The Insider

As the Pentagon prepares to cut the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter alternate power plant program -- again -- engine makers General Electric and Rolls-Royce have launched a new Website touting their product's success.

The F136 Fighter Engine Team's stand up of the Web site comes about a month before the Defense Department's fiscal year 2010 budget proposal heads to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers -- for the third time in three years -- will have to decide whether to fund the program.

The cyber launch also comes in advance of a major testing milestone at which GE and Rolls-Royce will power up the first production F136 engine early this year.

Despite the F136's success, Pentagon officials have repeatedly lobbied to kill the program in an effort to save money, funding only the Pratt & Whitney-run F135 engine program.

Inside the Air Force first reported in November 2008 that the Pentagon would try to ax the F136 program in its FY-10 budget submission. Defense Department officials claimed they would save $3.5 billion over the next six years, according to sources and documents.

F136 program supporters claim a second engine is needed should a major issue arise with the primary power plant down the road. Opponents, however, say technological advancements in engine building make one engine a safe bet.

The Pentagon and allies plan to buy thousands of the fifth-generation Lockheed Martin-built F-35 fighter-bomber aircraft.

Air Force F-16 fighters are powered by a mix of Pratt & Whitney and General Electric engines. Foreign countries are given the option of Pratt & Whitney or GE engines when buying Lockheed-built F-16s.

President-elect Barack Obama has not yet formally named Leon Panetta to lead the CIA, but today he praised the former White House chief of staff's management skills, political savvy and integrity -- defending his pick amidst complaints from some lawmakers about Panetta's lack of intelligence experience.

“I have the utmost respect for Leon Panetta. I think that he is one of the finest public servants that we've had,” Obama told reporters in Washington, DC.

As White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, Panetta was fully versed in international affairs and crisis management and had to evaluate intelligence on a day-to-day basis, Obama said. At one point when a cell phone rang, Obama joked to reporters, "That may be him calling now, finding out where it's at."

Obama said his administration will have a "top-notch" intelligence team that will provide the best, unvarnished intelligence. (Although no announcement has been made, retired Adm. Dennis Blair is widely reported to be Obama's choice for director of national intelligence.) The new intelligence team will be forward-looking and will break with past practices that have tarnished the image of the CIA and U.S. foreign policy, Obama said. He also praised the work of U.S. intelligence professionals.

For an interesting defense of the pick, read this.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that Vice President-elect Joe Biden said today it was a mistake for the Obama camp not to give Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) a heads up about the Panetta pick. She chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Also: Newsweek reports Obama's camp is phoning key members of Congress to apologize for not providing advance notice of the pick.

A Happy New Year to all of our readers.

And a note on the transition: As we noted here just before Christmas, the name of William Lynn, former Pentagon comptroller and current Raytheon executive, has been circulating for some time in discussions of who might be brought into the Pentagon by the Obama team.

And: As we reported right here, he's looking more and more likely to be the choice for deputy defense secretary -- a bit of news some others seem to have come across today.

Much more to come.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden and a few fellow senators will depart later this week on a "fact finding" trip to Southwest Asia, according to a statement from his spokeswoman, Elizabeth Alexander. For security reasons, details of the itinerary will be released as the trip progresses, according to the statement, which does not name the countries they will visit.

The members of the delegation, who will be participating in all or part of the trip, include incoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry (D-MA) and Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Biden will travel in his capacity as the outgoing Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Alexander said.

"The fact-finding delegation will make it clear to foreign leaders that they are not there to speak on behalf of the U.S. government, or convey policy positions for the incoming administration," she said, noting the delegation thanks the Bush administration for its cooperation in making the trip possible.

The Defense Department is gearing up for the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review with a little help from the Military Operations Research Society, which will host a four-day workshop next month involving key Pentagon players.

The Jan. 12-15 event, according to the agenda, will:

* Examine DOD assessment capabilities for performing QDR 2010 (to include such activities as gaming of advanced operational concepts).
* Identify past analyses and analytical methods applicable to determining DOD and other USG ((U.S. government)) capabilities and resource requirements.
* Provide a neutral environment in which OSD, the Joint Staff, Defense Agencies, Unified Commands, the Services, and other USG agencies can discuss analytical plans and preparations for QDR 2010.
* Provide ideas and analytical status to OSD/JCS decision makers who are planning for QDR 2010.
* Identify other activities that can help joint analysis in the 21st century

In what could foreshadow the structure of the upcoming QDR, the workshop plans five working groups to examine: Islamic extremism; countering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; providing for homeland security/defense; dealing with a peer competitor; and “strategy, force and program integration methods.”

