Hearing of the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services - Army Modernization in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2009 and the Future Years Defense Program

Interview

Hearing of the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services - Army Modernization in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2009 and the Future Years Defense Program

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SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Well, thank you Mr. Chairman. Thanks for calling this hearing, and I join you in welcoming General Speaks and Thompson to this hearing, and expressing my appreciation, along with all of us, for your many years of distinguished service to our nation.

The transformation and modernization of our Army is vital to maintaining our technological edge over potential adversaries, providing better protection for our soldiers, and giving our men and women in uniform significantly improved capabilities to accomplish their mission. These are matters of highest priority.

The testimony before the full committee in November, and again in February 2008, Secretary Geren and General Casey testified that our Army remains the best led, best trained, and best equipped army in the world, but is out of balance.

They described a plan to return the Army to a proper balance. The plan stressed four imperatives -- sustain, prepare, reset, and transform.

Today's hearing follows logically, as the chairman said, on the subcommittee hearing we had on the new Army field manual, and provides an opportunity to explore in greater detail the Army's plan for transformation and modernization.

An area of special interest to the subcommittee will be the Future Combat Systems. This multiyear, multibillion dollar program is at the heart of the Army's transformation efforts. It's also the Army's major research development and acquisition program.

The witnesses will be asked about the importance of FCS, the cost of the program, the characterization that FCS is high-risk, the challenge of networking, all of the FCS subsystems together, and the testing of the Future Combat System technology currently ongoing at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

In addition, the witnesses will be asked among other things about how the Army's modernization program will meet Army reserve and Army National Guard requirements, progress toward resetting all components of the Army, how Army modernization and transformation plans will impact future requirements for strategic and tactical mobility.

The Army's requirement for Joint Cargo Aircraft, the modernization of the Army's helicopter fleets, Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles, whether or not the Army's transformation and modernization plans are in concert with the new Army doctrine, and specifically, whether or not the Army's modular organization and FCS can meet the Army's requirements for full spectrum operations as described in the new field manual.

In closing, I'd like to say that though the focus of this hearing will be on Army programs and systems, it's the individual soldier, identified by his or her courage, dedication and loyalty, who is a core of our nation's military forces.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for the -- convening the hearing, and I look forward, along with you, to hearing the testimony.

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SEN. CORNYN: Happy to do it.

I know, Senator Lieberman is en route back, and I think we'll just stand down until he returns.

SEN. INHOFE: -- advised me, we can go ahead --

SEN. CORNYN: Is that right? Okay, I just want -- didn't want usurp any privileges of the chair. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.

And gentlemen, forgive me if I am repeating some things that you've already responded to, but due to the centrality of the Future Combat Systems are so much of what we are talking about in terms of modernization, I think it bears nailing down some of these things that I want to ask you about, specifically.

While everyone in the room and appreciates the importance of this weapons system, I think it's important for the American public that we get it on record for this hearing why FCS is important to our men and women in uniform.

And I'd ask you to briefly tell us why FCS is important so the public can fully understand the critical role in our nation's defense. And the reason why I say that it's so important is because some elected officials have stated that they want to slow down the development of the Future Combat System, implying that it is not taxpayer money well spent.

And I'll just footnote that by saying I'm one of those that if our military tells me they need something to do their job, as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to do everything I can to see that they get it.

On the other hand, if it's going to result in waste of the taxpayers dollars, and it's not efficient use of those resources, then I want to know that too, so we can take appropriate corrective actions.

So if you would just, sort of, perhaps both of you tell us and tell the American people why you think development of Future Combat System is important, why it's development should not be slowed down, and why you believe, if in fact you do, and I think you do, that it is taxpayer money well spent?

GEN. SPEAKES: Sir, let me begin. The first point that we'd make is that Future Combat System has the kinds of capabilities that are directly needed and identified as being essential.

And FM 3-0 leaves out a blueprint for what we think is going to be the operational environment that we are going to be able, and required to operate in both today and tomorrow.

What this manual says is that we are going to operate with the American soldier on land. That on land we will have a need to defend this country, and that America's critical interest will be involved on land, and the American soldier will have a pivotal role to play.

