ability to deal with the outer air battle, to go a long way away from the carrier, to carry the Phoenix missile, to knock down a Soviet backfire bomber carrying cruise missiles that threaten the fleet.

We think we can safely stop the production of the F-14 line, keep what we have in the inventory, and emphasize an upgraded version of the F/A-18 as a way to deal with that outer air battle long term.

If we had our druthers, if we had no financial problem to address, we would be happy to try to keep the F-14 production line alive.

Those are expensive aircraft, about $50 million a copy. The F-14 has a big radar cross section. It does not have any of the advantages that we would like to find in new generation aircraft.

It will continue to play a very significant role for some time to come. We think the future resides in going with an upgraded version of the F/A-18. Tough call, difficult choice. I am sure Congress will want to debate it.

The question on the B-2, I remain a strong advocate of the B-2. I think it is essential we modernize our strategic forces. The B-2 is a very important part of that.

We are in many ways trimming our strategic capabilities with decisions that have already been forced upon us, either as a result of arms control or budget considerations. We are cutting back the number of Trident submarines. We are only going to build 18.

We are not going forward at present with the deployment of the MX rail garrison. All we are taking it through is the test phase. We have not yet asked to deploy the Small ICBM.

We are going to do R&D on that. We have to come back down the road and ask for that as well.

We are taking aircraft out of the inventory, some of the old B52s, et cetera. I think it is absolutely vital we complete the B-2 program.

We will have spent around $40 billion on it. If we stop it now, as many have suggested, we will have spent close to $40 billion for 15 airplanes. You can't do a lot with 15 airplanes.

For a relatively modest additional investment, relative to what we have already spent, we can reap the benefits of that investment and complete the 75 we recommended last year.

The F-117 experience in the Gulf is relevant because it shows that stealth works. You can fly into a hostile environment, a very dangerous environment, with a lot of radars, a lot of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), that are obviously the biggest threat to a high altitude system. You can operate in that environment. You can do it safely. Look at all the missions that have been flown by the F-117 over the last 3 weeks. As I mentioned earlier, in those earlier hours, 40 percent of the missions were flown by 5 percent of the aircraft, basically our stealth aircraft.

We have done that. As far as I know, I don't think there is a single hit that has been scored on any of those F-117s. None of them have gone down.

I don't believe any of them were damaged in 3 weeks of air combat, when they fly in missions day after day after day. Stealth works; we need it.

We ought to finish the B-2 program.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We have Marilyn Lloyd and then Norm Sisisky. Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Cheney, General Powell, thank you.

I believe as a percentage of the population, Chattanooga, Tennessee sees a greater call up of Guard and Reservists than any city in the Nation. We are proud of our men and women.

I want you to know the people I represent are certainly praying and our best wishes are with you as you make tough choices and decisions.

I would like to talk a little bit about lessons learned. This is a little bit premature.

I don't think it is too early to look at our defense industry base. Certain industries I know are in a better position to respond. I think we ought to really see if our defense industrial policy is effective and what improvements need to be made at this point.

I say this as a Chairman of the Textile Caucus. It has been my contention for a long time that textiles are a key defense industry. They have responded well, but in certain areas we do have a shortage and deficiency.

I am talking about the desert combat fatigues. I was in Fort Campbell to tour the facilities about 3 weeks ago. At this time I was told that the reservists that are shipping out from there would not have their desert combat fatigues when they left, but when they got to Saudi, they would be there.

This past weekend, I called and I was told, no, that they wouldn't have their fatigues when they got there and I called the Pentagon and questioned them about it this week. They said, well, we had hoped originally to have four sets of desert fatigues. Now we are hoping to have two, but some of them are still in the factories and indeed many of our reservists do not have their fatigues.

They also said that maybe we will have four by April. The war will be 4 months old in April. I would like your comments on uniforms.

General POWELL. We have been pleased with the response of the textile industry, but the demand we placed on the industry has at the same time been enormous.

So we have not been able to catch up with our inventory requirements yet, particularly in terms of being able to give every GI four sets of desert fatigues. We are working at it.

Mrs. LLOYD. What troubles me is some don't have any, General. General PoWELL. I will look at that when we go over there this weekend and see how they are making distribution. But I just can't answer the question without looking into it and talking to the commanders on the scene.

It has been a heck of a demand placed on the system in a short period of time. There are limits to how quickly you can respond to that.

Mrs. LLOYD. I realize that. It seems to me the shrinking industrial base is partly responsible for this. It troubles me.

General POWELL. As desirable as it is to have desert fatigues, the others are not totally unusable, of course. The camouflage features are not as desirable as the desert fatigues. They are adequate to

the task if we don't have enough to give every GI one or two or three or four sets.

We will look into it.

[The following information was received for the record:]

DESERT CAMOUFLAGE UNIFORM SHORTAGES

There should now be adequate Desert Battledress Uniforms (DBDU) in theater to support requirements. I am aware of one instance where a unit's DBDUs were shipped and then the unit's deployment schedule was accelerated. We are doing whatever we can to preclude this type of situation; however, the coordination effort is immense. The intent is to ensure that front line troops receive priority issue while support units in the rear are issued DBDUs based on subsequent availability. The surge of DBDU production is on track and uniforms are being shipped by surface to Southwest Asia as soon as they become available from the manufacturer. Mrs. LLOYD. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, gentlemen. God speed on your trip.

I want to get some parochial issues out of the way. When they tie in with national interests, I think it is important.

I am concerned about the hundred-and-some ships we have there and the thousand-and-some planes we have.

They are operating at full operational tempo. That means they are going to need some repairs when this war is over. Hopefully, you will have something in your supplemental budget when you come in to repair some of these. I don't think there is enough money in the regular budget, and I would hope that you would look at that if you haven't done so already.

