    [Senate Hearing 108-440]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                    S. Hrg. 108-440, Pt. 7

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARINGS

                                   before the

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                       ON

                                    S. 2400

    AUTHORIZING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 FOR MILITARY ACTIVITIES
       OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, AND FOR
    DEFENSE ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, TO PRESCRIBE PERSONNEL
      STRENGTHS FOR SUCH FISCAL YEAR FOR THE ARMED FORCES, AND FOR OTHER
                                    PURPOSES

                                   ----------

                                     PART 7

                                STRATEGIC FORCES

                                   ----------

                    FEBRUARY 25; MARCH 24, 25; APRIL 7, 2004

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                         2005--Part 7  STRATEGIC FORCES

                                                     S. Hrg. 108-440, Pt. 7

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARINGS

                                   before the

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                       ON

                                    S. 2400

    AUTHORIZING APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 FOR MILITARY ACTIVITIES
       OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, AND FOR
    DEFENSE ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, TO PRESCRIBE PERSONNEL
      STRENGTHS FOR SUCH FISCAL YEAR FOR THE ARMED FORCES, AND FOR OTHER
                                    PURPOSES

                                   __________

                                     PART 7

                                STRATEGIC FORCES

                                   __________

                    FEBRUARY 25; MARCH 24, 25; APRIL 7, 2004

             Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services

                         U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        JOHN WARNER, Virginia, Chairman

    JOHN McCAIN, Arizona                 CARL LEVIN, Michigan
    JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma            EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
    PAT ROBERTS, Kansas                  ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
    WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado               JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
    JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama               JACK REED, Rhode Island
    SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine              DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
    JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada                  BILL NELSON, Florida
    JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri            E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska
    SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia             MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
    LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    EVAN BAYH, Indiana
    ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina       HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York
    JOHN CORNYN, Texas                   MARK PRYOR, Arkansas

                        Judith A. Ansley, Staff Director

                 Richard D. DeBobes, Democratic Staff Director

                                     ______

                        Subcommittee on Strategic Forces

                        WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado, Chairman

    JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma            BILL NELSON, Florida
    JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama               ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia
    JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada                  JACK REED, Rhode Island
    LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina    E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska
    JOHN CORNYN, Texas                   MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

                                      (ii)
    ?

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                        CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES
     Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management, Office of
              Future Liabilities, and Office of Legacy Management

                               february 25, 2004

                                                                       Page
    Roberson, Hon. Jessie Hill, Assistant Secretary of Energy for
      Environmental Management.......................................     4
    Owen, Michael W., Director, Office of Legacy Management,
      Department of Energy...........................................    17

                       Strategic Forces and Capabilities
                                 march 24, 2004

    Brooks, Ambassador Linton F., Administrator, National Nuclear
      Security Administration........................................    56
    Ellis, Adm. James O., Jr., USN, Commander, United States
      Strategic Command..............................................    66

                National Security Space Programs and Management
                                 march 25, 2004

    Teets, Hon. Peter B., Under Secretary of the Air Force and
      Director, National Reconnaissance Office.......................   111
    Ellis, Adm. James O., Jr., USN, Commander, United States
      Strategic Command..............................................   118
    Lord, Gen. Lance W., USAF, Commander, Air Force Space Command....   129
    Cebrowski, Vice Adm. Arthur K., USN [Ret.], Director, Office of
      Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense.......   132

     Defense Intelligence Programs and Lessons Learned in Recent Military
                                   Operations
                                 april 7, 2004

    Cambone, Hon. Stephen A., Under Secretary of Defense for
      Intelligence...................................................   191
    Alexander, Lt. Gen. Keith B., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2,
      Department of the Army.........................................   203
    Porterfield, Rear Adm. Richard B., USN, Director of Naval
      Intelligence, Headquarters, U.S. Navy..........................   219
    Sams, Maj. Gen. Ronald F., USAF, Director of Intelligence,
      Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, Department of the Air Force..   224
    Decker, Michael H., Director for Intelligence, Headquarters,
      United States Marine Corps.....................................   231
    Wurster, Brig. Gen. Donald C., USAF, Director for Intelligence
      and Information Operations, U.S. Special Operations Command....   234

                                     (iii)

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2004

                                   U.S. Senate,
                      Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                                                        Washington, DC.

     DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, OFFICE OF
              FUTURE LIABILITIES, AND OFFICE OF LEGACY MANAGEMENT

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:29 p.m. in
    room SR-232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne
    Allard (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Committee members present: Senators Allard, Graham, and
    Nelson of Florida.
        Committee staff members present: Leah C. Brewer,
    nominations and hearings clerk; and Alison E. Brill,
    receptionist.
        Majority staff members present: L. David Cherington,
    counsel; and Scott W. Stucky, general counsel.
        Minority staff member present: Madelyn R. Creedon, minority
    counsel.
        Staff assistants present: Michael N. Berger and Sara R.
    Mareno.
        Committee members' assistants present: Jayson Roehl,
    assistant to Senator Allard; and William K. Sutey, assistant to
    Senator Bill Nelson.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD, CHAIRMAN

        Senator Allard. I call this meeting of the Strategic Forces
    Subcommittee to order. The ranking member is going to be a
    little bit late, but he will show up. Some of the members will
    come and go today. I want to go ahead and make my opening
    statement and then go ahead and get testimony from our panel
    this afternoon.
        I would like to thank our panel. We have a couple of
    witnesses that I am anxious to hear from. First, the Honorable
    Jessie Hill Roberson, Assistant Secretary of Energy for
    Environmental Management (EM); and Michael W. Owen, who is
    Director of the Office of Legacy Management (LM), Department of
    Energy (DOE). I will have quite an extensive questioning
    period, I think, for both of you. So in a way it is a blessing,
    because I can go ahead and put all of this in the record
    together.
        Let me go ahead and get my opening statement out of the
    way, and I want to thank both of you for being willing to join
    us today and letting us hear from you.
        I would like to thank our witnesses for appearing before
    the Strategic Forces Subcommittee today and providing testimony
    about the DOE's vision for cleanup and closing all of the
    environmental sites and facilities. I also look forward to the
    testimony on the subsequent challenges of handing over the
    long-term stewardship and personnel responsibilities to the
    newly created LM. I look forward to hearing your testimony.
        I am especially pleased to have this hearing on the fiscal
    year 2005 budget request for EM, which at most is the last full
    fiscal year authorization and appropriation for cleanup at
    Rocky Flats. I hope I am not being overly optimistic. I want to
    express my compliments and sincere appreciation to assistant
    Secretary Jessie Roberson for her unwavering dedication and
    focus which led to this success.
        In 1996, then as manager of the DOE's Rocky Flats field
    office, Jessie Roberson was part of a small group of
    visionaries who first conceived of the closure of Rocky Flats
    by 2006, 60 years ahead of schedule. Madam Secretary, you have
    shown enormous leadership and courage when there were more
    voices saying it could not be done and it should not be done.
    Despite those criticisms, you stayed the course.
        I know there are still big challenges to face at Rocky
    Flats these next 2 years and I have full confidence in your
    abilities. Similar efforts and success are being realized at
    the Fernald and Mound sites in Ohio.
        The vision which you brought to these first three closure
    sites along with Under Secretary Bob Card and many others was a
    vision to challenge the status quo, a status quo which sought
    to comply but not clean up, to measure success by how many
    milestones were met without first considering where those
    markers were placed. Your visionary plan sought to reduce the
    risks to workers, the community and the environment, and
    thereby accelerate cleanup and closure. Implementing a plan to
    lower these risks seems like common sense today, but was seen
    as risky and impossible just a few years ago.
        Now this vision is being spread to the remaining EM sites,
    including Hanford, Idaho, Oak Ridge, and the Savannah River
    site. There have been some voices of doubt about whether
    accelerating cleanup and reducing risks to the workers,
    community, and the environment makes sense. I would encourage
    those few voices to take a look at what can happen when the
    community helps find a way to accelerate the cleanup.
        Rocky Flats was originally scheduled to be closed in 2065,
    with special nuclear materials remaining on the site for most
    of that period. Today in 2004, there are no special nuclear
    materials on Rocky Flats and we will have a national wildlife
    refuge for the community within the next couple of fiscal
    years. Fernald and Mound will return valuable land to their
    communities which can be used to cultivate new opportunities.
        I am pleased that the challenges of closing these EM sites
    are being faced head on as you have mapped out closure of the
    remaining EM sites by 2035 or sooner, which is 35 years sooner
    than the original DOE baseline, with a savings of untold
    billions of dollars in life cycle costs. However, new
    challenges seem to be emerging, including capping the scope of
    the EM program, addressing current and future waste streams
    within the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA), creating a new Office
    of Future Liabilities to address disposition of facilities
    which fall outside of the scope of the EM program, and making
    sure there is a smooth transition for workers, environment, and
    community as the first major EM sites are closed. I would say
    that without the workers and their dedication none of this
    would have been possible.
        To help maintain the momentum to accelerate closure of the
    EM sites, DOE has defined the entire scope of the EM program.
    While this approach should give the EM program the focus it
    needs to bring the remaining closure sites to a final
    disposition, it also challenges the remaining programs within
    the DOE to address their own environmental and waste management
    issues. I am not certain the National Nuclear Security
    Administration (NNSA) is fully engaged in dealing with their
    own wastes, especially if this is to include all the cleanup
    responsibilities currently being conducted by EM.
        I am also not certain if DOE has anticipated this new
    responsibility for NNSA in their budget. I am interested to
    know how the budget expertise and infrastructure within the EM
    program is being shared with the other DOE programs so they do
    not have to reinvent the cleanup technologies and the
    technologies which are now running so well within the EM
    program.
        I recognize that this is a discussion to be continued when
    the Secretary of Energy appears before the full committee next
    month, but I want to know how engaged EM is in this apparent
    transfer of responsibilities.
        I also have some questions about the new Office of Future
    Liabilities which is proposed in the fiscal year 2005 budget.
    It is my understanding that this program is supposed to take on
    those environmental restoration and waste management issues
    which fall outside the scope of the EM program, which has been
    capped, but do not fall within the scope of the DOE programs to
    deal with themselves. Also, Future Liabilities is only supposed
    to take on environmental cleanup work until 2025, which is at
    or before the completion of the EM sites.
        I am interested to know more about how the Future
    Liabilities program has been set up and how DOE will define the
    Future Liabilities program's work scope as unique in comparison
    to the environmental cleanup by NNSA or the other DOE programs.
    While accelerated cleanup of our EM sites is proceeding well, I
    have growing concerns about a smooth transition. If we want the
    workers, communities, and stakeholders to embrace the
    accelerated closure concept, then we need to ensure that there
    is a smooth transition at the three major sites scheduled for
    closure by 2006. That is Rocky Flats, Fernald, and Mound.
        Once the cleanup is completed, the EM program will no
    longer have a presence in the community. However, it is very
    important that DOE have an active presence. This responsibility
    will largely fall to LM.
        Mr. Owen, as we discussed in the past, I think it is very
    important that at the current closure sites in Colorado and
    Ohio there is a storefront in each of these sites to help with
    the smooth transition. I envision the storefronts as a central
    clearinghouse for inquiries, a worker and community response
    center. The people working at these worker and community
    response centers need to be prepared to answer the questions
    that the workers will have about their pension and health
    benefits and to ensure that there is a continuity of services
    to address their concerns. There also needs to be someone there
    who is also accountable to the community about ongoing
    environmental stewardship.
        I do not envision a large enterprise, but it needs to be
    robust enough to handle whatever the traffic may bear. I am not
    saying this office will always have to be run by Federal
    personnel. In fact, it is my understanding that you may be
    trying to work out a plan that will eventually turn this
    responsibility over to a contractor-supported enterprise. I do
    not object to this as long as it meets the needs of the workers
    and the communities.
        We have an opportunity to smoothly move from an EM site
    that is active with cleanup activities to a closed site which
    still has responsibilities to the workers and the community. If
    DOE does this right, the remaining closure sites will be ready
    to move in that direction. If the word on the street is that
    the workers and the communities were not treated well after the
    closure, then I believe you are placing accelerated closure at
    the other sites at risk.
        That means that the workers feel that they were taken care
    of by DOE. It also means that the workers are not penalized for
    that acceleration by receiving a reduction in their pension
    when one of the variables of their pension formula is length of
    time. It means that the workers can go to a knowledgeable
    individual and get answers to tough questions, someone who is
    trained and can address the concerns of the workers as well as
    community leaders and other stakeholders.
        In each of your testimonies, I hope you will provide some
    specific plans for how EM and LM plan to ensure the smooth
    transition is met. Last year you spoke before this subcommittee
    about a seamless transition. That will be a tall order, but I
    believe that that is the target you should be aiming for.
        Secretary Roberson and Mr. Owen, thank you for your service
    to our Nation. We look forward to your opening statements and
    then I will recognize the ranking member, Senator Bill Nelson,
    for his statement whenever he wishes to make it. Secretary
    Roberson, it is good to have you here.

    STATEMENT OF HON. JESSIE HILL ROBERSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
                  ENERGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon and thank you,
    Chairman Allard.
        I would like to begin by conveying the Department's
    appreciation to you for your investment in our accelerated
    cleanup program. Your support is allowing us to witness the
    dramatic results we forecast a short 2 years ago. I am here
    today to discuss President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget request
    for the EM program and its goals of sustaining the momentum
    that our work force has worked so hard to achieve, a momentum
    that benefits the vibrancy of our communities, our environment,
    and our economy.
        In these last 2 years, we have introduced dynamic reforms
    delivering fundamental change and achieving significant
    improvements in health, safety, and environmental protection.
    With your support, these reforms are fully ingrained in our
    operations and business processes. We are making a historic
    contribution to reducing the financial liability associated
    with the legacy of the Cold War.
        Last year when I spoke to you, I stated that I was not
    satisfied with our progress. We must continue to better our
    performance and to look beyond the status quo, to achieve
    results that are truly groundbreaking for the benefit of the
    generations that follow us. I challenge our work force, our
    partners, and myself and all those interested in joining us in
    our vision of accelerated cleanup to put their most innovative
    ideas and people forward.
        I am proud to announce that, with our combined efforts, our
    objective of accelerating environmental cleanup and risk
    reduction by 35 years and saving the taxpayers in excess of $50
    billion has become a reality. With your support and our
    continued keen focus on cleanup and closure, the momentum can
    continue.
        I would like to take a moment to underscore the impacts of
    refocusing the EM program. We have improved safety performance.
    We are committed to instilling this philosophy into every
    worker's day-to-day decisions from start to finish of every
    project. To that end, with top-quality safety standards, we are
    demonstrating that we can accelerate work and improve safety
    performance at the same time. We have not, nor will we, stop
    paying attention to safety. We will continue to ``raise the
    bar'' and hold ourselves accountable to the highest standard.
    Complacency is not acceptable in our advancing the safe
    conclusion of our cleanup objectives.
        We have demonstrated cleanup results and risk reduction.
    Last year we set a new floor for performance not yet seen in
    this program. I say ``floor'' because we see this as a level of
    performance that we will continue to build on. Over the last 2
    years, for example, six of nine nuclear fuel basins de-
    inventoried, none of which were in our plan before. Four
    thousand, one hundred of 5,900 containers of plutonium have
    been packaged. We are almost complete. Over 1,300 of 2,400
    metric tons of spent nuclear fuel repackaged--these are
    activities that the work force have accelerated in the last 2
    years.
        I can go on with examples and would really love to, but I
    know we have other things to get on with. Our corporate
    performance measures, which I have included in my written
    statement, further demonstrate our deeds and, in combination
    with exceptional safety performance, we have accomplished
    consequential outcomes important to the public, our
    communities, and for the generations to follow us.
        Two years ago the EM program was described as lacking a
    risk-based cleanup approach and the hazards at DOE sites and
    the liability associated with them did not appear to dictate
    the need for urgency. Innovative actions in all elements of the
    EM program were needed to transform EM's processes and
    operations to reflect the new accelerated risk reduction
    cleanup paradigm.
        We are more than ever encouraging innovation in safety
    performance, in accelerated risk reduction, and in business
    management. We believe that providing an atmosphere that
    encourages innovation can reduce risk to workers and the
    environment faster, and save resources to be reinvested in
    furthering the priorities of each of the sites.
        Tying all these accomplishments together has been our
    driving force to improve performance in our acquisition
    strategy specifically.
        Legal actions and court decisions may direct us to alter or
    modify our activities from the accelerated cleanup and closure
    path. We are committed to work diligently with all concerned
    parties to avoid interruptions in reducing risk where we can.
    This year has seen dramatic results demonstrating our steadfast
    belief that continuing on the accelerated path will resolve the
    problems that lie before us. We must not lose our momentum that
    has so earnestly been established by the work force.
        As with all new enterprises, impediments will be many, but
    we are committed to employ our resources to continue to show
    meaningful results, and we are taking a very staunch view of
    results. The job isn't done yet. We can't be complacent. We
    must continue to do better. It is not done when we develop a
    plan. It is not done when we agree on a milestone. It is not
    done when we ask for funding. It is not done when we sign a
    contract. It is not done when we get money. It is not done
    until it is done and there is positive and measurable risk
    reduction for the investment made.
        I ask for your support of our fiscal year 2005 budget
    request of $7.43 billion to continue this momentum. We are
    safer today than we were last year and we must stay the course
    so that we are safer next year than today. We have accelerated
    cleanup by at least 35 years, saving over $50 billion. The
    potential is there to lose what we have gained should we fail
    to stay focused on our commitment.
        I look forward to working with Congress and others to
    achieve this goal and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Roberson follows:]
                 Prepared Statement by Hon. Jessie H. Roberson

        Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am delighted to be
    here today to convey the Department of Energy's (DOE) appreciation for
    your support of the Environmental Management (EM) program, without
    which the dramatic results in accelerating the cleanup of the legacy of
    the Cold War would not be possible. I welcome this opportunity to sit
    before you and report on our progress, the potential gains and risks
    that lie before us, and the importance of sustaining the momentum that
    our workforce has labored so hard to achieve--a momentum that benefits
    the vibrancy of our communities and the environment.
        Two eventful years have passed since the release of the Top-to-
    Bottom Review of the EM program. In these last 2 years, we have taken
    decisive steps to transform a program focused on managing risk to a
    core mission-focused program that is accelerating risk reduction and
    cleanup. We have introduced dynamic reforms, delivering fundamental
    change and achieving significant improvements in health, safety, and
    environmental protection. With your support and these reforms fully
    ingrained in our operations and business processes, we are
    demonstrating that this bold strategy to accelerate risk reduction and
    cleanup has made a historic contribution to reducing the financial
    liability associated with the legacy of the Cold War. As cited in the
    U.S. Department of Treasury 2002 Financial Report to the United States
    Government, ``the recognized cost of cleaning up environmental damage/
    contamination across government programs was estimated to be $273.0
    billion, as compared to $306.8 billion for September 30, 2001. A
    significant component of this reduction relates to the DOE. It reduced
    its environmental liability by $28.7 billion, mostly due to employing
    an accelerated cleanup approach resulting from a top-to-bottom review
    to find efficient and cost-effective ways to achieve greater real
    cleanup and risk reduction to public health.'' But that is not the
    whole story.
        Last year when I spoke with you, I stated that I was not
    ``satisfied'' with our progress. We must continue to better our
    performance and to look beyond the status quo to achieve results that
    are truly groundbreaking for the benefit of the generations that follow
    us. I challenged our workforce, our partners, and myself and all those
    interested in joining us in our vision of accelerated cleanup to put
    their most innovative ideas and people forward. I am proud to announce
    that with our combined efforts, our objective of accelerating
    environmental cleanup and risk reduction by 35 years and reducing
    estimated program costs in excess of $50 billion has become a reality.
    With your support and our continued keen focus on the cleanup and
    closure, the momentum can continue.
        For fiscal year 2005, the President's budget includes a record
    $7.43 billion for the accelerated cleanup program, the peak year in our
    funding profile. As we identified last year, the administration
    believes that this investment is crucial to the success of accelerated
    risk reduction and cleanup completion. We anticipate funding will then
    decline significantly to about $5 billion in 2008.
        The EM portion of the fiscal year 2005 congressional budget is
    structured analogous to last year. The budget structure focuses on
    completion, accountability, and visibility; institutionalizes our
    values; and integrates performance and budget. Requested funding can
    clearly be associated with direct cleanup activities versus other
    indirect EM activities.
        Within the Defense Site Acceleration Completion Appropriation, the
    budget reserves $350 million for a High-Level Waste Proposal. With the
    Idaho District Court decision on Waste Incidental to Reprocessing, the
    Department's ability to proceed prudently with accelerated risk
    reduction for some activities is drawn into question. The decision
    makes it difficult, if not impossible, for us to undertake planned
    actions at Idaho, Hanford, and the Savannah River Site to aggressively
    reduce risks posed by wastes stored in tanks at those sites--actions we
    had committed to take, in agreement with our host states, before the
    court decision. The decision now means we are likely to leave tank
    wastes in place longer while we try to resolve issues created by the
    decision--a course that has significant societal and monetary costs.
    This $350 million supports activities normally funded from the 2012
    Accelerated Completions account and from the 2035 Accelerated
    Completions. These funds will be requested only if the legal
    uncertainties are satisfactorily resolved.
        In alignment with ongoing departmental missions, this budget
    reflects a transfer of multiple activities that are not core to the EM
    mission to other departmental elements. These transfers provide the
    responsible and accountable mission programs with the resources and
    tools to achieve their objectives at the expected performance level.
    This accountability model is the key to moving each of the enterprises
    or missions of the DOE forward in attaining the desired outcomes and
    results important to the administration and supporting our accelerated
    risk reduction and closure initiative. Transfers include:

             Transferring Federal staff at the Pacific Northwest
            National Laboratory to the Office of Science and Federal staff
            at Headquarters to the Office of the Chief Information Office.
             Transferring the EM portion of the Offsite Source
            Recovery Program to the National Nuclear Security
            Administration (NNSA).
             Transferring spent fuel storage responsibilities at
            Idaho National Laboratory, the Foreign Research Reactor Spent
            Fuel Program, management of Nuclear Regulatory Commission
            (NRC)-licensed spent fuel, and the National Nuclear Spent Fuel
            Program to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
             Transferring Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action
            Project records management, responsibility for cost liability
            and recovery reviews, and Environmental Justice and the Massie
            Chairs of Excellence Program to the Office of Legacy Management
            (LM).

        We will also be transferring sites, as they are completed, either
    to the landlord or to LM. The latter will occur if the site has no
    further DOE mission. EM is working with LM to ensure smooth site
    closure and transition by:

              Ensuring that site baselines identify functions and elements
            beyond contract closure to meet all internal requirements;
              Conducting assessments of site readiness for transfer and
            closure in tandem with LM;
              Having joint teams at each site (Rocky Flats has two LM
            employees) and supported by LM headquarters personnel who were
            once EM personnel and EM personnel at sites are transferring to
            LM positions;
              Holding quarterly meetings between EM and LM senior
            management to address key issues and make decisions;
              Developing a communication plan defining roles and
            responsibilities between EM and LM staff.

        The administration considers this budget request a critical step on
    the accelerated risk reduction and cleanup path. Without these
    resources, we could face higher risk to the environment and the public
    and lose the momentum we have gained in changing the paradigm. With
    your support, we have the opportunity to succeed in producing historic
    results that will last for many years to come.

                             DEMONSTRATING RESULTS

        With the October 2003 release of the Report to Congress on the
    Status of Implementation of the Top-to-Bottom Review, we have
    demonstrated that the direction we took 2 years ago is showing real
    results. I wish to take a moment and expound the impacts of the far-
    reaching accomplishments that are underpinning the developing momentum
    of the program.

    Improved Safety Performance
        We believe in order to accomplish our accelerated risk reduction
    and cleanup mission, we must continue to do work safely. We are
    committed to instilling this philosophy in every worker's day-to-day
    decisions from start to finish of every project. To that end, with top-
    quality safety standards, we are demonstrating that we can accelerate
    work and improve safety performance at the same time. For example in
    August 2001, EM's Total Reportable Cases (TRC) and Lost Workday Cases
    (LWC) were 1.9 and 0.8 respectively, per 100 workers (TRC and LWC are
    standard tools used to measure safety performance.) In September 2003,
    we had reduced our TRC to 1.2 and LWC to 0.5. These rates are
    significantly better than private industry, which the Occupational
    Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported in 2002, had a TRC of
    5.3 and LWC of 1.6. The construction industry alone had rates of 7.1
    for TRC and 2.8 for LWC in 2002. We have not, nor will we, stop paying
    attention to safety. We will continue to ``raise the bar'' and hold
    ourselves accountable to the highest standards. Complacency is not
    acceptable in our advance to the safe conclusion of our cleanup
    objectives.

    Cleanup Results and Risk Reduction
        Prior to the Top-to-Bottom Review, EM had lost focus of the core
    mission, the mission that the program was established to solve--address
    the environmental legacy of the Nation's Cold War nuclear weapons
    research and production. With a program responsible for the management
    of millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste and thousands of
    tons of spent nuclear fuel, the unhurried pace of cleanup and risk
    reduction was unacceptable. If immediate actions were not taken, the
    risks associated with the EM program would continue to grow to
    unpardonable levels.
        Last year set a new floor of performance not seen before in the
    history of the program. Our investment has born amazing results. For
    example: three spent nuclear fuel basins were deinventoried at Idaho
    National Laboratory, along with two at the Savannah River Site and one
    at Hanford. In regard to Hanford, we have removed 70 percent of the
    spent nuclear fuel from the K-Basins. These basins located less than a
    quarter of a mile from the Columbia River have the potential to leak
    and cause costly environmental harm both to the health of the river and
    the public--this is a significant gain in risk reduction. Another
    example is at Rocky Flats. This site, once responsible for nuclear
    triggers, has shipped all plutonium off site and closed the last
    remaining material access area. These visible, risk reducing results
    that have demonstrated our ability to accelerate schedule and reduce
    life cycle cost while showing to our public and surrounding communities
    the DOE's commitment to improve worker safety, reduce health risks, and
    eliminate environmental hazards.
        So you may have a better comprehension of the magnitude of our
    cleanup results, I would like to insert for the record a copy of our
    recent corporate performance measures.

        EM's Performance Measures is a compilation of the program's 16
    complex-wide performance measures. As you can see, we can deliver
    significant risk reduction and cleanup and, as I stated earlier, in
    combination with improved safety performance. Accelerating risk
    reduction and cleanup, in concert with exceptional safety performance,
    accomplishes consequential outcomes important to the public, our
    communities, and for the generations that follow us.

    Innovations in Ideas, Processes, and Practices
        Two years ago, the Top-to-Bottom Review described the EM program as
    lacking a project completion mindset, internal processes were
    inconsistent with a risk-based cleanup approach, and the hazards at the
    DOE sites and the liability associated with them did not appear to
    dictate the need for urgency in the cleanup decisions. The Top-to-
    Bottom Review team emphasized that the EM mission cannot be
    accomplished by continuing business as usual. Innovative actions in all
    elements of the EM program would need to be taken to transform DOE's
    processes and operations to reflect the new accelerated risk-based
    cleanup paradigm.
        To foster innovation, we identified ideas and processes from
    successful projects that had delivered accelerated results and conveyed
    the information across the EM program. For example, at Rocky Flats, we
    drew from their experience in project planning and delivery along with
    technology advancements. Sharing the innovative practices allowed for
    similar outcomes at other sites. If I may take a moment to share a few
    ideas and practices:

    (a)  Establish a clear end-state vision and risk-based cleanup levels
            in conjunction with specific future land/site use and in
            consultation with regulators, stakeholders, and affected and
            interested governments.
    (b)  A ``best-in-class'' management team is recruited and sustained
            with the result of team focus and retention of key staff.
    (c)  Senior management emphasis is placed on key safety issues of
            keeping workers working, minimizing the risk of possible high-
            impact events, quick recovery after accidents, safety
            ``pauses'' as appropriate, and improved safety training.
    (d)  Projects are managed in an environment that provides significant
            incentives for real cost savings.
    (e)  New and innovative equipment and methods are being used for size
            reduction (e.g. plasma cutting torch, engineered enclosures,
            water-jet cutting of components), significantly improving
            safety and effectiveness.
    (f)  Improved decontamination techniques coupled with new radiation
            instrumentation.

        We continue to encourage innovation in our processes and practices
    to further enhance safety performance, accelerate risk reduction,
    reduce health impacts, and save resources to be reinvested in
    furthering the priorities of each of the sites.

    Acquisitions Driving Performance
        Tying all these accomplishments together has been our continued
    drive to improve performance from our new acquisition strategy. These
    accomplishments serve as indicators of the level of performance we are
    expecting from our contractors now as well as into the future. When we
    reviewed our contracts over the past year--as you may remember I said
    we formed a Contract Management Advisory Board last year--we identified
    a short list of significant findings that did not prove advantageous to
    the overall success of the program. We concluded that DOE tends to
    manage the contractor, not the contract, that project baselines needed
    improvement along with project management and the associated reporting,
    incentives for meaningful risk reduction were lacking, more emphasis
    was needed on cost-efficient performance, and there seemed to be
    insufficient competition and small business participation.
        To address these weaknesses, we have instituted three business
    models that we believe will vastly improve our acquisition process and
    opportunities for success. Our reform strategy is to accelerate the
    reduction of risk from the legacy of the Cold War safely and
    efficiently and at a cost savings for the taxpayer. One model focuses
    on improving incumbent contractor's performance, while another aims to
    increase competition and small business participation. The third
    concentrates on the establishment of national Indefinite Delivery/
    Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts for remediation and
    decontamination and decommissioning. All three are on the fast track.
    In fact, in September, as a first step we announced the selection of
    five 8(a) businesses that will perform work at our small sites across
    the country. In fiscal 2004, we have six new contracts--two at Paducah,
    two at Portsmouth, one at the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford, and
    one at the Idaho National Laboratory along with the IDIQ contracts that
    will be completed. We expect these new contracts will challenge the
    contractor community, a challenge that is healthy for all involved.

    We Have Our Challenges Too
        As we continue to challenge the status quo, we may be confronted
    with legal actions and court decisions that will direct us to alter or
    modify our activities from the accelerated cleanup and closure path. We
    will continue to work diligently with all concerned parties to avoid
    interruptions in reducing risk and advancing cleanup for the public.
        We expect to be challenged on our delivery of Government Funded
    Services and Items (GFSI). We are accountable on delivery of GFSI and
    we expect to be held to our commitments.
        Also, we have challenged our managers at all levels to stay true to
    our commitment and employ our corporate performance measures as an
    accountability and success gauge assessing our progress as well as a
    tool that alerts us when management action or intervention is
    warranted.

                      THE FISCAL YEAR 2005 BUDGET REQUEST

        The fiscal year 2004 budget was the first budget that fully
    reflected the initiatives undertaken by the administration to transform
    and revitalize the cleanup of the former weapons complex. The EM
    program has been refined and fortified with management reforms, which
    have led to accelerated risk reduction and a decrease in lifecycle
    costs surpassing previous expectations. The investment we have
    requested in our fiscal year 2005 budget will contribute to EM's
    continued success in achieving its mission of accelerated risk
    reduction and site closure.
        The EM fiscal year 2005 budget request represents the peak year of
    our investment strategy to accelerate cleanup and reduce risk. This
    budget fully reflects each site's accelerated risk reduction and
    cleanup strategy. The fiscal year 2005 budget request is pivotal to
    keep the momentum going and to achieve even greater risk reduction and
    cost savings than ever before.
        The 2005 budget request for EM activities totals $7.43 billion to
    accelerate risk reduction and closure. The request includes five
    appropriations, three of which fund on-the-ground, core mission work,
    and two of which serve as support. The five appropriations and
    associated requested funding are:

             Defense Site Acceleration Completion ($5.97 billion)
             Defense Environmental Services ($982 million)
             Non-Defense Site Acceleration ($152 million)
             Non-Defense Environmental Services ($291 million)
             Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning
            Fund ($500 million)

        Within the Defense Site Acceleration Completion Appropriation, $350
    million is tied to the Idaho District Court decision on Waste
    Incidental to Reprocessing. These funds will only be requested upon
    satisfactory resolution of the recent court decision that affected the
    Department's plans for some waste streams.
        In building the request, the DOE applied the following principles
    and priorities:

        Protect workers, public, and the environment
        The budget request continues to place the highest priority on
    protecting workers, the public, and the environment. The implementation
    of EM's cleanup strategies allows for an overall improvement in safety
    and reduction in risk because cleanup will be completed sooner,
    reducing the extent to which workers, the public, and the environment
    have the potential to be exposed. Over the past 2 years, dramatic
    improvements in safety performance have been demonstrated.
        Ensure the appropriate levels of safeguards and security
        Due to heightened security levels throughout the Nation, it is
    crucial that we maintain vigilance in our domestic security to protect
    our citizens. The EM program is responsible for many tons of surplus
    nuclear material. This budget request reflects our increased safeguards
    and security needs, including the new Design Basis Threat (DBT)
    requirements. Overall, the budget has decreased from fiscal year 2004
    because we have been able to consolidate materials into fewer, more
    secure locations, and we have reduced the footprint of secure areas.
    The sites with the largest remaining funding needs are the Savannah
    River Site and Hanford. The Savannah River Site's funding supports the
    security of nuclear materials, maintenance of uniformed protective
    force personnel, information security, and operations security for the
    protection of classified and sensitive information, cyber security for
    the protection of classified and unclassified computer security, and
    personnel security. Hanford's funding supports security for shipment of
    special nuclear materials and elimination of one material access area
    within the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), enhancement of cyber
    security, Hanford site security clearances and other security
    activities.
        Accelerate risk reduction
        Accelerated risk reduction requires a pragmatic approach to
    cleanup. Risk reduction occurs in various stages, which involve the
    elimination, prevention, or mitigation of risk. Because safe disposal
    of many materials will take a number of years to complete, our major
    focus of risk reduction is stabilization of high-risk materials.

        The following categories of materials are considered to pose the
    highest risk:

             High-curie, long-lived isotope liquid waste
             Special nuclear materials
             Liquid transuranic waste in tanks
             Sodium bearing liquid waste in tanks
             Deteriorating spent nuclear fuel in leaky or poor
            integrity basins
             Remote-handled transuranic waste and high transuranic
            content waste
             Transuranic waste stored on the surface
             Decommissioning of highly-contaminated facilities

        Although all of these items are to be considered when setting
    priorities, their relative ranking may vary from site to site. Risk
    reduction is a major consideration in the development of the site
    baselines. Examples of planned activities/milestones for fiscal year
    2005 that correspond to sitespecific risk categories are:

        Hanford

             Complete cleanout of K East and K West basins (fuel,
            sludge, debris, and water).
              The K basins are located less than 1,000 feet from the
            Columbia River. This project involves packaging and removing
            degrading spent nuclear fuel and radioactive sludge, debris,
            and water from wet storage in the K Basins to safe, dry interim
            storage away from the Columbia River. The K Basin facilities
            are well past their design lives and are a major threat to the
            environment due to the potential for basin leakage to the
            surrounding soil and the Columbia River. Their cleanout will
            prevent potential leakage of 55 million curies of radioactivity
            to the soil and the river and will decrease the risks posed by
            the basins to human health and the environment.

             Complete transfer of nuclear material to the Savannah
            River Site or DOE approved interim storage facility, and
            complete legacy holdup removal and packaging/disposition of
            material/waste.
              The PFP consists of several buildings that were used for
            defense production of plutonium nitrates, oxides, and metal
            from 1950 through 1989. Completion of the transfer of the
            stabilized materials and legacy holdup material from PFP allows
            the cleanout and demolition of these facilities to slab on
            grade. It results in a reduced national security threat by
            consolidating nuclear materials into fewer locations.

             Ship all above-ground transuranic waste to the Waste
            Isolation Pilot Plant.
              Hanford has several thousand containers of previously
            generated transuranic waste in above-ground storage buildings.
            Characterization and shipment of this waste to the Waste
            Isolation Pilot Project for final disposal will reduce the
            risks to facility workers as well as reduce the safeguard and
            security vulnerability associated with this waste. This action
            represents final disposal of this waste in an environmentally
            protective repository.

             Complete installation of In Situ Redox Manipulation
            Barrier in the 100-D Area.
              Chromium-contaminated groundwater is reaching the Columbia
            River in the 100-D Area. The contamination levels are above 20
            times the aquatic life water standard, and the area is adjacent
            to potential salmon spawning locations. To address this, a
            series of wells will be drilled and a chemical that detoxifies
            chromium will be deposited into the matrix in which the
            groundwater travels to the river. As a result, the groundwater
            reaching the Columbia River will once again meet the aquatic
            water standards, thereby protecting human health and the salmon
            population in the river.

             Initiate waste retrieval from 11 single-shelled tanks.
              Radioactive liquid waste stored in older single-shelled tanks
            has the potential of leaking and contaminating soil and
            groundwater that flows to the Columbia River, presenting a risk
            to human health and the environment. Waste will be retrieved
            from the single-shelled tanks and moved to safer double-shelled
            tanks.

        Idaho

             Disposition 34 containers of special nuclear material
            containing uranium, completing 75 percent of shipments offsite;
            initiate transfer of spent nuclear fuel from CPP-666 wet
            storage to the Irradiated Fuel Storage Facility; and maintain a
            running average of 2,000 cubic meters per year of transuranic
            (TRU) waste shipped out of Idaho.
              Idaho sits over a major sole source aquifer, the Snake River
            Plain Aquifer, which is used to supply water to the people of
            southeastern Idaho as well as irrigation water for the
            significant agricultural activities. These actions will reduce
            the potential risk to human health by preventing the migration
            of contamination into the aquifer. It also will reduce the
            national security threat by consolidating materials into fewer
            locations.

        Paducah

             Disposition 875 cubic meters of low-level/mixed low-
            level legacy waste, allowing for a 37 percent completion of
            work.
              The packaging and disposal of low-level waste stored outdoors
            will reduce the waste inventory and eliminate the potential
            release into the environment that could result from
            deterioration of the storage drums. Outside storage of this
            material in some cases leads to additional surface water and
            soil contamination. Removal of these materials further reduces
            the continued exposure to workers performing surveillance and
            maintenance.

             Disposition 12,400 tons of scrap metal.
              Scrap metal is a suspected source of continued surface water
            and possible soil contamination. This action contributes to the
            continued source term removal of contaminants leaching into the
            environment. Reduction in the massive quantities of scrap metal
            continues to improve the potential safety concern to our
            workers.

             Continue decontamination and decommissioning of C-410
            complex.
              The C-410 Complex is a large chemical complex in a shutdown
            condition. Removal of contaminated materials and equipment
            reduces potential risk to onsite workers and represents a key
            step in stabilizing the facility such that contaminants are
            prevented from release to the environment.

        Portsmouth

             Disposition 9,089 cubic meters of legacy waste.
              The continued shipment and disposal of legacy waste will
            proportionally reduce the risk such wastes present to the
            health and safety of workers and reduce the ongoing potential
            for release to the environment.

             Process approximately 42 million gallons of water
            through Groundwater Pump and Treat facilities.
              Plume control keeps contaminants from reaching surface
            streams and off-site drinking water supplies. Trichloroethylene
            (TCE), which was an industrial solvent, is the main groundwater
            contaminant at the site.

        Pantex Plant

             Complete Zone 11 soil vapor extraction for removal of
            contamination from the vadose zone and protection of the
            groundwater.
              Removing the soil gas contamination will avoid potential
            migration to a fresh water supply, thereby reducing the risk
            posed to human health and the environment.

             Complete Burning Grounds landfills interim corrective
            measure (engineered covers) to secure wastes and protect
            groundwater.
              The covers will mitigate the vertical transport of
            contaminants, which will reduce the potential impact to the
            fresh water supply.

             Complete demolition of Zone 10 Ruins.
              The Zone 10 ruins have suspected high explosives contaminants
            in the numerous disintegrating structures. Removal of high
            explosive will avoid further contamination of soils, and
            demolition of the ruins will reduce safety risks to persons in
            the area.

             Complete decontamination and decommissioning of
            Building 12-24 Complex.
              There is evidence that this complex contributed to the high
            explosives plume that migrated to the southeast and off-site.
            Decontamination of the 12-24 Complex will mitigate the
            migration of this plume.

        Oak Ridge

             Complete East Chestnut Ridge Waste Pile Closure.
              Risks associated with industrial safety will be reduced by
            eliminating the need to excavate and transport the material to
            treatment subsequent to disposal.

             Complete disposition of legacy low-level waste.
              Approximately 40 percent of the low-level waste was stored
            outdoors in deteriorating containers. Disposition of this waste
            will decrease the risks associated with their potential
            environmental release.

             Complete processing and stabilization of transuranic
            waste tanks.
              This action will eliminate the potential for the waste's
            migration to groundwater.

             Initiate contact-handled transuranic waste processing
            at the Waste Processing Facility.
              This waste is stored in above grade-storage trenches and in
            earthen trenches. Processing the waste prevents the risk of
            release to the environment and a continued cost of waste
            storage and monitoring.

             Complete treatment of liquid low-level waste supernate
            at the Waste Processing Facility and disposal of the dried
            supernate product at the Nevada Test Site.
              Treatment and disposal of the supernate decreases the risks
            posed by these highly radioactive fission products.

             Complete Atomic City Auto Parts.
              This action will reduce the risks posed to workers and the
            surrounding community from uranium and polychlorinated
            biphenyls contamination in the soil.

        Savannah River Site

             Begin processing neptunium solutions.
              The site has approximately 6,000 liters of Neptunium-237
            nitrate solution in H-Canyon. Through processing, the neptunium
            solutions are converted into a more stable form, and the risks
            they pose to human health and the environment are reduced.

             Complete bulk waste removal in Tank 5.
              Tank 5 is one of 49 underground tanks currently used to store
            radioactive liquid waste at the Savannah River Site. This waste
            represents one of the highest risk to human health and the
            environment. Current plans call for the removal of the waste
            from Tank 5 for treatment, stabilization and disposal. A new
            approach, the Waste-On-Wheels (WOW) system, will be utilized to
            remove the waste from Tank 5 and other tanks. The WOW is a
            portable method of performing bulk sludge waste removal from
            the tanks. The WOW system will reduce the project schedule for
            waste removal and therefore reduce the risk to human health and
            the environment imposed by the highly radioactive waste.

             Complete decommissioning of seven industrial and
            radioactive facilities.
              Decommissioning excess radioactive facilities will reduce the
            footprint of the site, and therefore collectively reduces risk
            to the worker by eliminating the need to enter the facilities
            to perform required, routine surveillance and maintenance
            activities. Risk of worker exposures while performing these
            activities is eliminated. Decommissioning excess radioactive
            facilities also eliminates the potential environmental and
            human health risk of accidental releases from these facilities.
            Decommissioning industrial facilities eliminates the risk to
            workers associated with having to maintain old facilities which
            are no longer needed but which require regular inspections or
            maintenance activities, such as roof work.

        Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Livermore Site

             Construct, install, and operate a portable treatment
            unit at Treatment Facility D Hotspot, Treatment Facility E
            Hotspot, the northern portion of the East Traffic Circle Source
            Area, and the Treatment Facility 406 Hotspot area.
              These actions will further prevent the release of TCE,
            thereby reducing risks to the public from exposure to
            contaminated groundwater.

             Remove contaminated surface soil and contaminated
            sandpile at Building 850.
              These actions will mitigate risk to onsite workers, and will
            prevent further impacts to groundwater above health-based
            standards.

             Construct, install, and operate groundwater extraction
            and treatment facility.
              Remediation of the high-explosive process area is a high
            priority due to the offsite migration of contaminant plumes,
            current impacts to onsite water-supply wells, and the
            inhalation risk to onsite workers. These actions will impede
            the migration of plumes, protecting offsite water-supply wells
            from contamination.

        Maintain closure schedules
        Three major sites, Rocky Flats, Fernald, and Mound, have
    accelerated closure schedules. In addition, two smaller sites,
    Ashtabula and Battelle-Columbus are scheduled to close in 2006. Funding
    in the fiscal year 2005 budget will allow these sites to remain on
    track toward project completion and site closure.
        At Rocky Flats, fiscal year 2005 funding provides for:

             Completing site deinventory of legacy low-level/mixed
            low-level and transuranic waste to off-site disposal;
            completing remediation of 30 release sites.
              During fiscal year 2005, Rocky Flats will be approaching
            completion of their commitment to closure and conversion of the
            Rocky Flats site for future beneficial use. The buildings where
            plutonium and other hazardous materials were used in support of
            the nuclear weapons deterrent will be under various stages of
            demolition, the final quantities of radioactive wastes will be
            removed from the site, and the grounds will be receiving the
            necessary remediation action. These actions, when complete,
            will allow the DOE to release the site to the U.S. Fish and
            Wildlife Service to become the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge with
            little or no further risk to human health or the environment.

        At Fernald, fiscal year 2005 funding provides for:

             Completing decontamination and dismantlement of the
            Waste Pits Complex and the East Warehouse Complex, and
            completion of waste pits remedial action operations.
              Completing the Waste Pit Remediation Project will result in
            over one million tons of waste pit material having been
            transported off-site via rail for safe, compliant disposal and
            the decontamination and decommissioning of the treatment
            facility and other waste pit infrastructures. Completing these
            activities represents a substantial risk reduction to human
            health and the environment for the entire Fernald Closure
            Project site. This remediation activity is being conducted in
            an extremely safe manner considering the industrial hazards
            involved.

             Completing Silos 1 and 2 operations, including removal
            of waste material, and beginning disposition of the waste for
            off-site disposal.
              Silos 1 and 2 Extraction and Treatment Operations represent
            the greatest risk to human health and the environment at the
            Fernald Closure Project. Silos 1 and 2 contain the highest
            levels of radiological activity residing in any waste stream at
            the site. The Silos 1 and 2 project constitute the Site Closure
            Critical Path. Their successful completion is a prerequisite
            for a timely and safe closure.

             Completing construction of the On-Site Disposal
            Facility (OSDF) Cell 3 and Cell 4 caps.
              Capping Cells of the OSDF will ensure the reduction in risk
            to human health and the environment during post closure.
            Overall, the OSDF will be composed of 8 cells, containing 2.5
            million cubic yards of waste soil and debris. The OSDF has been
            designed and engineered to possess a 5-foot thick liner and a
            9-foot thick cap. The OSDF has a design life of 1,000 years.

        At Mound, fiscal year 2005 funding provides for:

             Completing remediation of 37 potential release sites
            (65 percent of remaining), including the restoration of
            potential release site (PRS) 66.
              Completing the PRSs in fiscal year 2005 decreases risk by
            preventing any further radioactive contamination from migrating
            into clean soil areas and ground water, by reducing potential
            exposure to site workers and other personnel located on site,
            and by precluding any potential environmental impacts to off
            site areas.

        At Ashtabula, fiscal year 2005 funding provides for:

             Completing remediation of the Waste Management Unit.
              Remediating the Waste Management Unit significantly reduces
            the remaining risks of organic and inorganic chemical exposure
            to both soil and groundwater at the RMI company site.

        At Battelle-Columbus, fiscal year 2005 funding provides for:

             Completing decontamination/stabilization of the fuel
            storage pool and transfer canal and the high-bay area surfaces
            in JN-1.
              Removing this source term will reduce the risk of
            contamination, both internal and external, to the workers
            during building de-construction. Removal of the source term
            would also reduce risk to off-site areas and members of the
            general public.

        Integrate technology development and deployment
        An integrated technology development and deployment program is an
    essential element for successful completion of the EM cleanup effort
    and for fulfilling post-closure requirements. The EM Technology
    Development and Deployment (TDD) program provides technical solutions
    and alternative technologies to assist with accelerated cleanup of the
    DOE complex.
        EM TDD investments are focused on high-payoff site closure and
    remediation problems through a two pronged approach: Closure Projects
    and Alternative Projects.
        Closure Projects
        Principal near term closure sites (such as Rocky Flats, Fernald,
    and Mound) will be provided with technical support and quick response,
    highly focused technology development and deployment projects. The goal
    is to ensure that accelerated site closure schedules are achieved.

             At the Rocky Flats closure site, technical assistance
            teams will assess critical technical issues and provide
            technology alternatives including the treatment and disposition
            of orphaned waste streams and improved methods of beryllium
            decontamination.
             At Mound, innovative technologies will be developed to
            determine and enable treatment of radioactive contaminated soil
            beneath buildings.
             At Fernald, the vacuum thermal desorption
            demonstration will be completed to provide a technical solution
            for an orphaned waste stream, and technical support to the
            Silos # 1, 2, and 3 waste removal and disposition will be
            successfully completed.
             At Oak Ridge, delineation of contamination and
            definition of treatment feasibility for subsurface
            contamination will be completed.
        Alternative Projects
        Alternative approaches and step improvements to current high-risk/
    high cost baseline remediation projects are our second focus. The goal
    is to enable cleanup to be accomplished safely, at less cost, and on an
    accelerated schedule. EM is focusing funds for fiscal year 2005 on:

             Alternatives For Tank Waste Pretreatment and
            Immobilization (Hanford Site, Office of River Protection);
             Alternatives for Carbon Tetrachloride Source Term
            Location (Hanford Site, Richland);
             Alternatives for Disposition of High-Level Salt Waste
            (Savannah River Site);
             Alternatives for Remediation of Chlorinated Ethenes
            using Monitored Natural Attenuation (Savannah River Site);
             Alternatives for Deposit Characterization and Removal
            at Gaseous Diffusion Plants (Portsmouth);
             Alternatives for In situ Transuranic Waste Delineation
            and Removal (Hanford Site, Richland)
             Alternatives for Non-Destructive Assay and Examination
            of Large Transuranic Waste Containers (Savannah River Site/
            Carlsbad)

                                   CONCLUSION

        This year has seen dramatic results demonstrating our steadfast
    belief that continuing on the accelerated path will provide the
    direction and framework to resolve the problems that lie before us. As
    with all new enterprises that seek to challenge the status quo,
    impediments will be encountered. We must not lose our momentum that has
    so earnestly been established through collaboration and a singular
    focus of delivering meaningful results for the American public.
        We are committed to employ our resources to show meaningful results
    and we are taking a very staunch view of results. The job is not done
    until it is done. We cannot be complacent, we must continue to do
    better. It is not done when we develop a plan--it is not done when we
    agree to a milestone--it is not done when we ask for funding--it is not
    done when we sign a contract--it is not done when we get money. It is
    not done until it is done and there is positive and measurable risk
    reduction for the investment.
        The only measure of success will be positive, measurable
    accomplishments of public safety and environmental protection. The
    longer we wait, the greater the potential risk. We must not lessen our
    commitment to the American people to do the ``right thing.'' I ask for
    your support to continue this important work. We must avoid losing the
    opportunity to rid this legacy from our children's inheritance. We are
    safer today than we were last year and we must stay the course so we
    are safer next year than today. We have accelerated cleanup by at least
    35 years reducing lifecycle cost over $50 billion. The potential is
    there to lose what we have gained should we fail to stay true to our
    commitments.
        I look forward to working with Congress and others to achieve this
    worthy goal. I will be happy to answer questions.

        Senator Allard. Thank you for your testimony.
        Now we would like to hear from you, Mr. Owen.

       STATEMENT OF MICHAEL W. OWEN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF LEGACY
                    MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

        Mr. Owen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon.
        My name is Michael Owen and I am the Director of LM at the
    DOE. I would like to request permission to submit a written
    statement for the record and I have a brief oral statement.
        Senator Allard. Both of your full statements will be put in
    the record.
        Mr. Owen. Thank you.
        At this time last year, I testified before this committee
    on the Department's proposal to establish LM. This committee
    expressed support for this proposal in the defense
    authorization bill for fiscal year 2004 and included language
    recommending merging the office, the old Office of Worker and
    Community Transition (WT) with LM. The Department has merged
    the two offices, and I can report to you that the establishment
    of this new office will enable additional progress in our
    efforts to address the consequences of our former nuclear
    weapons production program.
        LM's fiscal year 2005 budget request is just over $66
    million. The environmental surveillance and maintenance efforts
    require approximately $28 million of that. The pension and
    benefit continuity program for former contractor personnel
    requires approximately $22 million, of which $1.5 million will
    be used to prepare for the administration of pension and
    retiree benefits for the planned 2006 closure sites. The
    remaining $16 million includes $2.5 million for the traditional
    worker transition activities and roughly $13.5 million for
    program direction.
        Currently, LM is responsible for long-term surveillance and
    maintenance activities at more than 50 sites where active
    environmental remediation has been completed. As the EM office
    continues to accelerate cleanup, sites will be ready for
    closure earlier than previously predicted. However, the
    acceleration will not eliminate the post-closure
    responsibilities and environmental liabilities. LM has been
    established and organized to support the EM office's
    accelerated closures and ensure that all departmental post-
    closure responsibilities and liabilities are effectively and
    efficiently addressed.
        LM and EM will work seamlessly to ensure a smooth handoff
    of responsibilities at these sites. In the near term, these
    sites include the Department's Rocky Flats facility outside of
    Denver and the Mound and Fernald facilities in southwestern
    Ohio. All three sites are scheduled to be remediated, closed,
    and transitioned to LM for long-term surveillance and
    maintenance by fiscal year 2007.
        Over the next 5 years, the number of sites managed by LM is
    projected to grow to approximately 105. Once sites have been
    accepted and transitioned to LM, the office performs long-term
    surveillance and maintenance to ensure the environmental
    remedies remain protective of human health and the environment.
    Working with the EM closure sites, the regulators and the
    communities, LM also develops long-term surveillance and
    maintenance plans, provides post-remediation expertise and
    assistance to sites which are transitioned to LM.
        LM is also charged with the transfer or reuse of sites that
    no longer support an ongoing departmental mission and possible
    disposal of properties in long-term surveillance and
    maintenance. The function of the community transition program
    from the old WT office falls under this office and includes
    assisting DOE communities in acquiring excess departmental
    personal and real property for economic redevelopment purposes.
        The completion of missions at certain DOE sites also has an
    impact on the former contractor personnel at those respective
    sites. When the site contractor's cleanup functions are
    complete, pensions and other long-term benefits due to former
    contractor personnel still need to be administered. There will
    no longer be, for the first time ever, a contractor on the site
    to administer these benefits.
        Therefore, LM implements departmental policy concerning
    closure site contractor employees for continuity of their post-
    closure and retiree benefits and will coordinate and
    procurement concerning contractor benefits after closure.
        Additionally, a significant increase in pension and long-
    term benefit administration will occur in the near future. In
    the past, administration of pensions and benefits at closed
    sites was transferred to other DOE contracts. The Department's
    objective is to avoid benefit interruption or inconveniences to
    plan participants, to maintain and improve quality of service,
    and to develop a flexible approach to accommodate future
    closure sites. LM is currently establishing a program to
    oversee the continuation of benefit payments that the
    Department through its contractors is committed to provide for
    former contractor employees at closed sites.
        Integral to the cleanup and closure of sites is the
    preservation and protection of records and information. LM will
    develop a plan for accepting and maintaining all records
    transferred to the office. These records include, but are not
    limited to, historical site records, long-term surveillance and
    maintenance records, former contractor personnel records, and
    various classified records, as well as the record of the actual
    environmental remediation at that site.
        For example, Rocky Flats, Mound, and Fernald will have by
    closure approximately 170,000 cubic feet of records that must
    be managed by LM. As the sites continue to transition to LM, we
    expect that volume of records, of hard copy records, to grow
    additionally.
        In closing, the Secretary is dedicated to ensuring the
    Department's commitment to the environment, our stakeholders,
    our workers past and present, and the nearby communities. We
    recognize that the DOE has responsibilities to the former
    contractor workers and communities following the completed
    remediation and closure of sites.
        Mr. Chairman, Senator Graham, that concludes my statement.
    I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today and
    will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Owen follows:]

                     Prepared Statement by Michael W. Owen

                                OPENING REMARKS

        Good morning Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the
    subcommittee. My name is Michael Owen, and I am the Director of the
    Office of Legacy Management (LM) at the Department of Energy (DOE).
        This time last year, I testified before this committee on the
    Department's proposal to establish LM. This committee expressed support
    for this proposal in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year
    2004 and included language recommending merging the Office of Worker
    and Community Transition (WT) with LM. The Department has merged the
    two offices, and I can report to you that the establishment of this
    office will enable additional progress in our efforts to address the
    consequences of our former nuclear weapons production program. This is
    an important time for the Department, and we are now positioned to
    continue focusing DOE programs and personnel on achieving the diverse
    missions of the Department, including assisting the Environmental
    Management (EM) program with their focus on risk reduction and site
    closure. LM is one element that will enable the Department to continue
    this progress.

                      LEGACY MANAGEMENT MISSION AND VISION

        I want to take this opportunity to describe the mission and vision
    for LM.
        LM's mission is to manage the effects of certain changes in the
    Department's mission requirements and ensure the future protection of
    human health and the environment. Our mission is to ensure departmental
    legacy responsibilities are managed in a manner that best serves
    Department workers, communities, and the environment. This vision
    includes several elements:

             Human health and the environment are protected at
            closed sites, through effective environmental surveillance and
            maintenance.
             Key records and critical information are preserved and
            made publicly accessible.
             Public trust is sustained through cooperative
            partnerships with stakeholders and State, tribal, and local
            governments.
             Effective oversight and management of health and
            pension benefits of the Department's former contract work
            force, who have been instrumental to the successful conduct of
            our missions;
             Federal land and other assets are returned to the most
            beneficial use consistent with the Department's mission
            requirements; and
             Impacts of departmental work force restructuring have
            been mitigated, working in partnerships with departmental
            workers, labor unions, and communities to adapt to changes in
            the Department's missions;

               LEGACY MANAGEMENT FISCAL YEAR 2005 FUNDING REQUEST

        LM's fiscal year 2005 budget request is just over $66 million. This
    funding request will enable us to conduct our mission. The
    environmental surveillance and maintenance efforts require
    approximately $28 million. The pension and benefit continuity program
    for former contractor personnel requires approximately $22 million.
    This funding provides benefits at three sites: about $14 million for
    former contractor personnel associated with the Paducah, Kentucky and
    Portsmouth, Ohio sites; and, approximately $6.5 million for the former
    contractor employees at the Pinellas Plant in Florida. For the planned
    2006 closure sites, $1.5 million will be used to prepare for the
    administration of pension and retiree benefits. The remaining $16
    million includes $2.5 million for worker transition activities, and
    roughly $13.5 million for program direction.
        This request does not include funding to sustain the community
    transition program. Over the past 10 years, the DOE has reduced its
    contractor work force by 50,000 employees. At the same time, the
    affected communities have received over $280 million in financial
    assistance. This assistance has resulted in the creation or retention
    of more than 32,000 jobs. At this point, the Department is projecting a
    decreased need for additional community transition assistance. This is
    largely attributed to stabilization of the Department's missions and
    the effectiveness of the community reuse organizations across the
    country in assisting displaced former DOE contractor employees.

                  THE OFFICE OF LEGACY MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION

        Over the past year, the DOE has worked hard to create an office
    that addresses the concerns of our work force, our communities, and the
    environment. Since LM is a new organization I will take a brief moment
    to describe the offices within LM. Also included, on the last page of
    my statement, is a copy of the LM organization chart.
        The Office of the Director oversees all functions of the office and
    reports to the Under Secretary, Energy, Science and the Environment.
    The Office of Strategic Materials is the former Asset Management
    Program under the old WT, and manages the Department's strategic
    material stockpile. The Office of Stakeholder Relations is our liaison
    with State, local, and tribal governments, and coordinates our external
    communication with many stakeholder groups. The Office of Budget
    manages the office's finances, budget request and coordination. The
    Office of Business and Resource Management provides human resources
    support for LM, assists in long-term surveillance and maintenance, as
    well as oversees and manages the large and complex issue of records
    management, which I will touch on later.
        The Office of Legacy Benefits, Work Force Restructuring, and Labor-
    Management Relations oversees all work force restructuring efforts and
    labor relations across the Department's complex, as well as the new
    function of legacy benefits, or post-closure benefits which I will also
    describe later in my testimony. The Office of Property Management and
    Community Assistance manages disposition, leasing, and reuse of the
    office's real property and works with other agencies and external
    organizations to transfer real property from the DOE. The Office of
    Policy and Site Transition develops policy and guidance in close
    coordination with EM for accepting EM sites into LM. Finally, the
    Office of Land and Site Management monitors and maintains environmental
    remedies such as long-term surveillance and maintenance at LM sites.
        We have built an integrated team of LM personnel to accomplish our
    mission. Federal staff are located strategically in key locations to
    minimize travel costs and maximize customer service. Our staff
    locations include Washington, DC; Grand Junction, Colorado; Morgantown,
    West Virginia; Pinellas, Florida; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

        ENSURING THE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF POST CLOSURE ENVIRONMENTAL
                                RESPONSIBILITIES

        The Department's environmental legacy responsibilities stem
    primarily from the activities of the Department and predecessor
    agencies, particularly during World War II and the Cold War. Currently,
    LM is responsible for long-term surveillance and maintenance activities
    at more than 50 sites where active environmental remediation has been
    completed. The majority of these sites are either Uranium Mill Tailings
    Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) sites or sites associated with the
    Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). In addition
    we have responsibility for three Comprehensive Environmental Response,
    Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) sites: Weldon Spring Site in
    St. Charles County, Missouri; the Monticello site in Utah, and the
    Young-Rainey Science, Technology, and Research (STAR) Center in Largo,
    Florida, at the former Pinellas Plant site.
        As EM continues to accelerate, cleanup sites will be ready for
    closure earlier than previously predicted. However, that acceleration
    will not eliminate the post-closure responsibilities and environmental
    liabilities. LM has been established and organized to support EM's
    accelerated closures and ensure that all departmental post-closure
    responsibilities and liabilities are effectively and efficiently
    addressed. LM and EM will work seamlessly to ensure a smooth handoff of
    responsibilities at these sites. In the near term these sites include
    the Department's Rocky Flats facility in Colorado and the Mound and
    Fernald facilities in Ohio. All three sites are scheduled to be
    remediated, closed, and transitioned to LM for long-term surveillance
    and maintenance by fiscal year 2007. Over the next 5 years, the number
    of sites managed by LM is projected to grow to approximately 105. The
    majority of the new sites transferred into LM will be those associated
    with UMTRCA Title II and FUSRAP sites currently being remediated by the
    U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
        Once sites have been accepted and transitioned to LM, the office
    performs long-term surveillance and maintenance to ensure the
    environmental remedies remain protective of human health and the
    environment. Working with EM closure sites, the regulators, and the
    communities, LM also develops long-term surveillance and maintenance
    plans, provides post-remediation expertise, and assistance to sites
    with their transition to LM. Environmental surveillance and maintenance
    requirements differ according to the nature of the individual site but
    generally include: groundwater monitoring and treatment; maintaining of
    adequate institutional controls; record keeping; radiological surveys;
    repairs to waste disposal cell caps and covers; and erosion control and
    periodic inspection and the preparation and submission of post-closure
    regulatory documentation.

       MANAGE LEGACY LAND AND ASSETS, EMPHASIZING SAFETY AND REUSE, AND
                                  DISPOSITION

        LM is also charged with the transfer or reuse of sites that no
    longer support an ongoing departmental mission and possible disposal of
    properties in long-term surveillance and maintenance. As such, LM works
    with other agencies and organizations to transfer real property from
    the DOE, and supports other departmental elements in reviewing
    transition plans and closure plans to facilitate the transfer of real
    and personal property assets to other agencies, private organizations,
    or private interests. The function of the community transition program
    from WT falls under this office, and includes assisting DOE communities
    in acquiring excess departmental personal or real property for economic
    development purposes.
        At this time the Department's priority focus is to transfer or
    lease portions of Federal properties associated with the following
    sites: the Weldon Spring site in Missouri; the New Brunswick Laboratory
    and the Wayne site in New Jersey; the Salmon site in Mississippi; the
    Mound site in Ohio; the Eastern Tennessee Technology Park in Tennessee;
    the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology site in Colorado; and the
    Hanford site in Washington.

         ENSURING THE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF POST-CLOSURE CONTRACTOR
                                RESPONSIBILITIES

        The completion of missions at certain DOE sites also has an impact
    on the former contractor personnel at the respective sites. When the
    site contractor's cleanup functions are complete, pensions and other
    long-term benefits due to former contractor personnel still need to be
    administered; however, there will no longer be a contractor on site to
    administer these benefits. Therefore, LM implements departmental policy
    concerning closure site contractor employees for continuity of their
    post-closure and retiree benefits, and will coordinate on procurement
    concerning contractor benefits after closure. Additionally, a
    significant increase in pension and long-term benefit administration
    will occur in the near future. In the past, the administration of
    pensions and benefits at closed sites was transferred to other DOE
    contracts. For example, the administration of pensions and benefits at
    Pinellas was transferred to an Albuquerque contractor. With the planned
    closure of Rocky Flats, this practice would no longer be a viable
    option given the magnitude of the Rocky Flats pension and benefit
    plans. Rocky Flats is scheduled to close by the end of fiscal year
    2006. The DOE's objective is to avoid benefit interruption or
    inconvenience to plan participants, to maintain or improve quality of
    service, and to develop a flexible approach to accommodate future
    closure sites. LM is currently establishing a program to oversee the
    continuation of benefit payments that the Department through its
    contractors, is committed to provide for former contractor employees at
    closed sites.

              PRESERVE AND PROTECT LEGACY RECORDS AND INFORMATION

        Integral to the cleanup and closure of sites is the preservation
    and protection of records and information. LM will develop a plan for
    accepting and maintaining all records transferred to the office. These
    records include, but are not limited to, historical site records, long-
    term surveillance and maintenance records, former contractor personnel
    records, and classified records. The office will also manage records
    including the collection, storage, maintenance, and retrieval of
    electronic and physical records as well as database and systems needed
    to support LM activities. For example, the three closure sites, Rocky
    Flats, Mound, and Fernald will have, by closure, approximately 167,000
    cubic feet of records that must be managed by LM. As sites continue to
    transition to LM, we expect that volume of hard copy records may exceed
    225,000 cubic feet. These volumes do not include records for which
    special handling will be needed. These include X-rays, photographs and
    negatives, video and audio-tapes, and architectural drawings.

                                   CONCLUSION

        In closing, the Secretary is dedicated to ensuring the DOE's
    commitment to the environment, our stakeholders, and our workers--past
    and present. We recognize that the Department has responsibilities to
    the former contractor workers and communities following the completed
    remediation and closure of sites. The continued involvement of
    stakeholders including State, tribal, and local governments, is
    critical to meeting these responsibilities. To this end, we will
    vigorously promote an effective mechanism that provides for, and
    encourages, active public participation.
        Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, that concludes my
    statement. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today,
    and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