We have also said that when we put that American soldier out wherever it is to defend American interests, he or she will have to operate in and among other populations. So what we need then is a capability that we can deploy, that we can operate with efficiency that enables us to be able to be precise, and also to be economical.

We cannot afford large operating footprints, and we can't afford cumbersome and inefficient systems. We need to bring the power of the network to not just the headquarters, the general to colonel, but to the soldier on patrol, to the soldier at the checkpoint.

So all this is reflected right now when we assess the adequacy of our current equipment. Our current equipment is the best in the world at this point. But what we'll have to do is invest major just to make it operational for this war.

We have essentially put (applications ?) of new capability to try to make it relevant. We would liken it to your family car that you put a GPS on if it's a 20-year-old family car. Yes it has a GPS capability, but it's not the same as a car that is born and bred with that capability in it.

And so although we have made anonymous investments and improvements in our current force, we see the need for the future, we see the need for an army that is able to operate much more efficiently, much more effectively in an army that we think will have the need to be committable and usable to a greater degree than many of us would like.

And so if that is the case then, what we need is the power of the network, we need the power of a common platform to drive us to greater efficiencies and operating capabilities, and we need the ability to be precise with everything we do, because we are going to be operating in populations among people where there will be both friend and foe, we need to be able to distinguish between them.

So these then are the capabilities that we see in Future Combat Systems. So we replace a series of platforms that were born and bred to operate in central Europe in the last century.

And now we face an army that must operate in very different environments with much more taxing capabilities, and we believe that Future Combat Systems answers those requirements.

GEN. THOMPSON: Sir, if I can just --

SEN. CORNYN: Please.

GEN. THOMPSON: Very briefly from an acquisition perspective, and it is really a misperception that some people may have. FCS is not just one-man ground vehicle platform.

It is a family of systems designed to provide a capability for our brigade combat team, and a brigade combat team in today's Army is the coin of the realm.

And so the FCS program has got the network and the connectivity we want, as I said in my opening remarks, to give the soldiers out there, whether they are in a vehicle or dismounted from a vehicle, the ability to see, transmit information, to know where their buddies are, to know where the enemy is, and to be able to operate and create an environment where they are in an unfair fight, because they are so advantageous that the enemy doesn't have an opportunity.

So you've got the network, you got eight-manned ground vehicles, you got a couple of variants of unmanned ground vehicles, and you've got a couple of variants of unmanned aerial vehicles. And you look today in Afghanistan and Iraq, at the great success that we are having with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and the FCS UAVs, if I can use the acronym, are the next generation of that.

Again, powerful, powerful capability to give the information and the surveillance and the reconnaissance capability, and link it not just down to the commander, but link it all the way down to the soldier level.

So there is that misperception that FCS is just a system. It is a family of systems. And the function that the FCS performs is it causes us to have to align all of the other modernization capabilities in the Army, so all of these things we call complementary programs.

In the last year, in great detail I have personally gone down and looked at 67 other programs that are not part of FCS to make sure that the schedule and the operational capability and the technical capability of those programs, like Jitters, like WIN-T, like the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, are all aligned so that they operate together as a brigade combat team.

And we don't develop individual systems, and then later on figure out how it have to work together. That has been a different approach that we are taking from an acquisition perspective.

Is it challenging? Yes, it is. Do I have the best people in the Army and the best people in the country working on this? Yes, we do. And we're getting there.

SEN. CORNYN: Well, perhaps it's because, while this subcommittee and the Senate, I believe, has been very supportive of FCS, in particular, I think the House has from time to time cut FCS a number of time to the point now where, if I understand correctly, it's not just cutting fat, it's not cutting muscle, is cutting into the bone, and perhaps create the impression that FCS can pay for other programs, other weapon systems and the like, but which I think is wrong from what you have told us and everything I know.

But could you elaborate on the negative effects of slowing down, and consequently delaying the fielding of FCS -- what that would have on our troops? And I'm thinking of a conversation I had with General Odierno, who just got back from Baghdad, and what you alluded to in terms of the spin out capability, and its present-day applications to the war fighter in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What would be the effect of slowing down or delaying the fielding of FCS in its entirety?

