The Insider

Gates at West Point
By John Liang
February 25, 2011 at 7:39 PM

Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Corps of Cadets today. One of the points he touched on in his speech was retaining qualified officers after their tours of duty are over. Some excerpts:

There have been a variety of suggestions and ideas put on the table in various venues and publications to give officers – after their initial platoon, company or battalion-level tours – greater voice in their assignments and flexibility to develop themselves personally and professionally in a way that enhances their career and promotion prospects.  For example, instead of being assigned to new positions every two or three years, officers would be able to apply for job openings in a competitive system more akin to what happens in large organizations in the private sector.  The former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General David Barno, class of '76, has written that, "in a smaller professional force competing for talent with the Googles of the world," reforming this system is a "must do" for the Army to keep its best and brightest leaders.

Having said that, when all is said and done, this is the United States Army.  It’s not Apple.  It’s not General Electric. And it’s not the Red Cross.  Taking that oath and accepting that commission means doing what you are told and going where you are needed.  And as practical matter, one cannot manage tens of thousands of officers based on “What color is your parachute?”  But just as the Army has reset and reformed itself when it comes to doctrine, equipment, and training, it must use the eventual slackening of overseas deployments as an opportunity to attack the institutional and bureaucratic constipation of Big Army, and re-think the way it deals with the outstanding young leaders in its lower- and middle-ranks.

. . . And on top of the repeat deployments, there is the garrison mindset and personnel bureaucracy that awaits them back home – often cited as primary factors causing promising officers to leave the Army just as they are best positioned to have a positive impact on the institution.

Consider that, in theater, junior leaders are given extraordinary opportunities to be innovative, take risks, and be responsible and recognized for the consequences.  The opposite is too often true in the rear-echelon headquarters and stateside bureaucracies in which so many of our mid-level officers are warehoused.  Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging in reconciling warring tribes, they may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting power point slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever expanding array of clerical duties.  The consequences of this terrify me.

Wall Street View
By John Liang
February 25, 2011 at 5:23 PM

Here's a brief analysis of yesterday's multibillion-dollar KC-X tanker contract award to Boeing written by the folks at Credit Suisse:

We See 3 Possible Outcomes: 1) The competition stands as is with Boeing as the winner; 2) EADS protests the win (has 10 calendar days to protest which could trigger the U.S. government to issue a stop-work order while GAO evaluates the award, or EADS can request an orderly debriefing after which it has 5 calendar days to protest); or 3) An adjustment is made and there is a dual-award to both Boeing and EADS which could eventually be facilitated by awarding a future contract for eventual replacement of the Air Force’s other (larger) tanker variant, the KC-10, to Airbus.

Expect Minimal Profitability…at Least Initially: We believe BA and EADS submitted very aggressive pricing proposals as DoD noted both proposed a/c were capable of winning the competition. As such, we do not expect particularly high profitability from the initial award for 18 a/c. We also note DoD committed to a fixed-price contract structure that would provide the USAF with a capable a/c at the most competitive price. Therefore, we see limited room for error and/or cost overruns early in the process. If the development program goes on to replace the full tanker fleet (179 a/c valued at >$30B), we see it as incrementally profitable for BA in the long term.

DoD Evaluated “Price, Lifecycle Costs, & Warfighter Capabilities”: DoD’s source selection process determined if the proposals demonstrated the ability to deliver on 372 mandatory requirements, and both offers were considered awardable. It took into account fleet mission effectiveness, price, lifecycle costs, warfighter capabilities, fuel efficiency, and military construction costs.

One Happy Senator
By John Liang
February 24, 2011 at 11:19 PM

Here's a statement from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA):

Today's long-awaited decision by the Pentagon is the right one for our military, our taxpayers and our nation’s aerospace workers.

At a time when our economy is hurting and good-paying aerospace jobs are critical to our recovery, this decision is great news for the skilled workers of Everett and the thousands of suppliers across the country who will help build this critical tanker for our Air Force.

This decision is a major victory for the American workers, the American aerospace industry and America’s military. And it is consistent with the President's own call to 'out-innovate' and 'out-build' the rest of the world.

Even when competing against an illegally subsidized foreign competitor, Boeing's skilled workforce proved that they have the know-how and the product that can best serve our military.  And it is finally time to get this Boeing tanker into the hands of our men and women in uniform.