        Senator Allard. Thank you both for your testimony.
        I want to give Senator Graham an opportunity to make any
    statement if he would like. Before you proceed, Senator Graham,
    I just kind of want to lay out to you what my plans are. I have
    a lengthy question-response dialogue that I want to carry on
    here with Secretary Roberson. I think it will be of interest to
    you because it deals with the sites at Hanford and Idaho as
    well as Savannah River, and I know that is very dear to your
    heart and very important to you.
        Then if you want to make a statement and ask some
    questions, if your schedule demands that you cannot be here for
    that, then I will let you go ahead. If not, maybe I will go
    ahead and get these questions out. You can make your opening
    statement, I will get this questioning out of the way, and then
    call on you for additional questions.
        Senator Graham. Okay, Mr. Chairman. I have to leave in
    about 10 minutes.
        Senator Allard. Senator Graham, make your opening
    statement.
        Senator Graham. It will take me a minute.
        Senator Allard. Okay, very good.
        Senator Graham. One, thank you for having the hearing. Two,
    thank you both for coming.
        The opening statement basically is that the administration
    has been very creative, I think, in trying to come up with an
    accelerated cleanup plan. I know the chairman here is sort of a
    leading edge kind of guy to make sure that we are spending
    taxpayer dollars wisely. I know you are negotiating with South
    Carolina and other States to see if we cannot have a rational
    way of classifying high-level wastes and having a rational way
    of disposing of it.
        There are literally hundreds of billions of dollars at
    stake here, and I am not advocating or asking any State or any
    site to accept a burden they cannot bear. I am not asking any
    community to leave legacy materials behind that are going to be
    hazardous to the health of the community in any fashion. But I
    am asking everyone, including myself, who represents the
    Savannah River Site, to be open-minded and try to break through
    this mentality that there is no new way to do something with an
    old problem.
        So I will stand squarely behind the Department's efforts to
    get every State with a waste legacy from the Cold War to be
    more open-minded and more creative and more responsive to using
    good science to save money and protect the environment.
        Mr. Chairman, I know you have gone to all the sites and we
    particularly appreciate your leadership of trying to make the
    committee more responsive to the efforts of the Department to
    do things in a more professional, common sense way. I want to
    compliment you.
        With that, I will listen to your questions.
        Senator Allard. Well, thank you very much for your
    participation. It is valuable to this committee.
        I am going to be referring in my questioning to ``WIR,''
    which stands for ``Waste Incidental Reprocessing.'' I think it
    would behoove the committee to hear, Secretary Roberson, you
    summarize what the WIR issue is.
        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, Chairman Allard. Thank you,
    Senator, as well.
        Cleanup of tank waste at Hanford, Idaho, and Savannah River
    represents the greatest risk reduction effort in the
    Department's entire cleanup program.
        Senator Allard. This falls under WIR, is that correct?
        Ms. Roberson. Absolutely.
        Senator Allard. Okay.
        Ms. Roberson. I will explain what portion of the program
    that specifically applies to.
        Senator Allard. Very good.
        Ms. Roberson. We had plans at these three sites to clean up
    tank wastes, plans agreed to with our host States and that the
    Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) had also carefully
    reviewed. At each site our plans acknowledged we would remove
    as much tank waste as we could. We would separate the tank
    waste into two fractions: first, a high-level, a high activity
    fraction containing over 95 percent of the radioactivity, which
    we would classify as high-level waste and treat and dispose of
    in the repository for spent fuel and high-level waste called
    for by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act; and a low activity
    fraction which we would classify as low-level waste incidental
    to reprocessing, depending on its characteristics, treat and
    dispose of in an appropriate disposal facility for such
    material.
        We would then determine whether we could demonstrate that
    disposing of a small amount of residues remaining in the tanks,
    generally around 1 percent of the original volume, by
    immobilizing it in place to ensure that it would be comparable
    to the public health and safety requirements for disposal of
    low-level waste in a near-surface disposal facility. If it
    would, our plans were to classify the residues as low-level
    waste incidental to reprocessing, to immobilize them in the
    tanks, and close the tanks with these residues in place.
        A key element of these plans is the classification of the
    tank waste. The problem we have encountered is that in July
    2003 an Idaho district court struck down the WIR portion of DOE
    Order 435.1, the DOE order addressing how DOE and its
    contractors classify waste under the Atomic Energy Act. As a
    result, we now face uncertainty in implementing the very plans
    our host States had agreed made technical sense.
        The classification of this waste is key to determining how
    to dispose of it. Therefore, if we are unable to resolve this
    issue regarding WIR, we face leaving these tank wastes in place
    far longer than we and our host States had anticipated and by
    such delay would likely create more serious health and safety
    risks to workers and members of the public by leaving the
    wastes in the tanks longer and risking leaks to groundwater.
        Senator Allard. Madam Secretary, why do you have to leave
    any of the waste residues behind?
        Ms. Roberson. Mr. Chairman, let me briefly describe the
    size of these tanks and the nature of the waste removal in
    question. Each tank can hold as much as 1.3 million gallons of
    liquid waste. At Hanford, for example, the tanks are 75 feet in
    diameter and the tanks are of differing shapes. Some are
    concave, which means they do not have a flat bottom.
        Senator Allard. I guess that is about the size of this
    room, would be a good estimate?
        Ms. Roberson. Yes, standing on its head.
        Senator Allard. Standing on its side, yes, that is right.
        Ms. Roberson. That is right.
        Under the triparty agreement at Hanford between DOE,
    Washington State, and the Environmental Protection Agency
    (EPA), which governs the cleanup at that site, the goal is that
    we retrieve 99 percent of the tank waste. If all of the
    remaining waste were on the bottom of the tank, it would be
    just under one inch thick. Because of radiological concerns
    with exposure for workers, tank waste removal must be done
    remotely. In addition, these tanks usually sit below ten feet
    of soil cover. Our retrieval equipment must fit into openings
    two inches to two feet wide, and tank structures are not
    designed to support heavy loads from which equipment must be
    deployed to do the tank cleaning.
        It is not a simple task to scrape the last remaining tank
    residues from a tank. Further, much of the waste residues are
    expected to have a stiff consistency. Most removal techniques
    require directing pressurized water streams at the remaining
    wastes to immobilize it and to move it to a location which can
    be pumped. We have spent over 10 years working on technologies
    to improve removal opportunities for the waste from these
    tanks.
        Finally, many of the tanks are over 40 years old and have a
    number of known leak sites, requiring us to exercise great care
    to preclude water leaking from the tank.
        As I said, DOE spent tens of millions of dollars exploring
    how to get as much residual waste as possible out of the tanks.
        Senator Allard. What is the material you plan to leave in
    the tanks?
        Ms. Roberson. We think the residues when stabilized are
    appropriately considered low-level waste, suitable for shallow
    land burial. Analysis will be performed to ensure that they
    meet performance objectives established by DOE and the NRC for
    low-level waste performance objectives. In fact, that is what
    the order that was struck down by the judge's ruling required.
        Senator Allard. Now, should not the waste's characteristics
    and the risks it poses be what matters in terms of safe
    disposal, rather than the process that created the waste?
        Ms. Roberson. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we believe so, and we
    believe that that is the philosophy behind the cleanup plans in
    place for those sites.
        Senator Allard. How much more than your current estimates
    might this cost the American taxpayers?
        Ms. Roberson. Our preliminary assessment was that it would
    cost as much as $138 billion more over the life cycle of the
    Department's cleanup program and extend that life cycle by
    decades to have to process all of our tank waste as high-level
    waste for disposal in a geologic repository, including exhuming
    the tanks themselves, cutting them up, and packaging them for
    disposal.
        Senator Allard. So what is the risk if you have to do that?
        Ms. Roberson. Clearly, the risk to workers and, frankly, to
    the environment is much larger if we have to exhume tanks.
    Given that we cannot proceed with our cleanup plans that were
    based on our waste classification order, we risk leaving waste
    in tanks much longer than we had planned right now. We also add
    to environmental risk by the need to dispose of the large
    amounts of metals resulting from the almost 250 large tanks and
    the associated equipment.
        Our analysis thus far indicates that we would increase
    worker exposure tenfold, increase costs tenfold, and achieve no
    meaningful improvement in environmental protection.
        Senator Allard. So I do not see a rational benefit to the
    American taxpayer from the DOE having to implement the Idaho
    district court decision.
        Ms. Roberson. Frankly, Senator, we do not see it either,
    which is why we are pursuing this. Rather than accelerating
    cleanup of tank waste in agreement with our host States, we
    face stopping much of that work.
        Senator Allard. What is your plan for resolving this WIR
    issue?
        Ms. Roberson. Accelerated cleanup of tank waste is a top
    priority for the entire DOE and the States that host our
    facilities. As pointed out in the General Accounting Office
    (GAO) report completed last year, the WIR issue poses a
    significant vulnerability for the Department. Consistent with
    both the GAO recommendations to seek legislative clarification
    regarding DOE's authority to classify tank waste, and with the
    report by the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee
    last year, we proposed draft legislation to Congress that would
    clarify our authority for managing such wastes.
        We have since held discussions with affected States over
    the impacts the Idaho district court decision had on our
    activities at Hanford, Idaho, and Savannah River in order to
    seek to address issues they have raised about our proposed
    legislative approach. In addition, we have just filed our
    opening brief in our appeal of the Idaho court decision to
    continue our litigation efforts to resolve the WIR issue.
    Without timely resolution of this issue, not only could we be
    unable to implement our cleanup plans, but DOE could be forced
    to realign its resources across the complex in a manner that
    would significantly distort the Department's cleanup and other
    priorities.
        Senator Allard. What about the $350 million and what does
    it take to get that money released?
        Ms. Roberson. The Department's fiscal year 2005 budget
    request includes $350 million in a high-level waste proposal
    that reflects the need to satisfactorily resolve this issue to
    support cleanup. These funds will be requested only to the
    extent that legal uncertainties concerning disposition of these
    wastes are resolved. Until we can resolve the legal
    uncertainties related to WIR, it does not make sense for us to
    proceed with projects that prepare tank wastes for disposition
    as other than high-level wastes destined for a deep geologic
    repository.
        Senator Allard. I want to thank you for your responses, and
    thank you, Senator Graham. Do you have any questions now that
    you would like to ask?
        Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that was a
    very comprehensive overview.
        Senator Allard. Before I have you go ahead, there is a
    closing comment I need to make here that I overlooked. I would
    like to take a moment to comment on the WIR issue. The more I
    learn about this issue, the more it reminds me of the type of
    arguments that existed at Rocky Flats 7 or 8 years ago. Placing
    workers, communities, and the environment at high risk simply
    to meet an arbitrary cleanup requirement which does little or
    nothing to lower the safety or health risks for the site is not
    a good policy. Doing so at great expense makes even less sense.
        It is my understanding that the DOE, working with the NRC,
    has determined that if the very small amounts of liquid waste
    residues left in the tanks are mixed with grout and stabilized
    in place then they will meet the low-level waste performance
    standards required for burial in a low-level waste repository.
        The three States involved: Idaho, South Carolina, and
    Washington, agreed to this cleanup plan and either issued
    permits or indicated a willingness to do so. It was only after
    a third party intervened on a technical legal issue that this
    process come to a screeching halt. By narrowly reading the
    language in the statute, this small amount of liquid waste
    residue is being characterized at a higher level than I think
    is necessary, potentially adding billions of dollars in extra
    costs to DOE's EM program.
        This interpretation is not backed by science as far as I
    can tell and will only result in delays at these sites that
    could extend for decades. This interpretation defies common
    sense and may require legislative action on the part of this
    committee. You can be assured, Madam Secretary, that resolving
    this issue will be one of my highest priorities as this
    committee considers the National Defense Authorization Act for
    Fiscal Year 2005.
        Now I will call on Senator Graham.
        Senator Graham. Well, number one, I would like to associate
    myself totally with your statement. I think that is a very
    appropriate way that we need to address this problem. If
    legislative action is necessary, so be it. I just hate to see a
    bunch of money wasted for no good, and that is not a technical
    evaluation. That is just my view of things. I really believe
    that the standards that we are trying to achieve can be met
    without spending $50 billion unnecessarily.
        However, I think it is the actinon and cesium separation
    process at Savannah River that is sort of unconnected to the
    lawsuit. Will the funds to allow that separation process be
    released here, or why are they tied together?
        Ms. Roberson. Senator, you are referring to what we call
    the salt processing project. What that process does is take
    waste, a fraction of the waste from the tank, and it stabilizes
    it, the large majority of it, for disposal in a form other than
    being disposed of at the geologic repository. So it is indeed
    impacted. The risk of proceeding with that activity following
    the Idaho district court is cause for concern for the
    Department and is considered part of the $350 million account.
        Senator Graham. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. Thank you, Senator.
        I also have some questions here for both you, Madam
    Secretary Roberson, and then Mike Owen. I will address them to
    you, Mr. Owen, and then if you feel the need to chime in, why
    do you not go ahead and do that, Madam Secretary.
        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, sir.
        Senator Allard. I guess I do have separate questions for
    both of you, but most of them are for you, Mr. Owen. My office
    already received numerous phone calls from workers who are
    concerned about their retirement and health benefits. I am
    concerned that information regarding retirement and health
    benefits may not be reaching the workers. Specifically, I am
    interested in hearing from each of the witnesses on retirement
    and health benefits for the workers before, at, and after
    closure of Rocky Flats. Frankly, I would be interested in
    knowing how these same types of issues are being addressed at
    Fernald and Mound.
        So my first question I guess is to you, Madam Secretary. As
    an example, can you please help explain what DOE's and Kaiser-
    Hill's responsibilities are to provide retirement and health
    benefits leading up to the closure of Rocky Flats? Mr. Owen, do
    you want to go ahead?
        Ms. Roberson. We worked that together, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Owen. I may be a bit more schooled in that. We have
    worked it very closely.
        At Kaiser-Hill at this hour, there are terms in the
    contract that they are currently operating under. Those terms
    remain in effect and will until closure and thereafter if need
    be. They would require Kaiser-Hill to continue to deliver the
    pension and health services and benefits that they have been
    doing to date.
        When we, LM, working with EM, devise and develop the new
    model for delivering those services, we will then turn to
    Kaiser-Hill and say: Okay, under the terms of your contract we
    are now saying this is the system we are going to use; fall in
    on it. They will do that at that time.
        We envision the establishment and the operation of
    something that we commonly refer to somewhat generically as a
    National Stewardship Entity as one central focal point that
    would serve the former contractor workers at Rocky Flats,
    Colorado; Fernald, Ohio; Mound, Ohio; and Pinellas, Florida;
    where we have already closed, and any other sites that we may
    come across as we go into the future. That one National
    Stewardship Entity would then be responsible for delivering
    those services, those pensions, those health benefits, doing
    everything for those workers, such as the actuarial
    calculations, processing benefit claims, and adjudicating
    claims. Many of the functions that you would find in such a
    human resources shop normally, would be done by that National
    Stewardship Entity.
        Until we relieve them and fall in on this new system,
    Kaiser-Hill is contractually obligated to continue to do what
    they are doing to this day. It is natural that as we get closer
    to that closure date these benefits are very near and dear to
    everybody's hearts, not just at Rocky Flats or Fernald, all
    over the country. You read about it on the front page of the
    paper every day. People become a little anxious, a little
    concerned: Oh, well, I see the site is being demolished, there
    is no longer a human resources office up there where I used to
    go; what am I going to do?
        We are receiving increased numbers of those types of
    questions. I had envisioned originally when we went into a
    contractual relationship with the National Stewardship Entity,
    this central focal point to deliver these goods, that part of
    the terms of that contract would require them to operate a
    first-class, state of the art, high-quality customer service
    operation with a national call center, and to include for some
    period of time what I refer to as a storefront benefit
    counselor's presence in those local communities to help answer
    the questions.
        In discussions on that, we have had some of the other
    delegation members from Colorado and the other sites, and the
    pace of inquiry has picked up probably a little earlier and
    quicker than we thought. I think one of the ways--and I am
    looking at that now--to help address that would be to identify
    an appropriate, reasonably senior level Federal employee or two
    or three, whatever it takes, to cover those communities here in
    the interim, maybe about a year earlier than we thought,
    because it looks as though the pace of inquiry has quickened,
    quicker than we thought it would.
        But until that stewardship entity is on board and under
    contract, he is the guy that is going to actually manage the
    nitty-gritty details of their benefits programs. But in the
    interim, I am looking to find a way to put someone in there who
    is comprehensively knowledgeable about these types of things
    and can help answer their questions and explain how the system
    is going to work.
        So far we have explained it to the union heads, management,
    and others. But now we have to get it down to the individual
    workers.
        Senator Allard. Does LM have the dollars in the budget in
    fiscal year 2004 or fiscal year 2005 to meet these new
    requirements?
        Mr. Owen. I do not at this time. I had not planned for this
    type of Federal presence as such. It would not be an
    inordinately expensive operation, but there would be some cost
    to it.
        Senator Allard. Is there an office you could share with
    somebody else?
        Mr. Owen. I would have to look at the various options.
    Maybe Ms. Roberson's facilities are still available, subletting
    from her or sharing office space; looking at some of her
    Federal employees that may be shortly being ramped out of her
    organization. Maybe they can come to mine. I have to explore
    all those possibilities. It is not something I set out to
    budget for specifically, but I will look at what I have
    internally and see how we can accommodate.
        Senator Allard. Early on here I do not know whether you can
    hold a full-time office or even a part-time office, but at
    least some time when they could come in and look somebody in
    the eye and say, this is my problem, this is what my concerns
    are, and they could get a response.
        Mr. Owen. Initially I would anticipate that the person or
    persons would be shared among Rocky, Fernald, and Mound. They
    would maybe spend half the time out in southwestern Ohio and
    half of it back in Colorado. Announced hours, make an
    appointment, this type of thing.
        Senator Allard. That sounds like you are moving in the
    right direction.
        The other question I have here--and I do not know which one
    of you wants to answer this, but this is the question. Does
    Kaiser-Hill have adequate human resources professionals
    available to answer questions about retirement and health
    benefits?
        Mr. Owen. I will start with that. I believe that they do at
    this hour. I think we will continue to watch to make certain
    that they do.
        Senator Allard. Has there been some training or something--
    --
        Mr. Owen. Well, to be perfectly honest, I will say Kaiser-
    Hill is first-rate at this. They have put together a very
    progressive, modern, state of the art employee relations career
    transitioning operation, and I have every confidence that they
    can and will continue to do that. I think human nature, as
    things start to go away, sometimes you lose some of your best
    people. We will have to watch and see if that gets to be an
    issue.
        But I know Kaiser-Hill is tuned in to that and they are
    doing a very good job so far, sir.
        Senator Allard. Very good.
        I would like to turn to the pension and health benefits
    after closure. I understand that LM is working on a concept to
    ensure the continuation of worker pension and medical benefits.
    Can you please explain this concept in more detail?
        Mr. Owen. I partially went into that in my earlier answer,
    sir. I will try to explain, but it is a rather complicated
    system. As we sit today, so to speak, the dollars that pay for
    a former Rocky Flats or Fernald or Mound employee, for his
    health benefits or his pension, are embedded down inside the
    management and operating (M&O) contract that is being executed
    by Kaiser-Hill at Rocky Flats at this hour. It is currently
    embedded there now.
        When that contract expires, when closure is accomplished
    and the site is a wildlife preserve, we will not have that M&O
    contractor there as such, so we have to find an alternative way
    to deliver those goods. This is the National Stewardship Entity
    concept. At the same time, we will have to examine our ledgers,
    our budget-keeping procedures. We will have to identify those
    dollars that are currently down inside Ms. Roberson's M&O
    contract, pull out those sites that we have mentioned, and
    bring them up into a consolidated request for dollars under the
    line of LM. There will be one lump sum there that will cover
    multiple sites in some respects and give us more visibility of
    how much we are spending on that type of activity.
        But we anticipate that in a fiscal year or two hence we
    will be requesting what will look like a big bump in LM's
    budget, but really it will be the funds that have been
    scattered about in the M&O contracts.
        Senator Allard. Well, you helped clarify this.
        I am concerned that the workers at Rocky Flats, Fernald,
    and Mound may be penalized in their pension due to the
    accelerated closure schedule. I think this is a concern that
    they have. So who is responsible for addressing the concerns of
    workers who may be close to deadline for retirement points?
        Ms. Roberson. The responsible entity would be EM. Although
    we have no proposals before us, the contractor managing the
    work force would make proposals to the DOE that will receive
    consideration. We do not have any such proposals before us.
        Senator Allard. Do you perceive having any, or are there
    any additional closure benefits or bonuses for workers who stay
    until closure?
        Ms. Roberson. Mr. Chairman, we have very progressive
    programs at Rocky, and we actually used Rocky as the model for
    Mound and Fernald. We are not forecasting any additional
    benefits at those sites. We believe that we have very
    progressive programs at this point. So there are none that are
    at play that I am aware of.
        Senator Allard. Mr. Owen.
        Mr. Owen. If I could add to that, Mr. Chairman. We did one
    enhancement at Rocky several years back. They went to, working
    with the contractor, what is known in the trade as a rule of
    70, which is in the pension business you have a rule of 85 or
    70 or whatever combination of years of service and age. That
    was a substantial sweetener or enhancement. That was done, and
    I believe it took effect in 2001.
        Senator Allard. You understand my concern is, and I think
    you share it, as we move toward closure here you lose your good
    people, those that you have trained, right at the time when you
    may need them, because they get a job offer a year or 2 years
    and they are going to take something that perhaps has some
    longer tenure. So if there is some way we can keep hold of
    those people on, on board until we close out, that would be
    helpful.
        Ms. Roberson. They have actually proven to be extremely
    capable with that at Rocky, in holding onto their work force.
    We continue to struggle with that, both on the Federal side and
    the contractor side, at the closure sites, though, and we
    continue to work at it to make sure that we can.
        Senator Allard. Very good. Thank you.
        During a recent meeting of the Rocky Flats Council of Local
    Governments several local governments expressed concern about
    the safety of the workers. Specifically, the local governments
    are worried that the effort to accelerate closure may result in
    safety violations. What steps are you taking to ensure worker
    safety during this accelerated closure process? I know that we
    have already gotten rid of a lot of the hazardous materials and
    I think that is a big step towards closure. But what additional
    steps might you be taking?
        Ms. Roberson. We are covering all four corners of the
    world, quite frankly. We have a team of people that we send
    out, because we find that the most effective thing to do is to
    apply new eyes to our activities on a basis that allows them to
    be fresh and to see things that people do not see on an
    everyday basis. That has actually proven to be the most
    effective.
        We are sitting down with our contract managers, going
    through safety statistics. The safety performance at all of our
    sites has been elevated to the Deputy Secretary for review. The
    Deputy Secretary looks at our safety performance on a site-by-
    site basis, occurrence-by-occurrence basis, every quarter. So
    the level of attention has increased and the number of
    resources that we are applying has increased, as well as the
    impacts of poor performance in this arena from a consequence
    perspective for our contractors.
        Senator Allard. I would like to move on to another subject,
    and this is for you, Madam Secretary. The DOE announced a new
    Design Basis Threat (DBT) level to increase the amount of
    security at DOE and NNSA facilities in response to the attacks
    on September 11. At sites at which EM manages, but which still
    have NNSA activities, how is each program making sure the
    security requirements are being met across the entire site?
        Ms. Roberson. The one key site that we have that fits that
    category is Savannah River. At the site level, the NNSA
    management staff and EM management staff work together to make
    sure it is integrated, since it is provided by the same
    contract, so it has to be integrated at some point because the
    same contractor provides the service.
        So for those activities that are specific, required
    protection for them, they are funding those, but for the site-
    wide activities EM is responsible for those.
        Senator Allard. So they have worked out some cost-share
    agreements and what-not?
        Ms. Roberson. They have worked out the specifics of the
    activities and who is responsible for what at the site level.
        Senator Allard. Is there any confusion remaining about
    their responsibilities between EM and NNSA?
        Ms. Roberson. Not that I am aware of, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. I have a question on the Price-Anderson
    authority for indemnification for DOE contractors who work on
    nuclear matters. Apparently that expires at the end of this
    calendar year. Can you please describe what difficulties EM
    will have if the Price-Anderson indemnification authority is
    not extended beyond its expiration at the end of this calendar
    year?
        Ms. Roberson. Mr. Chairman, it will likely be the same
    reaction we saw when last we approached this point of not
    knowing whether it was going to be extended or not. The
    contractor has become very concerned about its liability in
    these contracts and that coverage and are resistant to
    progressive changes in the contracts or signing new contracts.
        Senator Allard. Now, are there any contracts you anticipate
    that will be signed in fiscal year 2005 which would be impacted
    by the expiration of the Price-Anderson authority?
        Ms. Roberson. Well, our Idaho contract would be a 2005 new
    contract. I think most of those that are in the procurement
    phase now other than Idaho are 2004. But we will have new
    procurements that are out over this year, so we will clearly
    have other procurements that could be impacted.
        Senator Allard. Very good.
        We are now being joined by Senator Nelson of Florida. Glad
    to have you with us, and if you want to make an opening
    statement we will give you some chance to make an opening
    statement, and then if you have some questions you are welcome
    to pose those.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I take it you have to exit; is that
    correct?
        Senator Allard. Let me see. Let me look at my schedule
    here. Yes. Obviously I am going to have to stay here for a
    little while longer, but yes, at some point in time I would
    like to exit.

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON

        Senator Bill Nelson. I was racing here to get here, having
    had the delightful duty this afternoon of joining with our
    former colleague and a former member of this committee, Senator
    Max Cleland, as he is being sworn in as a member of the Board
    of Directors of the Exim Bank. I came because I understood you
    had to leave, therefore so I could go on and conduct the
    business. So at your pleasure, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. I think what I will do is go ahead and let
    you run the meeting. Do not do anything with unanimous consent.
    [Laughter.]
        Then when you are finished, if you will go ahead and
    adjourn the meeting I would appreciate it. Thank you very much.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you. I bring you greetings from
    Senator Max Cleland.
        Senator Allard. Give him my best.
        Senator Bill Nelson [presiding]. He looks better than I
    have seen him look in a long time and is looking forward to
    this new challenge that he is taking on.
        This Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing is in the midst
    of a busy and short year. I thank you all for coming today.
    Among many of the legacies of the Cold War, we have as the
    subject matter of today copious amounts of waste materials that
    were stored or improperly disposed of, hundreds of highly
    contaminated facilities, thousands of square miles of
    contaminated soil, and millions of gallons of contaminated
    ground and surface water.
        All of this has to be cleaned up and decontaminated, torn
    down or otherwise put in a safe, stable, long-term closure,
    treated, and permanently and safely disposed of. The focused
    effort to deal with the waste, the soil and water
    contamination, and the excess facilities actually began back in
    1989, and considerable progress has been made.
        So I am going to dwell in three areas to discuss: one long-
    term, one mid-term, one near-term. The DOE has a long-term
    responsibility to ensure that the cleanup, including the
    demolition of contaminated facilities, is fully completed. As
    noted last year, just one DOE-owned site, the Pinellas plant in
    Florida, has closed. Rocky Flats, Fernald, and Mound will
    hopefully close in 2006. Others, such as Hanford, will have
    another 30 years to go.
        How DOE plans to maintain its commitment to cleanup in the
    long term is one of the issues that I would like you to
    continue to discuss. Last year, DOE created LM to address some
    aspects of the future management issues. In the 2005 budget DOE
    has proposed to create another new office, the Office of Future
    Liabilities. How these two offices and the EM office all fit
    together is something I want to find out about.
        Ms. Roberson and Mr. Owen, I hope you can help unravel and
    explain some of these roles for all three of the offices,
    including why three offices are more efficient than one.
        The DOE and the contractors continue to assure us that
    Rocky Flats will be closed by 2006. If this closure schedule is
    met, it will be a remarkable achievement and the result of a
    concentrated effort of a number of parties such as DOE, the
    contractor, Congress, community, the State, and the EPA; all
    focused on accelerating the cleanup.
        The Rocky Flats model could be used as a model for other
    site and facility closures, Ms. Roberson. I know you are trying
    to do this. A key aspect of that model, however, was the
    decision to provide substantial additional amounts of money up
    front to accelerate the cleanup. ``The DOE fiscal year budget
    request for 2005 represents a peak year of our investment
    strategy to accelerate cleanup and risk reduction.'' This
    implies that in future years the budget will be reduced. I
    think many sites were under the impression that the budget
    would level off when Rocky Flats was closed and the funds freed
    up as a result of the closure would be available for
    accelerated cleanup at other sites. That is another issue I
    want to discuss.
        DOE has worked aggressively to develop accelerated cleanup
    schedules at other sites. There are at last two key elements to
    this accelerated pace. The first is fully funding the contracts
    to support the commitments made by the contractors. That is the
    money issue I just mentioned. The second is renegotiating the
    various cleanup agreements with the States and the EPA in ways
    that will reduce the scope and cost of the cleanup.
        Ms. Roberson, while I would like to hear from you today
    about the general success of this effort, I am interested in
    one particular area of the work, which is dealing with the WIR
    spent nuclear fuel. This effort is an area where DOE's plans
    have been challenged in court, and I understand DOE is
    considering a number of potential options to resolve the issue.
        So we welcome you all today, and where some of this has
    already been covered then let us not repeat. From those general
    comments, if you could start from there, and then I will go on
    in with some specific questions.
        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, Senator. We actually had a fairly
    lengthy discussion on the WIR. So I would be glad to answer
    specific questions, but I think we actually had a long response
    on the record at this point, sir.
        Two things, if I can. The issue of the budget leveling out,
    I would like to address that; and then I would be glad to
    explain the relationship between EM and the proposed Office of
    Future Liabilities in conjunction with Mr. Owen on LM.
        In 1997 the DOE developed what was called Path to Closure,
    which was a complex-wide strategy for cleanup which included
    holding all sites level in funding except the closure sites,
    Rocky, Fernald, and Mound. The then-Assistant Secretary of EM,
    Al Alm, went from State to State, talked with the regulators,
    governor's office, and others to reach this agreement. It is
    documented in a document that was provided to Congress. Those
    States would agree to hold their budget level while they
    supported additional investment at Fernald, Mound, and Rocky to
    accelerate cleanup. Once those cleanups were completed, that
    delta in budget would be reinvested in those States.
        When we completed the Top-to-Bottom Review in February
    2002, one of the recommendations was that, one, the States did
    not seem to remain committed to that strategy; and two, that
    the risk was growing at the other sites and we needed to make
    the same commitment to those States. There was born the
    Accelerated Cleanup Program for the complex, which resulted in
    an increased budget for all sites, not just the closure sites.
    So we have been very clear with our discussions and
    negotiations with the States that the Path to Closure strategy
    of holding everybody, holding the EM program at a $5 billion
    budget annually, completing the cleanup of three closure sites,
    and then reinvesting that budget in the others was not the
    strategy we were moving forward; we were making an increased
    investment in all of the sites. That discussion did occur with
    the States as we reached agreement with them on the accelerated
    cleanup program.
        EM has a very extensive project baseline to complete. I
    think the DOE has looked forward and said there are a host of
    facilities yet to be cleaned up; we need to plan and we need an
    office that can look objectively and work between the programs
    to identify when facilities would become available or property
    would become available for cleanup. That is the intended
    purpose of the Office of Future Liabilities.
        The actual management structure has not been decided. But
    Senator, I know you can understand what we are trying to do is
    make sure we do not find ourselves overwhelmed like we have
    been before, where we have two or three programs negotiating
    with one State, one set of State regulators, on different
    elements of environmental compliance requirements or trying to
    operate a facility turned over to EM that sits in the middle of
    an operating complex.
        I think forethought and planning are necessary and that is
    what that office is intended to do.
        I will let Mr. Owen talk about the rest.
        Mr. Owen. If I could add, Senator, from the Office of
    Future Liabilities, on those sites that Ms. Roberson's program
    has identified for accelerated closure, remediation activities,
    those sites where we know the course of action are coming to
    the Office of Future Liabilities once she has completed her
    job.
        It was recognized by the Secretary a while back as he went
    about organizing the Office of Future Liabilities that Ms.
    Roberson's mission is to very specifically, with a large amount
    of money, accomplish a tremendous amount of remediation work at
    some very environmentally contaminated sites. She is going to
    do it ahead of schedule, tremendously ahead of schedule, and
    tremendously under budget. Let us let her focus on that. Why
    would the official responsible for devising successful
    accelerated remediation strategies at the same time be
    responsible for devising a means of continuing to deliver
    pension and health benefits to the affected retired contractor
    workers? It seemed logical to put that into a different office
    and let that office focus on that, the legacy of what is going
    to be left over when she has cleaned it and turned Rocky Flats,
    for example, into a wildlife preserve. Then my office would be
    capable of, and we were responsible for, what we hope at that
    stage of the game is a much more passive, low dollar effort--it
    will only need small amounts of money--to surveil, to maintain,
    to monitor the remediations that she has put into place and
    make sure that they are successful and they are tended to and
    maintained properly.
        So it allows her to focus on her mission and we identified
    new evolving missions for my office to focus on, the legacy
    things, the pensions, the benefits, the surveillance and
    monitoring, and keeping hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of
    records from these sites.
        Ms. Roberson. So if I may try to put the three pieces of
    this together, you have front-end planning, and we are focused
    very much on projectizing the cleanup program. You have front-
    end planning of what is to come and how best to manage it so
    that we keep control of our finances and our practices. That is
    Office of Future Liabilities. You have environmental
    remediation, responsible for the physical cleanup; and LM for
    the after-cleanup activities long-term.
        Senator Bill Nelson. In the Natural Resources Defense
    Council (NRDC) suit challenging DOE's plans to deal with the
    tanks, alledging that DOE does not have the option as a matter
    of law to leave the tanks in place, even with some small
    amounts of waste, the suit goes on to say that DOE does not
    have the ability to treat and segregate the waste removed as
    low-level and high-level waste. Up to this point, the NRDC has
    been successful in its litigation and the matter is currently
    on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
        Is there any reason to believe that this case should be
    settled?
        Ms. Roberson. I am certainly not the legal representation
    for the Department, but I certainly am not aware of an approach
    for settlement or discussions to that vein.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Could you get us an answer for the
    record?
        Ms. Roberson. Yes, absolutely, sir.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        DOE is very interested in resolving the status of its cleanup plans
    at these sites but firmly believes that this cannot be done through a
    series of settlement agreements. The Department's cleanup plans for the
    91 million gallons of tank wastes in Idaho, Hanford and Savannah River
    depend on DOE being able to classify lower activity waste from
    reprocessing as low-level or transuranic (TRU) waste. However, the
    Idaho District Court decision struck down the portions of DOE's Order
    435.1 that address when waste from reprocessing may be classified as
    other than high-level waste. If DOE were to proceed with cleanup
    activities that depend on DOE being able to classify some of the waste
    in the tanks as low-level or TRU waste, it would be making hundred-
    million-dollar-plus investments in technologies with no confidence that
    it had the authority to classify the waste as it had done, and hence
    with no assurance that the waste form it spent this money creating had
    a disposal pathway.
        The District Court decision said very little about what kind of
    waste classification criteria it believed might be lawful. Thus, the
    Department faces the prospect that any decisions it makes to classify
    tank waste as other than high-level waste would readily be the subject
    of legal challenge. Therefore, DOE has concluded that it should only
    move forward with large investments to turn tank waste into material
    slated to be disposed of as low-level or TRU waste if there is a
    satisfactory resolution of the legal uncertainty either by the courts
    or by new legislation.
        Entering into settlement agreements with the various parties to the
    lawsuit would not provide the Department the needed legal certainty.
    Potential legal challenges are not limited just to the parties to the
    current lawsuit. They could come from many other groups or individuals.
    Also, settlement would not necessarily prevent the Idaho District Court
    decision from being cited as precedent. Therefore, unless the district
    court decision is either reversed on appeal or modified by new
    legislation, it will continue to be a significant obstacle to DOE's
    ability to proceed with its longstanding--and State approved--tank
    closure plans.

        Senator Bill Nelson. To complicate this matter further, DOE
    has submitted a $350 million fiscal year budget request that is
    contingent on either legislation that would allow DOE to carry
    out its plans or the litigation being resolved in DOE's favor.
    DOE therefore is using the $350 million as an incentive for the
    involved States to pursue and obtain legislation or to withdraw
    from the litigation.
        If there is no legislation this year, what will you do?
        Ms. Roberson. Well, Senator Nelson, we will likely not be
    in a position to proceed with the work that $350 million was
    intended to buy. Let me clarify one thing. The plans that we
    propose to carry forward are plans that were negotiated with
    the host States for those sites. We are not proposing to do
    something inconsistent with the triparty agreement at Hanford.
    In fact, it supports the triparty agreement. We are not trying
    to do something inconsistent with our clean water permit at
    Savannah River. It is consistent. We close two tanks using this
    process at Savannah River. We are not proposing to do something
    inconsistent at Idaho. We have approved closure plans at Idaho
    that we cannot implement.
        The issue for us with the $350 million is that it was
    intended to pay for stabilizing our processing material into a
    form that would be disposed of in a means other than going to a
    geologic repository. Those activities, we believe, because of
    the judge's ruling are indeed at risk of proceeding.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So if there is no legislation this
    year, what will you do?
        Ms. Roberson. There are certain activities we planned in
    our high-level waste program that we cannot proceed with until
    there is resolution one way or the other.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What about if the litigation is not
    resolved this year? What will you do?
        Ms. Roberson. We will not proceed with those activities
    until there is some resolution in this matter one way or the
    other. The judge cautioned us not to proceed with plans that
    were in place, and these were clearly the plans that were in
    place.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Is it the same answer if the
    litigation is not resolved in DOE's favor?
        Ms. Roberson. Or in favor of the processes that have been
    developed and incorporated into our cleanup plans with our host
    States.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, what about the construction of
    the Hanford waste plant? Will it be stopped under any of these
    three scenarios: no legislation, no resolution of the
    litigation, or resolution of the litigation adverse to DOE?
        Ms. Roberson. At this point, the Department's belief is
    that construction of a vitrification plant, because its primary
    purpose is preparation of material to go to a geologic
    repository, is not an issue. There is a small part of the
    construction of that facility that is to prepare waste for
    something other than a geologic repository, but we do not
    believe we have encroached upon that yet.
        So our plan at this point is to continue with construction
    of a plant.
        Senator Bill Nelson. When do you plan to submit
    legislation?
        Ms. Roberson. Can I get back to you really quick on that?
        Senator Bill Nelson. Yes.
        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, sir.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        DOE transmitted an initial legislative proposal to Congress last
    summer (August 1, 2003) to remedy this waste incidental to reprocessing
    problem. Since that time, we have been in discussions with affected
    States over the impacts the Idaho District Court decision has had on
    our activities at Hanford, the Idaho National Laboratory and the
    Savannah River Site. We attempted to address issues the States raised
    about our initial proposed legislative approach. We did reach agreement
    with the State of South Carolina. The Senate included a provision based
    on that agreement in section 3116 of the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense
    Authorization Bill. The administration has indicated its strong support
    for this provision.

        Senator Bill Nelson. It is clear that the EM office would
    like to go out of business, whether it is by 2025 or maybe 2012
    or some other date. The crystal ball is murky. At any date,
    there will still be cleanup to be done. If it closes in 2012,
    there will be substantial cleanup work remaining. In
    preparation for closing the EM office, you have stopped taking
    new cleanup work and the office is in the process of shifting
    responsibility for the newly generated waste as well as other
    activities to other DOE program offices.
        There is a goal to close EM. When will that happen?
        Ms. Roberson. There is a goal to complete the scope of work
    that the EM program is responsible for, and our current
    baseline says that we can do that around the time frame of
    2032. We are challenged to continue to accelerate that, but DOE
    has proposed the Office of Future Liabilities begin the
    planning and develop management options for carrying out the
    future cleanup of those facilities that are currently active
    today because of ongoing operations. The Department has not
    precluded EM as one of those options, but it is keeping the
    options open because we have learned valuable management
    lessons as to how to do this.
        So the DOE has not made a decision as to whether that would
    be EM, an EM-2, or not. It simply has not made a management
    decision. It is focused on how to manage and what the rate of
    return would be for ongoing operations today as they complete
    those missions.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So there is a plan that lays out that
    path to closure?
        Ms. Roberson. For EM?
        Senator Bill Nelson. Yes.
        Ms. Roberson. I would say the Top-to-Bottom Review is the
    first strategic plan, and we have recently done an update to
    that and provided it to Congress. There is a status of the Top-
    to-Bottom Review that has been recently provided to Congress,
    too.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, once you close it what work will
    still need to be done and who will do it?
        Ms. Roberson. When we say ``close,'' we are speaking of
    completing the work the program is currently responsible for.
    Once cleanup is completed at a particular site, if there is no
    ongoing operation, LM would step in. If there are ongoing
    operations, the Department is attempting to develop a plan as
    to how that cleanup would occur and when it would become
    necessary.
        So I cannot tell you the answer because the Department is
    venturing into the planning process for that work that is
    currently not in EM.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you are going to move some of those
    activities to LM and the Department has proposed in this budget
    a new Office of Future Liabilities and it will apparently take
    the new cleanup projects?
        Ms. Roberson. No, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. That is not so?
        Ms. Roberson. No. It will do the planning for sure and
    provide management options for the DOE to make a decision. One
    of those options will likely be EM. I do not know, but they are
    going to look at the management structure and propose options
    based upon when that work would become available for cleanup.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, would that new office take over
    the old EM activities when EM goes out of business?
        Ms. Roberson. When EM goes out of business for the scope of
    work that it has, it should be complete. So there would not be
    cleanup intended for that office to take over at all.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What about the newly generated waste?
        Ms. Roberson. The newly generated waste is proposed to stay
    with the generating organizations. So when they cease to
    operate, there is no more newly generated waste to be passed
    on.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you are saying that when EM goes
    out of business there is not going to be any remaining work
    done by this LM, and if there is any future waste it is going
    to be assigned to whoever the generating office is?
        Ms. Roberson. When EM completes cleanup at a site and there
    is no ongoing mission, there is not another landlord, the NNSA
    does not have an ongoing mission, as in the case of Los Alamos.
    NNSA is the landlord. They have an ongoing mission there. That
    would not transfer to LM. Once we complete the cleanup scope
    that we have, NNSA still remains the landlord and it is still
    their site, so that it would not move.
        Mr. Owen. Also, LM will take on some functions, but
    ideally, as I believe I said earlier this afternoon, it would
    be in comparison to the fevered pace that EM is conducting
    today at, say, Rocky. It would be a fairly passive activity,
    where we would be conducting long-term surveillance and
    maintenance and stewardship activities. We would be monitoring
    pump-and-treat ground wells, making certain that containment
    cells are kept in good order, that the appropriate engineering
    and institutional controls are kept up, and the records of
    those activities are available to the public.
        It would be a much lower level of activity conducted by LM,
    because Ms. Roberson's organization actually ideally has been
    successful in remediating the site, removing the vast majority
    of what ever could possibly be threatening to human health and
    the environment. It is our job then to monitor and make certain
    that that is indeed the case.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Tell me, what is this new creature
    called the Office of Future Liabilities?
        Ms. Roberson. The Office of Future Liabilities is intended
    to do planning to work with all the programs that have
    operations and facilities that are not in the EM program now,
    to ascertain when the missions will end, when facilities would
    be available for cleanup, or when sites would be available for
    cleanup, and to lay that out in a time line that allows the DOE
    to make informed management decisions as to how to carry out
    that work.
        So it is initially a planning function only, planning for
    the scope of work and proposing management options for how to
    carry out that work.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Let us talk to you, Mr. Owen, about
    LM.
        Mr. Owen. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. One of your primary responsibilities
    will be to continue the health insurance and retirement
    benefits for workers from the closed DOE sites and facilities.
    Do you believe that any legislation is needed to carry out your
    mission to protect the workers?
        Mr. Owen. Several years ago when we looked at this pending
    liability, this pending legacy that we needed to manage, we
    very carefully looked at it and determined that we felt we
    could devise a model to deliver those services successfully to
    the rightful recipients without requesting legislation. As we
    continue to work through the process, we have run across a
    number of hurdles, but we have worked around them internally.
    We are getting a tremendous amount of cooperation from the U.S.
    Department of Labor on the Employee Retirement Income Security
    Act (ERISA), as well as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
        At this hour we do not believe that legislation is needed.
    We appreciate the inquiry as to if legislation will be needed.
    We may encounter problems that would cause us to conclude that
    we need legislation, but right now we believe we are on a
    course that will allow us to accomplish it.
        On a side note, we are doing it successfully, even though
    we are going to change the model a little bit, for the former
    contractor workers at the Pinellas plant outside of Tampa. That
    is a group of former contractor workers, where we are getting
    the job done now and we are planning to continue to be able to
    do that for those workers. It will be a different model than we
    are following for those people now.
        But my office budget request does actually include the
    pension dollars for the former contractor employees at the
    Pinellas site.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Could any legislation help you to
    simplify the whole thing?
        Mr. Owen. I would not rule that out. I do not think I could
    give you a comprehensive answer at this time, Senator, but I
    will keep that in mind. But as we move forward, realize that
    there is an interest here that, if something needs to be
    statutorily put in place or legislatively clarified, that we
    would welcome the opportunity to come and work with you and
    your staff.
        There are a lot of issues involved in doing this, sir. But
    right now things are working and it is coming together.
    Tomorrow morning it may be a different story. We will blow the
    whistle if it is. We will let you know.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Ms. Roberson, does each facility have
    the full amount of funds anticipated in each contract?
        Ms. Roberson. I believe we have requested the full amount
    of funds anticipated in each of our contracts.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Would you give us a funding plan by
    the major prime contractor for the next 5 years?
        Ms. Roberson. I can give you that if we have contracts that
    go for 5 years. That would be a subset of those contracts we
    have in place. For those we can.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What would a contract typically go
    for?
        Ms. Roberson. Well, they start at different points. They
    may be 5-year contracts, but if it started in 2000 then there
    is 1 year. A number of our larger contracts do expire in the
    next 2 years.
        Senator Bill Nelson. All right. Well, give us what you have
    in the remaining.
        Ms. Roberson. Yes, we will do that.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        Senator Bill Nelson. Keeping Rocky Flats as well as the
    other cleanups on the accelerated cleanup schedule, that is
    important. Many of the other sites apparently do not have
    enough money to keep their cleanup programs on schedule. Money,
    that is one need. But there is also the need to ship nuclear
    waste and other nuclear material to Savannah River. As a
    receiving site for the plutonium wastes from Rocky Flats and
    other materials from other sites, Savannah River is playing a
    very important key role in supporting the cleanup.
        The perceived delay in 2002 in the Mixed-Oxide (MOX) Fuel
    Fabrication (MOFF) Facility that is going to be built at
    Savannah River to process the plutonium has strained relations,
    to say the least, with the governor of South Carolina and the
    DOE. This year there is a new concern about a delay in
    construction of the MOFF Facility. So what impact would a delay
    in that plant construction have on the cleanup and can you give
    us some notion of its impact by this time?
        Ms. Roberson. Actually, Senator, since that is an NNSA
    project, I would like to confer with them and respond for the
    record if I might.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        I believe the Department is endeavoring to mitigate the impact of
    any delay in the construction of the MOFF Facility. Consolidating all
    of EM's surplus plutonium, approximately 13 metric tons, is a key
    element of EM's cleanup plans and the Department's national security
    goals. Although the Department is evaluating the consolidation of the
    approximately 13 metric tons at the Savannah River Site, no decision
    has been made. Any decision to consolidate surplus plutonium would be
    subject to appropriate National Environmental Policy Act review.

        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, what I am looking for is a 1-
    year delay, 2-year delay, 5-year delay? What impact would it
    have on your program?
        Ms. Roberson. I would really need to confer with them. I do
    not know what a 1-year delay would mean from an operating
    capability without talking to them first. So if I could, we
    will respond, but I can't speak for their plans right now.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do any of the staff have any further
    questions that you want to ask?
        Ms. Roberson. Oh, that is not fair. [Laughter.]
        Senator Bill Nelson. Anybody in the audience want to ask
    any questions? [No response.]
        We are going to keep the record open for 3 days and also we
    will keep the record open to receive the information that we
    have requested. Instead of asking some additional questions, I
    am going to submit some in writing to you for the committee.
        Everybody have a good afternoon and the meeting is
    adjourned.
        Ms. Roberson. Thank you, Senator.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you.
        [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

                  Questions Submitted by Senator Wayne Allard

                          SECURE TRANSFORMATION ASSETS

        1. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, are you satisfied that the
    National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has enough secure
    transportation assets to meet Environmental Management's (EM)
    transportation needs during the next several years?
        Ms. Roberson. In recognition of the multiple program demands for
    secure transportation assets, the Secure Transportation Advisory Board
    has been formed. This board, which includes a member from my staff, is
    very effective in prioritizing needs and helping to ensure that
    programs, such as EM, are able to meet its commitments successfully.
        However, the Department is facing a challenge to ensure that there
    are adequate Federal agents (couriers) hired and trained to meet the
    increased demands. This challenge is further complicated by competition
    by other agencies for these same resources. As the agent force
    increases, it will enable the NNSA to ensure EM that our commitments in
    the next few years can be met.

                          OFFICE OF LEGACY MANAGEMENT

        2. Senator Allard. Mr. Owen, what is the regulatory structure of
    the Office of Legacy Management (LM)?
        Mr. Owen. LM is responsible for long-term surveillance and
    maintenance activities at more than 60 sites (with an additional 45
    anticipated over the next 5 years) across the country where active
    environmental remediation has been completed. LM is also responsible
    for overseeing workforce restructuring of contractor employees
    operating at the Department of Energy's (DOE) sites and for overseeing
    benefit continuity for contractor employees after site closure.
        LM's long-term surveillance and maintenance work is conducted under
    a variety of legal and regulatory frameworks. Work at many of our
    current sites is subject to the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control
    Act. LM conducts activities at these sites under a license from the
    Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in accordance with NRC regulations.
    Additionally, a number of our sites fall under the Comprehensive
    Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act and operate in
    accordance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
    requirements. OLM must also comply with a variety of applicable state
    requirements.
        Workforce restructuring of contractor employees at DOE sites is
    conducted consistent with section 3161 of the National Defense
    Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993. Distribution of funds for the
    retired contractor workforce on sites where active environmental
    remediation has been completed is conducted in accordance with the
    Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), U.S. Department of
    Labor rules and regulations, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
    regulations, and applicable State laws and regulations.

        3. Senator Allard. Mr. Owen, there could be massive legal changes
    in the DOE's fiduciary responsibilities as sites close and
    relationships with the traditional contractors change. How does DOE see
    its role post-closure?
        Mr. Owen. The DOE will ensure that there are effective mechanisms
    in place to assure continuity of benefits for contractor employees
    after site closure. As in the case of ongoing sites, DOE's role will
    include contracting with the plan sponsor(s), providing funding,
    approving allowable costs, and providing appropriate contract
    oversight. The Department is not now the plan fiduciary of any
    contractor benefit plans and will not become the fiduciary after
    closure.

        4. Senator Allard. Mr. Owen, what legal, accounting, benefit
    specialist, and actuarial resources does DOE have to perform that role?
        Mr. Owen. The Department has created LM to ensure that legacy
    responsibilities are effectively and efficiently managed. LM will work
    with the Office of General Counsel, the Office of the Chief Financial
    Officer, the Contractor Human Resource Management Office, and other DOE
    offices, as needed, to address post-closure requirements. Actuarial
    consultants for additional legal, benefit, and actuarial expertise also
    have been retained to assist the Department to ensure legacy
    responsibilities are effectively and efficiently managed.

        5. Senator Allard. Mr. Owen, is there a need for more resources
    here?
        Mr. Owen. The Department has assembled an integrated team to
    develop and implement the post closure benefit program that includes
    key members of my staff as leaders and participants. At this time, the
    Department believes these resources, together with actuarial
    consultants who have been retained to provide additional legal,
    benefit, and actuarial expertise, are sufficient to implement the
    program and oversee contractor performance. We will routinely assess
    staff skills and levels to ensure that the post-closure benefit program
    is managed effectively and efficiently.

        6. Senator Allard. Mr. Owen, what framework, if any, does DOE have
    in place to effectively review the contractors' obligations and costs
    for pension and post-retirement benefits on an ongoing basis?
        Mr. Owen. The Department reviews contractor obligations and costs
    for pension and other post-retirement benefits under the Federal
    Acquisition Regulation (FAR) cost principles and pursuant to DOE Order
    350.1 or a special clause(s) pertaining to compensation and benefits.
    LM will analyze and evaluate existing processes and determine if
    additional mechanisms are needed for the administration of post-closure
    retirement benefits.

                      CLARIFYING THE DEFINITION OF CLOSURE

        7. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, how does the EM program plan
    to close gap between physical closure and regulatory closure?
        Ms. Roberson. The EM program will complete its cleanup mission and
    attain physical closure (e.g., all waste removed or adequately
    contained, all required engineering systems constructed and operating
    properly) in accordance with regulatory agreements, permits, and
    decision documents. Once EM has completed all necessary remedy
    documentation (e.g., Records of Decision, remedial action workplans)
    and transitions any remaining long-term response action management
    responsibilities (e.g., surveillance and maintenance of containment
    cells, operation and maintenance of ground water treatment systems) to
    LM or to the Program Secretarial Office responsible for ongoing
    missions at the site, the receiving organization will be responsible
    for final regulatory closeout. In some cases, regulatory closeout may
    occur years after EM completion. Accordingly, EM is responsible for
    providing the receiving organizations with all essential information to
    ensure they are fully equipped to conduct long-term stewardship,
    confirm remedies are performing as intended and ultimately demonstrate
    to our regulators that final objectives have been attained and
    regulatory closeout can proceed. We are working closely with LM and
    other Program Secretarial Offices in developing site-specific
    transition plans that will outline regulatory requirements (e.g.,
    surveillance and maintenance, institutional controls), personnel and
    funding needs, and other activities (e.g., public outreach, records
    management) needed to provide for a smooth transition from one program
    element to another.

                              F-CANYON DISPOSITION

        8. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, what is the current status
    of the decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the F-Canyon?
        Ms. Roberson. Limited decommissioning of several of the support
    facilities will begin later this year. We are in the planning stages to
    determine final disposition of the facility.

        9. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, is it your understanding
    that the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is satisfied
    with your current plans and progress with the D&D of F-Canyon?
        Ms. Roberson. DOE is not aware of any DNFSB issues or concerns
    associated with the plans and progress of F-Canyon deactivation. We are
    in the planning stages to determine final disposition of the facility.

                        ACCELERATED COMPLETION SCHEDULE

        10. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, the fiscal year 2005 budget
    request for the 2012 and 2035 accelerated closure accounts is less than
    in fiscal year 2004. How will accelerated completion be accomplished
    with less funding?
        Ms. Roberson. The reduction between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal
    year 2005 in the Defense Site Acceleration Completion, 2012 and 2035
    Accelerated Completions accounts, is due to the decision to show
    separately the funding associated with the Waste Incidental to
    Reprocessing (WIR) court ruling. The $350 million in fiscal year 2005
    is for activities that are planned to be performed in the 2012 and 2035
    Accelerated Completions accounts, should the legal issue be
    satisfactorily resolved. The following table displays the increases to
    the Defense Site Acceleration Completion, 2012 and 2035 Accelerated
    Completions accounts when the WIR-related funding is incorporated.

                                                [In Thousands of Dollars]
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                               Fiscal Year
                                                   -----------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                            2005
                 Appropriation/Account                  2003         2004         2005         2005     Adjusted vs.
                                                     Comparable   Comparable    Request      Adjusted    Fiscal Year
                                                                                             for WIR        2004
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Defense Site Acceleration Completion
      2006 Accelerated Completions................   $1,234,037   $1,239,018   $1,251,799   $1,251,799       $12,781
      2012 Accelerated Completions................    2,102,613    2,199,338    2,150,641    2,247,941        48,603
      2035 Accelerated Completions................    1,811,563    1,918,375    1,893,339    2,146,039       227,664
      Safeguards and Security.....................      254,747      291,124      265,059      265,059      (26,065)
      Technology Development and Deployment.......      113,679       66,116       60,142       60,142       (5,974)
      HLW Legislative Proposal....................            0            0      350,000            0             0
                                                   -----------------------------------------------------------------
        Total.....................................   $5,516,639   $5,713,971   $5,970,980   $5,970,980      $257,009
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           POST-CLOSURE LEGAL STATUS

        11. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, will participants in
    individual pension/benefit plans have standing to sue DOE, either
    directly or as third-party beneficiaries, to enforce promises made in
    employment contracts?
        Ms. Roberson. The primary rights of participants in pension and
    other benefit plans to enforce promises regarding the plans made in
    their employment contracts are against their employers (the
    contractors). They may also have rights against the plan fiduciaries.
    DOE is not a party to either the plans or to the employment contracts
    and is not a fiduciary of these plans. The participants have no third-
    party beneficiary status to sue under DOE's contracts with the
    contractors.

        12. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, what is the impact of State
    law on contractor obligations where the contractor, like the University
    of California, is a State entity?
        Ms. Roberson. Where a DOE contractor, like the University of
    California, is a (pure) State entity (not operating through a venture
    involving non-State entities), the formation of the plan documents and
    any trust, as well as the legal status of the employing contractor and
    its labor-management relations, are all primarily State law matters.
    The contractor's plans would not be covered by ERISA and the
    contractor's agreements concerning benefits would be a matter of State
    law regarding employment matters. Federal laws such as the National
    Labor Relations Act which may impact determination of benefits promised
    in other contexts would not be applicable.

                              POST-CLOSURE ENTITY

        13. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, DOE presently plans to
    establish an entity to regulate long-term pension and benefit matters
    after site closure. This will, it appears, be a very large entity with
    a very large responsibility. Does DOE have the resources to effectively
    monitor such an entity?
        Ms. Roberson. The Department has in place an integrated team to
    oversee the post-closure benefit program. LM staff is an integral part
    of this team and will ensure that the appropriate resources are brought
    to bear to oversee this responsibility. Staff needs assessments are
    continuously being performed to ensure that adequate quantity and the
    right skills are on board to perform management and monitoring
    responsibilities.

        14. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, how will DOE resist being
    drawn into benefit determinations and caving in to political pressure
    for benefit increases, when so many contractor employees are close to
    retirement?
        Ms. Roberson. DOE will retain its arms-length relationship with
    contractor employees by contracting with the plan sponsor(s)
    responsible for any plan amendments which would increase or decrease
    benefits to retirees. DOE will retain the right to approve or
    disapprove of all plan amendments. DOE currently reviews and approves
    plan amendments against established benchmarks to prevent benefits from
    being out of line with those in comparable industries.

        15. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, will these changes
    (especially in view of section 3161 of the National Defense
    Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993) encourage employees and
    retirees to look directly to DOE for these things, thus moving away
    from the Manhattan Project paradigm of the government's working through
    contractors in these matters?
        Ms. Roberson. While Section 3161 of the National Defense
    Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993 directed DOE to mitigate the
    impact on contractor employees and their communities of the
    Department's changing mission, it did not alter the relationship
    between DOE and its prime contractor employees. DOE is consulting with
    the Department of Labor and the IRS regarding its approach to providing
    continuity of post-closure benefits. They have been consistent in their
    advice and counsel to have a DOE prime contractor(s) continue as a plan
    sponsor(s) and fiduciaries.

                            POST-CLOSURE OBLIGATIONS

        16. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, the General Accounting
    Office is investigating the size and duration of DOE obligations for
    contractor post-retirement benefits after site closure. Proposed Cost
    Accounting Standard (CAS) 419, which would have regulated the
    allocation of costs for health benefits for government contractors, was
    recently withdrawn because of industry concerns about exposure to these
    costs, and a desire that the government bear more of the risk of
    rapidly increasing medical costs. What are your thoughts on this?
        Ms. Roberson. Withdrawal of CAS 419 would not have a direct and/or
    immediate impact on DOE contracts due to current DOE policy that
    requires cash basis or pay-as-you-go accounting for post-retirement
    benefits (PRB) (other than pension plans).
        The proposed CAS 419, Accounting for the Costs of Post-Retirement
    Benefit Plans Sponsored by Government Contractors, would have required
    accrual accounting for PRB plans when benefits meet the following
    criteria: (1) documented in writing, (2) communicated to employees, (3)
    non-forfeitable once earned, and (4) legally enforceable. DOE
    contractors' PRBs, like most commercially sponsored PRBs, meet some of
    these criteria, but may not meet all of the proposed CAS 419 criteria.
        While pre-funding of PRBs may be desirable, the DOE contractor
    liability for post retirement benefits has been accruing for 50+ years.
    Converting to accrual accounting (pre-funded) from pay-as-you-go
    accounting would result in a significant transitional liability.
    Additionally, unlike pension plans, PRBs cannot be funded through tax
    favored funding vehicles.

        17. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, when the main operational
    mission of the sites is completed and the great bulk of costs remaining
    are post-operational retiree benefits, what incentive is there for the
    contractors (who are working under various kinds of contracts which
    effectively provide for cost reimbursement) to control these costs?
        Ms. Roberson. We believe the Department has tools available to it
    that it can use in developing appropriate contractual arrangements that
    will allow a significant measure of cost control. These include
    contract incentives to implement efficiencies in plan administration
    and reasonableness determinations with respect to the allowability of
    costs that can take into account relevant industry comparators (e.g.,
    industry competition and geographical location) consistent with other
    applicable laws and rules.

                          TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATIONS

        18. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, what is the EM program
    doing to encourage new cleanup technologies and innovations to help
    further accelerate cleanup at EM sites?
        Ms. Roberson. Of fundamental importance are the cleanup contracts
    that provide strong financial incentives for contractors to bring the
    safest and most efficient technologies to bear on the site cleanup
    contracts. The progress at Rocky Flats is a result of such a contract
    change. The emerging success there isue not only to its project
    management approach but also to a great number of new and improved
    technologies. In addition, we fund selected activities to ensure the
    sites have the best available scientific and technological background
    and advice with which to proceed with the best, viable technical
    solutions and technologies.

        19. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, does the EM program
    encourage new technologies to be introduced into the existing cleanup
    framework?
        Ms. Roberson. Absolutely. We are doing this in two ways. First, we
    are creating strong incentives for contractors to bring the safest and
    most efficient technologies to bear on the site cleanup contracts.
    Second, we fund Technical Solutions, Closure Projects, and Alternatives
    Projects within the Technology Development and Deployment program to
    ensure the sites have the best available scientific and technological
    background, advice, and confidence with which to proceed. These
    programs directly stimulate the use of the best, viable technical
    solutions and technologies.

        20. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, how would a company or
    other entity introduce their new technology into the existing EM
    contractor framework?
        Ms. Roberson. By far the greatest opportunity is through the sites
    and their site cleanup contractors who are searching for the best
    available solutions and who will be responsible for verifying that a
    vendor's claims are supported. In addition, as we pursue alternatives
    projects, procurements are advertised for commercial response.
    Companies and teams of companies are encouraged to submit their
    proposals.

        21. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, how does the EM program
    assess whether a new technology may be a viable cleanup option?
        Ms. Roberson. In most cases, the vendors present testing and field
    operational experience for DOE assessment and decisionmaking.
    Treatability studies and other technology demonstrations may be
    conducted to further support such assessments.

                           ACCELERATE RISK REDUCTION

        22. Senator Allard. Secretary Roberson, in your written testimony
    you focus on the benefits of accelerating risk reduction as the best
    way to increase safety and reduce the cost of cleanup. Are there any
    statutory or regulatory obstacles preventing the EM program from
    accelerating risk reduction which should be changed to help increase
    safety and reduce the cost of cleanup?
        Ms. Roberson. We have identified one statutory change that would be
    extremely important for proceeding with the accelerated cleanup
    program. This legislation would clarify the Department's authority to
    separate and dispose of tank waste according to the risk it presents.
    The Department submitted a legislative proposal on this subject last
    August and since then has been in discussion with the affected States
    and Congressional delegations to craft a consensus on a legislative
    solution. As you are aware, these efforts resulted in agreement with
    the State of South Carolina. We appreciate the State's agreement on a
    legislative approach, and we appreciate the committee's consideration
    of this approach with respect to the Savannah River Site in the
    National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005. Clarification
    of the Department's authority to classify waste remains critical to
    implementation of accelerated cleanup plans at Idaho, Hanford, and the
    Savannah River Site.
        The Department has not identified any additional statutory changes
    it would recommend to execute accelerated cleanup. Nonetheless, the
    cleanup program continues to implement various initiatives (e.g.,
    baseline validation reviews, acquisition strategies, and development of
    site Risk-Based End State documents) that may, at some point in the
    future, lead to identification of the need for additional statutory
    changes. Should these initiatives lead to identification of additional
    changes to support accelerated cleanup, the Department will make
    appropriate recommendations to Congress.
                                     ______

                   Questions Submitted by Senator Bill Nelson

                             INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY

        23. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, with a program as
    complex as the EM program, it would seem that a reasonable investment
    should be made in improving the technologies and methods that will be
    utilized to accomplish this mission. Technology improvements can only
    be achieved through a technology program that is able to look to the
    future, rather than dealing with the day-to-day challenges of
    implementation. The DOE EM program has spent the last year implementing
    its accelerated cleanup program and is currently in the process of
    another reorganization to streamline its processes to provide better
    focus on its core mission and to reduce the risks imposed by the legacy
    of our nuclear weapons programs. In testimony provided to the Energy
    and Water Appropriations Subcommittee last year, you indicated that you
    had instituted an integrated technology development and deployment
    program to focus on ``high-payoff'' site closure and remediation
    problems. How does this integrated technology development and
    deployment program plan on focusing on the longer term research and
    development necessary to ensure that continual improvement is achieved
    as you embark on what you now assert is a 35-year mission to complete
    the EM cleanup objectives?
        Ms. Roberson. In 2003, EM consolidated its basic and applied
    research activities with those in the Office of Science. Since 2003,
    for longer-term research and development, DOE's Office of Science is
    leading the way to yield the greatest benefit. To assist in clarifying
    these research needs, EM (and more recently the Office of Science)
    commissioned a series of reports conducted by the National Research
    Council. To date, the Council recommended additional research in
    subsurface contamination, high-level waste, facility deactivation and
    decontamination, I transuranic and mixed wastes, and DOE's excess
    nuclear materials and spent nuclear fuel. The Office of Science is
    using these recommendations as a basis for their research.

                        FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

        24. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, Florida International
    University (FIU) has been a fertile ground to seek solutions to long-
    term challenges. Would you agree that the support the EM program has
    received from academic institutions has significantly contributed to
    the development of the solutions that have allowed you to have be
    optimistic that EM will accelerate cleanup and closure of the many DOE
    sites and facilities?
        Ms. Roberson. We have worked cooperatively with FIU to identify
    beneficial activities to support EM's technology needs. FIU technology
    activities support several DOE sites including Savannah River, Mound,
    Oak Ridge Rocky Flats, and Hanford as well as providing technical
    support to help solve EM complex-wide issues.

        SUPPORT OF INSTITUTIONS TRYING TO SOLVE TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

        25. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, will you continue to
    support the ongoing role of these institutions in assisting the
    Department solve the considerable technological challenges yet to be
    identified?
        Ms. Roberson. The EM Office of Cleanup Technologies and DOE site
    offices will continue to work with these institutions to align their
    expertise, as appropriate, to address site specific or complex-wide
    technical issues that are challenging accelerated cleanup. Areas of
    technical support provided by these institutions include waste
    characterization and dissolution, instrumentation, decontamination and
    decommissioning, robotics, and university curriculum development.

                                BUDGET DECISIONS

        26. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, the two largest
    cleanup programs with a 2006 site closure date are Rocky Flats,
    Colorado, and Fernald, Ohio. The DOE increased the Rocky Flats by $21.7
    million for fiscal year 2005. Fernald, on the other hand, was reduced.
    Why is the Fernald budget being cut this close to closure?
        Ms. Roberson. The fiscal year 2004 budget for Fernald included
    increased funding for significant scope associated with Silos 1, 2, and
    3. In fiscal year 2004, the construction of the Silos 1 and 2 treatment
    facility and the Silos 1, 2, and 3 retrieval facilities will be
    completed. Remediation of the Waste Pits will be completed before the
    end of fiscal year 2005. The funding requested for Fernald in fiscal
    year 2005 reflects the completion of these major activities and
    progress on the critical path. In addition, the request for safeguards
    and security funding has been reduced in fiscal year 2005 due to the
    progress in accelerated cleanup and reducing the site footprint.

        27. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, other major budget
    losers include the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
    Laboratory (INEEL), cut $94 million, or 18.5 percent; Paducah,
    Kentucky, cut $32 million, or 17.1 percent; and Savannah River Site,
    cut $76 million, or 5.7 percent. At a time when DOE is trying to
    accelerate cleanup, why are funds being reduced for these sites?
        Ms. Roberson. What appears to be decreases at the Savannah River
    Site and the INEEL in fiscal year 2005, results from the decision not
    to include funding associated with those activities impacted by the WIR
    court ruling in the site budgets, but rather to show that funding in a
    separate proposal. There is $350 million in fiscal year 2005 for the
    planned activities to be perfomled should the legal issue be
    satisfactorily resolved.
        The Paducah decreases in fiscal year 2005 are due to work
    completions in fiscal year 2004, i.e., the north/south diversion ditch
    project; the dismantling and removal of all piping and equipment from
    sectors 1 and 9 in building C-410; and preparation of sectors 2 and 3
    for dismantling and piping equipment removal.

        28. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, although informal
    estimates show that only a third of the DOE's EM budget goes for
    environmental restoration (i.e., cleanup), the DOE budget continues to
    lack a clear delineation between funds going to real cleanup and funds
    going toward waste management. Why doesn't the DOE separate
    environmental restoration and waste management in the budget?
        Ms. Roberson. EM implemented a new budget structure in fiscal year
    2004 to clearly distinguish the scope and resources that directly
    support EM's core accelerated cleanup and risk reduction mission versus
    those activities that indirectly relate to on-the-ground cleanup. It
    also distinguishes waste management activities, which are an integral
    part of EM's mission-related cleanup activities, from environmental
    restoration activities.
        EM's new budget structure consolidates direct cleanup activities
    such as waste management and environmental restoration into
    predominately two appropriations--the Defense and Non-Defense Site
    Acceleration Completion. Over 80 percent of EM's fiscal year 2005
    request (approximately $6.1 billion of $7.434 billion) is in these two
    mission-related cleanup appropriations.
        To support the new budget structure, for the Defense and Non-
    Defense Site Acceleration Completion Appropriations, major mission-
    related cleanup activities are categorized at the lower-level project
    baseline summary (PBS) structure. Among the direct cleanup activities
    categorized are waste management activities (operation of waste
    disposal facilities, solid waste disposition, and radioactive liquid
    tank waste stabilization and disposition) and environmental restoration
    activities (soil and water remediation). With such a structure, the EM
    program is capable of ``isolating'' the costs associated with each
    major direct cleanup activity at each EM site.

        29. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, you have always
    considered Rocky Flats to be the model for accelerated cleanup.
    However, the estimated life-cycle costs for cleanup of Rocky Flats have
    increased more than $210 million in the past year. In addition, the
    fiscal year 2005 request indicates that accurate estimates of future
    costs for some major activities at Rocky Flats cannot be determined
    ``until EM conducts the next life-cycle cost estimate.'' What will the
    life-cycle costs be at Rocky Flats?
        Ms. Roberson. The increase in the life-cycle cost estimate for the
    Rocky Flats Site is due primarily to an increase in estimated post-
    closure contract liabilities such as pension and health care benefits,
    not an increase in cleanup costs. We are in the process of collecting
    updated life-cycle costs from our sites. We will be able to provide the
    updated life-cycle cost estimate for the Rocky Flats Site after
    September 30, 2004.

                                HIGH-LEVEL WASTE

        30. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, the budget request
    includes a ``high-level waste proposal'' that would create a $350
    million contingency fund for high level waste tanks at Hanford, the
    INEEL, and Savannah River Site. Does DOE intend to stop all above
    ground waste treatment and handling work at these sites in the event
    that the litigation is not resolved?
        Ms. Roberson. DOE believes it can proceed with above-ground
    treatment and stabilization of the waste from reprocessing that is
    intended to be disposed of in the Federal geologic repository for spent
    fuel under the District Court decision. However, it can be done only to
    the extent those actions are independent of plans with respect to the
    lower activity fraction of the waste slated for disposal elsewhere.
    Therefore, at Savannah River, DOE continues to transfer high-activity
    tank waste sludges to the Defense Waste Processing Facility, where
    these wastes are treated into a vitrified glass waste form for disposal
    as high-level waste. Similarly, at Hanford, DOE is constructing a Waste
    Treatment Plant that will separate tank wastes into a high-activity
    fraction (92.5 percent of the tank waste radioactivity) for
    vitrification into a glass waste form for geologic disposal as high-
    level waste.
        DOE's plans for above-ground stabilization and treatment of lower-
    activity portions of the waste from reprocessing planned to be disposed
    as low-level or transuranic (TRU) waste have been jeopardized by a
    district court decision that invalidated the DOE order under which
    these decisions are made.

        31. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, specifically what
    activities does the DOE believe it cannot do regarding cleanup and
    closure of the high-level waste tanks at Hanford, INEEL, and Savannah
    River Site, based on the recent court order?
        Ms. Roberson. The activities are outlined on pages 291-292 of the
    DOE budget request for EM. In general, the activities involve either
    activities to complete operational closure of tanks at the three sites,
    which are predicated on classification of the residues as low-level
    waste, or activities involving removal, stabilization and disposal of
    non-residue waste in the tanks that DOE anticipated classifying as low-
    level or TRU waste.
        If the Department were to proceed with these activities that depend
    on DOE being able to classify some tank waste as low-level or TRU
    waste, it would be making hundred-million-dollar-plus investments in
    facilities and technologies--with no confidence that it has the
    authority to classify the waste as it had planned to do, and hence no
    assurance that the waste form has a disposal pathway. The Department
    has concluded that it should only execute these cleanup actions if the
    appeals court overturns the lower court decision, or legislation from
    Congress affirms the Department's authority to classify these materials
    as low-level or TRU waste that is incidental to reprocessing.

        32. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, how will the $350
    million high-level waste fund be divided among the sites presuming an
    agreement is reached between DOE, the litigants, and the States and
    regulators? Please provide a detailed breakdown by site by project.
        Ms. Roberson. At this time, we anticipate the site-specific
    activities will include the following. However, these allocations may
    change depending on the exact nature of the resolution and the manner
    in which delays have affected project baselines.

            Hanford ($64.1 million, 2035 Accelerated Completions Account):

                     Begin to retrieve and package wastes from 8 to
                    20 tanks for disposal as TRU waste at the Waste
                    Isolation Pilot Plant.
                     Pursue supplemental low-activity waste
                    technologies to prepare that waste for disposal as low-
                    level waste.
                     Proceed with final stabilization of residues
                    for tank closures.

            Idaho ($97.3 million, 2012 Accelerated Completions Account):

                     Begin design of a facility to treat and
                    stabilize the approximate 1 million gallons of liquid
                    sodium-bearing wastes remaining in the Idaho tanks in
                    order to dispose of it as TRU waste.
                     Proceed with final stabilization of residues
                    for tank closures.

            Savannah River Site ($188.6 million, 2035 Accelerated
            Completions Account):

                     Initiate detailed design and construction of
                    the Salt Waste Processing Facility (to separate certain
                    tank wastes into high-activity and low-activity
                    fractions for subsequent treatment and disposal).
                     Proceed with an in-tank process to remove low-
                    curie salt tank wastes for on-site disposal as low-
                    level waste.
                     Proceed with activities to separate actinides
                    (some TRU isotopes and some strontium) from tank
                    wastes, so that the actinides would be processed
                    through the Defense Waste Processing Facility and
                    disposed of as high-level waste and remaining as low-
                    level waste.
                     Grout residual tank waste for on-site disposal
                    in the Saltstone vaults as low-level waste.
                     Proceed with final stabilization of residues
                    for tank closure.

                              ACCELERATED CLEANUP

        33. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, the DOE was supposed
    to report to Congress within 60 days of enactment of the Fiscal Year
    2004 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act (i.e., by February
    1, 2004) regarding proposed statutory changes for its ``Accelerated
    Cleanup'' program. When can we expect this report and what changes will
    DOE propose?
        Ms. Roberson. I apologize for the tardiness of our response, but
    thank you for the opportunity to identify statutory changes critical to
    accelerated risk reduction, cleanup, and closure of Department sites.
    You should receive our formal response shortly.
        We have identified one statutory change for the accelerated cleanup
    program that the Department formally recommended to Congress in August
    2003. This legislation would clarify the Department's authority to
    separate and dispose of tank waste according to the risk it presents.
    The Department has been in discussion with the affected States and
    congressional delegations in an attempt to agree on a legislative
    solution. Clarification of the Department's authority to classify waste
    remains critical to implementation of accelerated cleanup plans at
    Idaho, Hanford, and the Savannah River Site. These discussions resulted
    in agreement with the State of South Carolina on a legislative
    approach, and we appreciate the committee's consideration of this
    approach with respect to the Savannah River Site in the National
    Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005.
        The Department has not identified any additional statutory changes
    needed to execute accelerated cleanup. However, the cleanup program
    continues to implement various initiatives (e.g., baseline validation
    reviews, acquisition strategies, and development of site Risk-Based End
    State documents) that may, at some point in the future, lead to
    identification of additional desirable statutory changes. Should these
    initiatives lead to identification of additional changes to support
    accelerated cleanup, the Department will inform Congress.

        34. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, the Risk-Based End
    States (RBES) project is based on the premise that cleanup should focus
    on the risks to human health and safety, and protection of the
    environment consistent with the future use of the property. It appears
    that in some instances the level of cleanup may be less than the level
    previously agreed to under the various cleanup agreements with the
    States. Even before the site RBES vision statements were finalized,
    several State governments and EPA regional offices, including Ohio and
    California, weighed in with strong objections. How is DOE addressing
    the concerns of EPA and these States?
        Ms. Roberson. Stakeholder involvement is an essential part of the
    RBES process. The RBES documents will remain drafts for quite a while
    until we believe that we have adequately and openly addressed any
    issues or concerns with the public and with the regulators. This does
    not overtake the regulatory process. It provides a visible basis for us
    and for the public to understand what we may propose in the process.

        35. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Roberson, DOE is attempting an
    ambitious ``Accelerated Cleanup'' program while at the same time
    attempting to negotiate a transition of cleanup responsibilities away
    from EM to other offices, including a new LM, and while also
    restructuring the budget to create new accounts for funding cleanup and
    waste management. What comments and concerns has DOE received from
    stakeholders about these initiatives and about how they will be
    implemented?
        Ms. Roberson. Stakeholder comments about these initiatives and how
    they will be implemented are generally supportive. There have been,
    however, some specific concerns expressed. The transition of certain
    activities from the EM office to other offices has been praised for
    bringing better organization and efficiency to the cleanup effort.
    Concerns have centered on the necessity of working with a number of
    different DOE offices rather than a single EM entity. Stakeholders,
    regulators, and local government officials have also expressed concern
    that after years of developing a close working relationship on numerous
    levels with EM, they will have to begin the process allover with a
    number of different offices. The ability of EM and other offices that
    share responsibilities to act in a coordinated manner so as to avoid
    confusion and having important actions ``fall through the cracks'' is
    another issue of concern.
        The restructuring of the budget to create new accounts has met
    widespread support from interested parties. Stakeholders generally feel
    that the changes have brought about greater transparency and
    accountability and have resulted in a budget that is much easier for a
    layperson to follow. The concerns expressed have centered on the usual
    issues of funding sufficiency and certainty.

                          OFFICE OF LEGACY MANAGEMENT

        36. Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Owen, DOE's Weldon Springs site in
    Missouri is one of the first sites to be transferred to LM. DOE and the
    State of Missouri signed an agreement to provide funding for monitoring
    agreements. DOE has since withdrawn support for the agreement. Many
    more sites are planned to be transferred to LM. Will DOE reinstate
    funds for monitoring agreements for States and communities?
        Mr. Owen. LM is responsible for over 60 sites across the country;
    one of these is the Weldon Spring Site in St. Charles County, Missouri.
    Since 1993, DOE has provided over $5,000,000, through a grant, to the
    State of Missouri for its participation in the remediation of the
    Weldon Spring Site. DOE continues to provide funding to the State
    through the existing grant but has reduced the level of funding from an
    average of $450,000 per year to $65,000 in 2004. We believe this is an
    appropriate amount for the State's workload in 2004. This reduction is
    commensurate with the overall reduction in work at the site from over
    $60,000,000 per year in active remediation to roughly $1,000,000 a year
    focused on surveillance and maintenance. In addition, DOE continues to
    fund the Weldon Spring Citizens Commission as an integral component of
    our public participation efforts and St. Charles County to perform
    independent monitoring of ground water.
        LM expects to assume responsibility for an additional 45 sites over
    the next 5 years. DOE intends to continue to compensate affected State
    and local governments for work that is required to ensure the
    protection of human health and the environment at our sites.

        37. Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Owen, what is the current status of
    the claims under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation
    Program Act?
        Mr. Owen. As of September 3, 2004, the DOE has effectively
    completed its work on 8,197--data acquisition from DOE sites and case
    processing. This number includes 3,755 completed/closed cases--
    applicants have either received a determination or their cases were
    closed for lack of eligibility or the applicant withdrew. In addition
    another 14,971 cases are currently being developed. Lastly, 2,213 cases
    are in th queue awaiting development.

        38. Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Owen, how do those numbers compare to
    fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2002?
        Mr. Owen. The Department's Physician Panel rule governing the
    programs procedures became effective on September 13, 2002. At this
    point the Department began processing cases, but by the end of fiscal
    year 2002, no cases had gone through the Physician Panel determination
    process. At the end of fiscal year 2002, the Department had received
    approximately 12,000 cases. While the Department began processing cases
    immediately after the rule became effective, the first few months after
    the rule became effective, the program office spent the majority of its
    resources setting up the program (establishing procedures, developing
    processes, hiring contractors and staff, etc.).

        39. Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Owen, what remedies is DOE looking at
    to improve the situation for the ``Cold War'' veterans?
        Mr. Owen. For the past 10 years, the Department has assisted and
    continues to assist ``Cold War'' contractor employees by providing
    benefits consistent with section 3161 of the National Defense
    Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993. The focus of the program when
    it began about 10 years ago was to assist individuals whose careers
    were dedicated to weapons production. The majority of those individuals
    have now retired. LM is now also responsible for oversight of benefit
    continuity for contractor employees at site closure. The Department
    believes that there are progressive benefit programs in place to
    address the needs of contractor employees at site closure, some of whom
    are ``Cold War'' employees, and carefully reviews those programs.

        40. Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Owen, the risk based end states draft
    headquarters documents reference a modification process for changing
    the site end states in the future. The modification process is not
    specified in those documents. Once the sites are transferred, are there
    provisions for modifying the site end states within LM?
        Mr. Owen. LM is working closely with the EM office in the
    development and review of the RBES documents. LM conducts annual
    inspections at sites where we are required to perform long-term
    surveillance and maintenance. One component of that annual inspection
    is to evaluate potential future changes in the use of the site and/or
    the surrounding area. A decision to change a site's land use would be
    dependent on the relevant land use controls and appropriate
    consultation with the affected Federal, State, local, and tribal
    governments and/or adjacent landowners.

        [Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

                                  ----------

                           WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004

                                   U.S. Senate,
                      Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                                                        Washington, DC.

                       STRATEGIC FORCES AND CAPABILITIES

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in
    room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne
    Allard (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Committee members present: Senators Allard, Cornyn, and
    Bill Nelson.
        Majority staff member present: L. David Cherington,
    counsel.
        Minority staff member present: Madelyn R. Creedon, minority
    counsel.
        Staff assistants present: Michael N. Berger, Bridget E.
    Ward, and Nicholas W. West.
        Committee members' assistants present: Jayson Roehl,
    assistant to Senator Allard; Russell J. Thomasson, assistant to
    Senator Cornyn; and William K. Sutey, assistant to Senator Bill
    Nelson.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD, CHAIRMAN

        Senator Allard. I am going to call the Strategic Forces
    Subcommittee hearing to order here. I am going to go ahead and
    make an opening statement. My hope is by the time I finish my
    opening statement, we will have some minority members here,
    then we can go ahead with testimony. We will maybe give Senator
    Cornyn an opportunity to make an opening statement, if he would
    like.
        This hearing will come to order. I want to welcome all of
    you here. I am pleased to welcome our witnesses today:
    Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration
    (NNSA) and Under Secretary of Energy Linton F. Brooks, and
    Admiral James O. Ellis, Jr., Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
    (STRATCOM).
        Gentlemen, I thank you both for your service to our Nation
    and for taking the time and effort to join us here today.
        We are here to receive testimony on U.S. strategic forces
    and capabilities. I would venture an informed guess that no
    command in the U.S. military has gone through more changes than
    STRATCOM over the last couple of years. These changes reflect
    the rapid evolution of the international security environment,
    the merger of Space Command and Strategic Command, and
    previously unassigned new missions now assigned to STRATCOM.
        There is no more important task for this subcommittee than
    to exercise its oversight functions with respect to U.S.
    nuclear forces. Nuclear weapons remain the most awesome tool in
    our arsenal. I cannot foresee any circumstances in which
    nuclear weapons will cease to play a central role in our
    deterrence posture. The safety, security, reliability, and
    effectiveness of these weapons remains paramount.
        The Department of Defense (DOD) concluded in its 2001
    Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that a new, more flexible,
    adaptive strategic triad was needed to deal with new threats.
    These threats are uncertain to their origins, but certainly
    quite different than those posed in the Cold War. Rather than
    rely exclusively on a nuclear triad of land, sea-based
    intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and long-range
    bombers to deter a single adversary, the NPR outlined a new
    triad consisting of offensive strike forces, both nuclear and
    non-nuclear, defensive systems, both active and passive, and an
    infrastructure capable of supporting these systems. These are
    all supported by robust command, control, and intelligence
    capabilities.
        The purpose of these capabilities is not simply to deter,
    but to assure our allies and to dissuade, deter and, if
    necessary, defeat our adversaries. The new missions assigned to
    STRATCOM reflect these new strategic realities with which we
    must deal. Strategic does not equate to nuclear anymore.
    Strategic could mean an information operation to disable an
    adversary command and control network. Strategic could mean a
    conventional munition delivered precisely on a weapons of mass
    destruction (WMD) target, targets that once could easily be
    defeated with nuclear weapons are now or will be held at risk
    with non-nuclear systems.
        I believe that these new options raise the nuclear
    threshold higher than it has ever been. I am aware that much
    work is already being done. Studies are proceeding on the new
    shape of Global Strike. One purpose of this hearing is to more
    fully explore the full range of strategic capabilities the
    Nation needs to achieve prompt, decisive results, when
    required, and to understand the scope of the programs that
    support these capabilities.
        None of this is to say that defenses and advanced non-
    nuclear weapons and delivery systems can deter or defeat the
    entire range of threats. Our legacy nuclear weapons and
    delivery systems will remain important to hold certain targets
    at risk and for no other reason than their enormous destructive
    power remains a powerful deterrent.
        There are no new nuclear weapons initiatives in the budget
    request for fiscal year 2005. Over the last 2 years, we have
    also debated whether advanced nuclear concepts may contribute
    to our ability to hold at risk emerging threats. In both the
    fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004 requests, the Department
    of Energy (DOE) requested funding or legislation for several
    nuclear weapons initiatives, including the feasibility study on
    the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) and Advanced
    Concepts Initiative research.
        As a result of these debates, I believe we were able to put
    some safety checks in place which will allow research and
    feasibility studies to continue while still allowing Congress
    the final say on more advanced development. It is my view that
    we found a good balance between nuclear weapons research and
    studies versus engineering development in subsequent phases.
        A series of recent reports, including the NPR, to Congress
    by the panel to assess the reliability, safety, and security of
    the United States nuclear stockpile, known as the Foster Panel
    reports, and the report of the commission on maintaining the
    United States nuclear weapons expertise, known as the Chiles
    Report, pointed out the importance of sustaining key parts of
    the third leg of the new triad, the nuclear weapons
    infrastructure and expertise in the nuclear weapons program.
        The advanced concepts initiative provides a new outlook to
    ensure our weapons scientists, engineers, and technicians have
    opportunities to conduct research and studies to ensure that
    they are able to maintain their skills and the abilities to
    respond to military requirements sent or to be sent from the
    DOD.
        The feasibility study on the RNEP is an example of an
    advanced concept which seeks to meet a specific military
    requirement of the DOD. There could be a variety of advanced
    concepts which address reliability, safety, or security issues,
    and ensure our weapons labs and plants are ready to deliver is
    paramount to our Nation's nuclear weapons program.
        The balance we achieve is in the requirement that should
    the decision be taken to move beyond research for feasibility
    studies for the RNEP or low-yield nuclear weapons, the
    administration must first receive a specific authorization from
    Congress. This will keep Congress informed of these latter
    phases of nuclear weapons development and will provide ample
    opportunity for a vigorous debate on these issues to occur at
    that time.
        We do not want our nuclear weapons scientists to be afraid
    to think for fear of breaking the law. We should let our
    scientists think about the science of nuclear weapons. We
    should let the policy makers of both the administration and
    Congress decide, based on accepted facts established by solid
    research, whether we should proceed forward with new or
    modified nuclear weapons.
        There are several other issues that I believe we need to
    explore in some depth in this hearing. Several projects key to
    the success of the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program
    are struggling for a variety of reasons. These include the
    National Ignition Facility, the Modern Pit Facility, and the
    Mixed Oxide (MOX) Facility.
        Safeguards and security, especially the new design basis
    threat requirements, remain a significant concern. I am still
    not satisfied that NNSA has provided enough transparency in its
    budget to request for Readiness in Technical Base and
    Facilities (RTBF). In my view, we cannot afford to defer
    maintenance until we end up with a dilapidated and potentially
    dangerous nuclear weapons complex.
        I believe that the development and construction of modern
    facilities, the research encouraged by the Advanced Concepts
    Initiative, and maintaining the infrastructure across the NNSA
    complex are seed corn for the future of our nuclear deterrent
    forces.
        Ambassador Brooks, I hope that during your testimony and
    the question period we can get a better assessment of how NNSA
    is addressing challenges in each of these areas.
        Now I would like to recognize other members of the
    committee that are here. I will start with my good friend from
    Texas, Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess that was
    an easy choice, given the conflicts that I know members have
    with other committee meetings. Indeed, I am going to have to
    leave here momentarily, but I did want to say to the Ambassador
    and Admiral, thank you for being here this morning to talk
    about this very important subject. We certainly do not want the
    occasion to pass without thanking you again for your service to
    our country.
        As we transform our country's defense and meet new and
    emerging threats, you both play a critical role in redefining
    and reshaping our nuclear security and strategic forces for the
    21st century. I believe that I would adopt everything that
    Chairman Allard has said about the importance of that issue,
    particularly when it comes to developing responsive nuclear
    weapons infrastructure.
        That is, in many ways, as important as strike forces in
    meeting our defense objectives. The capabilities of the
    defense, technical, and manufacturing infrastructure provide
    the ability to quickly respond to new or emerging threats. I
    believe that, Ambassador Brooks, in your statement you pointed
    out that physically restoring the capability to produce
    plutonium pits in sufficient quantities will be essential to
    responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure. Chairman Allard made
    the same reference.
        The Modern Pit Facility or Pit Rework Facility will support
    the pit remanufacturing needs of the entire stockpile. This
    capability is important, even if we never produce another
    nuclear, another new weapon. I strongly support the building of
    a Modern Pit Facility and encourage members to fully fund this
    effort.
        With that, I would say once again thank you very much for
    being here and look forward to reading your testimony.
        I will have to leave, Mr. Chairman, for another committee
    meeting, but thank you for conducting this important hearing.
        Senator Allard. Well, thank you, Senator Cornyn, for being
    here. You are an active player on this committee, and it is a
    delight to have you on this subcommittee. The ranking member,
    Senator Nelson, will be here shortly, I am told. What I thought
    we would do is we will proceed with the testimony from the
    panel. Then when he arrives, we will give him an opportunity to
    make his opening statement.
        So which of you would like to go first? Ambassador Brooks.

       STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR LINTON F. BROOKS, ADMINISTRATOR,
                NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

        Ambassador Brooks. Thanks, sir, and thank you for the
    opportunity to talk about the administration's views on nuclear
    policy. I am especially pleased to be joined by Admiral Ellis,
    who is a friend and colleague of long standing. He will be
    speaking from the military perspective.
        I have submitted a written statement and would like, with
    your permission, to summarize it at this time.
        Senator Allard. Without objection, both of your full
    statements will be made a part of the record.
        Ambassador Brooks. In May 2001, President Bush spoke at the
    National Defense University (NDU), and he articulated his
    vision for nuclear weapons. ``Nuclear weapons still have a
    vital role to play in our security and that of our allies. I am
    committed to achieving a credible deterrent with the lowest
    possible number of nuclear weapons, consistent with our
    national security needs.''
        The President in that statement and elsewhere recognized
    that a full decade after the Cold War, it was time to do a
    fundamental reexamination of the post-Cold War role of nuclear
    weapons. The results of that examination were codified in the
    December 2001 NPR, which is setting the direction for our
    nuclear forces for the next decade and beyond.
        That review reaffirmed that nuclear weapons remain crucial,
    but consistent with the change in the international
    environment, it also represented a radical departure from the
    past. It was, in my view, the most fundamental rethinking of
    the roles and purposes of nuclear weapons in the quarter
    century.
        Among the many changes in the NPR, three seem to me to be
    particularly important. Instead of focusing on deterring the
    nuclear threat posed by a single specific enemy, as we did
    during the Cold War, it established the need for a
    capabilities-based force to accomplish four distinct policy
    goals.
        Second, instead of treating nuclear weapons in isolation,
    it considered them as an integrated component of American
    military power, allowing us to use other means to achieve
    objectives that previously could only have been addressed with
    nuclear weapons.
        Third, and perhaps most important, instead of treating the
    future as static and predictable, it recognized requirements
    could change and U.S. nuclear forces must be prepared to
    respond to those changes.
        Under this new thinking, our nuclear forces serve four
    goals. First, to assure allies of our commitment to them and
    our ability to make good on that commitment. The implications
    of this goal are that our forces have to be effective. They
    have to be reliable and they have to be seen that way by our
    allies. Assurance serves our nonproliferation objectives,
    because those allies with the capability to develop nuclear
    weapons for themselves do not need to because they have
    confidence in the continued reliability of the U.S. nuclear
    umbrella.
        Second, our nuclear forces serve to dissuade potential
    adversaries from trying to match our capabilities. That means
    that we need a combination of forces and infrastructures so
    that no potential power can have any hope of matching our
    capability and thus will be dissuaded from trying.
        Third, our nuclear forces have to fulfill their traditional
    role of deterring threats. That implies an ability to hold at
    risk those elements of power that a potential adversary values.
        Finally, the NPR called for forces capable of defending and
    defeating those threats that for whatever reason could not be
    deterred.
        Those first two policy goals help determine the size of our
    force. The second two policy goals help determine the nature of
    those forces.
        As you said in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman, if
    Admiral Ellis and I had appeared before you a few years ago, we
    would have spoken of a triad. We would have spoken of ICBMs and
    submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and bombers and
    how they work together. The NPR broadens that concept to a new
    triad of strike capabilities, both nuclear and non-nuclear,
    active and passive defenses, especially ballistic missile
    defense (BMD), research and development (R&D), and an
    industrial infrastructure.
        Now, there have been some press reports that the new triad
    in the NPR somehow increased reliance on nuclear forces. That
    is not true. In fact, they continued the trend of the past
    decade toward a reduced reliance. By having a new emphasis on
    BMD, we are no longer as dependent on offensive strike to
    enforce deterrence. By strengthening non-nuclear strike forces,
    we are no longer as dependent on nuclear weapons for the
    offensive component of deterrence.
        Our new approach was coupled with a judgment that we no
    longer need to plan as if Russia represented an immediate
    threat. That was the basis for the dramatic reduction in
    deployed forces codified in the Moscow Treaty. Over the next 8
    years, the United States will reduce deployed warheads by about
    two-thirds from today's level.
        The experience of the last decade and a half and our
    difficulty in predicting the future make it unwise for us to
    base our security on false assumptions that we can predict the
    future. Thus, while we reduce our deployed weapons, we have to
    plan against an uncertain future. Specifically, we have to be
    ready to respond to both unforeseen technical problems and
    unanticipated geopolitical changes.
        One part of that response is a non-deployed stockpile. As
    part of its plan to implement the NPR, the administration is
    assessing the long-term requirements for non-deployed weapons.
    Congress has requested it be provided with the results of that
    assessment in a revised stockpile plan. We are working to
    complete that task as soon as possible. While we regret the
    delay in submitting the plan, the importance of nuclear weapons
    to our security makes it imperative to conduct a thorough
    review.
        Now, I am not able to provide specifics, and I could not do
    so in an unclassified forum in any case, but let me give you
    some of the considerations involved in such a review.
        The 2012 nuclear stockpile will be substantially reduced
    from current levels. The reductions will not lower the
    stockpile to the 1,700 to 2,200 weapons called for in the
    Moscow Treaty. We will always need additional weapons beyond
    those that are deployed for logistics spares and to conduct
    surveillance testing.
        In addition, we will need warheads to meet our commitments
    to our allies. We will maintain a small number of warheads for
    U.S. nonstrategic nuclear forces. Finally, we will retain
    warheads over and above those deployed as a hedge against
    geopolitical and technical risk so that we can augment the
    operationally-deployed force in the event that world events
    require. We will also need to preserve diversity in our force
    so that a problem in one system does to result in a major
    degradation in our capability.
        One of the many new concepts in the NPR, and the most
    important for me personally, is the idea of a robust industrial
    base--what we are coming to call a responsive nuclear weapons
    infrastructure--is as important as strike forces or defenses in
    achieving our long-term defense goals.
        Defense scientific, technical, and manufacturing
    infrastructure must provide us the means to respond to new
    challenges. If we can do this, if we can produce new or
    replacement warheads on a short time scale, if we can respond
    to technical surprise, then we can go much further in reducing
    the stockpile we have to maintain on hand.
        In my written testimony, I discuss in some detail the
    characteristics of a responsive infrastructure. I would like to
    highlight only one area right now, and that is underground
    nuclear test readiness. I need to make it very clear, as the
    President has made it very clear, that we have no plans to
    resume testing. Our efforts to improve test readiness are a
    hedge against the possibility of a problem arising that cannot
    be confirmed or a fix certified without a test. Our goal is to
    achieve the 18-month test readiness posture called for in the
    Defense Authorization Act. That is an appropriate time, because
    it represents a typical time to diagnose a problem, design a
    test, confirm the problem, and certify a fix.
        A responsive infrastructure has both an intellectual and a
    physical dimension. Intellectually, our proposals to examine
    advanced concepts will help train scientists and engineers who
    have to provide the design underpinning for the infrastructure
    of the future. Physically, as you mentioned in your opening
    statement, one of the most important steps is restoring a
    capability to produce plutonium pits.
        The Modern Pit Facility (MPF), or what I am coming to call
    more accurately the Pit Rework Facility, will support the
    remanufacturing needs of the stockpile. As you said in your
    statement and Senator Cornyn said, we need this facility even
    if the United States never produces another new weapon. All
    existing plutonium pits will ultimately need to be rebuilt due
    to aging effects caused by radioactive decay.
        Let me turn to two particularly contentious elements of the
    administration's budget request and describe how they relate to
    the principles we have been discussing. In 2005 we propose to
    continue a modest research effort on the Advanced Concepts
    Initiative and to continue the RNEP feasibility and cost study.
    There has been a lot of discussion of these two programs. So I
    want to review them in some detail.
        We intend to use Advanced Concepts funds to investigate new
    ideas, not necessarily new weapons. For example, we are
    beginning a study examining the feasibility of adapting an
    existing nuclear warhead to provide a cruise missile capability
    that has enhanced safety and use control. We are looking at the
    feasibility of improving warhead design margins so that we can
    have continued high confidence as we get farther away from
    nuclear testing. We are in discussion with the Air Force about
    examining the utility of nuclear weapons to destroy chemical
    and biological agents, although we have made no decisions on
    that.
        Perhaps the single most controversial request in our budget
    is continued funding for the RNEP. This study is to determine
    whether an existing nuclear warhead, either the B-61 bomb or
    the B-83 bomb, could be adapted without nuclear testing to
    improve our ability to hold at risk hard and deeply buried
    targets.
        I want to correct some misconceptions. There is a clear
    military utility to this weapon. It has been recognized for
    almost a decade. That is why the DOD asked for it to be
    studied. The DOD submitted a classified report to this
    committee last year, which remains valid and provides some
    additional details inappropriate for this session.
        Second, despite this utility, we are only going to move
    beyond the study stage if the President approves it and if the
    funds are authorized and appropriated by Congress. We included
    funds in our out-year projections only to preserve the
    President's option. There will be no decision until the study
    is completed. The law is very clear, the beginning development
    engineering will require specific congressional approval.
        Finally, even if the study proves that the weapon is
    feasible, the President decides to proceed with it, and
    Congress agrees with that decision, this weapon would not
    change the policy goal of deterrence. Deterrence requires that
    we be able to hold at risk things that an adversary values. In
    our effort to determine the effectiveness of this earth
    penetrating weapon, it reflects not a change in deterrence, but
    a continued emphasis on it. Once again, I refer you to the
    classified reports submitted last year.
        I would like to conclude by addressing three misconceptions
    raised both by Members of Congress and by others about our
    efforts. First, there is the suggestion that you referred to in
    your opening statement that we sought repeal of the prohibition
    on low-yield warhead development in order to develop and field
    new, low-yield nuclear weapons.
        Second, there is the perception that in doing so we are
    going to blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional
    weapons and make nuclear use more likely.
        Finally, there is a perception that nuclear weapons R&D
    will undercut our nonproliferation efforts. All three of those
    perceptions are wrong. Press accounts have spoken of
    administration plans to develop new low-yield weapons, but
    there are no such plans. Such warhead concepts could not in any
    case proceed to full-scale development, much less production,
    unless Congress authorizes and appropriates the funds.
        The repeal of the prohibition on low-yield warhead
    development simply removed the chilling effect on our ability
    to think, because somehow those thoughts ``could lead to''
    designs of less than five kilotons.
        None of our efforts are blurring the distinction between
    conventional and nuclear weapons or making nuclear use more
    likely. The U.S. stockpile has had warheads capable of
    producing very low-yields for decades. At the height of the
    Cold War, thousands of these warheads were deployed. The simple
    possession of these weapons never made nuclear use by the
    United States more likely, even in regional confrontations
    where their use might not have provoked a Soviet response. Only
    the President can authorize use of nuclear weapons. No
    President would employ any nuclear weapon of any yield except
    in the gravest of circumstances. The nuclear threshold for the
    United States has been, is, and always will be high.
        Finally, our major nonproliferation objective is to prevent
    rogue states and terrorists from acquiring WMD. Neither the
    Advanced Concept Initiative efforts nor studies of earth-
    penetrating weapons will increase incentives for terrorists to
    acquire such weapons. Those incentives are already high. Our
    efforts are not likely to have any impact on rogue states,
    whose proliferation activities appear independent of U.S.
    nuclear programs.
        Over the past decade, we have seen significant cuts in the
    number of U.S. weapons. We have taken weapons off alert. We
    have ended nuclear testing. We have ended weapons production.
    There is no evidence that that had any effect whatsoever on the
    behavior of the North Koreas or the Irans of the world.
        Further, for more responsible states, our efforts are also
    not going to hurt nonproliferation. Once again, we have an
    example. The same weapon that I am trying to see if I can get
    to penetrate into rock we decided to have penetrate into frozen
    soil in the mid-1990s. That decision was taken just before the
    last review conferences of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
    and appears to have had no impact on the success of the world's
    reaffirmation of nonproliferation norms.
        Mr. Chairman, the United States is going to continue to
    lead the way to a safer world through deep reductions in
    nuclear forces, through Nunn-Lugar and Cooperative Threat
    Reduction (CTR) efforts. But we will have to continue to
    maintain an effective, reliable, and capable nuclear force as a
    hedge against an uncertain future.
        Our efforts to reduce the stockpile to the minimum
    consistent with national security, to address options for
    stockpile transformation, and to restore a responsive nuclear
    weapons infrastructure are key elements of the administration's
    national security strategy. Carrying these out is in the
    national interest and poses no risk to our nonproliferation
    objectives.
        This concludes my statement, sir. After you have heard from
    Admiral Ellis, I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ambassador Brooks follows:]

               Prepared Statement by Ambassador Linton F. Brooks

        Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
    today to discuss the administration's views on nuclear policy, U.S.
    nuclear forces, the nuclear weapons stockpile to support those forces,
    and ongoing work on implementing the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
    I also want to thank all of the members for their strong support for
    our critical national security activities. Before I begin my remarks, I
    would like to say how pleased I am to be on this panel today with my
    friend and colleague, Admiral James Ellis, Commander of the United
    States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), who will present the military
    perspective on the same issues.

                     OVERVIEW OF THE NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW

        Since before he took office, President Bush has been committed to
    achieving a credible deterrent with the lowest number of nuclear
    weapons consistent with current and future national security
    requirements. On May 1, 2001, at the National Defense University (NDU),
    he articulated his vision:

            Nuclear weapons still have a vital role to play in our security
            and that of our allies. We can, and will, change the size, the
            composition, the character of our nuclear forces in a way that
            reflects the reality that the Cold War is over. I am committed
            to achieving a credible deterrent with the lowest-possible
            number of nuclear weapons consistent with our national security
            needs, including our obligations to our allies. My goal is to
            move quickly to reduce nuclear forces. The United States will
            lead by example to achieve our interests and the interests for
            peace in the world.

        The President recognized clearly that, almost a decade after the
    collapse of the Soviet Union, it was time to conduct a fundamental
    examination of the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world.
    The results of that reexamination were described in the December 2001
    NPR. The purpose of that review was to set forth the direction for
    American nuclear forces over the next decade and beyond. Let me
    highlight some key points about the review.
        The NPR reassessed the role of nuclear forces and their
    contribution toward meeting defense policy goals. It reaffirmed that
    nuclear weapons, for the foreseeable future, will remain a crucial
    element of U.S. national security strategy. But, consistent with the
    changed international environment, the NPR represented a radical
    departure from the past and the most fundamental re-thinking of the
    roles and purposes of nuclear weapons in almost a quarter-century.
    Among the many changes, three are the most important:

             Instead of focusing on deterring the nuclear threat
            posed by a single, specific enemy, as in the Cold War, it
            established the need for a capabilities-based force to
            accomplish four distinct defense policy goals.
             Instead of treating nuclear weapons in isolation, it
            considered them as an integrated component of American military
            power, thus allowing us to achieve national security objectives
            through other means that previously could only have been
            addressed with nuclear weapons.
             Instead of treating the future as static and
            predictable, it recognized that requirements could change and
            that U.S. nuclear forces must be prepared to respond to those
            changes, including by increasing the fraction of the force that
            is deployed.

        Let me discuss each of these in turn.

                    THE POLICY GOALS OF U.S. NUCLEAR FORCES

        Under the new thinking of the NPR, our nuclear forces serve four
    goals:

             To assure allies of our commitment to them and our
            ability to make good on that commitment. The implications of
            this goal are that forces must be effective and reliable.
            Assurance serves our non-proliferation objectives because those
            allies with the capability to develop nuclear weapons can
            continue to forego doing so, safe in the knowledge of the
            reliability of the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
             To dissuade potential adversaries from trying to match
            our capabilities or from engaging in strategic competition.
            This requires that we maintain a combination of forces and
            infrastructure so that no potential power can have any hope of
            matching our capability and will be dissuaded from attempting
            to do so.
             To deter any threats that do emerge. This implies an
            ability to hold at risk those elements of power that a
            potential adversary values. I will say more on this point in a
            moment.
             To defend against and defeat those threats that, for
            whatever reason, we do not deter.

        The first two policy goals help determine the size of our nuclear
    forces, while the second two govern the nature of those forces. As the
    committee will readily see, these goals are, in a sense, the goals of
    our entire military. That is why Admiral Ellis often says that we
    should, perhaps, refer to the NPR more generally as a Strategic Posture
    Review.

                                 THE NEW TRIAD

        Had Admiral Ellis and I appeared before you a few years ago, we
    would have spoken of a ``triad'' of strategic nuclear forces. This
    triad included bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),
    and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), each with unique
    strengths that operated synergistically to ensure our ability to
    retaliate under any condition of war initiation. The NPR broadens our
    thinking to encompass a new triad of flexible response capabilities
    consisting of:

             Non-nuclear and nuclear strike capabilities including
            systems for command and control,
             Active and passive defenses including ballistic
            missile defenses (BMD),
             Research and development (R&D) and industrial
            infrastructure needed to develop, build, and maintain nuclear
            offensive forces and defensive systems.

        To provide a practical means to implement this new, integrated
    approach, the President established a new STRATCOM, with responsibility
    for Global Strike--both nuclear and non-nuclear--and for integrating
    missile defenses with offenses.
        Contrary to some press reports, this new triad--and the NPR
    generally--continued the trend of the past decade towards a reduced
    reliance on nuclear forces in U.S. national security strategy. The new
    emphasis on BMD means that the U.S. will no longer be as heavily
    dependent on offensive strike forces to enforce deterrence as it was
    during the Cold War. The strengthening of non-nuclear strike forces--
    including precision conventional strike and information operations--
    means that the U.S. will be less dependent than it has been in the past
    on nuclear forces to provide offensive deterrent capabilities.

                     PRESENT AND FUTURE NUCLEAR STOCKPILES

        Our new approach, coupled with the judgment that we no longer need
    to plan our forces as if Russia presented an immediate threat to the
    United States, was the basis for dramatic reductions--codified in the
    Moscow Treaty--in operationally-deployed strategic nuclear forces. Over
    the next 8 years, the United States will cut the number of deployed
    warheads by approximately two-thirds from today's level. But the
    experience of the past decade and a half makes it clear that it is
    unwise for us to base our security on the false belief that we can
    predict the future. Thus, while dramatically reducing the number of
    deployed weapons, we must plan against an uncertain future.
        Specifically, the United States needs to be prepared to respond to
    both unforeseen technical problems and unanticipated geopolitical
    change. One element of such a response is a responsive infrastructure,
    which I will discuss in a moment. But another component of such a
    response is the non-deployed stockpile. As part of its plan to
    implement the NPR, the administration is conducting an assessment that,
    when completed, will clarify the long-term requirements for non-
    deployed weapons. Congress requested such a revised stockpile plan as
    well. The administration is working to complete this complex task as
    soon as possible. While we regret the delay, the importance of nuclear
    weapons to our security makes it imperative to conduct a thorough
    review.
        While I am not prepared to provide specifics--and could not do so
    in an unclassified forum in any case--I can provide some of the
    considerations factoring into the review. The 2012 nuclear stockpile
    will be substantially reduced from current levels. But reductions will
    not lower the stockpile to 1,700-2,200 total warheads. Additional
    warheads over and above the operationally-deployed strategic warheads
    will be needed for routine maintenance of the stockpile including as
    logistics spares and to replace those warheads eliminated during
    destructive surveillance testing.
        In addition, a small number of warheads (reduced by 90 percent from
    Cold War levels) for U.S. non-strategic nuclear forces will be
    retained, among other things, to meet commitments to allies.
        Finally, warheads over and above the operationally-deployed force
    will be retained over the near term for prudent risk management in
    connection with mitigating geopolitical and technical risks. In
    particular, sufficient warheads will be retained to augment the
    operationally-deployed force in the event that world events require a
    more robust deterrence posture.
        We also must preserve diversity of warhead types in the overall
    stockpile in order to mitigate technical risks. Although we are making
    progress in restoring a responsive nuclear weapons production
    infrastructure, we are not yet able to produce replacement warheads in
    sufficient quantity to respond if a technical problem called into
    question the safety or reliability of one or more warheads critical to
    our Nation's deterrent. Thus, for example, we are planning to deploy
    two types of ICBM warheads--the W87 and W78--and will retain sufficient
    numbers of these two types in reserve so that if a technical failure
    occurred in one type, there would be sufficient warheads of the other
    type to restore the operationally-deployed ICBM force. We seek to apply
    this approach, where appropriate, to other nuclear delivery means.

                   RESPONSIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS INFRASTRUCTURE

        Of the many new concepts in the NPR, one of the most important is
    formal recognition that a robust defense R&D and industrial base--a key
    element of which is a responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure--is as
    important as strike forces or defenses in achieving our overall defense
    goals. The demonstrated capabilities of the defense scientific,
    technical, and manufacturing infrastructure, including its ability to
    sustain and adapt, provides the U.S. with the means to respond to new,
    unexpected, or emerging threats in a timely manner.
        If we can employ this infrastructure to produce new or replacement
    warheads on a timescale in which geopolitical threats could emerge, or
    in response to stockpile ``surprise'', then we can go much further in
    reducing the standing stockpile and meet the President's vision of the
    smallest stockpile consistent with our Nation's security.
        By ``responsive'' we refer to the resilience of the nuclear weapons
    enterprise to unanticipated events or emerging threats, and the ability
    to anticipate innovations by an adversary and to counter them before
    our deterrent is degraded--all the while continuing to carry out the
    day-to-day activities in support of the stockpile. Unanticipated events
    could include complete failure of a deployed warhead type. Emerging
    threats could call for new or modified warhead development, or for
    providing additional warheads for force augmentation.
        A key measure of ``responsiveness'' is how long it would take to
    carry out certain activities to address stockpile ``surprise'' or deal
    with new or emerging threats. Specific goals have been established for
    several activities; our progress towards meeting them is an important
    measure of the success of our program:

             Fix stockpile problems: The ability to assess a
            stockpile problem, once one has been identified, and then
            design, develop, implement, and certify a fix will depend on
            the nature and scope of the problem. For a relatively minor
            problem, our goal is to be able to deploy warheads modified to
            overcome the problem within 1 year.
             Adapt weapons: Our goal is to achieve a capability to
            modify or repackage existing warheads within 18 months of a
            decision to enter engineering development. I note that under
            current law such a step would require congressional approval.
             New warhead design, development, and initial
            production: Our goal is to be able to design, develop, and
            begin production of a new warhead within 3-4 years of a
            decision to enter engineering development. Among other things
            this capability is critical to reduce reliance on warheads that
            are beyond their life expectancies. Once again, congressional
            approval would be required. While there are no current plans to
            develop new weapons, maintaining the capability is an important
            pre-requisite to extensive reductions.
             Quantity production of new warheads: Our goal is to
            maintain sufficient production capacity to produce new warheads
            in sufficient quantities to meet any defense needs that arise
            without disrupting ongoing refurbishments. In the near term,
            refurbishment demands, starting later this decade and
            continuing until about 2014, will dominate production capacity.
             Support for force augmentation: We must assure that
            services such as warhead transportation, tritium support, etc.,
            are not ``long poles in the tent'' for force augmentation--they
            must be capable of being carried out on a time scale consistent
            with the Department of Defense's (DOD) ability to deploy
            weapons.
             Underground nuclear test readiness: We have no plan to
            resume testing; our efforts to improve test readiness are a
            prudent hedge against the possibility of a problem arising in
            the stockpile that cannot be confirmed, or a fix certified,
            without a nuclear test. Our goal is to achieve an 18-month test
            readiness posture as directed by the Defense Authorization Act.
            Eighteen months is appropriate because that is a typical time
            to diagnose a problem and design a test to confirm the problem
            or certify the fix.

        A responsive infrastructure has both intellectual and physical
    dimensions. Intellectually, the administration's proposals to examine
    new advanced concepts will allow us to train the scientists and
    engineers who must provide the design underpinning for a responsive
    infrastructure. Physically restoring a capability to produce plutonium
    pits in sufficient quantities will be essential. The Modern Pit
    Facility (MPF)--or, more accurately, a pit rework facility--will
    support the pit remanufacturing needs of the entire stockpile. It is
    important to understand that we need this facility even if the United
    States never produces another new weapon. All existing plutonium pits
    will ultimately need to be rebuilt due to aging effects, for example,
    caused by radioactive decay of plutonium.
        We are just beginning the transformation to a responsive nuclear
    weapons infrastructure. I call for your support in this important
    endeavor.

                             NEAR TERM IMPLICATIONS

        Let me now discuss two specific elements of the administration's
    budget request and how they relate to the principles we have been
    discussing. The NPR highlighted the importance of ensuring that the
    weapons complex can adjust to the changing requirements of nuclear
    deterrence in the coming decades. In fiscal year 2005, we propose
    continuing a modest research effort on advanced concepts to meet
    potential new or emerging requirements. We also propose continuing the
    Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) feasibility and cost study now
    underway.
        Because there has been a great deal of discussion on the
    implications of these two programs, I would like to review them in some
    detail. We intend to use advanced concepts funds to investigate new
    ideas, not necessarily new weapons. For example, we are beginning a
    study examining the feasibility of adapting an existing nuclear warhead
    to provide a cruise missile capability that incorporates enhanced
    safety and user control. Some additional work is underway to examine
    the feasibility of improving warhead design margins in order to ensure
    continued high confidence in warhead reliability without nuclear
    testing. We are also in discussion with the Air Force on examining the
    utility of nuclear weapons to destroy chemical and biological agents,
    although no decisions to study this area have yet been reached. The DOD
    and Department of Energy (DOE) will jointly determine the specific uses
    of the remaining fiscal year 2004 and the proposed fiscal year 2005
    funds.
        Perhaps the single most contentious issue in our budget request is
    continued funding for the RNEP study. This study is to determine
    whether existing warheads--the B61 and the B83--could be adapted
    without nuclear testing to improve our ability to hold at risk
    hardened, deeply buried facilities that may be important to a future
    adversary. I want to correct several misconceptions about this effort:

             There is a clear military utility to such a weapon,
            which is why the DOD asked for it to be studied. A classified
            report was submitted to this committee last year on this
            subject and remains valid.
             Despite this utility, we will move beyond the study
            stage only if the President approves and funds are authorized
            and appropriated by Congress. We included funds in our out-year
            projections only to preserve the President's options. No
            decision will be made until the study is completed. The law is
            clear that beginning development engineering requires
            congressional approval.
             Even if deployed, this weapon does not represent a
            change from our policy goal of deterrence. Deterrence requires
            we be able to hold at risk that which an adversary values. Our
            efforts to determine the potential effectiveness of an earth
            penetrating weapon reflect a continued emphasis on enhancing
            deterrence. Once again I refer you to the classified report
            submitted last year.
    Nuclear Misconceptions
        Let me conclude my statement by addressing three misconceptions
    that have been raised both by Members of Congress and by others:

             That we sought repeal of the prohibition on low-yield
            warhead development in order to develop and field new, low-
            yield nuclear weapons;
             That in doing so we will blur the distinction between
            nuclear and conventional weapons, making nuclear use more
            likely; and
             That nuclear weapons R&D necessarily undercuts U.S.
            nonproliferation efforts.

        While press accounts have spoken of administration plans to develop
    new, low-yield weapons, there are no such plans. Nor does repeal of the
    prohibition on low-yield warhead development commit the United States
    to developing, producing or deploying new, low-yield warheads. Such
    warhead concepts could not in any case proceed to full-scale
    development, much less production and deployment, unless Congress
    authorizes and appropriates the funds required. Repeal of this vague
    restriction simply removed the chilling effect on scientific inquiry
    that has hampered our scientists' ability to explore technical options
    of any yield because such options ``could lead to'' designs of less
    than five kilotons. Our scientists need the freedom to explore new
    concepts both to maintain and exercise their intellectual capabilities
    and to respond to needs that one day might be articulated by this or a
    future President.
        Nor are U.S. R&D programs blurring the line between conventional
    and nuclear weapons, making nuclear use more likely. This is not simply
    an assertion, but is empirically based. Recall that from the 1950s and
    continuing through today, the U.S. nuclear stockpile has contained
    warheads capable of producing very low nuclear yields. At the height of
    the Cold War many thousands of these warheads were deployed, but never
    used--even in regional confrontations where their use would not
    necessarily have provoked a Soviet response. There is no evidence that
    the simple possession of these weapons made nuclear use by the United
    States more likely. To be clear, only the President can authorize use
    of U.S. nuclear weapons and no President would be inclined to employ
    any nuclear weapon, irrespective of its explosive power, in anything
    but the gravest of circumstances. Simply put, the nuclear threshold for
    the United States has been, is, and always will be very high.
        Along these lines, the NPR emphasized an increasing potential to
    base deterrence more on non-nuclear and missile defense capabilities,
    and called for development of high-precision, advanced conventional
    weapons to replace nuclear systems, where possible, to further reduce
    our reliance on nuclear forces to deter aggression.
        Finally, the major U.S. nonproliferation objective is to prevent
    rogue states and terrorist groups from acquiring weapons of mass
    destruction (WMD) and systems for their delivery. Neither advanced
    concepts efforts nor studies of an earth-penetrating weapon will
    increase incentives for terrorists to acquire such weapons--those
    incentives are already high and are unrelated to U.S. capabilities. Nor
    are they likely to have any impact on rogue states, whose proliferation
    activities march forward independently of the U.S. nuclear program.
    Over the past decade we have seen very significant reductions in the
    numbers of U.S. (and Russian) nuclear weapons, reductions in the alert
    levels of nuclear forces, and the abandonment of U.S. nuclear testing.
    No new warheads have been deployed and there has been little U.S.
    nuclear modernization. There is absolutely no evidence that these
    developments have caused North Korea or Iran to slow down covert
    programs to acquire capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. On the
    contrary, those programs have accelerated during this period.

                                   CONCLUSION

        Mr. Chairman, the United States will continue to lead the way to a
    safer world through the deep reductions in nuclear forces codified by
    the Moscow Treaty, through Nunn-Lugar and other Cooperative Threat
    Reduction (CTR) efforts, and through other actions. At the same time,
    although conventional forces will assume a larger share of the
    deterrent role, we will maintain an effective, reliable, and capable--
    though smaller--nuclear force as a hedge against a future that is
    uncertain and in a world in which substantial nuclear arsenals remain.
    Our ongoing efforts to reduce the current stockpile to the minimum
    consistent with national security requirements, to address options for
    transformation of this smaller stockpile, and to restore a responsive
    nuclear weapons infrastructure are key elements of the administration's
    national security strategy. Carrying out these efforts will pose no
    risk to critical U.S. nonproliferation objectives.
        Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I look forward to your
    questions.

        Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, we are now ready to hear
    your comments.

     STATEMENT OF ADM. JAMES O. ELLIS, JR., USN, COMMANDER, UNITED
                        STATES STRATEGIC COMMAND

        Admiral Ellis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a delight to
    be with you again today, a privilege as well to join with
    Ambassador Brooks in this hearing. As you have already noted,
    the NNSA is a strong and vital partner with STRATCOM and the
    DOD. With their unparalleled expertise, we conduct vital life
    extension and stockpile stewardship programs, as well as
    research and test Advanced Concepts to assess how we can
    further reshape and enhance our strategic capabilities.
        My written statement defines and details the current
    posture of STRATCOM's newly assigned mission areas. I
    appreciate your inclusion of that in the record, as you
    indicated, sir.
        On March 11, I testified before the full Senate Armed
    Services Committee, as you recall, at a hearing on our missile
    defense mission. I have the opportunity to testify before this
    subcommittee once again tomorrow afternoon to discuss the
    important issues regarding one of our most important legacy
    missions, that of space operations.
        The focus today, as you have noted, is on the strategic
    deterrent mission and strategic capabilities, nuclear,
    conventional, kinetic, non-kinetic, Information Operations
    (IO), and Special Operations Forces (SOF), and the
    opportunities we now have to shape a dramatically different
    strategic future for our command and for our Nation.
        As you recall, on January 10, 2003, the President signed
    Change Two to the Unified Command Plan (UCP) and assigned
    STRATCOM, as you noted, four previously unassigned
    responsibilities. Those are Global Strike, Global Missile
    Defense (GMD), DOD IO, and command, control, communications,
    computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
    (C\4\ISR).
        With the assignment of this unique combination of global
    roles, responsibilities, authorities, and capabilities under a
    single unified command, we have taken the opportunity to
    recapture the classic definition of the term ``strategic'' that
    is essential to the conduct and success of large-scale military
    operations.
        In January of this year, I reported to the President that
    STRATCOM had achieved full operational capability (FOC) for
    oversight and direction of all of these assigned missions. Each
    mission area itself continues to develop. Three missions,
    Global Strike, IO, and C\4\ISR are progressing towards full
    operational capability in 2004. GMD, the fourth mission area,
    will achieve Initial Defense Operations (IDO) in the months
    ahead. It has been, as you noted, a tremendous year of change
    and progress incorporating new missions and building a new
    organization-all while focusing support to other regional
    combatant commanders (RCCs) during Operation Iraqi Freedom
    (OIF) and the broader global war on terrorism.
        Also during 2003, STRATCOM had many key accomplishments to
    include: developed a Global Strike concept plan and validated
    the plan through a series of regional exercises; established a
    Global Operation Center (GOC) and Global Integration Center
    (GIC) to command, control, and integrate support to the joint
    warfighter wherever he or she might be on the face of the
    Earth; and accepted transfer of responsibility for the
    production of reconnaissance operations planning from the Joint
    Staff, a first step in achieving global ISR integration.
        We developed a Joint Forces Headquarters for IO (JFHQ-IO)
    within the overall headquarters structure and established
    functional relationships with the National Security Agency
    (NSA), Defense Information Systems Agency, Defense Intelligence
    Agency (DIA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. We
    provided federated intelligence support to Central Command
    (CENTCOM) and to Pacific Command (PACOM), producing over 3,000
    products covering four geographic areas and over 12,000 points
    of interest.
        We recognize there are many opportunities and challenges
    that still lie ahead, and I and all of my colleagues at
    STRATCOM remain committed to working with our strong and
    growing team of partners to address each one. Opportunities to
    move our command forward include continuing the implementation
    of the NPR while refining the way ahead through ongoing
    strategic capabilities assessments. I might parenthetically add
    that given its breadth and scope, as Ambassador Brooks so
    eloquently described it, it might have been more appropriately
    named the Strategic Posture Review for the implications that it
    has to my command and to the Nation.
        This effort will enable continued reduction in the Nation's
    nuclear arsenal even as we examine future deterrent concepts,
    sustain the safety and surety of the stockpile, and modernize,
    for our partners in the NNSA, the Nation's technical
    infrastructure.
        We are also going to be exploring new concepts of ISR that
    will permit collating and fusing data collected by the
    Intelligence Community and DOD sources. Our goal is to aid the
    Nation's military and civilian leaders. As they move rapidly up
    the continuum, we all must travel from data to information to
    knowledge and to wisdom. We are also embracing the concept that
    ISR in a real sense has a deterrent character all its own.
        We are going to be simultaneously employing a national
    missile defense test bed to provide the Nation with a
    rudimentary defensive capability even as we support the Missile
    Defense Agency (MDA) as it incrementally refines and evolves a
    future multilayered GMD system. We will be delivering, I
    believe, on the full potential of the DOD IO by supporting real
    advances in the incorporation of computer network attack and
    defense, electronic warfare, psychological operations,
    strategic deception, and operational security, all elements of
    DOD IO into our mission areas.
        In conclusion, as STRATCOM continues to shape the heart of
    the Nation's strategic capability, a fundamental principle
    remains. Deterrence has credibility only to the extent that we
    back it up with capability, determination, and resolve.
    STRATCOM provides credibility through its cohesive package of
    both new and legacy missions even as we explore new deterrent
    concepts to serve the Nation in a very different future.
        Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Ellis follows:]

              Prepared Statement by Adm. James O. Ellis, Jr., USN

                                I. INTRODUCTION

        Chairman Allard, Senator Nelson, and distinguished members of the
    subcommittee, it is an honor to once again appear before you,
    representing the outstanding men and women of United States Strategic
    Command (STRATCOM) and to review the strategic and space capabilities
    that remain vital contributors to our Nation's security. During my last
    appearance before your subcommittee, I outlined how STRATCOM, our
    components, and task forces were crafting a new command focused on
    integrating space capabilities, deterring a wider array of potential
    adversaries, and recasting the Nation's global military capabilities
    for the demands of the 21st century.
        Today, I can report that the finest soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
    marines--representing active duty, the National Guard, and the
    Reserves--joined by a cadre of talented civilians, have made tremendous
    progress in maturing the missions of the new STRATCOM.
        As you recall, on January 10, 2003, the President signed Change Two
    to the Unified Command Plan (UCP) and tasked STRATCOM specifically with
    four previously unassigned responsibilities. These are: Global Strike,
    Global Missile Defense (GMD) Integration, Department of Defense (DOD)
    Information Operations (IO), and command, control, communications,
    computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C\4\ISR).
    This unique combination of roles, responsibilities, authorities and
    capabilities, under a single unified command brought with it new
    opportunities to recapture the classic definition of the term
    ``strategic'': essential to the conduct of large scale military
    operations. In this strategic context, we also have been given the
    opportunity to support our Nation's security requirements around the
    globe by directly supporting the regional combatant commanders (RCCs)
    and their deployed forces.
        On January 1, 2004, I was pleased to report to the President of the
    United States that STRATCOM has completed reorganization and achieved
    full operational capability (FOC) for oversight and direction of all
    assigned missions. Each mission area continues to develop and, as we
    apply resources to each, we are moving to reach and maintain FOC in
    those four areas by the end of this year. Three of our missions, Global
    Strike, Global Integrated IO, and Global C\4\ISR, are on track and
    progressing toward FOC during 2004. GMD, the fourth newly assigned
    mission, will achieve Initial Defensive Operations (IDO) in the months
    ahead and will support concomitant achievement of STRATCOM oversight
    FOC.
        There is still much work to do and we have outlined five major,
    near-term goals for STRATCOM, each of which has the potential to add
    significantly to our national defense.
        These opportunities include:

             Proactively moving to enhance the security of our
            critical space systems. This will enable us to maintain an
            advantage in space while denying an asymmetric avenue of attack
            for our adversaries. In concert with service and Office of
            Secretary of Defense (OSD) partners, we are crafting a step-by-
            step plan that approaches the problem in manageable increments.
             Continuing the implementation of the Nuclear Posture
            Review (NPR) while refining the way ahead through the ongoing
            Strategic Capabilities Assessment. This effort will enable
            continued reduction in the Nation's nuclear arsenal even as we
            examine future deterrent concepts, sustain the safety and
            surety of the stockpile, and modernize, through our partners at
            the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the
            Nation's technical infrastructure.
             Exploring new concepts of ISR that will permit
            collating and fusing data collected by the Intelligence
            Community and defense sources. Our goal is to aid the Nation's
            military and civilian leaders to move rapidly up the continuum
            from data to information to knowledge to wisdom.
             Simultaneously employing a nascent missile defense
            test bed to provide the Nation with a rudimentary defensive
            capability even as we support the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)
            as it incrementally refines and evolves a future multi-layered
            GMD system.
             Delivering on the full potential of DOD IO by
            supporting real advances in the incorporation of computer
            network attack and defense, electronic warfare, psychological
            operations, strategic deception, and operational security into
            our mission areas.

               II. PROGRESS OF THE ``NEW'' U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND

        It was a year of tremendous change and progress--incorporating new
    missions and crafting a new organization--all while primarily focused
    on supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the broader global war
    on terrorism. During the past year, this command and our components
    have:

             Developed a Global Strike Strategic Concept, validated
            it through a series of exercises and gained final approval of a
            Global Strike plan.
             Developed a Missile Defense Concept of Operations
            (CONOP) with plans in place to support operator training,
            evolutionary testing and system employment for GMD at IDO.
             Developed a C\4\ CONOP and established a Global
            Operation Center (GOC) and Global Integration Center (GIC) to
            command, control, and integrate support to the joint
            warfighter.
             Transitioned the Space Operations Center in Colorado
            Springs to the Space Operations Watch in the GOC in Omaha.
             Hosted Senior Warfighter's Forum to identify combatant
            commands' requirements for future satellite communications
            capabilities.
             Accepted transfer of responsibility for production of
            the Sensitive Reconnaissance Operations plan from the Joint
            Staff, a first step in achieving global ISR integration.
             Formed Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) IO within the
            overall headquarters structure, commanded by the Deputy
            Commander, STRATCOM.
             Established strong, functional relationships with the
            National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Information Systems
            Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the National
            Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
             Provided federated intelligence support to U.S.
            Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM),
            producing over 3,000 products covering four geographic areas
            covering over 12,000 points of interest.
             Procured, prioritized, and allocated military and
            commercial satellite bandwidth to support the critical
            communication needs of the combatant commanders.
             Forward deployed STRATCOM support teams with reach-
            back capabilities for strike planning, intelligence, and space
            and information operations.
             Transmitted theater early warning data on missile
            launches to RCCs.
             Through the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command,
            provided successful Space Based Blue Force Tracking
            capabilities for Special Operations Forces (SOF).
             Through the Joint Information Operations Center
            (JIOC), fully integrated IO into OIF operational planning,
            contributing directly to shaping of the operation and elements
            of its combat success.

                          III. NEWLY ASSIGNED MISSIONS

    Global Strike
        The Global Strike mission embodies STRATCOM's ``capabilities-
    based'' strategy and employs various assets to execute limited-
    duration, extended-range, and precision kinetic and/or non-kinetic
    strikes anywhere on the globe. Our adaptive planning process is being
    upgraded with the goal of accelerating development of courses of action
    for rapid presentation to our national leadership. When fully realized
    we will be able to dramatically shrink response timelines.
        This new construct also provides the Nation with a combatant
    command that effectively works across traditional regional boundaries
    and addresses potential threats with a global perspective. We are
    strengthening formal relationships through extensive coordination with
    RCCs, Services, the Joint Staff, and the OSD.

    Information Operations
        As with our other global responsibilities STRATCOM is tasked with
    integrating and coordinating DOD IO across regional areas of
    responsibility (AORs). Core pillars of IO include computer network
    defense, computer network attack, military deception, operations
    security, psychological operations, and electronic warfare. The
    recently published DOD IO Roadmap also supports collaboration of broad
    IO efforts across the DOD, the Intelligence Community, and other
    national-level organizations in coordinated support of operations
    directed by the RCCs.
        The ability to quantify IO effects is another area of concerted
    effort at STRATCOM. Initial conclusions from advanced concept
    technology demonstrations and a number of experiments all recommend
    establishing a national test range for IO. STRATCOM is working closely
    with the OSD in establishing the requirements for just such a test
    range. This range will help us define effects in understandable terms,
    quantify systems' performance and provide assurance that the elements
    of IO will achieve the desired effects while avoiding unintended
    consequences.

         Organizing for Success
        In April 2003, we formed a JFHQ-IO within our overall headquarters
    structure. This interim move enables STRATCOM to provide IO support
    directly to warfighters while, at the same time, developing our
    internal structure and nurturing these evolving capabilities.
        In the past year, we have successfully integrated Computer Network
    Exploitation and Attack mission areas. The Network Attack Support Staff
    was established to function as the Computer Network Attack planning
    interface between the combatant commanders and the Intelligence
    Community. This component has significantly streamlined the planning
    process and contributed directly to the maturation of our efforts.

         Support to global war on terrorism
        STRATCOM provides tailored, deployable Strategic Support Teams that
    combine the capabilities of the JIOC, located in San Antonio, with
    support elements from many other STRATCOM functional mission areas.
    Additionally, as we prosecute the war on terrorism, effective IO is
    becoming even more essential to our success. Supporting U.S. Special
    Operations Command (SOCOM), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), PACOM,
    U.S. European Command (EUCOM), and CENTCOM for global war on terrorism
    and IO planning, JFHQ-IO works to provide an IO perspective, broader
    and deeper than any one RCC staff can, thus allowing us to better
    achieve required global effects in support of national strategic
    objectives. Our GIC will interface with other organizations to provide
    Time Sensitive Planning (TSP) as well as Crisis Action Planning. TSP
    oversight expertise will reside in the GIC and will formalize and
    codify STRATCOM's standard operating procedures, drawing on all
    organizational elements so as to provide global effects in support of
    all combatant commanders.

         The Way Ahead
        The future of global IO requires us to better define our
    operational battlespace. STRATCOM is developing a common operational
    picture based on inputs from all available DOD and intelligence
    sources. We are also developing measures of effectiveness, with
    corresponding metrics, allowing us to gauge the success or failure of a
    specific IO course of action.
        The challenge is melding the art and science of IO with emerging
    technologies, training, and educating senior warfighters in these
    concepts, and, most importantly, developing a cadre of military leaders
    with sound IO skills.

    Global Ballistic Missile Defense (GBMD)
        In my statement presented to the full Senate Armed Services
    Committee on March 11, 2004, I discussed the status of STRATCOM's GBMD
    mission. Missile defense concepts have evolved from separate efforts
    focused on the terminal intercept of short and medium range ballistic
    missiles. The single entity of GBMD now includes mid-course intercept
    of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and, in the years
    ahead, development of a multi-layered missile defense system
    contributing to the defense of the U.S., our allies, and our interests
    abroad. STRATCOM is developing the GBMD CONOP and the battle management
    architecture in order to provide full capabilities for RCCs defensive
    employment.
        The IDO is the first increment of a capabilities-based approach in
    developing and providing GBMD. Initial capability will include the
    ability to detect a launch, display the data for decision makers, relay
    command and control execution decisions, and then to fire a ground-
    based interceptor. Our plan calls for a continued assessment of the
    Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) capabilities as they are
    developed and fielded by the MDA. Fielding a layered and integrated
    GBMD system is best accomplished in a spiral manner. An initial
    capability, followed by evolutionary improvements, provides commanders
    with both operational flexibility and an increased range of system
    design options based on extensive testing and assessment

    Global C4
        Future ISR systems, along with new weapons platforms, are expected
    to at least double the current demand on the global communications
    infrastructure. (During Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), General Tommy
    Franks required 32 times more bandwidth than did General Norman
    Schwarzkopf during Operation Desert Storm (ODS).) Change Two of the UCP
    directs STRATCOM to coordinate C\4\ capabilities in support of
    strategic force employment.

         Providing Robust Communications Architectures
        The DOD is developing the Global Information Grid--Bandwidth
    Expansion (GIG-BE) to address the growing bandwidth requirements. This
    program is key to enabling the vision of universal situational
    awareness for the warfighter. GIG-BE is scheduled to provide a fiber
    connection to over 100 sites by the end of fiscal year 2005, providing
    much needed, wideband terrestrial connectivity. Once completed, GIG-BE
    will provide a robust, optical Internet Protocol Network that the
    warfighter can post and access information at multiple levels of
    classification.

         Information Assurance (IA)
        The DOD established the Information Assurance Vulnerability
    Management (IAVM) program in 1998 to notify combatant commands,
    Services, and DOD agencies about network vulnerability alerts and
    countermeasures information. In our assigned role of directing DOD-wide
    computer network defense, the IAVM program is one of the key means we
    use to rapidly update the security of DOD computers.
        We are working to improve our ability to automatically apply
    software patches across large networks, correct vulnerabilities
    identified through the IAVM process, and automatically verify patch
    compliance. This is a formidable challenge; DOD networks are complex,
    with over 3 million computers and a wide variety of operational
    configurations. Our partnership with industry will help us develop the
    best approach.
        The warfighter of today accesses information by sifting through
    networks stratified by classification and membership. The GIG-BE will
    result in a more easily accessible network providing multi-level
    security information to authorized users. Enforcing need-to-know while
    enabling need-to-share presents DOD IA personnel the challenge of
    moving from a defense-in-depth mindset to an IA-throughout approach.
        As the DOD moves from the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII)
    to the GIG-BE, it also brings a new approach to network defense. With
    the DII, our efforts were focused on defense in-depth, with layers of
    defense to keep intruders from breaching our information fortress. In
    contrast, the GIG focuses on defense throughout. This concept
    incorporates a model that recognizes intrusions may occur, and allows
    the network to remain functional even as the infection is being cured.

         Transformational Communication System (TCS)
        A second fundamental requirement for our information networks is to
    achieve the ``Power to the Edge'' vision of John Stenbit, former
    Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information
    Integration. He said, ``We must replace top-down operations with
    distributed operations--and use information technology to empower
    whomever is in need of a solution, regardless of where that individual
    is.''
        Developing this type of network requires reshaping our security
    philosophy and technology. Identity management must focus on end users,
    applications, and services. This will enable distributed computing
    between allied components using applications able to securely
    communicate with other applications. STRATCOM is working closely with
    the OSD staff and the Transformational Communications Office to develop
    the policies and architectures needed to realize the vision of the TCS.

    ISR
        Change Two of the UCP tasks STRATCOM with planning, integrating,
    and coordinating DOD ISR in support of strategic and global operations.
    Day-to-day operational control of DOD ISR assets will typically remain
    with the RCCs.
        STRATCOM is applying its unique global focus to planning and
    executing the DOD ISR mission. In effect, DOD ISR will be employed as a
    weapon system against specific strategic objectives and priorities.
    Each platform allocation will be planned to achieve specific effects
    and will be evaluated against that objective. New relationships and
    mechanisms are being developed to bring existing expertise and
    capabilities together in new, more powerful ways.
        To fulfill this mission, STRATCOM has organized intelligence and
    operations into an ISR Division that is unique among combatant
    commands. By integrating the operations and intelligence elements of
    the DOD ISR mission, we provide a holistic view of DOD ISR to increase
    the synergy between those who determine the requirements, those who
    conduct the operations to satisfy those requirements, and the end-users
    of collected and processed intelligence.
        The initial focus of our ISR Division is completion of the recently
    approved DOD ISR Implementation Plan. The timeline for transfer of the
    DOD ISR processes identified in the ISR Implementation Plan began with
    the sensitive reconnaissance operations approval process in December
    2003 and will end with the ISR allocation process in October 2004. We
    have just completed observing the latest bi-annual allocation process
    and started identifying steps necessary to transfer the process to
    STRATCOM by the fall of 2004.
        In addition to fulfilling current ISR requirements, STRATCOM is
    actively engaged in determining future airborne ISR needs. As the
    combatant command lead for DOD Airborne ISR, we will have visibility
    into the requirements from the theaters. Combining a composite list of
    theater requirements with emerging technologies allows us to develop a
    comprehensive list of capabilities to better support the RCCs. We will
    work closely with U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) to fully integrate
    DOD ISR into architecture and doctrine development. However, to be
    truly effective, we must find a more efficient means to influence the
    shape of DOD ISR procurement programs. The overarching goal is a more
    efficient, effective, responsive, and coordinated DOD ISR capability
    across the globe. With the responsibility for both DOD ISR allocation
    and advocacy, STRATCOM is uniquely positioned to provide a global view
    of both intelligence needs and required future capabilities.
        All of this effort will also support the objectives for
    intelligence sharing set by the Under Secretary of Defense for
    Intelligence. His office is crafting policies and supporting
    architecture to horizontally integrate collected intelligence from the
    theaters with the information acquired by the national agencies.
    STRATCOM sees this as a significant step toward providing all users
    with better insight into collected intelligence and enabling the
    sharing of essential information among all legitimate users. We believe
    this concept will significantly enhance intelligence available to all
    users and showcase the operational potential of future persistent
    intelligence collectors such as Space-Based Radar (SBR).

                     IV. FUTURE OF NUCLEAR FORCE STRUCTURE

    Sustainment and Modernization
         ICBMs
        ICBMs have been a mainstay of strategic deterrence for decades,
    providing prompt responsiveness, high reliability, accuracy, rapid and
    flexible targeting, and a high state of alert readiness. With
    Peacekeeper deactivation proceeding as planned, Minuteman III will soon
    be our Nation's only remaining land-based strategic deterrent.
    Recognizing the importance of the Minuteman III weapon system, the Air
    Force has implemented an aggressive life extension program for the
    Minuteman III ICBM force to ensure weapon system reliability through
    2020.
        We appreciate Congress' continued strong support for ICBM weapon
    systems by funding reliability upgrades to critical components of the
    Minuteman III. These include the Guidance Replacement Program,
    Propulsion Replacement Program, Propulsion System Engine Life
    Extension, Safety Enhanced Vehicle Program, and Command and Control,
    Security and Cryptography Upgrades. Finally, we support an analysis of
    alternatives (AOA) that will examine follow-on systems to the Minuteman
    III.

         Bomber Force
        The long-range bomber fleet is the second essential element of the
    Nation's strategic deterrent force as well as a primary element of our
    conventional Global Strike capability. The B-52 Avionics Midlife
    Improvement Program remains a high priority for STRATCOM and is
    critical to sustaining the platform into the next decade. Of equal
    concern is keeping the B-2 radar replacement program on track.
        The viability of our bombers in a nuclear and conventional role
    requires unimpeded access to increased bandwidth as well as secure,
    survivable, and endurable global communication capabilities inherent in
    the next generation satellite communication constellations. Robust
    command and control, coupled with the recently demonstrated value of
    real-time, in-flight bomber weapon re-targeting, require that we
    continue to synchronize the fielding of bomber communication terminals
    with the launches of advanced communications satellites.

         Strategic Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN)
        The final leg of strategic deterrence is the D5 Submarine Launched
    Ballistic Missile. Life extension (LE) and back-fit programs will
    provide a standardized fleet of 14 Ohio class SSBNs capable of
    employing D5 Trident II missiles for the full hull life of these
    submarines (extended to 45 years). The last two submarines awaiting
    upgrade will complete their D5 back-fit and refueling overhauls in
    fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2008. D5 LE upgrades the guidance and
    missile electronics on fielded D5 missiles and procures additional
    missiles to meet system reliability and accuracy testing needs for the
    life of the program, while also providing a sufficient quantity of
    missiles to fully load out 12 SSBNs.
        The conversion of the four Ohio class SSBNs to Guided Missile
    Submarines (SSGNs) is an example of modifying existing platforms,
    concepts and capabilities for a dramatically different military role.
    SSGN conversions are on schedule and are being completed in conjunction
    with scheduled Engineering Refueling Overhauls (EROs). The boats will
    be equipped with conventional cruise missiles, extensive special
    operations capability, and will be assigned evolving new missions. The
    U.S.S. Ohio, U.S.S. Florida, and U.S.S. Michigan have entered ERO and
    are proceeding on an aggressive conversion schedule with deliveries
    scheduled for 2005 and 2006. The U.S.S. Georgia is scheduled for ERO in
    2004 and conversion will be completed by 2007.

         Stockpile Stewardship
        In addition to our vital life extension and modernization programs,
    we are working closely with our partners in the Department of Energy
    (DOE), DOD, and Congress to ensure our nuclear stockpile remains safe,
    reliable, and credible. As the Nation's nuclear stockpile continues to
    age, we must carefully monitor its condition. Through the NNSA's
    Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program, we continue to improve our
    surveillance, modeling, and simulation tools and processes in order to
    provide the critical data on aging effects, component reliability, and
    physics phenomena we require in the absence of nuclear weapon testing.
    Past reductions in nuclear weapon infrastructure capacity require that
    the essential warhead life extension programs be carefully sequenced
    with scheduled warhead dismantlement so as to provide just-in-time
    delivery to meet operational deterrent force requirements. We are
    working closely with the NNSA, the national laboratories, and plants to
    shape their support to our future stockpile. With the production
    complexes operating near peak capacity, we will need to optimize the
    balance between essential life extension programs and dismantlement
    work.
        A 2003 congressionally-mandated panel, led by Dr. John Foster, Jr.,
    reported that our nuclear weapons program must be balanced between
    maintaining the existing warheads and the need to transform elements of
    the existing stockpile for the future. As we reduce our nuclear forces
    toward the goal of 1,700-2,200 operationally-deployed strategic nuclear
    warheads by 2012, we must concurrently analyze and research advanced
    concepts in order to realize the vision of the Foster Panel and the
    NPR. The results of this research will, in turn, enable objective,
    fact-based discussions on very important deterrence and policy issues.

         Assessment and Testing
        The United States' nuclear stockpile has a weighted average age of
    over 20 years, and we are the only nuclear power without a current
    capability to build a complete nuclear weapon. The Science-Based
    Stockpile Stewardship Program supports ongoing research and development
    (R&D) of new advanced technologies and analytical tools to assess the
    health of our aging stockpile without a current need for underground
    testing.
        Since 2000, the DOE has used the Advanced Computing Initiative as
    an integral part of the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program to
    analytically simulate nuclear explosions. These computational experts
    and their physicist colleagues in our technical laboratories are a
    national treasure, trained to make sense of torrents of information
    obtained from those simulations to certify the safety and reliability
    of the current stockpile.

                              V. SPACE OPERATIONS

        Across DOD, space is both a major integrator of missions and a
    global enabler for our forces. Our space assets gather and disseminate
    real-time data on virtually any location on the globe, as well as
    provide essential command and control capabilities to forces anywhere
    on the planet. That is why STRATCOM elected to embed space operations
    throughout our organization rather than treating it as a specific,
    stove-piped mission area. U.S. dependence on space, and the potential
    corresponding vulnerabilities, demand that our national security space
    interests be addressed as top national security priorities. Our focus
    includes:

    Improving U.S. Launch Capabilities
        New capabilities are required to enable rapid augmentation,
    replacement, or repair of satellites lost due to component failure or
    adversary action. STRATCOM looks to the Air Force, the National
    Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and industry partners to
    expedite delivery of a more effective, next-generation launch system.
    Resolving Space System Vulnerabilities
        Operations in Iraq demonstrated that adversaries can and will
    challenge our ability to use space assets. The attempts to jam our
    global positioning system (GPS) and degrade the accuracy of our
    precision weapons, in Navy parlance, were a ``shot across the bow.''
    DOD must be able to monitor the health of our essential systems,
    advance our space situational awareness, and respond appropriately to
    sustain our national on-orbit capabilities. In support of the
    leadership of the DOD Executive Agent for Space, Peter Teets, STRATCOM
    is fully engaged in assessing and strengthening all elements of our
    space systems.

    Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS)
        The potential provided by the developing SBIRS will be a key
    contributor to greater capabilities in the mission areas of theater and
    global missile warning, missile defense, technical intelligence, and
    battlespace characterization to support real-time warfighting
    operations. As designed, SBIRS will expand our ability to detect
    shorter-range missiles with systems designed for both tactical and
    strategic requirements. Once operational, SBIRS will not only represent
    our primary source of initial warning, but will also represent the
    first link in the chain of a layered, integrated missile defense.
    Deployment of a capability such as SBIRS is essential to replace legacy
    systems, some elements of which are now operating well beyond their
    intended life.

    Satellite Communications
        Military satellite communications will remain our primary means of
    providing dedicated, secure, and/or hardened command and control
    capabilities for worldwide military operations. During the past year,
    we launched the final satellites to complete the Defense Satellite
    Communications System (DSCS), Milstar, and Ultra High Frequency (UHF)
    follow-on constellations. These systems have served us well for decades
    and many have lived far beyond their projected life expectancy. As a
    result of this extended service life, deployment of more modern and
    more capable replacements is needed immediately. The capabilities
    represented by these programs will be sustained and improved with the
    launch of the next generation of satellite systems beginning with the
    Wideband Gapfiller Satellite in fiscal year 2005 and continuing through
    the launches of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) and Mobile
    User Objective System (MUOS).
        The Wideband Gapfiller program consists of five high capacity
    satellites launched from fiscal year 2005-2010 that will replace the
    aging DSCS and Global Broadcast Service satellites, providing DOD with
    high-capacity, wideband service for the Nation.
        The AEHF program is the follow-on to Milstar. Currently scheduled
    to launch three satellites during fiscal year 2007-2009, AEHF provides
    up to 10 times the capacity of Milstar, a significant increase in
    coverage, and the ability to support twice as many networks. It will
    support national, strategic, and tactical users requiring protected,
    anti-jam, survivable communications for national crises, Emergency
    Action Message dissemination, Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack
    Assessment, missile defense, presidential secure voice conferencing,
    and interoperability with selected international partners.
        The MUOS will field five UHF satellites to provide the warfighter
    on-demand, high capacity communications to ISR, and weapons system
    platforms on the move. This system is designed to alleviate the need to
    purchase expensive, commercial satellite services. MUOS launches
    currently are scheduled for fiscal year 2009-2011.
        Investments in replacement technology and capacity will help
    maintain the U.S. as the pre-eminent space faring nation well into the
    future. STRATCOM will remain engaged as these programs are developed
    and procured to monitor progress and ensure warfighter requirements are
    clearly articulated.
        STRATCOM is working with the Joint Staff, the Defense Information
    Systems Agency (DISA), and, as appropriate, the commercial satellite
    industry to develop a methodology whereby DOD can assure future
    satellite communications systems are designed, funded, fielded, and
    sustained as an end-to-end communication system. In the past, complex
    communications systems routinely were procured in parallel, as separate
    elements, and often by many organizations. Due to increased system
    complexity and the number of segments involved, an end-to-end
    synchronized acquisition process is essential. We must streamline the
    process and develop a procedure to centrally fund and manage seamless,
    integrated, on-demand capable satellite communication services to meet
    national security needs.

                     VI. GLOBAL INTEGRATION AND COOPERATION

    Integrating the GOC
        On April 15, 2003, STRATCOM published an overarching operational
    concept to incorporate changes driven by the assignment of our global
    missions. Central to this document is the creation of the GOC. The GOC
    and its supporting command elements will enable STRATCOM to provide
    responsive support to the President, Secretary of Defense, combatant
    commanders, and agencies. Additionally, the GOC, with support of our
    components, will develop and leverage global battlefield situational
    awareness and present decision makers with full spectrum courses of
    action that integrate all STRATCOM's missions and capabilities.
        Within the GOC, we will also perform space operations including
    space control, space support, and force enhancement. The GOC will
    enable STRATCOM to better execute our assigned missions by providing
    improved responsiveness and better command and control of our missions
    by placing the responsibility for mission support and execution under a
    single integrated operations center.
        The Combatant Commander's Integrated Command and Control System
    (CCIC\2\S) is the integrated battle management command and control
    engine for STRATCOM. CCIC\2\S integrates fixed and mobile command and
    control systems to support our missions and RCCs. CCIC\2\S must be
    responsive to the combatant commander's vision and ``evolve to a highly
    responsive and cost-effective sensor-to-decisionmaker-to-shooter
    capability.'' It supports spiral development and delivery of air
    defense, missile warning, space surveillance and defense, and common
    command and control service capabilities.

                       VII. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

    Strengthening Components and Agency Relationships
        We continue to seek the proper composition and alignment of
    components to accomplish our missions while allowing flexibility as our
    missions evolve. In this area, we have accomplished the following:

             On October 1, 2003, the Commandant of the Marine Corps
            directed the activation of a Marine Corps service component
            command called U.S. Marine Corps Forces, STRATCOM (MARFORSTRAT)
            to support our mission areas.
             We established command relationships to leverage
            capabilities of the NSA, DISA, and JIOC to provide an armory of
            IO capabilities.
             The Cruise Missile Support Activities previously
            assigned to PACOM and JFCOM were realigned under STRATCOM to
            enhance Global Strike capabilities.

        We have become more efficient in organizing our components and are
    still exploring several opportunities for further realignment of
    component support in order to avoid unnecessary and duplicative
    headquarters growth. In those instances, we are seeking mechanisms
    allowing us to interface with appropriate senior leadership to access
    the centers of excellence and proven capabilities resident within their
    subordinate organizations. We call it ``capabilities-based componency''
    and it is a construct defined by access to, versus ownership of,
    resources essential to the accomplishment of our diverse missions.
        Partnerships with civilian agencies, private industry, and academia
    are also vital to successful accomplishment of our missions. As we
    continue to establish new relationships and enhance existing ones, we
    remain focused on refining effective and efficient processes in the
    common pursuit of enhanced national security.

    Strengthening Reach-back Capabilities, Joint Exercises, and Training
        DOD is transitioning toward smaller, more agile forces, decreasing
    the forward footprint of our personnel in theater. To enable mission
    success for these agile forces, we must provide improved situational
    awareness and command and control capabilities. This requires
    unprecedented reach-back to planning capabilities, intelligence
    products, and other specialized expertise.
        A DOD oversight committee is crafting a roadmap for leveraging
    technologies to provide seamless distributed operations, or reach-back
    to supporting commands and elements. Developing GIG-BE will greatly
    improve this reach-back capability. By moving digits, not people, we
    reduce not only transportation and support costs, but the number of
    personnel placed in harm's way. Reach-back capabilities proved highly
    successful during OIF in supporting targeting, planning, and IO.
        In parallel, a specialized team of 35 personnel was sent to support
    CENTCOM by providing specialized space and information operations
    planning and execution support. Referred to as a Space and Information
    Operations Element, this team represents a first step in developing
    connectivity back to our headquarters for broader access to specific
    STRATCOM expertise, making our entire headquarters a trusted agent for
    the RCC.
        In the future, we anticipate opportunities for STRATCOM Support
    Teams to train and/or exercise regularly with the RCCs, thereby
    building relationships that are well understood before crisis or
    conflict looms. If requested by the RCC, they will be forward deployed
    in time of conflict. Alternatively, if that commander were comfortable
    with reach-back support from this team, they would provide the regional
    commander with the full spectrum of capabilities from our GIC at Offutt
    Air Force Base.
        As STRATCOM continues to mature our recently assigned global
    missions, we must develop robust training and exercise programs to test
    the tactics, techniques, and procedures envisioned in our integrated
    concept of operations. Our annual major exercise, Global Guardian, has
    traditionally been a nuclear operations-focused exercise. We are
    dramatically reshaping that construct and creating a new exercise
    series that better captures the broad range of new responsibilities
    while still supporting the essential zero-defect focus on our legacy
    mission. The Strike Directorate continues to coordinate with RCCs on
    the command and control structure required to simulate integration of
    full spectrum Global Strike missions into future regional exercises.
        In December 2003, we successfully demonstrated support to a RCC
    (PACOM) in Terminal Fury 04 in the areas of Global Strike, IO, Space
    Operations, and ISR. Using extensive reach-back opportunities and
    Strategic Support Teams, it afforded STRATCOM the opportunity to gain
    hands-on experience in areas such as planning, executing, and
    recovering Global Strike missions across regional boundaries. By
    working closely with PACOM in this exercise, we further developed a
    regional context and improved capabilities in our new mission areas to
    extend to all RCCs. The coming year undoubtedly promises new challenges
    and greater opportunities.

                                VIII. CONCLUSION

        As STRATCOM reshapes the heart of the Nation's strategic
    capability, we are required to study new deterrence concepts to provide
    the President with a wider range of military options that bring to bear
    every element of national power. The warrior Sun Tzu said, ``To win
    without fighting is best.'' A fundamental principle remains that
    deterrence has credibility only to the extent we back it up with
    capability, determination, and resolve. STRATCOM provides credibility
    through its cohesive package of both new and legacy missions, even as
    we explore new deterrent concepts to serve the Nation in a very
    different future.
        STRATCOM is ready to meet the challenges of the future. We are
    mindful of the magnitude of the task before us, and confident in the
    talent of our staff, our components, and our mission partners. In the
    words of Abraham Lincoln, ``The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate
    to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and
    we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think
    anew, and act anew.''
        I appreciate your continued support and look forward to reporting
    our progress to you in the future as we continue to build the new
    STRATCOM.

        Senator Allard. I want to thank both of you for your
    statements.
        Admiral Ellis, a recent news article stated that U.S. war
    planning ``is allowing strategic nuclear capabilities to become
    but one component of a spectrum of potential strategic
    responses to global terrorism and rogue nations rather than a
    separate level of capability.'' As commander of STRATCOM, you
    are responsible for much of this planning. Do you consider
    nuclear capabilities to be just another component on a spectrum
    of capabilities or do you consider them to be a separate level
    of capability?
        Admiral Ellis. I absolutely do not consider them to be just
    another element of that continuum, sir. As Ambassador Brooks
    noted in his statement, the decision that any President,
    current or future, might have to make with regard to employment
    of those forces would clearly be the most significant decision
    he or she ever made in their lifetime. We very clearly
    understand the difference. We very clearly understand the
    difference in security and surety that comes with our oversight
    and stewardship of the nuclear capabilities.
        As you are well aware, and as we could address in a more
    classified forum, there are very distinct and separate command
    and control elements and processes and security elements in
    place to ensure that the President, and only the President, in
    the direst of circumstances can authorize the employment of
    those systems. So I believe it is incorrect to characterize
    them as just elements in a continuum of kinetic options. I can
    assure you that in STRATCOM and the DOD that is not the way
    they are viewed.
        Senator Allard. Just for the record, maybe you would just
    go through the steps that most commanders have to go through to
    get authorization to use nuclear weapons. You mentioned the
    President's authorization and I would just like to have you go
    through those steps for us.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. The details of that, of course,
    are appropriately classified. As you alluded to, it is only
    after presidential and senior civilian leadership consultation
    with senior military leadership, including the Secretary of
    Defense, me, my staff, and other involved combatant commanders,
    that those decisions are weighed and assessed.
        Then, should there be no other option--and I emphasize
    that, as always, these weapons are weapons of last resort--
    should there be no other option in this hypothetical scenario
    that you described, then there are very rigorous coded
    capabilities that ensure that we authenticate the identity of
    the leaders in the chain of command. Those authorizations are
    very carefully and rigorously conveyed exactly as spoken and
    within the scope and context in which they were delivered to
    the operating forces through robust, hardened global command
    and control capabilities that we also oversee at STRATCOM.
        So there are a number of checks and balances. There are
    various layers of oversight that have to be employed
    simultaneously to ensure that no one individual can take these
    actions without the authorization of the Nation's senior
    leadership. I can assure you that we continue to review,
    exercise, and examine those processes and procedures regularly
    at my staff level and above, and we are committed to sustaining
    that level of certainty as we reshape the capabilities for the
    future.
        Senator Allard. So to your knowledge, the level of control
    over nuclear weapons has not been diminished in any way. There
    are not any initiatives which you are aware of that would
    reduce positive control over nuclear forces.
        Admiral Ellis. Absolutely not, sir. In fact, just the
    contrary. We are exploring, as is appropriate, ways in which we
    can bring into being new technology to further enhance the
    already rigorous controls that are in place.
        Ambassador Brooks. That is one of the potential uses for
    the Advanced Concept Initiative, by the way.
        Senator Allard. Thank you, Ambassador Brooks.
        Admiral Ellis, I am worried that our adversaries are
    adapting to our ability to hit targets with extraordinary
    precision in part by hardening their assets or burying them
    deep underground. I know the DOD has identified literally
    thousands of these types of targets. What is the relationship
    between these hard and deeply buried targets in your concept of
    strategic targets?
        Admiral Ellis. Sir, the hard and deeply buried targets that
    you characterize represent a very important subset of a broader
    set of targets that might be appropriate for the application of
    strategic force. I emphasize that that includes strategic force
    as we now define it, including both conventional, non-kinetic,
    and SOF, as well as the classic legacy nuclear missions that
    have historically resided at STRATCOM.
        They are a unique target set. They are proliferating, as
    you note, on a global scale. There are more of them than the
    Intelligence Community is able to discern, or get hints about,
    more appropriately, as the years go by. A large number of them
    can be dealt with by conventional means. But there is a subset
    on the hard and deeply buried side that are very demanding
    targets for conventional forces and in some cases cannot be
    dealt with by conventional forces as we know them, which brings
    into context three important issues here.
        The first is that we need to continue to advance our
    development of conventional capabilities to further broaden our
    ability to deal with these target sets. We also need to enhance
    our ISR capabilities so that we can better identify and
    characterize these targets. To no one's surprise, if it is
    important enough to be hard and deeply buried on the part of an
    adversary, it is also likely to be deceptively camouflaged, to
    be protected by robust air defenses, and to have multiple
    levels of command and control and support and communications
    associated with it.
        So, in any way that you would characterize it, it is a very
    demanding target set. It is one that we are interested in,
    because it is obviously a critical node in either the
    communications for military forces or the leadership control of
    potential adversaries. So they are appropriate military
    targets. They have tremendous complexity associated with them.
    We are in favor of exploring all concepts, the full spectrum of
    concepts that might be brought to bear to deal with them, if it
    is so deemed necessary by the Nation's leadership.
        Senator Allard. Can you give us a sense of what proportion
    of these targets you think can be defeated today with non-
    nuclear means and whether that proportion will change over
    time?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, I would rather not get into exact
    numbers, because that might be classified. A significant
    percentage of them can be dealt with by conventional means.
    That would be the way in which we would intend to employ them.
    However, as you noted in your statement, adversaries have a way
    of responding to our capability. As they see capabilities
    coming on line, it is within their purview to dig deeper and to
    make these systems harder.
        So I would anticipate that unless we advance further down
    this continuum of capabilities and systems that can deal with
    this target set, that those that we cannot deal with might
    continue to grow in the years ahead. How significant that
    growth is, I defer to the Intelligence Community. Even in that
    context, it is fair to say that they would not sit here and
    tell you that they had located all of those that are known to
    exist in the world today.
        So even the numbers as we currently define them probably do
    not include all those that are actually in use.
        Senator Allard. How important are prompt, precise delivery
    systems to the effort to defeat the hard and deeply buried
    targets?
        Admiral Ellis. We think that prompt and precise delivery
    systems are key elements to the ability to counter those
    capabilities, such as a storage area for something that the
    adversary values very highly. Ambassador Brooks talks about
    some elements that that might include. Whether it is a
    leadership location or a command and control capability for
    military forces that could be used against us or our allies,
    there is a time criticality associated with that in some
    context. That needs to be part of planning for any strike
    mission.
        There are little things that have to be dealt with. What is
    the range of the systems that you have to employ? How fast do
    they respond? In other words, how fast do they go, or are they
    in the local area? Then the accuracy and precision element
    ensures that it requires the minimum number of strike passages,
    if you are using a manned system, for example, so you expose
    fewer people to that risk, or it involves fewer numbers of
    weapons that have to be employed to achieve the desired
    results.
        It also very importantly minimizes any associated
    collateral damage, of which we are always concerned in the
    military, as well as looking at targeting options. So for a
    number of reasons, the things that you describe--range,
    precision, and appropriate sizing--are important elements of
    weapons systems of whatever character that we assess for use
    against this target set in the future.
        Senator Allard. I understand that acquisition efforts
    related to the defeat of hard and deeply buried targets
    leverage capabilities in many programs and are well coordinated
    by the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD). I am a little
    concerned, however, that this approach may leave the Services,
    each of which has many competing priorities, in a position in
    which they might not respond adequately to some of STRATCOM's
    unique requirements.
        Where do you believe these efforts fall short of providing
    you the complete tool kit you need to strike at the full range
    of strategic targets?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, as Ambassador Brooks noted when he
    described the NPR, and as I call it, the Strategic Posture
    Review, the assumptions predicated that allowed us to draw down
    the numbers that he described were based to some degree on the
    creation of advanced conventional capabilities.
        While many of these capabilities are still in the
    developmental or requirements generation phases, it is fair to
    say that they compete with other priorities that the Services
    have. My role as a combatant commander is to make my input
    appropriately heard in the venues that I have. As you are well
    aware, there is a joint capabilities process that has been
    defined in the DOD into which I will make inputs and continue
    to make inputs that address the need for these issues. Then
    those are reviewed and collated and, with the support of the
    Secretary and the Chairman, apportioned through guidance to the
    Services to be dealt with.
        One of the challenges we face, of course, is that, just as
    with nuclear weapons, many of these advanced conventional
    capabilities are niche capabilities. In other words, they are
    not intended to be procured in the thousands. They are not
    intended to be carried on every strike platform in the
    inventory. They are not intended necessarily to be used against
    mobile, all-weather targets, and the like. In that context,
    they sometimes do not compete as well in the analysis of
    alternatives (AOA) with other systems that may have broader
    application.
        I think it is important for my voice to be heard in
    articulating how essential these advanced conventional
    capabilities, even though they may be viewed or defined as
    niche capabilities, are to advancing our Global Strike
    capability and our ability to deal with hard and deeply buried
    targets.
        Senator Allard. Well, in that regard, do you think the
    acquisition approach is sound and your unique requirements will
    be met in a timely way?
        Admiral Ellis. I think the process is sound, sir. It is up
    to me to continue to be a loud voice and an articulate voice to
    the extent we can inject that on a regular basis into the
    consideration of alternatives for the future. I can assure you
    that within the OSD and his staff there is great support for
    advancing these capabilities. We have now begun to see a
    consideration of advanced concepts that might serve us well in
    the future.
        But it is important that we understand the difference
    between paper programs and real capabilities. There are things
    that could be addressed in the near term through the Defense
    Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and other organizations that are
    very able to quickly respond to this. There is also a set of
    long-term issues that need to be considered as we look to the
    future and contemplate what a Global Strike capability needs to
    look like 10 or 20 years hence.
        Senator Allard. We have talked about hard and deeply buried
    targets. We use the terms kinetic and non-kinetic, and I wonder
    if you would go into more detail on the value of both these
    facets of the effort to defeat hard and deeply buried targets,
    the other facet being flexible planning.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. Within the level of classification
    of this hearing, it is fair to say that kinetic is well
    understood. We have talked a little bit about that. Ambassador
    Brooks alluded to it in discussions of concepts that NNSA is
    beginning to examine. I have talked about it in terms of
    conventional capabilities that I think are needed for the
    future. Those are the kinetic things, the things that explode
    and destroy.
        The non-kinetic piece is an opportunity that is just
    beginning to come into being and deals with issues of disabling
    from long distances support elements that are necessary to
    sustain targets or items of interest. Those can include power
    grids. They can include other capabilities that might be
    brought down electronically, if you will. There are jamming
    capabilities, active electronic warfare. There are computer
    network techniques that are beginning to be explored that
    consider how we might be able to, at least for a specified
    period of time, draw down the capabilities of an adversary
    without the requirements to target them kinetically.
        I emphasize that while these are tremendously exciting
    concepts, they have not delivered yet on the level that would
    allow me confidently to offer them as an alternative to kinetic
    solutions at this time. However, I do believe that this is a
    capability the Nation needs to pursue for the reasons that you
    have described earlier. I think it certainly is something that,
    under our IO responsibilities newly assigned to STRATCOM, we
    are aggressively moving forward with the support of agencies
    and Services in that effort.
        Senator Allard. Well, and it raises the threshold, I think,
    for whether we would have to use nuclear means or not.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. The focus that Ambassador Brooks
    noted with regard to the NPR is absolutely essential. What it
    is tasked to do and what it tasked us to do is provide the
    Nation's leaders with a much broader range of capabilities to
    deal with threats to the Nation. All of those have a deterrent
    character, and they also have a capabilities character. They
    are not necessarily nuclear in character.
        So the point that you raise is absolutely right. The more
    options, opportunities, or choices that we can offer the
    Nation's leadership before they have to regrettably consider
    that last resort nuclear system, the higher we continue to
    raise the threshold. It is fair to say that the threshold is
    higher now than it once was. We are working every day to
    implement the NPR, which in my view will continue to raise that
    threshold in the years ahead.
        Senator Allard. Now I would like to call on the ranking
    member, Senator Nelson, for an opening statement and some
    questions.
        Senator Bill Nelson. To save time, Mr. Chairman, if you
    will just submit my statement for the record.
        Senator Allard. Very good. Without objection.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Nelson follows:]

                   Prepared Statement by Senator Bill Nelson

        Thank you Senator Allard. I would like to join you in welcoming our
    witnesses. We have many issues to discuss this morning. Senator Allard
    highlighted some of them, and I would like to highlight a few as well.
        I look forward to hearing from Admiral Ellis about his year of
    change--integrating the former space and strategic commands into one
    command and taking on a host of new responsibilities under the Unified
    Command Plan Change Two. Ambassador Brooks, we look forward to hearing
    from you about the activities of the National Nuclear Security
    Administration, including the challenge of meeting the security
    standards associated with the new design basis threat, the progress of
    the Stockpile Stewardship Program, and the efforts to downsize and
    modernize the nuclear weapons complex.
        In addition, I would hope to be able discuss issues associated with
    bombers, such as reversing portions of the B-1 retirement plan,
    maintaining the bomber modernization programs for the B-2 and the B-52,
    and the work that is beginning on the bombers of the future. What does
    long-range Global Strike look like in the future?
        I would also like to hear from each of our witness the progress
    being made in implementing the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the
    Moscow Treaty. What is the progress in reducing the overall size of the
    nuclear weapons stockpile, not just the number of operationally-
    deployed nuclear warheads. One additional aspect of the Moscow Treaty
    that I would like to discuss is how operationally-deployed warheads are
    going to be counted to achieve the goal of 1,700 to 2,200 deployed
    warheads by 2012.
        Related to the issue of counting, is a recent press report
    asserting the decision in the NPR to download all of the Minuteman III
    intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to a single warhead
    configuration is being reconsidered. Such a decision would have a
    direct impact on the mix of warheads deployed and would most directly
    impact the number of warheads on Trident submarines.
        Last year there we had considerable debate and discussion in the
    Senate on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), Advanced Concepts
    Initiative, and the repeal of the ban on research and development (R&D)
    of nuclear weapons with yields below 5 kilotons, and nuclear test
    readiness. The RNEP and the Advanced Concept work was routinely
    described as being studies only and that there were no plans to produce
    or deploy new or modified nuclear weapons. Clearly this is no longer
    the case with the RNEP. I would like to here from both of our witnesses
    about the capabilities of the RNEP, and understand the military
    requirements, value, and utility.
        We have much more to discuss, so I will conclude by again welcoming
    our witnesses. This hearing is always interesting.
        Thank you Senator Allard.

