one of the few Democrats on the committee who has consistently fought for missile defense funding.

Franks told me yesterday morning at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that he hasn’t made up his mind about running for the subcommittee spot. He conceded that he might be interested.

-- Colin Clark

NRO Loses Decision Powers on Hush-Hush Program

Even the once-vaunted National Reconnaissance Office, builder of America’s spy satellites, is having serious trouble managing the enormously complex and expensive satellite programs under its wing.

I’ve confirmed that, for the second time since early March, the NRO has been stripped of Milestone Decision Authority on a program -- the power to decide whether a program can progress from one stage of a program to the next stage. The program is so highly classified that we can’t discuss its name or what it does. The confirmation came from a former senior intelligence official.

In early March I broke the story that the NRO had had decision authority withheld by senior intelligence and defense officials about a new program called BASIC, or Broad Area Satellite Imagery Collection. Questions were raised in the Pentagon, by industry and Congress about whether BASIC would violate the Bush Administration’s national space policy directing the military and intelligence community to rely on commercial satellites for general mapping purposes. There were also serious concerns raised about whether the NRO could, on a broader basis, successfully execute the program.

At the time, DNI and NRO officials were careful to note that milestone decision authorities are reviewed every year for all intelligence agencies. But sources in the intelligence community made it clear to me then that the NRO has stumbled badly in recent years and needed the sort of close program supervision that the NSA and Air Force have been subject to for the last few years.

The Pentagon stripped the Air Force of decision authority for space and several other programs in March 2005 by Michael Wynne, who was then the Pentagon's acting acquisition czar. That authority was restored for several non-space programs in January 2006 but the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technloogy and logistics, John Young, still retains that authority for unclassfied space programs.

-- Colin Clark

Roles and Missions Review Underway

It was 1994 when the Pentagon last engaged in a seminal examination of what it does, how it does it and why. In Pentagon-speak these issues are known in a neat shorthand as "roles and missions."

At a Pentagon briefing today, two senior defense officials discussed how they will approach the new roles and missions work, outlining the seven main areas of focus. The one issue Congress told the Pentagon to study is whether there are unnecessary duplications of capabilities among and between the four services and other arms of the Pentagon. In addition, the officials told reporters that unmanned aircraft systems, intra-theater lift, cyber war, irregular warfare, Pentagon governance issues, and DoD’s roles and missions in the interagency world.

Note that a senior defense official said that the analysis will be done within existing budget constraints. A senior military officer said that the combatant commanders will have a great deal of input during this effort because the department is looking at how the services and other agencies can “work better together” rather than as a food fight between services for resources and responsibilities. For example, Strategic Command will be a key player in the analysis done about cyber warfare and Special Operations Command will play a major role in the look at irregular warfare.

One of the sleeper areas may turn out to be the look at interagency roles. The senior defense official said the military has learned a great deal about how effectively it works with the other parts of the government since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, noting that the current structure was developed during the Cold War and may need changing.

Congress ordered the Pentagon to do this roles and missions analysis in its 2008 Defense Authorization Act. In addition to the long-standing Quadrennial Defense Review, Congress said that the military should analyze its roles and missions in time for the 2010 budget submission. That would bring it in about a year before the next QDR. Henceforth, the military will perform a roles and missions analysis before each QDR.

The last stab at this sort of thing was the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces. The commission took a year to deliver its final report, “Directions for Defense,” to the nation, issuing it in May 1995.

-- Colin Clark

It Takes More than Photos to get a 'Smoking Gun'

If you're old enough, the pictures of Soviet ICBM missiles presented to the United Nations during the Cuban missile crisis left an indelible mark in your cortex.

US Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, placed a series of photos on an easel to answer Soviet charges that the US had no proof that the Soviets had placed missiles in the island state and that the Soviets were just helping Cuba develop.

Stevenson told the Soviets that, "we do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and it is incontrovertible." And it was. The first pictures were of an area north of the village of Candelaria, southwest of Havana. The first photograph was taken in late August 1962 and it simply showed undeveloped countryside. The next picture showed a few tents and vehicles and several new roads. The next picture, taken 24 hours later, revealed tents for up to 500 men and seven ICBM missile trailers. But the jackpot wasn't hit until mid-October when a U-2 aircraft photographed the area of San Cristobal.

"In only six minutes, US Air Force Maj. Richard Heyser snapped 928 photographs that yielded the first confirmation of offensive missiles in Cuba," according to "Soviet Deception in the Cuban Missile Crisis," an April 2007 article by James Hansen, who served in both CIA and DIA.

The Soviets had lied about the presence of missiles just 90 miles from the US mainland and they had been caught at it. This was probably the first time that Americans were exposed publicly to the art and science of what intelligence types call change detection. But it turns out that what has become one of the touchstones of the fabulous capabilities of spies in the skies -- also known as high-flying planes such as the U-2 and satellites -- was not quite as seminal as it seemed at the time.

Many argued that the pictures were proof of the superiority of what became known during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) as "national technical means."

But, at an April 28 conference held at Georgetown University to celebrate the donation to the university of a lot of personal papers and recently declassified files from former CIA Director Richard Helms, that conventional wisdom was dealt a death blow.

Bud Wheelon, the CIA's first deputy director for science and technology, said that the agency knew about the missiles from other, more prosaic sources beforehand. In fact, human sources in Cuba had obtained detailed information about the Cuban bombers and missiles, Wheelon told me this week.