It has been a long and hard-fought competition, but I have been proud to stand side-by-side with our state's aerospace workers and I look forward to being there when the first new tanker rolls off the line.

Boeing's proposal calls for building its tanker in Washington and conducting air refueling modifications in Wichita, KS.

EADS: 'Disappointment And Concern'
By John Liang
February 24, 2011 at 11:07 PM

Here is EADS North America's statement on the tanker contract:

EADS North America officials today expressed disappointment and concern over the announcement by the U.S. Air Force that it had selected a high-risk, concept aircraft over the proven, more capable KC-45 for the nation’s next aerial refueling tanker.

“This is certainly a disappointing turn of events, and we look forward to discussing with the Air Force how it arrived at this conclusion,” said EADS North America Chairman Ralph D. Crosby, Jr. “For seven years our goal has been to provide the greatest capability to our men and women in uniform, and to create American jobs by building the KC-45 here in the U.S. We remain committed to those objectives.”

If selected, EADS North America had committed to build the KC-45 at a new production facility in Mobile, Alabama, with a U.S. supplier base of nearly a thousand American companies.

“With a program of such complexity, our review of today’s decision will take some time,” Crosby said. “There are more than 48,000 Americans who are eager to build the KC-45 here in the U.S., and we owe it to them to conduct a thorough analysis.”

“Though we had hoped for a different outcome, it’s important to remember that this is one business opportunity among many for EADS in the United States,” said Sean O’Keefe, CEO of EADS North America. “We have exceptional technology and highly capable platforms that will be invaluable to U.S. military forces, now and in the future. We have learned much through this process, developed a world-class organization in the U.S. and have earned the respect of the Department of Defense. Our commitment to our U.S. customers is stronger than ever.”

House Authorizers React
By
February 24, 2011 at 10:42 PM

Just issued by the top lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee and seapower and projection forces subcommittee:

Today’s announcement moves us closer to providing the world's premier aerial fighting forces with a new and much-needed aerial refueling capability. Our primary goal on the Armed Services Committee is to provide our military’s men and women with the resources they need in the most effective and efficient way possible.

Moving forward, the committee will continue the necessary oversight to ensure the evaluation was transparent and fair to each competitor. We look forward to receiving more information from the Air Force as we review their decision-making processes. The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee will hold a hearing on this issue as soon as enough information is publicly available.

Boeing Wins (updated)
By
February 24, 2011 at 10:09 PM

The official announcement:

The Boeing Co. of Seattle, Washington, was awarded a fixed price incentive firm contract valued at over $3.5 billion for the KC-X Engineering and Manufacturing Development which will deliver 18 aircraft by 2017. Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC/WKK), Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8625-11-C600).

UPDATE:

Donley: All offerors were aware from the start how competition would be conducted. Source-selection team was massive and qualified. Multiple internal reviews throughout the process.

Carefully developed a comprehensive record of their work.

Both offererors acquitted themselves well.

DOD to share what it can about source selection, but: "Today's statement will be the extent" of what DOD will say about decision.

Both offerors deemed to have met mandatory requirements "and were considered awardable."

Difference in prices was greater than one percent.

Aircraft to be named the KC-XA.

No comments until briefing to offerors.

Timing of today's announcement "simply event-driven."

Basing: Decisions made in separate process. That process will take place over next couple of years.

UPDATE II:

Lynn: "Boeing was a clear winner."

Does not believe decision will yield grounds for protest, though that is EADS' right.

 

Tanker Times
By Christopher J. Castelli
February 24, 2011 at 5:47 PM

It’s official: Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics Ashton Carter, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz will announce the KC-X tanker contract award today at 5:10 p.m., in the Pentagon Briefing Room, according to a noticed issued today by the Defense Department. Boeing and EADS North America are vying for the lucrative contract.

Watch live at the Pentagon Channel.

Carter repeatedly declined to discuss the tanker competition Tuesday night when asked about it following a speech in Washington.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) told KWCH 12 Eyewitness News that he and other Kansas lawmakers have a tanker-related conference call scheduled with the Pentagon today at 3:50 p.m. CST, shortly before the DOD press conference.

