Saturday, December 7, 2024
Key Issues MQ-25 Stingray USSF pLEO spending cap JLTV funding
Though senior Defense Department officials have repeatedly said the DOD goal for science and technology funding is 3 percent of the annual Pentagon budget, DOD projects the S&T share of funding will decline every year through 2007, according to officials and documents.
The Office of Management and Budget yesterday praised the overall thrust of the $27 billion fiscal year 2002 anti-terrorism supplemental as passed by the House Appropriations Committee, but harshly criticized provisions that would alter funding or restrict executive branch action -- especially pertaining to the Army's Crusader artillery system.
State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator Francis X. Taylor said at a briefing today that roughly 1,600 al Qaeda suspects have been arrested in 95 countries since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon last September.
Several issues remain unresolved in the nuclear weapons agreement President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin expect to sign next week, including how to secure tactical nuclear weapons and what transparency measures are needed to verify the security of stored weapons, prominent arms control advocates said yesterday.
The General Accounting Office last week informed congressional authorizers that the Energy Department has failed to establish a pilot program to improve technology sharing between the national nuclear weapons labs and the private sector despite being directed to do so in the fiscal year 2001 defense authorization act.
Seeking greater clarification of the Bush administration's nuclear weapons strategy, Democratic authorizers offered a series of amendments to the House Rules Committee today designed to force explanations of White House plans to store, design and test nuclear weapons.
COLLEGE PARK, MD -- Tom Ridge's Office of Homeland Security expects to have its national homeland defense strategy ready for review by President Bush in early July, Richard Falkenrath, OHS senior director for policy and plans, said here yesterday.
Navy installations crumbling after years of neglect are causing "unacceptable risks" to personnel and equipment, the Defense Department asserts in a previously unpublicized annex to a report sent to Congress last month.
The deterrence value of intercontinental ballistic missiles continues to rise as the overall number of U.S. nuclear weapons comes down, defense officials and analysts say, because the ICBMs prevent an adversary from being able to "decapitate" the U.S. nuclear force with a preemptive strike.
House Armed Services research and development subcommittee members met today with Army Maj. Gen. Peter Franklin, Missile Defense Agency deputy director, to determine if proposed new congressional reporting requirements would place an undue burden on the agency, congressional officials say.
Pentagon officials are studying a group of eight targeting enhancements that could be developed together to improve the speed and accuracy of guided weapons, defense officials say.
The Air Force has no plan in place to remove additional warheads from Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, a reflection of Defense Department efforts to keep open all options for sizing the future nuclear force, a senior service official said this week.
The Pentagon plans to establish a Defense Spectrum Office to better address the increasing demands on Defense Department bandwidth, senior DOD officials told a House panel today.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday he is negotiating a memorandum of understanding with federal agencies to ensure that military personnel are not assigned indefinitely to non-defense jobs.
The Defense Department today unveiled an updated Unified Command Plan that shifts homeland defense responsibilities previously spread across DOD to the new U.S. Northern Command that will stand up Oct. 1, most likely at Peterson Air Force Base, CO.
The Defense Department is using a two-pronged approach to improve radar coverage of North America by linking existing radars in conjunction with other agencies while simultaneously developing a road map for a future air defense architecture, according to defense and government officials.
The Defense Department wasted about $27 million implementing a problematic health care monitoring system that was subsequently discontinued in favor of another system, but the Pentagon recognizes the problems and has plans to avoid a repeat experience, the DOD inspector general's office asserts in a report released today.
The United States should design interoperability into its weapons systems so it can more easily fight alongside its NATO partners even if European capabilities are less sophisticated, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said today.
Senior defense officials told a Senate panel today that plans to create a U.S. Northern Command responsible for protecting the homeland are well along, and a "seamless" shift of homeland defense capabilities is expected once NORTHCOM is established.
The Air Force has determined what caused two F-15Cs to crash into a Scottish mountain a year ago this week, but will not release the findings until a Royal Air Force air traffic controller is court-martialed for alleged "criminal negligence," according to U.S. and RAF officials.