        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, in September of this
    year, the administration plans to deploy a long-range missile
    defense system. Are you going to be the person responsible for
    this defense and also responsible if the defense fails against
    a real enemy missile?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Since you are responsible for the
    development of the concept of operations (CONOPs) for this
    missile defense system that will be fielded, what is the
    process for developing this concept? What are your planning
    assumptions?
        Admiral Ellis. Thank you, sir. That is a great question. As
    we discussed in front of the full committee on March 11, the
    role of STRATCOM, as you describe it, is to take the
    capabilities that are being developed by General Kadish in the
    MDA, which might as well be called the Missile Development and
    Acquisition Agency, and move it into the operational realm as
    we begin to put this test bed in place over the next--in the
    months ahead.
        The role that I have is to, as you described, define the
    CONOPs, to begin the training and integration, to provide the
    command and control capabilities, to ensure that the Services
    provide well-trained and aware crews, and to ensure that the
    assumptions with regard to its employment and weapons release
    doctrine and those types of things are clearly understood and
    reviewed prior to this capability beginning to be in place
    conceptually by the end of this year.
        The assumptions that we made are based on sharing the data
    that has been currently provided through the tests that have
    been conducted and the simulations that have also been
    conducted in developing this system. You heard from Mr.
    Christie and Ron Kadish about the way in which their teams or
    elements have come together to share that database. Well,
    STRATCOM also accesses that database to help us understand the
    capabilities that we are likely to have as this, as the
    Secretary calls it, rudimentary capability comes on line later
    this year.
        All of those issues help us ensure that we understand
    realistically what this system is capable of doing in this test
    mode. We have a process in place that allows us to bring online
    a limited alert capability at the same time as we continue the
    spiral development process. This has to occur simultaneously as
    the MDA continues to move or evolve this system into the forms
    that it will take in the years ahead.
        So we draw on their data. We understand and draw from their
    experience with legacy systems. We have significant expertise
    from the Army involved in this, as you are well aware, and draw
    air defense expertise to make sure, from a doctrinal
    standpoint, we are asking the right questions. We are under no
    illusions as to what we will or will not have when the IDO
    capability comes on line. But we do believe that it will add
    value to what we have. It will be a capability that is in the
    field anyway for testing and development and we believe it is
    appropriate to draw on it to the extent that it can provide
    capabilities to the Nation to enhance our Nation's security and
    defense.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, since you are the one
    responsible for its success or failure, would you like to see
    it operationally tested in a combat-like way as soon as
    possible?
        Admiral Ellis. The continuing testing that Mr. Christie and
    Ron Kadish are pursuing is, in my view, going as aggressively
    as is appropriate and prudent. In other words, as capabilities
    deliver, they are tested and assessed. Changes are immediately
    made to reflect the lessons that are learned. A system of this
    scale and complexity is unique in the history of the Nation. It
    requires a global range, if you will, in order to put all these
    elements in place.
        So in my view, there is a logic in putting it in place
    where it was intended to operationally serve. So I think from
    an operational standpoint, that is about as realistic an
    operational environment as we could expect, the actual sites
    from which it will be expected to be operated with all of its
    elements, as you are so well aware, including Fort Greely and
    Vandenberg and the Shemya Radar Facility and all of those
    capabilities.
        So I think we are putting it into an operational scenario,
    operational environment, even as we continue to refine and
    advance the testing. So I think that will enhance significantly
    the operational character of the tests that will unfold in the
    years ahead.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral, I know something about
    rockets. If there is a rocket being developed where you have
    one test and you have four tests canceled over the course of
    the last year, I do not think I would want to ride that kind of
    rocket. Is that not what has happened?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, I cannot speak for Ron Kadish and
    would not presume to, sir, but my understanding is that the
    tests have not been canceled. They have been rescheduled, as
    reflective of the incremental testing program that is underway.
    In other words, Ron's team, MDA's team, has discerned that
    there were technical issues, just as we described, that needed
    to be addressed. They are addressing those. When those are
    addressed, then the incremental testing program will continue,
    as indeed elements of it are scheduled to continue this year.
        Now clearly, and perhaps optimistically, when those
    schedules were crafted last year, there was a sense that we
    might be further along. But as you are well aware, there are
    technical challenges that have arisen along the way, as there
    are in any developmental program. Adjustment of the test
    program to reflect the readiness to do those testings, I think,
    is not inappropriate.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you, as the operational officer in
    charge, are satisfied with the way that they are going to turn
    over an operational system to you on a major weapons system
    with the amount of testing and so-called independent testing
    that has occurred thus far.
        Admiral Ellis. Well, if they were sitting here with me, I
    do not think either Mr. Christie or Ron Kadish or I would say
    that any of us are ever satisfied, and I do not think that is
    the right term. We understand where we are in terms of system
    maturity. We understand the elements of the system that have
    been tested, boosters and kill vehicles and radars along the
    way. We understand how they are being brought together for this
    IDO capability. That is where we will be when the first of
    these elements are put into place, or the last of them are put
    into place, to create this system sometime later this year in
    all likelihood.
        So that is the process we have. We are assessing, fairly
    candidly with the help of MDA and Operational Test and
    Evaluation (OT&E), what capabilities that really represents. In
    that context, then, we will craft, as you noted, the CONOPs and
    the procedures for its employment in support of the Nation's
    security.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I would not want to be in your shoes
    to accept the operational responsibility for something that had
    not been tested any more than this. In wartime, we have to do
    whatever we have to do. I am not sitting here as an opponent of
    national missile defense, but I am sitting here as someone who
    has to ask the hard questions. How can you make something
    operational that has not been properly researched, developed,
    and tested? That is the question that I will continue to ask.
        The Air Force has established two offices to study options
    for long-range strike options. Is STRATCOM fully engaged with
    the Air Force effort to study options and conduct an AOA?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, we are. Well, all of our unified
    commands are joint commands. My deputy actually is an Air Force
    three-star officer and has attended some of those sessions. We
    are working with each of the Services as they examine concepts,
    as I discussed in my dialogue with Senator Allard, that might
    serve our long-range strike needs for the future.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you think that manned long-range
    bombers should be a part of the long-range strike capability?
        Admiral Ellis. I do not think we know the answer to all of
    that yet, sir. What I am supporting is broad consideration of
    all concepts. Some of them can employ modifications to existing
    systems, conventional in character. Some of them can employ
    concepts that perhaps are long dwell unmanned aerial vehicles
    (UAVs) that can orbit in a target area with high-speed weapons.
    Manned bombers are certainly something that needs to be brought
    into the equation.
        The issue we have to avoid, I think, is we do not want to
    get locked into merely sequential procurement of what we
    already have without an honest and dispassionate assessment of
    what the future and what technology can bring us. While I am
    not in any position to give you the answer, STRATCOM continues
    to fully support the careful study of all options that might
    contribute to this capability.
        Senator Bill Nelson. One of the options being considered is
    a bomber variant of the F-22. What do you think about that?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, I would have to see the specifications
    on it and what the tradeoffs are with regard to--as a pilot
    myself, and I know you understand, there are elements that come
    with manned platforms that are different than those that come
    with unmanned. There are range issues and refueling and support
    requirements and what kind of environment it will be considered
    or designed to operate from, an air defense environment and the
    like.
        So again, I do not think it is possible right now, absent
    completion of these studies, to pick an answer. But I think all
    of them ought to be put on the table in a fair and objective
    process and weighed against one another to satisfy the Nation's
    security needs. This is again one of those things that is
    inevitably going to have to compete with other requirements.
    There is certainly the view that we are not going to be able to
    buy newer versions of everything we have, nor should we. We
    ought to consider how we can best meet this need in the future.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What about other long-range strike
    options, such as the Falcon?
        Admiral Ellis. We believe that that, too, is one that
    offers promise in terms of the criteria that I identified with
    Senator Allard a short time ago. In other words, we are looking
    for something that has long range. We are looking for something
    that has speed of response. We are looking for something that
    has precision and lethality, if we decide to use it.
        Certainly, the Falcon has promise, although it is an
    evolving concept potentially in each of those areas.
        Senator Bill Nelson. The Secretary of Defense told the
    House Armed Services Committee to develop and provide a CONOP
    for a Common Arrow Vehicle (CAV), ``that precludes any
    perception of CAV launch intent prior to conducting any
    development launches of CAV.'' Then Peter Teets also submitted
    a report. What do you think about that? Do you think it would
    be subject to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)?
        Admiral Ellis. Not as currently structured, sir. The START
    has some exclusions on space launch facilities and areas of
    interest. So their issues would have to be clearly reviewed to
    make sure they are treaty compliant. There are now procedures
    for information exchange amongst interested parties with regard
    to schedule and intent.
        So I would not say that those policy issues are
    insurmountable obstacles to consideration of the value of a CAV
    concept, as we examine future concepts.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Did you already talk with the chairman
    about the process by which there would be a requirement for a
    new nuclear weapon to be developed?
        Admiral Ellis. No, sir. We did not address that
    specifically.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, would this process be the same
    for a modification of an existing nuclear weapon to meet a
    military purpose?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. The essential elements would be
    the same up to and including congressional oversight in any
    process that deals with modification to an existing nuclear
    capability.
        Senator Bill Nelson. For both of you, the NNSA plans $135
    million to complete the studies on RNEP. This is substantially
    more than the $45 million that was announced back in 2003. Why
    has the cost grown so substantially?
        Ambassador Brooks. I think the $135 million figure is based
    on a misreading of what we put in our out-year project. Some of
    that is completion of study. Some of that, as I alluded to in
    my opening statement, is a place holder in case, at the
    completion of the study, the President and Congress elect to go
    forward.
        I think that the total cost of the study is closer to $70
    million, although I will correct that for the record if I am
    wrong. The cost has gone up in part because we have discovered
    the problem is more complex. We have involved more of the
    weapons complex. In looking at it, we had not envisioned deeply
    involving, for example, the Y12 Plant, but we have. I can give
    you a more detailed answer for the record, if that is all
    right, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Okay, I would appreciate that. I
    understand that in your planning you have to put in a certain
    amount of padding, which is just good planning.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        We never expected the RNEP Phase 6.2/2A study to cost $135 million,
    but we did not make it clear in our fiscal year 2005 submission. When
    we formulated the fiscal year 2005 request, we anticipated the cost of
    the study to be approximately $71 million. These costs can be
    attributed to: congressionally imposed funding reductions and delays
    (reporting requirements), addition of the production plants to help
    assess design feasibility, and an independent review of competing
    designs.
        As a result of the 50-percent funding reduction in fiscal year 2004
    for the RNEP, as well as a better understanding of the RNEP study and
    the need to balance priorities across the nuclear complex, we are
    studying the funding profile for RNEP in fiscal year 2006 and beyond.

        Senator Allard. I think here on this issue, you are kind of
    caught between a rock and a hard spot, Senator Nelson, on this.
    If you do not put in the money, then somehow or other they
    think you are hiding it. If you do put it in and you are
    straightforward, then you can be accused of trying.
        I looked at this figure, too, and that obviously sticks out
    there. On the other hand, I think we need to have some estimate
    in case they decide to move ahead with that, about where those
    future costs would be. I think this had quite a bit of
    discussion in the hearing yesterday. Is that right?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, it did. Our view
    was twofold. First, that our interpretation of what Congress
    expected and what we need internally when we went to
    meaningfully estimate out-year budgets, was that we ought to do
    the very best we can. Second, we thought that we are, after
    all, preserving an option for the President. If the President
    has no option within your budget, that seemed to us
    inappropriate. So that is why we chose to display these figures
    in the 5-year projection.
        But, of course, a projection is a projection. We decide on
    spending a year at a time. But in doing that, it is
    appropriate, it seemed to us, for Congress to understand what
    the future projections might be. But I stress again, we cannot
    get to that future without an affirmative decision by Congress,
    quite apart from the appropriations process.
        Senator Allard. Senator Nelson, I would like to have this
    hearing pretty well wrapped up by 11:30. I thought at this
    point in time we would exchange at 10-minute intervals, if that
    is okay with you.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Okay. I have a bunch of constituents
    waiting on me.
        Senator Allard. Okay.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you think I could finish a few more
    questions?
        Senator Allard. Go ahead, and then I will wrap up behind
    that. We will accommodate you on that.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Good.
        You have in your 2005 budget request the plans to spend
    $135 million to complete the phase 6.2/6.2A study on the RNEP.
    This is substantially more than was announced in fiscal year
    2003 for the RNEP. It is on your congressional budget. You
    spell out with specificity in the years ahead the cumulative
    percentage progress in completing the phase such-and-such
    activities of the RNEP. So in 2004, complete 17 percent of
    scheduled RNEP; 2005, complete 56 percent of RNEP; 2006,
    complete 100 percent of scheduled RNEP.
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. But, Senator, that is true.
    Let me try again. The number you are looking at for 2006
    includes some money to complete the study, the phase 6.2A
    study, and some other money to move into phase 6.3. That
    additional money could not be spent without a congressional
    declaration.
        So completing the phase 6.2A study will not cost $135
    million. It will cost more than the $45 million we told you
    last year. But it will not cost $135 million. If the budget
    document leads you to a different impression, then we did a bad
    job of drafting the budget document. I will correct it both for
    the record and for other committees.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, is it your conclusion
    that the nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe, secure, and
    reliable, and that there is no need to conduct an underground
    nuclear weapons test?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, that is my conclusion.
        Senator Bill Nelson. All right.
        Ambassador, does the NNSA have adequate funding in its 2005
    budget to allow it to meet the new security requirements
    arising from the new Design Basis Threat (DBT) at the end of
    2006?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir, it does. I believe that we may
    need additional 2004 money. I anticipate there will be a
    reprogramming request submitted to this and other committees in
    the relatively near future.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you think it makes sense maybe to
    have some of those improvements sooner.
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. For some of them, it is not
    just a question of making sense. You would like everything
    soon. But we put in place mitigating measures. Some of those
    mitigating measures are simply more expensive. Mitigation
    usually is a euphemism for putting more guards in places by
    increasing overtime.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you need any help from us with
    regard to transportation?
        Ambassador Brooks. I am in a slightly awkward position,
    because the administration has not completely finished the
    reprogramming request. If there were a reprogramming request
    about to come up, I would expect that there is a good chance
    that we would have a few million dollars for transportation in
    order to support emptying Hanford of plutonium on the schedule
    that the department would like to make.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral, there is a fellow named Dr.
    Younger that said we are taking a fundamentally new look, a
    clean sheet of paper look, at what to do when we need to defend
    the country from a strategic perspective. Do you agree with
    that?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. As I alluded to earlier, the
    concepts that now are part of the new STRATCOM broadened the
    concept of what is strategic in character. I believe that we
    need to understand and appreciate that much of what we do adds
    to the deterrent value of our Nation's security efforts,
    including ISR, the missile defense piece, and our advanced and
    overwhelming conventional capabilities, as they evolve.
        So there are many contributors to deterrence. I think that
    is an appropriate way to view it. Indeed, the fundamental
    purpose of the NPR was to broaden the number of options to
    enhance our deterrence and to raise the nuclear threshold.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you support conventional weapons,
    warheads, on deployed ICBMs?
        Admiral Ellis. I support consideration of that as part of a
    broader address, all of the advanced conventional capabilities,
    as I said earlier, because I think there are elements dealing
    with range and response times that are going to increasingly
    challenge us into the future. That, coupled with accuracy and
    effectiveness, some of those could be dealt with by a construct
    that you described, just as they could be dealt with by other
    concepts that are also under consideration.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, Dr. Younger was also saying he
    was not talking about 10-year development cycles. He was
    talking about 90 days. What do you think about his ideas of 90-
    day development cycles? What would be the effect on the ground
    in the United States if such 90-day time frame would be put on
    conventional warhead on a Minuteman II ICBM?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, not understanding the context in which
    Steve Younger made those remarks, I cannot approach it
    directly. If he was talking about the challenges we face with
    long development times and how long it takes us to take a
    concept from conception to delivery, then I certainly am
    empathetic with shortening those time lines.
        I do believe, as I addressed with the chairman, that there
    are near-term issues that can be addressed very quickly by
    employing modifications of existing systems and the like or
    there are then also longer term efforts that will have to play
    out as technologies and capabilities need to be reviewed and
    assessed. I think Steve Younger's view, I infer from those
    remarks, was that he could do it on the shorter end rather than
    the longer end. Whether 90 days or not is the right value, I
    could not say, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. There is some indication from Pratt
    Whitney that the replacement program may be delayed. Tell us
    about that.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. As they may have told you, they
    have had two incidents at their Pratt Whitney facility in San
    Jose with regard to propellant mixing in support of the
    Minuteman program and others that have forced them, in concert
    with the overarching corporate leadership, to consider other
    alternatives. They have now done that. They have shifted the
    location in which that propellant element for the first stage
    of the Minuteman is mixed to a new facility run by ATK in Utah.
        They have not recaptured schedule. They have lost time as a
    result of that. However, I have spoken personally with the
    corporate leadership, and they believe that by the end of the
    year, they will be back in production for the Propulsion
    Reliability Program (PRP), which is the final upgrade to the
    Minuteman III process to deal with some long-identified
    technical challenges.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Replacing W62 with W87, I understand
    that is being reconsidered.
        Admiral Ellis. That is news to me, sir.
        Ambassador Brooks. That is news to me, too, and it is very
    hard for me to believe that it would be reconsidered without
    one of us being involved in it.
        Admiral Ellis. The rationale for that was because of the
    modern capabilities that are associated with the W87. It made
    sense to do that as the Peacekeeper force was retiring, and
    that process is well underway. So it would seem to be a logical
    thing to do to employ the newer capabilities over the longer
    term by transferring it to the Minuteman system. But I will
    have to take that one for the record.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        During a Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing on March 25, 2004,
    Admiral Ellis provided Senator Nelson with more details. The exchange
    follows:

              Senator Bill Nelson. Yesterday, Admiral Ellis, we had talked
            in the full committee about the Minuteman III. The Nuclear
            Posture Review (NPR) and the Moscow Treaty achieved the bulk of
            the reductions in the deployed nuclear warheads by retiring the
            Peacekeeper and taking the Multiple Indepently-Targetable
            Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), de-MIRVing the Minuteman IIIs, so
            that each Minuteman III has one instead of multiple warheads.
              There was a recent press report that suggested that the
            decision to have one warhead on each of the 500 Minuteman IIIs
            was being reconsidered. Is there any truth to that press
            report?
              Admiral Ellis. I am aware of no reconsideration of that, sir,
            and I believe that the modernization program of which we spoke
            yesterday is still on track as you and I understand it.
              Senator Bill Nelson. Is there any plan to retain MIRVed
            Minuteman IIIs?
              Admiral Ellis. I am not aware of any program at all, sir, in
            that construct. Now, as with all posture and policy reviews,
            someone may have hypothesized as we look at alternative
            structures for the future and what combination of reduced
            vehicle numbers could allow us to do that. I can assure you
            that there is nothing in the program of record that alters the
            information that either you or I have been given about the way
            ahead for the program with regard to Minuteman III.

        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. But I am familiar with most
    thinking on future nuclear weapons. There may be somebody
    somewhere who is thinking it, because there are always people
    somewhere who are thinking everything. That is not under active
    consideration at any significant level in the DOD or DOE.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Ambassador, what is the impact on
    the repeal of the ban on R&D of new yield nuclear weapons? How
    does that impact on the U.S. nonproliferation goals?
        Ambassador Brooks. I believe it does not impact at all,
    sir. Congress asked us for a report which sets forth our
    rationale in some detail. I expect that report to be here
    within a few days. But let me walk through the basic
    conclusions.
        First of all, look at people who might wish to acquire
    nuclear capabilities. Start with the most benign ones, our
    friends and allies. Our friends and allies want to know that we
    are acting to maintain the reliability and security of our
    forces. So they are not threatened by this.
        Terrorists do not care what we do, because they have
    motivations of their own. There is no particular evidence that
    the rogue states are influenced one way or the other by whether
    we are thinking about any particular form of weapon. After all,
    over the last 10 years, we have cut forces. We have taken
    forces off alert. We have ended testing. It has not appeared to
    affect the Irans and the North Koreas of the world.
        So the remaining question is that large body of states that
    helped form the nonproliferation norm that is codified in the
    NPR. There, I believe, the repeal of the ban does not make any
    difference. What we choose to do with it makes a difference.
    If, as some in the press have claimed, we were seeking to
    develop low-yield weapons and blur the distinction between
    conventional and nuclear weapons, I think that would affect our
    nonproliferation goals. Since we are not planning to do any of
    those things, I do not think there is any impact on them, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Chairman, I have a couple more
    questions. I will submit them for the record, and we can get
    answers.
        I would just like the two of you all to give us some
    assurance. Our committee staff has been trying with no success
    for over a year to get a briefing on the end-to-end review,
    which was a joint DOD/DOE review. It has been completed for 2
    years. Will you all arrange a briefing for this subcommittee
    and our staff?
        Admiral Ellis. I will certainly convey that request to the
    DOD, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. To whom?
        Admiral Ellis. To the Secretary and the staff. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. All right. Will you report back
    directly to me?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Okay. On the answer?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. All right. Mr. Chairman, if we can
    submit it for the record, this is the chart on the national
    missile defense testing showing that, in 2003, the test planned
    after the decision to deploy. In 2003, you had a failed test.
    Then you had three tests that were canceled. In 2004, you had
    one test and three additional tests canceled.
        For the life of me, it is hard for me to understand, even
    as someone who would like to see a national missile defense
    system work, because that gives us certain strategic
    advantages. I do not know if you have that kind of testing
    schedule and then it is canceled, how you can say that it is
    ready to go operationally and put it in the field.
        You do not have to answer that.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        Admiral Ellis. No, sir. Well, I think I have given you the
    only answer that I can, that while that snapshot is certainly,
    I am sure, accurate for the 2-year slice, the broader continuum
    of evolutionary testing started before that and will continue
    beyond that at a pace that is as rapid as the technology and
    system supports. I am committed to that and I know Ron Kadish
    and the MDA are committed to that, and so are our other
    contractors and folks who are proceeding with the system.
        We do not want testing in advance of readiness for testing.
    I think that is the element that is reflected there.
        Senator Bill Nelson. If you were Ron Kadish and running
    that program, you would be satisfied in doing exactly what he
    is doing?
        Admiral Ellis. I would be satisfied that he is pursuing
    this as aggressively as it can possibly be done given the level
    of technology and the time line that we are on. Yes, sir.
        Senator Allard. Senator Nelson, I have a couple questions I
    would like to ask in response to that. Maybe you want to be
    here while I ask those questions. But, we have no defense.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I would accept your gracious
    opportunity, but I have these people out there waiting on me.
        Senator Allard. Very good. Well, we will go ahead.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you so much.
        Senator Allard. We have no defenses against long-range
    ballistic missile development today. I have a series of short
    questions in regard to that. We had a whole hearing in the full
    committee on missile defense. I hate to tromp over the same
    issues again. But just for this record and this subcommittee,
    do you support the use of the missile defense test bed to
    provide limited operational capability? Yes or no?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir.
        Senator Allard. Does such a capability contribute to
    deterrence? Yes or no?
        Admiral Ellis. Absolutely.
        Senator Allard. Does such a capability provide a useful
    strategic option?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, it does.
        Senator Allard. Does such a capability raise the nuclear
    threshold?
        Admiral Ellis. It certainly does.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        I want to clarify for the record the funding issue that we
    talked about, Ambassador Brooks. I want this to be clear. Has
    the NNSA decided to proceed to phase 6.3 engineering
    development of the RNEP?
        Ambassador Brooks. No, sir.
        Senator Allard. Thank you for your question.
        I want to go back to the nuclear weapons stockpile and just
    ask a few questions in regard to that for both you, Admiral
    Ellis and Ambassador Brooks. Following the NPR, which
    envisioned reducing our nuclear weapons stockpile from around
    6,000 nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200
    operationally-deployed nuclear weapons, the Appropriations
    Committee has included language in their bill requiring the
    nuclear stockpile to be included with the fiscal year 2005
    budget request.
        To date, the plan has not been delivered. When do you
    anticipate the plan will be delivered?
        Ambassador Brooks. I think the Secretary of Defense
    testified that it would be delivered ``in the spring.'' It is
    being worked at the highest levels. On the other hand, there is
    probably nothing more important than getting this right. It has
    taken us longer to get it right than we anticipated, and we
    regret the delay. I am very reluctant to give you a specific
    date that I cannot deliver on.
        Senator Allard. There are a number of people reviewing it,
    a number of offices reviewing it, I understand.
        Ambassador Brooks. Well, yes, sir. But more importantly,
    the importance of this will require personal involvement by
    both my cabinet officer and the Secretary of Defense, and
    ultimately by the President.
        Senator Allard. I understand it is over at the DOD now.
    They are reviewing it.
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. It is being worked actively.
        Senator Allard. Okay. Funding for the nuclear weapons
    initiatives were reduced by the House Energy and Water
    Appropriations Subcommittee until the nuclear stockpile plan is
    received. That subcommittee asserted that NNSA should not be
    moving forward with initiatives when they do not know the size
    and character of the stockpile. Is that a proper
    characterization?
        Ambassador Brooks. That is certainly a proper
    characterization of what the committee did.
        Senator Allard. Well, what about their allegation? Is that
    a proper characterization?
        Ambassador Brooks. What the committee did was two things.
    They fenced off certain parts of the advanced concepts money
    until we had presented this plan. They suggested it would be
    inappropriate to make any further decisions on the MPF,
    including a selection of the site for it, until the plan had
    been submitted.
        That is part of the normal process of congressional
    oversight. With regard to the MPF, the committee also reduced
    the funding. With that reduced funding, we are focusing on
    design aspects that will be required wherever the site
    selection leads us.
        I do not believe that that step alone is hampering the
    program. Naturally, I would prefer to have those restrictions
    off. I would prefer to have the plan the committee wanted up
    here, too.
        Senator Allard. Let me ask this next question then. Can the
    NNSA and DOD do research and conduct activities on the nuclear
    weapons initiatives without a complete nuclear weapons
    stockpile plan?
        Ambassador Brooks. We are allowed to use $2 million of the
    $6 million that was provided without the stockpile plan. The
    remaining $4 million has to wait until 90 days after the
    stockpile plan has been submitted.
        Senator Allard. You are kind of focusing on the restriction
    there.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. The fact of the matter is we
    certainly have a number of initiatives that can proceed
    comfortably without a precise definition of stockpile character
    at decades--so that is a fair statement. We do not need that in
    that level of detail or specificity in order to continue to
    advance the issues in which we have a shared interest.
        Ambassador Brooks. I will follow up.
        Senator Allard. Do you want to amend your statement here a
    little bit?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. [Laughter.]
        Senator Allard. We will strike that. [Laughter.]
        Ambassador Brooks. The kind of thinking that we do under
    the Advanced Concepts Initiative is not directly related to the
    specific future size of the stockpile. So there is no direct
    need in order to do that thinking for us to settle on a future
    stockpile plan. There are simply different parts of the
    intellectual spectrum.
        Senator Allard. What activities are appropriate for NNSA to
    proceed with, based on current assumptions of the nuclear
    weapons stockpile plan?
        Ambassador Brooks. I believe that it is appropriate for us
    to continue Advanced Concepts Initiatives because we need to
    both maintain a robust intellectual capability at our design
    labs and also make sure that as we get to a smaller stockpile
    we are not passing up any opportunities to improve safety and
    security and reliability.
        Senator Allard. Ambassador, I would think world events
    would have some impact on your plan, as we see a change in the
    global landscape and the defense capabilities improve.
        Ambassador Brooks. That is certainly true. The most obvious
    example is one we have already discussed, the RNEP. We see, as
    we have submitted to Congress, a change in the global landscape
    in that more and more countries, some of whom we may need to
    deter, are using the option of hardening and deeply burying
    targets. So that makes it appropriate for us to think about how
    the Nation responds to it both in a non-nuclear sense, as
    Admiral Ellis described, and in a nuclear sense.
        We also believe it is important for us to continue with the
    so-called responsive infrastructure. Because as the world
    changes, it may be necessary to alter what we have deployed.
    One way to do that is to be able to respond not from fully
    operational weapons in warehouses, but from an infrastructure
    capability.
        We think it is important to continue all of the efforts at
    life extension and stockpile stewardship, because, once again,
    with a smaller force and no prospect of significant new
    weapons, we have to extend the life of current weapons. We have
    to make sure that they are effective and reliable. That is the
    reason Congress has been, and we are grateful for it,
    supportive of our stockpile stewardship efforts.
        Senator Allard. By having an operating MPF, an active
    Advanced Concept research program, and enhanced test readiness
    and revitalized infrastructure, will not the United States be
    able to reduce the quantities of nuclear weapons even further
    in a future nuclear weapons stockpile plan?
        Ambassador Brooks. Absolutely, sir.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        The Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program was
    designed to use scientific tools and technology to maintain a
    reliable, safe, and secure nuclear weapons stockpile without
    the need for underground nuclear tests. Can you please provide
    an update on how the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship
    Program is proceeding?
        Ambassador Brooks. It is proceeding well. The program
    includes a large number of components. We are working on each
    of them.
        Senator Allard. What is the biggest challenge?
        Ambassador Brooks. I think the biggest challenge is to make
    sure that we find ways to gather data about conditions that do
    not exist in nature on Earth except in a nuclear explosion. So,
    for example, we will start stockpile stewardship experiments at
    the National Emission Facility later this year. We are moving
    forward to use that facility more and more over the coming
    decades to gather data that cannot be gathered any other way.
        We are continuing a program of so-called subcritical
    experiments. We are working to overcome some of the problems
    with the dual axis radiography facility at Los Alamos so that
    we can gather data on the phenomenon of implosions. It is
    probably a mistake to look at a single silver bullet. The idea
    is to have a robust array of tools, which in the aggregate will
    provide a good scientific, theoretical scientific basis for
    what has historically been something between an empirical
    science and an art.
        Senator Allard. To what extent can the Science-Based
    Stockpile Stewardship Program help to certify reliability,
    safety, and security of our nuclear stockpile?
        Ambassador Brooks. Well, we believe it is crucial to that
    certification. We see no reason at the moment to foresee a time
    when we would not be able to conduct that certification. But
    the enhanced test readiness is necessary as a hedge if we ever
    find that we cannot certify without an actual experiment
    involving nuclear yield.
        Senator Allard. For how long do you estimate we can
    continue to certify the nuclear stockpile as reliable, safe,
    and secure without the need to conduct a full-scale underground
    nuclear test?
        Ambassador Brooks. I do not think there is a responsible
    answer to that. I cannot see a time when we will not be. But we
    look at this in a very formal, very rigorous way. Each year,
    the laboratory directors look at it. Admiral Ellis looks at it
    separately. What we can tell you for sure is we do not need it
    today. What we can tell you is we do not see any reason to
    believe we will need it tomorrow. But this is something you
    have to look at continuously because of the complexity of the
    phenomenon involved.
        Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, how important are the
    nuclear weapons initiatives, including RNEP, the MPF, and
    enhanced test readdress program to you?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, as I addressed in my opening remarks,
    Mr. Chairman, as you fully understand, we partner with NNSA
    through each of these elements. While some of them are more
    directly linked to satisfying our military needs--and RNEP's
    consideration as one of several alternatives to deal with hard
    and deeply buried targets is an example of that--it is also
    fair to say that the ability to understand and to ensure the
    safety and security of the stockpile in the future is
    absolutely an essential element to deterrence in and of itself.
        In other words, we have to have confidence in this
    stockpile in order to assure that potential adversaries might
    have the same kind of confidence and to enable the deterrent
    character that is the primary focus of the stockpile. So
    clearly, Ambassador Brooks' success and the success of the
    great team that he leads is an essential part of our shared
    collective national success in establishing a credible arsenal,
    be it of smaller size and more modern focus to better meet the
    national security challenges that confront us.
        Senator Allard. Admiral, I would like to follow up on the
    command and control. Strategic command and control in the not
    so recent past was oriented toward the need to communicate in
    very stressful conditions orders related to planned nuclear
    strike options for nuclear weapons delivery platforms. The
    broader range of missions and weapons and platforms for which
    your command now has considerable responsibilities within the
    new triad clearly requires more flexible command and control.
    Would you assess the progress being made in achieving this
    flexibility? What command and control capabilities will you
    need in the future?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. I would be delighted. In fact, as
    you are well aware, sir, some of this almost actually bleeds
    over into tomorrow's hearing, because many of these are spaced-
    based capabilities and the like, as we deal with specific
    satellite communications capabilities and the like. But in a
    broader sense, it is clear that effective command and control
    will remain an essential element of not just oversight of the
    nuclear capabilities, the deterrent capabilities that we have
    had for years, but more and more the oversight and employment
    of the global or the newer definition of strategic capabilities
    that we face for the future.
        Our challenge now is to make sure that we are in concert
    with the guidance out of the OSD. John Stenbit articulated a
    lot about the Global Information Grid (GIG) and the
    standardization of the architecture and the formats that are
    necessary for us to be a part of that.
        We are working at our level to establish a national command
    and control capability that better serves the needs of the
    Nation's combatant commanders down to the theater commander
    level. We are partnering with Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), who
    has the responsibility for effective command and control at the
    theater level and below. The intent is to provide a seamless
    GIG command and control capability for all of our forces.
        The elements that are important to me are in our command
    and control information system that we are modernizing. How do
    we integrate that with the BMD capabilities and their command
    and control battle management system and the like? So we bring
    those together in an effective way, make them part of that
    larger architecture that Mr. Stenbit used to describe. They
    collectively serve the national command and control needs
    rather than the classic version of nuclear command and control.
    It is now in reality a national command and control system. We
    are very much actively involved in supporting all of those
    efforts.
        Senator Allard. Now I understand that the Air Force has
    stood up a long-range strike office to develop an AOA for the
    Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and another office
    to look at the future bombers. How are you in your command
    involved in these efforts?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, as I mentioned in the earlier
    question, sir, we are very actively involved in that. The JROC
    is using a new process to validate requirements. It is called
    the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System
    (JCIDS). It still smells like a rose, but it is the JCIDS.
        Senator Allard. It is hard to keep up with all these new
    acronyms.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, it is, even for those of us in
    uniform. The process is designed to be more responsive. In some
    cases, we are specifically tasked to identify those
    requirements for capabilities that are ours, such as long-range
    Global Strike, for example. My command is responsible for
    delivering by the end of this year a statement of the
    requirements for that.
        At the action level, in reality, my Air Force staff is very
    much involved with the Air Force as they begin to explore these
    concepts. We participate in many of their armament summits and
    things of this nature. We understand the value of that
    expertise and access it wherever we find it. We do not believe
    that perfect knowledge or insight resides solely in STRATCOM.
    We need to go where others are aggressively trying to work
    these problems in support of us. So we are very much involved,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. I just wanted to give Ambassador Brooks a
    little bit of a break here, Admiral Ellis.
        Admiral Ellis. That is fine.
        Senator Allard. So I will give him a little bit of a break,
    and then get back to him. Ambassador, we were talking about
    this Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program. The National
    Ignition Facility (NIF) is a key facility in the Science-Based
    Stockpile Stewardship Program. When fully constructed, it will
    allow weapons scientists to aim 192 lasers at a BB-sized target
    simulating the temperatures and conditions of a nuclear
    explosion but at a much smaller scale.
        Can you report to us on the progress of the NIF?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir. We are generally pleased with
    the progress. Several years ago, there were management issues
    there. But in recent years, the NIF has been consistently
    meeting milestones ahead of schedule. It is today the most
    powerful laser in the world with only 4 of those 192 beams
    operating. We will begin Stockpile Stewardship experiments on
    it later this year.
        We had thought that we might need to delay the actual
    ignition in the NIF from 2010 to 2014. But a recent analysis
    that Dr. Beckner has conducted has allowed to recover the 2010
    date for ignition. While ignition is important, and it is
    important to Stockpile Stewardship, the experiments we conduct
    between now and 2010 will also be important.
        So I believe this facility is a clear example of a success.
    It is the largest single stockpile stewardship project we have,
    though and so it requires fairly constant supervision. But
    right now, they are doing a remarkable job. I mean, 3 million
    workdays without a loss.
        Senator Allard. Well, that is good news. You are under
    budget and ahead of schedule. We always like to hear that on
    this side of the table. You say that it is extremely important
    to the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program, correct?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir.
        Senator Allard. The MPF would provide the United States the
    capability to manufacture plutonium pits for our nuclear
    weapons stockpile. The United States is the only nuclear nation
    without this capability. If the pit of a nuclear warhead-type
    failed, either due to a design flaw or an aging defect, what
    would happen to that class of weapons if we do not have an MPF?
        Ambassador Brooks. Well, it depends very much on the nature
    of the failure. It could be something that would not meet its
    military characteristics. It could, I guess, conceptually be
    something that would no longer have any utility. What we know--
    and it is important to distinguish between what we know and
    what we do not--is that plutonium is a very difficult metal to
    fully understand with its multiple phases.
        We know that it ages due to radioactive decay, which
    changes the nature of the metallurgy. We know that when you
    attempt to initiate a nuclear explosion, getting things exactly
    right--I am being a little fuzzy because of classification--is
    important.
        What we do not know is how long plutonium can age before
    the problems become significant enough so that it effects
    military characteristics. Our analysis suggests a time before
    45 and 60 years. So we need to be able to establish a
    capability to remanufacture all the pits we are going to
    exchange before they get to that time frame.
        The only capability we have now is an interim capability
    thus far focused only on a single warhead, the W88 at Los
    Alamos. Los Alamos will manufacture the first actual Stockpile
    War Reserve W88 in 2007. We have learned, I think the director
    of Los Alamos started to say, about 43 separate technical
    processes that had to be carefully qualified. Some of these are
    a little bit of an art. Some of them are more of an engineering
    science.
        So we march forward with understanding how we will need to
    design an MPF. We assume that there is some risk in any
    significant delay to the current design of the MPF. Some would
    argue, the Foster Panel you mentioned earlier, that we are
    accepting unacceptable risk by not having it in operation until
    the next of the next decade. We are comfortable with the
    schedule that we have set forth. We would not be comfortable
    with a significant delay.
        Senator Allard. One of the issues that has always been
    important to me is security.
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, sir.
        Senator Allard. My colleague, Senator Nelson, had a
    security question for Admiral Ellis. I now have a security
    question for you, Ambassador. After the September 11 attacks,
    the Secretary of Energy increased the security requirements for
    facilities across the nuclear weapons complex. The security
    requirements for the DOE are known as a DBT. Are you confident
    the facilities across the nuclear weapons complex will be able
    to meet the security requirements of the new DBT by the target
    date of 2006?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes, I am. Equally important, I am
    confident that nuclear materials are not at risk right now.
        Senator Allard. Very good. Thank you.
        Admiral Ellis. If I might add to that, sir?
        Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis.
        Admiral Ellis. When I answered very quickly Senator
    Nelson's question prior to his departure, I did not want to
    infer that we, too, are not continuing to review and upgrade
    the security associated with our end of the nuclear stockpile
    storage. That is, of course, at the launch facilities, in terms
    of the ICBM, the ports where the SSBNs deploy from, and our own
    capabilities at the bomber bases and weapons storage sites.
        So we, too, have adopted a new DBT. We are continuing to
    upgrade what is reflective of the new security environment. It
    is not fair to say that everything has been done that needs to
    be done. But it is fair to say that we have had a very
    aggressive scrub of this, a great deal additionally has been
    done by the Services, and a clear roadmap and way ahead has
    been identified. We will continue to enhance our capability to
    deal with an increasingly robust postulated threat in the years
    ahead.
        So we, too, are focused on that. We are not sitting on our
    laurels here. We understand there is work that needs to be
    done, and we are pursuing that.
        Senator Allard. Well, thank you. I have one question, and
    then we will draw this hearing to a close.
        Admiral Ellis, every year this committee asks the Services
    for their unfunded priorities lists. As you review programs
    that meet STRATCOM priorities, can you identify any particular
    acquisition efforts that you believe have not been adequately
    resources?
        Admiral Ellis. We have to be very careful, understanding
    the balance that inevitably is a part of the process, both here
    with the committee and the Hill, but also within the DOD. I
    highlighted some issues earlier about the advanced conventional
    capabilities and the things that are an important part of
    understanding this new triad, that sometimes I think we use
    that phrase a bit too glibly. We do not fully articulate what
    the elements of that are.
        In addition to the classic nuclear piece were, of course,
    the advanced conventional capabilities that need to mature and
    fairly rapidly in order to supplement and complement and enable
    that draw-down that you discussed. The infrastructure piece
    that Ambassador Brooks is responsible for, the missile defense
    capability, as the defensive element, for the first time the
    Nation will now have a defensive element to its deterrent
    posture that we have not had before. Then there is the very
    insightful question that you asked me, about the command and
    control capabilities to knit all that together as an effective
    whole.
        If I had some areas in which I would like to focus, it
    would be on those elements of the new triad, to ensure that we
    do not just focus on one corner of that, because it has to grow
    as an entity, not as an individual element. So while there is
    attention being paid to it, we need to continue to refine the
    balance of those elements of that new triad in order to
    continue to enhance the Nation's deterrent capabilities for, as
    I said, a much different future.
        Senator Allard. Okay. I want to thank you both for showing
    up to testify before the subcommittee. We do have some other
    questions we will submit to you that we did not have time to
    cover this morning. But if you could respond to those promptly
    and get those responses back to this committee within a short
    period of time, we would certainly appreciate it.
        Again, thank you for your dedication and for the great job
    you are doing. With that, we will call the subcommittee to a
    close.
        [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

                  Questions Submitted by Senator Wayne Allard

                       LEGACY COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEMS

        1. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, what is the status of legacy
    command and control (C\2\) systems? Will these systems be sustained and
    serve as the technical basis for secure nuclear command in the future,
    or will they be replaced as part of the more general effort to upgrade
    C\2\ capabilities?
        Admiral Ellis. I respectfully defer to Ambassador Brooks on
    specifics related to the National Nuclear Security Agency's (NNSA)
    fiscal year 2005 budget request.
        Over the last few years, knowing that Net Centric operations were
    on the horizon, we have and continue to move forward to modernize our
    C\2\ systems to better support IT-based hardware and software. United
    States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) just completed one of the most
    modern and secure facilities called the Situation Room, which takes
    complete advantage of state-of-the-art technology and provides our
    senior decision makers the capability to communicate and collaborate
    with supporting forces, other combatant commanders and national
    leadership while maintaining global situational awareness. We are now
    in the process of doing a full upgrade and modernization of our fixed
    command center to bring this facility on par with the Situation Room.

                           LONG-RANGE STRIKE SYSTEMS

        2. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, when the Services talk about
    long-range strike or Global Strike, they often tend to talk in terms of
    theater systems such as tactical aircraft. What methodologies do you
    use to compare requirements for long-range strike systems in
    combination with requirements for theater systems?
        Admiral Ellis. Two years ago, while we were first developing Global
    Strike as it appears in Unified Command Plan (UCP) 02, Change 2, the
    Air Force was also developing a concept for prompt Global Strike.
    Admittedly, this coincidental use of similar terms has created some
    confusion. STRATCOM's UCP-defined Global Strike mission is a joint,
    integrated mission combining kinetic and nonkinetic means to achieve
    rapidly planned/rapidly approved/rapidly executed, long-range,
    strategic effects. STRATCOM's prompt Global Strike processes are built
    around rapid collaborative planning and senior-level approval.
    Therefore, the product of a prompt Global Strike planning effort could
    be the approval of a theater-based strike package or a long-range
    strike package, both of which could be called ``Global Strikes.'' The
    Air Force's prompt Global Strike capabilities can provide an element of
    the joint mission assigned to STRATCOM. The Air Force's prompt Global
    Strike capabilities, however, also support geographic combatant
    commander's requirements.
        STRATCOM will consider all Service capabilities (Air Force and
    others) that meet our basic requirements of: long-range, speed of
    response, precision and lethality. STRATCOM is developing a Global
    Operations Center that will look across all blue forces available
    during crisis planning in order to develop the most effective Global
    Strike courses of action (COAs). To the extent of their availability,
    theater forces (such as tactical aircraft) will be considered during
    COA development.

                               NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

        3. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, STRATCOM has absorbed several new
    missions in addition to its traditional mission of nuclear deterrence.
    These include missile defense coordination; coordinating, planning, and
    conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR)
    missions; information operation; and Global Strike. In addition,
    STRATCOM and Space Command were merged into the new Strategic Command.
    How is your command dealing with the huge workload of absorbing this
    new mission and what challenges in this process have you found most
    difficult to overcome?
        Admiral Ellis. The President established STRATCOM to provide a
    practical means to implement and integrate a new triad of global
    response capabilities. We have the responsibility for Global Strike--
    both kinetic and non-kinetic--and for integrating missile defenses with
    a broad-spectrum of flexible offensive and support capabilities. There
    is a synergy in integrating these facets into one command and we are
    proceeding well down the road on gaining full operational capabilities
    for each newly assigned mission. We are addressing opportunities to
    gain capabilities in space system technology and advanced conventional
    strike.

                                  BOMBER FLEET

        4. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, from your perspective as STRATCOM
    commander, is the bomber fleet properly sized and would you recommend
    any changes to the current structure of the bomber fleet?
        Admiral Ellis. The adequacy of the overall bomber fleet size and
    composition must be examined from the global perspective of the Air
    Force; but from a STRATCOM perspective, the current bomber fleet size
    is adequate to meet the needs of the operational plans they support.

        5. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, what are the most important
    upgrades to current generation bombers and are these initiatives
    adequately supported?
        Admiral Ellis. We are carefully monitoring the progress of two
    critical bomber upgrade programs: Advanced Extremely High Frequency
    (AEHF) terminal integration for the B-2 is key to gaining the
    capability of survivable, robust, and secure two-way satellite
    communications in a stressed environment.
        Additionally, the International Civil Aviation Organization will no
    longer grant waivers to very high frequency (VHF)-equipped aircraft
    that are unable to receive and transmit in 8.33 khz increments. B-52s
    will gain that important capability from the Global Air Traffic
    Management Program. Without it, they will not be able to operate out of
    European airfields, if the need arises.

                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE PLAN

        6. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, during the
    hearing, there may have been some confusion about a line of questions
    on the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan (NWSP). Please provide for the
    record your view on why, even without a final NWSP, the NNSA should
    proceed in fiscal year 2005 with the following four nuclear weapons
    initiatives: the Advanced Concepts Initiative; the feasibility study on
    the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP); the design and
    environmental assessment work on the Modern Pit Facility (MPF); and
    enhanced test readiness. How would you respond to critics who claim you
    should not do any work on these four initiatives without a final NWSP?
        Ambassador Brooks. These four initiatives, in large part, are
    independent of the details of the revised 2012 NWSP. That plan will
    determine the number of warheads and warhead types from the legacy,
    Cold War stockpile that we will need to maintain between now and 2012.
    The Advanced Concepts Initiative and the RNEP Phase 6.2 study address
    options to transform that stockpile in the years beyond 2012; nothing
    in the revised stockpile plan would obviate the need for these two
    efforts. Moreover, so long as our Nation requires safe and reliable
    nuclear forces for its security, a test readiness program is a prudent
    hedge against a failure of a warhead critical to our deterrent that
    cannot be resolved without nuclear testing--this need is independent of
    the revised stockpile plan. Finally, irrespective of the size of the
    nuclear stockpile, and even if we never deploy another new warhead, we
    will still need an MPF to produce replacement pits for warheads whose
    pits will have aged out. The size and capacity of that facility will,
    of course, depend on the size and composition of the nuclear stockpile
    as well as on pit lifetime. In view of these uncertainties, MPF
    planning underway is exploring options at the low end of the range of
    plausible plant production capacities--if are planning assumptions are
    wrong there is plenty of time before construction begins to adjust
    plant capacity accordingly.
        Admiral Ellis. The four initiatives you cite are independent of
    each other and the NWSP. The NWSP is focused on numbers and types of
    weapons. Neither the RNEP study nor any Advanced Concepts would be
    reflected in the plan until and unless approved for development and
    production. The design and environmental assessment for the MPF do not
    require the details of the NWSP during these initial stages, and
    enhanced test readiness is an infrastructure issue and not sensitive to
    the size of the stockpile.

        7. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, would
    active programs in these four initiatives help the Department of
    Defense (DOD) to complete the NWSP and could active programs in these
    four initiatives help to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the
    operationally-deployed and response force?
        Ambassador Brooks. Certain of these initiatives could indeed help
    to reduce the number of nuclear weapons that are in the operationally-
    deployed or responsive forces. For example, our current plan is to
    maintain some additional warheads in the nuclear stockpile as
    reliability replacements for warheads that experience age-related
    problems that could call into question their safety or reliability.
    Planning for an MPF is a critical step in restoring our production
    infrastructure. An ability for timely production of replacement
    warheads to address technical problems that arise would mean that we
    would not need to maintain as many warheads in the overall stockpile.
        Admiral Ellis. None of these initiatives have any bearing on
    reducing the number of weapons in the stockpile in the near term.
    However, in the long term, once a responsive infrastructure is
    implemented (for example, the MPF), it could possibly support deeper
    stockpile reductions.

        8. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, considering
    continuing advances in defense technologies and intelligence
    capabilities, constantly changing geopolitical balances, and other
    factors discussed in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), is the NWSP ever
    truly completed?
        Ambassador Brooks. No, it is not truly ever completed. We typically
    update the NWSP annually.
        Admiral Ellis. Through the annual review process mandated by the
    President, the NWSP is designed to be a living document. It generally
    articulates policy guidance, details a snapshot in time in the life of
    the stockpile, and outlines the vision and goals for the foreseeable
    future.

        9. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, in general,
    please indicate the level of complexities required to complete the
    NWSP.
        Ambassador Brooks. The stockpile plan is an interagency effort and
    is prepared jointly by the DOD and the Department of Energy (DOE). Once
    both Secretaries concur on the document it is sent to the White House
    for approval by the President. Because these are typically complex
    issues and critical to our Nation's security, understanding their full
    implications and then reaching agreement on specific options is a
    lengthy and time-consuming process.
        Admiral Ellis. The DOD and NNSA analysts spend thousands of man-
    hours examining stockpile alternatives. Analysts examine potential
    changes in the strategic environment (a new threat or reliability
    concern) and the ability to react to a changed environment via weapons
    retained in the stockpile and a more responsive infrastructure.

        10. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, does the
    NNSA have enough information about what will be included in the NWSP to
    prudently proceed with the four initiatives?
        Ambassador Brooks. Yes. These four initiatives in large part are
    independent of the details of the size and composition of the nuclear
    weapons stockpile. Even if we never deploy another new warhead, we will
    still need an MPF to produce replacement pits for warheads whose pits
    have reached the end of their service lives. The size and capacity of
    that facility will, of course, depend on the size and composition of
    the nuclear stockpile as well as on pit lifetime. MPF planning underway
    is exploring options at the low end of the range of plausible plant
    production capacities. If we are wrong in our planning assumptions,
    there is plenty of time before construction begins to adjust plant
    capacity accordingly.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes.

        11. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, would
    reasonably anticipated modifications to the NWSP cause any changes to
    the research or other activities planned for the four initiatives in
    fiscal year 2005?
        Ambassador Brooks. No. There are no research or other activities
    planned to be underway on these four initiatives in fiscal year 2005
    that would need to be changed based on anticipated modifications to the
    revised 2012 NWSP. These initiatives will ensure that we can sustain
    and, in the case of planning for an MPF, restore our nuclear weapons
    capabilities in the period well beyond 2012.
        Admiral Ellis. No, none.

                            PRICE-ANDERSON AUTHORITY

        12. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks, Price-Anderson authority is
    the indemnification protection for DOE contractors who work on nuclear
    matter and it expires at the end of this calendar year. What would the
    impact be on the DOE if the Price-Anderson indemnification authority is
    not extended beyond its expiration at the end of this calendar year?
        Ambassador Brooks. NNSA utilizes the Price-Anderson authority to
    indemnify its contractors against public liability arising from a
    nuclear incident. If the authority to indemnify is not extended NNSA
    will utilize the authority fund in Public Law 85-804 to provide its
    contractors protection as nearly approximate to Price-Anderson as
    possible. This was done in the late 1980s when Price-Anderson authority
    had expired. Because Public Law 85-804 authority is not specifically
    tailored to address the risks associated with Atomic Energy Act work,
    its protections under the best of circumstances is not as good as
    Price-Anderson and may leave the public with less protection in the
    event of a nuclear incident.
        NNSA will conduct at least two significant procurement actions,
    beginning in 2004, with award expected in 2005: the management and
    operating contracts for Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Nevada
    Test Site. If the Price-Anderson indemnity is not available there may
    be a chilling effect on competition. At least one firm has informed
    NNSA that it would not propose in the absence of Price-Anderson
    authority.

        13. Senator Allard. Ambassador Brooks, are there any contracts
    which you anticipate will be signed in fiscal year 2005 which would be
    impacted by the expiration of Price-Anderson authority?
        Ambassador Brooks. As noted in the response to Question 12, NNSA
    expects to sign management and operating contracts for Los Alamos
    National Laboratory and the Nevada Test Site in 2005. In addition, the
    management and operating contracts for the Kansas City Plant, the Y-12
    Plant and the Pantex Plant expire in 2005; each of these contracts has
    an option to extend the period of performance for 5 years.
                                     ______

                   Questions Submitted by Senator Bill Nelson

                                  B-1 BOMBERS

        14. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, the Air Force has
    apparently decided to return to service 7 of the 23 B-1 bombers that
    were slated for retirement. General Moseley has indicated that an
    additional 10 of the 23 may be available to bring back to service. Of
    those 10, apparently 5 are in fairly good condition such that they
    would be easier to recover. The remaining six are apparently too far in
    the retirement process to be brought back. Recognizing that the B-1 is
    no longer nuclear capable, but given your expanded responsibilities for
    Global Strike, would you support bringing back more than seven bombers,
    if it were feasible?
        Admiral Ellis. As one of many users of the B-1, STRATCOM is not in
    a position to evaluate the overall needs of the Air Force for this
    important system. However, from a STRATCOM perspective, the current
    fleet is adequate to meet our needs.

                              B-2 AND B-52 BOMBERS

        15. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, during Operation Iraqi
    Freedom the B-2s and B-52s flew 5 percent of the sorties but dropped 65
    percent of the ordnance. Are you satisfied that the programs to
    maintain and upgrade the capabilities of the B-2 and B-52 are
    adequately funded and on track?
        Admiral Ellis. We are carefully monitoring the progress of two
    critical bomber upgrade programs:
        AEHF terminal integration for the B-2 is key to gaining the
    capability of survivable, robust, and secure two-way satellite
    communications in a stressed environment.
        Additionally, the International Civil Aviation Organization will no
    longer grant waivers to VHF-equipped aircraft that are unable to
    receive and transmit in 8.33 khz increments. B-52s will gain that
    important capability from the Global Air Traffic Management Program.
    Without it, they will not be able to operate out of European airfields,
    if the need arises.

        16. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, only 76 of the 93 aircraft
    in the B-52 fleet are being upgraded and modernized. In your view
    should the entire fleet, including the attrition reserve aircraft, be
    upgraded and modernized?
        Admiral Ellis. The Air Force has conducted studies over the past
    several years to determine the right mix of bombers to fund, and I am
    satisfied with their evaluation.

               NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING AND STOCKPILE RELIABILITY

        17. Senator Bill Nelson. Ambassador Brooks, the DOE will, according
    to its plan, complete the process to achieve a 24-month test readiness
    by early fiscal year 2005 and then complete the process to achieve an
    18-month test readiness by the end of fiscal year 2005. This is 1 year
    earlier than the direction contained in the National Defense
    Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2004. Why is DOE moving so
    quickly to achieve the 18-month test readiness posture?
        Ambassador Brooks. The Department's actions are consistent with
    congressional direction. Section 3113 of the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2004
    requires that the Secretary of Energy, not later than October 1, 2006,
    achieve a readiness to conduct an underground nuclear test within 18
    months. Our fiscal year 2005 request was to enable us to meet this
    congressional requirement. However, funding cuts and delays from
    continuing resolutions have caused a slip in the timeframe somewhat, to
    about the second quarter of fiscal year 2006.
        As the President has made clear, we have no intention of resuming
    testing; our plans to improve test readiness are a prudent hedge
    against the possibility of a problem arising in the stockpile that
    cannot be confirmed, or a fix certified, without a nuclear test.

        18. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, does this rush to achieve
    an 18-month test readiness test posture signify that the DOE wants to
    resume nuclear weapons testing to support the development of a new
    nuclear weapon or to test an advanced nuclear weapons concept?
        Admiral Ellis. The DOD currently has no requirement to develop a
    new nuclear weapon or to test an advanced nuclear weapon concept in an
    underground testing environment.

                       ADVANCED NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONCEPTS

        19. Senator Bill Nelson. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, on
    March 17, 2004, the DOE submitted a report on its plans for $2 million
    of $6 million appropriated for fiscal year 2004 for advanced nuclear
    weapons concepts. In discussing the reason that the administration
    requested the repeal of the ban on low-yield weapons research and
    development the report states: ``A revitalized nuclear weapons advanced
    concepts effort is a core element of NNSA's ability to respond, in a
    timely manner, to DOD's nuclear weapons needs.'' What are the needs of
    the DOD to which the DOE is responding that could only be addressed
    with repeal of the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons research?
        Ambassador Brooks. Repeal of the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons
    research was not undertaken in order to meet a specific DOD requirement
    for a new, low-yield warhead. Rather, we sought repeal to ensure that
    we had the freedom to explore the full range of advanced nuclear
    warhead concepts without the chilling effect on scientific inquiry that
    the law represented.
        Admiral Ellis. There is great value in investigating a deterrent
    strategy that is global in nature and includes the most effective mix
    of capabilities available, including nuclear, advanced conventional,
    nonkinetic, and Special Operation Forces. The DOD is interested in
    conducting rigorous studies of all new technologies, and examining the
    merits of precision, increased penetration, and reduced yields for our
    nuclear weapons that will provide a broad-spectrum of capabilities that
    may prove effective against new or emerging threats, such as select
    hard and deeply buried targets.

                      REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW NUCLEAR WEAPONS

        20. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, what is the process by
    which a military requirement for a new nuclear weapon would be
    developed and what is the process by which a military requirement would
    be developed for a modification of an existing nuclear weapon to meet a
    new military purpose? At what stage in the 6.X process would such a
    requirement be developed?
        Admiral Ellis. The process for developing and processing
    requirements for a new nuclear weapon is administered by the Nuclear
    Weapons Council and follows the life-cycle known as Phase 1 through
    Phase 7. The key document that captures the DOD requirement for the
    weapon is the Military Characteristics (MC) for the weapon. Each weapon
    in the stockpile has an MC document.
        When establishing a military requirement that could result in a
    modification to an existing weapon to meet new military mission needs,
    one would follow what is referred to as the 6.X process, overseen by
    the Nuclear Weapons Council. The 6.X process consists of the following
    phases: Concept Assessment, 6.1; Feasibility Study and Option Down
    Select, 6.2; Design Definition and Cost Study, 6.2A; Development
    Engineering, 6.3; Production Engineering, 6.4; First Production, 6.5;
    and Full-Scale Production, 6.6.
        Depending on whether the weapon is new or modified, the development
    phase of the process would be Phase 3 or 6.3.

                        ROBUST NUCLEAR EARTH PENETRATOR

        21. Senator Bill Nelson. Ambassador Brooks and Admiral Ellis, the
    NNSA, according to its fiscal year 2005 budget request, will spend $135
    million to complete the phase 6.2/6.2A study on the RNEP. This is
    substantially more than the $45 million that was announced in fiscal
    year 2003 when the first funding for the RNEP was requested. Why has
    the cost grown so substantially and what activities are covered in this
    amount?
        Ambassador Brooks. The cost to complete the RNEP Phase 6.2/6.2A
    study has not increased. Included in the ``out-years'' request in our
    fiscal year 2005 Future Years Nuclear Security Plan (FYNSP) is the
    funding that would be required in fiscal year 2006 and beyond should a
    decision be made to advance RNEP into full-scale engineering
    development. I must emphasize that no decision has been made to do
    this, nor do we anticipate such a decision until after the RNEP study
    is completed. Our inclusion of these funds in the FYNSP ``out-year''
    budget request was a prudent ``placeholder'' in the event a decision is
    made in fiscal year 2006 to develop the RNEP system.
        Admiral Ellis. I respectfully defer to Ambassador Brooks on
    specifics related to NNSA's fiscal year 2005 budget request.

        [Whereupon, at 11:24 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

                                  ----------

                            THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2004

                                   U.S. Senate,
                      Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                                                        Washington, DC.

                NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE PROGRAMS AND MANAGEMENT

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in
    room SR-232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne
    Allard (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Committee members present: Senators Allard, Akaka, Bill
    Nelson, and E. Benjamin Nelson.
        Majority staff member present: Brian R. Green, professional
    staff member.
        Minority staff member present: Kenneth M. Crosswait,
    professional staff member.
        Staff assistants present: Michael N. Berger, Andrew W.
    Florell, and Bridget E. Ward.
        Committee members' assistants present: Jayson Roehl,
    assistant to Senator Allard; Arch Galloway II, assistant to
    Senator Sessions; Davelyn Noelani Kalipi and Richard Kessler,
    assistants to Senator Akaka; and William K. Sutey, assistant to
    Senator Bill Nelson.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD, CHAIRMAN

        Senator Allard. We call the subcommittee to order and, just
    to let our witnesses know about what we are facing here, we
    have a 2:45 vote. I am going to make an opening statement and
    we will let Senator Nelson, the ranking member, make an opening
    statement, and we will go as far as we can with the testimony
    and then we will go vote and come back.
        If I have other Republicans set up over here, or somebody
    shows up on the other side, we may have an opportunity to let
    them make their statement or you continue to make your
    statements, and we will run down and vote and come back, so we
    can keep it going so we can get out of here and keep you on
    time as best we can.
        We meet today to receive testimony on the space programs of
    the Department of Defense (DOD). I want to first welcome
    Senator Bill Nelson, my ranking member on the Strategic Forces
    Subcommittee. I know you share my keen interest in space issues
    and I look forward to working with you closely in this area.
        I am also pleased to welcome the witnesses today: the
    Honorable Peter B. Teets, Under Secretary of the Air Force;
    Admiral James O. Ellis, Commander, United States Strategic
    Command (STRATCOM); General Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force
    Space Command (AFSPC); and retired Vice Admiral Arthur
    Cebrowski, Director of Force Transformation in the Office of
    the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
        Admiral Ellis, it is good to see you again today. We had an
    opportunity to hear from each other yesterday. I thank you all
    for your service to the Nation and for taking time out from
    your very busy schedules to join us here today.
        Our space forces today are the most capable they have ever
    been and they provide our military a decisive advantage over
    our adversaries. The stories of how space contributed to our
    rapid victory over Saddam's forces in Iraq last year are well
    known and praise for how well our space forces performed is
    well justified.
        The space assets that provide these tremendous capabilities
    were developed by extraordinarily talented individuals. There
    is no denying their great success. At the same time, however,
    many space acquisition programs have had long, difficult
    development histories. Space-based Infrared Radar System
    (SBIRS)-High, Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), and
    Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) programs, and the
    Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) program, to name a few, have
    experienced significant problems in the past few years.
        I think many people are concerned, with considerable
    justification, that space programs are so often fraught with
    such great difficulties. Difficulties that manifest themselves
    in increased costs, schedule delays, and technical
    complications.
        Secretary Teets, I commend you for your reforms of the
    space acquisition process as you try to control risks and
    minimize these problems. I also believe it is to your great
    credit that you commissioned the Young Panel, a joint Air
    Force-Defense Science Board (DSB) group of experts, to explore
    some of the causes of these difficulties. The task force
    identified five causes for the cost growth and schedule delays
    in National Security Space (NSS) programs, including cost as
    the primary management driver in, as opposed to mission
    success; unrealistic cost estimates and unrealistic budgets;
    inadequate requirements definition and requirements
    instability; erosion in the government's ability to lead and
    manage the space acquisition process; and industrial management
    failures.
        The General Accounting Office (GAO) also put out a recent
    report on this subject that in some ways parallels the Young
    Report, but GAO also identified the use of immature
    technologies as a prominent cause of these difficulties.
        We might add to this inventory of causes the fact that
    space is a very challenging environment in which to operate. As
    I have dealt with some of the programs in the authorization
    process over the past few years, I have wondered if some of the
    problems are simply inherent in the way we develop and operate
    our space capabilities. The process it seems to me goes
    something like this:
        Space launch continues to be very expensive, so we do not
    launch very often. With launch both infrequent and expensive,
    we must build the most capable spacecraft we can and we build
    them to last a long time. That means we use the most advanced
    technology we can in constellations of just a few satellites.
    So we use the most sophisticated technologies in just a few
    platforms, with very limited opportunities to improve in an
    evolutionary manner. We also try to make such a system work
    perfectly the first time it is launched and the first time it
    functions in its operational environment.
        It seems to me that it is this set of challenges that makes
    these programs so difficult. I am encouraged that the Air Force
    budget includes funding for Operationally Responsive Launch
    (ORL). The intent of that program, if I understand it
    correctly, is to try to reduce launch costs and time lines, at
    least for small payloads.
        I also note that the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the
    Air Force have testified before the full committee on the
    importance of responsive space capabilities, and I know Admiral
    Cebrowski's office has sponsored some very interesting
    initiatives in this area. Admiral Cebrowski, I read your
    prepared statement for today's hearing with great interest. The
    business model today, focused on large, complex satellites,
    evolved for good reason and has provided us with remarkable
    capabilities. It does seem to me that technology has advanced
    to the point that an additional approach to space capabilities,
    one that features much smaller satellites, more frequent
    launches, and operational and technical agility, must be
    examined more thoroughly and could provide great advantages.
        I am very interested in exploring these ideas of how new
    capabilities might fit into future architectures and how this
    new approach could achieve significant capabilities for the
    warfighter at lower risk. This needs to be a high priority. I
    am concerned that the Department has not adequately resourced
    this approach this year, particularly as it pertains to small
    satellites.
        I also intend to determine if additional funding or
    legislation might be useful to accelerate the progress that has
    already been made to date by the Air Force and the Office of
    Force Transformation (OFT).
        I commend the Air Force for its interest in ORL and OFT for
    its transformational vision. I am convinced that this new
    approach holds great promise that must be aggressively
    explored. At the same time, I fully understand that we have
    ongoing space programs that will continue to provide very
    important capabilities and that business models and technical
    approaches do not change overnight.
        I look forward to exploring with our witnesses the status
    of current programs, the challenges they face, and how we might
    meet these challenges successfully.
        Gentlemen, I know how busy you are and appreciate your
    willingness to appear before our subcommittee and I look
    forward to your testimony.

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON

        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Chairman, I will boil down my
    opening statement to five words: access to space and technical
    challenges. That will be the essence of my line of inquiry, and
    I will submit a statement for the record.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Bill Nelson follows:]

                   Prepared Statement by Senator Bill Nelson

        Thank you Senator Allard. I would like to join you in welcoming our
    witnesses this afternoon.
        This is an important hearing and it is a pleasure to have each of
    our witnesses here today. As the United States becomes increasingly
    dependent on space for a wide variety of functions, from ATM machines
    to operations in Iraq, to maintaining vigilance through our
    intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, we must
    ensure that we always maintain access to space and to our space assets.
        Maintaining our access to space--ensuring that the ability to
    launch satellites as and when needed--is critically important to
    national security. Put simply, we would not be the same country if we
    were not able to maintain assured access to space.
        The program that will allow us to maintain this access in the near
    term is the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. This
    program has its share of issues at the moment, not the least of which
    is cost. We will, I am sure, have an opportunity to have a full
    discussion of the EELV program today.
        A longstanding concern of mine, and one that I believe I share with
    you, Senator Allard, is the fact that with most all of the National
    Security Space (NSS) satellite programs are experiencing some sort of
    technical difficulty. They are over budget and behind schedule--some by
    significant amounts of time and money. Curiously, the reasons for these
    problems vary with the program. It is not just the more mature programs
    that are of concern. Some of the newer programs are so technically
    aggressive that although they may not yet be over budget or behind
    schedule, it is probably only a matter of time before they, too, will
    be beset with problems.
        Today, I would like to focus on a few of the satellite programs
    that are of particular concern to me, the Transformational
    Communications satellite, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)
    satellite, the Space-based Radar (SBR), and the Space-Based Infrared
    System (SBIRS)-High.
        Also of concern, from a policy perspective, are space programs in
    the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Today, I would like to discuss the
    policy and programmatic issues associated with these MDA space
    programs. It appears that these programs may be the beginning of a
    change in U.S. policy with respect to space weapons.
        The last area that I hope to discuss is where we go in the future.
    I would very much like to hear from each of our witnesses their visions
    for NSS in the future. Where will we be in 5, 10, or 20 years?
        Secretary Teets, I want to note the attention you have given to
    ensuring that we also have the people that we need to ensure our
    ability to utilize space as a national asset. This is a real challenge
    and I want to thank you for your efforts and your dedication to the
    space professionals.
        Thank you Senator Allard, and to our witnesses, it is a pleasure to
    have you all with us. Collectively you bring many years of space
    wisdom.

        Senator Ben Nelson. The other Senator Nelson.
        Senator Allard. Right.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to welcome all of you today, but especially my good
    friend Admiral Ellis, the Commander of STRATCOM. Although it is
    newly expanded, STRATCOM already has a very proud legacy and an
    opportunity for the future. So many of the missions that will
    be talked about in the future and a lot of the planning will,
    in the words of my colleague from Florida, involve space.
        I know we are all interested in how this will affect
    preparedness, how it will help the American people feel more
    secure and have more security in the world.
        I thank you very much for being here, thank you for taking
    on this responsibility, and look forward to your comments.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        We are just checking on the bell here to make sure we are
    not having a vote that is getting started. I welcome the panel
    here, and we thought we would start with Dr. Teets, Under
    Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National
    Reconnaissance Office (NRO). It is always good to hear from
    you, Dr. Teets.
        Then after each of you have had your testimony, we will
    proceed with 10-minute rounds of questions and comments from
    the members of the committee.
        Dr. Teets.

     STATEMENT OF HON. PETER B. TEETS, UNDER SECRETARY OF THE AIR
           FORCE AND DIRECTOR, NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE

        Dr. Teets. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
    members of the subcommittee. I am very pleased to be here today
    and to have an opportunity to make some remarks. I have
    submitted a written statement for the record, and with your
    permission would like to ask that it be entered into the
    record, but I do have a few brief opening remarks I would like
    to make today.
        Senator Allard. All of your full statements will be entered
    in the record and please proceed.
        Dr. Teets. Thank you.
        I am particularly honored to be here with Admiral Ellis,
    General Lord, and Admiral Cebrowski. Over the course of my
    tenure, I have had the good fortune of working closely with
    these three gentlemen, and indeed I think that does emphasize
    the importance that we place on jointness in our NSS endeavors.
    We have worked hard together as a team to define a way ahead
    that will provide a strong NSS program that meets the needs of
    all the military services as well as the Intelligence
    Community.
        The President's budget request, along with our efforts to
    develop and maintain our team of space professionals, will
    enable us to sustain America's preeminence in space. In my
    multiple roles as the DOD's Executive Agent for Space, Under
    Secretary of the Air Force, and the Director of the NRO, I have
    set five priorities for our NSS efforts in this year of 2004.
    They are:

              Number one, achieving mission success in operations
            and in acquisition;
              Number two, developing and maintaining a team of
            space professionals;
              Number three, integrating space capabilities for
            national intelligence and warfighting;
              Number four, producing innovative solutions for the
            most challenging national security problems; and
              Number five, ensuring freedom of action in space.