'Daunted' But Ready
By Tony Bertuca
February 24, 2011 at 4:06 PM

Ft. Lauderdale, FL -- In one of his first public speaking engagements since being nominated to become the Army's next chief of staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey said today that he feels "daunted" given the challenges he will face if confirmed for the job.

"Nothing they ask me in confirmation is going to make me feel any more about the burden I'm being asked to carry," he said in a speech here at an Association of the U.S. Army conference. "By the way, I'm absolutely honored to be asked to carry that burden. But you know how hard it's going to be to get this right going forward. There are challenges facing the country."

Should Dempsey, currently the chief of Training and Doctrine command, be confirmed by the Senate, he will be stepping to the helm of an Army dealing with an ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, a changing role in Iraq, tightening budgets at home and an acquisition process leaders say badly needs reform.

Dempsey said a recipe for success was in knowing that assumptions are usually wrong and he emphasized putting mechanisms in place to adapt to change and develop strong leaders.

"It's never exactly right," he said. "We don't ever get the future right in general, and try as we may, we're not going to get the organization, the equipment and the guidance right. Who pulls that together? It's the leaders we develop."

Creating true adaptability means becoming faster, flatter, more collaborative and resource-sensitive, he said. "Throughout the next four [program objective memorandum] submissions, we will build the Army that will be employed in 2020," he said. "We're building it in full knowledge that that Army will not be the Army we need in 2030. That means adaptation must be our institutional imperative.

"We have to revise our concepts every two years," he added. "It means we should expect significant organization redesign every five years. It means incremental modernization with five-to-seven-year procurement objectives synchronized to [Army Force Generation]. It means revisiting of doctrine and training methodologies and leader development programs every one to two years."

Dempsey, who is awaiting confirmation, did not delve into specifics but was upbeat about the future. "I think Henry Ford was right -- if you think you can, you can; if you think you can't, you probably can't," he said. "I think we can."

MEADS Redux
By John Liang
February 24, 2011 at 3:58 PM

The Pentagon's decision to quit the Medium Extended Air Defense System after 2013 comes at an inopportune time, according to opponents of the decision. As a monograph circulated this week by analysts at the the Heritage Foundation states:

The proposed curtailment of funding is a mistake because it undermines allied cooperation in missile defense at a time when NATO has declared missile defense to be a core competency of the alliance. NATO’s strategic concept, released during the Lisbon summit in November 2010, states that the alliance will “develop the capability to defend our populations and territories against ballistic missile attack as a core element of our collective defence, which contributes to the indivisible security of the Alliance.”

Unique Capabilities

The MEADS program is designed to protect the United States’ homeland, allies, and forward-deployed troops against a wide range of threats, including the next generation of tactical ballistic missiles. Compared to the Patriot system, MEADS offers greater flexibility, a 360-degree fire control system, and surveillance radars. The radars provide commanders on the battlefield with improved situational awareness and enable them to react faster. The United States will not be able to achieve the capabilities offered by MEADS with any combination of the current terminal-phase BMD system.

MEADS’s capabilities are necessary in an era when the ballistic missile threat is growing. North Korea and Iran have some of the world’s most aggressive ballistic missile programs. These two countries not only cooperate on advancing these programs, but also share ballistic missile technologies with non-state terrorist groups. Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate in 2007: “In view of the threats we face today and will face in the future, I believe the United States should deploy components of the ballistic missile defense system as soon as they become available even as we improve their operational effectiveness.” Cutting MEADS goes directly against the spirit of his statement.

Too Close to Completion to Terminate

According to the Department of Defense, funding in fiscal years (FY) 2011–2013 enables  the completion of the limited integration of the MEADS system. The United States will have invested $4 billion by the end of the process. For a total cost of $974 million in FY 2012–2017 ($162.3 million per year), MEADS can enter the production phase in 2018.  All three participating nations deemed the MEADS design mature enough to enter fabrication and testing. The first MEADS launcher was delivered to MEADS International on December 9, 2010, and the first MEADS Battle Manager was delivered on December 20, 2010. Both items are being tested at Pratica di Mare air base in Italy.

In the current fiscal environment, canceling the program in its prototype stage—after significant amounts of research and development resources have been devoted to the program—would be strategically and fiscally irresponsible. Moreover, maintaining the aging and less capable Hawk and Patriot systems and extending their service lives would require significant additional costs.

