PREPOSITIONED STOCK/FAST SEALIFT Mr. Lancaster: Desert Shield demonstrated the value of prepositioned equipment, and it demonstrated the need for additional capability in fast sealift. With regard to prepositioned equipment, what are your plans to renew the prepositioned stock? How long is the replenishment expected to take? Will you restock to the same levels, or higher levels? Will you change the configuration of equipment and/or supplies? Will you change the location of the prepositioned ships? What lessons have you learned from this experience with regard to prepositioned stocks, to fast sealift, and to the relationship between the two? General Powell: We have already started to reassess the prepositioned equipment requirement as part of the overall deliberate planning process. However, the most meaningful information will not be available until DESERT STORM is concluded. This assessment must include an extensive threat analysis and the requirement for prepositioned equipment to counter identified threats. The results of our analysis will indicate specific equipment requirements and locations for prepositioning. The length of time required to replenish our prepositioned equipment will depend on two things, the size of the requirement and the funds available to support that requirement. Ultimately, we will replenish stocks as quickly as funding is authorized and the industrial base can support the production requirement. The level to which we restock will be a direct result of our requirements analysis. Modernization must be factored into our planning for equipment and associated supplies. The ultimate location of our prepositioned ships will be determined as part of our overall analysis, however the flexibility provided by prepositioned ships must be recognized. There have been a steady stream of lessons learned from DESERT STORM regarding prepositioned stocks and fast sealift. I can only emphasize what Secretary Cheney has already said that Fast Sealift has been enormously useful in the deployment. We owe Congress a plan that presents an equitable balance between sealift, airlift and prepositioning. V-22 Representative Weldon: Secretary Cheney, while testifying before the Committee you maintained that it is absolutely vital that we retain our technological edge, an edge which accounts for the success we have had to date in the conflict in Southwest Asia. You also stated that there is a direct relationship between our technological capability and the casualty rate on the battlefield, offering as an example the NBC survivability measures incorporated into the M-1 tank. Both of these statements support the argument for buying the V-22. Arguably, cost is not the driving issue in making a decision not to procure this aircraft, since the alternative will cost as much and more to operate and maintain in the outyears, when dollars are in even shorter supply. Why, then, do you still refuse to go ahead with the V-22 program? Answer: Cost is the driving issue, and the V-22 is too costly. The Department will continue to protect the nation's technological edge and will complete tilt-rotor research and development to that end. At these budget levels, however, we can afford to deploy operational systems embodying only those technologies that offer the greatest combat capability payoff per dollar invested. The V-22 is not such a system. V-22 OSPREY PROCUREMENT FUNDS Mr. Weldon: Mr. Secretary, in January the Department released $94 million in V-22 R&D money in accordance with the DoD Conference Agreement. However, four months into the fiscal year, no V-22 procurement money has been released. Now, I see the FY 1992 request proposes to "delete" the unspent FY 1989 procurement money that the Department was specifically directed to spend, and to "transfer" the FY 1991 procurement dollars into R&D. The Department may like to see V-22 procurement money spent elsewhere, but Congress has not authorized such action. Current law requires the Department to spend that money now. Holding up this money until the FY 1992 budget is completed amounts to budget impoundment, and violates Federal law. When does the Department plan to release this money to the Navy? Answer: The $165 million of FY 1991 funding will be released to the Navy for the completion of the V-22 development program as soon as the enabling legislation proposed by the Department has been enacted. Specifically, we proposed that the FY 1992 Appropriation Act include a general provision (Section 8049) that would transfer the $165 million from the Aircraft Procurement, Navy account to the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy account. The $200 million of FY 1989 funding has been proposed for rescission since the Department will not be able to use these funds before they expire six months from now. Mr. Weldon: Does the Department plan to follow Conference directives to manage the program, and purchase production representative aircraft? Answer: The Department's plan is to complete the V-22 development program through initial operational test and evaluation using the full scale engineering development_models as the test platforms. All costs will be funded from the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy account, which is why the general provision to transfer the $165 million has been proposed by the Department. Mission of B-2 and SDI Congressman Andrews: There are, however, a number of programs in the budget that raise questions about the Administration's actual meaning of these terms: specifically, the request for over 9 billion dollars for two Cold War programs, the B-2 bomber and SDI. These programs were initiated to counter a Soviet threat has Answer: Even The mission of the B-2 bomber is still the same, to deter any opponent from attacking the United States and its allies, and should that deterrence fail, provide a means of minimizing damage and retaliating with a creditable offensive capability. with all the changes in the world during the 1990s, the Soviet Union is still the only country in the world that has the capability to launch a massive nuclear attack with the potential to devastate the United States. While recent events toward arms reductions are promising, we must recognize the strategic threat still exists and we must prepare our nation's defense by looking at reality, not perceptions. The B-2 mission is still to provide deterrence through the capability to conduct missions across the spectrum of conflict nuclear war, conventional conflicts, and peacetime crisis situation. The B-2 will provide this nation a low observable, multi-role manned strategic penetrator, combining exceptional range and payload capability with precision weapons delivery in both nuclear and conventional roles. 