        These priorities have shaped the fiscal year 2005 budget
    for our DOD space programs and I see substantial improvement in
    capabilities in every mission area as we recapitalize our space
    assets in the years ahead.
        The funding requested in the President's budget for fiscal
    year 2005 allows us to evolve capabilities in current
    constellations while planned investments in new space systems
    will provide significant increases in performance, supporting
    the full range of intelligence and military operations, to
    include the global war on terrorism.
        We are aggressively pursuing two major initiatives that
    will deliver transformational capabilities to military and
    intelligence operations. First, the Transformation
    Communications Architecture (TCA) will provide vast
    improvements in data rates, expanded accesses, communications
    on the move, the Internet protocol-based connectivity. As a
    part of that architecture, the Transformational Communications
    Satellite (TSAT) will be a revolutionary change in satellite
    communications for the warfighter and for national intelligence
    users, and is an enabler of horizontal integration, allowing
    our fighting forces to have near-real-time intelligence,
    surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) at their fingertips.
        TSAT will provide an unprecedented connectivity with
    Internet-like capabilities that extends the global information
    grid to deployed and mobile users worldwide and will deliver an
    order of magnitude increase in capacity. The program entered
    design phase this past January and as a result we recently
    awarded two contracts, for technology risk reduction and design
    development. We plan to launch the first TSAT in November 2011.
        Second, we are moving to more persistent surveillance with
    Space-Based Radar (SBR) and other innovative capabilities. SBR
    will provide a start on persistent global situational awareness
    and target tracking capability as part of a horizontally
    integrated DOD-wide and national system of systems. Radar from
    space will provide day-night, all-weather, worldwide, multi-
    theater surveillance on demand.
        In fiscal year 2005 we plan to focus on concept definition,
    risk reduction, and systems engineering activities, all leading
    to a system requirements review in the third quarter of fiscal
    year 2005 and a system design review as early as fiscal year
    2006. These activities are part of the study phase, which will
    culminate in a downselect award and a decision to enter design
    phase in mid-fiscal year 2006.
        As I look over our NSS program, there are areas that
    require our vigilant attention and we plan to work these areas
    hard in the coming months, placing emphasis on each of these
    areas in future budget deliberations.
        For some of our constellations, our replenishment strategy
    provides very little margin if there is a launch failure, a
    premature on-orbit failure, or a significant program delay.
    While I am confident in the systems we are developing, true
    capability is the result of end-to-end performance in support
    of the user. Greater emphasis is needed on synchronization of
    fielding ground and air receivers and terminals to match on-
    orbit capabilities.
        The aggressive DOD to Intelligence Community horizontal
    integration effort to better integrate and exploit ground, air,
    and space remote sensing capabilities remains a priority for
    us.
        We have taken steps to strengthen the acquisition process
    for NSS programs, but there is still much to do. We are
    committed to building credible management reserves into our
    acquisition program so that the program managers (PMs) will
    have the resources available to solve problems in a timely way.
        Mission success in all phases of space operations and
    acquisition continues to be my highest priority. We made steady
    progress on space programs during the past year and the
    President's fiscal year 2005 budget request, along with efforts
    to enhance the space profession, will enable us to continue
    that progress.
        I appreciate the continued support that Congress and this
    committee have given to help deliver these vital capabilities
    and I look forward to working with you as we continue to
    develop, produce, launch, and operate critical space systems
    that deliver vital capabilities to this great Nation.
        Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks and I look
    forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Teets follows:]

                   Prepared Statement by Hon. Peter B. Teets

                                  INTRODUCTION

        It is my distinct honor to appear before the subcommittee today
    representing the world's finest air and space force, and to be joined
    by leaders of our National Security Space (NSS) activities: General
    Lance Lord, Commander of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC); Admiral James
    Ellis, Jr., Commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM); Admiral
    (Ret.) Arthur Cebrowski, Director of Force Transformation, Office of
    the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Our appearance here, together,
    underscores the importance of jointness in our NSS endeavors.
        Given the role of this committee, and my role in overseeing NSS
    activities as Under Secretary of the Air Force, Director of the
    National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Department of Defense
    (DOD) Executive Agent for Space, I will concentrate my remarks today on
    the five priorities I have set for our NSS efforts for 2004. They are:
    (1) achieving mission success in operations and acquisition; (2)
    developing and maintaining a team of space professionals; (3)
    integrating space capabilities for national intelligence and
    warfighting; (4) producing innovative solutions for the most
    challenging national security problems; and (5) ensuring freedom of
    action in space. These priorities are my focus for this year and are
    supported in the fiscal year 2005 budget for our DOD and NRO space
    programs.

             ACHIEVE MISSION SUCCESS IN OPERATIONS AND ACQUISITION

        Our ongoing activities in support of the global war on terrorism
    highlight the fact that our space capabilities have become increasingly
    integrated in our national intelligence and warfighting operations.
    Space systems are unique assets--they provide global persistence,
    perspective, and access unhindered by geographic or political
    boundaries. Our space systems, whether integrated with airborne and
    surface sensors, or acting alone over areas of high risk or denied
    access, provide critical surveillance and reconnaissance information to
    national decisionmakers and combatant commanders. They are also the
    primary sources for global environmental monitoring and weather
    forecasting data, global communications, missile warning, precision
    navigation and timing to troops on the ground, ships at sea, aircraft
    in flight, and weapons en route to targets. These space capabilities
    enabled the tremendous success our joint warfighters achieved during
    combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and will continue to be a
    cornerstone for success in future conflicts.
        Our success in conflict relies on a mixture of technologies,
    tactics, and people, including military members, government civilians,
    and contractors. During Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Air Force Space
    Command crews and their contractor mission partners developed new
    tactics and procedures to achieve the highest global positioning system
    (GPS) accuracy possible to support combat operations; as a result, we
    were able to strike legitimate regime targets with pinpoint accuracy
    while minimizing collateral damage, protecting civilian lives, and
    reducing re-strike requirements. Also, in a prime example of the
    benefits provided by integrating sources, coalition forces used a
    mixture of space, airborne, and surface sensors to detect Iraqi theater
    ballistic missile launches, protecting lives while allowing our troops
    to sustain their operations tempo.
        To maintain our asymmetric advantages in space, we must continue to
    provide our warfighters with the most capable and reliable systems
    possible. We have eight NSS launches planned for calendar year 2004,
    which focus on sustaining and improving existing military and
    intelligence satellite constellations. This year, we will launch three
    GPS Imaging Infrared (IIR) satellites, and on February 14, 2004, I was
    pleased to be present as our Air Force and industry team successfully
    launched a Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite to augment our
    strategic missile warning capabilities. This launch, and the launch of
    an NRO payload in the last quarter of calendar year 2004--one of three
    NRO launches this year--mark the last Titan launches from Cape
    Canaveral after 45 years of test and operations. Now our focus is
    shifting to the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) system for our
    future space launch missions. In support of this transition, we plan to
    launch the first heavy lift Delta IV EELV this year, giving us the
    capability to launch our heaviest communications and national security
    payloads. Our budget this year supports an anticipated price increase
    in future EELV buys, due largely to the downturn in the commercial
    launch market.
        Mission success in operations must be accompanied by mission
    success in acquisitions. We have benefited greatly from the
    recommendations of the joint Defense Science Board (DSB) and Air Force
    Scientific Advisory Board task force on Acquisition of National
    Security Space Programs, led by A. Thomas Young. One of their
    recommendations, with which I strongly agree, is that mission success
    should be the primary driver of a program, not cost and schedule.
        As programs are established, strong systems engineering practices
    need to be employed. Management of requirements, early risk reduction
    activity, rigorous design discipline, periodic independent program
    assessment, and thorough component subsystem and system level test
    activities need to be built into the program at the onset. Program
    Managers must have unencumbered schedule and financial reserves at
    their disposal to solve problems that arise during program execution.
        In an effort to institutionalize this thinking, and following an
    extensive coordination process with OSD and the Joint Staff, I signed
    the new NSS Acquisition Policy 03-01 on October 6, 2003. Using this
    process, we have conducted Defense Space Acquisition Boards that
    approved Space-Based Radar's (SBR) entry into the Study Phase and
    Transformational Satellite's (TSAT) entry into the design phase. In
    each case, an Independent Program Assessment Team and an Independent
    Cost Assessment Team identified key risk areas and made excellent
    recommendations on how to best manage the risks inherent in these
    complex and vital programs. In concert with the Joint Staff, the
    Intelligence Community, and the OSD, we are implementing these
    recommendations so that these critical programs have the necessary
    foundation to assure their future mission success.
        In addition to the institution of NSS 03-01, we have made great
    strides in developing better cost estimates. In a joint effort with the
    Director of the OSD Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG), we now have
    a strong space system cost estimating capability in place; and, with
    the CAIG leading the Independent Cost Assessment Teams, have
    incorporated the process on SBR and TSAT.
        NSS 03-01 and its companion directive in the NRO, in their current
    forms, have provided excellent insight into our programs. Yet, we are
    learning with each program acquisition milestone decision, and will
    update the policies later this year.

               DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A TEAM OF SPACE PROFESSIONALS

        In order to preserve our advantage as the leading space faring
    nation, we must ensure we have a strategy to guarantee availability of
    the most crucial element of space power--our space professionals.
    People remain central to our success in space, and meeting the serious
    challenges of today, and the future, requires a total force approach.
    We will continue to develop well-educated, motivated, and competent
    people who are skilled in the demands of the space medium.
        Operationally, they must understand the tactical environment they
    support, as well as the space-unique tactics, techniques, and
    procedures needed. Technically, they must be schooled in the
    acquisition of space systems, the requirements of the vehicles that
    operate in space, and the development of space-related research,
    science, and technology. Our space professionals must be sensitive to
    the needs of the many and varied end-users of space capabilities, and
    be able to formulate and articulate new space doctrine to fully control
    and exploit the medium of space in support of our Nation's security
    objectives. They must be able to develop new technologies, systems,
    training methods, concepts of operations (CONOPs) and organizations
    that will continue to sustain the U.S. as a world leader in space. The
    new systems they develop must be able to achieve desirable effects at
    all levels of conflict. Furthermore, they must ensure these systems are
    interoperable with and integrated into architectures that support the
    creation of lethal and non-lethal effects. The backbone of our joint
    and interagency space operations capabilities will continue to be
    individuals of exceptional dedication and ability.
        In order to develop and maintain our space professionals, we are
    implementing the Secretary of the Air Force-approved Space Professional
    Strategy, and the DOD Space Human Capital Resources Strategy. These
    strategies describe a professional development construct that is
    comprehensive and recognizes the unique roles that officers, enlisted
    personnel, and government civilians play in NSS. As we implement these
    strategies, our objective is to ensure the space cadres of all the
    Services possess the necessary education, skills and experiences, at
    all levels, to meet NSS needs.

     INTEGRATE SPACE CAPABILITIES FOR NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND WARFIGHTING

        We continue to make dramatic improvements integrating our manned
    and unmanned terrestrial, maritime, air, and space systems for joint
    warfighting and intelligence collection, and have seen dramatic
    results. In OIF, the difference was not so much the introduction of new
    capabilities, but rather the integration of existing space capabilities
    to produce desired effects. Using existing systems in new ways,
    applying new ideas, and making new connections between information
    providers and information users is truly at the heart of our
    transformation and integration efforts. Our synchronization of end-user
    and space segment capabilities, and the improvement of our enterprise-
    wide vertical and horizontal integration efforts are prime examples of
    our ability to transform our warfighting and intelligence gathering
    capabilities through integration.
        However, true transformational integration requires more than the
    use of existing capabilities in new and innovative ways. We need to
    make integration a priority throughout the enterprise. As we attempt to
    increase our worldwide persistent situational awareness, we need to
    bring a true system of systems approach to the fielding of new
    capabilities. SBR, for example, is not being developed in a vacuum. As
    we work through the early development of this system, which offers the
    promise of a start on a persistent surveillance architecture, we are
    ensuring that other systems in development, such as TSAT and the NRO's
    Optical Relay Communications Architecture (ORCA), are not just
    interoperable with SBR, but are truly integrated from operational
    concept to employment.
        We continue to integrate our warfighting needs and our intelligence
    collection activities. The Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) will not
    only replace the veteran DSP platform, but will also meet the demands
    for much greater capability in the mission areas of missile defense,
    battlespace characterization to support real-time warfighting
    operations, and technical intelligence. However, technical challenges
    associated with electromagnetic interference have continued to delay
    the two highly-elliptical orbit payloads. These payloads, currently
    scheduled for delivery in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, will perform at
    the crossroads of defense and intelligence needs, and we're managing
    them to ensure the missions of both communities.
        Another aspect of integration is to ensure that the defense and
    intelligence space organizations work together as a team. As the DOD
    Executive Agent for Space, I strongly encourage unifying efforts across
    all of the space stakeholders--ensuring integration remains a priority,
    not an afterthought. In support of this unity of effort, we continue to
    integrate our corporate processes. Our planning, programming,
    budgeting, and acquisition efforts embrace an integrated capabilities-
    based approach to develop the means necessary to secure our national
    security objectives in the most effective and efficient manner
    possible.
        Yet, unity of effort alone is not enough. Our continuing commitment
    to integration is also shown in the development of our space
    professionals. The DOD has developed a Space Human Capital Resources
    Strategy designed to integrate the space cadres of the military
    services and the Intelligence Community to the maximum extent
    practicable. Among other things, this means that we will be eliminating
    unnecessary redundancies in our space education and training programs
    as well as finding and eliminating gaps in our programs. More
    importantly, it means that space professionals from the four Services
    and the Intelligence Community will be working together more closely,
    earlier in their careers. The best practices and ideas that they each
    bring to the table can truly help push our space capabilities to the
    next level.
        Integration properly done has a synergistic effect. The value of
    our NSS systems, developed with a system of systems approach, using
    integrated corporate processes, and manned by space professionals who
    have been developed in an environment that fosters innovative
    employment, will greatly exceed the sum of the parts.

    PRODUCE INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE MOST CHALLENGING NATIONAL SECURITY
                                    PROBLEMS

        Our goal is transparency--we want the ability to see everything and
    know everything, while simultaneously denying our adversaries both the
    ability to do the same, and the knowledge that such capabilities are
    being used against them. We want to always be one step, or more, ahead
    of our adversaries--to be first to see, first to understand, and first
    to act. To do so requires the development of breakthrough technologies
    that would produce new sources and methods for collecting intelligence.
    Thus, our other activities this year support the transformation of
    military satellite systems, with technology maturation and development
    activities in TSAT and SBR; and the modernization of current systems,
    including new jam-resistant capabilities for our GPS constellation.
        We will launch the last of the present generation of GPS satellites
    in fiscal year 2004. In fiscal year 2005, we will begin launching the
    next generation of ``modernized'' GPS satellites, with military-code
    and flexible power capabilities. The generation after next will be
    composed of GPS III satellites, which will include all of the legacy
    capabilities, plus the addition of high-powered, anti-jam military-
    code, along with other accuracy, reliability, and data integrity
    improvements.
        As always, communications play a fundamental role in any military
    action. We are modernizing our communications systems, as well as
    preparing for the next leap forward in capability. Last October, the
    Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) approved our
    Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA). Part of the TCA is
    the Wideband Gapfiller System (WGS), which will augment the current
    Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) capability.
        Another vital program, which will provide a smooth transition to
    TSAT, is the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system that
    replaces the MILSTAR communications constellation. The first AEHF
    satellite will be launched in fiscal year 2007 and will provide
    survivable, protected satellite communications for strategic and
    tactical users. AEHF represents a significant step forward in
    capability over current systems, providing up to 12 times greater
    capacity than MILSTAR with up to 4,000 simultaneous networks while
    hosting up to 6,000 users per satellite.
        TSAT will be a revolutionary change in satellite communications for
    the warfighter and national intelligence. Our goal is to create an
    ``internet in the sky''--making it possible for U.S. marines in a High
    Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), in a faraway land, in
    the middle of a rainstorm, to open up their laptops, request imagery,
    and get it downloaded within seconds. TSAT is an enabler of horizontal
    integration--allowing our fighting forces to have near-real-time
    intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) at their
    fingertips. TSAT will provide an unprecedented connectivity with
    Internet-like capability that extends the Global Information Grid to
    deployed and mobile users worldwide, and will deliver an order of
    magnitude increase in capacity. The program entered Design Phase this
    past month; and as a result, we recently awarded two contracts for risk
    reduction and design development. We plan to launch the first TSAT in
    November 2011.
        SBR is an important element in our efforts to achieve horizontal
    integration. SBR will provide a start on persistent, global situational
    awareness and target tracking capability as part of a horizontally
    integrated DOD and national system of systems. Radar from space will
    provide the critical element of global persistence, providing day/
    night, all weather, worldwide, multi-theater surveillance on-demand. In
    fiscal year 2005, we plan to focus on concept definition, risk
    reduction, and systems engineering activities, all leading to a System
    Requirements Review in third quarter of fiscal year 2005 and a System
    Design Review as early as fiscal year 2006. These activities are part
    of the study phase (concept definition), which will culminate in a
    downselect award and a decision to enter design phase in mid-fiscal
    year 2006.
        Recent conflicts have proven, once again, how vital meteorological
    forecasting is for military operations. Knowing what the weather is in
    any given location allows us to choose the right weapon for the right
    target, and is an invaluable asset for navigation. The National Polar-
    orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) will
    satisfy both civil and military national security requirements for
    space-based, remotely sensed environmental data that will significantly
    improve weather forecasting and climate prediction. NPOESS is a tri-
    agency (DOD/Department of Commerce (DOC)/National Aeronautic and Space
    Administration (NASA) satellite program consolidating the missions and
    programs of DOD's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and
    DOC's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) systems
    into a single integrated program. An integrated suite of 12 very
    complex instruments will provide visible and infrared cloud-cover
    imagery and other atmospheric, oceanographic, terrestrial, and space
    environmental information. The system is currently in development, with
    a planned first launch in fiscal year 2010.
        We cannot stay on the cutting edge of development without investing
    in science and technology (S&T) efforts. We are actively working with
    the Director, Defense Research and Engineering, and organizations such
    as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Air Force
    Research Laboratory (AFRL), and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL),
    along with civil agencies such as NASA on our space S&T effort. With
    their participation, we are documenting our space S&T strategy, which
    will be available this summer. We are also working with DARPA to
    leverage common technologies and applications into the Operationally
    Responsive Space (ORS) program, including next generation propulsion,
    advanced structure, and thermal protection schemes. While we do not
    currently have an operational role in NASA's new space exploration
    program, we will work closely with the agency through our Partnership
    Council to find areas of possible collaboration. These activities build
    on nearly five decades of collaboration with NASA on X-vehicles,
    hypersonic propulsion, and space tests and technology demonstrations.

                       ENSURE FREEDOM OF ACTION IN SPACE

        Americans have come to rely on the unhindered use of space and will
    demand no less in the future. This includes robust capabilities for
    assured launch and space control. While the United States supports the
    peaceful use of space by all, prudence demands that we must be able to
    ensure the United States, its allies, and coalition partners will be
    able to make use of space, while denying that use of space to
    adversaries.
        To ensure freedom of action, we are maintaining assured access to
    space in the near term as we simultaneously investigate entirely new,
    operationally responsive space activities. Today's space surveillance
    capability must evolve into integrated Space Situational Awareness
    (SSA). Space control activities--while taking advantage of SSA--
    emphasize first the protection of our national security interests
    against known vulnerabilities and credible threats. We will also pursue
    a mix of capabilities to limit any adversary's ability to deny us free
    access to space and deny an adversary's use of space against us for
    hostile purposes.
        We are proud of the success of both families of EELVs. With six
    successful launches in a row, three from each provider, these are the
    best launch vehicles we've ever produced. However, we are not finished
    yet. Long-term, we are pursuing vehicle concepts that can be launched
    on demand--in hours and days, rather than weeks and months--with the
    vision of fulfilling time-critical warfighter requirements. I've been
    in the launch business for 45 years, and we still launch satellites
    about the same way we did in the 60s. We can do better.
        The intent of ORS is to create a more responsive, reliable, and
    affordable lift family capable of fulfilling both current and future
    launch requirements, and the corresponding responsive and affordable
    satellites. Near term, we plan to demonstrate a more responsive and
    less expensive launch system with capabilities of 1,000 pounds to low
    Earth orbit. Concurrently, Air Force Space Command, AFRL, the NRO,
    DARPA, OSD's Office of Force Transformation, and our national and
    Service laboratories are sponsoring Tactical Satellite (TacSat)
    initiatives focused on responsive satellites, and decreasing the size,
    cost, and timelines of development. The combined efforts of these
    initiatives--operationally responsive launch and satellite
    development--will transform the delivery of space-based capabilities.
    Similarly, our launch ranges must keep pace with modernized launch
    vehicles and future launch manifests.
        Even as we become more operationally responsive, future adversaries
    will try to deny us the asymmetric advantage that space provides us--as
    evidenced by the GPS jamming in Iraq. We must look now to overcome
    future threats that may not be as straightforward. We recently finished
    a broad reaching study to baseline vulnerabilities of our military
    space systems. An action plan is being implemented that will help
    mitigate vulnerabilities in a way that will help ensure the
    availability of space capabilities to our warfighters and national
    decisionmakers. Our efforts currently fall into three areas: SSA,
    Defensive Counter Space (DCS), and Offensive Counter Space (OCS).
        SSA forms the foundation for our counter space actions and includes
    traditional space surveillance, detailed reconnaissance of specific
    space assets, collection and processing of space intelligence data, and
    analysis of the space environment. It also encompasses the use of
    traditional intelligence sources to provide insights into adversary
    space operations. We continue to invest in critical capabilities to
    improve our ability to detect, track and characterize objects in space.
        We are modernizing the current Space Surveillance Network with new
    hardware for selected radar and optical sensors, and plan to integrate
    and fuse this improved sensor data with space intelligence and
    environment data through a command and control system. This will allow
    us to produce a common space picture relevant to the warfighter for
    decisionmaking. Finally, we will increase our surveillance and
    characterization capabilities to new levels when we deploy our new
    space-based sensors: Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) and Orbital
    Deep Space Imager (ODSI).
        SBSS will be a constellation of optical sensing satellites in low
    Earth orbit designed to provide timely and accurate information on
    satellite locations. The SBSS constellation is the follow-on to the
    successful Mid-Course Space Experiment/Space Based Visible (MSX/SBV)
    sensor on orbit today. The initial SBSS satellite will launch in fiscal
    year 2007, and improve our ability to detect deep space objects by 80
    percent over the MSX/SBV system. ODSI will be a constellation of
    satellites in geo-synchronous orbit, and will provide significant
    improvement in today's ability to not only track, but also characterize
    objects in space.
        In terms of protecting U.S. space assets, our Defensive Counter
    Space program continues the development of the Rapid Attack
    Identification Detection and Reporting System (RAIDRS) to ensure
    capability to identify and locate attacks on U.S. space systems. The
    first spiral of RAIDRS will include radio frequency interference
    detection, and geo-location for communication satellites, and laser
    dazzling detection for DSP. RAIDRS is one key element of a larger
    strategy to identify and reduce vulnerabilities across the NSS sector.
    Over the past year, we have worked across the NRO, STRATCOM, and other
    organizations to develop an integrated approach for investments in
    protection. This crosscutting effort seeks to deter attacks on U.S.
    space interests by making focused investments in specific programs, as
    well as in generic capabilities like RAIDRS.
        Our OCS program is intended to develop systems to deny adversary
    use of space and assure U.S. space superiority. Earlier this fiscal
    year, we successfully tested and delivered the first Counter
    Communications Systems to the 76th Space Control Squadron at Peterson
    Air Force Base, Colorado. We plan to deliver two more of the first
    generation units in fiscal year 2005 to achieve a Full Operational
    Capability, and will then begin work on the next generation capability.
    We also intend to award a contract for the multi-service Army/Air Force
    Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance System (CSRS) for final system
    design and development. CSRS is a mobile, transportable system that
    will use reversible effects to counter space-based surveillance and
    reconnaissance satellites. Our goal is to achieve Initial Operational
    Capability in fiscal year 2009.

                                   CONCLUSION

        This is an exciting time for the space programs in the DOD and
    Intelligence Community. In spite of the challenges we face, we have the
    most capable space force in the world as proven by recent actions in
    Afghanistan and Iraq. Our accomplishments in calendar year 2003 include
    successful launches of 11 national security satellites and the
    successful launches of both the Atlas V and Delta IV EELVs. In
    addition, we have made great progress in modernizing our current family
    of systems, working toward the next generation of intelligence,
    communications, remote sensing, missile warning, and environmental
    satellites.
        We have identified and are addressing systemic issues in order to
    improve our ability to deliver these vital capabilities. However, space
    programs are challenging--by virtue of the complex technologies, small
    quantities, and the inability to repair them on-orbit. This requires
    up-front investment and attention to practices that are more demanding
    than in most other acquisitions. As long as we continue to expect our
    space systems to provide extremely asymmetric advantages, even after
    years on-orbit, then we will be building systems that are on the
    leading edge of technology. We are working to minimize the
    difficulties; but as we continue to push the technological envelope,
    challenging situations will always be part of the equation.
        I appreciate the continued support Congress and this committee have
    given to help deliver these vital capabilities, and I look forward to
    working with you as we continue to develop, produce, launch, and
    operate critical space systems that deliver vital capabilities to this
    great Nation.

        Senator Allard. Thank you for your testimony. Now we have
    Admiral Ellis, Commander, STRATCOM. Admiral, it is always good
    to have you before us.

     STATEMENT OF ADM. JAMES O. ELLIS, JR., USN, COMMANDER, UNITED
                        STATES STRATEGIC COMMAND

        Admiral Ellis. Likewise, Senator.
        Mr. Chairman, Senator Nelson, distinguished members of the
    subcommittee: As you noted, it is once again an honor to appear
    before you today representing the outstanding members of
    STRATCOM in Omaha, Nebraska, and that includes, of course, our
    Service components, some of whom are represented here today,
    including Army, Navy, United States Air Force, and now the
    Marine Corps, which also provides an important Service element
    in support of STRATCOM's mission.
        It is my pleasure to testify before you today with Pete
    Teets, Lance Lord, and Art Cebrowski. As the Secretary noted,
    we have met regularly over the past year to address the many
    challenges and opportunities afforded this Nation through our
    preeminent space systems. I look forward to discussing the
    operational and technical aspects of satellite and space launch
    programs from the warfighter's perspective, because indeed that
    is the charter of STRATCOM.
        In previous hearings this year, before both the Senate
    Armed Services Committee and the Strategic Forces Subcommittee,
    we have covered the status of one of our legacy missions,
    strategic deterrence, and each of STRATCOM's newly assigned
    global mission areas: missile defense, Global Strike,
    information operations, and command, control, communications,
    computers, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
    (C\4\ISR). Today, of course, we appropriately focus on what
    could be called one of our second legacy missions: space
    operations.
        As you are aware, STRATCOM was created first and foremost
    to provide responsive, integrated, and synchronized combat
    capability and support across all geographic boundaries. Our
    very success in every area continues to be reliant upon our
    ability to operate to, from, in, and through space. Across the
    DOD, space is both a major integrator of missions and a global
    enabler for our forces. Our space assets gather and disseminate
    real-time data on virtually any location on the globe. They
    enable terrestrial forces with precision navigation and timing
    and provide essential command and control capabilities to
    forces anywhere on the planet.
        Eighteen months after the alignment of United States Space
    Command and STRATCOM missions under a new command, I am
    convinced that grouping our Nation's space capability under a
    unified command with global responsibilities in the areas of
    missile defense, Global Strike, information operations, and
    C\4\ISR has accelerated the integration of space into all
    phases of our military operations.
        STRATCOM is tasked to be the space advocate and spokesman
    for the combatant commanders. I work closely with the regional
    combatant commanders (RCCs) to determine requirements and bring
    the warfighter's perspective to the table. My staff is fast
    becoming expert in the technical details so we can provide an
    independent evaluation of the full range of system options. We
    are not tied to single solutions, specific systems or programs,
    but rather advocate broad capabilities.
        Last year, 2003, was a year of tremendous change and
    opportunity at STRATCOM. New missions and new organizations,
    all in the midst of supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)
    and the larger global war on terrorism. During the past year
    our success in the space operations realm included:
    transitioning the Space Operations Center in Colorado Springs
    to our Global Operations Center in Omaha; deploying STRATCOM
    support teams with reach-back capabilities for strike planning,
    intelligence, space, and information operations to every
    theater of the globe; transmitting missile early warning data
    to the RCCs; procuring and allocating essential satellite
    communications bandwidth for RCCs; and providing successful
    space-based blue force tracking capabilities for both regular
    and Special Operations Forces (SOF) through our Army component,
    Space and Missile Defense Command.
        None of this could have been accomplished without the
    leadership and efforts of this subcommittee and a host of
    talented Americans such as the gentlemen seated to my right.
    Right now we have an opportunity and the responsibility to
    continue to fundamentally reshape the future of national
    defense by advancing and defending the global integration of
    space capabilities.
        There are many opportunities ahead and I am committed to
    working with our strong and growing team of partners, military,
    agency, and industry, to address each one. We are engaged in
    crafting not only a vision, but a clear and detailed course of
    action in each area. These focus areas include: assured,
    responsive, and affordable access to space; safe and effective
    launch ranges; persistent space surveillance and appropriate
    space control capabilities; reducing the vulnerability of space
    systems and their accompanying global network of ground
    stations and communications links and recapitalizing our space
    assets for the development and fielding of essential
    capabilities, such as those promised by the SBIRS, the Global
    Positioning System (GPS) Constellation, AEHF, and the TSAT.
        In short, STRATCOM and its components continue to partner
    with all those playing an integral role in the defense of our
    Nation to improve the combat effectiveness of our modern joint
    warfighting forces. We are mindful of the magnitude of the task
    before us and confident in the talent of our staff, our
    components, and our mission partners.
        I appreciate your continued support and look forward to
    your questions. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Ellis follows:]

              Prepared Statement by Adm. James O. Ellis, Jr., USN

                                I. INTRODUCTION

        Chairman Allard, Senator Nelson, and distinguished members of the
    subcommittee, it is an honor to once again appear before you,
    representing the outstanding men and women of United States Strategic
    Command (STRATCOM) and to review the strategic and space capabilities
    that remain vital contributors to our Nation's security. During my last
    appearance before your subcommittee, I outlined how STRATCOM, our
    components, and task forces were crafting a new command focused on
    integrating space capabilities, deterring a wider array of potential
    adversaries, and recasting the Nation's global military capabilities
    for the demands of the 21st century.
        Today, I can report that the finest soldiers, sailors, airmen, and
    marines--representing active duty, National Guard, and Reserves--joined
    by a cadre of talented civilians, have made tremendous progress in
    maturing the missions of the new STRATCOM.
        As you recall, on January 10, 2003, the President signed Change Two
    to the Unified Command Plan (UCP) and tasked STRATCOM specifically with
    four previously unassigned responsibilities. These are: Global Strike,
    Global Missile Defense (GMD) Integration, Department of Defense (DOD)
    Information Operations (IO), and command, control, communications,
    computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C\4\ISR).
    This unique combination of roles, responsibilities, authorities, and
    capabilities, under a single unified command brought with it new
    opportunities to recapture the classic definition of the term
    ``strategic'': essential to the conduct of large scale military
    operations. In this strategic context, we also have been given the
    opportunity to support our Nation's security requirements around the
    globe by directly supporting the regional combatant commanders (RCCs)
    and their deployed forces.
        On January 1, 2004, I was pleased to report to the President of the
    United States that STRATCOM has completed reorganization and achieved
    full operational capability (FOC) for oversight and direction of all
    assigned missions. Each mission area continues to develop and, as we
    apply resources to each, we are moving to reach and maintain FOC in
    those four areas by the end of this year. Three of our missions, Global
    Strike, Global Integrated IO, and Global C\4\ISR, are on track and
    progressing toward FOC during 2004. GMD, the fourth newly assigned
    mission, will achieve Initial Defensive Operations (IDO) in the months
    ahead and will support concomitant achievement of STRATCOM oversight
    FOC.
        There is still much work to do and we have outlined five major,
    near-term goals for STRATCOM, each of which has the potential to add
    significantly to our national defense.
        These opportunities include:

             Proactively moving to enhance the security of our
            critical space systems. This will enable us to maintain an
            advantage in space while denying an asymmetric avenue of attack
            for our adversaries. In concert with Service and Office of
            Secretary of Defense (OSD) partners, we are crafting a step-by-
            step plan that approaches the problem in manageable increments.
             Continuing the implementation of the Nuclear Posture
            Review (NPR) while refining the way ahead through the ongoing
            Strategic Capabilities Assessment. This effort will enable
            continued reduction in the Nation's nuclear arsenal even as we
            examine future deterrent concepts, sustain the safety and
            surety of the stockpile, and modernize, through our partners at
            the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the
            Nation's technical infrastructure.
             Exploring new concepts of ISR that will permit
            collating and fusing data collected by the Intelligence
            Community and defense sources. Our goal is to aid the Nation's
            military and civilian leaders to move rapidly up the continuum
            from data to information to knowledge to wisdom.
             Simultaneously employing a nascent missile defense
            test bed to provide the Nation with a rudimentary defensive
            capability even as we support the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)
            as it incrementally refines and evolves a future multi-layered
            GMD system.
             Delivering on the full potential of DOD IO by
            supporting real advances in the incorporation of computer
            network attack and defense, electronic warfare, psychological
            operations, strategic deception, and operational security into
            our mission areas.

               II. PROGRESS OF THE ``NEW'' U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND

        It was a year of tremendous change and progress--incorporating new
    missions and crafting a new organization--all while primarily focused
    on supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the broader global war
    on terrorism. During the past year this command and our components
    have:

             Developed a Global Strike Strategic Concept, validated
            it through a series of exercises and gained final approval of a
            Global Strike plan.
             Developed a Missile Defense Concept of Operations
            (CONOP) with plans in place to support operator training,
            evolutionary testing and system employment for GMD at IDO.
             Developed a C\4\ CONOP and established a Global
            Operation Center (GOC) and Global Integration Center (GIC) to
            command, control and integrate support to the joint warfighter.
             Transitioned the Space Operations Center in Colorado
            Springs to the Space Operations Watch in the GOC in Omaha.
             Hosted Senior Warfighter's Forum to identify combatant
            commands' requirements for future satellite communications
            capabilities.
             Accepted transfer of responsibility for production of
            the Sensitive Reconnaissance Operations plan from the Joint
            Staff, a first step in achieving global ISR integration.
             Formed Joint Force Headquarters--Information
            Operations (JFHQ-IO) within the overall headquarters structure,
            commanded by the Deputy Commander, STRATCOM.
             Established strong, functional relationships with the
            National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Information Systems
            Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the National
            Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
             Provided federated intelligence support to Central
            Command (CENTCOM) and Pacific Command (PACOM), producing over
            3,000 products covering 4 geographic areas covering over 12,000
            points of interest.
             Procured, prioritized, and allocated military and
            commercial satellite bandwidth to support the critical
            communication needs of the combatant commanders.
             Forward deployed STRATCOM support teams with reach-
            back capabilities for strike planning, intelligence, and space
            and information operations.
             Transmitted theater early warning data on missile
            launches to RCCs.
             Through the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command,
            provided successful Space Based Blue Force Tracking
            capabilities for Special Operations Forces (SOF).
             Through the Joint Information Operations Center
            (JIOC), fully integrated IO into OIF operational planning,
            contributing directly to shaping of the operation and elements
            of its combat success.

                          III. NEWLY ASSIGNED MISSIONS

    Global Strike
        The Global Strike mission embodies STRATCOM's ``capabilities-
    based'' strategy and employs various assets to execute limited-
    duration, extended-range, and precision kinetic and/or non-kinetic
    strikes anywhere on the globe. Our adaptive planning process is being
    upgraded with the goal of accelerating development of courses of action
    for rapid presentation to our national leadership. When fully realized
    we will be able to dramatically shrink response timelines.
        This new construct also provides the Nation with a combatant
    command that effectively works across traditional regional boundaries
    and addresses potential threats with a global perspective. We are
    strengthening formal relationships through extensive coordination with
    RCCs, Services, the Joint Staff, and OSD.

    Information Operations
        As with our other global responsibilities STRATCOM is tasked with
    integrating and coordinating DOD IO across regional areas of
    responsibility (AORs). Core pillars of IO include computer network
    defense, computer network attack, military deception, operations
    security, psychological operations, and electronic warfare. The
    recently published DOD IO Roadmap also supports collaboration of broad
    IO efforts across the DOD, the Intelligence Community, and other
    national-level organizations in coordinated support of operations
    directed by the RCCs.
        The ability to quantify IO effects is another area of concerted
    effort at STRATCOM. Initial conclusions from advanced concept
    technology demonstrations and a number of experiments all recommend
    establishing a national test range for IO. STRATCOM is working closely
    with OSD in establishing the requirements for just such a test range.
    This range will help us define effects in understandable terms,
    quantify systems' performance and provide assurance that the elements
    of IO will achieve the desired effects while avoiding unintended
    consequences.

         Organizing for Success
        In April 2003, we formed a JFHQ-IO within our overall headquarters
    structure. This interim move enables STRATCOM to provide IO support
    directly to warfighters while, at the same time, developing our
    internal structure and nurturing these evolving capabilities.
        In the past year, we have successfully integrated Computer Network
    Exploitation and Attack mission areas. The Network Attack Support Staff
    was established to function as the Computer Network Attack planning
    interface between the combatant commanders and the Intelligence
    Community. This component has significantly streamlined the planning
    process and contributed directly to the maturation of our efforts.

         Support to the global war on terrorism
        STRATCOM provides tailored, deployable Strategic Support Teams that
    combine the capabilities of the JIOC, located in San Antonio, with
    support elements from many other STRATCOM functional mission areas.
    Additionally, as we prosecute the war on terrorism, effective IO is
    becoming even more essential to our success. Supporting Special
    Operations Command (SOCOM), Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), PACOM,
    European Command (EUCOM), and CENTCOM for global war on terrorism and
    IO planning, JFHQ-IO works to provide an IO perspective, broader and
    deeper than any one RCC staff can, thus allowing us to better achieve
    required global effects in support of national strategic objectives.
    Our U.S. Strategic GIC will interface with other organizations to
    provide Time Sensitive Planning (TSP) as well as Crisis Action
    Planning. TSP oversight expertise will reside in the GIC and will
    formalize and codify STRATCOM's standard operating procedures, drawing
    on all organizational elements so as to provide global effects in
    support of all combatant commanders.

         The Way Ahead
        The future of global IO requires us to better define our
    operational battlespace. STRATCOM is developing a common operational
    picture based on inputs from all available DOD and intelligence
    sources. We are also developing measures of effectiveness, with
    corresponding metrics, allowing us to gauge the success or failure of a
    specific IO course of action.
        The challenge is melding the art and science of IO with emerging
    technologies, training and educated senior warfighters in these
    concepts, and, most importantly, developing a cadre of military leaders
    with sound IO skills.

    Global Ballistic Missile Defense (GBMD)
        In my statement presented to the full Senate Armed Services
    Committee on March 11, 2004, I discussed the status of STRATCOM's GBMD
    mission. Missile defense concepts have evolved from separate efforts
    focused on the terminal intercept of short and medium range ballistic
    missiles. The single entity of GBMD now includes mid-course intercept
    of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and, in the years
    ahead, development of a multi-layered missile defense system
    contributing to the defense of the U.S., our allies, and our interests
    abroad. STRATCOM is developing the GBMD concept of operations and the
    battle management architecture in order to provide full capabilities
    for RCCs' defensive employment.
        The IDO is the first increment of a capabilities-based approach in
    developing and providing GBMD. Initial capability will include the
    ability to detect a launch, display the data for decisionmakers, relay
    command and control execution decisions, and then to fire a ground-
    based interceptor. Our plan calls for a continued assessment of the
    Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) capabilities as they are
    developed and fielded by the MDA. Fielding a layered and integrated
    GBMD system is best accomplished in a spiral manner. An initial
    capability, followed by evolutionary improvements, provides commanders
    with both operational flexibility and an increased range of system
    design options based on extensive testing and assessment

    Global C\4\
        Future ISR systems, along with new weapons platforms, are expected
    to at least double the current demand on the global communications
    infrastructure. (During Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), General Tommy
    Franks required 32 times more bandwidth than did General Norman
    Schwarzkopf during Operation Desert Storm (ODS).) Change Two of the UCP
    directs STRATCOM to coordinate C\4\ capabilities in support of
    strategic force employment.

         Providing Robust Communications Architectures
        The DOD is developing the Global Information Grid--Bandwidth
    Expansion (GIG-BE) to address the growing bandwidth requirements. This
    program is key to enabling the vision of universal situational
    awareness for the warfighter. GIG-BE is scheduled to provide a fiber
    connection to over 100 sites by the end of fiscal year 2005, providing
    much needed, wideband terrestrial connectivity. Once completed, GIG-BE
    will provide a robust, optical Internet Protocol Network that the
    warfighter can post and access information at multiple levels of
    classification.

         Information Assurance (IA)
        The DOD established the IA Vulnerability Management (IAVM) program
    in 1998 to notify combatant commands, Services, and DOD agencies about
    network vulnerability alerts and countermeasures information. In our
    assigned role of directing DOD-wide computer network defense, the IAVM
    program is one of the key means we use to rapidly update the security
    of DOD computers.
        We are working to improve our ability to automatically apply
    software patches across large networks, correct vulnerabilities
    identified through the IAVM process, and automatically verify patch
    compliance. This is a formidable challenge; DOD networks are complex,
    with over 3 million computers and a wide variety of operational
    configurations. Our partnership with industry will help us develop the
    best approach.
        The warfighter of today accesses information by sifting through
    networks stratified by classification and membership. The GIG-BE will
    result in a more easily accessible network providing multi-level
    security information to authorized users. Enforcing need-to-know while
    enabling need-to-share presents DOD IA personnel the challenge of
    moving from a defense-in-depth mindset to an IA-throughout approach.
        As the DOD moves from the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII)
    to the GIG-BE, it also brings a new approach to network defense. With
    the DII, our efforts were focused on defense in-depth, with layers of
    defense to keep intruders from breaching our information fortress. In
    contrast, the GIG focuses on defense throughout. This concept
    incorporates a model that recognizes intrusions may occur, and allows
    the network to remain functional even as the infection is being cured.

         Transformational Communication System (TCS)
        A second fundamental requirement for our information networks is to
    achieve the ``Power to the Edge'' vision of John Stenbit, former
    Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information
    Integration. He said, ``We must replace top-down operations with
    distributed operations--and use information technology to empower
    whomever is in need of a solution, regardless of where that individual
    is.''
        Developing this type of network requires reshaping our security
    philosophy and technology. Identity management must focus on end users,
    applications, and services. This will enable distributed computing
    between allied components using applications able to securely
    communicate with other applications. STRATCOM is working closely with
    the OSD staff and the Transformational Communications Office to develop
    the policies and architectures needed to realize the vision of the TCS.

    ISR
        Change Two of the UCP tasks STRATCOM with planning, integrating,
    and coordinating DOD ISR in support of strategic and global operations.
    Day-to-day operational control of DOD ISR assets will typically remain
    with the RCCs.
        STRATCOM is applying its unique global focus to planning and
    executing the DOD ISR mission. In effect, DOD ISR will be employed as a
    weapon system against specific strategic objectives and priorities.
    Each platform allocation will be planned to achieve specific effects
    and will be evaluated against that objective. New relationships and
    mechanisms are being developed to bring existing expertise and
    capabilities together in new, more powerful ways.
        To fulfill this mission, STRATCOM has organized intelligence and
    operations into an ISR Division that is unique among combatant
    commands. By integrating the operations and intelligence elements of
    the DOD ISR mission, we provide a holistic view of DOD ISR to increase
    the synergy between those who determine the requirements, those who
    conduct the operations to satisfy those requirements, and the end-users
    of collected and processed intelligence.
        The initial focus of our ISR Division is completion of the recently
    approved DOD ISR Implementation Plan. The timeline for transfer of the
    DOD ISR processes identified in the ISR Implementation Plan began with
    the sensitive reconnaissance operations approval process in December
    2003 and will end with the ISR allocation process in October 2004. We
    have just completed observing the latest bi-annual allocation process
    and started identifying steps necessary to transfer the process to
    STRATCOM by the fall of 2004.
        In addition to fulfilling current ISR requirements, STRATCOM is
    actively engaged in determining future airborne ISR needs. As the
    combatant command lead for DOD Airborne ISR, we will have visibility
    into the requirements from the theaters. Combining a composite list of
    theater requirements with emerging technologies allows us to develop a
    comprehensive list of capabilities to better support the RCCs. We will
    work closely with U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) to fully integrate
    DOD ISR into architecture and doctrine development. However, to be
    truly effective, we must find a more efficient means to influence the
    shape of DOD ISR procurement programs. The overarching goal is a more
    efficient, effective, responsive, and coordinated DOD ISR capability
    across the globe. With the responsibility for both DOD ISR allocation
    and advocacy, STRATCOM is uniquely positioned to provide a global view
    of both intelligence needs and required future capabilities.
        All of this effort will also support the objectives for
    intelligence sharing set by the Under Secretary of Defense for
    Intelligence. His office is crafting policies and supporting
    architecture to horizontally integrate collected intelligence from the
    theaters with the information acquired by the national agencies.
    STRATCOM sees this as a significant step toward providing all users
    with better insight into collected intelligence and enabling the
    sharing of essential information among all legitimate users. We believe
    this concept will significantly enhance intelligence available to all
    users and showcase the operational potential of future persistent
    intelligence collectors such as Space-Based Radar.

                     IV. FUTURE OF NUCLEAR FORCE STRUCTURE

    Sustainment and Modernization
         ICBMs
        ICBMs have been a mainstay of strategic deterrence for decades,
    providing prompt responsiveness, high reliability, accuracy, rapid and
    flexible targeting, and a high state of alert readiness. With
    Peacekeeper deactivation proceeding as planned, Minuteman III will soon
    be our Nation's only remaining land-based strategic deterrent.
    Recognizing the importance of the Minuteman III weapon system, the Air
    Force has implemented an aggressive life extension program for the
    Minuteman III ICBM force to ensure weapon system reliability through
    2020.
        We appreciate Congress' continued strong support for ICBM weapon
    systems by funding reliability upgrades to critical components of the
    Minuteman III. These include the Guidance Replacement Program,
    Propulsion Replacement Program, Propulsion System Engine Life
    Extension, Safety Enhanced Vehicle Program, and Command and Control,
    Security and Cryptography Upgrades. Finally, we support an Analysis of
    Alternatives that will examine follow-on systems to the Minuteman III.

         Bomber Force
        The long-range bomber fleet is the second essential element of the
    Nation's strategic deterrent force as well as a primary element of our
    conventional Global Strike capability. The B-52 Avionics Midlife
    Improvement Program remains a high priority for STRATCOM and is
    critical to sustaining the platform into the next decade. Of equal
    concern is keeping the B-2 radar replacement program on track.
        The viability of our bombers in a nuclear and conventional role
    requires unimpeded access to increased bandwidth as well as secure,
    survivable, and endurable global communication capabilities inherent in
    the next generation satellite communication constellations. Robust
    command and control, coupled with the recently demonstrated value of
    real-time, in-flight bomber weapon re-targeting, require that we
    continue to synchronize the fielding of bomber communication terminals
    with the launches of advanced communications satellites.

         Strategic Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN)
        The final leg of strategic deterrence is the D5 Submarine Launched
    Ballistic Missile. Life Extension (LE) and back-fit programs will
    provide a standardized fleet of 14 Ohio Class SSBNs capable of
    employing D5 Trident II missiles for the full hull life of these
    submarines (extended to 45 years). The last two submarines awaiting
    upgrade will complete their D5 back-fit and refueling overhauls in
    fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2008. D5 LE upgrades the guidance and
    missile electronics on fielded D5 missiles and procures additional
    missiles to meet system reliability and accuracy testing needs for the
    life of the program, while also providing a sufficient quantity of
    missiles to fully load out 12 SSBNs.
        The conversion of the four Ohio Class SSBNs to Guided Missile
    Submarines (SSGNs) is an example of modifying existing platforms,
    concepts and capabilities for a dramatically different military role.
    SSGN conversions are on schedule and are being completed in conjunction
    with scheduled Engineering Refueling Overhauls (EROs). The boats will
    be equipped with conventional cruise missiles, extensive special
    operations capability, and will be assigned evolving new missions. The
    U.S.S. Ohio, U.S.S. Florida, and U.S.S. Michigan have entered ERO and
    are proceeding on an aggressive conversion schedule with deliveries
    scheduled for 2005 and 2006. The U.S.S. Georgia is scheduled for ERO in
    2004 and conversion will be completed by 2007.

         Stockpile Stewardship
        In addition to our vital life extension and modernization programs,
    we are working closely with our partners in the DOD, DOE, and Congress
    to ensure our nuclear stockpile remains safe, reliable, and credible.
    As the Nation's nuclear stockpile continues to age, we must carefully
    monitor its condition. Through the NNSA's Science-Based Stockpile
    Stewardship Program, we continue to improve our surveillance, modeling,
    simulation tools and processes in order to provide the critical data on
    aging effects, component reliability, and physics phenomena we require
    in the absence of nuclear weapon testing. Past reductions in nuclear
    weapon infrastructure capacity require that the essential warhead life
    extension programs be carefully sequenced with scheduled warhead
    dismantlement so as to provide just-in-time delivery to meet
    operational deterrent force requirements. We are working closely with
    the NNSA, the national laboratories, and plants to shape their support
    to our future stockpile. With the production complexes operating near
    peak capacity, we will need to optimize the balance between essential
    life extension programs and dismantlement work.
        A 2003 congressionally mandated panel, led by Dr. John Foster, Jr.,
    reported that our nuclear weapons program must be balanced between
    maintaining the existing warheads and the need to transform elements of
    the existing stockpile for the future. As we reduce our nuclear forces
    toward the goal of 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear
    warheads by 2012, we must concurrently analyze and research advanced
    concepts in order to realize the vision of the Foster Panel and the
    NPR. The results of this research will, in turn, enable objective,
    fact-based discussions on very important deterrence and policy issues.

         Assessment and Testing
        The United States' nuclear stockpile has a weighted average age of
    over 20 years, and we are the only nuclear power without a current
    capability to build a complete nuclear weapon. The Science-Based
    Stockpile Stewardship Program supports ongoing research and development
    (R&D) of new advanced technologies and analytical tools to assess the
    health of our aging stockpile without a current need for underground
    testing.
        Since 2000, the DOE has used the Advanced Computing Initiative as
    an integral part of the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program to
    analytically simulate nuclear explosions. These computational experts
    and their physicist colleagues in our technical laboratories are a
    national treasure, trained to make sense of torrents of information
    obtained from those simulations to certify the safety and reliability
    of the current stockpile.

                              V. SPACE OPERATIONS

        Across DOD, space is both a major integrator of missions and a
    global enabler for our forces. Our space assets gather and disseminate
    real-time data on virtually any location on the globe, as well as
    provide essential command and control capabilities to forces anywhere
    on the planet. That is why STRATCOM elected to embed space operations
    throughout our organization rather than treating it as a specific,
    stove-piped mission area. U.S. dependence on space, and the potential
    corresponding vulnerabilities, demand that our National Security Space
    interests be addressed as top national security priorities. Our focus
    includes:

    Improving U.S. Launch Capabilities
        New capabilities are required to enable rapid augmentation,
    replacement, or repair of satellites lost due to component failure or
    adversary action. STRATCOM looks to the Air Force, National Aeronautics
    and Space Administration (NASA), and industry partners to expedite
    delivery of a more effective, next-generation launch system.

    Resolving Space System Vulnerabilities
        Operations in Iraq demonstrated that adversaries can and will
    challenge our ability to use space assets. The attempts to jam our
    global positioning system (GPS) and degrade the accuracy of our
    precision weapons, in Navy parlance, were a ``shot across the bow.''
    DOD must be able to monitor the health of our essential systems,
    advance our space situational awareness, and respond appropriately to
    sustain our national on-orbit capabilities. In support of the
    leadership of the DOD Executive Agent for Space, Peter Teets, STRATCOM
    is fully engaged in assessing and strengthening all elements of our
    space systems.

    Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS)
        The potential provided by the developing SBIRS will be a key
    contributor to greater capabilities in the mission areas of theater and
    global missile warning, missile defense, technical intelligence and
    battlespace characterization to support real-time warfighting
    operations. As designed, SBIRS will expand our ability to detect
    shorter-range missiles with systems designed for both tactical and
    strategic requirements. Once operational, SBIRS will not only represent
    our primary source of initial warning, but will also represent the
    first link in the chain of a layered, integrated missile defense.
    Deployment of a capability such as SBIRS is essential to replace legacy
    systems, some elements of which are now operating well beyond their
    intended life.

    Satellite Communications
        Military satellite communications will remain our primary means of
    providing dedicated, secure and/or hardened command and control
    capabilities for worldwide military operations. During the past year,
    we launched the final satellites to complete the Defense Satellite
    Communications System (DSCS), Milstar, and Ultra High Frequency (UHF)
    follow-on constellations. These systems have served us well for decades
    and many have lived far beyond their projected life expectancy. As a
    result of this extended service life, deployment of more modern and
    more capable replacements is needed immediately. The capabilities
    represented by these programs will be sustained and improved with the
    launch of the next generation of satellite systems beginning with the
    Wideband Gapfiller Satellite in fiscal year 2005 and continuing through
    the launches of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) and Mobile
    User Objective System (MUOS).
        The Wideband Gapfiller program consists of five high capacity
    satellites launched from fiscal year 2005-2010 that will replace the
    aging DSCS and Global Broadcast Service satellites, providing DOD with
    high-capacity, wideband service for the Nation.
        The AEHF program is the follow-on to Milstar. Currently scheduled
    to launch three satellites during fiscal year 2007-2009, AEHF provides
    up to 10 times the capacity of Milstar, a significant increase in
    coverage, and the ability to support twice as many networks. It will
    support national, strategic, and tactical users requiring protected,
    anti-jam, survivable communications for national crises, Emergency
    Action Message dissemination, Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack
    Assessment, missile defense, presidential secure voice conferencing,
    and interoperability with selected international partners.
        The MUOS will field five UHF satellites to provide the warfighter
    on-demand, high capacity communications to ISR, and weapons system
    platforms on the move. This system is designed to alleviate the need to
    purchase expensive, commercial satellite services. MUOS launches
    currently are scheduled for fiscal year 2009-2011.
        Investments in replacement technology and capacity will help
    maintain the U.S. as the pre-eminent space faring nation well into the
    future. STRATCOM will remain engaged as these programs are developed
    and procured to monitor progress and ensure warfighter requirements are
    clearly articulated.
        STRATCOM is working with the Joint Staff, Defense Information
    Systems Agency (DISA), and, as appropriate, the commercial satellite
    industry to develop a methodology whereby DOD can assure future
    satellite communications systems are designed, funded, fielded, and
    sustained as an end-to-end communication system. In the past, complex
    communications systems routinely were procured in parallel, as separate
    elements, and often by many organizations. Due to increased system
    complexity and the number of segments involved, an end-to-end
    synchronized acquisition process is essential. We must streamline the
    process and develop a procedure to centrally fund and manage seamless,
    integrated, on-demand capable satellite communication services to meet
    national security needs.

                     VI. GLOBAL INTEGRATION AND COOPERATION

    Integrating the GOC
        On April 15, 2003, STRATCOM published an overarching operational
    concept to incorporate changes driven by the assignment of our global
    missions. Central to this document is the creation of the GOC. The GOC
    and its supporting command elements will enable STRATCOM to provide
    responsive support to the President, Secretary of Defense, combatant
    commanders, and agencies. Additionally, the GOC, with support of our
    components, will develop and leverage global battlefield situational
    awareness and present decisionmakers with full spectrum courses of
    action that integrate all STRATCOM's missions and capabilities.
        Within the GOC, we will also perform space operations including
    space control, space support, and force enhancement. The GOC will
    enable STRATCOM to better execute our assigned missions by providing
    improved responsiveness and better command and control of our missions
    by placing the responsibility for mission support and execution under a
    single integrated operations center.
        The Combatant Commander's Integrated Command and Control System
    (CCIC2S) is the integrated battle management command and control engine
    for STRATCOM. CCIC2S integrates fixed and mobile command and control
    (C2) systems to support our missions and RCCs. CCIC2S must be
    responsive to the combatant commander's vision and ``evolve to a highly
    responsive and cost-effective sensor-to-decision-maker-to-shooter
    capability.'' It supports spiral development and delivery of air
    defense, missile warning, space surveillance and defense, and common C2
    service capabilities.

                       VII. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

    Strengthening Components and Agency Relationships
        We continue to seek the proper composition and alignment of
    components to accomplish our missions while allowing flexibility as our
    missions evolve. In this area, we have accomplished the following:

             On October 1, 2003, the Commandant of the Marine Corps
            directed the activation of a Marine Corps service component
            command called U.S. Marine Corps Forces, STRATCOM (MARFORSTRAT)
            to support our mission areas.
             We established command relationships to leverage
            capabilities of the NSA, DISA, and JIOC to provide an armory of
            IO capabilities.
             The Cruise Missile Support Activities previously
            assigned to the PACOM and JFCOM were realigned under STRATCOM
            to enhance Global Strike capabilities.

        We have become more efficient in organizing our components and are
    still exploring several opportunities for further realignment of
    component support in order to avoid unnecessary and duplicative
    headquarters growth. In those instances, we are seeking mechanisms
    allowing us to interface with appropriate senior leadership to access
    the centers of excellence and proven capabilities resident within their
    subordinate organizations. We call it ``capabilities-based
    componency,'' and it is a construct defined by access to, versus
    ownership of, resources essential to the accomplishment of our diverse
    missions.
        Partnerships with civilian agencies, private industry, and academia
    are also vital to successful accomplishment of our missions. As we
    continue to establish new relationships and enhance existing ones, we
    remain focused on refining effective and efficient processes in the
    common pursuit of enhanced national security.
    Strengthening Reach-back Capabilities, Joint Exercises, and Training
        DOD is transitioning toward smaller, more agile forces, decreasing
    the forward footprint of our personnel in theater. To enable mission
    success for these agile forces, we must provide improved situational
    awareness and command and control capabilities. This requires
    unprecedented reach-back to planning capabilities, intelligence
    products, and other specialized expertise.
        A DOD oversight committee is crafting a roadmap for leveraging
    technologies to provide seamless distributed operations, or reach-back
    to supporting commands and elements. Developing GIG-BE will greatly
    improve this reach-back capability. By moving digits, not people, we
    reduce not only transportation and support costs, but the number of
    personnel placed in harm's way. Reach-back capabilities proved highly
    successful during OIF in supporting targeting, planning and information
    operations.
        In parallel, a specialized team of 35 personnel was sent to support
    CENTCOM by providing specialized space and information operations
    planning and execution support. Referred to as a Space and Information
    Operations Element, this team represents a first step in developing
    connectivity back to our headquarters for broader access to specific
    STRATCOM expertise, making our entire headquarters a trusted agent for
    the RCC.
        In the future, we anticipate opportunities for STRATCOM Support
    Teams to train and/or exercise regularly with the RCCs, thereby
    building relationships that are well understood before crisis or
    conflict looms. If requested by the RCC, they will be forward deployed
    in time of conflict. Alternatively, if that commander were comfortable
    with reach-back support from this team, they would provide the regional
    commander with the full spectrum of capabilities from our GIC at Offutt
    Air Force Base.
        As STRATCOM continues to mature our recently assigned global
    missions, we must develop robust training and exercise programs to test
    the tactics, techniques, and procedures envisioned in our integrated
    concept of operations. Our annual major exercise, Global Guardian, has
    traditionally been a nuclear operations-focused exercise. We are
    dramatically reshaping that construct and creating a new exercise
    series that better captures the broad range of new responsibilities
    while still supporting the essential zero-defect focus on our legacy
    mission. The Strike Directorate continues to coordinate with RCCs on
    the command and control structure required to simulate integration of
    full spectrum Global Strike missions into future regional exercises.
        In December 2003, we successfully demonstrated support to a RCC
    (PACOM) in Terminal Fury 04 in the areas of Global Strike, IO, Space
    Operations, and ISR. Using extensive reach-back opportunities and
    Strategic Support Teams, it afforded STRATCOM the opportunity to gain
    hands-on experience in areas such as planning, executing, and
    recovering Global Strike missions across regional boundaries. By
    working closely with PACOM in this exercise, we further developed a
    regional context and improved capabilities in our new mission areas to
    extend to all RCCs. The coming year undoubtedly promises new challenges
    and greater opportunities.

                                VIII. CONCLUSION

        As STRATCOM reshapes the heart of the Nation's strategic
    capability, we are required to study new deterrence concepts to provide
    the President with a wider range of military options that bring to bear
    every element of national power. The warrior Sun Tzu said, ``To win
    without fighting is best.'' A fundamental principle remains that
    deterrence has credibility only to the extent we back it up with
    capability, determination, and resolve. STRATCOM provides credibility
    through its cohesive package of both new and legacy missions, even as
    we explore new deterrent concepts to serve the Nation in a very
    different future.
        STRATCOM is ready to meet the challenges of the future. We are
    mindful of the magnitude of the task before us, and confident in the
    talent of our staff, our components, and our mission partners. In the
    words of Abraham Lincoln, ``The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate
    to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and
    we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think
    anew, and act anew.''
        I appreciate your continued support and look forward to reporting
    our progress to you in the future as we continue to build the new
    STRATCOM.

        Senator Bill Nelson [presiding]. Thank you, Admiral.
        General Lord.

      STATEMENT OF GEN. LANCE W. LORD, USAF, COMMANDER, AIR FORCE
                             SPACE COMMAND

        General Lord. Thank you, Senator Nelson and distinguished
    members of the subcommittee. It is my honor today to appear
    with Under Secretary Teets, as well as Admiral Ellis and
    Admiral Cebrowski, to represent the 39,000 hard-working men and
    women of AFSPC. On their behalf, I want to thank you for your
    continued support of our people and our programs.
        Along with our Army and Navy colleagues, as Admiral Ellis
    pointed out, we really put the force behind the Under Secretary
    and Admiral Ellis' priorities. In AFSPC we conduct space and
    missile operations 24-7-365, around the clock every day of the
    year, under the direction of our two Numbered Air Forces. Our
    operations are sustained and supported by both our acquisition
    arm under the command of Lieutenant General Brian Arnold, the
    Space and Missile System Center in Los Angeles, and our
    innovators in the Space Warfare Center.
        We operate because our space capabilities provide what we
    think is a very real transformational effect. It was seen in
    Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) as well as OIF that space
    capabilities were a helping hand to all joint and coalition
    forces. We certainly demonstrated that in recent combat
    operations. That helping hand we see is backed up by the
    clenched fist of our ready and alert missile forces that are on
    alert every day to continue to deter.
        As we meet today to discuss and talk about the future, it
    is important to remember the truly indispensable power
    provided, as Admiral Ellis said, by these capabilities. We
    think our advantages in space are certainly apparent to us and
    are certainly apparent to our potential adversaries, and we
    must take all appropriate steps to protect our capabilities.
        With your continued support, we will increase our focus on
    space force protection, to include space control and space
    superiority and its critical enabler, space situation
    awareness.
        Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and I look
    forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of General Lord follows:]

                 Prepared Statement by Gen. Lance W. Lord, USAF

                                  INTRODUCTION

        It is my distinct honor to appear before the committee today on
    behalf the 39,000 men and women of the world's finest space and missile
    team--Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). I am honored to appear with
    Under Secretary of the Air Force Peter Teets, the Department of Defense
    (DOD) Executive Agent for Space, Admiral Jim Ellis, the Commander of
    United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), and retired Vice Admiral
    Arthur Cebrowski, Director of DOD Force Transformation. These leaders
    are a major reason why our space and missile capabilities continue to
    play an ever-increasing transformational role in joint and coalition
    operations. They continue to push advancement of our sentinels on the
    high ground and our ready, safe, and reliable missiles below ground to
    increase the range, speed, and precision of all our forces in conflict
    and, moreover, to deter a conflict before it begins.

                                 TRANSFORMATION

        There is no better example of this transformation than we recently
    displayed in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi
    Freedom (OIF). Simultaneously, our forces limited collateral damage,
    delivered humanitarian aid and saved the lives of combatants and
    civilians alike while conducting highly successful combat operations.
    General Franks, former Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) told
    Congress, ``The pieces of this operation which have been successful
    would not have been so without space-based assets . . . it's just very
    simply a fact.'' Spacepower continues to improve our battlefield speed,
    precision, lethality, reach and flexibility. As President Bush said on
    May 1, 2003, aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, ``Operation Iraqi
    Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and
    boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before.
    From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that
    could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker.'' In a
    matter of minutes, not weeks, hours, or days as in past wars,
    commanders identified and engaged targets and received timely battle
    damage assessment. Our coalition, and our adversary, got the message:
    spacepower is now in the fight like never before.
        The organizational and structural changes implemented after the
    Space Commission puts AFSPC on an even better footing for the future.
    The synergy between the acquisition arm of the command--the Space and
    Missile Systems Center, the innovators at the Space Warfare Center, the
    Space Numbered Air Force--the 14th Air Force, our missileers in the
    20th Air Force, and our headquarters team is beginning to be realized.
    Our people are always in the fight--either through our ``deployed in
    place mission'' from our sites around the world (some of our men and
    women spent 180 plus days in the missile field last year, for example)
    or the 1,200 people deployed to the theater last year (over 436 members
    still deployed). Our airmen, from the most junior enlisted to the
    senior officers, understand they are all part of the team that doesn't
    just support the warfighter--they provide combat effects 24/7/365.

                                  AFSPC VISION

        As Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom continue to wind
    down, I'd like to share a snapshot of our Command Way Ahead. Our
    command vision is to be a full spectrum space combat command preeminent
    in the application of space power for national security and joint
    warfare.
        We've been creating combat effects since well before we stood up as
    a command--I pulled my first Combat Crew Missile Alert in 1969. Our new
    vision is to provide full spectrum effects, from strategic (which has
    always been our strength) to tactical effects using nonkinetic through
    kinetic weapons in full combat synergy with all coalition forces.
        Our framework to achieve that vision is what we call ``Commanding
    the Future.'' This framework enables a complete understanding of our
    progress in all aspects by ensuring: we have the right enterprise and
    are focused both operationally and strategically; we have the right
    partners; we are unleashing human talent to develop space professionals
    with education and certification programs; we are developing new
    wizards who understand all the aspects of the space medium and system
    and creative ways of employment; we are warfighter centric and have the
    proper concepts of operation (CONOPs); and that we can properly
    transition advanced technology to warfighting and increase combat
    effects. Through these ``thrusts,'' we ensure we cover all management
    areas as we execute our command priorities for 2004.

                                AFSPC PRIORITIES

        Our first priority is developing our people to lead us into the
    future, and educating them through Space Professional Development--this
    is significant, as we have formulated a plan that ensures the success
    of our operators, developers, and maintainers as one warfighting space
    cadre. When the Secretary of the Air Force approved the Space
    Professional Development strategy, he took the additional step of
    naming me, in my position as the AFSPC Commander, the Space
    Professional Functional Authority--the only Functional Authority
    residing outside of the Pentagon. We developed, tested and conducted
    space professional education prototypes in 2003, and this year we'll
    bring both the initial Space 100 and the advanced Space 200 courses on-
    line for Space Cadre members at the 8-10 year point in their careers.
    Finally, I approved identifying Space Cadre members and associated
    Space Cadre positions using Space Experience Codes (SPECs). These SPECs
    will become the common terminology linking the experiences that
    identify the individual and the position, helping us to inventory
    capabilities and requirements for all Space Professional Cadre members.
        With the proper focus on people, we must improve our capabilities
    and deliver on near term commitments. Improving missile warning systems
    remains one of our top priorities. We need to upgrade our missile
    warning that served us well throughout the Cold War, to be more
    responsive and more capable to our forces in the field. We stretched
    the Defense Support Program (DSP) system hard for tactical missile
    warning, but our forces deserve increased capability to precisely
    determine launch and impact point for both warning and engagement of
    incoming enemy missiles. With just one DSP left to launch, we can't
    wait for a degraded constellation. Degraded strategic and tactical
    missile warning would present significant national security
    challenges--it would severely handicap national missile defense and
    strategic response through tactical warning to warriors in the field.
    We will continue to push Space Based Infrared capabilities in the near
    term.
        We will also maintain our assured access to space with multiple new
    launch vehicles and developing operationally responsive spacelift and
    spacecraft. Our Operationally Responsive Spacelift (ORS) initiative is
    progressing well. The Mission Needs Statement (MNS) was validated by
    the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) in April 2002 and we're
    in the midst of an ORS analysis of alternatives (AOA) that should be
    completed mid-2004. The fiscal year 2005 presidential budget also
    includes funding for an Air Force/Defense Advanced Research Projects
    Agency (DARPA) demonstration called Force Application and Launch from
    the continental United States (CONUS) (FALCON). However, we are
    stressing our newest, state of the art rockets known as Atlas V and
    Delta IV. These two contractor teams, plus our new group of launch
    professionals--acquirers and space operators now on one team--are all
    focused on mission success in each and every operation leading to
    launch. Our focus is delivering on the promises of the Evolved
    Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) fleet and getting toward more
    responsive launch without sacrificing mission success.
        A continuing priority is space superiority and understanding all
    avenues that adversaries could take to counter our capabilities. Space
    superiority is just as important as gaining and maintaining air
    superiority in times of conflict. It is our fundamental duty to ensure
    our advantages in space don't become vulnerabilities. Each time the
    higher ground was sought throughout history, adversaries developed
    capabilities to remove the advantage. We are very concerned about space
    force protection to ensure all our space forces are survivable, and we
    are exploring rapid reconstitution capabilities. However, fundamental
    to space superiority is the capability to detect, categorize and
    counter attacks on spacecraft, ground stations and the links between
    them. Every new contract we let must take into account all appropriate
    space situation awareness and protection measures.
        In 2004, we'll continue modernizing our ICBMs while exploring other
    alternatives for future force application. Our space capabilities were
    the helping hand of our coalition force operations because they were
    backed up by the clenched fist of our missile force--always alert and
    providing ``top cover'' by deterring any adversary from using weapons
    of mass destruction (WMD) against our Nation or our forces around the
    world. In 2003, we strengthened that fist even more with over 200 new
    guidance sets and 80 missiles with new propellant. We'll continue to
    increase those numbers this year and conduct an AOA on the next
    generation Land Based Strategic Deterrent.
        Over the next year, we will also plan for future advancements in
    force enhancement through GPS modernization, Space-Based Radar (SBR)
    development, and advanced satellite communications. GPS has proven its
    worth. It is the world's largest free public utility with numerous
    applications that improve our daily lives. The military value of this
    system is unquestionably the driving force behind our transformation.
    We look forward to launching the next generation of GPS to keep our
    forces on the leading edge. SBR will provide surveillance and target
    tracking around the clock and in all weather. The situational awareness
    provided by the SBR constellation promises to be just as revolutionary
    as GPS has been. We must continue to ensure SBR is responsive to our
    forces in the field and the power of this system is not only used for
    intelligence preparation of the battlespace, but provides the much
    needed capability to ID and track targets in theater, real time.
    Transformational Satellite (TSAT) Communications serve a fundamental
    need of all our expeditionary forces--the expanding need for protected,
    reliable, long haul communication. We are looking hard at the
    interoperability between Intelligence Community and DOD requirements.
    We are also weighing associated affordability/schedule risks and the
    appropriate tradeoffs leading toward a fiscal year 2012 (November 2011)
    TSAT first launch.
        These priorities, executed through the Commanding the Future
    framework, will solve our most pressing needs leading into both near
    and mid term to achieve the needed effects on the battlefield by all
    members of our joint and coalition team. AFSPC will be ready for
    whatever the future brings by continuing to innovate, develop, design,
    launch, and operate leading-edge space and missile systems.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
    look forward to your questions.

        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you, General.
        Admiral.

        STATEMENT OF VICE ADM. ARTHUR K. CEBROWSKI, USN [RET.],
        DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FORCE TRANSFORMATION, OFFICE OF THE
                          SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

        Admiral Cebrowski. Thank you, sir. It is a pleasure to be
    here. I suppose what I should do is point out first of all
    that, unlike my colleagues here to my right, I am really not in
    the space business; I am in the transformation business. So I
    am really not here to talk about programmatics for our larger
    space programs or make declarations about what is or might not
    be transformational. I have a fondness for microsatellites, but
    I am really not here to talk about that either, although we are
    moving into the age of the small, the fast, and the many, not
    just in space potentially but in all aspects of military
    operations.
        Actually, I am here to discuss a new and broader and
    complementary business model which could decidedly expand our
    capabilities base, our technical base, and our competitive
    base. I really only have three points about that.
        First, the barriers to competition are falling in several
    key elements of military competition. Space is one of those
    areas, perhaps more than any other area, and consequently the
    question before us is how do we respond to that.
        Second, the old model has a lot of goodness in it, and it
    pushes to the fore competition on the basis of technology and
    technical complexity, where we have the ability to indeed do
    quite well. We need to expand that to a new broader basis for
    competition with new metrics, for example, and metrics which
    are more output-oriented rather than the technical insertion
    piece.
        Lastly, there are a few small but very important steps that
    need to be taken to indeed broaden our space capability and
    bring the new model on line. We are in a position right now
    where we judge the strategic context to demand that we be
    swift, bold, and very specific about what we do. I believe that
    as the major defense power in the world, we must dare to
    compete with ourselves to ensure perfection, to set our own
    standards.
        With that, I am very pleased to be here again and eager for
    your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Cebrowski follows:]

              Prepared Statement by Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski, USN

        Chairman Allard, Senator Nelson, and members of the subcommittee,
    I'm honored to have the opportunity to address the subcommittee, and to
    join the leaders of our National Security Space (NSS) team to address
    current space issues so vital to our Nation and our military forces.
        During my April 2002 testimony before the Senate Armed Services
    Committee, I noted that the barriers to competitive entry are falling
    as a result of new technologies made possible in the age of
    information. Nowhere is this truer than in space.
        Now it is 2 years later, and transformation across the force is
    happening much faster than we expected when we announced the journey
    just 28 months ago. Not just a concept and not just action in the
    future, transformation is happening today. It is happening due in large
    part to the information and power derived from our vital space
    capabilities.
        Our space capabilities are a prominent feature of the global
    advantage we currently enjoy. However, the space technology context is
    changing, making possible a movement to an additional business model
    and an expanded business base for space. Cost per kilogram on orbit is
    still a problem. But, capability per kilogram on orbit is soaring due
    to advances in information technology. This makes the alternative model
    feasible. The door for small, micro and nanosatellites is open,
    allowing us to redefine cost and mission criticality curves, increase
    transaction and learning rates and the ability to assume risk. As we
    move towards the age of the small, the fast and the many, it is time to
    start thinking about applying that movement to our model for space.
    Adopting this complementary and broader business model will help us
    ensure space superiority well into a future where space will be yet
    more responsive to our joint military forces. In short, it is within
    our capability to create options, a process which itself can be a
    competitive advantage.
        Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) is that new and complementary
    business model. At its core are: (1) the defining of a joint military
    demand function; and (2) the focus on providing joint military
    capabilities for our operational and tactical level commanders.
    Finally, the model incentivizes output rate and uses a co-evolutionary
    strategy of concept-technology pairing, providing for iterative
    advancement in operational capabilities.

                        PROGRESS OF SPACE TRANSFORMATION

        Our NSS team has made great strides in its short 45-year history.
    Rooted in the Cold War, the NSS program was viewed as a source of
    national power. There was a clear connection between space and our
    strategic deterrent forces. The Nation capitalized on converted weapon
    systems to develop the ability to launch small payloads in low Earth
    orbit. Then we graduated to larger payloads in higher orbits vital for
    detecting the ballistic missile threat posed by the Soviet Union.
        Thirty years later, the military value of space capabilities became
    apparent during Operation Desert Storm (ODS), which many have deemed
    the first space war. In reality, our space forces, like our traditional
    military forces, used a robust Cold War force structure to defeat the
    Iraqi Armed Forces and expel them from Kuwait. Nevertheless, ODS
    highlighted the importance of being able to distribute or
    operationalize these global space utilities to be operationally
    relevant in theater.
        One need only compare ODS with Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or
    Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) to see how successful we have been at
    operationalizing our global space forces. One of the key differences
    between ODS and OIF is the distribution of satellite-based wideband
    communications down to the tactical level. In ODS our military forces
    numbered 542,000 and they had 99 megabits per second of bandwidth
    available. In OEF/OIF bandwidth rose to 3,200 megabits per second while
    our forces were reduced to 350,000. Satellite communications provided
    the backbone for Blue Force Tracking, shared situational awareness down
    to the individual level and allowed operational and tactical level
    commanders to exploit an unprecedented speed of command. The Nation's
    space capabilities directly impacted speed of maneuver, the tempo of
    the fight, and the boldness and lethality of our forces.
        Additionally, the advances made in missile warning were
    significant. In ODS, using our Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites
    designed to detect the Cold War ballistic missile threat, we were able
    to give rudimentary theater missile warning. However, in the 10 years
    since ODS, advances in ground processing, on-orbit software,
    organizations, command and control and theater warning concept of
    operations made our warning capability dramatically more robust
    allowing for theater battlespace characterization.
        Finally, it is obvious that, in the years leading up to OIF, great
    advances were made in distributing the Global Positioning System (GPS)
    signal to weapons. This has significantly increased our precision
    strike capability.
        These examples of increased bandwidth, theater missile warning
    capability, and precision, show just how important space capabilities
    are to transforming our force and how far we have come in
    operationalizing these capabilities. But all along the way, the
    operational and tactical benefits were what could be teased out of the
    larger NSS systems.

                              THE LINK TO STRATEGY

        One may ask why we need a new model; given the success of our
    existing force. From all indications our space forces are providing us
    with an asymmetric advantage that no adversary currently enjoys.
    Although that is clearly true, evidence suggests that our space
    supremacy is not guaranteed. An adversary might turn our asymmetric
    advantage into an asymmetric vulnerability if we cannot maintain space
    supremacy. The United States is the most heavily space dependent nation
    in the world and that holds true for our joint military forces--this
    will continue to hold true for the foreseeable future.
        Alfred Thayer Mahan, a prominent naval historian and strategist,
    described the oceans as a ``great common.'' Today, space and cyberspace
    must be added to the list of commons that must be controlled. One of
    the recognized barriers to becoming a hegemonic power is the ability to
    operate in and control the commons. Therefore, we can expect nations
    with hegemonic aspirations to try to erode our ability to operate
    effectively in the commons and to achieve the ability to control the
    commons for their own use.

        The barriers to entry into space, which were so high during the
    Cold War, have eroded. No longer is space reserved for great power
    nations alone. Space has become much more common, and today a nation
    needs not be a space power to employ space power. The commercial space
    communication and remote sensing industries that emerged in the 1990s
    provide power derived from space, once reserved for the most powerful
    of nations, to weaker nations, organizations and even individuals.
    Additionally, the increasing capabilities of small, micro, and nano
    class satellites have moved them from a segment more suited for
    university backed experiments to a niche with potentially significant
    military utility. Today, nations can contract with universities to not
    only build microsatellites, but also to transfer the knowledge required
    to develop them. The United States, the leader in space, has taken a
    back seat to other nations in exploiting these smaller segments of the
    space industry. As we are at the threshold of transforming ourselves to
    a network centric military, using the coherent effects of distributed
    military forces and systems to achieve commander's intent, the newer
    smaller elements of space capability emerge as a toolset providing
    virtually unlimited potential.
        In the past 2 years, other nations have launched 38 microsatellites
    while our contribution in this segment of the market is very modest.
    Furthermore, our Space Test Program as indicated by the number of
    satellites launched for test is in decline.
        The Cold War attributes of our existing space program limit our
    ability to maintain space superiority required by today's rapidly
    changing strategic environment. Specifically, the mission criticality
    that grew out of the Cold War and the very high cost of our complex and
    highly capable space systems lead to a high consequence of failure. The
    required corresponding risk mitigation strategy incentivizes expensive,
    long lasting, heavy, multi-mission payloads. These same attributes also
    impact our ability to launch our satellites into orbit. They require
    larger, higher cost launch vehicles, with low launch rates and
    significant mission assurance oversight.