Political Significance

While MEADS is not a NATO-wide project, all three parties are members of NATO. At a time when protection against the ballistic missile threat is a core element of NATO’s strategy, MEADS would offer the capability and opportunity to draw from the expertise gained during the development and production phases to develop a NATO-wide Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Next Steps

The United States should reverse its decision and provide funding for production of MEADS to replace the Patriot and Hawk systems. A more advanced capability is essential for addressing the growing ballistic missile threat and expanding alliance cooperation in addressing this threat. At the same time, Italy and Germany should make it clear that it is in the interest not only of their countries, but also of the NATO alliance to produce this capability. The U.S. and NATO cannot afford to let MEADS atrophy while regimes such as those in Iran and North Korea seek to join the nuclear club and expand and improve their ballistic missile arsenals.

As Inside the Army reported this week, the decision to cancel MEADS after 2013 may end a years-long saga that featured a potent mix of defense contractor interests, conflicting goals within the U.S. military and the political sensitivities of multinational projects. Specifically:

In the end, cost overruns totaling $1 billion for the United States did the trinational program in, Defense Department leaders wrote in a Feb. 11 memo published last week. Those additional costs were due to a schedule slip of 30-some months in the development phase, to 2017, which meant the Army would have had to modernize Patriot while waiting for the fielding of the follow-on MEADS, defense leaders wrote.

"[T]he costs of completing MEADS development and procuring MEADS to eventually replace Patriot would . . . require significant concurrent investment in Patriot sustainment and modernization over the next two decades," according to the DOD memo. "Together, these costs are unaffordable in the current DOD budget environment."

The new focus on Patriot hands a big victory to Raytheon, where company officials sensed a second wind for their Patriot system after news emerged in 2008 that a significant cost overrun and schedule slip were coming for MEADS. In addition, company officials contended, some large international Patriot sales would generate enough money for the U.S. government that a modernization program would become financially feasible.

Officials crafted a "white paper" in September 2009 and circulated it within the Army and among defense officials from the international program partners, Germany and Italy. The document advertised a Raytheon-only solution that the company said would offer a MEADS-like capability at a third of the cost, with increments beginning to become available in 2012.

Libya And WMDs
By John Liang
February 24, 2011 at 3:44 PM

With the turmoil in Libya rising, the U.S. government has begun to worry about the remaining stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the North African country. As The Wall Street Journal reports this morning:

The government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi hasn't destroyed significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical-weapons agents, raising fears in Washington about what could happen to them -- and whether they may be used -- as Libya slides further into chaos.

Tripoli also maintains control of aging Scud B missiles, U.S. officials said, as well as 1,000 metric tons of uranium yellowcake and vast amounts of conventional weapons that Col. Gadhafi has channeled in the past to militants operating in countries like Sudan and Chad.

Current and former U.S. officials said in interviews that Washington's counterproliferation operations against Libya over the past decade have scored gains, in particular the dismantling of Tripoli's nascent nuclear-weapons program and its Scud C missile stockpiles. But the level of instability in Libya, and Col. Gadhafi's history of brutality, continues to make the U.S. focus on the arms and chemical agents that remain, they said.

"When you have a guy who's as irrational as Gadhafi with some serious weapons at his disposal, it's always a concern," said a U.S. official. "But we haven't yet seen him move to use any kind of mustard gas or chemical weapon" during the unrest.

The Nuclear Threat Institute has this estimate of Libya's current missile capabilities:

Libya's current missile arsenal is still characterized by its acquisitions from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The Libyan Army deploys four SSM brigades with Scud-B missiles and around 40 FROG 7 rockets. Due to poor management and lack of advanced military infrastructure many of the estimated 80 Scud-Bs are believed to be kept in storage or simply inoperable. The Libyan armed forces also lack appropriate training and organization to effectively deploy its SRBMs, and its radar capabilities remain outdated. Libya's Army has around 3,000 anti-tank missiles, including Milans, AT-3 Saggers, AT-4 Spigots, and AT-5 Spandrels.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said in a speech last May that Libya's decision in 2003 to forego its nuclear weapons program in exchange for normalized relations with the West had an additional motive:

Did Libya end its program because we opted not to go ahead with [the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program] or [the Reliable Replacement Warhead program]? No, Libya saw 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq enforcing UN Security Council Resolutions on nuclear proliferation and feared it would be next.

