The Insider

Pentagon acquisition chief Asthon Carter this week vowed to bring improvements to the area of contingency contracting, which has seen unprecedented activity since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.

"It is a fact of life that for every soldier we field, approximately one contractor also joins the effort," Carter said at a conference sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Missteps of the past eight years, which have included overcharges to the government and lax oversight over venders, were partly caused by the fact that officials kept thinking contractors' heavy involvement in U.S. military operations would be a short-lived phenomenon, Carter said.

President Obama this week nominated Katherine Hammack to become the Army's assistant secretary for installations and environment.

According to Hammack's bio, as released by the White House:

Katherine G. Hammack has more than 25 years of experience as an energy and sustainability professional with private industry. Currently she is a leader in Ernst & Young’s (EY’s) Climate Change and Sustainability Services, an international professional services firm. At EY she has focused on the evaluation of energy conservation projects, green buildings, energy efficiency strategies, demand side management programs, and marketing electricity in deregulated markets. In that capacity she worked with clients to obtain Energy Star or LEED certification for their new construction or existing buildings. Katherine was the key LEED advisor on the world’s largest LEED-NC certified project (8.3 million square feet). Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Katherine was a marketing manager for a large electric utility, focused on services for architects and engineers. Katherine is a founding member of US Green Building Council in Washington, D.C. She was a consultant to the White House on the "Greening" of the White House and Executive Office Building where she led the group focused on Indoor Environmental Quality issues. Ms. Hammack has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oregon State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Hartford. She is a Certified Energy Manager and LEED Accredited Professional.

The Defense Department is starting 2010 with vacancies in 21 of its top appointed positions, including acquisition posts charged with overseeing multibillion-dollar weapons programs, Inside the Pentagon reported earlier this month, with Hammack's position being one of them:

Of the 54 DOD positions that require presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate, 39 percent are vacant, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk.

Eleven of the vacancies have nominees awaiting Senate confirmation, but the White House has yet to issue nominations for the other 10.

Frank Kendall, who would be the Pentagon’s No. 2 acquisition official under DOD acquisition chief Ashton Carter, is one of the nominees awaiting Senate confirmation. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is holding up Kendall’s confirmation, according to published reports. Also, the White House has not announced a nominee for assistant secretary of defense for acquisition, a post formerly known as deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and technology.

Of the three military departments, only the Navy has an acquisition executive in place. Sean Stackley, a holdover from the Bush administration, continues to serve in that post. But Malcolm O’Neill, the nominee for the Army’s top acquisition job, is awaiting Senate confirmation. And the White House has not yet nominated anyone to be the Air Force’s acquisition chief.

House Armed Services Committee Democrats today elected Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) to chair the panel's air and land forces subcommittee and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) to head the terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities subcommittee.

Smith takes the place of Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), who retired from the panel, and Sanchez will take Smith's place.

"I am confident that Congressman Smith and Congresswoman Sanchez will continue to serve our committee and our country well as they take on these new leadership responsibilities. I look forward to working with them in their new roles as the House Armed Services Committee begins work on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011," committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) said in a statement, adding:

I want to express my gratitude to Congressman Neil Abercrombie for serving Hawaii and our country for more than 19 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. On the House Armed Services Committee, Neil's hallmark has been making sure our troops have the equipment they need to protect our country and stay safe. His leadership helped prompt the Pentagon to speed up the delivery of life-saving body armor and ((Mine Resistant Ambush Protected)) vehicles to our forces on the frontlines. I have been honored to serve with Neil, and I will greatly miss his wise counsel, his good humor, and his loyal friendship. I know Congressman Abercrombie will continue to be a forceful and effective advocate on behalf of Hawaii's needs and interests.

The Reserve Officers Association today announced that its legislative agenda for 2010 will focus on maintaining the operational capabilities of the reserve component by fully funding equipment and training accounts.

"The agenda includes provisions to support Active and Reserve end-strengths that support mission requirements, and to adequately equip forces through regeneration and improved tracking of equipment," the ROA's announcement reads. "In addition, the agenda establishes the need to fully fund a minimum of 48 paid drill periods and two weeks of paid training per year."

ROA will also promote policies intended to improve recruitment and retention efforts within the Guard and Reserve and seek better continuity of health care coverage, the announcement states.