                  ATTRIBUTES OF OPERATIONALLY RESPONSIVE SPACE

        ORS is a new approach. Rather than trying to operationalize
    national/global space utilities, this model designs military
    capabilities directly for the operational commander. The key attribute
    of the ORS business model is that the field commanders drive the
    demand. That demand is the joint military capability required to meet
    operational and tactical level needs. Rather than treating our
    operational and tactical level commanders as lesser includeds, this
    business model designs a capability to meet their specific warfighting
    needs.

    Demand Function
        The operational level of war is a theater level of war, and the
    operational commander is normally established only in a time of
    conflict. This definition helps put the demand function into context.
    The operational commander requires a theater capability to satisfy a
    joint warfighting need (vice a national intelligence need) that is
    available during joint warfighting planning timelines. This demand
    function changes the space calculus and the cost, risk and mission
    criticality variables that incentivize lower cost, smaller, satellites
    and single mission, sub-optimized payloads with shorter life spans. The
    time function for responsiveness is then driven by adaptive contingency
    planning cycles rather than predictive futures or scripted acquisition
    periods. The objective is agility and dynamic fitness, not
    optimization.

    Military Capability
        Today's joint force commander requires capabilities that are
    horizontally integrated transmission control protocol/Internet protocol
    (TCP/IP) accessible, flexible, interoperable, joint down to the
    tactical level and are risk tolerant. Increasing the speed of command,
    which proved so vital in OIF and OEF, requires high transaction rates,
    increased information rates and volume, and a tolerance of ambiguity
    from unpredictable demand.

    Autonomous
        ORS capabilities necessitate the ability to launch and autonomously
    reach the required orbit without months of state-of-health checks,
    calibrations, and configurations by large squadrons of satellite
    controllers.

    Networked
        When space is accessible to the tactical or operational users, it
    changes the manner in which relationships occur and the way that
    organizations behave. While micro or nano satellites may not offer
    technologies that are groundbreaking, they can significantly alter the
    capabilities of a wider user base. The collective produces an
    understanding that is not replicated or deliverable by any single
    analyst or structured hierarchy. Leveraging space access by the entire
    defense establishment changes the methods and techniques that can be
    adopted by future users.
        In a network centric force each satellite becomes a node within a
    tiered network of sensors such as larger space systems, unmanned aerial
    vehicles (UAVs), air and surface assets. A network centric approach
    uses the internet protocols throughout the entire lifecycle of the
    satellite. That means integrating the payload remotely and using the
    internet protocols for preflight testing, command and control, payload
    tasking and data dissemination. This will allow for increased fusion of
    data from multiple platforms while reducing lifecycle costs.

    Broadened User Base
        Parenthetically, there is no reason why this must be confined to
    Department of Defense (DOD) needs. Rather, it could mean an organic
    space capability for the larger national security community. One of the
    objectives of ORS is to make space assets and their capabilities
    available to operational and tactical users and an organic part of the
    Joint Task Force (JTF). One specific means to do this is for space to
    use the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) to task,
    receive and widely disseminate data. Because the SIPRNET has matured as
    a core U.S. warfighting command and control venue and evolved to be the
    de facto standard as a preferred data sharing service, the cost of
    gathering information has plummeted and the value of shared information
    content has soared. As a result both the richness of information
    improves and the reach of its content expands exponentially.

                            COMPLEMENTING BIG SPACE

        Note that this complementary business model does not replace the
    larger space program. Today, small satellites cannot provide the
    capabilities required to meet all national intelligence needs. However,
    just as we have operationalized our larger space program to meet
    theater needs, these operationally designed theater capabilities will
    also enhance our national and strategic space capabilities.
    Specifically, these satellites will help reduce the burden we are
    currently placing on our national systems and the organizations that
    operate them, enhance the persistence of the national capabilities,
    assist in meeting the force structure requirements mandated by the
    current force planning construct, and help ensure that U.S. forces are
    adaptable to an uncertain future.
        Another role that these systems could provide in the future is the
    ability to reconstitute our larger space capabilities if adversaries
    attempt to negate them. Although, it would not be replenishment in
    kind, it could provide a subset of capabilities for our national and
    military leaders.

                             TEST BED FOR BIG SPACE

        As the pace of change in the information age is accelerating, so
    must the institutional transactions that create capabilities from
    ``learning.'' Stagnation of institutional learning comes at the expense
    of creating future advantage. Today our space forces are at risk of
    becoming a strategically fixed target. The cost of sticking to slower
    generational turnover--a cycle that currently runs 15 to 25 years for
    U.S. forces--is likely to be technological surprise that works to our
    disadvantage in future conflicts.
        Besides providing operationally relevant capabilities for the joint
    warfighter, this new business model would serve as a test bed for the
    larger space program by providing a clear vector for science and
    technology investments, enhancing the institutional and individual
    learning curves, and providing increased access to space for critical
    research and development (R&D) payloads. Today, less than 25 percent of
    our space R&D payloads make it into orbit, and this is with a heavy
    reliance on the space shuttle.
        Sound space science and technology stewardship requires that the
    sole superpower compete with itself to avoid stagnation. Getting new
    technologies into space earlier to understand the ramifications and
    inform our conceptual context builds a learning curve for big space and
    provides a look at alternative futures.
        By reducing cost, increasing transaction rates, and developing
    standardized buses and interfaces we change our risk mitigation
    strategy. This will allow the United States to lower the cost of
    placing payloads into low Earth orbit and simultaneously increase our
    ability to put R&D payloads into space. Additionally, these same
    attributes will allow sub-optimized, simpler ``wooden round'' payloads
    to be launched into orbit.
        However, the most important aspect of the test bed is the
    institutional and individual learning that will take place. As an
    institution, we will learn there are alternative methods and processes
    to conduct space operations that could not have been developed through
    our larger space program. Additionally, the smaller satellite programs
    will provide great venues to pair seasoned space expertise with new
    prospects, allowing them to ``cut their teeth'' in an area where
    failure is a data point.

    GENERATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY--BRIDGING THE TECHNOLOGY/OPERATIONS
                                      GAP

        Finally, this business model uses a co-evolutionary process,
    pairing concepts and technologies in an effort to start influencing
    change immediately. The co-evolutionary techniques guide the ORS
    approach to instantiating these capabilities. The techniques are used
    to stimulate disruptive innovation through the continuous development
    and refinement of operational concepts, processes, technologies and
    organizations. This approach should influence technology, policy,
    concepts of operations, acquisition processes and public/private
    partnerships.
        ORS provides the ability to conduct a strategy of generational
    science and technology (S&T) and acquisition. This new business model
    brings the United States ``back to the future.'' The ORS model is
    similar to the space model of the 1960s and 1970s. All space systems
    started small and in low Earth orbit and grew bigger and higher as
    technology and operational requirements matured.
        Analysis of the development of the GPS satellite constellation
    provides some key attributes that are readopted in our model.
    Creating leverage by targeting the investment of relatively small
            research and development dollars and the role of research
            laboratories.
        The GPS grew out of work done by the Service laboratories. The
    Naval Research Laboratory and Air Force Research Laboratory were both
    targeting the investment of relatively small R&D dollars towards key
    technologies required to develop the system. When it became apparent
    that DOD could not continue to fund two unique systems, the two labs
    were directed to get together over a Labor Day weekend and come up with
    a single approach. The best attributes of both approaches were put
    together in the final system. It was determined that the Navy had the
    best clocks and orbits and the Air Force had the best signal structure.
    The DOD directed the Air Force to take the lead in operationalizing the
    system and the Naval Research Laboratory was funded for continued
    research and development. In our ORS business model we view the
    research labs as matched filters for technology concept pairing to
    address operational needs.

    Affordable access to space
        The successful development of the GPS constellation relied on
    testing clocks in space. The Naval Research Lab was able to get ``free
    piggy back'' rides to space using excess capacity on the Agena rocket.
    The cost, timelines, and risk associated with getting piggyback
    research and development payloads to space today hinder our ability to
    advance space technologies.

    Generational Approach
        The GPS actually grew out of a series of lab sponsored experimental
    microsatellites. In all there were 15 navigational microsatellites and
    8 R&D satellites. Combined, these satellites served as stepping-stones
    to the operational GPS. They provided intermediate capabilities to
    begin developing operational concepts directly impacting the final
    orbital parameters adopted for the operational system.
        Our business model seeks to embed experimental capabilities into
    combatant commanders warfighting experiments. By doing so, we can
    mature the operational concepts in parallel with the technology. By
    increasing transaction rates, next generation technology and
    operational concepts can be embedded into future payloads, leading to
    increased capability for the warfighter.

    Public/Private Partnerships
        Another key attribute of the GPS acquisition program was the
    public/private partnership between the Services and Rockwell, which won
    the contract to build the first block of operational satellites. For
    about a year, engineers from Rockwell worked with the Service
    laboratories to learn all the lessons to be learned prior to developing
    the operational system. This public/private team was crucial to the
    success of the acquisition program. Currently, our S&T strategy falls
    short on several fronts. First, access to space does not afford a
    robust space S&T and R&D program. Second, there is a gap in translating
    R&D into operational capabilities. The new business model and co-
    evolutionary approach seek to bridge this gap.

                                 THE WAY AHEAD

        Over the past year, the DOD has taken great steps in embracing this
    new business model. My office funded the TacSat-1 experiment with the
    goal of providing an operationally relevant capability to the warfigher
    in less than a year for $15 million. Although we expect to be right on
    the margins of both metrics with a planned early summer launch, a lot
    of progress has been made in our institutional processes.
        The Air Force, under the leadership of Mr. Teets, General Jumper,
    and General Lord, has provided outstanding support to our ORS
    experiment. They have crafted a customized mission assurance approach
    for the oversight of a new commercial launch vehicle consistent with
    the nature of the TacSat-1 experiment. Additionally, they have worked
    closely with the commercial launch provider to come up with innovative
    safety processes that will ensure public safety. At the same time, they
    have been willing to accept risk in operational suitability and
    effectiveness. This process is ongoing, and real organizational
    learning is happening in the Air Force and in the commercial launch
    company.
        Our TacSat-1 experiment has set the baseline for a co-evolutionary
    concept/technology pairing process and has helped shape a stronger
    relationship between Service laboratories. The Air Force is following
    our TacSat-1 with a TacSat-2 that builds on the modest capabilities
    provided by our first instantiation. This is a realistic first step of
    generational science and technology efforts.
        Critical to achieving the agility and flexibility demanded by an
    ORS model we must develop standards for modular/scalable satellite
    buses. This must be a part of our future plans and will allow us to
    increase the utility margin of smaller satellites.
        We have forged a healthy relationship with the Pacific Command
    (PACOM) to imbed these capabilities into their annual combatant
    commander exercises.
        TacSat-1 has also served to strengthen interagency relationships.
    The Office of Force Transformation has capitalized on the National
    Aeronautics and Space Administration's and the Air Force and Army Space
    Battlelabs' work with the Virtual Mission Operations Center. This has
    allowed Internet-based payload tasking and data dissemination.
    Additionally, we have forged a partnership with the Federal Aviation
    Administration, the commercial space regulators, to ensure proper
    liability and indemnification levels.
        Finally, taking a more macro view, DOD is stepping up to making
    operationally responsive space a near-term capability. General Jumper,
    the Air Force Chief of Staff, recently announced the Air Force's Joint
    Warfighting Space concept. The Air Force is leading a joint team to
    investigate operationally responsive space technology vectors and
    Strategic Command is engaged to help define the corresponding vectors
    for operational concepts.
        The leaders I am privileged to testify with today are taking the
    right steps to move this concept, currently in its infancy, into an
    operational warfighting capability.

        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you.
        Let us start, Admiral Ellis and Dr. Teets, and talk about
    assured access to space. You know the flap that is going on
    between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. There are some in the DOD
    that would like to have only one line and there are arguments
    for that and there are arguments against it. Could both of you
    address that issue of keeping open two lines for EELVs?
        Dr. Teets. All right, sir, I would be pleased to start. I
    have a very strong and firm conviction that we need to maintain
    our two families of EELVs, the Atlas family and the Delta
    family. I say that from the experience that we had when at one
    point in time our Nation decided to put all our space delivery
    capability on the space shuttle and it suffered an accident. As
    a result our capabilities were put into question for a while.
    Fortunately, Secretary Aldridge had the foresight to have pre-
    ordered some 10 Titan IV EELVs to be used in an emergency
    situation and we pushed our way through that.
        I believe that our Nation's space capabilities are now so
    important that we cannot get ourselves into a position where a
    single launch incident--maybe it is close to a pad and you lose
    the pad. You still have to be able to pull yourself together
    and launch again in the relatively near future. So I feel it is
    very important for us to have two families of launch vehicles
    that can give us that delivery capability, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral.
        Admiral Ellis. I would certainly echo Mr. Teets' comments,
    Senator Nelson, from a number of perspectives. This is an
    absolutely essential capability that the Nation must have.
    Clearly there are some costs associated with that, but even
    those are under debate. The real issue is the cost of not
    having that.
        I sometimes speak of Pascal's wager, which highlights the
    difference between the probabilities of an outcome and the
    consequences of an outcome. The consequences of being denied
    access in any significant measure to space by the failures that
    Mr. Teets hypothesized are grave and severe for this Nation and
    for the warfighters that we support.
        So I think it is prudent that, until we get more detail or
    definition on the way ahead with some of the ORS initiatives,
    that a prudent course of action, indeed in the larger scale, a
    more affordable course of action, is to maintain both of those
    avenues.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I agree with both of you.
        Mr. Chairman, I am going to run make the vote.
        Senator Allard. We will give you the benefit of your time
    when you return.
        In the mean time, I want to follow up a little bit on his
    line of questioning. I have supported the idea that we have two
    space launch vendors and felt that we had some redundancy there
    in the system. Recently we received a Nunn-McCurdy notice that
    the program through which we buy launch services, the EELV
    program, is more than 25 percent over cost. The way I
    understand how that works, it triggers a review of the program
    to determine if other approaches can meet the operational
    requirements.
        What is the status of that review and what alternatives are
    being considered? Dr. Teets?
        Dr. Teets. The review is in process now, Mr. Chairman, and
    the alternative that is being looked at is to go to a single
    family of launch vehicles and to compare that with the
    presently planned course. The reason that the Nunn-McCurdy
    breach occurred has to do with really the fallout from the
    commercial marketplace and the fact that both of our providers
    of launch services based their first round of EELV pricing on a
    strong supplemental commercial market. That supplemental market
    has not materialized and as a result we are essentially on
    notice that the next time we go out to buy EELVs, we are likely
    to see a significant increase in price.
        Therefore, we have found it necessary to declare this Nunn-
    McCurdy breach, and that triggered the analysis of alternatives
    (AOA).
        We expect to meet with Mike Wynn, the acting Under
    Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and
    Logistics, in the latter part of April, and at that point in
    time a review will be held of what those analysis of
    alternatives tell us and we will determine a recommended course
    forward.
        Senator Allard. A follow-up on that. Now, of the budget
    request for the EELV for the 2005 budget year, how much is
    specifically for assured access and what would happen if that
    funding were not approved?
        Dr. Teets. Actually, as we formulated our 5-year plan we
    anticipated additional pricing to accommodate this reduction in
    commercial launch activity. So as a result, while the EELV
    budget request is I believe $38 million, we really need that to
    be able to sustain our current activity for assured access,
    which includes maintaining these two families of launch
    systems.
        Senator Allard. Now, in the past the EELV contracts were
    structured such that infrastructure costs were included in the
    costs of the launch. What is your view on how infrastructure
    costs should be handled in the future? Should the Air Force
    fund them directly or do you believe that the contractor should
    include them in their launch costs?
        Dr. Teets. I would like to maintain some amount of
    competition in the EELV activity going forward, but I do think
    it is important for us to develop a strategy which does not
    cause either supplier to go into a death spiral of trying to be
    competitive or face extinction. Therefore, I think it important
    for us to find the right acquisition strategy that will allow
    us to fund infrastructure costs for both the Atlas family of
    vehicles as well as the Delta family of vehicles, but then move
    in a direction where we can incentivize the contractors to
    invest in their particular product line, to keep their best
    people assigned to those products, and to have some of the
    benefits that competition can bring to us.
        We are in the process right now of trying to formulate that
    strategy, and I expect that by the early part of this summer we
    will have our strategy in place, sir.
        Senator Allard. I would be very interested to know what you
    come up with there. If you would keep us informed we would
    appreciate it.
        Dr. Teets. We would be happy to do so, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. It seems to me that both EELV vendors have
    performed well technically, but it is also obvious that there
    are concerns about both. One vendor has been sanctioned and is
    under continuing investigation for violations of fair
    procurement practices during the original EELV competition. The
    other relies on a Russian rocket engine at the urging of the
    U.S. Government, but that fact potentially adds one element of
    uncertainty in the program.
        I understand we are buying all the data we need to co-
    produce the Russian engines, but the cost of building a
    production facility is quite steep. I am sure you are aware of
    that.
        What is your view of the advantages and disadvantages of
    downselecting to one EELV vendor? Would such an approach
    provide any cost savings?
        Dr. Teets. As I mentioned to you earlier, there is an AOA
    that is ongoing that will put some factual information behind
    the very question that you are asking. My own view is that we
    should proceed to the next step of determining whether or not
    this rocket engine that you referred to, that has been
    developed and designed in Russia--it is the RD-180 engine--
    whether or not it can indeed be produced here in the U.S. and,
    if it can, at what price would it be able to be produced?
        That needs to be a part of this trade study that we are
    looking at. I think it would be highly desirable for us to have
    a production capability. I do not know that it is practical in
    terms of being able to afford it. I do know that if you look at
    an alternative of going to a single supplier it would be an
    imperative to have the capability to produce here.
        Senator Allard. What is the status of the investigation
    into Boeing's violation of the Procurement Integrity Act and
    have any other further violations been discovered?
        Dr. Teets. The violations of the Procurement Integrity Act
    have resulted in Boeing's suspension. There are two Boeing
    companies that were suspended by the Air Force last summer.
    Since that point in time, Boeing has responded in a strong way
    to deal with the problems that were found in those two
    companies' behavior, and I would say that they have
    aggressively sought the root cause of the problem.
        They have commissioned Senator Rudman to do an independent
    study of their ethics and awareness program. He has reported
    back out. They have embraced all of the recommendations in
    Senator Rudman's report.
        We in the Air Force legal shop have been dealing
    extensively with Boeing to establish an administrative
    agreement which would allow us to have full insight, awareness,
    and knowledge of their ethics program and the way they are
    conducting their business practices going forward. When that
    administrative agreement is properly put into place, I do
    believe that we will be able to lift the suspension with
    confidence that Boeing has in place a system that will ensure
    that they are a responsible contractor in those two companies
    that we deal with for launch services.
        Senator Allard. So your feeling is that they are well on a
    process. The sanctions have had their effect; they are doing
    what you anticipated they would accomplish, and that the
    corrective actions by Boeing are adequate?
        Dr. Teets. All indications are that that is the case, Mr.
    Chairman. As I say, the Air Force legal department is in the
    process right now of concluding an administrative agreement
    which will allow us to lift the suspension. Now, it would be
    hard for me to predict exactly how long it is going to be
    before that administrative agreement is in place, but as soon
    as it is we will be very confident that they are a responsible
    contractor.
        Senator Allard. How much time do I have left? Okay, I am
    going to yield to Senator Nelson. I have just 1 minute left and
    I want to approach this next line of questioning when I have
    the full time period.
        Senator Ben Nelson. If you would like to go ahead and
    finish, that would be okay with me.
        Senator Allard. No, I have about 5 minutes worth here on
    the next round.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        Admiral Ellis, yesterday I know you testified that DOD
    needs to enhance its ISR capabilities to better locate hidden
    targets which could be camouflaged or protected by robust air
    defenses. I think ISR is important in every environment,
    including space obviously, and ISR is obviously one of the new
    missions STRATCOM has been given.
        Our staff did a little checking with the folks at STRATCOM
    and discovered a strong desire for better technology to improve
    the collection capabilities of mission area experts which would
    improve ISR. The difficulty seems to be taking information or
    intelligence that currently fits on about 15 computer monitors
    and trying to transform that into a single monitor for easy
    application. That has not been achieved at this point in time.
        I hope I am not tattling on some of the folks back home. I
    think it is something we must absolutely have. Is there a way
    that we could be helpful in achieving that kind of technology,
    if you are interested in it as well, as I assume you are?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. Of course I am very interested in
    it. What you have described, in a very real sense, is at the
    tactical level. It is reflective of the challenges that Mr.
    Teets and I, and General Lord and others, have been undertaking
    under the broader rubric of horizontal integration. In our
    headquarters, for example, we look at disparate feeds or
    databases and how we blend those all together into a coherent,
    integrated process. Of course, that is something that we are
    pursuing with our own processes and upgrades within the
    headquarters, and continued support for Air Force funding of
    that, of course, would be greatly appreciated.
        However, in a broader sense, it really mirrors the
    challenges that we face between the operational world and the
    various elements that contribute so effectively to intelligence
    collection, and how do we bring those together in a
    collaborative way. Particularly, as this next generation of ISR
    platforms begin to be more rigorously defined technically, and
    that would include SBIRS, SBR, and the like, there will be an
    important element of bringing those capabilities together at
    the source, if you will, and then providing them through the
    appropriate processes to those that need them, wherever that
    might be, in the operational world or in the Intelligence
    Community.
        So we are focused on that. We are aware that, while this
    presents challenges, it also gives us an opportunity as these
    systems evolve and mature to fundamentally address this with a
    clean sheet of paper and a different approach. We are excited
    about it, while we do not in any way minimize the challenges
    that will be a part of its successful execution.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Do you have any idea whether we are
    talking 6 months or 6 years when it comes to developing the
    technology, assuming that the Air Force budget is okay?
        Admiral Ellis. On the technology side, we well understand
    how to work protocols and those types of things. So as you
    could infer from my first answer, there are various levels to
    this challenge, and I am comfortable that we are on track to
    integrate the current pieces from a technology standpoint, from
    a shared format standpoint.
        The broader ones will involve legitimately some significant
    cultural issues and organizational requirements.
        Senator Ben Nelson. It is not all technology?
        Admiral Ellis. No, sir. There are huge issues, legitimate
    issues, in terms of information sharing and sensitive sources
    and those types of things that will need to be addressed as we
    move through this, and obviously ways to protect that, to
    protect sources, to have multi-level security, all of those
    elements will have to come together to ensure our success in
    this effort.
        We are working collectively again with other elements
    within the OSD to move that forward as quickly as possible. Mr.
    Teets has been a big driver of that because he was the first to
    recognize that as this technology advances the requirements for
    this type of integration also advances and there is an
    opportunity here.
        I defer to him if there is anything you would like to add,
    sir.
        Dr. Teets. I would just add that it has been a real
    pleasure to work with Admiral Ellis and General Lord and others
    within the military community to try and tackle this problem of
    horizontal integration, as we call it. I think we are making
    headway and it is hard work, but one of the things we tried to
    do when we put out the request for proposal for the SBR system
    was to insist upon an agreement for a concept of operations for
    how we would operate the SBR. That pulled together various
    elements of the Intelligence Community and the DOD. I think we
    are making headway.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
        General Lord, out in western Nebraska, as I know you know,
    it is home to some intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
    launch control centers and silos that are currently managed by
    or staffed by active duty U.S. Air Force personnel that are
    assigned to Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. There are other
    silos in Wyoming and Colorado as well. Is that a role that
    perhaps the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserves could
    play? Is there a role that could be played by Reserve and Guard
    units in helping staff those facilities to release active duty
    staff for other responsibilities?
        General Lord. Yes, sir, that is a very good question. We
    have looked at that a couple times, trying to make the ICBM
    mission a total force mission with Guard and Reserve support.
    One of the stumbling blocks we come into is a program called
    the Personal Reliability Program (PRP) which each individual
    has to be certified under. Historically it has been difficult
    to have people that are not on continuous active duty to be
    part of that program. But we have asked that same question and
    we should have an answer fairly soon about is this a good way
    to go and get some help and relief in that program. I would be
    glad to report back to you.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Well, it would be consistent with, I
    think, where some of the transformation for the Air Force might
    be heading, to where Northern Command (NORTHCOM) might be
    heading in terms of having Reserve and Guard personnel do
    things that are done here at home currently by active duty
    personnel, which obviously then would obviate the need for
    deployment and mobilization for other parts of the world, if
    they can do more of the tasks here at home.
        General Lord. Yes, sir. I might add that we have five
    squadrons of one flight from the Guard in the space business,
    not part of the ICBM side, and eight squadrons in one flight in
    the Reserves that are part of what we do in space day-to-day.
    So, we want to take as many steps forward as we can in the
    total force and we will continue to look hard at the ICBM
    mission.
        Sir, if you do not mind I would like to follow up on
    something Secretary Teets and Admiral Ellis talked about.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Oh, please.
        General Lord. We experimented right before Christmas this
    year with something to help Admiral Ellis and certainly Mr.
    Teets and others in the space business to do just what you
    asked us about, and that is the integration of these
    capabilities. It is something we call the Single Integrated
    Space Picture, with which we are able to draw on all these
    sensors, show what is available when, and put this together in
    a coherent kind of picture so that I can inform my combatant
    commander what is available at any given time with respect to
    space assets, what we are looking at, where those are.
        It is a pretty comprehensive look. We are going to continue
    to refine that over the next year, and hopefully by the end of
    this fiscal year we will be able to have something that he is
    really proud of. We are experimenting with it right now at the
    14th Air Force, our Space Air Operations Center in California,
    and we are starting to learn, and we will be able to, I think,
    set the basis for some of this integration you talked about. So
    we are on the way.
        Senator Ben Nelson. I commend you as you try to work
    through some cultural, security, and technical issues to bring
    this all together, because clearly that will be beneficial for
    the entire military. To have it currently unified and then
    functioning for combatant commanders as well as for other staff
    requirements is a definite advantage for national security.
        I thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        I am going to ask you about some of your testimony, Admiral
    Cebrowski, and then I thought perhaps maybe I would ask General
    Lord some questions. I have not adequately welcomed you to
    Washington, General Lord; I am glad you are here.
        Admiral Cebrowski, I know your office has been a leader in
    looking at transformational space concepts. I understand your
    office is interested in exploring the notion of a new business
    model for space. In this new model, as I understand it, field
    commanders would drive demand and more frequent launches of
    small satellites, individually less capable but responsive and
    potentially available in large numbers, would meet warfighter
    needs.
        Could you summarize what you think the critical advantages
    of this approach are?
        Admiral Cebrowski. Yes, sir. Thank you. The overall shift
    is from a supplier-centered approach to a demand-centered
    approach on this important capability. This is a common
    business phenomenon and a common business approach to move one
    towards excellence. So one adopts output models and looks and
    adopts the perspective of the customer.
        I might add that this is meant to augment the larger space
    capability, because one of the objectives is to broaden the
    larger capabilities that we have. This is not about deserting
    one capability to pursue another because that would defeat the
    purpose of the approach.
        It is also clear that in the current state of development
    one cannot really realistically be thinking about supplanting
    the capabilities of the larger space program. On the other
    hand, we could significantly reduce the burden that is being
    placed on the larger space systems from both an organizational
    point of view and a risk point of view. We could enhance
    persistence. We could increase adaptability. We could provide
    some measure of a reconstitution capability in this.
        We could essentially, you might say, popularize the use of
    space, broadening the user base across the military and indeed
    in other agencies of government. Also, it would broaden the
    industrial base, and one of the targets here would be to
    achieve or focus on mass customization rather than the somewhat
    elusive dream of mass production.
        Of course, there is a significant research and development
    (R&D) component in this that we should expect as well.
        Senator Allard. What do you think are the keys to
    establishing this new business model?
        Admiral Cebrowski. I think that an entry fee item right off
    the bat is to make our larger space business model healthy,
    pursuing the management initiatives that were talked about in
    the DSB study and that Secretary Teets is pursuing.
        But next, getting to the model itself, there is a need to
    develop and implement standards and protocols for modular and
    scalable satellite capabilities specifically in the bus
    structure itself. This then becomes a unifying principle which
    both suppliers and users can point to, whether you are talking
    about launch vehicle suppliers, payload manufacturers,
    integrators, and indeed the users themselves. This is a vital
    step, I believe, that we take in doing this.
        Of course, we must also develop a process wherein
    operational commanders can play a role very vigorously moving
    forward. You must expand the team, with multiple laboratories,
    multiple suppliers, and multiple combatant commanders playing
    roles in here.
        We must also avoid the tendency to let this model simply
    graduate into the larger space model. I think, for example,
    about IBM, which spun off the PC and then spun it back into its
    larger institution, where it was essentially killed and the
    process had to be begun afresh. So there are some cautions in
    there.
        I think that, working with STRATCOM and the Joint Forces
    Command (JFCOM), we have to develop an aggressive
    experimentation and prototyping plan for this. These items that
    I have pointed out are also essentially coincident with the
    plan by General Jumper for his warfighting space concept
    development.
        Senator Allard. How important is standardization and spiral
    development in the development of these transformational
    concepts?
        Admiral Cebrowski. It is actually critically important. A
    model for this is really the Internet itself. The Internet
    itself has a consortium called the World Wide Web Consortium
    (W3C), which is responsible for determining the standards and
    protocols for the Internet. Once we achieved these standards
    and protocols, the Internet was allowed to bloom, and the base
    of suppliers and users also blossomed. So this is a very
    critical step.
        Senator Allard. Now, you in your testimony note that you do
    not supplant big space, but you also state that new, smaller
    elements of space capability emerge as a tool set providing
    virtually unlimited potential. It seems to me that this new
    model is very important, but not be able to meet all of the
    military requirements. Do you agree, and what kind of missions
    and payloads do you believe are most appropriate to smaller
    satellites?
        Admiral Cebrowski. If one looks at the history, and I think
    I mentioned this in my testimony, the GPS is of course a
    massive and vital capability for our society. Others really
    grew out of an experimentation program which was based in small
    satellites. So one can see that there is growth, and since it
    has already been demonstrated in the area of navigation, it has
    already been demonstrated in the area of sensing, and to a
    somewhat lesser degree in communications. So it is not so much
    a matter of which area one can apply it. It can be applied in a
    great deal of areas, the ones I mentioned as well as
    environmental measurements. There is not the capability there
    to do some of the things that very large systems can do.
        A small satellite now is thought of as for sensing purposes
    a very small aperture, and consequently it is limited. But the
    technology is at hand where you may be able to launch several
    of them, network them, and develop the phenomenon of the
    distributed aperture, which would significantly enhance the
    capability.
        Senator Allard. I want to give General Lord, Admiral Ellis,
    and Secretary Teets an opportunity to talk a little bit about
    their views on whether the small satellite can or should fulfil
    any operational missions in the near term. Maybe, General Lord,
    you would like to respond?
        General Lord. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We agree
    with Admiral Cebrowski in terms of what the small satellites
    are capable of doing. We are engaged with him and his TacSat-1
    demonstration program that will launch, hopefully here in the
    next several months, with an initial kind of put on
    communications capability.
        I agree with what the Admiral said about it. In some things
    you can not probably replace larger missions that are done
    because the satellites are bigger with apertures, although we
    have demonstrated some other techniques. Our chief, General
    Jumper, and the Secretary, as well as Dr. Teets, have pushed us
    to work hard in this area, and we have a plan to encourage the
    small satellite business to continue to grow along with TacSat-
    1 and TacSat-2 and then others after that. Along with our space
    test program in an area the chief has asked us to work on,
    joint warfighting space, which looks at just these kinds of
    capabilities--tactically responsive, small payloads, available
    to a theater commander in a certain circumstance given whatever
    his or her needs are depending on the situation.
        So we see this as a very fruitful effort for the future.
        Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis.
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir. We would certainly agree, as I
    speak for the combatant commanders. Given the sophistication
    and numbers of our ISR resources, we are forced to make
    prioritization decisions in time of crisis or conflict. We
    literally skew much of our orientation, our constellations, and
    even our air-breather platforms to focus on the area of
    conflict and provide legitimate and appropriate support of the
    RCCs.
        In other words, they are forced to make choices and stop
    looking or monitoring or reduce our awareness in other parts of
    the globe. This capability has the possibility of reversing
    that paradigm, where you do not have to move all of the major
    long-dwell on orbit sensors. You are able to more quickly
    respond with an alert capability that you can launch into orbit
    in support of the regional combatant commanders.
        So it offers us a great deal more potential in that regard,
    and we are excited about the concept and would like to see the
    developmental effort that Admiral Cebrowski has under way.
        Senator Allard. Secretary Teets.
        Dr. Teets. Yes, I am very supportive of the entire ORL
    initiative, including what Admiral Cebrowski is doing. You
    recognize, too, that we have funded an ORL line and General
    Arnold out at Space and Missile Center is in the process of a
    competition right now. They have nine competitors involved in
    proposing on ORL capabilities. The objective here is to be able
    to launch 1,000 pounds into low Earth orbit for under $10
    million recurring costs and do it in a matter of days and
    hours, not months, weeks, or years.
        At the same time, we have some people at the Air Force
    Research Laboratory and also at the National Reconnaissance
    Office that are looking at what kind of responsive 1,000-pound
    satellite missions can do to augment a conflict in a particular
    region. If we can get operationally responsive to the point
    where we could on a matter of a day or 2 call-up and be able to
    launch an ISR asset at a particular inclination to optimize on
    a particular theater of operations, Admiral Ellis would be able
    to provide ISR capability to that combatant commander in a
    matter of hours. That would be extremely helpful.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        Senator Nelson, we will have you finish off your time on
    the first round of questioning. I will then call on Senator
    Akaka, and I will come back to you, get Senator Akaka, and then
    we will have completed the second round.
        Senator Bill Nelson. When I raced out to vote, I had talked
    about dual access, dual lines. General Lord, I did not get a
    chance to ask you to respond.
        General Lord. Sir, I support that, having been down at the
    Cape to see both teams in action. Both the Atlas and the Delta
    teams, sitting on the launch console with the folks down there,
    I must tell you that those teams are coming together very well
    into a good operational team and a launch business. I agree
    with my colleagues here on the panel that I think it is
    important to have assured access with two providers, keep the
    competition, and we have 39 successful launches in a row since
    our broad area review and we want to continue that. Should we
    have an incident where we would lose one, we want to continue
    to have access with our vital payloads we need to get into
    space. So I think that is the best way to go operationally, is
    to have two opportunities.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Secretary, you had said while I
    was gone that your general counsel is having a session with
    some of the Boeing executives about corporate ethics. Do you
    want to expand on that?
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir, I would be happy to. Boeing has
    responded quite strongly to the violation of the Procurement
    Integrity Act that caused two of their companies to be
    suspended. They have done a lot of work internally. They have
    hired an outside consultant, Senator Rudman, as a matter of
    fact, to give them recommendations. They have listened to those
    recommendations and they have implemented corrective actions.
        The comment I made was that we were in the process right
    now in our Air Force legal department of trying to construct
    with Boeing an administrative agreement that, once in place,
    would allow us to proceed with confidence that they are now a
    responsible contractor and that we can count on them as a
    contractor that we are willing to deal with and therefore lift
    the suspension. That is in work right at the present time.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What corporate executive resignations
    have occurred as a result of this scenario?
        Dr. Teets. I would say that the widely publicized
    resignations of Mike Sears and Darlene Druyen are the ones that
    I am familiar with.
        Senator Bill Nelson. They are who? What are their
    positions?
        Dr. Teets. Mike Sears is the former Chief Financial Officer
    (CFO) for Boeing, and Darlene Druyen was a former acquisition
    or contracting person for Boeing.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So the highest corporate executive to
    resign was the CFO?
        Dr. Teets. Correct.
        Senator Bill Nelson. The Chief Operating Officer (COO) and
    the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), has there been any
    discussion there of acceptance of responsibility?
        Dr. Teets. Forgive me here, but I should have mentioned the
    CEO of Boeing over the course of some time last fall did in
    fact resign and Boeing has a new CEO named Harry Stonecipher.
    Phil Condit resigned. Now, I am not trying to say that Phil
    Condit resigned as a result of this ethics violation that
    occurred, but he chose to leave the company some time last
    fall.
        Senator Bill Nelson. When did the ethics violation come to
    the light of day as an acknowledged fact?
        Dr. Teets. It came to light about a year ago, and the Air
    Force decided to suspend Boeing in July of last year.
        Senator Bill Nelson. July?
        Senator Allard. Senator Nelson, permit me to interrupt you.
        The names that you mentioned, did they resign as a result
    of the tanker issue or bidding of the EELV issue? I was under
    the assumption that they resigned because of the tanker issue.
        Dr. Teets. It is a complex kind of a picture. I am not sure
    I am qualified to tell you why they chose to resign. I know
    that there has been a lot of activity over this ethics
    violation that the Air Force suspended the two companies for.
    There have been other items in the news media as well.
        So I cannot tell you why people resigned. I can tell you
    that the three that I mentioned, Phil Condit, Mike Sears, and
    Darlene Druyen, I do know that they all did resign at some
    point during the course of last year.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Sears and the lady that you mentioned,
    did they resign or did they get fired?
        Dr. Teets. I guess technically they were asked to leave.
        Senator Bill Nelson. In the case of the CEO?
        Dr. Teets. I believe Phil Condit resigned.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So do I take it from our discussion
    here that you will make the decision on the second line for the
    EELV prior to Boeing coming off of suspension?
        Dr. Teets. It is hard for me to predict the exact date when
    Boeing would come off of suspension. I do think that those two
    decisions can be uncoupled because I feel very confident that
    Boeing now, under the leadership of Harry Stonecipher, is
    taking this ethics violation very seriously. They recognize
    that a vitally important part of their business depends on
    their ability to properly deal with the United States
    Government and they are putting into place strong corrective
    actions. They are putting into place an ethics program which
    has substance and teeth to it, and I am confident that they
    will indeed emerge from this suspension as a healthy,
    responsible contractor.
        Senator Bill Nelson. How much more is this going to cost
    the U.S. taxpayer as a result of the Boeing suspension?
        Dr. Teets. It is not possible for me to be able to estimate
    that, sir. I do not know the answer to that.
        Senator Bill Nelson. There are going to be additional
    costs, correct?
        Dr. Teets. I think when the Boeing Company comes out from
    under suspension in many ways they will be a stronger company
    than they were before. Certainly the high ethical standards and
    a program of instituting standards of business practices within
    their organizations will serve them well. I think in an end
    result in really reduced costs as opposed to increased costs.
        So it is real hard to estimate something like that.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, what about just the contract
    price? Boeing underbid the other company. So had that been on
    the up and up, by going with those eight or nine flights that
    you awarded to the other company how much is the differential
    there?
        Dr. Teets. The differential there I think is estimated
    somewhere just under $200 million.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Per flight?
        Dr. Teets. No, no. Total, the total number of launches that
    were re-awarded to Atlas family from the Delta family.
        Senator Bill Nelson. How about the cost in lost time?
        Dr. Teets. Again, there has been some time lost. It is
    awfully hard to estimate those costs. I do not have a good
    handle on that, to be candid.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Has national security been compromised
    as a result of this fiasco?
        Dr. Teets. Not to my knowledge. I do not think that
    national security has been compromised.
        Senator Bill Nelson. How about in the sense of any delay of
    the flights?
        Dr. Teets. I think the flights are largely driven by the
    readiness of the satellites to fly. I do not think that we are
    seeing delays in launch due to the suspension of Boeing.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Would you provide for the record an
    overall analysis of what the additional cost to the U.S.
    Government will be as a result of the Boeing suspension?
        Dr. Teets. I will indeed.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        Currently the Government's total cost as a result of the Boeing
    Procurement Integrity Act violation is estimated at $257 million
    (fiscal year 2004-2009.)
        Of the total reported increase in EELV program costs, $8,640
    million (total year money) through 2020, or approximately 63 percent is
    attributable to the downturn in the commercial market.

        Senator Bill Nelson. So with the way we are rocking along
    now with the contracts given to Lockheed, can you tell this
    committee that we will have assured access to space?
        Dr. Teets. I believe that the way we are proceeding
    maximizes the probability of having assured access to space.
    Now, it is hard to guarantee assured access to space with the
    kind of fragile infrastructure that we have today. Two
    incidents, one on an Atlas and one on a Delta, would leave us
    hard-pressed to launch National Security Spacecraft any time
    soon.
        I will say that with two strong launch vehicle families, I
    think we maximize the probability of being able to have access
    to space when we need it.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I have a number of other questions,
    but I want to give our colleague from Hawaii a chance.
        Senator Allard. I need to check with the time here because
    my watch says he has used 10 minutes. He has used 10 minutes.
    So now when we get around to the second round I intended for
    Senator Nelson to be able to use that time which he did not
    complete on the first round of questioning. How much time is
    left from that?
        Senator Bill Nelson. It is just going to be you and me, so
    it does not make any difference.
        Senator Allard. I want to be fair with everybody.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I want to give him a chance.
        Senator Allard. He will get a chance.
        So he has 6 minutes on the second round. Okay, very good.
        Senator Akaka, you have 10 minutes.
        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
    thank you for having this hearing on NSS programs, as well as
    on the defense authorization request.
        I would like to touch on the National Space Policy and
    direct my question to Secretary Teets. I believe that we are
    currently operating under the National Space Policy issued
    under the Clinton administration in 1996. Space weaponization
    is not mentioned anywhere in this document. Yet the Missile
    Defense Agency (MDA) has requested $75.5 million in fiscal year
    2005 for space weapons-related programs.
        If the current administration plans to develop space
    weapons and take space policy in a drastically new direction,
    as it appears to be doing with that request of $75.5 million,
    why has a new National Space Policy not been issued on that?
        Dr. Teets. Senator, I believe that we are proceeding in
    full compliance with the National Space Policy. I think that
    one of the dictums that we have is to be certain that we have
    freedom to operate in space, and we have implemented an
    aggressive space control activity which starts out with trying
    to understand better what these 10,000 objects that are
    orbiting our Earth really are made up of. We have a catalogue
    of those objects today, but we cannot tell you much about those
    objects. We want to learn more about space situational
    awareness.
        We also want to make certain that we are able to defend our
    own space assets so that we can in fact be able to continue to
    enjoy the asymmetric advantage that we currently have by
    operating our space systems.
        Then, third, we are in fact looking at some offensive
    counter-space capability and we have emphasized in that
    reversible effects. Those offensive space capabilities today
    are ground-based. So I would just simply say that we are, I do
    believe, operating in full compliance with the National Space
    Policy.
        Senator Akaka. My question was why a new policy has not
    been issued.
        I want to direct the next question to Admiral Ellis, and it
    is something that is close to home. Starting in September, when
    the Bush administration plans to deploy a national defense
    against long-range missile attack, you will be the person
    responsible for protecting all 50 States from such an attack. I
    understand that because of the radar coverage limitations with
    the current system, in order to protect the State of Hawaii
    from an attack from North Korea, a Navy ship will be required
    to be stationed off the North Korean coast. This ship will
    provide radar coverage for the system.
        The question then arises to whether the Navy is committed
    to placing a ship on station off the coast of North Korea to
    provide the necessary radar coverage. Secretary of the Navy
    Gordon England reportedly stated this week that the Navy would
    provide virtually continuous deployment of a ship off North
    Korea. What does ``virtually continuous'' mean? Will a Navy
    ship be on station 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to protect
    Hawaii from a long-range missile attack starting in September?
        Admiral Ellis. As we discussed, Senator Akaka, during our
    hearing together on March 11, the Navy contribution to the
    missile defense capability is just as you describe. It is a
    radar tracking capability that will provide initial cuing in
    addition to our overhead sensors and the like. They complement
    the other ground-based radars, which are more optimally suited
    to defend other elements of the entire defended area, which I
    can assure you includes the great State of Hawaii.
        The Navy has committed to identifying ships and to
    upgrading their radar configuration so as to provide that on-
    station capability of which the Secretary spoke, and that
    commitment is real. There are milestones that are being met to
    provide the capability that he described.
        Senator Akaka. Mr. Chairman, I have another question for
    Secretary Teets. I have a statement that I would like to have
    placed in the record.
        Senator Allard. We would be glad to make that a part of the
    record, Senator Akaka.
        [The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

                 Prepared Statement by Senator Daniel K. Akaka

        Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today's hearing.
        Space-based technology has become integral to this country's
    national security. The first Gulf War was nicknamed the ``Space War''
    because of the important role that guidance, reconnaissance, and
    communications satellites played in the U.S. victory. That war marked a
    watershed moment in the military's perception of, and reliance on,
    space. Today, we are able to call upon space assets to improve the
    strength and accuracy of military campaigns. Because of this, American
    soldiers are safer.
        While space is commonly used to aid military operations, it has
    been kept free of weapons and combat. It is not the practice of the
    United States to attack other assets in space nor to attack land
    targets from space.
        However, the fiscal year 2005 budget request for the Missile
    Defense Agency (MDA) indicates that the administration wishes to change
    this policy. MDA has requested $75.5 million for space weapons-related
    programs.
        Of that, $65 million is earmarked for the Near Field Infrared
    Experiment (N-FIRE). While the main purpose of this program is
    described as information gathering, there is concern that the N-FIRE
    could pave the way to space weapons development.
        N-FIRE involves a kill vehicle-like projectile that is fired out of
    a satellite. The projectile is supposed to maneuver close to a missile
    for inspection. This is a feat much more difficult than actually
    hitting the missile. Essentially, if MDA successfully develops the N-
    FIRE satellite, it would be much closer to developing a space-based
    weapon.
        I am troubled by this slippery path on which we are embarking.
    Space weaponization should be subjected to a public debate, not slipped
    in through the backdoor. This is a decision that should be made by the
    country, not just the administration.
        The United States has avoided space weaponization for national
    security reasons. We have more assets at risk in space than any other
    nation. Our defense would be crippled if our communications and
    intelligence satellites were attacked. A decision to introduce weapons
    to space would be precedent-setting and could trigger a space arms
    race. In the long run, U.S. national security would be jeopardized, not
    enhanced, by a move to weaponize space.
        The administration's budget proposal this year cut funding to many
    key homeland security and domestic programs. How can we afford to
    invest over $75 million in space weaponization when the administration
    proposes to cut programs that will produce clear, immediate benefits to
    the United States?
        Space-based technology plays a critical role in the U.S. military,
    and I want to ensure that the space programs that aid U.S. national
    security are well developed and fully funded.
        I thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to
    hearing from you on this important subject.

        Senator Akaka. Thank you.
        Secretary Teets, the Near-Field Infrared Experiment (N-
    FIRE), which is scheduled for launch in fiscal year 2006, will
    develop a satellite that can deploy a kill vehicle towards a
    missile. It is my understanding that this portion of the
    program would enable MDA to develop technology that can be
    applied to space-based weapons.
        My question to you is: Is the N-FIRE program intended to
    pursue space weapon capabilities? If not, what safeguards are
    being placed on the N-FIRE program to stop it from turning into
    such a program?
        Dr. Teets. I think it is true that the kind of capability
    that N-FIRE will have could with a different concept of
    operations (CONOP) be used as a space-based weapon capability.
    There is no such CONOP that I am aware of that is under
    consideration at this point in time, and this N-FIRE sensor
    will indeed be a sensor that looks at infrared plume real close
    up and personal.
        Senator Akaka. Secretary Teets, according to the MDA the N-
    FIRE is needed because the data it gathers can be used to make
    missile defense interceptors better at target discrimination.
        Dr. Teets. Right.
        Senator Akaka. However, it is my understanding that the
    observation capabilities N-FIRE will offer can be achieved by a
    number of other less costly and complex methods, such as air or
    ground-based sensors. Can you explain what observation
    capabilities N-FIRE will give us that cannot be achieved by
    other means?
        Dr. Teets. I sit on a board and meet quarterly with General
    Kadish and I have a general feeling for what they are doing,
    but I am not real close to this program.
        But as I understand it, the objective of N-FIREs is to get
    an infrared sensor very close to the plume of an accelerating
    reentry vehicle, and understand then and characterize the
    infrared characteristics of that target in the closing end
    game. I do not know how else you can do that. If you are going
    to get close to it you are not going to do it with an airplane,
    I do not think. But again, it is not a subject that I really
    have studied in depth, sir.
        Senator Akaka. Admiral Ellis, I would like to ask you to
    provide something for the record.
        Admiral Ellis. Certainly, sir.
        Senator Akaka. Could you provide the committee with a
    description of the milestones you mentioned for a 24-7
    deployment of a naval radar to protect Hawaii?
        Admiral Ellis. I would be delighted to describe for you the
    naval contribution to the missile defense system in its
    entirety and I look forward to doing that, sir.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        The Navy is poised to contribute significantly in fielding initial
    sea based missile defense capabilities to meet the near term ballistic
    missile threat to our homeland, our deployed forces, and our friends
    and allies. They are working closely under the authority of the Missile
    Defense Agency (MDA) to deliver this much-needed capability to the
    Nation's combatant commanders.
        As part of the President's Directive to accelerate the fielding of
    a Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Initial Defensive Operations (IDO)
    capability in 2004, the Navy is providing a capability in select
    Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (DDGs) to conduct Long Range
    Surveillance and Tracking (LRS&T) of ballistic missiles. These ships
    will provide cueing and tracking data to support ground-based elements
    of our layered defense system. As with other military missions, the
    combatant commander will be responsible for assessing indications and
    warning and other intelligence in his evaluation of risk, and his
    subsequent deployment of assets to effect a readiness posture. National
    policy and operational directives will determine whether coverage is
    continuous or virtually continuous.
        Presently, MDA plans to equip 15 DDGs and 3 cruisers (CGs) with BMD
    capability, both for LRS&T and firing of the SM-3. SM-3 procurement
    numbers will be based on input from the combatant commanders and
    determined by the Program Objective Memorandum process.
        Since November 2002, the Aegis BMD Program Office has successfully
    completed two of three intercepts with the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3
    Block 0) from the U.S.S. Lake Erie and is on track to support emergency
    deployment of a sea-based mid-course engagement capability by spring
    2005.
        The Navy is also evaluating the benefits associated with developing
    a Sea-based Terminal Missile Defense capability. A viable regional and
    terminal sea based ballistic missile defense system is important to
    ensure the safety of U.S. forces and the flow of U.S. forces through
    foreign ports and airfields when required.

        Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My time
    has expired. I will submit the other questions for the record.
        Senator Allard. Thank you, Senator Akaka.
        Senator Nelson for 6 minutes.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Yesterday, Admiral Ellis, we had
    talked in the full committee about the Minuteman III. The
    Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the Moscow Treaty achieved the
    bulk of the reductions in the deployed nuclear warheads by
    retiring the Peacekeeper and taking the Multiple Indepently-
    Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), de-MIRVing the Minuteman
    IIIs, so that each Minuteman III has one instead of multiple
    warheads.
        There was a recent press report that suggested that the
    decision to have one warhead on each of the 500 Minuteman IIIs
    was being reconsidered. Is there any truth to that press
    report?
        Admiral Ellis. I am aware of no reconsideration of that,
    sir, and I believe that the modernization program of which we
    spoke yesterday is still on track as you and I understand it.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Is there any plan to retain MIRVed
    Minuteman IIIs?
        Admiral Ellis. I am not aware of any program at all, sir,
    in that construct. Now, as with all posture and policy reviews,
    someone may have hypothesized as we look at alternative
    structures for the future and what combination of reduced
    vehicle numbers could allow us to do that. I can assure you
    that there is nothing in the program of record that alters the
    information that either you or I have been given about the way
    ahead for the program with regard to Minuteman III.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Following up also our conversation of
    yesterday on missile defense, you are the combatant commander
    that has the responsibility for its success and you accept the
    responsibility if it fails against a real enemy missile; is
    that correct?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, I have the overarching role for
    integrating and coordinating that and making those capabilities
    available to the RCCs, who of course, if it were ever required,
    would be the ones to employ it.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Would you like to see the national
    missile defense system operationally tested in a combat-like
    way as soon as possible?
        Admiral Ellis. My belief is that that effort is under way,
    sir. Over an extended period of time, as we get through the
    developmental test phase and we put these capabilities into the
    operational environment where they would be called upon to
    serve, and even as we continue to evolve follow-on phases of
    that spiral development, we will take advantage of those
    nascent capabilities that are immediately available as we work
    towards, as Mr. Christie and General Kadish testified on March
    11, an ultimate test program that more completely evaluates all
    dimensions of that system.
        Senator Bill Nelson. The key criteria for operational
    testing are independence and combat realism. Do you think that
    this system being deployed is combat-realistic?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, there are obviously elements that
    cannot, and hopefully never will be tested from a full
    operational capability (FOC), the launch of threat missiles and
    the like from potential adversaries. I do believe that the
    elemental testing that is under way will characterize the
    dynamics and the environment in which this system is intended
    to operate. They will refine and identify the sensor
    capabilities. We will assess the command and control linkage,
    command, and control processes and procedures that are an
    important part of all of that. That will then be brought
    together in a comprehensive way, with Mr. Christie's
    Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) team, the Joint Theater
    Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO) team, the MDA,
    and my own personnel. I believe that we will get to those
    operational elements as we can define them over time as this
    system evolves towards future capabilities.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Help me understand. Is your answer yes
    or no that you would like to see this system operationally
    tested in a combat-like way as soon as possible?
        Admiral Ellis. Ultimately, I think that is where we are
    going.
        Senator Bill Nelson. When would that in your mind be
    operationally tested?
        Admiral Ellis. That is going to be contingent on the
    assessments that we make in the early phases on what successes
    we have and what technical challenges are delivered. As we
    quantify the capabilities that will be brought on line through
    2004, 2006, 2008, and beyond, we will be better able to
    characterize the evolving configuration and then better assess
    its operational capabilities. But clearly that is not going to
    be achieved in the near term, nor was that the expectation.
        Senator Bill Nelson. As the combatant commander, your
    answer then is yes, you want to see it operationally tested;
    you just think it is going to be down the line before it is?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, and I think that is the intent of
    the team all along, to bring as much operational character to
    this as can be brought, when it is appropriate, and when the
    system maturity permits it.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Now, current law provides for
    independent testing to make sure they are suitable and
    effective. Do you support the intent of this law as it applies
    to this national missile defense system?
        Admiral Ellis. My view, sir, having had a background in
    testing many years ago, is that it is appropriate that we
    examine the context and the scale and the dimensions of
    programs rather than automatically applying a system definition
    for OT&E that might more appropriately be applied to smaller-
    scale, less complex environments. I think we need to have the
    flexibility to do the spiral development that is under way, to
    do developmental testing with operational inputs as this
    process evolves, and we ought to be involved in assuring that
    we deliver those capabilities and those honest assessments in
    the most realistic and rigorous way possible.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you support the intent of this law
    that provides for independent testing?
        Admiral Ellis. I think we are getting to the intent of that
    law by involving the OT&E people in the process. Indeed, that
    is the intent of all of this. My point is that, with large-
    scale systems, the complexity of the test, the expense of
    testing and the like, no longer allow us perhaps the luxury
    that we once had of sequential developmental and operational
    testing. That technology and simulation now allow us, for the
    first time, to bring these elements together in a concurrent
    manner that more efficiently uses the resources and arguably
    more quickly delivers that capability that we all seek.
        Senator Allard. Thank you, Senator Nelson.
        Secretary Teets, in your view what should the government
    approach to launches be and what should the launch industry
    look like 10 years from now?
        Dr. Teets. I think that in 10 years I would like to see us
    at least well along the way toward a truly next generation
    launch capability. Now, I recognize that we have two important
    thrusts going right now. One is to maintain a healthy family of
    EELVs. The other is to bring on line operationally responsive,
    small-sized launch vehicles that can be launched very
    economically and rapidly.
        The third leg in this is for us to start the move toward a
    next generation launch system. I must say that I have been
    around the launch business now for over 40 years, and when I
    first started in the launch business 40 years ago we were
    fundamentally getting things into orbit about the same way we
    are today. That is kind of a sad thing in a way. It is a
    controlled explosion all the way up. It is certainly not a 99
    percent kind of reliability system.
        I have a strong belief that ultimately we need to find
    essentially the jet engine of the rocket business. Aviation
    celebrated its 100th anniversary of powered flight here last
    year, and from the time the Wright Brothers flew until some
    time in the 1940s aviation evolved along the way. Then all of a
    sudden there was a breakthrough called the jet engine, and it
    revolutionized the way airplanes could be used and air
    transportation could be put into effect.
        I think we need something like that in the rocket business.
    We have evolved expendable launch vehicles to the point where
    our EELVs today are the best expendable launch vehicles we have
    ever had, but they are still not nearly good enough. We are not
    going to have reliable, dependable, rapid access of significant
    cargo to space until we get that next generation of technology
    under our belt.
        You may be familiar with the fact that when I was at
    Lockheed Martin I was very much involved with the X-33 program,
    which was a single stage to orbit vehicle. It was a partnership
    between Lockheed Martin and NASA. We worked real hard at it. We
    invested a lot of company money and NASA invested a significant
    sum of their resources, too. When we finally gave up on X-33,
    which was going to be a single stage to orbit kind of a
    vehicle, I think we were probably two inventions away from
    success.
        Ten years from now, I would hope that we would be at a
    point where we could see a future that has a truly, fully
    reusable space launch capability. I think we need to get there
    and we need important research and development funds to do it.
        Senator Bill Nelson. As a technical follow-up, until we get
    to that day of nirvana with that next generation, in the mean
    time Lockheed is relying on the Russian rocket.
        Dr. Teets. Engine.
        Senator Bill Nelson. The engine. Now, is that in the
    security interest of our country, relying on that being
    manufactured over there? There was originally a plan to put a
    manufacturing facility here.
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir, and there still is a plan to do that.
    That technology is being imported even as we speak, and
    Lockheed Martin is engaged with Pratt and Whitney in a look at
    how could we co-produce that RD-180 engine here in the United
    States. It is not clear that it is going to be economically
    feasible to do so, although it may well be.
        So far, the strategy that Lockheed Martin has employed in
    order to give us assured access to space is to inventory
    Russian-built rocket engines. That is not an enduring strategy,
    and as a result they are continuing to press forward with their
    plans to have a capability to co-produce here in the United
    States.
        Senator Allard. Now I would like to hear from Admiral
    Ellis, General Lord, and Admiral Cebrowski on your thoughts
    about the future of our launch industry.
        Admiral Ellis. As with many around this table, I spent a
    lifetime with complete fascination with everything that flies
    and soars. Along with many of you, I grew up staring at grainy
    black and white TV images of early launch successes and far too
    many early launch failures. We all remember those days, and
    they inspired us, in my case, to an aerospace engineering
    background.
        While I certainly do not share Senator Nelson's experience,
    I do have some rocket science in my own background. I echo Mr.
    Teets's views that that is the goal. We have spent a lot of
    time over the last year in the Partnership Council, which
    brings together NASA and me and General Lord and Ron Sega,
    under the leadership of Secretary Teets, to assess what is in
    the realm of the possible. We examine how do we get there and
    how do we identify, not just the wholesale leaps, but the
    little incremental technological improvements that Mr. Teets
    spoke of that might enable that leap when the time is right.
        Clearly, it is that kind of routine access that we must
    strive for. But as you and Senator Nelson rightly pointed out,
    we also have to have a plan in the meantime. We have to have a
    near-term addressal of the national security challenges. While
    I share the idealism of where we want to go, I also share the
    realism and the challenges that we face today and tomorrow in
    support of our operational forces. A lot of those options that
    are being pursued, that you heard described by General Lord and
    Admiral Cebrowski, are more realistic near-term alternatives,
    but we cannot give up on that dream and we need to pursue the
    technology appropriately that might enable us to get there
    either in the mid- or far-term, as the case may be.
        We certainly understand the need to continue appropriately
    addressing the technological miracles or achievements, but we
    also have to have near-term solutions as well.
        Senator Allard. General Lord, do you have anything you want
    to add?
        General Lord. Yes, sir. If you look back 20, 25 years ago,
    there were two major suppliers of the launch business, us and
    the former Soviets. You look now, there are probably 7 or 8
    countries that can do it with 9 or 10 different launch
    vehicles. The business model just did not hold up, not only for
    the United States but for others as well.
        To take it to the future, I think it is in our national
    security interest to push hard, to get to aircraft-like
    operations in space, to do the kind of things we need to help
    achieve, as Admiral Cebrowski says, the full advantage of a
    different kind of business model in the future. I think we have
    to push hard. I think it is something we need to invest in as a
    nation, I think as a space-faring nation.
        The 100th anniversary of powered flight was mentioned. The
    Air Force celebrates 50 years in space in August this year. I
    think it is important for us to continue to push the envelope
    and be able to do that.
        Senator Allard. Admiral Cebrowski.
        Admiral Cebrowski. I think as we look at major advances in
    one area of the technology, such as in propulsion, we should be
    aware too that there are likely to be other major advances
    going on simultaneously which impact us. So the questions of
    what you lift and how you lift it seem to intersect. For
    example, we need to get a handle on what happens when we are
    able to reach for nanostructures for space vehicles, payloads,
    and what that impact has on our capability, which could sharply
    accelerate the utility of smaller vehicles.
        I think we also have to look at frequency of launch and the
    impact that has on the competitive environment. The more
    frequently we launch, essentially the higher the transaction
    rate is amongst all the various elements in the program, so the
    learning rate is up then. With only a modest number of
    launches, learning is stagnant. So we should not be surprised
    that we have gone so long with only modest advances in lift.
        Senator Allard. Let me wrap this up. I commend you,
    Secretary Teets, for initiating the ORL effort. I believe that
    at least two competitors in the analysis of alternatives for
    responsive launch could have viable small, low-cost launch
    vehicles within a couple years. Yet the ORL program appears to
    be in a very much longer time line, potentially 7 or 8 years in
    development.
        What drives the schedule of the ORL program?
        Dr. Teets. The schedule is fundamentally driven by resource
    allocation, sir. I would just say that one of the things that
    we have recently done is, when Space and Missile Center source
    selected these nine contractors to be involved with ORL we have
    asked them to propose to us how rapidly they could indeed put a
    test vehicle into effect.
        We are hoping to accelerate our current schedule. Our
    current schedule is to have two of these concepts have a test
    launch in 2007. We would like very much to accelerate that if
    we possibly can. So to that end we are asking our contractors
    to put some effort on how could you accelerate it and what
    would it cost in terms of resources in order to accelerate a
    capability from 2007 into the nearer term.
        Senator Allard. Would this be characterized as a spiral
    development effort?
        Dr. Teets. Yes, it would.
        Senator Allard. I believe my time has expired. Go ahead,
    Senator Nelson.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you.
        Mr. Secretary and General Lord, what is the current status
    of SBIRS-High and how late is the Highly Elliptical Orbit
    (HEO)-1?
        Dr. Teets. I am pleased to give you a summary of where we
    are with SBIRS-High. As you probably recall, 2 years ago we had
    a Nunn-McCurdy breach on the SBIRS-High program and that breach
    resulted in quite a significant restructuring of the program.
    It was certified 2 years ago now by Secretary Aldridge and we
    proceeded to put additional resources in it and restructure the
    contract, change many of the terms and conditions of the
    contract and content to the program. Over the course of the
    last 2 years, we have made significant progress.
        I will say recently--in the last year or thereabouts--we
    have encountered some adversity in the area of electromagnetic
    interference that is put out by the sensor that is destined for
    the HEO ride. We have been working diligently to solve this
    electromagnetic interference problem. I meet very regularly
    with the presidents of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and
    we have put a lot of resources and a lot of technical talent
    and we have made good headway.
        At the present time, I would tell you that we are on course
    to be able to deliver this HEO sensor to the host vehicle by
    the end of July of this year. That is a year and a half late
    and a year and a half late creates problems in the program. I
    will say the fact that we have focused intensive efforts on
    solving this electromagnetic interference problem has caused us
    to move work out of the work that would normally have been
    applied to the geostationary vehicle.
        So let me tell you that this is a fluid situation right
    now. We are in the process right now of reevaluating what our
    launch date for the geostationary vehicle will be. I cannot
    tell you the exact new launch date. I can tell you that I
    anticipate having another cost problem on the SBIRS-High
    program and I expect that we are going to have to take some
    steps to see if we can apply additional fiscal year 2005
    funding in order to handle the impact to this geostationary
    vehicle.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So there is a separate technical and
    schedule problem with the geosatellites?
        Dr. Teets. There is a schedule problem. We are not
    suffering a separate technical problem on the geo birds. The
    fact is that we focus so much attention on the HEO birds that
    we have fallen behind in the development of the geo, the first
    geosatellite, and it is a schedule problem. That schedule
    problem comes with a cost problem, unfortunately, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Did you want to add anything, General
    Lord?
        General Lord. No, sir, other than to say that Dr. Teets,
    myself, Admiral Ellis, General Arnold, and the company
    presidents meet almost monthly on the program. Of all the
    programs I have experienced in my history in this business,
    this is the one that is getting the most scrutiny, I will
    guarantee you.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, how important is SBIRS-
    High to your mission?
        Admiral Ellis. It is absolutely essential. Senator, it is
    not merely a follow-on to the DSP Constellation, although it
    certainly will fill that and do a great deal else in addition.
    It is a critical increase in our ISR capabilities, our
    technical intelligence capabilities, and many of the other
    things that you know well that lie in the classified realm. So
    it is absolutely essential that the capabilities that are
    promised by the SBIRS program continue to mature.
        Senator Bill Nelson. General Lord, in your written
    statement you refer to space-based infrared capabilities, but
    you do not mention SBIRS-High. Should we be reading something
    into that?
        General Lord. No, sir. As we talk about SBIRS-High,
    remember, we have a space part and we also have a ground part,
    and we have already done Increment One, which is the beginning
    of the ground part. As a matter of fact, during the war and OIF
    the missile warning processing was done by DSP through the
    Missile Warning Center up at Buckley. Our Increment One
    capability with what we have done in the SBIRS program with the
    ground system really was very useful in providing that kind of
    warning to the theater.
        Essentially what we have done with the DSP is wrung just
    about every bit of operational capability we can out of that
    set of sensors, and we are looking forward to moving in a way
    to get this advanced capability to provide Admiral Ellis and
    the other combatant commanders with this improved capability.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Secretary, on the AEHF satellite,
    the decision to buy the fourth is going to have to be made by
    October; is that right?
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Well, as I understand the TSAT
    program, it is going to have various technologies and they may
    not be sufficiently mature to include in a TSAT in the third
    quarter of 2006, such as Multi-Access Laser Com. It is not
    going to be mature until 2008. Can you tell the committee how
    you can forgo the fourth AEHF and rely on the first TSAT as a
    substitute?
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir. We face that decision in the October
    timeframe, as you mentioned. This is going to be a very
    important and significant decision to make, whether or not to
    buy a fourth AEHF satellite. What we are doing at the present
    time is significant technology risk reduction activity on the
    TSAT program, and we are pointing very much toward this October
    decision that you mention and it will be a balancing of risk in
    order to make that decision.
        We have put into place this TSAT program in a way that we
    had hoped would allow us to make a decision to not buy the
    fourth AEHF vehicle, but that decision has not been made. The
    decision will come in the October-November timeframe, and we
    will evaluate very carefully the progress that we have made on
    the TSAT program.
        Now, when you talk about the Multi-Head Laser Head, that is
    a capability that we do not require for the first spiral of
    TSAT vehicles. That is a development that we see as being very
    important to expand the capability for receiving information
    from space-based radar or other ISR kinds of sensors. It is not
    necessary on the first TSAT vehicle.
        What we want on the first TSAT vehicle is a vehicle that
    has significantly better capability than AEHF and have it be a
    vehicle that we are highly confident we can deliver to a
    schedule. That decision, as you mentioned, that takes place in
    the October-November timeframe will weigh the risk of a late
    delivery of TSAT against the advisability of acquiring the AEHF
    as a safety stopgap.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Let us talk about timing. A fourth
    AEHF would launch in 2010. The first TSAT is not going to be
    ready until 2012, and that is assuming it is on time. So what
    confidence do you have that secure communications will be
    maintained?
        Dr. Teets. Well, these AEHF satellites that you are
    referring to have 10-year lifetimes.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So you would not have a break there if
    you cancelled a fourth AEHF?
        Dr. Teets. Well, that is the exact trade that we want to
    make in the October-November timeframe, because we will not
    have a break in coverage if we can deliver the TSAT on the
    schedule that we are currently on. On the other hand, what I am
    trying to tell you is that we are taking this decision
    seriously, because what we cannot do is leave our warfighting
    community without the capability of secure communications.
        Senator Bill Nelson. That is right. You know the history of
    rushed satellite programs.
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. So that begs the question, why not buy
    the fourth AEHF?
        Admiral Ellis, can you live with this approach?
        Admiral Ellis. Well, sir, I do not know. We have not made
    the decision yet, as Mr. Teets noted, sir. So to define the
    approach in the sense that you did, obviously we are not there
    yet. But our role in STRATCOM is to represent the needs of the
    warfighter in what Admiral Cebrowski had a big hand in, and
    that is creation of these network-centric forces that are
    increasingly reliant on these capabilities. A part of that is a
    pretty clear-eyed view of, if plan A does not execute as
    scheduled, what is plan B? Those are important considerations
    as we chair the Senior Warfighters Forum and other venues that
    address these very real and important concerns.
        So I cannot live without the enhancements and improvements
    in the bandwidth that are needed to support the systems that we
    are increasingly putting in the field. The short answer to
    that, of course, is no.
        The issues that Mr. Teets addressed on the technical
    maturity of TSAT vis-a-vis the AEHF have to be very carefully
    played out in that fall timeframe, as he is committed to doing.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you not love being head of Space
    Command? [Laughter.]
        Admiral Ellis. It is a dream job, sir, and I mean that. It
    is a dream job.
        Senator Allard. I want to follow up a little bit on the
    GPS-3, Secretary Teets. This has been around for a long time.
    It is a powerful satellite and the idea is to blast through.
    There has been some suggestion that perhaps modifications could
    be done in the ground stations, the user equipment, as well as
    the networking. That may not be necessary.
        Has the Air Force recently done any evaluation of or a
    comprehensive look at the full range of technical alternatives
    to defeat the GPS jamming threats?
        Dr. Teets. Yes, sir, we have. I am pleased to say that I
    think we now have a quite well-synchronized programmatic plan
    that will take us from today's GPS-2R configuration, starting
    next year with the launch of GPS-2R modified, that will put up
    our first M code GPS satellites, which will have additional jam
    resistance. When those play out, it will lead logically and
    progressively into our GPS-2F configuration, which will add
    even more jam resistance to it. Then ultimately it will
    synchronize into our GPS-3, and GPS-3 will give us significant
    anti-jam kind of capability.
        Meanwhile, the ground equipment, the receivers, and the
    necessary ground equipment will be synchronized with that
    evolutionary flow. So I think we now have a GPS program that
    makes excellent sense.
        Admiral Ellis. There is also an element of tactics,
    techniques, and procedures that play into this, as we were able
    to discern in our assessments as we approached the conflict
    last year. We have found that there are very successful
    techniques with regard to antenna placement and tactical
    employment of our existing systems that can further mitigate
    this.
        So we are working this in concert. It is not just the
    technological answer that we are pursuing, though. As Mr. Teets
    fairly describes, that will get better and better as we move
    forward with the maturation of the GPS Constellation. We are
    also working the real-time employment techniques that can
    further ensure success for our warfighters.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        Admiral Cebrowski, we have not forgotten you. I understand
    that your office is sponsoring a number of TacSat payloads and
    launches that are designed to demonstrate the viability of low-
    cost operationally useful payloads and space launch. How would
    you describe the value of the TacSats? What role will they play
    in transformational space?
        Admiral Cebrowski. The TacSat-1 is an experiment. It is a
    very broad experiment in that it includes many elements, but it
    is focused on what you might consider the key or what we
    consider the key elements of the new business model. While it
    is experimental, it is not a technical experiment. It is an
    operational experiment that has some technical components to
    it.
        So we are working closely with the Pacific Command (PACOM)
    to apply a particular capability against an operational problem
    that the joint commander has in the Pacific. When we do this,
    the methodology that we have selected is to try to move space
    capabilities onto the time lines of contingency planning for a
    major contingency, so that we could launch, create a payload,
    integrate it into a rocket, and launch it within about a year
    with a cost of about $15 million.
        We are on the outside margins of those numbers, quite
    honestly, but not so far that I feel as though the basic
    concept is at risk. We want to be able to have the payload
    tasked and respond via the Secret Internet Protocol Router
    Network (SIPRNET), the Internet protocols which we use for the
    general command and control system for the forces at large. We
    also want to have a payload which is capable of talking to
    aircraft, to UAVs, ships at sea, forces on the ground, and be
    able to do so directly, so that we do not require very large
    installations or incur significant infrastructure costs.
        So we are using essentially existing network structures to
    be able to do that. Now, I think one of the most exciting
    things about this experiment has been the teamwork that has
    been generated between the Naval Research Laboratory, the Air
    Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Space in general, the NRO,
    and a whole host of commercial partners, not the least of which
    is Elon Musk's space effort, and he is our launch provider. We
    are going on his maiden voyage and taking advantage of that.
        We have all of these things in play simultaneously in this.
    The objective is that we would catalyze activity, and I believe
    we have been successful in doing that, and that would bring
    operationally responsive space into the present so that it
    would not be just something for the end of the decade. The
    larger system has responded to that.
        TacSat-2, which is a somewhat more involved payload, but
    also performs in the sensor realm, will probably launch much
    later in this year. We need to get on to increase the
    frequency, the cycle rate, if you will. In order to do that, a
    critically important step is to focus on standardized bus
    interfaces that I had mentioned before. This will allow for
    this very high cycle rate that we are looking for.
        This also addresses to a certain extent the issue of access
    that was talked about earlier, increasing the frequency of
    launches, and moves us to the point where we can be talking
    about essentially high-speed designer capabilities at low cost,
    able to operate nearly autonomously, and responding to the
    market demands.
        Senator Allard. Secretary Teets, I note that TacSat-1 and -
    2 are fully funded and that senior Air Force staff have shown
    us a plan for a series of TacSats. The question is, are future
    TacSats funded in the Air Force Future Years Defense Program
    (FYDP)?
        Dr. Teets. Senator Allard, I am going to need to take that
    for the record. I do know that TacSat-2 is funded. I do not
    know that TacSat-3, -4, and -5 are funded separately. I know
    the Air Force Research Laboratory has a plan to continue the
    TacSat series, but I cannot tell you if they are identified as
    separate line items or not. I would be happy to take it for the
    record, though.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        TacSat-1 and TacSat-2 are fully funded and, based on their
    anticipated success, we are pursuing future TacSat opportunities. We
    believe that this is a good strategy for future exploration of rapid
    warfighter capabilities. Currently there is no funding in our budget
    beyond TacSat-2. We are working to secure funding for these future
    TacSats in our FYDP.