These same interests, security and commercial, also dictate nations' actions with regard to the nuclear terrorism and proliferation issues. For example, Russia says that an Iran with nuclear weapons is a threat. And it will go along with some sanctions, e.g., sanctions that raise the global price of energy, of which Russia is the world's leading exporter -- but it won't go along with sanctions cutting off Iran's flow of weapons, which Russia sells in great quantity.

Good Bye Tennessee
By Sebastian Sprenger
February 23, 2011 at 9:12 PM

The Army's just-released update of its field manual 3-0, Operations, bids farewell to what advertising folks would call a key visual, the "Tennessee Chart." The widely used graphic uses stacked sections resembling the outline of the state of Tennessee to illustrate the Army's idea of full-spectrum operations.

Service officials decided to ditch the chart because it "inadvertently established a false dichotomy" between the requirement to prepare for major war and for smaller-scale irregular conflicts, Training and Doctrine Command chief Gen. Martin Dempsey wrote in the updated FM 0 foreword.

"In the next revision of FM 3-0, we will sharpen our language regarding full-spectrum operations," Dempsey wrote.

The manual's next iteration is scheduled for release at the annual convention of the Association of the United States Army in October.

Also new today is the Army's updated Field Manual 7-0, titled "Training Units and Developing Leaders for Full Spectrum Operations."

FBCB2 Fielding
By John Liang
February 23, 2011 at 4:07 PM

The Army has approved for fielding the Joint Capabilities Release, an upgrade to the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below situational awareness communication platform developed by Northrop Grumman, the company announced this morning in a statement. Further:

FBCB2 is the key situational awareness and command-and-control system used by U.S. and coalition forces. More than 95,000 FBCB2 systems have been deployed worldwide, forming the world's largest tactical network. The system has been successfully fielded for 16 years.

JCR will be incorporated into the LandWarNet/Battle Command Baseline for fielding to deploying units scheduled to receive software block 2.

JCR upgrades include an increase in network bandwidth that allows the system to move more information to more users within seconds rather than in minutes. JCR also provides a common FBCB2 platform solution for both the Army and U.S. Marine Corps.

"The ability to receive and share battlefield data through a broad-based, reliable network is increasingly important and critical to the mission. JCR provides new collaboration tools and other enhancements that are orders of magnitude more capable than what is available to soldiers and Marines today," said Joe G. Taylor, Jr., vice president of the Ground Combat Systems business unit within Northrop Grumman's Information Systems sector.

The service had completed the formal evaluation of the JCR upgrade last March, Inside the Army reported at the time:

The JCR upgrade, also a Northrop Grumman product, is intended to act as an interim operating system until the service can replace FBCB2 with the Joint Battle Command Platform, a system still in development and not expected until 2013. JCR will then act as a foundation upon which JBC-P can be built.

Kevin Anastas, an Army account manager at Northrop Grumman, told Inside the Army JCR improves upon FBCB2 in several ways by providing significantly increased bandwidth and a joint forces platform for the Army and Marines.

"Soldiers can do things now in seconds instead of minutes," he said in a March 9 interview. "And the Army and the Marines are now going to converge on the same situation awareness software."

JCR also offers several features that provide the FBCB2 system with greater utility and make it more user-friendly. One such application is called "Self-Descriptive Situational Awareness," which allows JCR to transition between tactical service gateways with uninterrupted connectivity.

"In the old system, you need to have a pre-published address book," Anastas said. "So, if a unit were going to deploy to Iraq, somebody had to build the address book for that unit before they left. They took it with them and when they got there, they weren't allowed to change the addresses. You can imagine how frustrating that was because if they wanted to cross-attach part of a unit to another unit, they couldn't talk together because the addresses were all fixed. We got good at changing them, but it was a huge headache."

The upgrade will also be outfitted with Convoy Patrol Group, a program that will allow users to group units on their screens and color code them to make monitoring friendly forces more manageable.

Bad Posture?
By Dan Dupont
February 22, 2011 at 6:43 PM

DOD posture planning guidance does not require that U.S. European Command "include comprehensive cost data in its theater posture plan and, as a result, DOD lacks critical information that could be used by decision makers as they deliberate posture requirements," the Government Accountability Office says in a report released today.