It notes that agenda items are "member-driven, organized by ROA’s legislative director, and acted on by the staff and grass roots initiatives."

The military command keeping an eye on events like last week's Chinese missile defense test says the incident has left no measurable debris floating around in orbit.

As of Friday last week, officials were "not tracking" any debris as a result of the test, a U.S. Strategic Command spokesman told us today. The spokesman said there was debris in space immediately after the event, but the parts entered the Earth's atmosphere within 10 minutes.

In a widely reported statement following the Jan. 11 test, a Pentagon spokeswoman said military officials "detected two geographically separated missile launch events with an exoatmospheric collision also being observed by space-based sensors."

As the Pentagon prepares to unveil its fiscal year 2011 budget request the first week of February, a new analysis of defense spending over the last three decades concludes the Obama administration's forthcoming military spending request “locks into place (an) unprecedented rise in defense spending -- 90 percent -- that began in the late 1990s, consolidating a return to Reagan-ear budget levels.”

Based on spending forecasts the White House detailed in May, the Project on Defense Alternatives calculates the Obama administration will allocate $5 trillion to military spending between fiscal years 2010 and 2017, “assuming it stays its current course” and the president is elected to a second term.

Indeed, by a substantial margin, it would represent the greatest amount allotted the Pentagon in any eight years since 1946 -- a period encompassing the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars.

The 61-page report is titled "An Undisciplined Defense: Understanding the $2 Trillion Surge in U.S. Defense Spending."

With the Obama administration planning on submitting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification before the end of this year, more than one think tank has begun to examine the pact's pros and cons.

The EastWest Institute today released a report calling for a fresh U.S. debate on the CTBT, calling the pact "a critical step that will reflect the U.S. commitment to nuclear nonproliferation." According to an institute statement:

The report, The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: New Technology, New Prospects?, is the result of discussions between a bipartisan group of 30 technical and policy experts about Senate ratification of the CTBT in light of recent technological advances. The CTBT is unanimously considered a key component of the global nonproliferation regime. The U.S. Senate rejected it in 1999, in part because of concerns that it would not ensure compliance by other states and that it would prevent the U.S. from maintaining the safety and reliability of its nuclear arsenal.

EWI's report suggests that ten years later, technological developments have changed that picture. It investigates how technical advances affect the debate and identifies concerns the Obama administration must address if it wants to pursue Senate ratification of the CTBT.

"Barack Obama laid out a promising and exciting agenda in Prague in April," said W. Pal Sidhu, Vice President of Programs at the EastWest Institute. "Now it's time to deliver."

The CTBT cannot come in to force until the U.S. and eight other countries, including China, India and Pakistan, ratify it. Many countries, including key nuclear powers such as Russia, see the U.S. Senate's failure to ratify the CTBT as a major hurdle to renewed U.S. leadership on nuclear nonproliferation.

"The Senate has had valid concerns about the CTBT, and the administration must address these concerns," said Sidhu. "If the Obama administration is serious about leading the world towards nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, it's got to get serious about the CTBT."

Additionally, the National Academy of Sciences is due to release an update to its 2002 analysis of the treaty within the next 90 days.

An "ad hoc committee" is reviewing and updating "aspects of the analysis in the 2002 National Academies’ report, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty," according to the NAS Web site. The committee is examining the following areas:

1) Maintaining the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile. The committee will assess, including information developed for and produced by the Nuclear Posture Review, the Administration’s plan to manage the risks in ensuring, over the longer term, a safe and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile absent underground nuclear testing. The experience of the U.S. stockpile stewardship program, particularly in the last decade, will also be taken into account.

2) Nuclear explosion detection, location and identification. The committee will assess present nuclear explosion detection capabilities, taking into account the totality of assets accessible to the United States, including: (a) any improvements in U.S. national technical means in the last decade, and (b) operating experience of the international monitoring system. The committee might also consider how these capabilities are expected to improve over time.

3) Sustainability. The committee will assess what commitments are required to sustain: (a) America’s nuclear stockpile; (b) the U.S. monitoring system; and (c) an adequate international verification regime, including On-Site Inspection.

4) Technical Advances. The committee will assess the potential technical advances to nuclear weapon capabilities for other countries: (a) that result from evasive and non-evasive testing at levels below the U.S. detection capability; and (b) that result from returning to full-yield testing in a non-test-ban environment.