        Senator Allard. Okay. Let me move on to the other question
    I had for you. Do you believe that the model using lower cost,
    smaller satellites to meet space requirements potentially may
    have broader applications in supplementing and reconstituting
    current capabilities?
        Dr. Teets. I do, particularly when it comes to the
    supplemental part. I think that there are multiple applications
    for small satellites to be able to augment existing
    capabilities to be able to operate in conjunction with existing
    capabilities, and to increase capabilities for a certain
    theater of operations that exists at a certain latitude on the
    face of the Earth. With an operationally responsive launch
    capability, you can optimize orbital characteristics for a
    specific theater and that can give some very important
    operational benefits.
        Senator Allard. Does operationally responsive space (ORS)
    imply a different approach to requirements definition for
    space?
        Dr. Teets. Well, it does in the context that we will impose
    requirements that will dictate that both the ORL vehicle and
    the satellites that they will launch will need to be able to be
    checked out and processed and launched in a matter of hours and
    days, not weeks, months, and longer.
        Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, do you have any comments on
    the requirements aspect of this question?
        Admiral Ellis. I certainly do, sir. As Mr. Teets said,
    obviously there is going to have to be an ability to bring
    these satellites from wherever we store them and get them ready
    to launch to match the aggressive time lines that we have been
    discussing. But I do think it is fair to say that we are also
    going to have to address the requirements piece more
    realistically. In other words, one of the key advantages and
    potential for this flexibility and this replenishment rate, as
    Admiral Cebrowski describes it, is that we do not have to
    design for all cases. We can focus on the near-term
    requirement. We can, in modular fashion, put together a payload
    that best serves the very specific needs of the commander.
        We are going to need a process that very quickly identifies
    the key requirements and makes the appropriate tradeoffs to get
    the kind of responsiveness we need. Also, it should identify
    those elements that can be drawn from commercial sources and
    the like, as is an important part of the TacSat program, so
    that we do not overstate requirements. We need to get to the
    element that is really essential and of most benefit to the
    warfighter, and we get there quickly and efficiently.
        Senator Allard. My time has expired.
        Senator Nelson.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Let us talk about SBR. It should
    deliver, according to Pentagon descriptions, persistent radar
    coverage of most of the globe. What does ``persistent'' mean?
    Does that mean continuous? If not, what is the difference?
    Anybody?
        Dr. Teets. I would be glad to take a stab at that. I think
    one of the lessons that we have learned in recent years is that
    we need in our intelligence collection systems to move toward
    more persistence. I know this is an open hearing and so I am
    getting a little bit careful here, but today typically a
    commercial imaging satellite passes will have two passes over a
    target on any given day. Widely open on the Internet are the
    catalogue of warned satellite passes.
        So one of the things that we would like to do is move
    toward systems that can be more persistent than a couple of
    times a day. The first logical move toward persistent
    collection would be with a SBR system, in that you can get day-
    night, all-weather coverage. You can take synthetic aperture
    radar images. You can also get indications of ground mobile
    targets.
        So what we have determined to date is that with the SBR
    program that we are proposing we want to move in that
    direction. We have asked our contractors to provide a wide
    range of concepts and potential implementation strategies while
    we are maturing the technology. We have a very significant
    technology maturation effort ongoing on both SBR and TSAT.
        So what we are doing is waiting until we get the results of
    these broad concept trades to pick any specific concept for SBR
    implementation. It may involve low Earth orbiting satellites,
    it may involve medium Earth orbit satellites, it may involve
    some combination of both. The amount of persistence will be an
    important factor in determination of the system we ultimately
    want to acquire.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Secretary, last year we talked
    about you fully funding all of these space programs to their
    estimated cost over a 5-year period. You indicated otherwise,
    and that is different from the typical policy of almost every
    other major Pentagon program. The other programs are required
    to be fully funded by Milestone B, to try to avoid the type of
    cost growth problems that we see.
        So I want to ask you, why have you implemented a specific
    policy which does not require that the space programs be fully
    funded?
        Dr. Teets. Early on in the conceptual development of a
    program, it is very difficult to get an accurate estimate of
    the run-out costs of the program. In the case of something like
    a SBR, we do not know yet which system we are going to buy. We
    do not know if we are going to acquire a medium Earth orbit
    satellite operating in conjunction with low Earth orbit
    satellites. We do not know how many satellites we would have in
    a low Earth orbit constellation.
        All of that is in the trade space that we are currently
    investigating with our industrial partners. So what we have
    done for purposes of putting forth a FYDP plan is we have taken
    a point design, which happens to be nine low Earth orbit radar
    satellites, and we have done a reasonably good quality,
    independent cost estimate for what that would cost, and that is
    what we have put into the 5-year plan.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Does that not really increase the
    chance that there is going to be cost growth?
        Dr. Teets. I think not. I think it is an intelligent
    estimate of what the costs for the program could be. I do think
    we are embarked in SBR on a program that will allow us to
    gracefully expand the Constellation. That is to say, one of the
    attributes that we are looking for from our contractors in
    proposing concepts is how would we phase this thing in in a way
    that you could kind of buy by how much you can afford?
        If you want it truly persistent, if you want this thing to
    be a true surveillance system as opposed to a reconnaissance
    system, it will take years to populate and it will be an
    expensive system. But we want to be able to gracefully move in
    that direction.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I am almost through, and I would like
    to be able to submit additional questions for the record.
        Let us talk about space-based interceptors. The American
    Physical Society says it is going to take thousands. But even
    if we concluded that hundreds of these interceptors would have
    to be launched, are you aware of any Pentagon cost study which
    estimates what would be the total cost to orbit and maintain
    such a sizeable constellation of satellites?
        Dr. Teets. I am not, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis.
        Admiral Ellis. No, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Do you believe we could afford such
    enormous numbers of satellites?
        Admiral Ellis. Clearly there would be costs associated with
    development and deployment of hundreds of satellites no matter
    what their construct, sir, and that would be a significant
    offset against existing programs and desired sensor
    capabilities. So there is no doubt there would be significant
    costs associated with something such as you describe.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral, what is the role of NORTHCOM
    and STRATCOM in missile defense? How are you coordinating?
        Admiral Ellis. Yes, sir, that is an excellent question. As
    I mentioned in front of the committee 2 weeks ago, I have the
    development, integration, and ultimate training
    responsibilities for this system as we begin to operationalize
    what is initially only a test bed. But it is a responsibility
    of the RCCs to oversee the defense of their AOR. I make those
    capabilities available to NORTHCOM for the continental United
    States and Alaska and to PACOM with regards to Hawaii since
    those are the apportionments.
        They are the combatant commanders who would be responsible
    for employment of this capability. I would be the one who makes
    it available and, of its global character, it makes sense that
    a single individual or organization be part of that, that
    global organization. So that is the role we play and make that
    available then to General Eberhart or to Admiral Fargo for the
    employment by their commands.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral, you talk about a national
    test range for information operations. When might such a range
    be stood up?
        Admiral Ellis. We hope that consideration of that continues
    here in the near term. I think a capability like that is going
    to be an essential element of expanding and beginning to
    deliver on the promise of elements of information operations.
    While a great deal of that is classified, the fact of the
    matter is one of the challenges we will face is, how do you
    know that these capabilities indeed deliver on behalf of the
    warfighters, and that indeed implies a test capability so that
    we can certify those capabilities before we make them available
    as a legitimate alternative to other, perhaps kinetic, options.
        Senator Bill Nelson. What kind of testing would be done
    there?
        Admiral Ellis. The testing would be of the full range or
    the full scope of non-kinetic options. It could be electronic
    warfare, it could be computer network operations--those types
    of elements that might allow us in the future to influence
    outcomes without necessarily destroying targets. Those are the
    types of things that need to be addressed and a facility that
    addresses it in a realistic environment would be of assistance.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Would the Director of OT&E be
    involved?
        Admiral Ellis. I do not see any reason why he would not be
    involved, sir, in those types of efforts. We certainly intend
    to fully wring out those capabilities. It is what is absolutely
    essential if we are going to offer that as a legitimate
    capability to the warfighters in lieu of a kinetic option.
        Senator Bill Nelson. If you will keep the committee
    apprised of the progress on this, I think we would appreciate
    it.
        Admiral Ellis. I certainly would, sir.
        Senator Allard. Senator Nelson, I am ready to draw the
    hearing to a close. Both of us have some questions that we
    would like to submit and I would ask that you respond in a
    timely way and get something back to us within 10 days so that
    we can make it a matter of the record, if you would, please.
    Then we will close the record after 10 days.
        I appreciate you taking time from your jobs to be here and
    to brief us about space and what is happening today and what we
    can look forward to in the future as far as space is concerned.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I am sorry we did not ask too many
    questions of you, Admiral Cebrowski.
        Senator Allard. He is the one that stimulated all this
    conversation.
        I want to again thank all of you and thank you, Senator
    Nelson, and we will call the subcommittee adjourned.
        [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

                  Questions Submitted by Senator Wayne Allard

                          INTEGRATING THE SPACE CADRES

        1. Senator Allard. Secretary Teets and General Lord, please assess
    the progress made in integrating the space cadres of the Air Force,
    Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
        Secretary Teets. I believe we have made significant progress in
    integrating the space cadres of the military services. In February, we
    completed the Space Human Capital Resources Strategy, the purpose of
    which was to integrate to the maximum extent practicable the space
    cadres of the military services. It provides the framework for
    integrating the cadres primarily from a managerial and educational
    perspective and it is now being implemented.
        The Department of Defense (DOD) must ensure the services develop
    space professionals to fulfill their unique mission needs. We recognize
    there is a pressing need to synchronize space cadre activities of the
    National Security Space (NSS) community to increase efficiency and
    reduce unnecessary redundancies. We are accomplishing this by
    establishing Department-level managerial functions and creating a focal
    point within the DOD for space cadre activities. I am happy to report
    that, although we are just beginning implementation, we are making
    tremendous progress within the training and education arena.
    Furthermore, we have been working hard to synchronize the space
    programs of Air Force Institute of Technology and Naval Postgraduate
    School through our Space Professional Joint Oversight Board, and are
    also examining the possibility of creating a school that will be a
    center of excellence in joint space education and training. These are
    just two examples of initial success and there will be many more.
        General Lord. First, the subcommittee must be aware the Space Cadre
    of the Services are fundamentally different, both in size and scope.
    (Air Force Space Cadre =10,000, Navy =700, Army =1,000, and Marine
    Corps =60.) But these differences contribute unique aspects producing
    a synergy of space expertise for the total DOD Space Cadre. Air Force
    Space Command, like the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), is
    responsible for ``cradle-to-grave'' space systems development.
    Similarly, our people typically come into the space business very early
    in their careers, often as second lieutenant or airman accessions, and
    remain in space for the vast majority of their careers. The other
    Services typically don't bring an individual into space until the 10-
    year period. Air Force Space Cadre members do everything from design,
    engineering, acquiring, testing, operating, sustaining, and integrating
    space capabilities; while the majority of the other Services' Cadre
    members focus mostly on the latter. As a result, all Services' Space
    Cadre members bring diverse sets of perspective, experience, and
    capabilities to the fight.
        Though there are differences, we are working hard to make sure our
    Cadres can be integrated easily where appropriate. The greatest
    progress to date is in education initiatives. We built a continuum of
    courses to satisfy the education requirements of the Air Force Space
    Cadre and Reserved seats for all Services. One of the courses, Space
    200, will be used by the Army as the front end to their initial course
    for entry into their Space Cadre (FA-40 course) starting July 2004.
        My staff ensures that everything we do for the Air Force Cadre is
    applicable across the Services. We are implementing a certification
    program for the Air Force Space Cadre that sets requirements for
    education, experience, and training to achieve each level. We well also
    attach a certification level to each Space Cadre position and ensure
    Cadre member attains the required certification level in order to fill
    that respective position. We believe this certification program's
    construct is a good strawman for the NSS certification program and are
    working to ensure the two are consistent and understanding of the
    differences in the various Service Cadres.

                     SPACE HUMAN CAPITAL RESOURCES STRATEGY

        2. Senator Allard. Secretary Teets and General Lord, please provide
    a description and schedule of actions needed to implement the Space
    Human Capital Resources Strategy.
        Secretary Teets. A complete description of the implementation
    actions and schedule is contained in chapter two (pages 9-10) of the
    Space Human Capital Resources Strategy, provided to the committee in
    February 2004. To summarize, the Space Human Capital Resources Strategy
    will be implemented in three phases. Phase I is underway and we hope to
    complete it in the next few months. Phase I will create an
    organizational framework and our basic processes. Among other things,
    during Phase I we will charter a Space Human Capital Resource Senior
    Forum, the Space Professional Joint Oversight Board, hold the first
    Space Cadre data call, and develop policy concerning human capital
    development and use. Phase II represents those activities to be
    implemented through the summer. During that phase we will be holding an
    education and training summit to determine a common baseline of space
    professional competencies, implement appropriate best practices, and
    commence any demonstration projects. Phase III extends through the end
    of the calendar year. The specific activities of Phase III include
    crafting and presenting the first ``Space Cadre Update Report'' to the
    Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) and to
    update the NSS strategy and plan as required. The Space Human Capital
    Resources Strategy, however, does not end after the initial three
    phases. Following the initial implementation, there will be an ongoing
    process to properly manage the space cadre. These are some of the
    activities which will be accomplished on an annual basis: deliver an
    annual ``Space Cadre Update Report'' to the Secretary of Defense and
    DCI; update the NSS strategy and NSS plan to reflect the tasks and
    activities associated with space cadre management; and implement best
    practices.
        General Lord. We worked very closely with all Services in the
    National Security Space Human Capital Working Group to build the Space
    Human Capital Resource Strategy and have been implementing many of the
    actions for our Air Force Space Cadre since last summer. The Air Force
    Space Professional Capital Development Strategy is consistent with and
    supportive of the Space Human Capital Resource Strategy. As the Air
    Force Space Professional Functional Authority, designated by the
    Secretary of the Air Force, I am implementing the Air Force Space
    Professional Development Strategy consisting of six overarching
    segments.
        First, our primary focus is developing the Space Professional
    Education Continuum of classes. Space 200 is the cornerstone of the
    effort and we have already graduated 135 of our Air Force Cadre
    (active, Guard, and Reserves/office, civilian, and enlisted) members
    from the class. (Seven students were from the Army Space Cadre, six
    from the Navy, two Marines, two National Aeronautics and Space
    Administration (NASA), and one National Imagery and Mapping Agency
    (NIMA) participant. NRO participants are counted in the Air Force
    members). When fully implemented, we'll host approximately 360 students
    a year. Space 100, our space fundamentals course for entry-level space
    professionals, is on track for an October 2004 start date with an
    annual throughput of about 410 students. We are now determining the
    requirements for our Space 300 course targeted for space professionals
    at the 12-15 year point which will prepare our Cadre to fill senior
    level space positions.
        Second, we've identified a new way of tracking the experience of
    every member of the Cadre. This Space Experience Code (SPEC) basically
    identifies the weapons system and the function performed (operational,
    acquisitions, or staff). We are using this code to identify the
    experience of every member of the Cadre as well as the requirements for
    every space billet in the Air Force. Our next step is to automate this
    process so it is integrated into existing Air Force processes and
    databases.
        Third, a three level certification program was approved prescribing
    the education, training, and experience requirements for each level of
    certification. This program serves two primary purposes: it measures
    the overall health and status of the Cadre and its sets consistent
    standards for education, training, and experience at key points in each
    member's career. Certification is the glue that holds the Space Cadre
    construct together. Every member of the Cadre will be centrally tracked
    and every space billet will have a certification level attached to it.
        Fourth, we're identifying, by name and position, every member of
    the Space Cadre. While doing so, we are identifying their experience
    using the SPECs previously discussed and assigning a certification
    level based on their experience and education level. We expect to
    complete this process with the active duty personnel by June this year
    and the civilians, Guard, and Reserves by end of the year. We are doing
    the same for each space billet in the Air Force by identifying what
    experience and certification level is required to enter the position.
    We expect to complete this portion by March 2005.
        Fifth, we are publishing career guidance to the Space Cadre on a
    periodic basis through Vigilant Vectors and Spread-the Word briefings.
    These communications are intended to help the Cadre with career
    development issues until we've completed step 4. When step 4 is
    complete, we will have the picture on all of our requirements and will
    be better able to provide comprehensive guidance based on these
    requirements and projected Air Force growth. The sixth and final step
    involves establishing a permanent Space Professional Management Office.
    Our current effort is through a task force to jump-start the effort.
    Similar to the permanent Defense Acquisition Career Management Office
    for Air Force acquisition personnel, we realize there are enduring
    parts of this program requiring constant oversight and management. We
    will be moving the office under our Director of Personnel and they'll
    be responsible for day-to-day management of Space Professional
    Development while at the same time integrating with the Air Force's
    Force Development Program. Specific responsibilities of the office will
    include managing the certification program, working with the assignment
    teams to make sure we're putting the right person in the right job at
    the right time with the right education and training, continuing their
    excellent work with the Space Professional Education continuum and
    maintaining relationships with other DOD Space Cadre offices.
        As you can see there are many interrelated parts for implementing
    this strategy. We have made great strides in the past year and are on
    track with our current plan. We envision that the complete Space
    Professional Strategy will be implemented, stabilized, and
    ``normalized'' for our Air Force Space Cadre by summer 2006.

                     OPERATIONAL RESPONSIVE LAUNCH PROGRAM

        3. Senator Allard. Secretary Teets, you stated in your testimony
    that the operational responsive launch program is a spiral development
    effort. Do you have plans or requirements for larger operationally
    responsive launch vehicles?
        Secretary Teets. Although DOD has not defined the specific path we
    will take to an operationally responsive spacelift capability, we have
    a number of ongoing activities that will help refine our approach. Air
    Force Space Command is our lead organization for requirements
    definition and has initiated development of an Initial Capabilities
    Document (ICD) and an Operationally Responsive Spacelift Analysis of
    Alternatives (AOA). The purpose of the ICD is to list capability gaps
    and launch alternatives to meet the joint warfighters' requirements.
    The AOA will help clarify the military utility of an operationally
    responsive spacelift capability and help select the most cost effective
    solution. Both activities should be completed by summer 2004.
        Additionally, we have an ongoing technology demonstration called
    Force Application and Launch from the continental U.S. (FALCON). This
    joint Air Force-Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
    effort includes a demonstration launch of a responsive small launch
    vehicle in fiscal year 2007. This activity holds promise to deliver our
    first limited operationally responsive launch (ORC) capability (1,000
    lbs. to LEO). Follow-on activities to this demonstration are dependent
    on the ICD and AOA activities, but include potential spiraling paths to
    increased performance and larger vehicles.

                         RESPONSIVE SPACE CAPABILITIES

        4. Senator Allard. Secretary Teets, we are now pursuing next
    generation satellites for virtually all the constellations we fly now--
    space-based infrared radar system (SBIRS) for the Defense Support
    Program (DSP), advanced extremely high frequency (AEHF) for military
    strategic and tactical relay military standard (Milstar), Mobile User
    Objective System (MUOS) for UHF Follow-on (UFOs), National Polar-
    Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) for the
    Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), Global Positioning
    System (GPS) III for GPS IIF, the Foreign Intelligence Agency (FIA) for
    current intelligence satellites, and we are developing new satellite
    technologies like Space-Based Radar (SBR) and transformational
    communications. I think it is fair to say that these next generation
    satellites look in many respects a lot like legacy systems--relatively
    large, expensive, technically complex satellites built for long
    satellite lifetimes. You have also described operationally responsive
    space as an important transformational goal. Do these next-generation
    efforts meet your transformational goal of achieving operationally
    responsive space capabilities?
        Secretary Teets. Operational responsive space (ORS) does not mean
    that we can or will get rid of large satellites. ORS is an important
    transformational goal but these capabilities will augment rather than
    replace our next generation satellites. Our next generation systems
    will provide critical capabilities that will meet our Nation's
    warfighting needs. Concurrently, the Air Force Space and Missile
    Center, Air Force Research Laboratory, NRO, DARPA, Office of the
    Secretary of Defense (OSD) Office of Force Transformation, and our
    national laboratories are sponsoring initiatives to decrease the size,
    cost, and timelines of satellite development. In addition to our next
    generation satellites we are also looking at operational responsive
    space launch. In the near term, we plan to demonstrate a more
    responsive and less expensive launch system capability of placing
    approximately 1,000-pound payloads into low Earth orbit.

              STANDARDIZATION OF SPACECRAFT DESIGN AND OPERATIONS

        5. Senator Allard. General Lord, your command's strategic master
    plan identifies as a near-term goal the development of ``technologies
    to increase standardization of spacecraft design and operations, [and]
    to facilitate spiral development. . .'' What programs contribute to
    these goals and how much progress has been made to date in achieving
    these goals?
        General Lord. The Tactical Satellite (TSAT) demonstration program
    is underway to explore technologies and acquisition practices that will
    improve space system responsiveness, spacecraft standardization, and
    application of spiral development philosophy. The objectives of this
    series of space demonstrations are to evaluate the military relevancy
    of small satellites providing support directly to theater commanders,
    augmentation of large satellite constellations, and emerging through-
    space/in-space missions via warfighter experiments, exercises and
    wargames. The intent is to reduce risks in future high-responsive space
    system acquisition.
        To date, there are two TSAT demonstrations underway; the first is
    sponsored by the Navy and the second by the Air Force. These two
    demonstrations are focusing on increasing the responsiveness of
    providing fielded military capability by developing the spacecraft in
    15 months, launching it in 7 days from call-up, and completing check
    out and initial on-orbit operations in one day.
        Four subsequent TSAT demonstrations are in the planning stages, and
    building upon the success of the first two missions, we will pursue
    technologies and design methods to further improve responsiveness. This
    will enable standardized spacecraft bus design and manufacturing,
    combined with the application of spiral development practices. These
    demonstration flights will also provide a proving ground for advanced
    technologies prior to incorporating them into operational system
    development programs for both the satellites and launch systems. An
    added benefit is the vitalization of a domestic small satellite
    industrial capability.
        The TSAT demonstration program fits well with a larger study
    currently underway at the Air Force Research Laboratory called the
    Responsive Space Advanced Technology Study (RSATS). Its charter is to
    identify an overall investment plan for rapid fielding of space
    capabilities. The overall scope of this larger plan includes investment
    in technologies for standardization of satellite components and
    interfaces, modularity of space systems, rapid assembly, integration
    and test, as well as high responsive launch systems. A core element of
    these thrusts is the notion of plug and play satellite interfaces,
    which allows flexible standardization of capable digital, analog, and
    electronic interfaces for satellite components. This concept parallels
    the developments in the personal computer industry for peripherals,
    expansion cards, and even new technologies. Plug and play satellite
    architecture enables more rapid development of satellite components
    because it avoids the time consuming process of developing and
    validating interface requirements.

                     STANDARDIZATION AND SPIRAL DEVELOPMENT

        6. Senator Allard. General Lord, the Air Force tends to build small
    constellations of big satellites. How amenable is that ``business
    model'' to standardization and spiral development?
        General Lord. Our satellite system development concept uses
    standardization and spiral development to the greatest extent possible.
        Standardization is applied at the component, subsystem, and system
    level. Additionally, we continually look for standardization
    opportunities between the different families of satellite systems. As
    standardization opportunities are identified, we perform technical and
    cost trades to ensure they are beneficial from a  development,
    operations, and sustainment perspective.
        We are implementing spiral development within our satellite
    programs as it makes sense. Several future programs have planned spiral
    developments in the baseline programs.
        One example of the use of standardization and spiral development is
    the SBIRS-High Component Single Acquisition Management Plan. This
    document strives to standardize spacecraft design and operations
    through a revised acquisition strategy, management philosophy, and
    structure that promotes the employment of spiral development techniques
    (e.g., risk identification and rigorous testing) for enhancing system
    capabilities. Progress is measured incrementally with current emphasis
    placed on standardizing hardware and software components of spacecraft
    performing similar missions. The next step is to attempt to standardize
    components of spacecraft performing different missions.

                               SPACE-BASED RADAR

        7. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM)
    is responsible for both intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
    (ISR) missions and space operations. What is your assessment of the
    importance of the SBR system?
        Admiral Ellis. The SBR program represents tremendous potential as
    both an operational and Intelligence Community support platform. SBR
    will provide persistent surface target tracking, imaging and mapping
    capability in all weather. 24/7 capabilities provide worldwide
    operational data for situational awareness, force protection and strike
    support. These capabilities, horizontally integrated into the Nation's
    ISR network of systems will provide commanders and decision makers with
    a level of situational awareness, intelligence preparation of the
    battlespace, and information assuredness never before achieved.

        8. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, what essential role do you see
    SBR filling that would not be filled by other systems in a larger ISR
    architecture?
        Admiral Ellis. SBR can potentially provide access to denied areas
    under reduced (different) threat considerations. This unfettered access
    to moving target indications and all-weather imagery is not limited by
    geopolitical boundaries, deploys in a much smaller footprint, and
    provides wide area coverage with more frequent revisit rates. This will
    provide persistence that current collection methods do not provide,
    i.e., Global Hawk, U-2, Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar
    System (JSTARS), and that is critical to support a common, worldwide
    operational picture.

        9. Senator Allard. Admiral Ellis, does a large SBR constellation
    that fills both military and intelligence missions pose any unique
    challenges for you as a space operator?
        Admiral Ellis. The concept of supporting military and Intelligence
    Community requirements is not unprecedented. We have several
    constellations (GPS for one) that support the DOD, Intelligence
    Community, and even civilian missions. The principle challenge SBR
    presents is the level of interaction in meeting DOD and Intelligence
    Community needs.
        Future DOD and Intellgence Community intelligence activities will
    interact within a horizontally integrated intelligence enterprise
    architecture linking individual, single-discipline information need
    requirements with multi-discipline requirements supporting operations
    and policy decisions. This transformational architecture will provide
    universal, dynamic, easy-to-use services readily available to all
    levels of decision makers and users. This solution will require greater
    automation of requirements and task development, and post-downlink
    processing, posting, exploitation and analysis, storage, retrieval, and
    data transfer.

        10. Senator Allard. Secretary Teets, I wanted to commend you for
    implementing what I think is an effective SBR acquisition strategy. I
    know the Air Force has adopted a notional SBR architecture for planning
    purposes and I also know that the early estimates for this architecture
    appear to be very costly--in the tens of billion of dollars. If that
    cost estimate turns out to be accurate, do you believe that the
    notional nine satellite architecture is affordable?
        Secretary Teets. I will not allow the SBR to proceed beyond Key
    Decision Point (KDP)-B unless it can be shown to be affordable.
    Affordability is being aggressively addressed in Phase A, which will
    refine the SBR concept, architecture, and cost drivers resulting in a
    mature program cost baseline to support KDP-B. The Acquisition Strategy
    currently supports two prime contractor teams each carrying two or more
    concept sets, which gives us a broad trade space between cost and
    performance. At my request, early cost estimates have been conservative
    in considering technical and performance risks while supporting broad
    warfighting and intelligence utility. This has allowed a robust risk
    reduction program to be scoped for Phase A along with a focus on
    performance/cost trades to be completed before KDP-B. Funding is
    focused on design-specific risk reduction to drive down technology and
    affordability risks.
        The need for SBR by our warfighters is greater than ever. To
    provide this capability we have an acquisition strategy that allows us
    to fully explore and mature various concepts and technologies. As these
    mature we will have much greater visibility into the cost of SBR.
    Affordability is key to the program and I will ensure we can afford it
    before proceeding into the next program phase.
                                     ______

                  Questions Submitted by Senator Jeff Sessions

                       EVOLVED EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE

        11. Senator Sessions. Secretary Teets, I would like to inquire as
    to the health of today's launch providers. You have stated on several
    occasions that ``assured access to space'' is one of your top
    priorities. I think all of us on the committee appreciate the
    importance of your position and the requirement to launch America's
    satellites to support both warfighter and national needs. When you were
    here last November, you stated that we could anticipate the price of
    future launches increasing between 20 and 50 percent. Given that a
    second West Coast pad is now being built to handle additional launches
    from Vandenberg Air Force Base and given that both launch providers
    have already spent hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of their
    own money to make the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
    a success up to this point, what do you anticipate the increases to
    launch funding will be beginning in fiscal year 2006?
        Secretary Teets. We are currently developing the EELV funding
    requirements to support a potential new contract strategy, aimed at
    ensuring our acquisition strategy of assured access to space via two
    viable launch service providers is maintained. Until we have firmer
    data from our next procurement, we will continue to estimate the
    increase as being on the order of 50 percent. The specific funding
    levels will be addressed in the fiscal year 2006 President's budget
    request.

        12. Senator Sessions. Secretary Teets, will the expected increases
    be sufficient to cover the ongoing fixed infrastructure costs of each
    launch provider as well as the variable cost of each launch?
        Secretary Teets. The new contract strategy for the EELV, currently
    under development, has at its core funding for the contractor's
    infrastructure costs as well as the marginal prices for launch services
    ordered in fiscal year 2006 and beyond. However, financial losses
    resulting from launch services negotiated in previous years will not be
    reimbursed. Therefore, the U.S. Government's funding will not cover the
    entire cost of the launch provider's infrastructure because the
    contractors will have a mix of old and new launch services underway
    from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2010.

                           GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

        13. Senator Sessions. Secretary Teets, it is my understanding that
    the key to a successful GPS constellation is sustainment of the fleet
    of satellites. Where are we now in sustaining an optimal fleet?
        Secretary Teets. The Air Force is currently operating 28 satellites
    to ensure a high probability of at least 24 satellites. The current GPS
    Constellation is healthy, but aging--14 of 28 satellites are operating
    beyond their design lives, therefore continuous replenishment is
    necessary to ensure confidence in the constellation.
        Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) assesses constellation sustainment
    on at least a quarterly basis, to determine the need, time, and optimal
    location (plane/slot) of future launches in order to sustain an optimal
    constellation within budget and schedule constraints. The Air Force is
    committed to sustaining the constellation of at least 24 satellites to
    support civil and military users worldwide.

        14. Senator Sessions. Secretary Teets, how many GPS II Rs and GPS
    II Fs will need to be procured to keep the constellation at peak
    operating capability?
        Secretary Teets. The contract with Lockheed Martin was for 21 total
    GPS IIR satellites. All of these vehicles have been procured. The first
    was destroyed during launch in January 1997, leaving 20 vehicles. Since
    that time, the Air Force has successfully launched 10 IIRs with the
    remaining IIRs planned for launch through fiscal year 2007. The
    contract with Boeing for IIF satellites has finalized procurement of
    three vehicles, with intent to buy nine more and a predicted need for
    at least four additional IIF satellites to ensure the constellation is
    sustained until deployment of GPS III. Basically, we expect to launch
    3-4 Block IIF satellites per year--until the next-generation of GPS is
    available--in order to sustain the constellation of 24 satellites with
    high confidence.

                      WIDEBAND GAPFILLER SATELLITE PROGRAM

        15. Senator Sessions. Secretary Teets, one of the bright hopes for
    the warfighters' ability to communicate on the battlefields around the
    world is the Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) program. I understand
    that one of these satellites will provides more broadband
    communications capability than all the Defense Satellite Communications
    System (DSCS) on orbit today. That's quite a capability. But because of
    today's shortage of broadband capability, most of the satellite
    communications our deployed soldiers use come through leased
    satellites. I believe that some of these leased satellites are foreign
    owned. I understand that we are spending nearly $300 million in lease
    costs annually. The Air Force has procured three of these WGSs with the
    first launch expected late in 2005. I am concerned, however, that there
    is a 3-year gap in production before satellites 4 and 5 would be
    funded. Would you explain the Air Force's rationale for this 3-year gap
    and would you comment on the Air Force's commitment to purchase the
    next two satellites, currently on option?
        Secretary Teets. As part of the transformational communications
    architecture, which ensures continuous availability of communications
    for the warfighter, the Air Force will renegotiate, in fiscal year
    2005, an option on the current contract to purchase WGS 4 and WGS 5. In
    the fiscal year 2005 President's budget request, the Air Force has
    included in fiscal year 2006-2008 an estimate of the funding required
    for satellites 4 and 5. This estimate will require updating in the
    fiscal year 2006 budget, following the renegotiation. Satellites 4 and
    5 will be launched in fiscal year 2009 and 2010, respectively.
        When first developed, warfighter requirements for wideband
    satellite communications were satisfied with an initial contract for
    three WGS satellites, with an option to purchase additional satellites
    in the future. Based on the resources then available, the Air Force was
    able to fund procurement of three WGS satellites, but due to budget
    constraints was unable to begin funding additional satellites until
    fiscal year 2006. While this acquisition strategy satisfies warfighter
    needs, it unfortunately results in a production gap between satellites
    3 and 4.
        The Air Force would certainly like to reduce or eliminate the
    production gap, thereby avoiding parts obsolescence and manpower
    fluctuation issues; however, that would require an additional $400
    million or more in the fiscal year 2004-2006 time frame.
                                     ______

                 Questions Submitted by Senator Daniel K. Akaka

                           TRANSFORMATION FLIGHT PLAN

        16. Senator Akaka. Secretary Teets, the United States Air Force
    Transformation Flight Plan, released in November 2003, lists a number
    of anti-satellite and space-based weapons programs by name that it
    plans to deploy by 2015. These programs include: the Air-Launched Anti-
    Satellite Missile, the Ground-Based Laser, the Space-Based Radio
    Frequency Weapon, and Hypervelocity Rod Bundles. This seems to be a
    bold step in the direction of a weaponized space. What funding is in
    the current budget to develop the four new weapons systems I just
    listed?
        Secretary Teets. The Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile, the
    Ground-Based Laser, the Space-Based Radio Frequency Weapon, and
    Hypervelocity Rod Bundles are not funded programs, but are ``future
    system concepts.'' These are marked in italics in the 2003 Air Force
    Transformation Flight Plan (roadmap) to distinguish them from funded
    programs. While some have science and technology and/or experimentation
    funding tied to them, many, such as those identified in this question,
    do not. Historically, most will never be developed. Their inclusion is
    to address the Office of Force Transformation's request for ``out-of-
    the-box'' thinking in the Service transformation roadmaps.
        The upcoming 2004 edition of the Transformation Flight Plan has
    already been edited to more clearly distinguish between funded programs
    and future system concepts and to only include such future system
    concepts that actually have Air Force science and technology or
    experimentation funding tied to them.

                             ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPONS

        17. Senator Akaka. Secretary Teets, by pursuing anti-satellite
    (ASAT) weapons, are we not signaling to potential enemies that they
    should take the same course of action and spend more of their defense
    budgets on space warfighting capabilities?
        Secretary Teets. ASAT weapons are nothing new. The former Soviet
    Union had an operational anti-satellite system in the 1980s and early
    1990s. We have the responsibility to explore a wide range of possible
    capabilities and systems that will enable us to deny our adversaries
    the advantages gained from space that could be used in a manner hostile
    to the United States or our national interests. The force structure of
    the armed services and the weapon systems they utilize are and will
    continue to be fully compliant with our international obligations,
    treaties, and our right to self-defense as spelled out in the United
    Nations (U.N.) Charter.

                      SPACE-BASED KINETIC ENERGY TEST BED

        18. Senator Akaka. Secretary Teets, $10.5 million was included in
    the fiscal year 2005 Missile Defense Agency (MDA) budget request for
    research on a space-based kinetic energy test bed. The research is
    supposed to lead to on-orbit testing in the 2010-2011 timeframe, and
    may result in a limited experimental constellation in 2012. Fort
    Greely, which is where the MDA will be fielding its initial missile
    defense deployment, also started as a test bed. Is it your intent to
    use this test bed as a starting point for weaponizing space?
        Secretary Teets. No, it is not our intent to use the test-bed as a
    starting point for weaponizing space. The President has directed the
    DOD to develop a national missile defense system to ensure the national
    security of the United States. As the MDA pursues promising
    technologies, it is incumbent upon them to explore all alternatives and
    perform research and experimentation in the areas of these
    alternatives.
        The force structure the armed services studies, plans for, and
    acquires to provide for national defense is now and will continue to be
    fully compliant with our international obligations, treaties, national
    policy, and our right to self-defense as spelled out in the U.N.
    Charter.

        19. Senator Akaka. Secretary Teets, what is the administration's
    position on the pursuit of space weapons by the United States?
        Secretary Teets. In May 2001, when Secretary of Defense Donald
    Rumsfeld announced the implementation of the Space Commission he
    emphasized two key points concerning our space policy: ``The United
    States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space by all
    nations for peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humanity. Peaceful
    purposes allow defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit
    of national security and other goals.'' The Secretary went on to say:
    ``Consistent with treaty obligations, the United States will develop,
    operate, and maintain space control capabilities to ensure freedom of
    action in space, and if directed, deny such freedom of action to
    adversaries.'' In the 3 years since this statement, this position has
    not changed.

                           GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

        20. Senator Akaka. General Lord, the GPS III satellites, which will
    provide the GPS with better protections against jamming, were
    originally scheduled for launch in 2009. That date has since been
    pushed back to 2012 because of cost considerations. Why is the Air
    Force now focusing on the development of risky new technologies, such
    as laser communications satellites and space-based radars, when near-
    term needs to protect our space assets, such as the planned upgrade to
    GPS, are being delayed?
        General Lord. While the Air Force is proceeding to develop laser
    communications and a SBR capability, this does not come at the expense
    of GPS. The initial GPS III program called for an fiscal year 2009
    first launch; however, in addition to being costly, the program was
    assessed as being overly .aggressively and high risk. Modernization of
    the GPS II space segment, coupled with user equipment improvements,
    will provide an interim anti-jamming capability to support current
    requirements to counter existing threats. The first launch of a
    modernized higher-power GPS Block II satellite is projected for March
    2005. This modernization campaign best meets the DOD's near-term
    navigation warfare requirements, and supports an fiscal year 2012 first
    launch of GPS III, still necessary to meet projected future threats.

                         KINETIC ENERGY ANTI-SATELLITE

        21. Senator Akaka. General Lord, Air Force officials have opposed
    the Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite system in the past because of
    concerns about creating dangerous space debris, but the Transformation
    Plan envisions a similar Air-Launched ASAT Missile. Is the Air Force no
    longer concerned that use of a kinetic energy anti-satellite weapon
    will create debris that could threaten our own and allied space assets?
        General Lord. The Air Force continues to be concerned with the
    problem of space debris. A kinetic energy anti-satellite weapon was
    only one of a variety of solutions aimed at meeting the Quadrennial
    Defense Review's operational goal of space superiority. There are,
    however, other long-term concepts that can be pursued that do not have
    the negative side effects of creating large amounts of space debris.
    This is one of the reasons this concept has been removed in the most
    recent draft of the Air Force Transformational Flight Plan (to be
    released in July 2004).
                                     ______

                   Questions Submitted by Senator Bill Nelson

                      MISSILE DEFENSE PROTECTION OF HAWAII

        22. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, starting in September, when
    the Bush administration plans to deploy a national defense against
    long-range missile attack, you will be the person responsible for
    protecting all 50 States from such an attack. I understand that because
    of radar coverage limitations with the current system, in order to
    protect Hawaii from an attack from North Korea, a Navy ship will be
    required to be on station off the North Korean coast. This ship will
    provide the radar coverage for the system. The question then arises as
    to whether the Navy is committed to putting a ship on station off the
    coast of North Korea to provide the necessary radar coverage. Secretary
    of the Navy, Gordon England, reportedly stated recently that the Navy
    would provide ``virtually continuous'' deployment of a ship off of
    North Korea. What does ``virtually continuous'' mean--will a Navy ship
    be on station, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to protect Hawaii from a
    long-range missile attack, starting in September?
        Admiral Ellis. The Navy contribution to the missile defense
    capability is just as you describe. It is a radar tracking capability
    that will provide initial cuing in addition to our overhead sensors and
    complement other ground-based radars. The Navy has set milestones and
    is committed to identifying ships and upgrading their radar
    configuration to provide that on-station capability of which the
    Secretary spoke.

                            SPACE-BASED INTERCEPTORS

        23. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, at a recent conference,
    General Kadish, Director of the MDA, discussed his plans for space-
    based interceptors (SBIs). He was quoted as saying, ``From the
    standpoint of the threats we face at this particular time . . . we
    don't need to put weapons in space. But that situation may or may not
    last a long time.'' He also reportedly said that there is likely to be
    a national debate on deploying weapons in space before the MDA begins
    deploying SBIs. The MDA wants to spend close to $100 million on SBI
    research next year. That is a significant amount of money--despite the
    fact that even General Kadish says there is no threat that warrants it.
    Yet there is no sign that the administration desires to have a national
    debate or discussion on deploying weapons in space. Rather, the
    administration appears to be creeping slowly towards weaponizing space,
    hoping no one notices. Do you know what the goal is of the SBI research
    and will any of this research require or include work that could lead
    to space-based weapons?
        Secretary Teets. One of the MDA's goals is to understand the
    minimum constellation size and associated ballistic missile defense
    system interfaces where a SBI capability begins to cost-effectively
    contribute to a layered defense against all threat classes in all
    phases of flight. MDA is not restricting their capability alternative
    studies to only global boost phase intercept defense. In fiscal year
    2005 MDA will initiate space based technology development. MDA's plan
    is to mature the technology (light-weighting of interceptor components
    including the kill vehicle and development of a liquid axial stage).
    This would also allow MDA, by 2008 at the earliest, to have the ability
    to determine whether it is technically and economically feasible to
    pursue an SBI capability for ballistic missile defense (BMD).

        24. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, if there is a goal or
    desire to weaponize space, when will the administration seek specific
    authority to take this significant step and do you believe the U.S.
    should place weapons in orbit?
        Secretary Teets. There is no specific desire or goal to ``weaponize
    space.'' As stated by Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, during
    testimony to the Full House on February 5, 2002: ``Our goal is not to
    bring war into space, but rather to defend against those who would.
    Protecting U.S. military assets in space from attack by foreign
    aggressors must be a priority in the 21st century.'' (Secretary
    Rumsfeld to the Full House, February 5, 2002.) The DOD is responsible
    for ensuring our national security. It is, therefore, incumbent upon
    the armed services to remain open to a wide range of possible
    capabilities and systems that will enable us to deny our adversaries
    the advantages gained from space that could be used in a manner hostile
    to the United States, our citizens, or our national interests. The
    force structure of the armed services is and will continue to be fully
    compliant with our international obligations, treaties, and our right
    to self-defense as spelled out in the U.N. Charter. If the research and
    development (R&D) proves promising and an exhaustive analysis of
    alternatives concludes that the best/only way to ensure our national
    security is to base a defensive capability in space, than that option
    will be provided to the President and Congress for subsequent approval
    and funding.

        25. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, what is the policy
    regarding space-based weaponry and would such a SBI system be
    consistent with that policy?
        Secretary Teets. The current DOD policy concerning space
    capabilities is directly derived from the National Space Policy,
    Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-49 dated September 14, 1996. The
    actual language is classified. The force structure the armed services
    studies, plans for, and acquires to provide for national defense is now
    and will continue to be fully compliant with our international
    obligations, treaties, national policy, and our right to self-defense
    as spelled out in the U.N. Charter.

        26. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, what risks to our own
    military and commercial satellites would this pose, and what additional
    risks to the U.S. would weapons in space pose?
        Secretary Teets. As stated by Secretary of Defense, Donald
    Rumsfeld, during testimony to the Full House on February 5, 2002: ``Our
    goal is not to bring war into space, but rather to defend against those
    who would. Protecting U.S. military assets in space from attack by
    foreign aggressors must be a priority in the 21st century.'' The DOD is
    responsible for ensuring national security. It is, therefore, incumbent
    upon the armed services to remain open to a wide range of possible
    capabilities and systems that will enable us to deny our adversaries
    the advantages gained from space that could be used in a manner hostile
    to the United States, our citizens, or our national interests.
    Furthermore, the force structure of the armed services and the weapons
    systems they utilize are and will continue to be fully compliant with
    our international obligations, treaties, national policy, and our right
    to self-defense as spelled out in the U.N. Charter.

        27. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, what is the threat being
    addressed, what weapons do we need, and when would we need these?
        Secretary Teets. It is our goal to stay ahead of any potential
    adversary; the development of new and emerging technologies ensures we
    keep our edge. The asymmetric advantage the U.S. has gained from our
    space capabilities has not gone unnoticed by our potential adversaries.
    As such, we continuously review our space system vulnerabilities and
    are looking at ways to make our space services and systems less
    susceptible to enemy attack. In January 2004, we asked the National
    Intelligence Council to update the threat assessment contained in the
    1999 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Threats to U.S. Space
    Systems and Operations. The actual assessments are classified, but the
    threat posed by our potential adversaries continues to grow.

        28. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and Admiral Ellis, are you
    aware of the study by the American Physical Society that indicated you
    would need a thousand or so space-based interceptors in orbit in order
    to make an effective system, and the follow-on study by the
    Congressional Budget Office (CBO)--which used much more optimistic
    assumptions, but still concluded that hundreds of interceptors would
    have to be launched?
        Secretary Teets. The MDA is aware of the American Physical Society
    study and that the CBO is conducting a follow-on study. I understand
    the CBO report is nearing completion. In late fiscal year 2003 the MDA
    developed a response to the American Physical Society which analyzed
    space based interceptor constellation sizes and came to a conclusion
    that constellations of 150 to 450 satellites would be required.
        Admiral Ellis. No, I am not aware of this study.

        29. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and Admiral Ellis, are you
    aware of any Pentagon cost studies which estimate what the total cost
    to orbit and maintain such enormous constellations of satellites would
    be?
        Secretary Teets. The MDA reports that as of this time they have not
    conducted a cost study which estimates the total cost to orbit and
    maintain a large constellation of satellites.
        Admiral Ellis. No, I am not aware of such studies.

        30. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and Admiral Ellis, do you
    believe we could afford such enormous constellations of satellites,
    when we are currently struggling to keep far smaller and less complex
    satellite programs on schedule and on budget?
        Secretary Teets. Building a responsible defense budget demands
    constant balancing between warfighter requirements and available,
    affordable technologies. It is premature to speculate on the ultimate
    character of a SBI constellation. As the concept and technologies
    mature, we anticipate that the MDA will address the cost, schedule, and
    performance issues related to a constellation of SBIs.
        Admiral Ellis. Clearly, there would be significant costs associated
    with the development of hundreds of satellites no matter what their
    construct. We must be able to balance our system development efforts
    with the value of the same to our national security.

                            MISSILE DEFENSE TESTING

        31. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, by law, operational testing
    is defined as ``the field test, under realistic combat conditions, of
    any item of (or key component of) weapons, equipment or munitions for
    the purpose of determining the effectiveness and suitability . . . for
    use in combat by typical military users.'' The law also states that the
    Pentagon's chief test authority, the Director of Operational Test and
    Evaluation (OT&E), is ``the principal operational test and evaluation
    official'' who shall ``approve (in writing) the adequacy of the plans
    for operational test and evaluation.'' The law says that a major
    weapons program ``may not proceed beyond low rate initial production
    until initial operational test and evaluation of the program has been
    completed.'' The intent of this law is to prevent the mass production
    and deployment of a system prior to completion of independent, combat-
    realistic operational testing. The key criteria for operational testing
    are independence and combat-realism. None of the completed or planned
    missile defense tests meet these important criteria. No other weapons
    system has ever been deployed without any plans for operational
    testing. In September of this year, the administration plans to deploy
    a long-range missile defense for the United States. I understand you
    will be the person responsible for this defense, and also responsible
    if the defense fails against a real enemy missile. Would you like to
    see the national missile defense system operationally tested in a
    combat-like way as soon as possible--both to assess how it will work in
    battle, and to fix any problems that almost surely will be revealed by
    such testing?
        Admiral Ellis. My belief is that this effort is currently underway.
    Over an extended period of time, as we move through the developmental
    test phase, we are placing the system and evolving its capabilities in
    the operational environment where it would be employed. There are
    obviously elements that cannot and, hopefully, will never be tested
    from a full operational capability--such as the launch of threat
    missiles from potential adversaries. I do believe that the elemental
    testing that is underway will characterize the dynamics of and the
    environment in which this system is intended to operate. We will define
    and refine the sensor capabilities. We will assess the command and
    control linkage and the command and control processes and all of those
    elements will then be integrated in a comprehensive manner.

        32. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, current law provides for
    independent testing of major weapons systems to make sure they are
    suitable and effective. Do you support the intent of this law, as it
    applies to national missile defense?
        Admiral Ellis. In my view, we are getting to the intent of that law
    by involving the OT&E people in the process. With large-scale systems,
    the complexity of the tests, the expense of testing, and modern
    simulation capabilities allow us to integrate elements of both
    developmental testing and operational testing as the system evolves.
    Technology and simulation now allow us, for the first time, to bring
    these elements together in a concurrent manner that more efficiently
    uses national resources and, arguably, more quickly delivers the
    capabilities that we need.

                      U.S. NORTHERN AND STRATEGIC COMMAND

        33. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, what are the roles of U.S.
    Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and STRATCOM in missile defense, and how
    are the efforts coordinated?
        Admiral Ellis. Change Two of the 2002 Unified Command Plan (UCP)
    tasked STRATCOM to plan, integrate, and coordinate the global missile
    defense capabilities of the Nation. STRATCOM is operationalizing the
    capabilities being developed and deployed by the MDA.
        We are leading the development of the necessary doctrine, concepts
    of operations (CONOPs), and operational plans in coordination with our
    subordinate Service component commands and the other combatant
    commanders. This effort requires that we define the broad
    interrelationships among the Global Ballistic Missile Defense (GBMD)
    mission and other mission areas, such as ISR, strike operations, and
    information operations. Operationalizing GBMD capabilities also
    requires detailed planning to address the policy, rules of engagement,
    force employment, force readiness, and logistics support, and tying
    together diverse system elements including sensors, interceptors, and
    the command and control network.
        NORTHCOM and Pacific Command (PACOM) are our principal warfighting
    partners in preparation for activation of the initial defense
    capability. With them, we are continuing to refine and validate our
    plans in a series of exercises and readiness assessments designed to
    prepare the responsible combatant commands for assuming operational
    responsibility for the initial elements of this nascent defensive
    system.
        Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) demonstrated an unprecedented level
    of cross-theater missile defense cooperation and coordination.
    Integrated early warning data from Army, Navy, Air Force, and other
    intelligence sensors provided vital data supporting Patriot missile
    engagements of all threatening theater ballistic missile launches.
    Expanding upon OIF's example of an integrated and effective defense,
    STRATCOM is developing the GBMD CONOP and the battle management
    architecture to provide full capabilities for regional combatant
    commanders to defend their areas of responsibility.

                    SPACED-BASED INFRARED RADAR SYSTEM-HIGH

        34. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, the
    SBIRS-High has experienced and is continuing to experience significant
    problems. When complete, the system will consist of two high Earth
    orbit (HEO) sensors and five geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO)
    satellites. The current problem is with the HEO-1 sensor, but we are
    also beginning to hear that there may be significant problems with the
    GEO satellites as well. What is the current status of SBIRS-High--how
    late is the HEO-1?
        Secretary Teets. The first HEO payload delivery is scheduled for
    July 2004 (classified launch date). Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
    is within acceptable limits. The second HEO payload delivery is planned
    for November 2004 (classified launch date). Testing so far supports EMI
    performance within specification for the second HEO payload. The SBIRS-
    High GEO program is currently being replanned due to recent technical
    maturity challenges. Schedule impacts include a 12-month schedule delay
    for GEO-launches. There is an approximate $1.5 billion program cost
    growth from fiscal year 2004-fiscal year 2013.
        We are replanning the Signal Processing Assembly (SPA) flight
    software for GEO satellites. The original design was assessed as
    insufficient to meet mission requirements.
        Other contributing factors have exacerbated the cost over-runs:

        1. Extensive rework of the HEO sensors as a result of the EMI
    problems
        2. HEO and GEO Single Board Computer (SBC) anomaly resolution
        3. Underestimation of space-to-ground interface complexities
        4. Known technical issues did not close as planned
        5. Extremely challenging contractor manpower roll-off plans

        A SBIRS-High program replan is underway. Preliminary results were
    presented to the Defense Acquisition Executive (DAE) on April 20, 2004.
    Full cost and schedule impacts are to be completed by July 2004 and a
    new acquisition program baseline (APB) will be established thereafter.
    The Air Force is committed to fully funding the cost of the replan in
    the fiscal year 2006 President's budget.
        General Lord. SBIRS-High program obtained Nunn-McCurdy
    recertification in May 2002. At that time, we had expected to deliver
    the first of two HEO payloads by February 2003. After working through
    the electromagnetic interference problems, we are confident that we
    will deliver HEO-1 by end of July 2004. Due to the significant time and
    resources spent while focused on the highly elliptical Earth orbit
    challenges, we are in the process of replanning the GEO development,
    which will result in a 1-year slip to the GEO launch schedule.

        35. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, is there
    a problem with the GEO satellites? We are aware that there may be some
    spillover effect on the GEO satellites, as a result of the delays and
    increased costs of the HEO-1 sensor, but is there a separate technical
    or schedule problem with the GEO satellites?
        Secretary Teets. The Air Force is addressing a GEO schedule issue
    tied to development of flight software. This is the replan of the SPA
    flight software for GEO satellites previously described. This schedule
    problem, along with HEO delays, has resulted in cost growth to the
    program approximately $1.5 billion from fiscal year 2004-2013 and a 1-
    year delay in launch of the first SBIRS GEO satellite.
        General Lord. SBIRS-High has experienced the normal challenges of
    an acquisition program. GEO is experiencing schedule challenges as a
    result of the delays in the HEO schedule. There are also technical
    challenges with the data throughput capability of the SPA and with the
    single-board computer onboard the GEO satellite. We are working through
    these challenges with Lockheed Martin, our prime contractor, to ensure
    a low-risk solution.

        36. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, how important is the SBIRS-
    High to your mission?
        Admiral Ellis. The capabilities it promises are absolutely
    essential to the mission of the STRATCOM.

        37. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, what sort of impact would a
    significant delay in either of the two parts of the SBIRS-High have on
    your mission?
        Admiral Ellis. Recent conflicts and world events have demonstrated
    that the threats SBIRS is designed to target are here today.
    Significant delays in meeting the current baseline for SBIRS-HEO or GEO
    capabilities will negatively impact STRATCOM's missions of Information
    Operations (IO), Space Operations, Global Strike, Integrated Missile
    Defense (IMD), and ISR. Without the transformational capabilities SBIRS
    would provide in missile warning, missile defense, technical
    intelligence and battlespace characterization, STRATCOM would
    experience gaps in the following capabilities: the ability to support
    the space surveillance aspect of space control (IO); the ability to
    provide theater support for battle damage assessment/situational
    awareness (Space Operations); the ability to provide warning necessary
    to protect U.S. interests around the world (Global Strike); the ability
    to provide the accuracy needed to optimize weapon systems (IMD); and
    the ability to provide data necessary to address future threats and
    adequately conduct treaty monitoring (ISR).

        38. Senator Bill Nelson. General Lord, in your prepared statement
    for the record you refer to spaced-based infrared capabilities but do
    not mention the SBIRS-High by name. Should we read something into this?
        General Lord. No. I was referring to all overhead infrared sensors,
    which includes the SBIRS-High.

                           TRANSFORMATIONAL SATELLITE

        39. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, the TSAT communications
    satellite is in the early phases of technology development and risk
    reduction. When operational, TSAT is designed to have substantially
    improved secure, protected, high data rate communications capability.
    It will be a successor to the Milstar AEHF satellite family. The
    current plan is to have the first TSAT take the place of the fourth
    AEHF satellite. How important to you is the ability to have secure
    communications at all time and why?
        Admiral Ellis. It is vital to STRATCOM's mission as well as the
    missions of the other combatant commanders to have secure
    communications at all times. In the case of STRATCOM, our ability to
    hold targets at risk anywhere and anytime depends on secure
    communications for all phases of the mission, from planning to
    execution and, if required, recall. This need has been validated by the
    President, as recently as June 2003 with the release of National Space
    Policy Directive 28.

        40. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, the
    decision to buy the fourth AEHF satellite must be made by October as I
    understand it--is that correct?
        Secretary Teets. No, the decision must be made in time to be
    included in the fiscal year 2006 President's budget, and is scheduled
    for November 2004. This decision would result in advance procurement
    funding in fiscal year 2006, and full funding in fiscal year 2007, with
    congressional approval. The launch of satellite four would be in fiscal
    year 2010.
        General Lord. This decision is a complex one. Yet, the optimal
    decision point based on AEHF development schedules is in the fourth
    quarter of calendar year 2004.
        However, many factors play into this decision: predicted mean
    mission duration of AEHF, MilStar, and DSCS satellites, AEHF
    development progress, and the outcome of TSAT Phase B contracts.
        As we approach the fourth quarter of 2004, we will look at all
    these factors to determine the right way forward.

        41. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, the TSAT
    program, as I understand it, will not have its various technologies
    sufficiently mature to confidently include in the TSAT until the third
    quarter of 2006. One significant technology, multi-access lasercom,
    will not be sufficiently mature until 2008. Could you explain how you
    can confidently forego the fourth AEHF, and rely on the first TSAT as a
    substitute if you won't know if your technologies are viable until 2006
    and 2008?
        Secretary Teets. We have not yet made the decision on whether to
    purchase a fourth AEHF satellite. This decision is scheduled for the
    fall of 2004. The decision will involve assessing a number of factors:
    the risk associated with TSAT technology maturation, anticipated launch
    schedules for AEHF and TSAT, and warfighter satellite communications
    requirements. We will carefully evaluate all of these factors before
    deciding on whether or not to go forward with AEHF number four.
        General Lord. We have taken extensive measures to put into place
    mitigation plans to reduce the risk of the program and still allow us
    to meet the launch schedule. The current schedule matures all key
    technologies to a level consistent with DOD and commercial best
    practices for space systems. The goal of the TSAT program is to provide
    critical communications on the move and ISR support to the warfighter
    that will meet the growing needs of the user community. To do this,
    will require a balance of the technology risk with program schedule. We
    will continue to monitor and assess technology maturity throughout the
    life of the TSAT program. Should the technology fail to mature to a
    sufficient level in 2006 and/or 2008, we will use backup technology to
    provide the warfighters a capability significantly greater than
    currently available.

        42. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, General Lord, and Admiral
    Ellis, the fourth AEHF would launch in fiscal year 2010. The first TSAT
    would not be ready until fiscal year 2012. This certainly seems to be a
    large gap. This assumes that the TSAT will even be ready on time. As we
    know every satellite program recently is late--some by years. What
    confidence is there that the secure communications will be maintained?
        Secretary Teets. I am very confident that secure communications
    will be maintained. Although the first TSAT is intended to complete the
    AEHF constellation, during the 2010-2012 timeframe secure
    communications will be sustained by a combination of the first three
    AEHF satellites and remaining Milstar satellites on orbit. Working
    together, these satellites will provide worldwide coverage ensuring
    uninterrupted, protected, secure communications support.
        General Lord. I am very confident secure communications will be
    maintained. Although the first TSAT is intended to complete the AEHF
    constellation, during the fiscal year 2010-2012 time frame, secure
    communications will be sustained by a combination of the first three
    AEHF satellites and remaining Milstar satellites on orbit. Working
    together, these satellites will provide worldwide coverage from 65+ N
    to 65+ S, thus ensuring uninterrupted support.
        Admiral Ellis. The 14-15 April 2004 SATCOM Senior Warfighter Forum
    (SWarF) discussed the possibility of a gap in secure AEHF
    communications. We are confident limited secure, survivable, protected
    communications can be maintained with a mixed constellation of AEHF and
    Milstar satellites until 2017. The SWarF voiced concern that higher
    capacity, IP-based and communications-on-the move requirements cannot
    be met until the TSAT system is implemented. The SWarF's greatest
    concern--delaying TSAT and transformational communications--affects all
    future missions and impedes the ability of the Services to transform
    their operations. While the SWarF will again review the possible need
    for AEHF 4/5 this summer, they are unanimous in recommending the TSAT
    funding line remain stable to allow a fiscal year 2012 first launch.

        43. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, why not
    buy the fourth AEHF, and not be in a position to force the technology
    and schedule of the TSAT? Our history of rushed satellite programs
    isn't good either. Even comparatively simple satellites have turned out
    to be difficult.
        Secretary Teets. The DOD has identified the need for a near-term
    decision to purchase a fourth AEHF satellite and plans to make the
    decision this fall. The decision will be based on a comprehensive
    evaluation of the TSAT program and associated risks. The program office
    is not forcing the technology and appropriate steps are in place to
    ensure the delivery of capability on schedule. The TSAT schedule is
    commensurate with past and ongoing communications satellite programs
    such as Milstar II and AEHF. Technology development is on schedule to
    meet Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL 6) prior to the Preliminary
    Design Review (PDR), currently scheduled for 2007. This is consistent
    with commercial and DOD best practices. Finally, to manage the
    technology risk, the program office has identified mature technology
    alternatives that can be used to maintain schedule.
        General Lord. The Transformational Communications Architecture
    (TCA), completed in 2003, established the basis for introducing clearly
    defined, improved communications capabilities for the warfighter.
    Technology development is on schedule to a level consistent with
    commercial and DOD best practices. The schedule is also commensurate
    with past and ongoing communications satellite programs such as Milstar
    II and AEHF. Finally, to manage the technology risk, the program office
    identified mature technology alternatives that can be used to maintain
    schedule. TSAT offers an enormous increase in capabilities designed to
    meet the growing needs of the warfighter in the 2012 time frame.
    Without timely TSAT delivery, we won't be able to provide
    ``communications-on-the-move.''

                       EVOLVED EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE

        44. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, what is
    the current status of the Boeing suspension, when will you make the buy
    three decision for the EELV program, and will you wait until Boeing is
    off suspension?
        Secretary Teets. The suspension remains in effect. It will be
    terminated as soon as Boeing has satisfied the Air Force that the
    company has taken appropriate remedial actions.
        We want to make a Buy III decision in 2004. We hope Boeing will be
    off suspension by the time we release the Buy III procurement. While we
    desire competition between both EELV contractors in Buy III, we do not
    anticipate delaying the procurement of any individual launches due to
    the Boeing suspension.
        General Lord. As of April 28, 2004, Boeing is still suspended. The
    Air Force Deputy General Counsel for Contractor Responsibility (SAF/
    GCR) determines whether or not to continue the suspension. The Air
    Force desires to retain competition as an element of the Buy III
    strategy, but the Air Force will not delay launch awards because of the
    Boeing suspension. We will continue to follow the provisions of the
    Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) concerning debarment and
    suspension. FAR Subpart 9.4 prohibits the government from soliciting
    offers of awarding contracts to suspended contractors, absent a
    determining by the Air Force that there is a compelling reason to do
    so. The strategy for Buy III is under development, a process that can
    normally take 180 days before the request for proposal is released.
    This schedule may be further extended to incorporate a reliability
    study recently tasked by the acting Under Secretary of Defense for
    Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics as part of the EELV Nunn-McCurdy
    certification.

        45. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, how much
    will the EELV costs be increased in fiscal year 2005 and beyond as a
    result of the Boeing suspension and how much of the increased EELV
    costs are as a result of the downturn in the commercial satellite
    market?
        Secretary Teets. Currently the U.S. Government's total cost as a
    result of the Boeing Procurement Integrity Act violation is estimated
    at $275 million (fiscal year 2004-2009).
        Of the total reported increase in EELV program costs, $8,640
    million through 2020, or approximately 63 percent is attributable to
    the downturn in the commercial market.
        General Lord. Currently the Federal Government's cost as a result
    of the Boeing Procurement Integrity Act violation, leading to the
    suspension, is estimated at $275 million (fiscal year 2004-2009). The
    Air Force estimated the downturn in the commercial market to account
    for 63 percent of the total increase in the EELV cost.

        46. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets and General Lord, what is
    assured access to space and why do we need it?
        Secretary Teets. Assured access to space is the ability to launch
    critical space assets when required. Basically, it is the ability to
    ensure support of our warfighter and national security requirements
    with space-based assets when, where, and how they need it. It is a key
    enabler to maintaining the asymmetric advantage the United States has
    in space. Having two EELV providers is the foundation of assured
    access. Without two providers, a catastrophic launch failure in a
    single provider environment means we are out of the launch business for
    an extended period of time. We would be unable to ensure the needs of
    our warfighters are met. It's a position I never want to see this
    country in. It's my job to see that doesn't happen.
        General Lord. In the ``Report to Congress on Assured Access to
    Space for the United States,'' delivered by the Deputy Secretary of
    Defense on March 18, 2003, we defined assured access to space ''as the
    ability to launch critical space assets when required.'' The report
    notes the EELV program's ``Atlas V and Delta IV launch systems are the
    essential elements of assured access to space,'' and goes on to say,
    ``maintaining two providers is critical to mitigate the risk of
    possible early design flaws, gain confidence that all government space
    launch requirements can be met, and increase the probability of assured
    access to space without protracted downtimes.'' In order to provide
    timely support to our warfighters, including national intelligence, we
    require the ability to place space assets on orbit whenever needed.

                         INFORMATION OPERATIONS TESTING

        47. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, in your prepared testimony,
    you discuss your plan to establish a national test range for IO. This
    sounds very interesting and useful. When might such a range be stood up
    and what sort of testing would be done there?
        Admiral Ellis. STRATCOM is working closely with the OSD to
    determine the requirements for just such a test range. This range will
    help us define effects in understandable terms, quantify systems'
    performance, and provide assurance that the elements of IO will achieve
    the desired effects while avoiding unintended consequences. We intend
    to develop a ``test range'' that can certify IO capabilities before we
    make them available as a legitimate alternative to other capabilities
    such as a kinetic option.

        48. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, how would the larger test
    community be involved, including for example the Pentagon's Director of
    OT&E and could you please keep this subcommittee appraised of the
    status of this?
        Admiral Ellis. I anticipate that the Director, OT&E will be
    involved in those types of efforts. It is absolutely essential to
    validate and certify effects if we are going to offer them as a
    legitimate capability to the warfighter.

                 DEFINITION OF ``PERSISTENT'' SPACE-BASED RADAR

        49. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, Admiral Ellis, General
    Lord, and Admiral Cebrowski, according to Pentagon descriptions, the
    new SBR program will deliver ``persistent'' radar coverage of most of
    the globe. I'd like all of you to comment on what you believe the word
    ``persistent'' means. Is it the same as ``continuous,'' and if not,
    what is the difference--and what is the minimum requirement for
    ``persistence?''
        Secretary Teets. We define persistence as the ability to maintain
    long-term surveillance of items of interest in order to monitor,
    characterize, and track activities and events occurring around the
    globe. Our objective is to optimize the collection of information
    through dynamic tasking across multiple air/space sensors--taking
    advantage of the complimentary attributes of the systems--to have the
    right resources focused on the problem or threat at the right time.
        Our definition of persistence is not the same as ``continuous.''
    The degree of persistence will vary depending on the situation, the
    nature of the threat or information need, and the timeliness required
    for action. In many instances, frequent revisits over denied or
    difficult terrain areas with space-based systems will provide the
    necessary degree of persistence. Tracking mobile theater ballistic
    missile launchers during combat operations will require a more
    continuous presence from a mixture of airborne, surface, and space-
    based sensors to obtain the degree of actionable information necessary
    to support decisionmakers.
        SBR, as part of an integrated system of sensors, will be a major
    contributor in achieving global persistent surveillance.
        Admiral Ellis. Persistent is not synonymous with continuous. The
    definition of persistence within the SBR concept will be entirely
    dependent upon the complexity of the constellation. With each
    additional vehicle the frequency of coverage will likely increase;
    therefore, persistent will slide across the continuum toward
    continuous. But given mission needs and budgetary constraints, an
    effort to reach continuous will be cost prohibitive. That is why trade
    studies have been, and will continue to be, conducted throughout
    acquisition of the system.
        General Lord. Persistent surveillance is the ability to monitor,
    track, characterize, report, and update at frequent intervals on
    specific activities at fixed locations, on moving objects, and changes
    occurring to the surface of the Earth. This definition is not
    synonymous with ``continuous.'' The activity cycle of the target, the
    situation, and the action we want to take on the target determine the
    amount of persistence needed. For example, the rate at which we need to
    sample a missile test site preparing for a launch may be days; for a
    ship traversing the Mediterranean, it may be hours; and for a mobile
    theater ballistic missile carrying weapons of mass destruction (WMD),
    it may be 30 seconds. We look to achieve persistence through a mixture
    of integrating our surveillance and reconnaissance system designs and
    allowing these collection systems to trade off coverage of each other,
    In some cases, a SBR capability will provide both the deep access and
    the persistence to meet our goals, and sometimes our needs will require
    a more rapid revisit rate that only airborne sensors can provide. The
    surveillance provided by a SBR, in combination with other complementary
    space and airborne systems, could bring us much closer to realizing
    persistent surveillance.
        Admiral Cebrowski. Persistent is not the same as continuous.
        When dealing with elements of observation, persistence means having
    the capability to know what you need to know, when you need to know it,
    and with the fidelity necessary to draw the appropriate conclusions.
    You must be able to sense the discriminant or the phenomenology while
    it is there and while it is actionable. This requires matching the
    observation revisit rate with the time constant of the object to be
    observed.
        Therefore, any measure of persistence is dependent on the activity
    or behavior being observed. For example, if you require information on
    a moving target, your ability to observe or sense that target (revisit
    rate) must be consistent with changes to its actionable state.
        With a networked force it is also important to note that
    persistence needs to be measured in terms of a system of networked
    space, air, and surface assets. This networked or layered persistence,
    allows the advantages of each layer to be brought to bear ensuring a
    higher fidelity of actionable observations, while reducing the
    vulnerability to deception and denial.

                        FULL FUNDING FOR SPACE PROGRAMS

        50. Senator Bill Nelson. Secretary Teets, at last year's hearing, I
    asked you why the new space policy you were implementing did not
    require, as a matter of policy, that space programs be fully funded to
    their estimated costs over the 5-year budget horizon used by the
    Pentagon. I pointed out then that your policy is different than the
    policy for almost every other major Pentagon program. Other major
    programs are required to be fully funded by Milestone B, to try to
    avoid the type of cost growth problems we keep seeing in space
    programs. You didn't answer my question last year, yet I understand the
    policy has remained the same. So I'd like to ask you again: Why have
    you implemented a specific policy which does not require that space
    programs be fully funded? Doesn't such a policy actually increase the
    chances for space program cost growth?
        Secretary Teets. The policy does require us to fully fund space
    programs. The National Security Space Acquisition Policy 03-01 states
    that ``The DOD Space Milestone Decision Authority shall determine the
    appropriate point at which to fully fund a DOD Space Major Defense
    Acquisition Program--generally when a system concept and design have
    been selected, a System Program Director/Program Manager has been
    assigned, capability needs have been approved and system-level
    development is ready to begin.'' This provides us some flexibility as
    to when this is required but it typically occurs at the entry to Phase
    B, risk reduction and design development.

                              MINUTEMAN III ICBMS

        51. Senator Bill Nelson. Admiral Ellis, at the hearing there was
    some confusion about a question I asked with respect to the Minuteman
    III ICBMs. The Nuclear Posture Review and the Moscow Treaty achieve the
    bulk of the reductions in deployed nuclear warheads by retiring the
    Peacekeeper and de-MIRVing the Minuteman III ICBMs--having one warhead
    on each Minuteman III rather than multiple warheads. There was a recent
    press report that suggested that the decision to have one warhead on
    each of the 500 Minuteman III ICBMs was being reconsidered. Is this
    true? Is there a plan to retain MIRVed Minuteman IIIs?
        Admiral Ellis. No, I am not aware of any such plan.

        [Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR
                                      2005

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2004

                                   U.S. Senate,
                      Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                                                        Washington, DC.

     DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS AND LESSONS LEARNED IN RECENT MILITARY
                                   OPERATIONS

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
    room SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne
    Allard (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Committee members present: Senators Warner, Allard, Reed,
    Bill Nelson, E. Benjamin Nelson, and Dayton.
        Majority staff members present: Charles A. Alsup,
    professional staff member; Brian R. Green, professional staff
    member; and Gregory R. Kiley, professional staff member.
        Minority staff members present: Kenneth M. Crosswalt,
    professional staff member; and Creighton Greene, professional
    staff member.
        Staff assistants present: Michael N. Berger and Bridget E.
    Ward.
        Committee members' assistants present: Elizabeth King and
    Neil D. Campbell, assistants to Senator Reed; and Peter A.
    Contostavlos and Caroline Tess, assistants to Senator Bill
    Nelson.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD, CHAIRMAN

        Senator Allard. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the
    Senate Armed Services Committee will come to order. Today, this
    is a hearing on defense intelligence programs and intelligence
    lessons learned in recent military operations.
        The subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on
    defense intelligence programs and tactical and operational
    intelligence lessons learned in recent military operations.
    Intelligence has always been an important part of military
    operations, but the criticality of intelligence to precision
    targeting and decisive military operations has clearly
    increased. The Department of Defense's (DOD) plans for
    transforming its warfighting capabilities are grounded in
    information dominance--accurate, timely intelligence.
    Understanding our complex defense intelligence system, its
    capabilities, and future requirements is of great importance to
    this subcommittee.
        We welcome our witnesses. We have with us here this morning
    Dr. Steve Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
    (USDI); Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, G-2 of the Army;
    Rear Admiral Richard Porterfield, Director of Naval
    Intelligence; Major General Ron Sams, Director for
    Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance for the Air
    Force; Mike Decker, Director of Intelligence for the Marine
    Corps; and Brigadier General Don Wurster, Director of
    Intelligence and Information Operations for Special Operations
    Command.
        It would be impossible to assemble a more qualified group
    to comment on our tactical and operational intelligence
    capabilities, and we look forward to your testimony.
        As an administrative note, we will have opening statements
    and a round of questions in open session, and then move to a
    closed session to address important classified items.
        Clearly, intelligence has played a central role in recent
    combat operations and stability operations in Iraq and
    Afghanistan, as well as in the ongoing global war against
    terrorism. It is an intelligence effort against new types of
    efforts that differ greatly from the traditional threats of the
    20th century. Our Intelligence Community has had to adjust to
    these new threats, and they've done an admirable job.
        We've all been thankful for the successes of our Armed
    Forces in these recent military operations. While much will be
    debated in the months and years ahead about tactics and weapons
    systems, all of our forces are dependent on timely, accurate
    information to succeed. Indeed, one of the central tenets of
    our national military strategy is information dominance. The
    intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets
    available to the theater and subordinate commanders appear to
    have done a remarkable job in delivering that information.
    While much recent attention has been focused on the pre-war
    strategic intelligence available to national decisionmakers, I
    feel it's important for the American people to know that the
    military intelligence assets of the DOD have served the Armed
    Forces and the Nation well.
        Even when things go well, however, we must not be
    complacent. I want our witnesses to address not only what is
    done well, but also where we need to do better. Clearly, we
    have a very capable system, but it is your job to make it
    better, and the job of Congress to help you.
        The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003
    established the position of Under Secretary of Defense for
    Intelligence. It is clear that each of the military Services
    and the defense intelligence agencies are very capable and
    composed of dedicated professionals. It is equally clear that
    this defense intelligence community is a complex enterprise
    that requires dedication, consistent, high-level guidance, and
    a unifying vision to ensure the best-possible support to the
    soldier on the battlefield, the generals guiding operations,
    and the strategic decisionmakers.
        Secretary Cambone has had 13 months to study this
    challenge, and we look forward to his views on the current
    state of defense intelligence and the way ahead. One year ago,
    this subcommittee held a related hearing to evaluate how well
    the ISR assets of the military Services were combined and
    integrated together to support joint warfighters.
        Our purpose here today is to build on the insights gained
    last year and on the insights gained through the experience of
    a challenging year of military operations, to better understand
    this complex enterprise and determine that the investments we
    are making are adequate, and, if, in fact, we are investing in
    the right capabilities. Furthermore, we want to understand if
    the capabilities that are being developed in each of the
    Services not only support the unique core requirements of that
    Service, but can be fully integrated into a system that
    effectively supports joint warfighters and our national defense
    decisionmakers.
        Current capabilities have proved quite adaptable over time.
    Much of the credit for that goes to the amazing young service
    men and women, who use American initiative and ingenuity to
    figure out some very unique ways to maximize the capabilities
    of these ISR systems. Such ingenuity is critical, but we must
    also ensure that we're not asking too much, that we are
    developing the capabilities that can focus on the really
    challenging threats of the future, such as transnational
    terrorists and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
        Experts suggest that a persistent, all-weather, 24-hour
    capability, delivering high volumes of data and queued by a
    variety of other integrated sensors, is essential. That seems
    to make sense, but true persistence in analytical tools that
    help analysts find the key pieces of information has been
    elusive. I hope each of our witnesses will address the issue of
    persistent surveillance, how we achieve it, and how we
    recognize the important nuggets of information quickly when
    that information is collected so that we can react quickly,
    with confidence. Such an integrated system is clearly the first
    line of defense, not only in winning future battles, but in
    stopping threats to our homeland and our national security
    interests before they fully materialize.
        I will be brief, as it is more important that we proceed on
    to the testimony of Secretary Cambone and our military
    intelligence chiefs. I look forward to hearing your testimony
    on the performance of our intelligence system in supporting our
    warfighters. I also am anxious to hear how much each of you
    anticipates working better together to ensure we have a well-
    integrated, coordinated effort. I am also most interested in
    your view of the future. What do we need to be prepared for?
    What gaps or challenges may be anticipated? What can we,
    Congress, do to help?
        As we consider the fiscal year 2005 budget request, we must
    be mindful of the critical role intelligence plays in our
    current and future military operations, and how timely
    connected our intelligence assets and weapons have become. This
    is clearly the future of warfare, and we must ensure that our
    defense intelligence capabilities and the larger Intelligence
    Community continue to be the best in the world.
        Again, I welcome our witnesses, and thank you for your
    service.
        Senator Nelson.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you----
        Senator Allard. Oh, wrong Nelson. Let me catch Senator Bill
    Nelson, from Florida, and then, Senator Ben Nelson, we'll give
    you an opportunity to make your comments.
        Senator Nelson.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Would you like me to defer?
        Senator Ben Nelson. No, no, no, I defer to you. [Laughter.]
        Senator Bill Nelson. We could go back and talk about some
    of our rivalries between the University of Nebraska and the
    University of Florida if you'd like.
        Senator Ben Nelson. That was before we gave up football for
    a while.
        Senator Bill Nelson. That's correct. [Laughter.]

