The Insider

The Navy recently established Naval Support Facility Deveselu, Romania, which will support NATO's overall ballistic missile defense system, according to a service statement.

On Oct. 10, the service held an assumption of command ceremony for NSF Deveselu. The installation will be operational in 2015.

“NSF Deveselu, formerly a disused Romanian airfield, is the first Navy base to be established since Naval Station (NS) Everett in Washington, whose official groundbreaking ceremony was held Nov. 9, 1987,” the Navy statement reads.

The first of two proposed newly established bases, NSF Deveselu will use both a Standard Missile-3 interceptor battery and an Aegis SPY-1 radar.

“The site will consist of a fire-control radar deckhouse with an associated Aegis command, control and communications suite,” the statement reads. “Separately, it will house several launch modules containing SM-3 missiles and be manned by about 200 U.S. Military personnel, government civilians and support contractors.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today he is in favor of approving $750 million the Pentagon has requested be reprogrammed from the fiscal year 2014 budget to fight Ebola in West Africa.

Inhofe was initially skeptical of the Pentagon's Ebola plans due to concerns regarding the protection of military personnel.

"When the Senate Armed Services Committee first received the Administration's request to reprogram $1 billion in defense funding to support the Ebola mission in West Africa, I raised numerous concerns about the lack of a coherent strategy, insufficient details on how our men and women in uniform would be protected, and a failure to consider a transition of financial and operational responsibility from our military to a more appropriate entity," he said in a statement. "In response, the Defense Department came forward Wednesday with additional information regarding the protocol to care for the health of our servicemembers serving in the region."

Inhofe, however, remains concerned that DOD will continue the Ebola mission over the long haul.

"As for my concerns on transitioning this likely long-term mission to more appropriate government agencies and non-government organizations when the requested money runs out, the administration still has not come forward with a plan," he said. "The slow response by the president's State Department and international community when Ebola was first considered an outbreak in March has contributed to the crisis we are confronted with today. After careful consideration, I believe that the outbreak has reached a point that the only organization in the world able to provide the capabilities and speed necessary to respond to this crisis is the U.S. military."

Inhofe, who could become chairman of the committee should the GOP take the Senate in next month's mid-term elections, said it will be difficult for him to support any further efforts to use military funding to fight Ebola.

"That is why I have insisted another more appropriate funding source be identified for operations beyond six months," he said. "Significant cuts to the defense budget have eroded the readiness and capabilities of our military, and I cannot support the indefinite commitment of our troops to this mission."

Norway has requested 6.9 billion kroner (nearly $1.07 billion) from Parliament to invest in six new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, to be delivered in 2019.

This figure includes 4 billion kroner (nearly $618 million) for the six aircraft, with all Norwegian-specific costs added in, Norway Ministry of Defense spokesman Endre Lundre wrote in an Oct. 9 email to Inside the Navy.

The remaining 2.9 billion kroner ($448 million) covers spare parts and additional procurement of the program's Autonomic Logistics Information System, Lundre wrote. This also includes the country's share of the Norwegian-Italian reprogramming lab for the F-35, he added.

"Actual funding for these various procurements will be provided through annual budgets," Lundre wrote.

Including the six new aircraft, Norway will procure 22 F-35s altogether.

The United States and international partners involved in the F-35 program have been considering amending reporting procedures for major problems with the plane, Inside the Pentagon reported last week:

The possible change in procedure is prompted by a June 23 engine fire at Eglin Air Force Base, FL. According to the program executive officer for the F-35, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, communication between partners about the fire was not handled well.

"The first two weeks we were floundering," Bogdan said at a Sept. 3 event at the National Press Club. "The enterprise has gotten together and realized we need a new process for the F-35 . . . to extract information to go to the bigger enterprise so the bigger enterprise can make some decisions" after a major event. The proposed new process would help partner nations decide if it is safe to fly the plane, Bogdan said. He added the engine fire will not be the last mishap with the F-35, so it is important to inform the eight partners and multiple foreign military sales partners.

According to Kyra Hawn, an F-35 spokeswoman, the newly proposed procedures would increase communication in instances of an ambiguous or major problem like an engine fire, where the root cause is not immediately known.

Currently, there are lines of communication between partners regarding regular maintenance issues, such as landing gear failing to deploy. However, unknown and major problems are usually dealt with internally and then released later or through a Freedom of Information Act request, she said.

