The Insider

Ashton Carter, President Obama's pick to succeed John Young as the Pentagon's top acquisition official, has been put on the docket for a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee next week.

Carter won't be alone. Here are the details:

Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 9:30 a.m.

To consider the nominations of:

Dr. Ashton B. Carter to be Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics;

Dr. James N. Miller, Jr. to be Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and

Ambassador Alexander R. Vershbow to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

The Pentagon yesterday released the transcript of a March 10 interview Defense Secretary Robert Gates did with National Public Radio's Robert Siegel. The transcript includes a portion that was not aired, which touches on the Pentagon's two-war concept and the Quadrennial Defense Review:

SIEGEL: There have been debates in Washington for forever over whether we are capable of waging two wars at one time, whether we have a military large enough for that, having inherited this situation when we were at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. What's the lesson, is two wars at once perhaps biting off more than we can effectively chew even if we're willing to spend a trillion dollars at it?

GATES: Our military planning for a number of years has - and I would say going back at least 20 years - has been to have the ability to fight two major combat operations simultaneously. One where it would be an aggressive effort and another where you might have to hold for a while and then finish the job. I think one of the central questions that this department will face in the Quadrennial Defense Review, which will begin shortly, is whether that model makes any sense in the 21st century and whether what may have fit in a Cold War environment or an immediately post-Cold War environment really has application to today's world.

SIEGEL: And the experience of the past few years suggests some rethinking is need there in terms of what our doctrines are?

GATES: I think so.

InsideDefense.com's Jason Sherman reported that same day that Gates plans to summon the military's top brass from around the world to the Pentagon at the end of this month to unveil changes to the fiscal year 2010 budget request, kick off the QDR and roll out a new force-planning construct:

Gates plans to call a special meeting of the Defense Senior Leaders Conference (DSLC) -- a group that includes the 10 combatant commanders, the service chiefs and civilian Pentagon leaders -- to outline his plan for a “strategic reshaping” of the military, these officials say. That reshaping is expected to include some major changes to the Pentagon’s weapons portfolio.

The revision of the FY-10 Pentagon budget request -- which is expected to include cuts to major weapon system programs and possible terminations -- is being viewed as an unofficial prelude to the Quadrennial Defense Review.

“The budget drill is ((a)) major portion of the QDR,” said a Pentagon official. “The decisions made in the FY-10 budget drill are the foundation of anything else that we’re going to look at.” . . .

The terms of reference for the QDR -- the guidance that sets the scope of the review and the process for its execution -- is expected to be presented at the end-of-March meeting as well, sources say. On Jan. 27, Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he hoped to formally begin the QDR -- a congressionally mandated review of the entire U.S. military enterprise that is supposed to yield a new modernization blueprint -- in February.

In addition to beginning the QDR at the end of this month, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is expected at the DSLC meeting to offer a new force-planning construct, which has wide-ranging implications for the entire U.S. defense enterprise. It forms a core justification for the composition of the U.S. armed forces as well as the number -- and types -- of ships, aircraft, trucks and tanks the services require.

The current force planning construct calls for the U.S. military to have the capabilities to deal with contingencies across a wide range of scenarios that are organized into three areas: homeland defense; irregular warfare; and conventional operations. The construct calls for the military to be able to conduct both steady-state and surge operations across these three areas and maintain the ability to conduct two nearly simultaneous major wars.

The Defense Department will likely miss a congressionally mandated deadline to identify all its underwater chemical and conventional munitions dump sites around U.S. coastlines due to budget constraints, Stuart Parker from sister publication Defense Environment Alert reports today.

An Army munitions cleanup expert told state waste officials earlier this month that the inventory is the first step in addressing underwater weapons remediation -- an issue for which a long-term national strategy still must be developed, DEA reports. In addition:

J.C. King, an Army munitions cleanup specialist, told the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials March 5 that the inventory work, which relies on archival research, is falling behind schedule because of budget shortfalls. “Neither Army or Navy currently has the funds required for this research, although both are doing research,” an Army source confirms.

Federal defense authorization law requires that DOD produce a final report on the position of all known munitions dumps at sea by the end of fiscal 2009. King said that to meet this requirement, the Army and Navy are taking an inventory of sites in an effort to list them in DOD’s 2010 annual environmental report to Congress. But “we are not going to make that, especially for conventional weapons,” he warned.

The Army is asking the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) for an additional $1 million to complete the work on time, but without it the Army will probably have to ask for a deadline extension, the Army source says. The source adds that OSD is aware of the problem.