11 SDI is being reoriented to provide global protection against limited ballistic missile strikes whatever their source. Such defenses could protect U.S. forces deployed overseas, U.S. power projection forces, and U.S. allies and friends as well as the United States itself against accidental, unauthorized, and/or limited ballistic missile strikes. At less than half the size of the SDI Phase I architecture, the global protection against limited strikes (GPALS) system would provide an affordable defensive capability that satisfies legitimate security concerns. The SDI program will develop the systems and technologies that will provide options to expand our defense deployments beyond GPALS if we decide in the future that circumstances require more ambitious objectives. Factors influencing any future decision on whether to proceed beyond GPALS could include: Political and military developments in the Soviet Union; O Changes in the Third World threat. The primary responsibility for maintaining deterrence of an intentional, massive Soviet strategic offensive strike against the United States and its allies will remain with U.S. strategic offensive forces for the remainder of the century. The purpose of GPALS is to provide protection against limited ballistic missile strikes. Mr. Andrews: The budget that the Administration has provided, despite talk of cutbacks, is still over eighty percent larger than the combined budgets of our fifteen NATO allies. Is it your view that our allies are paying their fair share of their defense responsibility? What steps have been taken as part of our defense budget process to assure that the defense burden is shouldered fairly by our allies? If our allies are unwilling to invest adequately in their own defense, must we continue to do the job for them? Answer: The outlines of the burdensharing issue in NATO began to alter significantly in 1990, and are now in transition. The political and military changes which have occurred in Europe since 1989, and the corresponding reduction in the threat posed to NATO by the now-deteriorating Warsaw Pact, have changed the burdensharing equation as previously defined within NATO and created new opportunities to rationalize the distribution of roles, risks, and responsibilities with the Alliance. Overall, the changes now underway in Europe and the response of Alliance nations to the crisis in the Persian Gulf are casting a new light on the burdensharing issue. Allied contributions should be measured in terms of their contribution to overall security and stability, as well as in terms of funds allocated to military forces and other defense functions. The Administration has aggressively pressed the allies since August 1990 to provide not only cash but all other types of defense support and equipment needed to pursue our objectives in the Persian Gulf. The Western allies have already made major contributions toward their fair share of their defense contributions in support of both Desert Storm and Desert Shield. We are pleased with their responses. Significant pledges have been made and actual contributions are in process. We will continue to keep Congress informed, as the budget process develops, on the specifics and extent to which our allies are shouldering their fair share of the defense burden. We will also continue to emphasize to all of our allies that we expect them to do more even though we acknowledge the extend of their present participation. It simply is not true that allies are unwilling to invest adequately in their own defenses. The coalition of our allies is working both in NATO, in the Pacific, and in the Persian Gulf. - Mr. LIGHT HELICOPTER (LH) Dickinson. Last August, you made a decision to split the development of the LH into two phases: a demonstration/ validation prototype phase followed by full-scale development. You reduced both the total quantity to be produced and the annual rate of production. The request for the contractors' Best and Final offers for the prototype phase is now in the hands of the competing teams. 00 Are you convinced the Army has adequately budgeted for the prototype phase--that we won't have a revisit of the A-12 situation? 00 Are you convinced the requirement for the LH remains solid? Answer: The LH Program Manager will award a Demonstration/Validation contract in early April 1991 to the winning team. The Army has worked very hard to assure that contractors will not present unrealistically low bids. Both competing contractor teams have been notified that their development cost proposals must be realistic. An offer which is deemed unrealistically low in cost will be judged to reflect a lack of understanding of program requirements, and this can be a basis for nonselection. It is also the Army's primary objective to avoid cost overruns by providing strong incentives for a realistic offer. In the case of LH, the offerers have been informed that the Army would share a significant portion of any cost underrun with industry. In addition, the Army's overall cost estimates and contractor development cost proposals for the LH have been reviewed by the Department of Defense during the spring 1990 Major Aircraft Review, again in December 1990 in preparation for the January 4, 1991 Defense Acquisition Board. This was done to assure that the program is properly funded. Based upon these reviews, an increment of additional funding ($204 million Research, Development, Testing, Evaluation; $466 million Procurement) has been provided to the program in the Fiscal Year |