Andy Weber, the Defense Department's outgoing chief of nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, said yesterday he is leaving behind a nuclear arsenal that is still in need of modernization amid the ongoing budget crunch triggered by sequestration. He suggests that savings could be found by consolidating components of the nuclear triad, as InsideDefense.com reported this morning:

"We can definitely have a safe, secure and affordable triad," he said. "We may have to look at some of the intraleg redundancies -- the platforms and warheads. For example, the bomber leg."

Weber said DOD had already heavily invested in the B61-12 gravity bomb, begging the question: Does DOD really need to replace AGM-86B/C Air-Launched Cruise Missile?

"It's a question of do you need both the gravity bomb and the cruise missile?" he said. "Or could we live with, perhaps, either delaying or forgoing the follow-on to [the cruise missile]?"

The B61-12 "is usable in both the B-2 strategic bomber and dual-capable aircraft in Europe," Weber continued. "Consolidation of types is the way to save money. Reducing overall numbers doesn't really save money because of the production costs."

The ALCM was originally scheduled to begin development in fiscal year 2015, but will instead slip by three years, deferring almost $1 billion in spending beyond FY-18, Inside the Air Force reported in March:

The Defense Department has not yet released the budget justification documents that provide line-by-line details about military spending, but an Air Force spokeswoman provided those figures for the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) missile to Inside the Air Force in a March 5 email. The funding table for LRSO, covering the period between FY-15 and FY-19, shows that the service will ramp up spending extremely slowly: $5 million in FY-15, $10 million in FY-16, $20 million in FY-17, $41 million in FY-18, and $145 million in the last year of the current five-year budgeting window, for a total of $221 million in the future years defense program.

That contrasts dramatically with the Air Force's previously documented plans. The service spent just $5 million on the missile's development in FY-14 but projected a need for $40 million in FY-15, and then a major jump to $204 million in FY-16. The funding requirement only grew from there, to $349 million in FY-17 and $440 million the following year.

The rephased and slowed-down development schedule pushes $959 million outside of the FY-14 to FY-18 FYDP.

Service spokeswoman Capt. Erika Yepsen attributed the restructure to financial pressures and an uncertain acquisition plan. As ITAF reported last week, the Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration have not yet chosen a nuclear warhead to go on LRSO; that selection process should begin this summer and last about one year.

Since then, the Air Force office responsible for developing the missile advanced key ground rules for the LRSO program, meeting with a dozen companies to stress the importance of reliability and manufacturing and to assure industry of service efforts to buy back as much as a year from a four-year delay imposed on the program due to fiscal year 2015 budget constraints. As InsideDefense.com reported in June:

On April 29, the LRSO program office hosted an industry day at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, to review "top-level" program objectives for the technology maturation and risk-reduction phase of the program -- recently delayed from FY-15 to FY-19 -- which include an emphasis on designing the new cruise missile with a focus on reliability, according to Air Force documents and a service spokeswoman.

"Twelve companies participated in the meeting," the LRSO program office said in a statement provided by Air Force spokeswoman Lois Walsh to InsideDefense.com.

"The government highlighted the need to focus on reliability and manufacturing in the Technical Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase of the program in order to improve upon experiences of previous cruise missile programs and achieve overall TMRR objectives," according to the Air Force statement.

The Navy has switched the deployment schedules of the aircraft carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), with the Truman now going before the Eisenhower, the service announced Oct. 6.

As U.S. Fleet Forces implements its Optimized-Fleet Response Plan, the service determined changing Truman and Eisenhower's schedules would better enable the Navy to provide ready forces. Inside the Navy reported in January about the service's Optimized-Fleet Response Plan.

"O-FRP offers more stability and predictability for Sailors and families by aligning carrier strike group assets to a 36-month training in the deployment cycle," an Oct. 6 service statement reads.

The Navy has been working to get the right numbers and people for sea-centric manning, which U.S. Fleet Forces Commander Adm. William Gortney in January called "the long pole in the tent" and ensuring the service has the resources and industrial base needed for the stable maintenance and modernization piece of the optimized plan. As ITN reported at the time:

Gortney expects that every carrier strike group in the Navy should be executing the O-FRP within three years.

"I would say -- within the next three years, because we're doing it strike group by strike group, by the next three years, every strike group would be in their or starting their optimized FRP," he told reporters last week. "They'd be entering the maintenance phase of their FRP. So probably within four to five years, we would have the carrier and all of the cruisers and destroyers executing the optimized FRP."