GEN. SPEAKES: Sir, I think that there is one very simple answer right now, and that is that when we take a look at the operational need statements that our -- the commander's call for help is they communicate back to the Pentagon and tell the Pentagon that they need capabilities they don't have.

80 percent of the operational need statements that we've seen in this war have been directly related to our ability to deliver capability in FCS.

In other words, we answer their calls for help when we bring FCS on, because what they are asking for are the critical capabilities that General Thompson so well explained -- the ability to ensure that we bring the network to soldiers so we can get them the communication they need, the ability to put a UAV out overhead, the ability to use robotics to separate the soldier from the IED.

So all those things that are so obvious and so relevant that we see that are lacking to a large degree in some of the formations we fielded over the last years, are now fixable, and eminently improvable, if we bring FCS on line.

That's why the urgency of the program is so obvious to those of us in the Army, who have understood the nature of this war, and understood that FCS has a direct relationship to fixing those issues that General Thompson said so well, on a systematic basis, because I think that's the thing that he explained so well, for fielding a brigade system, when we bring the first brigade combat team with FCS capabilities on line.

It's harmonized, it's synchronized. There is enormous agility in it because it has a common platform, common logistics, common operating capabilities. As you know, today, what we're doing through fielding individual capability improvements incrementally. And then what the soldier in the field has to do is make them work together.

That puts the soldier in the field under enormous threats that he or she shouldn't have to operate on. So this is important. And you are exactly right, sir. We need to bring the capability. It answers directly to the request of commanders in the field. And that's what makes us so excited about FCS.

SEN. CORNYN: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman.

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SEN. CORNYN: Last year, Secretary Gates established the MRAP vehicle as a top priority program within the Department of Defense, and Congress responded with $22 billion -- is that right? $22 billion -- fully funded more than 15,000 of these armored vehicles.

Today, almost 3,600 MRAPs are operating in Iraq, and I might say that when I was there back in January, I had a chance to visit Ghazalia on the edge of Baghdad, and ride in an MRAP.

And I can tell you that the soldiers are very happy to have that capability, and it has served as additional protection for them.

Could you tell us thought -- we know that the enemy in Iraq has been extremely effective in adapting to pass protective measures to our troops. Things like the Iranian-provided Explosively Formed Penetrators just come to mind for one, and could you tell us how these may affect the future production needs for these vehicles, or additional requirements over and above of what is already contained in the 2009 budget?

GEN. THOMPSON: Let me start, and I'll ask General Speakes to jump in for any amplifying points.

First off, the MRAP has been a very successful program, and one where every soldier and marine out there truly appreciates the support of the Congress to give us the resources to accelerate that capability.

We pretty much settled on what the requirement is, although we are not quite to the definitization stage for the Army requirement. The Marines, I know, have settled on the number that they think of the MRAP vehicles.

We're still in a range of somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000, and we have adjusted the production of the MRAPs over time so that the acquisition and the delivery matches up with the requirement.

That capability will be used in the future. One of the things that we've done with our route clearance companies, which go out and obviously clear a route in advance of a convoy or a soldier patrol, and our explosive ordnance disposal teams, is we looked at the need for the vehicles for those kind of units, and a thousand of the MRAPs we will buy will meet those long-term enduring needs.

So we've tried to not look at MRAP as just a "now" capability, but also what will be the capability that it'll be used for in the future.

So a thousand of the Army's MRAP vehicles will have an enduring mission. And I'm not sure -- pretty sure that's not going to be the end of the use of the MRAPs. I suspect a large number of them, when the requirements come down for the demand for forces, will probably be reconditioned and put in pre-positioned stocks.

We're looking at what is the right number of those vehicles to do that. We're also looking inside the department at the rationalization of our long-term vehicle strategy, combat vehicles and wheeled vehicles. And so MRAPs are part of that equation.

As you know we've got about close to 150,000 high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles, HMMWVs, in the Army today. We are looking at the future requirement for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, which is out on the street right now with a request for proposal, and we expect the industry bids back in here, in about 30 to 45 days.