Now that I have that out of the way, except the aircraft carrier, I would remind members of this committee that is front money in 1993, if I am correct. We are talking about a large deck carrier to be delivered in the next century.

So we are not talking about something happening overnight and we will have other carriers that will be 50 years old or more at that time.

I think you made the wise decision there.

Mr. Dickinson really took away what I was going to talk about. We just talked about the F-14D a second ago. So I won't talk a lot about it except to tell you there is going to be a debate withinparticularly the procurement committee and this committee.

For instance, perusing the budget, I just looked at last year. We bought 48 F/A-18s. This year we are going to buy 36. The price is more than the 48 for last year.

Mrs. Lloyd just talked about our industrial base. We are very concerned about keeping that up. These are some of the things that we are going to be talking about.

But the major thing I wanted to ask you: when President Reagan talked about sharing SDI technology with the Soviets, many of us really wondered if that was a good idea.

But, sharing it with our allies is a different matter. Now that our allies see the benefits of particularly theater missile defense against tactical missile attack, do you think we can get them to share some of the R&D costs?

This is going to be a subject of debate. I think it happens to be important. I think this could really reduce the costs that we have over what we have in the budget.

I look back at my notes for last year when you were here. I was talking about how the scene has changed from deployed to deployable forces, if you remember. I brought it up. I brought up the industrial base, too.

We brought up sealift. Now, General Powell, your commentsand, of course, Secretary Cheney-you talk about the different kind of military, those that can go places. I am very, very disappointed in the sealift.

We talk about it. I looked at one of the DOD publications. You are going to have another study due this spring some time. I think we really studied it enough. If I remember the notes in the budget, there is $1.3 billion worth of backlog.

So, hopefully, we have learned that we need fast sealift. I don't know the configurations. That is up to you.

There is another thing we need. I am very unhappy with this, as a member of the procurement subcommittee. It is mainly because the army needs it. I think this Congress would have probably killed the C-17 program 2 years ago because of the slowness of it if the Army did not have the need.

Somehow, we have to get that program quickened up. I just cannot fathom why we are having so much difficulty with that program. Hopefully, you will put a priority on it to get it done.

Secretary CHENEY. Congressman, we are pushing hard on the C17. We both mentioned it in our testimony. It is really a vital effort.

Hopefully, the first flight will be later on this year. I think we have most of the bugs worked out of it. It is a new aircraft.

Some important new capabilities are built into it. I am fairly confident we are going to be able to bring the C-17 on as expected. One of the things that needs to be mentioned for the committee that may seem obvious, lots of times we have problems with programs in the early days. I cannot think of one of those major systems we have fielded out there now that did not undergo difficulties when it was new technology, on the outer edge of our capabilities, whether it is the Patriot or the M-1 Abrams tank.

I think we need to remind ourselves from time to time slow going in the early stages of a program or complex problems don't necessarily mean it is a bad idea or we shouldn't buy it. It means it is tough and takes a lot of effort some times to bring it on.

A lot of the systems have performed extremely well even though they may have had difficulty going initially.

Finally, on sealift, no question that that is an important area for us to address. It is not quite as simple as just going out and buying more fast sealift ships. You have to look at the question of crewing the ships when you need it. You have to look at tradeoff versus fast sealift and maybe more pre-positioning, the way the Marines do with their MPS ships.

Maybe more POMCUS stocks stored around the world. There are various ways to deal with the problem of getting our heavy ground force capabilities to the distant parts of the world. Fast sealift is one of those. It has been important.

I think we need the right mix of things. That is why we spend as much time studying it as we do.

Mr. SISISKY. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Dave Martin.

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, gentlemen.

I just wanted to say at the outset, frankly, how proud I am of both of you.

I have known you a long time. I think we are all very proud. America is proud of the job you have been doing.

It is interesting to note some people would think this war has been going on for 21 months rather than 21 days.

I can almost imagine what it is like as far as you two gentlemen dealing with this on a day-to-day basis since August. I guess it has been somewhat 16, 17 months since you have been a team. You can look back at Just Cause. You look back at the Berlin Wall coming down, the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact.

You look at the budget that you folks had to put together for this precipitous production spending in defense, and then a war.

I don't know what your career plans are after you leave. But it is going to be quite difficult to find something challenging.

You have my gratitude and respect. I think the Nation's thanks. We are going to be dealing with a lot of these programs and your recommended budget at the subcommittee and committee level, down through the departments of the services. So I want to talk about just some general things here and again wish you the best on your trip tonight.

If I could have your comments on some things that are on my mind, last year we put together a base closure commission/procedure however you want to determine it. Mr. Secretary, I would like to have you comment, if you would, what you see to be thehow well this is working and whether things are on schedule and what predictions you have for success as we go ahead with this procedure.

I predict it will be a long, hot summer in that regard, but just something else that I think you will find somewhat challenging.

The second thing Earl Hutto, my friend from Florida, brought it up. Beverly Byron commented on it. I would hope you would take the opportunity you have here to respond, to underscore what I think you believe and I believe to be a real challenge.

I don't think we have focused in and really understand the enormity of the problem we are going to have as far as the projected lowering of end strengths at a time when we are holding steady or even building up because every day that goes by, if we don't have emphasis on it now, every day that goes by complicates the problem geometrically as to meeting those end strength reductions.

As last year, I want to underscore, that all the members of this committee, in particular, have to understand how tough this is going to be on that all-volunteer service and their families.

I would hope that we could focus early on it rather than have the considerable-well, let's say hard feeing we had last year as we did this brinksmanship as far as looking after the interests of uniformed personnel.

It has just been complicated enormously by the war.