Wanna attend? You must have a secret clearance and -- because space is expected to be limited -- demonstrate how you would make a contribution to one of the panels.

After years of legal wrangling over whether the Navy had done enough to counter potential harm to whales from mid-frequency sonar used in anti-submarine training exercises, the service and environmental groups announced Dec. 27 that a settlement was reached.

“The Navy is pleased that after more than three years of extensive litigation, this matter has been brought to an end on favorable terms,” Frank Jimenez, the Navy’s general counsel, said in a statement on the Navy’s Web site. “The Navy welcomes an approach that relies more upon scientific research than litigation.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups sued the Navy in 2005, claiming the service had failed to conduct an adequate environmental review before commencing training off the coast of Southern California. Environmentalists have argued that sonar disrupts whale feeding and migration and, in some cases, causes injury, stranding and death.

The settlement is separate from the ruling made by the Supreme Court in November in Winter v. NRDC, which found that the need for realistic training to counter the growing threat of stealthy diesel-electric submarines, as judged necessary by military authorities, is of far greater public interest than environmentalists’ concerns for potential harm.

According to the Navy, the settlement does not require any additional mitigation measures to protect whales and “essentially adopts” the Navy’s program of environmental analysis and research that it had implemented before the lawsuit was filed. The service will continue to implement protective measures it developed in partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to a statement on the NRDC’s Web site, the settlement requires the Navy to “complete a full schedule of environmental reviews” for major training exercises.

“This agreement commits the Navy for the first time to a program of environmental review and public transparency in its sonar training in an effort to shield whales and other vulnerable species from harmful underwater noise,” Joel Reynolds, senior attorney and director of the NRDC’s marine mammal program, said in the statement. “((W))hile it does not resolve disagreements with the Navy over operational safeguards required to reduce sonar's risk to whales and other marine life, it sets in place a process for negotiation between the Navy and this environmental coalition that we hope will reduce the need for future litigation.”

According to the NRDC, additional terms of the settlement that the Navy agreed to include:

• Funding $14.75 million in new marine mammal research;
• Public disclosure of previously classified information on sonar, including information that had been protected in NRDC v. Winter;
• A cooling off period to allow negotiation when future sonar disagreements arise;
• A payment of $1.1 million in attorney's fees for settling both the 2005 lawsuit and a 2006 lawsuit regarding sonar use around Hawaii.

The latest Inside Missile Defense -- which won't be out until next week -- has a story about the ongoing negotiations between the Missile Defense Agency and Boeing, the lead contractor on the agency's huge program to defend the United States against a ballistic missile attack. Boeing had been working under a contract to develop the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system that was awarded in 2001.

Earlier this year, MDA announced that that contract became too complicated to execute and that Boeing would be signed to a new one by Dec. 31. But both sides are still talking over the details of that arrangement and won't make the Dec. 31 date.

To keep the effort going, MDA told us it will give Boeing a “bridge” contract until the main contract is in place.

And today, the agency told us the cost of the bridge contract will be $398 million in fiscal year 2009 money. It will be doled out to Boeing in two increments, each covering three months.

Here's a sneak peek at the story:

The existing contract Boeing has been working under since 2001 has become “too complex to administer effectively” and associated cost overruns have changed the program’s technical content and schedule, MDA said in a statement issued in early June. The agency decided to end that contract on Dec. 31 and have Boeing signed to a new deal called the “core completion contract.”

On Dec. 22, an MDA spokesman explained to Inside Missile Defense how the interim contract would be used: “It is a six-month bridge with ((an option of)) three months and an option for another three months,” he said. The dollar amount of the bridge contract is being negotiated, the spokesman added. Fiscal year 2009 dollars from the GMD account will pay for the bridge contract.

During a Nov. 12 teleconference with reporters, former MDA Director Lt. Gen. Trey Obering said the two sides had just started talking and that the agency would not be held to the Dec. 31 date. “We are beginning discussions on the negotiations with the contractor right now and I will not be held hostage to a schedule to try to minimize our leverage with respect to negotiations. While that is our target, that's not necessarily going to be a hard and fast date we are trying to meet.”

Obering said the cost of the core completion contract is “a big part of the negotiations.”

The GMD contract Boeing is now signed to calls for work to continue through 2011. The contract to be negotiated will extend that work another two years, through 2013.

During an Oct. 2 breakfast with reporters, Richard Danzig, who was advising the Obama campaign on national security issues, said the GMD effort would be one Pentagon program the new administration would closely review if Obama were elected.