The first solid information was obtained Sept. 17, he said, from agents on the ground. Using that and other information, the US flew the U-2 and other planes over Cuba to get confirmation and to provide the world with undeniable proof that did not compromise intelligence sources and methods. After all, the Cubans and Soviets knew about the U-2s and other planes because they shot at them. We understand that at least one senior intelligence official -- long since retired -- was secretly awarded one of the CIA's highest honors for the spying done on the ground in Cuba. Senior intelligence officials, including Wheelon and CIA Director John McCone, knew about the intelligence from the agent and believed it. But the intelligence community did not.

A National Intelligence Estimate dated Sept. 19, 1962 concluded the Soviets were unlikely to try and install missiles in Cuba.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a Soviet submarine base there. As between these two, the establishment of a submarine base would be the more likely. Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it," the estimate concluded.

Not the first time they goofed. And it won't be the last. But that is the nature of intelligence. It is the analysis of uncertain information and yields insights that are often wrong. But remember that the U-2 was built. Remember that agent working in Cuba.

And remember those 928 photographs. The process wasn't perfect. But war was averted.

-- Colin Clark

Prompt Global Strike Not Quite There Yet

Another promising weapon. Another worrying gaggle of mixed directions, uncertain focus and a lack of strategy.

That's the story of Prompt Global Strike, touted as the answer to one of the country's most vexing problems -- how to take out high-value targets far behind the lines and way beyond line of sight with accuracy and great speed. The Government Accountability Office looked at the Pentagon's stop-and-go efforts on this critical capability in a report released yesterday. The report was requested by three stalwart supporters of PGS, Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) , chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Terry Everett (R-Ala.), ranking member of the subcommittee, and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), formerly a senior member of the subcommittee and now chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The GAO told them there is no official DoD definition of global strike. The different combatant commanders support different approaches. Global strike does not figure in "any existing or proposed joint doctrine publications." Regional commanders and service officials believe that the Strategic Command -- lead proponent for the capabality -- needs to work with them more "to mitigate any misconceptions commands may have about global strike, particularly in light of frequent staff turnover." Those who would use the capability "have not widely participated in joint exercises and other training, which can increase their understanding of global strike." Correcting these would help the Pentagon better plan and develop a system and how to use it, the report says.

Plus the Pentagon needs to conduct a comprehensive assessment of possible systems because it "has not yet begun to develop a prioritized investment strategy," so it doesn't know what choices to make. From past conversations with staff and with intelligence officials it's clear that one of the biggest hurdles for Prompt Global Strike isn't the weapon itself -- though that ain't simple -- it's having the intelligence and a way to link the intelligence with the weapon system. After all, this approach is meant to come up with something that can kill someone or take out a WMD facility pretty much anywhere in the world within half an hour. Perhaps DoD could use that definition and get started?

UPDATE: One congressional aide told me: "Global strike, particularly long-range conventional prompt global strike, hasn’t come very far since its inception in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. One of the reasons is that the Administration’s preferred approach –- Conventional Trident Modification -- was a non-starter with a majority of congress. It took DoD a number of years before this fact set in. There now appears to be consensus in Congress for this type of capability; it will be up to the next administration to put forth a technically and operationally viable concept that is also politically acceptable."

-- Colin Clark

First Chop on DoD Authorization Markup

The Senate's draft version of the 2009 defense authorization bill creates new steering boards to review requirements for major weapons systems, targeting one of the main causes of cost growth in weapons systems.

We're still trying to get some details on exactly what the Senate Armed Services Committee means by this, but it sounds as if Congress has finally - after years and years of grumbling from experts and from congressional staff about this - gotten the message that requirements really do matter a great deal and that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and its attendant parts really don't work very well.

There are two big increases approved for weapons systems: $430 million in research and development and $35 million in advance procurement for the Joint Strike Fighter program to support the GE/Rolls Royce F136 engine program.; and $350 million for the Transformational Satellite Communications systems known as T-Sat.

Neither add is a shocker. After all, Congress told the Air Force in 1996 to create an alternative engine program for the JSF. Of course, DoD has tried to whack the funding for three years in a row, eager to move the money to other programs, and the Hill has not so gently reminded the military of the benefits of engine competitions.

We understand that, while the Senate authorizers approved this money, their colleagues who appropriate the funds have not yet looked at the T-Sat issue in detail, busy as they are with the looming supplemental spending bill.

The T-Sat increase isn't a great surprise since the key congressional staff dealing with space issues were extremely unhappy with the Air Force for cutting the size of the program's request last year and then virtually gutting the effort in this year's budget request - slicing $4 billion from it over the six years of the 2009 budget request. Those cuts came just when congressional watching this had decided the high-speed communications system was on the right track after years of pushing for more funding than its immature technologies could really sustain.

Lockheed Martin and Boeing are competing for the prime contract on this system.

Two snarky observations on the Senate markup. First, the Senate rarely moves first on a bill but the House Armed Services Committee won't get to its markup til next Wednesday. Second, we applaud the generous but futile effort of Sen. Claire McCaskill to open the Senate committee's work to public purview.

"It is my firm and simple belief that we make better laws when we do our work fully open and transparent to the public. The public deserves to know what our views and our actions are and to be able to freely scrutinize, support or oppose them," McCaskill said Tuesday.

When you talk to Senate aides they usually tell you that their bosses don't want to have to deal with a lot of lobbyists hassling them about details in the draft bill if it were open to the public. Of course, many of those lobbyists have already had their chop, since they get better access than most members of the public. (Sure, we're jealous…) The official reason offered by the committee is that closed session allows them to discuss classified issues at any time.

"It doesn't make sense to close the hearing when we are working on a section of the defense bill that doesn't contain any classified information," McCaskill said. "There's no reason why the committee can't just close the parts of the meetings that do contain sensitive information and open the rest."

More on the Senate markup as we get details from staff through the week.

-- Colin Clark