But MRAPs is part of that equation. So it's the rationalization of the HMMWVs today, the JLTVs in the future, and MRAPs is part of that, and we owe an answer back to ourselves, and also to the office of the Secretary of Defense here within the next couple of months on what is that long-term strategy.

SEN. CORNYN: I know, just while we've been in Iraq, we'll seen where HMMWVs, which were sort of the standard transportation, because of force protection concerns were then up-armored, and then of course, now the evolution into the MRAP put enhanced protection due to the reshaped hull and other aspects of it.

You can -- you did describe General Thompson that the Army is looking at this vehicle design not just for today's threat but for threats that may arise in the perceivable future -- and I realize you can't predict everything, but that process is going forward.

GEN. THOMPSON: Yes, sir, and if I can make -- and other thing that comes to mind, another linkage there, and it gets back to the importance of the FCS program, the continued investment by the FCS program in armor development has been the foundation for the armor protection kits that we have put on HMMWVs, and has been the foundation for the armor protection that we put on the MRAP vehicles. And so it is a very smart acquisition decision on our part, and again, that's another strength of the FCS program.

And so we look at the testing on MRAP, and it informs the future development of FCS, just like the development of armor on the FCS program has informed what we've put on the up-armored HMMWVs, and on the MRAP programs.

SEN. CORNYN: Well, I know that -- as I noted earlier, as far as I'm concerned, whatever war fighters need, I'm willing to support appropriations for that need. But occasionally you will have people come up, constituents and others who'd say, well, you know, the Army, the military is not providing x -- body armor -- here -- sort of -- I would have to -- I don't know whether you call them urban miss or not -- about soldiers having to purchase their own body armor.

But I know that sort of the requirement in the case of these vehicles has changed over time, and I don't know, and perhaps maybe you could comment on whether, sort of, there's been an evolving standard in terms of what the Army would provide the war fighter in the field, in terms of body armor and other equipment and resources. Could you respond to that?

GEN. THOMPSON: Yes, sir. I can. In body armor, we are on our fifth upgrade of body armor since the war started. It is FRAG kit -- the armor protection kit 5 that is on most of the HMMWVs today, and we are looking at the development of FRAG kit 6 which gets after the explosively formed penetrator threat. So it's a continual evolution of capability.

Again going back to the FCS program, you know, one of the strengths of that program is the fact that we'll be able to have attachment points for upgraded armor on the vehicles that we produce under FCS, so we don't have to bolt them on after the fact. So it's integrated development approach.

We do the same thing with all of our systems, you know, whether its rifles, or body armor, or night vision goggles, we are always looking at cutting in upgrade or changes of those programs that make sense. And so there is no static program out there, helicopter to what the individual soldier wears, and I used to body armor as a great example.

SEN. CORNYN: Well, I know that it seems like a shocking statement for someone to make that a soldier would have to buy their own body armor, and I've never really confirmed that to be the case, but I'm wondering if this evolution of systems, whether it's body armor, up-armored HMMWVs or MRAPs, we are continually setting a higher standard.

And in one sense there maybe the perception that because that, you know, the latest and greatest is not deployed universally that somebody is getting less than what we are capable of providing them for either their protection or ability to do their job.

GEN. THOMPSON: I think we can say those Senator that the latest and greatest of the capability that we've got is with the soldiers that are deployed in harms way, or the soldiers that are getting ready to go into harm's way.

And so you are always chasing that next increment of capability. And once we achieve that next increment of capability, it first goes to the soldiers that are in harm's way.

SEN. CORNYN: Well, I can't help but recall what Chairman Lieberman said when the stories broke in the Washington Post over Walter Reed in the outpatient housing. I remember his statement that this was embarrassing. And I thought that was a good way to describe it, because I have to tell you that our commitment is to do whatever is needed to provide for war fighters and service members and our veterans, and that's, I would say, a universal commitment of this committee and Congress.

So it's -- when somebody throws out sort of a -- something -- a curveball like that and suggest that we are not doing it, you know, my first reaction is I hope that is not true, and second is, you know, if it is, this is embarrassing, because certainly it runs counter to every impulse, every instinct that I know Congress has when it comes to providing for war fighters, for their families or veterans across the board.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

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