Gortney cited a number of reasons for why the cycle got off track in the first place, speaking specifically to the FRP length, manning and maintenance issues as well as inefficiencies in the inspection and training processes.

Carrier Strike Group-10 staff members who previously embarked aboard Truman will now embark aboard Eisenhower. Conversely, CSG-8 staff members who previously embarked aboard Eisenhower will now embark aboard Truman, according to the Navy statement.

This schedule change does not affect any other ship, squadron or staff schedules, the Navy statement reads.

U. S. Central Command is considering a formal name for the current operations in Iraq and Syria, where the military has been conducting airstrikes and surveillance since August.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, told reporters today there has been 248 coalition airstrikes in Iraq and 86 in Syria.

“We believe now the mission has grown to a scope, to an extent, where, perhaps, it's feasible to take a look at naming it; putting a structure around it that can allow for more dedicated staffing, resourcing, command and control, organization,” he said. “That's what's being considered now. That's the impetus for thinking about a name, not because we're trying to design a new patch to put on a uniform.”

Kirby disputed the assertion of an annonymous defense official in an Oct. 3 Wall Street Journal report who said the Pentagon has resisted naming the operation thus far for fear of “owning it.”

"Anybody who'd suggest that we aren't willing to own what we're doing in Iraq and Syria is clearly misinformed,” Kirby said, adding it was a “slap in the face” to military personnel on the front lines.

The Pentagon has also established a new website -- www.defense.gov/counter-isil – to track U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria.

“The site contains an interactive map which will detail continued airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, including mission objectives, the number of airstrikes and aircraft utilized,” Kirby said.

Inside the Pentagon reports today that the Defense Department partially met a key milestone this week on its road to audit readiness:

All of the services and many of the defense agencies have asserted that they are ready to start a schedule of budgetary activity, or SBA, audit for fiscal year 2015, which applies to current-year balances. The department initially aimed to have the statement of budgetary resources -- which also includes prior-year balances -- audit ready by Sept. 30, but have since abridged that goal.

"I want to make it clear that this is a current-year funds audit and not a full audit, but it will bring over 90 percent of our general fund fiscal year 2015 dollars under audit," Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban told Inside the Pentagon in a Sept. 30 email. These comments echoed those made by Pentagon chief spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby, during a Sept. 30 press briefing.

The next step is to "test these assertions in an actual audit," Urban said. Funds that "won't undergo an SBA audit in FY 2015 are some of the defense activities and agencies," but the hope is to complete these soon, Urban said.

Urban noted that although this effort "represents a lot of hard work by our financial managers" and commanders, there is still more work that must be done in order to meet the deadline of full audit readiness by Sept. 30, 2017. DOD aims to conduct a full audit of its books in FY-18 to comply with the law, Urban said.

In related news, the Government Accountability Office's comptroller general has denied PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM's protest of an Army contract award to Earnst & Young for audit-readiness support services.

According to the Sept. 5 GAO decision made public today, PWC and IBM challenged "various aspects of the evaluation of E&Y's proposal under the experience, key personnel, and transition plan factors as well as the agency's cost/technical tradeoff. IBM also objects to the award decision on the basis that E&Y took exception to a material solicitation term, and that the agency failed to properly evaluate an alleged conflict of interest."

In a nutshell, GAO found:

1. Agency's decision to consider relevance of projects submitted under experience factor in the aggregate was unobjectionable where solicitation did not require that each individual project be of the same size, scope, and complexity as the solicited requirements.

2. Evaluation of awardee's key personnel was proper where agency reasonably determined that resumes of awardee's proposed personnel demonstrated compliance with solicitation's minimum experience and qualification requirements.

3. Evaluation of awardee's transition plan is unobjectionable where evaluators reasonably concluded that plan complied with the solicitation's requirements.

4. Protest that awardee's proposal took exception to material solicitation terms regarding reallocation of labor hours is denied where statement in proposal was not inconsistent with solicitation requirement that the agency approve any changes to labor hours.

5. Challenge that agency did not adequately investigate an alleged conflict of interest is denied where protester failed to show that agency's determinations regarding the alleged conflict were unreasonable or provide hard facts demonstrating an impermissible conflict.

6. Agency's best-value award decision was not irrational where source selection authority performed a reasonable cost/technical tradeoff that was consistent with the solicitation, adequately-documented, and explains the rationale for awarding the contract to the lower-rated, lower-priced offeror.