DOD guidance requires that theater posture plans provide specific information on, and estimate the military construction costs for, installations in a combatant commander’s area of responsibility. However, this guidance does not require EUCOM to report the total cost to operate and maintain installations in Europe. GAO analysis shows that of the approximately $17.2 billion obligated by the services to support installations in Europe from 2006 through 2009, approximately $13 billion (78 percent) was for operation and maintenance costs. Several factors—such as the possibility of keeping four Army brigades in Europe instead of two—could impact future costs. DOD is drafting guidance to require more comprehensive cost estimates for posture initiatives; however, these revisions will not require commanders to report costs, unrelated to posture initiatives, for DOD installations. GAO’s prior work has demonstrated that comprehensive cost information is critical to support decisions on funding and affordability. Until DOD requires the combatant commands to compile and report comprehensive cost data in their posture plans, DOD and Congress will be limited in their abilities to make fully informed decisions regarding DOD’s posture in Europe.

Further:

EUCOM has developed an approach to compile posture requirements, but it does not have clearly defined methods for evaluating posture alternatives or routinely incorporating the views of interagency stakeholders. EUCOM has taken several steps to assign responsibilities for developing its posture plan and established an Executive Council to deliberate posture issues and work with the service component commands, but the process of developing a theater posture plan is relatively new and is not yet clearly defined and codified in command guidance. While EUCOM’s steps to date have improved its ability to communicate with stakeholders and resolve conflicting views on posture issues, it has not been clearly defined and codified in command guidance. Furthermore, it does not provide for the analysis of costs and benefits, because the combatant commander has not been required to include such analysis in developing the theater posture plan. In addition, the Interagency Partnering Directorate—which was established by the EUCOM commander to improve interagency coordination within the command—has been included in the Executive Council, but EUCOM has not defined how interagency representatives can regularly participate in ongoing posture planning activities. As a result of these weaknesses in EUCOM’s posture planning approach, the command is limited in its ability to consider and evaluate the cost of posture in conjunction with the strategic benefits it provides, and it may not be fully leveraging interagency perspectives as it defines future posture requirements.

Budget Books
By John Liang
February 18, 2011 at 4:49 PM

With all the news coming out of this week's release of the fiscal year 2012 budget request, some of the documents related to the request can get lost in the shuffle. Below, we highlight some from the defense-wide sector:

Missile Defense Agency's FY-12 Budget Justification Book

Defense Information Systems Agency's FY-12 Budget Justification Book

Defense Threat Reduction Agency's FY-12 Budget Justification Book

U.S. Special Operations Command's FY-12 Budget Justification Book

Detainee Dilemma
By Jordana Mishory
February 17, 2011 at 7:50 PM

Senior Pentagon officials admitted today that they don't know where they would hold terrorists caught outside of battle areas in light of President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the detainment of a high-value target would be an unknown location.

“I think the honest answer to that question is we don't know,” Gates told Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH). “If we capture them outside of -- outside of the areas where we are at war and are not covered by the existing authorizations, war authorizations, one possibility is to -- for such a person to be put in the custody of their home government. Another possibility is that we bring them to the United States. After all, we've brought a variety of terrorists to the United States and put them on trial in Article III courts here over the years. But it will be a challenge.”

Gates noted that the prospects for closing the detention base at Guantanamo were “very, very low” based on the fact that so many in Congress were against it.

Later in the hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen also stated that DOD does not know what to do about terrorists caught outside of war zones, much to the chagrin of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

“This is a big deal to me,” Graham said. “We're in a war, and capturing people is part of intelligence gathering. It's an essential component of this war. Do you agree with that, Adm. Mullen?”

Mullen said he did.

Graham went on to note that it's “better to capture someone than it is to kill them, in a lot of cases” -- a statement that Mullen also acknowledged as accurate.

“It is hard to capture someone if you don't have a jail to put them,” Graham said. “I hope, Mr. Chairman, that some time this year Republicans and Democrats can have a breakthrough on this issue to help our men and women fighting this war, because it is a very spot to put the special -- a tough spot to put the special operators in. And our CIA -- our CIA doesn't interrogate terrorist suspects any longer. And these are things we need to talk about and get an answer to.”