The military is facing key questions over where to go in terms of cleanup once the sites are identified. King said that development of a long-term national strategy for underwater weapons remediation is essential, noting that over time, the munitions will degrade and may discharge their contents into the water and sediments on the seabed. Devising such a strategy would involve talks with EPA, King said. At the same time, he called for a “risk-based” approach, weighing the risks of disturbing munitions for cleanup with leaving them alone.

A spokesman for Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), one of the chief architects of the reporting requirement, says that the delay in completing the inventory is more than a nuisance, “as it raises questions of public health. Those timeframes for reporting are put there for a reason, not to be ignored, not to be unilaterally changed.” The spokesman was previously unaware of the delay, and would not comment further on what action Abercrombie may take in relation to it. . . .

Next Monday the Missile Defense Agency will open its seventh annual conference at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. The conference runs through March 25. Two longtime critics of the agency's testing plans will serve as bookends on the opening day's agenda: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is scheduled to give the conference's keynote address at 10 a.m, while Phil Coyle, the former director of the Pentagon's independent testing office, is scheduled to speak at 3:40 in the afternoon. According to an agenda provided to us by MDA, Coyle's topic is “Missile Defense testing -- A Critic's View.”

Coyle was on Capitol Hill last month testifying before the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), the subcommittee's chairwoman, will speak at 11:30. Her topic: “Missile Defense Budget/Political Concerns in Congress."

Coyle was blunt in his view of MDA's testing program during the Feb. 25 hearing:

For missile defense, the most challenging technical obstacles are dealing with enemy attacks of two or more missiles with decoys and countermeasures that cab defeat missile defense. So far the testing programs have kicked that can down the road.

He also claimed “a troublesome lack of clarity” in the public discussions of the rationale for and the technical progress made toward an effective U.S. missile defense system, adding:

Quite simply, the public statements made by Pentagon officials and contractors have often been at variance with the facts at hand. It is difficult to separate programmatic spin from genuine progress. In particular, the missile defense program has made claims that have not been demonstrated through realistic testing.

Other speakers during the first day include Gen. Victor Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command; Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, MDA's director; Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, the commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Command; and Peter Verga, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy.

A much-anticipated House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee hearing on the Future Combat Systems program -- scheduled for 3 p.m. today -- has been postponed.

The two Army witnesses -- Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson, military deputy to the Army acquisition executive, and Maj. Gen. John Bartley, program manager for FCS -- were already on Capitol Hill when word came down on the last-minute cancellation, attributed to illness on the part of subcommittee Chairman Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI).

The hearing was set to include the two Army generals as well as representatives from the Government Accountability Office, which last week released a deeply critical assessment of the program.

No new date has been chosen for the hearing.

The White House today announced the nomination of Rose Gottemoeller for the position of assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance.

"Turning the tide on the threat of nuclear weapons and strengthening the international non-proliferation regime is one of the great and urgent challenges of our time," President Obama said in a statement. "Rose Gottemoeller’s extraordinary commitment and expertise make her a valuable addition to the State Department and my national security team as we renew American diplomacy to create a more secure world."

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Karin Look has run the office in an acting capacity since former verification and compliance bureau chief Paula DeSutter left, according to the State Department.

Gottemoeller is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment; before that, she served as deputy under secretary for defense nuclear non-proliferation in the Energy Department.

According to a State Department fact sheet:

The ((Verification and Compliance)) Bureau's core missions are to ensure that appropriate verification requirements and capabilities are fully considered and properly integrated throughout the development, negotiation, and implementation of arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements and commitments and to ensure that other countries' compliance is carefully watched, rigorously assessed, appropriately reported, and resolutely enforced. In this regard, the Bureau is responsible for preparing the President's annual report to Congress on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments. The Bureau is further required to prepare verifiability assessments on proposals and agreements, and to report these to Congress, as required. The Bureau also prepares the President's semi-annual Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Report to Congress, which identifies entities that engage in the transfer of controlled items to and from Iran, North Korea, and Syria and authorizes the imposition of sanctions against these entities.

The Levin-McCain acquisition reform bill still has Pentagon officials busy assessing the legislation's potential implications, we're told. The bill's proposed moves in the areas of cost estimating and developmental test and evaluation are generating the most resistance at the Pentagon, according to sources.

Meanwhile, some defense officials said they are under the assumption that senators will include the bill as an amendment in the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization legislation.

According to Levin spokeswoman Tara Andringa, the way ahead for the legislation is still up in the air. "Sen. Levin has said he has not decided yet whether to mark it up separately or to include it in the NDAA," she wrote in an e-mail yesterday.