                    STATEMENT OF SENATOR BILL NELSON

        Senator Bill Nelson. Anyone who has worn the uniform of
    this country knows the very difficult situation that we are
    facing on this very day, especially where there is an
    indigenous population that is starting to rise up. So, in the
    course of this hearing, we want to find out more how we can
    help those very brave men and women who are out there carrying
    on the fight.
        This hearing is going to give us an opportunity to focus on
    how we collect data about the enemy and the environment, and
    how we turn that data into information, and then how we get
    that information to the right people at the right time.
        In the past, some have talked about sensor-to-shooter
    integration, or such concepts as ``dominant battlefield
    awareness,'' while others have been espousing a concept called
    ``horizontal integration.'' Whatever the words are, it's clear
    that we have to be able to fight smarter, not just on future
    battlefields, but on this present battlefield, given our
    reduced force structure and our desire to minimize casualties.
    So the programs and systems that we will be discussing in this
    subcommittee hearing are the foundation upon which any such
    concept will have to be based. What we don't cover here in the
    open session, I'm looking forward to getting into, and no
    mumbo-jumbo, when we get into the closed session.
        Thank you.
        Senator Allard. Senator Ben Nelson, from Nebraska.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
    Member. I want to thank you for scheduling this hearing today.
    I don't think we could overstate the importance of how we wed
    together the civilian and military leadership responsibility
    for collecting and disseminating intelligence within the
    operational and intelligence communities.
        I want to thank each of you, gentlemen, for being here
    today, both for your dedication and for your efforts to be able
    to provide the kind of coordination that's going to be
    essential in the days ahead.
        Last week, Admiral Ellis, Commander of the U.S. Strategic
    Command (USSTRATCOM), testified that the DOD needs to enhance
    its ISR capabilities to better locate hidden targets, which
    could be camouflaged or protected by robust air defenses. He
    went on to describe the challenges that they face between the
    operational world and the various elements that contribute so
    effectively to intelligence collection, and how they bring
    those together in a collaborative way, particularly as the next
    generation of ISR platforms begin to be more rigorously defined
    technically to include space-based radars (SBRs) and the like.
        A concern that we have all had relating to intelligence and
    the lack of intelligence capabilities in the past is a matter
    of public record, of politics, and, I think, of public policy,
    as well. I am hopeful that today, as we look at what we can do
    operationally, that our focus will be on the technical side,
    that it will be on the side of enhancing our capabilities to
    deal with information on the ground, information that can be
    human intelligence (HUMINT), as well as technical in nature.
        Clearly, with what's going on in Iraq today, there are
    those who could suggest that perhaps our intelligence breakdown
    did not prepare us for the potential violence that we're
    dealing with today. Intelligence can help us only so far. But
    we have to continue to increase it, because I do believe that
    many of the challenges that we've encountered could have been
    avoided. But, more importantly, there are challenges ahead that
    I think we do need to avoid, and we're looking at you as to how
    this could come about. Clearly, the ball is in your court to be
    able to tell us what's going on, and to tell us what will be
    going on, to enhance our collaboration and use of intelligence.
        I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking forward to your
    testimony.
        Senator Allard. I'll now call on the Honorable Steven A.
    Cambone, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

       STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN A. CAMBONE, UNDER SECRETARY OF
                        DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE

        Dr. Cambone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
    subcommittee. I do appreciate the opportunity to come here 13
    months, almost to the day, since the Senate confirmed my
    appointment, and to first give you an idea of what we have been
    doing over those 13 months as they relate to some of the issues
    raised in the opening statements, then take a minute to talk
    about some work being done with the combatant commanders to
    improve their capabilities, and then to give you a bit of
    insight into some of our thinking about how defense
    intelligence overall may evolve in the coming months and years
    to meet the changing environment in which we live.
        So, if I may, please. A year ago I told this committee and
    others that there were three major issues that we needed to
    address. One was to ``take stock,'' as we called it, of the
    title 10 capabilities and responsibilities of our service
    intelligence organizations. The gentlemen who are with me here
    today worked very closely with my staff, and have put together
    a fairly substantial brief, which, Mr. Chairman, I would offer
    to you and your staff as a summary of the work that was done on
    those responsibilities and capabilities. The bottom line of
    that effort was to say that we needed, collectively, to pay
    more attention to both our people and to the changing
    operational environment in which the Intelligence Community is
    going to have to work.
        The second effort that we undertook was to review our
    HUMINT capability within the DOD, and let me leave that as a
    heading, for the moment, and return to it in a few minutes.
        Likewise, I would like to return to the third heading,
    which was the support that we could give to our combatant
    commanders. By that, I mean we, early, concluded that the
    relationship between intelligence and operations was growing
    closer, so close, in fact, that it was beginning to become
    increasingly difficult to separate the two; and, therefore,
    we've had to change the way in which we thought about our
    support to our combatant commanders. I'll say a few more words
    about that in a few moments.
        One of the first things we did, however, was sit down to
    review the basis of the work that is done in the DOD on
    intelligence. A first cut through the many directives and
    instructions that exist within the DOD to guide our work turned
    up 30 main directives that affect the work of the Intelligence
    Community within the DOD. Some of them date back to the 1970s,
    a good number of them are from the 1980s, and the balance from
    the 1990s. We are in the process of trying to reconcile those
    directives, and update them in light of the changing
    environment.
        The second thing I did was ask my people to collect a list
    of the committees, boards, working groups, and other types of
    organizations within the DOD that claim to have some
    responsibility for intelligence or for the supporting
    capabilities, like communications. At last count, that list is
    14 pages long, which tells you something about the need to
    clean up our internal processes to assure that we have more
    people who are capable of saying yes to initiatives and being
    able to move more quickly, and fewer people who can say no,
    which is essentially what 14 pages of boards, committees, and
    working groups amount to.
        We have undertaken an effort to establish, finally, the
    Defense Career Intelligence Personnel System program. That is a
    defense intelligence personnel system that is designed to give
    those people who are working in defense intelligence a proper
    personnel system for their career development. We have, in the
    past year, taken and made the implementation decision necessary
    to bring that program forward.
        Second, we are in the latest stages of transferring our
    Defense Security Service (DSS) and background investigation
    capabilities over to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM),
    which should, we hope, speed up the process by which clearances
    are granted and adjudications take place.
        Third, we have undertaken a review of the Milestone
    Decision Authority (MDA) for the National Security Agency
    (NSA). We hold our first meeting tomorrow to review the status
    of the major programs within NSA, and our desire and hope is
    that we will review those programs, take whatever corrective
    actions are appropriate, along with the Director of NSA, and
    then return here to Congress to see if we cannot persuade you
    that the proper changes have taken place and that that MDA
    should be returned to the Director of NSA.
        Fourth, in the area of information sharing--this issue was
    raised or touched on in the opening statements between and
    among members of the Intelligence Community, between that
    community and the operating forces of the United States Armed
    Forces, and between and among those two entities and our
    Coalition partners, is a subject of a great deal of work and
    effort at the moment. There are a number of circumstances
    which, if they did not occur in the context of ongoing military
    operations, would be humorous in the way in which information
    flows seem to be interrupted and not made as easy as they
    should be. So we have taken on the task of making certain that
    that information can flow much more smoothly and much more
    rapidly in the community and between the community and the
    operating forces.
        Related to that--and, Senator Nelson, you touched on it--
    horizontal integration has been a major effort of my office. We
    have been teamed with the Director of Central Intelligence's
    (DCI) staff and his Community Management Staff (CMS) in an
    effort to bring the notion of being able to move information
    easily between and among the users, and getting the information
    to the user in a format that is best suited to their needs. We
    have been working quite diligently, and I will tell you--and,
    Senator, without any prevarication--we haven't gotten to the
    bottom of it yet. It is a difficult subject. We know how to do
    it technically. What we haven't figured out how to do yet is to
    do it in a way that the information can be--we can have
    assurance that the information will be protected both in its
    transit across the networks, and that the user will have the
    appropriate means for protecting the information they receive.
    That is a very difficult problem. It crosses the ``boundary,''
    if you will, between the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and the
    DCI and their relative responsibilities for that information.
    We're working hard, and I am hopeful that we are going to come
    to a conclusion with respect to that capability.
        Sixth, mentioned in the opening statements, was persistent
    surveillance. We have put an enormous amount of effort into
    persistent surveillance. If I may just take a moment here, this
    subject is most frequently associated with platforms in space,
    and particularly with the space-based radar. I will be the
    first to say that such a system would go a long way toward
    helping us to provide the kind of persistence that I believe we
    are going to need in the future. But space systems and the
    space-based radar are not the definition of that capability. It
    needs to be integrated with those assets that fly, those that
    are on the ground, and, indeed, with our HUMINT capabilities.
    Together, they form a complex of collection capability which
    can yield the kind of persistence we will require across the
    wide range of activity in which we are going to be engaged.
    Indeed, the information collected is useless without having a
    basis for moving that information--hence, the emphasis on
    horizontal integration; and, second, having an analytic cadre
    that is capable of analyzing that data and extracting knowledge
    from it.
        Therefore, if I may move on to the last point I wanted to
    raise here, the SECDEF and the DCI have proposed to Congress a
    substantial increase in the intelligence budgets for the next 5
    or 6 years. We can discuss those in the closed session, if you
    wish. But I want to underscore here that a great deal of that
    increased funding is aimed at improving the analytic capability
    of the community, both the defense side of the community as
    well as the national side.
        So where are we now? If those are some of the major
    initiatives and some of the things we've touched on the last
    year, where are we?
        I mentioned a few moments ago that we had begun to look at
    our intelligence support to the combatant commanders. We
    undertook a major effort to support the transition from V Corps
    to the III Corps in Iraq, and the stand-up of the Combined
    Joint Task Force-7 (CJTF-7). We continue to be actively engaged
    with General Sanchez and General Fast, who is the J-2, in
    assisting in the development of the intelligence architecture
    there, in providing counterintelligence support, in assisting
    the Army and others with the transition, particularly their
    tactical HUMINT teams, and the like. General Alexander, who is
    here with me today, can give you a great deal of information on
    that effort.
        But I would say that from General Abizaid's point of view,
    he has told me that the effort to improve capabilities within
    Iraq, at the operational and tactical level, has been so
    successful that he has asked us to undertake a similar effort
    with his architecture in Afghanistan, and we have people
    engaged in that today.
        In addition, with respect to support to the combatant
    commanders, we have introduced a new concept, which we are
    calling ``intelligence campaign planning.'' For those of you
    who are familiar with the way in which the military plans,
    there is a notion of starting in a pre-conflict environment,
    moving into a crisis, into combat operations, and, from there,
    into post-combat operations. You can look at any plan that's
    been laid down, and you will see the threads that run through
    those phases of operations that affect logistics, supply, and
    the like. We have come to the conclusion that we have to have a
    thread for intelligence support, and that we have to have a
    notion of how intelligence is going to be applied, how it will
    be effective in not just closing the ``kill chain,'' but in
    actually helping the combatant commander to understand what
    effects he is having on his adversary, on their attitudes prior
    to a conflict, their attitudes during the crisis, how they are
    reacting to the combat maneuvers of the combatant commander,
    and, indeed, what is to be expected in a post-hostilities
    environment.
        This notion of intelligence campaign planning is getting
    legs. General LaPorte, the commander in Korea, has a pilot
    program underway to see how we can lay in an intelligence
    campaign plan for his deliberate plan for the defense of South
    Korea.
        Special Operations Command, Commander General Brown, has
    taken elements of the idea and has begun to think of ways that
    he may apply it.
        Admiral Giambastiani, who is the combatant commander for
    Joint Forces Command, has undertaken, with my office, an effort
    to develop, essentially, a joint-intelligence doctrine, a
    doctrine for the use of intelligence in the coming environment.
    We believe that that will be an enormously important
    development in support not just of an intelligence campaign
    plan, but campaign planning overall.
        We have made significant strides in the area of ISR by
    giving to the USSTRATCOM Commander, Admiral Ellis, who was
    mentioned here this morning, the mission of supporting, on a
    global basis, the management of our ISR assets and providing
    the kind of combatant-commander advice that is essential to the
    proper use of what is, in fact, a weapons system. ISR platforms
    and the associated command-and-control and the individuals who
    make it up are a weapons system, and we should not forget that.
    We have, as I say, given to a combatant commander the
    responsibility for managing that weapons system on a global
    basis.
        Lastly, Special Operations Command (SOF) has been
    designated by the SECDEF as a supported commander for the
    purposes of planning global operations in the war on terror,
    and that implies a level of intelligence support, which, when
    we go into closed session, I'm sure General Wurster would be
    more than happy to outline for you.
        I said that we had looked at HUMINT reform, and we are in
    the process of bringing together our thoughts on that subject.
    But as we looked at it, we concluded that the problems, such as
    they are within our defense community, are but a part of a
    larger mosaic of defense intelligence as a whole, and so we
    have pulled together a number of proposals, which, I must tell
    you, we have yet to brief to the Secretary or to the DCI. So we
    are very much in the early stages.
        But I would like to touch on two or three things which have
    emerged from our work, and that is that, first, I mentioned the
    spectrum of activity in which a combatant commander is
    engaged--pre-crisis and conflict, into the operational phase,
    and then into the post-operations environment. If one sat down
    and said, ``In each of those phases of activity, what are the
    kinds of intelligence support requirements that are needed,''
    you would make a fairly long list, but it would be a fairly
    orderly list. I think what you'd discover is that the elements
    of defense intelligence are all necessary to be brought to bear
    in order to provide the intelligence needed.
        What are those elements? They include HUMINT, which we have
    just talked about, measurements and signals intelligence
    (MASINT), counterintelligence, a very healthy analytic
    capability, as well as the integration of technical collection
    data, and, often forgotten, the role for the defense attaches,
    who play a very important role in their respective countries in
    supporting the overt-collection of information which is useful
    for intelligence purposes.
        What we concluded is that we have to find a way to take
    those various disciplines and roll them into an integrated
    capability, such that they are a more operationally capable
    element at the disposal both of the SECDEF and of the combatant
    commanders. We think if we move in that direction, which is
    toward a more operational focus, we're going to require, in the
    end, different organizational structures within the Defense
    Intelligence Agency (DIA). Proposals are being drawn up for
    such changes.
        We are going to have to sharpen the relationship with the
    combat support agencies--NSA and National Geospatial-
    Intelligence Agency (NGA), in particular--and we are going to
    have to give to them a much better definition of the needs of
    our operating forces for intelligence, in terms of the quantity
    and the quality, as well as the timeliness of that information.
        We are clearly going to have to have an enhanced
    relationship with the service providers, because let's not
    forget that the majority of the defense intelligence capability
    resides not in the DIA, but in the Services that you see
    represented here. So we're going to have to be certain that we
    establish the kind of relationships with the Services that will
    permit them to provide the expertise that's going to be needed
    in the defense intelligence community.
        We're going to have to give a much more precise definition
    of what our defense intelligence support requirements are going
    to be relative to foreign intelligence. Here let me just make a
    distinction for the moment. A dysfunction is often made between
    national and military intelligence which I think is not quite
    the right distinction. I think the distinction is between
    military intelligence that is needed for the operating forces
    that plan and execute, over against the foreign intelligence
    which is the context in which those forces will operate.
    Foreign intelligence is clearly the purview of the DCI, and we
    have, I would argue, been remiss in the DOD in not providing to
    him and to his staff a much better definition of what our
    foreign intelligence requirements are and may be in the coming
    years. If we make the reforms internal to the DOD, we should be
    able to provide a much better definition of those support
    requirements.
        Finally, if we're going to make the defense intelligence
    capabilities more robust and more operationally focused, we
    need to continue the dialogue that has been ongoing between the
    DCI and the SECDEF on the question of how best to array those
    assets, both over time and within the battle space where our
    forces may be engaged.
        So let me conclude here, then, sir. What I've just sketched
    for you, we are getting ready to bring forward in the next few
    weeks to our respective leadership. Once we've done that, we
    will be able to come back to this committee and others to
    describe the types of changes we think we may need to make.
    We'd like to, at that point, consult with you and your staff on
    some of the particular issues that may be of concern to you.
    But, in the end, we are on a schedule to have these kinds of
    reforms reflected in the fiscal year 2006 budget bill, which
    will take place toward the end of the year.
        Let me close with one other item of interest. This
    committee has expressed a concern with what is called the
    Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Council. That
    council has met for the first time 2 weeks ago. It has laid out
    an agenda of work for the coming weeks and months. It will be a
    vehicle by which we get to some of the issues that have been
    raised in the opening statements here this morning;
    specifically, how is it that we begin to lash together the
    various service capabilities so that we do, in fact, have a
    joint capability? How do we take that joint capability and
    better associate it with the national capabilities, and assure
    the flow of information from the one community to the other?
    Then, third, how do we look to what we need for the future? We
    do need to have a much better description of the range of
    capability that we will require, and to provide to you a sense
    of how, in the end, we think we can fund that capability in the
    coming years.
        Mr. Chairman, that's a precis of the statement that I have
    prepared for your subcommittee and for the record. I would ask
    that that prepared statement be submitted for the record, sir,
    and that of my colleagues. With that, I'm happy to take any
    questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Cambone follows:]

                 Prepared Statement by Hon. Stephen A. Cambone

                                  INTRODUCTION

        Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee for
    inviting me here today. I appreciate the interest the subcommittee has
    in the stand up of the USD(I), which occurred a little over a year ago.
    I will briefly review the roles and missions of my office as well as
    the DOD's goals in guiding the Defense Intelligence Community. I would
    also like to provide you an overview of the tactical and operational
    intelligence capabilities and requirements of the DOD, as well as how
    the military intelligence capabilities of the DOD can best be
    transformed to support combatant commanders and subordinate warfighting
    commands. I would also like to briefly review some steps we are taking
    to help determine future DOD intelligence requirements as well as what
    we are doing to acquire these capabilities--which will be critical to
    success against current and future threats. I will also provide some
    comments on the role of the Intelligence, Surveillance, and
    Reconnaissance Integration Council as well as my assessment of the
    performance of the DOD ISR system, including the supporting
    communications architecture during recent military operations, the
    degree of integration that has been achieved, the ability of this
    system to support the peacetime and contingency requirements of all
    combatant commanders, lessons learned at the tactical, operational and
    strategic levels of intelligence support, and any significant changes
    or reforms to DOD intelligence that I am implementing or considering.
    Finally, I will discuss my Horizontal Integration efforts and how we
    are working with the Director of Central Intelligence to move forward
    in an area that will play an important role in enhancing how analysts
    can more effectively manage information and find the critical knowledge
    decisionmakers need.

                              CURRENT ENVIRONMENT

        We are facing a turbulent and volatile world. It is populated by a
    number of highly adaptive adversaries including terrorist networks that
    operate both within the confines of civil society and in ungoverned
    areas. It is a world in which international political-military affairs
    continue to evolve. As a result of these and other ongoing
    developments, it is impossible to predict with confidence what nation
    or entity could pose threats in 5, 10, or 20 years to the United States
    or to our friends and allies. This places a heavy burden on
    intelligence. Deterring, and if necessary confronting and defeating
    future adversaries, some of whom may emerge only in the fullness of
    time, will require detailed understanding of their goals, motivations,
    history, networks, and relationships that is developed over a long
    period of time and to a level of detail that is far deeper than we can
    reach today.

                            DOD'S SIX CRITICAL GOALS

        If the DOD's intelligence components are to successfully fulfill
    their roles in the coming decades both as part of the Intelligence
    Community (IC) and in their roles in support of the operations of the
    joint force, we must modernize and transform that capability.
        The SECDEF identified six critical operational goals in the 2001
    Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that provide the focus for the DOD's
    overarching transformation efforts. They are:

        (1) Protection of critical bases and defeating chemical,
    biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons;
        (2) Projecting and sustaining forces in anti-access environments;
        (3) Denying enemy sanctuary;
        (4) Leveraging information technology;
        (5) Assuring information systems and conducting information
    operations; and
        (6) Enhancing space capabilities.

        Intelligence has a major contribution to make in meeting these
    goals. Our intelligence capability is essential to military success. It
    is a key enabler of how and when our power is applied. Intelligence
    capabilities allow military commanders to prepare appropriately, and
    when ordered by the President, to close rapidly with the adversary, to
    swiftly defeat the enemy, and to support follow-on security and
    stability operations.
        In support of the DOD's goals and to guide us in the transformation
    effort we have established the following goals:
    Defense Intelligence Goals To Achieve Intelligence Transformation
        (1) Know something of intelligence value about everything of
    interest to us, all the time: Current collection capabilities
    predominantly reflect a Cold War-era reconnaissance paradigm--one of
    periodic looks and sampling. Persistent surveillance (the ability to
    monitor, track, characterize, report and update at short intervals on
    specific activities at a fixed location, moving objects such as trains,
    convoys or military movements, as well as changes occurring to the
    surface of the earth) is essential for planners, operators, and policy
    makers. We need to evaluate existing and proposed intelligence programs
    e.g., technical collection, HUMINT, etc. in light of the goal of
    persistent surveillance. We need to seek out and develop long-dwell
    sensors and pursue other emerging technology breakthroughs in sensor or
    platform capability. We must also develop technology to permit rapid
    data exploitation by users who need it most urgently. The combination
    of these improvements will enable us to achieve the goal of persistent
    surveillance.
        (2) Develop reliable strategic warning: Competence in strategic
    warning across the full spectrum of potential threats is critical to
    support the full range of political, economic, and military tools that
    we have. For DOD in particular, strategic warning is essential to
    provide the time needed to re-fashion our forces and adjust their
    posture in a timely, efficient, and effective way to dissuade
    adversaries, deter foes and, when necessary, defeat enemies. The effort
    is complicated by the reality that the warning we seek in the future is
    likely to be against threats that we may not be able to imagine today.
    Averting crises is nearly always preferable to managing them.
        (3) Pursue agile and adaptable intelligence collection and analysis
    capability: Our intelligence capability needs to be less dependent on
    Kepler's Laws, Bernoulli effects (that is, satellites and aircraft in
    fixed orbits), and linear processes (like Tasking, Processing,
    Exploitation and Dissemination) (TPED)), and more prepared to respond
    to surprise. We need to expect the unexpected. The tremendous amount of
    information available to collectors and analysts requires a
    horizontally-integrated, network-centric environment less constrained
    by bandwidth limitations. Today's transforming military and
    intelligence environment demands rapid conversion of data to
    information and information into actionable knowledge. Interoperability
    at the data level, through the use of common standards and content
    tagging, will further the horizontal integration of information from
    all sources--not just intelligence--at all levels of classification.
    The net result will be a more efficient use of our collection assets
    and a more effective synergistic use of our intelligence analysts.
        (4) Provide an intelligence capability that supports a national
    strategy of forward deterrence and agility: Deterring future
    adversaries will require a detailed understanding of their goals,
    motivations, history, networks, relationships, and all the dimensions
    of human political behavior, on a scale that is broader and deeper than
    today's. This requires a regeneration of our HUMINT and close access
    capabilities and an overhaul of our analytic processes and culture. An
    ``intelligence reachback'' capability is needed to permit deployment of
    platforms/sensors/shooters to forward operational areas without the
    need to deploy analytic cells and infrastructure into theater.
    Reachback communications from our intelligence platforms can make this
    collected intelligence data readily available to our military forces
    and to the Intelligence Community through shared communications and
    archives. It is now DOD policy that the national intelligence agencies
    and service intelligence centers have broad access to collected theater
    intelligence data along with the authority to store and distribute.
    This will facilitate the horizontal integration of ISR information
    making the analytical power available to assist where needed without
    extended lead times and delays.
        (5) Ensure military forces receive intelligence in a fashion and in
    a format that enables them to swiftly defeat an adversary: We need
    intelligence that enables us to act quickly, secretly, and
    effectively--intelligence that enables us to anticipate our adversary's
    actions and anticipate the needs of our commanders and warfighters. We
    then need to provide predictive intelligence that stays ahead of the
    battle. This implies continuous preparation of the battle space,
    whether it is on the surface, under the seas, in the air, in space, or
    in cyber-space. This includes having policies and procedures to deliver
    nearly instantaneously critical data from sensitive sources directly to
    the warfighter so that prompt action can be taken based on that data.
    Intelligence support must extend to the post-conflict, security and
    stabilization phase of a campaign as well.
        (6) Ensure knowledgeable adversaries do not compromise our secrets:
    This will require obtaining robust capabilities to acquire an
    adversary's secrets in ways that cannot be comprehended, even as we
    ensure that our own capabilities are not vulnerable. Traditionally,
    this goal has been met through defensive measures. In the world of
    today and tomorrow that will not be enough. An active offensive
    counterintelligence effort is needed to complement defensive measures.
    To protect our plans, critical infrastructure, and research technology
    while at the same time countering espionage, we will need to learn of
    an adversary's intent and capability in advance and take measures to
    deny and disrupt those efforts. An offensive posture will require
    investment in intelligence capabilities that allow us to gather
    exquisite knowledge of the adversary, but without his knowledge, that
    is integrated with and validated by sensitive HUMINT sources, and
    explained by trained analysts.
        In order to support the needs of both the policymakers and the
    warfighters, the Office of USD(I) continues to evaluate Defense
    intelligence plans and programs and to make resource decisions relative
    to the six primary Defense Intelligence goals as well as lessons
    learned from recent operations. The Office of the Under Secretary of
    Defense (OUSDI) coordinates with the DCI's Community Management Staff
    (CMS) to ensure continuity and consistency across the National Foreign
    Intelligence Program (NFIP), the Joint Military Intelligence Program
    (JMIP) and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (TIARA)
    programs.

    ISR Organizational Transformation
        ISR organization and doctrine--whether in support of political or
    military leaders--has not been systematically revised for two
    generations. ISR activities are burdened by legacy policies and stove-
    piped activities that are de-conflicted, but not integrated either
    within DOD or between DOD and the IC. We are taking measures to create
    a modern ISR capability.

    Unified Command Plan Change--Global ISR
        The organizational transformation of our ISR forces is already
    underway. The means by which ISR information was produced and used in
    Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF) is just the
    beginning of what will eventually become a transformational
    intelligence capability. Cooperation among defense and non-defense
    agencies was outstanding during these conflicts and resulted in a
    number of innovative applications of intelligence. Fused analysis of
    data provided by differing disciplines produced new kinds of
    information. Close integration of intelligence and operations was the
    norm, to the point where the two were sometimes indistinguishable.
    Speed with which critical information was supplied to both analysts and
    warfighters made the difference in a number of critical situations. New
    tactics, techniques, and procedures for collecting, analyzing, and
    disseminating intelligence made contributions to the successful
    completion of those campaigns. We must codify these lessons by updating
    how our ISR forces are organized and fight.
        USSTRATCOM, in addition to its Global Strike responsibilities, has
    been assigned responsibility for global ISR. This is in keeping with
    our continuing effort to make intelligence and operations integral to
    each other and capable of performing within the timelines of the
    commander's decisionmaking cycle. We know that if intelligence lags
    behind operational and command decisionmaking windows it is not
    actionable. Just as a maneuver formation on the ground, at sea or in
    the air is a warfighting system, so is intelligence. By making ISR the
    responsibility of a functional combatant commander we gain synergy and
    perspective among warfighting systems.
        In addition to the assignment of the global ISR the mission to
    USSTRATCOM, I have issued guidance for all theater-collected airborne,
    shipboard, and ground intelligence data to be posted for discovery and
    access across the Global Information Grid in a timely manner. The
    chairman's staff is converting this guidance to an instruction. I
    believe this is the first time such direction has been given. Not only
    does it permit access to the data at all levels within a command and
    between commands, it also opens the way for sharing this data with the
    larger IC, which I believe is a first as well.
        We are also working closely with USSTRATCOM, the DCI's CMS, the
    Combat Support Agencies (CSA) and the Joint Staff on proposals to
    operationalize our coordination between and among organizations to
    maximize the return on DOD and IC collection.

    ISR Integration Council
        The ISR Integration Council, under my direction, will be the
    vehicle the Department uses to connect Defense ISR programs and the
    Global ISR applications and capabilities being administered by
    USSTRATCOM. The objective of the ISR Integration Council will be to
    oversee DOD's fundamental goals in achieving an integrated ISR
    capability. It will provide leadership for ISR capability
    transformation, overseeing development of an investment strategy for
    achieving integration of DOD's ISR capabilities that ensures effective
    sustainment of needed tactical and operational efforts and efficient
    acquisition of transformational ISR capabilities. The ISR Council's
    strategy will allow rationalization of ISR investments focusing on
    identification of critical ISR integration issues, materiel and non-
    materiel. It will enable synchronization of Service and Agency
    programs, resulting in better integration of investment across the full
    spectrum of ISR systems--operated by the Services and the CSAs.
        To guide the Council in its deliberations and to institutionalize
    its products, we are developing an ISR Integration Roadmap. This
    roadmap will be a broad document that provides guidelines for future
    capabilities, articulates the DOD's fundamental ISR goals, establishes
    the boundaries of the trade spaces within which the DOD's ISR
    investment strategy will be built, and identifies the options for
    funding. It will span the entire range of Defense ISR, including space,
    air, maritime and ground systems, as well as HUMINT and emerging
    disciplines. The roadmap will also address key external issues/systems
    that impact Defense intelligence, such as the Transformational
    Communications Architecture, to enable an understanding of how issues
    in those foundational capabilities will affect the ability of Defense
    ISR to transform.

    ISR Investment Transformation
        The DOD is strengthening our intelligence capabilities by
    transforming our ISR processes, procedures, and systems. We must
    transform if we are to succeed in protecting our homeland and in
    achieving and ensuring peace abroad. The DOD is currently engaged in
    transformational ISR investments to bolster integrated ISR
    capabilities. Investments made in collection systems a generation ago
    are being re-evaluated. Known adversaries, arrayed in large formations,
    operating in known locations, have given way to a new combination of
    potential threats who focus their efforts on denying us use of those
    capabilities we rely upon most.

    ISR Communications Network Investment
        ISR collection must be coupled to a process that allows the data
    collected to be accessed by the user--the analyst or the military
    operator. Toward this end, beginning in fiscal year 2003 substantial
    investment has been made in laser satellite communications, the
    expansion of the Global Information Grid, the creation of a Distributed
    Common Ground System (DCGS), and joint command and control systems.
    These, in turn, are being fashioned into a networked operating
    environment both the Defense and IC share. As this capability comes on
    line, the need for ``direct downlinks'' (and the bandwidth that it
    consumes in theater) will decline as ``reachback,'' both on and through
    the intelligence network, takes hold.

    ISR Interoperability Investment
        The DOD continues to increase real-time networking of ISR systems,
    improve access to ISR information by weapons platforms, and increase
    interoperability among ISR systems, allowing seamless integration of
    collected sensor data into the joint and national environment. The DCGS
    is the DOD's overarching family of interconnected systems for posting,
    processing, exploiting, and updating ISR information. Many ISR assets
    are already an element of, or have a major interface with, the DCGS.
    DCGS is also the DOD's ``hub'' to effectively implement the information
    sharing relationships between the warfighters, the Service intelligence
    analysts, and the various intelligence agencies.
        A key feature of DCGS is that it's constructed in such a way that
    the data is separated from the Service applications used to employ the
    data. Each Service--or by extension agency or command--can at its
    discretion or by direction of higher authority employ the same
    applications. This is especially important in a joint operating
    environment. But, for other Service, agency or command-specific
    activity, the users are free to assemble and present the data in a
    manner most appropriate to its need. In other words, we have avoided
    ``one size fits all'' in favor of the ability to create a user defined
    operating picture on demand.
        Another important feature of DCGS is the potential to support
    integrated mission management by allowing all available data to be
    accessed by any interested user. This could reduce the overall demand
    for ISR collection assets by eliminating unnecessary duplication of
    effort and maximizing the processing of the total collected data.

    ISR Platform and Sensor Investment
        The DOD's ISR ground, naval, and airborne platforms have been
    heavily employed since the start of the global war on terrorism. These
    systems provided a significant portion of the theater and tactical
    intelligence information during OIF and continuing operations in
    Afghanistan, enabling rapid precision strikes and an unprecedented
    speed of advance by our ground forces. These ISR platforms remain the
    primary ``eyes and ears'' of our deployed forces. This administration
    has strongly supported programmed budgets and supplemental requests
    that have funded numerous improvements to ISR systems to enhance our
    existing capabilities.
        Among the investments made in newer platforms or sensors, DOD is
    fielding high endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) (e.g., Air
    Force's Predator and Global Hawk) and smaller tactical UAVs (to include
    Army's SHADOW 200), providing flexibility and adaptability to meet the
    immediate needs of battlefield commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
    DOD continues to invest in other UAV programs like the Navy's Broad
    Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) and vertical take-off and landing
    (VTOL) tactical UAV (VTUAV). The Joint Unmanned Combat Air System
    (JUCAS), conceived as a combat aircraft, may prove to have ISR
    potential as well.
        The Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) is a project now wholly within the
    Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Program (DARP) for fiscal year 2005,
    realigned from TIARA and the JMIP's DCP and consolidated within DARP.
    ACS is an Army-led, joint airborne ISR system that will meet both Army
    and Navy requirements. ACS will provide commanders with tailored,
    multi-sensor intelligence using four to six onboard operators. The
    robust ACS Multi-sensor capabilities include communication intelligence
    (COMINT), electronic intelligence (ELINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT)
    and MASINT sensors, incorporating electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR),
    synthetic aperture radar (SAR), Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI),
    and multi- and hyper-spectral imagery sensors. For the Army, ACS
    replaces the aging RC-12 Guardrail Common Sensor and the RC-7 Airborne
    Reconnaissance Low fleets beginning in fiscal year 2009, while the Navy
    will replace their EP-3E Aries II aircraft with ACS beginning in fiscal
    year 2012.
        Prominent among new investments to realize the intelligence goal of
    persistent surveillance is the SBR. The fiscal year 2004 SBR
    appropriation was $198 million and the fiscal year 2005 request is $438
    million, spread across three TIARA and JMIP budget lines. The fiscal
    year 2005 request is critical for the concept development activities we
    are pursuing under the SBR acquisition strategy. The surveillance
    provided by a space-based radar, in combination with other
    complementary space and airborne systems, could bring us much closer to
    realizing persistent surveillance. SBR plays to an established area of
    U.S. technological advantage with its all weather, day/night, and
    worldwide multi-theater access. SBR capabilities will include:

             Surface moving target indication
             High Resolution SAR imagery
             High Resolution Terrain information

        Among the products envisioned from using these SBR capabilities
    are:

             Maneuver Doctrine
             Relocatable Entity Tracking
             Treaty Monitoring/Verification
             Coherent change detection (CCD)
             Dynamic Imaging

                             HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION

        These new ISR capabilities will be enabled by an overarching
    Horizontal Integration (HI) strategy that compels an integrated
    approach to acquiring and applying collection assets--a planned
    ``system-of-systems'' that integrates surveillance capabilities across
    the various human and technical intelligence disciplines and national,
    theater, tactical, and commercial programs. This provides the mechanism
    to share information across the enterprise--increasing the likelihood
    that events can be correlated and fused to increase the accuracy,
    timeliness and value of intelligence.
        OUSD(I) is working closely with the IC to achieve the horizontal
    integration of currently fielded and future DOD and IC intelligence
    systems. The aim of HI is to take full advantage of future intelligence
    systems that provide agile and persistent collectors, enable ease of
    information sharing, and support predictive analysis to deal with a
    strategic environment characterized by adaptable adversaries,
    accelerated technology diffusion, and the increasing potential for
    disruptive and destructive attacks.
        Pursuit of HI was a key recommendation of the Kerr Panel report on
    remote sensing in 2001 and it was the primary recommendation from the
    July 2003 Transformational Space and Airborne Project (TSAP) report
    sponsored by DOD and the IC. The TSAP study found that near term
    improvements in intelligence capabilities could best be realized by
    focusing on HI and recommended immediate implementation of initial
    policy, management, and organizational improvements.
        In August 2003, a Senior Steering Group for HI was formed to guide
    the implementation of these key capabilities across DOD, the IC, and
    law enforcement. This steering group is co-chaired by the Assistant
    Director of Central Intelligence and myself.
        Among the principles guiding our approach to HI:

             It places emphasis on the tailored mission needs of
            consumers;
             It shifts the focus from data ownership to data
            usability; and
             Accordingly, it urges that all data must meet net-
            centric standards at its earliest point of consumability and be
            broadly available.

        Quite honestly, we have not yet worked out between DOD and the IC
    the many thorny issues that need to be resolved to realize the promise
    of HI. However, I do believe that the vision of a seamless and
    transparent capability to translate analysts' needs into the collection
    of information, and the availability of that information in a timely
    fashion to be structured in useful formats to those who need it, will
    come in its own time. The advance of the Internet, with the adoption of
    its features both within Defense and the IC, suggest to me that this
    time is not far off.

    Intelligence Campaign Plans
        As we develop integrated approaches to acquiring and applying
    collection assets, we must also develop integrated approaches for
    planning and conducting intelligence operations. We have begun
    exploring the concept of Intelligence Campaign Planning, which is
    designed to synchronize and integrate intelligence into the commander's
    adaptive planning process and, when fully developed, will bring
    together DOD and IC capabilities in a more synergistic effort.
    Intelligence Campaign Plans are designed to focus the IC's capabilities
    on the commander's critical decision requirements. Under the old
    paradigm, intelligence developed stove-piped plans that were poorly
    coordinated. Recent lessons learned and new operational concepts
    require intelligence plans that are fully integrated, multi-discipline,
    holistic and support all phases of operations.
        To that end we have asked the Commander, Joint Forces Command, to
    begin the concept development process, focusing initially on three
    elements of Intelligence Campaign Planning: defining and developing the
    concept, creating a comprehensive methodology for use by the DOD IC,
    and designing an exercise venue for validating the concept and
    methodology.
        To fully realize the promise of robust Intelligence Campaign
    Planning, we have begun an intensive, long-term strategy for remodeling
    defense intelligence in order to address several of our major
    objectives. This remodeling effort focuses on ``operationalizing
    intelligence,'' transforming the functions and capabilities of Defense
    intelligence into more than simply a supporting arm of the DOD, but
    rather into a true joint operational capability. We are examining
    organizational approaches that could provide senior DOD leaders and
    military commanders a wide array of intelligence options against mobile
    and adaptive adversaries. Those organizational approaches are being
    evaluated for their contributions.

    Human Intelligence Revitalization
        HUMINT is one of our top priorities in the defense intelligence
    remodeling effort. HUMINT in the DOD context is much more than
    clandestine recruitment of assets. It includes clandestine logistics,
    overt debriefers, and interrogators, as well as the hundreds of
    Tactical HUMINT Teams we have deployed in the U.S. Central Command
    (USCENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR). We have taken steps to
    provide better management and oversight of HUMINT resources by
    establishing a new JMIP Program, the Defense Human Intelligence Program
    to give us better management and oversight of HUMINT resources.
        Finally, we are studying a number of inputs gathered from combatant
    commands and the Services, including lessons learned from both
    Afghanistan and Iraq, regarding their clandestine and overt HUMINT
    needs.

                        REMODELING DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE

        Proposed plans and initiatives for Defense intelligence
    transformation are the culmination of almost 10 months of work. We
    began with a multi-service, interagency study titled `Taking Stock of
    Defense Intelligence,'' which we have offered to your staff. Our
    efforts to remodel defense intelligence are a work in progress, but we
    are moving toward implementation, while consulting across the defense
    IC, the national IC, and supported warfighters as we move forward. In
    the coming months, I look forward to sharing with you the progress we
    are making and refinements in our plans as we pursue this goal.

                                   CONCLUSION

        Our Nation possesses a preeminent advantage: A global intelligence
    capability composed of the very best people and the finest technology
    anywhere. Military capability, guided and enabled by intelligence, is a
    powerful instrument. The DOD--along with its IC colleagues--are
    reshaping and revitalizing intelligence capabilities to meet the more
    rigorous demands of today and tomorrow. I look forward to the
    opportunity to work with you to improve the Nation's intelligence
    capabilities in this time of war. Again, thank you for your support. I
    look forward to your questions.

        Senator Allard. We will put your full statement and each
    one of your colleagues' in the record. I would ask that the
    rest of the panelists, in their testimony, try and limit their
    comments to around 3 minutes or so, so we have plenty of time
    for questions from the members of the subcommittee. Just
    remember that we're going to have your full statement in the
    record, and will have an opportunity to go through it in
    detail.
        Also, Secretary Cambone, I'd just remind you that we'll be
    going through with the defense authorization bill here
    relatively quickly, and so if you have suggestions that you're
    going to submit to this subcommittee and to the Armed Services
    Committee, we need to be getting those quickly. Perhaps before
    you even complete your process, give us some heads-up of what
    you're thinking so that perhaps we can begin to get our staffs
    working on some of those issues.
        Let me next go ahead and call on General Alexander, Deputy
    Chief of Staff, G-2, Department of Army.
        General Alexander.

    STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. KEITH B. ALEXANDER, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF
                   STAFF, G-2, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

        General Alexander. Sir, thanks for the opportunity to
    appear here, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the
    subcommittee. It is an honor to be here and to tell you about
    what's going on in Army intelligence.
        As I walk the halls and go out to each of our units, I'll
    tell you that the spirit that we have in Army intelligence is
    as high as it has ever been. With the operational tempo that we
    have going on, I know this might sound strange to you, but that
    is, in fact, what I see when I talk to our soldiers. The reason
    it's high is because we have an opportunity to make changes
    that both of you have addressed earlier on, and we see those
    changes as required to get us into the future. That's what we
    see in transformation, Army transformation, that it's needed to
    get the intelligence that you both spoke of to all the soldiers
    and the operators that we have in the field.
        Now, I think there's two key points to make on this. First
    of all, the Army leadership has backed actionable intelligence
    as part of Army transformation fully. General Schoomaker, the
    Vice, and the acting Secretary have been superb. I think
    equally important is Dr. Cambone in the OUSDI has been superb
    in providing us support and mediating between the agencies that
    which the Services need, and that support has also been superb
    and something that's needed in Army intelligence for as long as
    I can remember.
        In Army intelligence transformation, there's a few things
    that I'd like to note, with a few vignettes. First, in our
    transformation, a key point that you brought out, sir, is
    changing the culture and mindset. When we talk about culture
    and mindset, first and foremost, when we put a unit on the
    battlefield, we have, in every soldier, a sensor. Getting that
    information that that soldier has to the other soldiers and to
    the operators out there is key. The second one is fighting for
    knowledge, creating your own luck. Those culture and mindset
    changes that we're trying to instill in the Army are important,
    and can only happen when we start to make some of the other
    changes that we've put in the paper that I've provided;
    specifically, tying those sensors and soldiers to a network,
    enabling that network and the analytic centers to work
    together, and providing them access to the databases.
        Let me give you some examples of how this has worked and
    where we see it going in the future. In Kuwait, in 2002, we had
    soldiers from 3rd Infantry Division working with soldiers from
    our theater and national brigades doing all sorts of collection
    on Iraqi border guards, their outposts, their actions, where
    they were located, and how they operated. That information
    allowed the 3rd Infantry Division intel soldiers to tell their
    chain-of-command where these outposts were, what they were
    doing, and how to target them. The outcome was zero casualties
    for our folks and the takedown of every one of those outposts.
    The lesson learned is, how do we as an Army use our soldiers,
    tactical soldiers in national-level/theater-level operations,
    to get them the skills and the training that they need? We're
    going to do that in Army transformation under a program called
    Foundry.
        The 3rd Infantry Division went from Kuwait to Baghdad. One
    of the tactical HUMINT teams picked up an air force general. An
    Iraqi air force general. I wanted to make that clear.
    [Laughter.]
        This Iraqi air force general had on him a series of names--
    key names, places, and events that were used by our forces to
    pick up key Iraqis necessary in our campaign. I can give you
    more in closed session on that. But the part that I wanted to
    bring out was the tactical HUMINT team. When I went over there
    and talked to every division commander, they said, ``We need
    more tactical HUMINT. We need more unmanned aerial vehicles
    (UAV).'' Sir, part of Army transformation gives them both UAVs
    and tactical HUMINT.
        Another tactical HUMINT team ran into a few guys coming
    down the road, they stopped him, opened up his trunk, and he
    had a bunch of money and some other paraphernalia in there. He
    claimed he was just an ordinary citizen traveling through Iraq.
    This is during a firefight, and they were in civilian clothes.
    Kind of strange. But they policed these up. More importantly,
    the names of this individual and some of the other
    paraphernalia were sent back to the analytic centers here in
    the States. I think this shows you how our agencies are
    starting to work together, because all of our national agencies
    and our tactical analytic centers worked together. This guy was
    taken to Kuwait and by the time they got there, they knew he
    was a key Iraqi intel service general. They knew who he had
    operated with and where he had been, and that's how they could
    start their tactical questioning and interrogation. It was
    extremely important in breaking out a series of raids
    throughout Iraq later on in the next week.
        The reason I bring that out is because, one, it shows you
    how important tactical questioning, analysis, and interrogation
    are to our folks. Two, it's how we're training them today. We
    call it our intel support to combating terrorism. It's done at
    Fort Huachuca, and it uses the lessons learned from Guantanamo
    to our folks in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Also, the benefits for
    tactical questioning, for those soldiers on the ground to know
    how to ask the right questions of these guys, is being taught
    to every one of our centers--in every one of our schools and
    centers throughout the United States before soldiers deploy.
        Another vignette that I would use, and I can give you the
    highlights of this, really shows how powerful it is to bring
    our analytic centers together, because what we've found was, in
    capturing one of the key Zarqawi lieutenants is, using the
    power of those analytic centers and the information they had,
    they were able to identify, locate, and give the information to
    one of the SOF units to take down one of the key Zarqawi
    lieutenants. I'll tell you that that shows that we are making
    headway in how we get the analytic centers to work together
    with the national agencies and the tactical forces, what you
    call, sir, horizontal integration or whatever it may be. I'll
    tell you, sir, that we have made some great changes. That's
    what we're trying to do in transformation.
        In order to get that to work, we have put together, in
    Korea, an operation called Project Morning Calm. In fact, that
    is sponsored by the USDI. That project brings together
    everything that I just talked about back to our elements here
    in the States, and is a great test bed for how we can kick-
    start some key things for intelligence, get that going, take
    those lessons learned, and apply them to Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Those lessons learned that we have in Korea and Iraq and
    Afghanistan, we're moving amongst all three of those, and we
    have a team that is doing those in each. I know that the Chief
    of Staff of the Army has brought that up to you previously.
        Sir, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and
    look forward to answering any of your questions.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of General Alexander follows:]

             Prepared Statement by Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, USA

                                OPENING COMMENTS

        Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am Lieutenant
    General Keith Alexander. Thank you for this opportunity to testify in
    support of the JMIP and Army TIARA. I would like to personally thank
    each of you for your support, which is vital to our soldiers fighting
    the global war on terrorism on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
    throughout the world. Your support is sincerely appreciated and is
    critical as we continue to fight the war, rapidly adapt and transform
    our current force and design the future force.
        Army Intelligence is fully embedded within the aggressive Army
    transformation plan which is moving from the current to future force .
    . . now. Focused on fixing the current force while building towards the
    future force, we are synchronized within the overarching Army plan,
    ensuring that the intelligence capabilities and processes are fully
    capable of supporting a joint and expeditionary quality force that will
    be relevant and ready to fight our Nation's wars and defend our
    homeland. As we continue to fight this war, improve and reset our
    current force and transform while in contact, we remain intrinsically
    synchronized with the DOD intelligence objectives. We are also working
    closely with the other Services, the combatant commands, the combat
    support agencies, the joint community and the USD,I to ensure we
    develop an integrated and relevant IC. Within this written testimony, I
    would like to briefly discuss the following areas:

             Intelligence lessons learned from the global war on
            terrorism
             Army Operational and Tactical Intelligence support to
            the war
             Army Intelligence JMIP and TIARA program highlights
             Army Intelligence Transformation--Actionable
            Intelligence

                                   BACKGROUND

        Our Army, our Army Intelligence team, and our soldiers are fighting
    and are doing a superb job not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also
    throughout the entire world. By the end of this year, 9 of our 10
    active Army Divisions--all but the 2nd Infantry Division committed in
    Korea--will have seen action in Afghanistan or Iraq. More than 325,000
    soldiers remain forward-deployed and stationed in 120 countries around
    the globe supported by over 164,000 mobilized Reserve and National
    Guard soldiers while 23,000 soldiers are directly supporting global war
    on terrorism operations within the United States. Decisively engaged in
    defending our homeland and fighting the global war on terrorism,
    Intelligence soldiers are serving with distinction at home and abroad.
    As of 12 March 2004, there were approximately 2,700 active component
    and more than 1,000 Reserve component Intelligence soldiers mobilized
    for active Federal service in support of Operation Noble Eagle, OEF,
    OIF, and Joint Task Force, Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO).
        We are making significant improvements within our current force,
    fixing problems, adapting processes and systems and are giving our
    commanders and soldiers the best possible support and systems
    available, but we are not done--we still have a lot to do. We are
    working through the institutional procedures and policy barriers that
    have been in place since the Cold War. We intend to rapidly adapt
    structures and procedures to develop and field the equipment our
    soldiers need and deserve today, vice waiting years as we now do under
    an archaic and lengthy acquisition process.
        The Army is fighting a war while simultaneously rotating,
    resetting, rethinking, rebalancing, restructuring, and designing a
    future force; incorporating lessons learned while also spiraling
    technology insertions into the current force. As we design and
    incorporate technological solutions for the future intelligence force,
    we are also pulling relevant technology to the left (spiral insertions)
    into the current force. The INSCOM Information Dominance Center (IDC)
    and Project Morning Calm are exceptional examples of how we are
    accelerating transformation by operationally applying new analytic
    tools and capabilities in support of Army and Joint Warfighters for
    insertion or inclusion into our new systems, most specifically,
    Distributed Common Ground System-Army and Joint (DCGS-A and DCGS-J).
        We are moving from the current force to the future force . . . now:

             to reflect wartime realities
             to incorporate ``next generational'' capabilities
             to keep soldiers first
             to develop a Joint and Expeditionary Army

                       INTELLIGENCE LESSONS FROM THE WAR

        Traditional intelligence methods and products served U.S. forces
    well during the combat phase of OIF, although there was a notable
    degradation of situational awareness for forces on the move because of
    the lack of an adequate network and the inability to fuse all source
    intelligence while on the move. During Phase IV (Post Combat
    Operations), intelligence sensing requirements shifted dramatically to
    Human Intelligence (HUMINT) as the principal of the intelligence
    disciplines rather than more technical collection means.
        Following an on-the-ground assessment of the intelligence resources
    and processes in Iraq, the Army G2 Staff worked with CJTF-7,
    identifying long and short term solutions to improve intelligence for
    OIF and to improve the current force. Short-term solutions are well
    underway. Of the 127 actions initially noted, the majority are in place
    today and new actions are being addressed as they are identified not
    only in support of OIF, but OEF as well. These lessons are proving
    critical as we concurrently develop an intelligence transformation to
    the future force.
        The intelligence related lessons learned are categorized in four
    major areas:

        (1) Tactical collection: Overall, analysis and sensing capabilities
    were inadequate at maneuver brigade and battalion echelons. Since the
    ability to strike at the enemy exceeded our ability to target them, we
    needed more UAVs and other targeting sensors. Every Division Commander
    stated that they needed both more UAVs and more Human Collection Teams
    (HCTs). Limited capabilities to conduct tactical surveillance of the
    enemy revealed the need for more SIGINT assets and more HUMINT
    capabilities. We are addressing these priorities through our close work
    with Task Force Modularity in redesigning the Army's new Maneuver Units
    of Action (Brigades of today). We are ensuring there are sufficient
    organic collection and analysis capabilities to meet the identified
    requirements. Some upgrades already implemented include augmenting
    units monitoring borders with existing sensors and further providing
    leading-edge capabilities as they become available. We have also
    installed special-purpose document exploitation suites (Harmony) to
    facilitate Document Exploitation (DOCEX).
        (2) Reporting: The information obtained from combat patrols,
    logistics activities, and other non-Military Intelligence (MI) missions
    was not adequately integrated into the intelligence system for
    analysis. Information that soldiers reported was not in digital form
    and therefore did not enter the reporting system quickly enough to be
    of operational use. The small percentage of reports that actually
    entered the intelligence system were manually transcribed and entered
    the analytic network after the completion of the operation. To resolve
    this issue, we must digitize all reporting at the point of origin and
    connect the soldier and tactical echelons to the network. In the near
    term, we are rapidly fielding Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and
    Below (FBCB2) to provide a reporting and intelligence exchange
    capability at the soldier level. To link the soldier and tactical
    echelons to the network we are rapidly creating and fielding DCGS
    capability down to battalion level. We also must re-emphasize the
    doctrinal aspects of tactical reporting. The Intelligence Center and
    School has sent out a Mobile Training Team to address both this and
    tactical questioning issues.
        (3) Access to National Intelligence: We have made great strides in
    information access, but we still have a way to go. Intelligence access
    was, and still is, constrained by policies that restricted
    dissemination and use, especially at the tactical level (division and
    below). These policies complicated basic access to many databases,
    limiting our ability to conduct all-source analysis. We are working
    with DOD to eliminate classification dissemination caveats and grant
    universal data access. Initiatives such as the IDC and Project Morning
    Calm are assisting in accessing and providing access to various
    databases and agencies. We are building Trojan Spirit (a classified
    communications capability) into every Maneuver Unit of Action.
        (4) Networking Analytic Centers: During the war, especially as
    troops deployed forward, we had large volumes of message traffic, with
    incredible amounts of information, but did poorly in extracting and
    synchronizing relevant knowledge with our tactical forces. The
    increased volume of intelligence at higher echelons could not be
    processed, refined or fused for tactical or operational use on a timely
    basis. We had good situational awareness across the force until our
    units crossed the line of departure (LD) into combat. After crossing
    the LD, the pace of the attack limited shared situational awareness and
    resulted in a constant movement-to-contact operational environment.
    This lack of shared situational understanding revealed the need for a
    digital intel-on-the-move network capability supported by
    communications-on-the-move at the lowest echelons. We also need to
    evolve our doctrine such that analytic centers provide ``overwatch'' of
    tactical formations 24/7.

                ARMY INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO CURRENT OPERATIONS

        The soldier is our focus--every soldier is a sensor. We have over
    120,000 soldiers--sensors--located on the battlefield in Iraq. The
    soldier on the ground, patrolling and interacting within their
    environment or battlespace, has constant access to immeasurable amounts
    of data. Information is reported verbally at the lowest levels and a
    small portion is later digitized into a database. In the end, the
    majority of observations--reports by soldiers on the ground typically
    do not make it into the reporting network. Further, we must continue to
    develop training our soldiers as sensors or collectors of battlefield
    information. They do not fully understand how to observe or sense their
    environment. At the opposite end of the spectrum, since the soldier is
    not connected to the network, he is not receiving the most current data
    or information relevant to his battlespace or environment. We would not
    send our pilots up without ensuring that they were digitally linked
    with the best, most relevant, actionable intelligence available, such
    as early warning radar. But, today, we send our soldiers into battle,
    unlinked and without dedicated intelligence support.
        Fight for Knowledge. The successful units at the tactical echelons
    (company through brigade) within Iraq and Afghanistan have developed a
    tactic we refer to as ``Fight for Knowledge.'' They are not waiting for
    intelligence from higher to tell them where the enemy is. They are
    utilizing combat patrols, interaction with the local populace, and any
    other legitimate means at their disposal to acquire intelligence and
    knowledge to enable operations (combat intelligence, when merged with
    intelligence from higher, is a powerful force enabler). They are, in
    essence, ``creating their own luck,''--``fight(ing) for knowledge.''
    They are reinvigorating the existing, but often neglected concept of
    Combat Intelligence. Prior to revitalizing this concept, unit
    commanders would wait for intelligence to come from higher before
    acting. In the type of war we are fighting now--over mountains, through
    caves, house to house--our technical collection will not always provide
    all the information required to enable action. (``Fight for Knowledge''
    will become further enhanced when we digitally connect the soldier and
    lower tactical echelons to the network.)
        Tactical Overwatch. Currently, tactical units receive their
    intelligence through an echeloned structure: from national, to theatre,
    to corps, to division, and so on. This lockstep methodology is a
    remnant of industrial-age, Cold War structures and procedures. Before
    OIF, this process was marginally adequate when units were static or
    garrisoned; however, the dissemination and reporting channels collapsed
    when the units moved into battle in Iraq. This legacy process causes
    information or intelligence latency. Latency that is caused by the
    existing echeloned structure that requires information and intelligence
    be sent step by step, through the various levels of command, which can
    often take hours, if not days. The lower tactical echelons rarely
    receive the intelligence in a timely manner, nor do they have direct
    access to experts located at agencies in the United States or
    elsewhere. This also impacts the ability for lower tactical echelons to
    provide critical reports that are relevant to the higher agencies or
    headquarters that need them. Our vision is to implement a new approach
    to this concept, creating a dedicated structure to provide intelligence
    or tactical overwatch, focusing higher level intelligence capabilities
    in direct support to the tactical echelons. We have already started
    this effort through support provided by the IDC and through initiatives
    such as Project Morning Calm and The Pantheon Project.

    Three initiatives have significantly contributed to the overwatch
            concept over the last year and continue to contribute to the
            overall establishment of an overwatch capability in the future.
        The IDC is an operational, state of the art, analytic Intelligence
    center. The IDC has been and continues to support the tactical forces
    engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan through direct support to the JTF
    Headquarters or through the IDC extensions located in direct support to
    CJTF-7 and JTF-GTMO. The IDC has pioneered and is using processes and
    methodologies for timely situational awareness and analysis of complex
    networks of individuals and organizations that can be shared to the
    extent that the network and/or policies allow. The IDC uses advanced
    software tools and special data access agreements to extract, correlate
    and capture the essence of vast amounts of information across many
    databases. The IDC is the premier Army Intelligence test bed for
    advanced, new technologies and concepts which, when operationally
    proven, are spiraled into the Intelligence Community and the tactical
    force. The true power of the IDC will be realized when the tactial
    overwatch initiative is fully established along with a global network.
        Project Morning Calm: An outgrowth of the IDC is an initiative
    referred to as Morning Calm and sponsored by the Office of the
    Secretary of Defense (OSD). This is a rapidly evolving intelligence
    structure in support of a theater combatant commander; virtually a
    testbed for concepts that may have application in global war on
    terrorism and all theaters in both joint and combined environments.
    Morning Calm creates an all-inclusive intelligence ``system'' capable
    of rapidly sharing and visualizing intelligence and all disparate data,
    from the numerous collection systems and agencies, tactical through
    national and combined. Morning Calm demonstrates a revolutionary
    capability to merge high volume, multi-lingual, live collection feeds
    (streaming data) with the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command
    (INSCOM) IDC advanced technological processes for interacting with
    large repositories of disparate data types in a much more rapid,
    timely, and visually intuitive manner than currently available.
    Numerous overwatch related tools and technologies have already been
    developed within this project--benefiting from the development of
    advanced tools and capabilities operationalized within Morning Calm.
        The Pantheon Project: This initiative has contributed significantly
    to advancing technological innovations within the IDC, Morning Calm,
    and the entire IC. This project has brought together a grouping of
    world-class individuals from business, academia, and government to
    address and solve the hardest technical problems, creating
    technological or procedural solutions for the enhancement of tactical
    through national intelligence echelons. These solutions have been
    rapidly spiraled forward primarily into the IDC and Morning Calm
    Project. While previously done ad hoc, and through the generosity of
    several ``patriots'' who have volunteered their time to enable this
    rapid technology insertion program, our goal is to formalize this
    initiative into a core group who will constantly be on call to assist
    with issues and provide expert advice.
        Systems. Supporting the tactical echelons were several TIARA
    (funded) systems to include: Ground Surveillance Radars (GSRs);
    Prophet; All Source Analysis System (ASAS); Counterintelligence/Human
    Intelligence (CI/HUMINT) Information Management System (CHIMS);
    Integrated Meteorological System--Light (IMETS-L); Remotely Monitored
    Battlefield Surveillance System (REMBASS); GUARDRAIL Common Sensor
    (GRCS) airborne ISR system; UAV, Shadow 200 and Hunter--and Tactical
    Exploitation System (TES). We have also successfully deployed our JMIP
    funded UAV, Shadow 200 and Hunter. All of these systems have and
    continue to successfully support tactical echelons in OEF, OIF, or
    both. A noteworthy achievement was the ability to rapidly insert
    technology patches--upgrades into some of these systems to adapt them
    and maximize capabilities--based upon the threat in both Afghanistan
    and Iraq. A noted shortcoming was that these systems were neither
    networked nor integrated. Even when data was collected, often it did
    not make it to the required database or user; or, if it did, it was
    extremely late. Our transformation plan includes the rapid convergence
    of many of these systems into the Distributed Common Ground System--
    Army (DCGS-A), which is addressed later in this paper.
        Tactical HUMINT: Our tactical HUMINT HCTs continue to provide
    critical intelligence, supporting both ongoing missions and Force
    Protection to our units serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq. With the
    Services short on linguists across the board, contract linguists have
    successfully augmented the HCTs. HCTs integrated themselves into the
    tactical echelons and provided superb support throughout the force.
    These teams, especially in the follow-on phase of operations, were
    lauded by commanders who have consistently requested additional teams--
    a request that our existing inventory cannot sufficiently supply. One
    notable shortcoming was the inability to network these teams while they
    were on the move.
        Today. Our soldiers are adapting, learning to observe and report.
    Our tactical commanders have also learned to use patrols aggressively
    to interact with the environment and collect combat intelligence. Our
    systems have operated well overall and numerous adaptations or
    improvements have been incorporated in order to maximize their
    effectiveness. Our HCTs, although lacking in quantity, have established
    themselves as the premier force enabler. Overall, each separate,
    distinct area of the intelligence fight is working well with the
    exception of an integrated network that binds these similar, but
    disparate, entities together to create an integrated framework. We have
    several initiatives geared to resolve this issue. The most critical one
    is establishing the network:

    Establishing the Network
        The top priority for Army intelligence transformation is rapidly
    converging our current ``diverse'' intelligence processors into the
    DCGS-A. DCGS-A is a modular and scaleable family of multi-intelligence
    systems for posting, processing, exploiting, and updating ISR
    information. While it will eventually replace current and future Army
    intelligence processing systems (TIARA and JMIP) for national, joint
    and Army organic sensor data, the Army intent is to rapidly build and
    field an integrated DCGS-A capability, establishing intelligence
    interoperability vertically across all echelons down to the battalion
    level. It is important to note, we are dependent on the Army network
    for much of our collateral connectivity.
        DCGS-A will be implemented using a spiral development acquisition
    strategy through the evolutionary merging of existing and programmed
    Army processing systems, including ASAS, GUARDRAIL Information Node
    (GRIFN), future ACS ground processing segment, Army Space Program
    Office (ASPO) Tactical Exploitation System (TES) Tactical Exploitation
    of National Capabilities (TENCAP) processing systems, Joint STARS
    Common Ground Station (CGS) SAR/MTI processing, TUAV Ground Control
    Station (GCS), and Tactical Control System (TCS). All DCGS-A components
    will comply with Service, Joint, and National interoperability
    standards.
        The current emphasis is to converge several different existing
    systems (ASAS, TES, CGS, CHIMS, CHATS) into what are being referred to
    as battalion and brigade DCGS-A thrusts. These initial systems will
    consist of existing off-the-shelf-type equipment utilizing existing
    hardware and software to establish a network-centric environment and
    get the capability into the hands of our soldiers now, vice years down
    the road. As future DCGS-A upgrades come to fruition, they will be
    spirally inserted into the existing DCGS-A thrusts that we will have
    already established within the various echelons. In the near future,
    DCGS will be the ``hub'' for the DOD to effectively implement the
    information sharing relationships between the warfighters, the service
    intelligence analysts, and the IC. The end result will be, for the
    first time, a common intelligence network with common analytical tool
    sets truly enabling horizontal and vertical collaboration and
    integration. DCGS-A will be implemented using a spiral development
    acquisition strategy through the evolutionary merging of existing and
    programmed Army processing systems, including ASAS, GUARDRAIL
    Information Node (GRIFN), future ACS ground processing segment, ASPO
    TES Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities (TENCAP) processing
    systems, Joint STARS Common Ground Station (CGS) SAR/MTI processing,
    TUAV Ground Control Station (GCS), and Tactical Control System (TCS).
    All DCGS-A components will comply with Service, Joint, and National
    interoperability standards.
        Unique to the DCGS-A initiative is our plan--already initiated--to
    integrate ``legacy'' systems rapidly into DCGS, investing into the
    future system vice continuing to spend money on a system or program
    that will be terminated in the very near future. Also, in conjunction
    with INSCOM, theater level DCGS-A will be integrated with the various
    INSCOM IDC hubs located at the different theater intelligence groups
    and brigades throughout the world. In essence, home station DCGS and
    the IDC hubs will become merged. This will enable the merging of
    technology and tool sets into one common system, and allow for proven
    integration of IDC technologies already in use and supporting the war,
    into the DCGS-A program.
        The Army is also progressing with fixed-site DCGS-A assets at
    various garrison locations. This will give the Army a home-station
    ability to support the joint as well as organic forces from sanctuary
    locations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Army will have access to
    National and Air Force reconnaissance assets as well as Army organic
    assets. The Army fixed-site DCGS capability is in its formative stage
    with an initial capability at the 66th Military Intelligence Group in
    Darmstadt, Germany, as well as at the 501st Military Intelligence
    Brigade, located in South Korea.

              ARMY INTELLIGENCE JMIP AND TIARA PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

        Tactical intelligence capabilities provided by TIARA and JMIP
    programs continue to be extraordinarily critical to the ability of the
    ground maneuver force's ability to prosecute the war. Our MI soldiers
    are performing superbly as they collect, analyze and process data and
    information into intelligence, so that the ground commander can rapidly
    act against a very adaptive and mobile enemy. Our focus is to enable
    them and the entire intelligence enterprise to be connected to the
    intelligence framework.

    1. Overview
        Army TIARA comprise an array of 25 separate programs and systems,
    training programs, and forces that are located throughout the Army. The
    various TIARA programs are engaged in ongoing military operations,
    whether conducting combat counterterrorism operations in Iraq and
    Afghanistan, supporting homeland defense, maintaining the armistice
    along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Korea, or enforcing the peace
    between various factions in the Balkans. Last year, Army intelligence
    supported the full spectrum of warfare ensuring that ISR capabilities
    were pervasive throughout the current force, the Stryker brigades, and
    are setting the stage for the future force. This year, as the Army
    continues to support U.S. commitments, Army transformation remains on
    track and, in many cases, is being accelerated by the Army's Focus Area
    initiatives to address the urgent operational needs of our Nation's
    global war on terrorism. Army intelligence transformation is embedded
    within the Army Campaign plan and is allowing the Army IC to fast track
    several initiatives that will improve intelligence support to the
    tactical forces.
        The Army JMIP consists primarily of research, development, and
    acquisition programs for manned and unmanned airborne ISR systems,
    advanced SIGINT, and intelligence tasking, posting, processing, and
    using (TPPU) (also known as tasking, processing, exploitation, and
    dissemination (TPED)) systems. Army TIARA and JMIP are focused on
    supporting the tactical echelons with Actionable Intelligence:
    providing commanders and soldiers with a high level of situational
    understanding, delivered with the speed, accuracy, and timeliness
    necessary to operate at their highest potential enabling rapid and
    successful execution of operations. Army intelligence transformation,
    empowered by the TIARA and JMIP systems and programs, achieves its
    intended purpose of empowering greater individual initiative and self-
    synchronization among tactical units by integrating information across
    organizations and echelons, accelerating the speed of decisionmaking
    and the agility of operations.

    2. Language Program
        The Army is DOD's Executive Agent for the Defense Language
    Institute and Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California.
    DLIFLC annually trains 3,500 of the best-trained linguists in the world
    and continues to be the pre-eminent language schoolhouse in the world,
    providing 700,000 hours of instruction in 23 languages at Monterey and
    85 languages through the Washington Office.
        DLIFLC is also on the forefront of using distant learning tools
    designed to maintain and improve language skills of service members.
    The Satellite Communication for Learning (SCOLA) program, using live
    television programs from over 25 countries beamed via satellite to
    posts, ships, and armories around the world, continues to be a vital
    tool to maintain easily perishable language skills. DLIFLC provided
    support to field operations through over 9,200 hours of Video Tele-
    Training (VTT) and 2,000 hours of mobile training team support using
    DLIFLC instructors.
        The global war on terrorism has strained the Army system that
    provides trained linguists in support of DOD and national agencies, as
    well as the warfighter. Thousands of additional requirements in Arabic,
    Kurdish, Pashto, Urdu, Dari, and other languages have exhausted the
    Army's organic linguist base in the active and Reserve components.
    Consequently, the Army has outsourced more than 6,000 linguist
    requirements in support of the global war on terrorism. The cost per
    annum of a single contract linguist varies from $15,000 per year for a
    locally hired linguist to approximately $200,000. Factors such as
    clearance and duty location requirements contribute to the total cost.
    Further, there are simply not enough U.S. citizens with the requisite
    language skills and desire to deploy to harsh, frequently dangerous,
    locations to support the cleared linguist requirements of the Army,
    DOD, and the national community, thus increasing the demand from the
    same linguist pool. The cost to the Army of supporting the global war
    on terrorism with contract linguists this fiscal year exceeds $250
    million. The annual cost of the language contract in Bosnia, employing
    over 900 locally hired linguists is an additional $36 million. Given
    the number of linguists required by commanders across the battlespace,
    contracted linguists will remain a necessity for the foreseeable
    future.
        JTF-GTMO: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)
    established Joint Task Force--Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (JTF-GTMO), to
    support detainee operations (including detention and interrogations)
    for enemy combatants who come under U.S. control. We must continue to
    operate and maintain support for the assigned intelligence missions and
    personnel. Counterterrorism supplementals provided initial funding for
    detainee operations and military construction at Guantanamo Bay in both
    fiscal years 2002 and 2003. As an ongoing requirement, program funding
    commenced in fiscal year 2004 as part of the JMIP. Supported missions
    include: screening, interrogation, intelligence collection, and
    interaction with other agencies involved in the detainee operations.
        Questioning JTF-GTMO detainees improved the security of our Nation
    and coalition partners by expanding our understanding of al Qaeda, its
    affiliates and other extremely dangerous terrorist groups that threaten
    our security. Detainees have revealed al Qaeda leadership structures,
    operatives, funding mechanisms, communication methods, training and
    selection programs, travel patterns, support infrastructures, and plans
    for attacking the U.S. and other countries.

    3. Airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
        Army airborne ISR is currently operating at a high tempo in support
    of ongoing military operations worldwide. Today, all five of our
    Military Intelligence Aerial Exploitation Battalions (AEB) are forward
    deployed, or recently returned to home station, again preparing to re-
    deploy in support of worldwide operations.

             Our Korea-based GUARDRAIL Common Sensor (GRCS) and
            Airborne Reconnaissance-Low (ARL) AEB continues to provide over
            80 percent of the Sensitive Reconnaissance Operations (SRO) on
            the Korean peninsula.
             In November 1995, our Germany based GRCS AEB deployed
            to Taszar, Hungary, in support of Task Force Eagle. This GRCS
            unit provided critical indications and warning, and force
            protection oversight during the implementation of the Dayton
            Peace Accords. After 3-plus years in Hungary, this unit further
            forward deployed to Brindisi, Italy, in support of Task Force
            Falcon operations in the Balkans. In late February 2003, this
            unit redeployed to Germany for 5 short months to refit and
            refurbish in preparation for its deployment in support of
            USCENTCOM and OIF. At present, this unit is scheduled to
            redeploy to Germany in September of this year.
             The first of two U.S.-based GRCS AEBs deployed in
            August 2001 to participate in Operation Phoenix Venture in the
            USCENTCOM area of responsibility (AOR). After 8 months
            supporting the USCENTCOM AOR, this unit deployed to South
            America to support the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM)
            commander. Following a successful 2-month deployment, this unit
            again forward deployed into the USCENTCOM AOR to support OEF
            and OIF. This unit redeployed to homestation in October 2003,
            and is preparing to again deploy in September of this year.
             Our CONUS-based ARL AEB that supports Joint Forces
            Command (JFCOM) is currently deployed to the USSOUTHCOM AOR.
            Based upon the USSOUTHCOM combatant commander's requirements,
            portions of this unit are now deployed 365-days a year to
            support the theater's coordinated ISR plan in Colombia.
             In May 2002, our second CONUS-based GRCS AEB deployed
            to provide additional support to USCENTCOM. This unit
            redeployed to homestation after a successful 13-month
            deployment. At present, the unit is conducting refit and
            refurbish requirements in preparation for its redeployment in
            August of this year to support continuing OIF intelligence
            requirements.

        The Army continues to work to ensure that our ISR aircraft deploy
    with AOR specific hardware and software capabilities. We have also
    continued to stress interoperability, and are achieving notable success
    in Airborne Overhead Cooperative Operations (AOCO) in coordination with
    the national systems. For the past 4 years we have fielded cooperative
    capabilities to all four GRCS units. AOCO allows us to connect a single
    GRCS aircraft to an National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) capability
    facilitating precision location especially at increased depths.
    Additionally, this capability yields other benefits such as improved
    geometry to the target, increased range, and connectivity to the
    National Intelligence infrastructure via the GRCS integrated processing
    facility. This dramatic interoperability success and sharing of
    functionality between systems is also a requirement for our future
    force airborne ISR system, Aerial Common Sensor (ACS).
        GRCS is the workhorse of Army airborne ISR at the corps and theater
    level. There is no other ISR system in the world that equals the
    ability of GRCS to provide responsive, precision SIGINT geo-location
    data on threat communications and radar emitters. GRCS is presently
    flying an average of 1,900 sorties per year in support of U.S. Forces
    Korea (USFK), U.S. European Command (USEUCOM), and USCENTCOM.
        To meet the rapidly changing threat signals environment, we are
    continuing selective upgrades to the SIGINT capabilities of our fielded
    GRCS systems by integrating advanced technologies developed through the
    Defense Cryptologic Program (DCP). We are also modernizing the outdated
    GRCS Integrated Processing Facility (IPF) on the ground, replacing it
    with the state-of-the-art GRIFN. GRIFN is an integral part of the DCGS-
    A.
        To ensure our GRCS units forward-deployed in support of OIF can
    provide their critical information into the Global Intelligence
    Architecture and to ensure the system's ability to effectively
    prosecute terrorist targets, we are providing a near-term very small
    aperture terminal (VSAT) connection for forward deployed GRCS units.
    This connection will support GRCS's prosecution of CENTCOM targets.
        ARL is our current manned, multi-intelligence airborne ISR system.
    ARL flies an average of 444 sorties per year in support of early
    warning/force protection for USFK, and over 288 sorties per year in the
    USSOUTHCOM AOR. ARL also flies ISR missions in support of Joint Task
    Force-6 (JTF-6) here in CONUS.
        The Army's final ARL platform is currently in production and was
    funded in the fiscal year 2000 supplemental appropriation as a
    replacement for the system that crashed in Colombia in July 1999, while
    conducting reconnaissance in support of counterdrug operations. This
    system will be fielded in April, fiscal year 2004, and will be
    available to support combatant commander requirements. In fiscal year
    2004, we continue to upgrade IMINT and SIGINT sensors, while also
    ensuring that the avionics on our oldest ARL systems meet international
    Airspace 2000 flight requirements. We used the Defense Emergency Relief
    Fund (DERF) to accelerate IMINT sensor upgrades and to develop, test
    and integrate MASINT sensors.
        The Army continues to strive to meet airborne ISR requirements
    given our resource constrained environment. The fiscal year 2005 budget
    request will provide us the ability to minimally sustain our existing
    GRCS and ARL airborne fleets. We used DERF counterterrorism funding and
    fiscal year 2004 supplementals to provide key sensor upgrades that were
    required to maintain technical relevance in pursuing the global war on
    terrorism, but the majority of our modernization effort is focused on
    meeting the ISR requirements for the Army's future force.
        The Army's next-generation manned, airborne, collection platform
    will be ACS, which will replace both ARL and GRCS. ACS is a Joint Army
    and Navy program and will be a multi-intelligence collection system,
    with SIGINT, IMINT, and MASINT sensors. ACS sensor data will be
    processed and disseminated via the DCGS architecture. Building upon the
    success of GRCS, ACS will provide responsive precision targeting data
    to the full range of Army organic weapon systems in support of the
    Joint Task Force or ground component commander. The Army ACS program
    will meet all joint and national interoperability standards. The fiscal
    year 2005 budget request supports the beginning of the ACS System
    Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase. The robust ACS sensor suite
    includes precision location Communications and Electronics Intelligence
    sensors with the ability to prosecute new and emerging threat signals;
    highly accurate Imagery Intelligence sensors including: Electro-optic,
    Infrared; Synthetic Aperture Radar and a Ground Moving Target
    Indicator; and advanced Measurement and Signature Intelligence
    including a Ultra/Hyper/Multi-Spectral Imagery, Foliage Penetration
    Radar, Masked Target Sensor, Light Detection and Ranging Sensor; Non-
    Imaging Synthetic Aperture Radar; Calibrated Non-Imaging Infrared
    Sensor; and Unintentional Radiation Sensor. These sensor suites will
    ensure ACS is able to successfully prosecute and precisely locate
    threat targets regardless of their techniques to evade detection. ACS
    will begin production in fiscal year 2007, with initial fielding in
    fiscal year 2009. Meeting these timelines is essential in order to
    ensure that the first ACS system is operational when the Army's initial
    Future Force unit is fielded.
        The Army leadership continues to strongly support the rapid
    fielding of a Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (TUAV) in order to fill
    a critical warfighting capability-- providing the tactical warfighting
    commander with the ability to physically look over the next hill,
    without putting a soldier in harm's way. Since the start of sustained
    combat operations a year ago, the Army's UAV capabilities have expanded
    significantly. Although limited at the outset of ground combat
    operations, Army UAV capability has improved and will continue to do so
    over this year. Our UAV lessons learned and demonstrated successful
    support of OIF missions have fortified our commitment to providing this
    capability as quickly as possible. This JMIP program accordingly
    remains a high modernization priority for Army tactical intelligence in
    fiscal year 2005. The Army has fielded 12 TUAV systems, 8 to
    operational units, of which, 5 are directly supporting combat
    operations today.
        The Army's Shadow TUAV is the first UAV to be fielded through the
    normal acquisition process and holds the distinction of being the only
    DOD UAV system to achieve a full rate production decision, approved on
    25 September 2002. Not only a true acquisition success story, going
    from contract award in December 1999 to initial operational capability
    in just 32 months, this system has also proved to be an invaluable
    asset in the hands of our deployed commanders. Between intelligence
    gathering and force protection, the TUAV has proven its usefulness time
    and again by revealing detailed information about enemy positions. By
    providing near-real-time combat information to commanders, the TUAV has
    helped save soldiers by providing video footage of the areas soldiers
    are moving into. The Shadow TUAV flew over 2,350 hours in fiscal year
    2003 and has surpassed a total of 4,600 total hours in OIF to date. As
    a result of increased demand for this capability from the field, the
    Army is accelerating procurement of Shadow systems this year by three.
    The Army will field a total of 41 TUAV systems; 35 to the active
    component brigades, two to the National Guard, and four to the UAV
    training base.
        Our fiscal year 2004 budget provided funding for selecting an
    Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) air vehicle to be integrated into
    the Army's UAV architecture by fiscal year 2009. The selection process
    will be completed in fiscal year 2005. This new UAV will be capable of
    reaching out to 300 kilometers and carrying advanced data links and
    payloads such as EO/IR imagery, all-weather synthetic aperture radar
    and moving target indicator (SAR/MTI) sensors coupled with a
    communications relay payload to assist the ground commander's command
    and control infrastructure. These enhanced capabilities will be vital
    to the ability of the tactical ground and Joint Task Force Commander to
    achieve knowledge dominance across the full spectrum of military
    operations in the future.
        During the interim, while we are developing the ER/MP capability,
    we will continue to use the Hunter UAV as an intervening capability.
    The Army has stationed three companies of Hunter UAVs with operational
    units, all of which have provided support to OIF. Most recently, the V
    Corps Hunter company deployed to support OIF in January and continues
    to provide vital day and night imagery intelligence to CJTF-7. In 2003,
    the two Hunter units deployed in support of OIF flew over 4,067 hours
    with the loss of seven Hunter air vehicles. The Army has since
    contracted to maintain an operational readiness rate of 85 percent for
    our Hunter units allowing continued support to the Joint Task Force
    Commander in Iraq as well as maintaining training for units pending
    redeployment. This contract supports air and ground components of the
    Hunter system with refurbishment and replacement parts necessary to
    maintain the operational readiness rate. Replacement parts for the air
    component of the system will provide increased capability, reliability,
    and precision with new heavy fuel engines, extended center wing
    sections for additional fuel, and modern avionics.
        More recently, the Army has developed plans to deploy the Improved-
    GNAT (I-GNAT), a downsized Predator UAV, provided through a
    congressional add in 2003. Manufactured by General Atomics, the I-GNAT
    was originally planned to be flown in the U.S. as a means to gain an
    understanding of this class of aircraft and its capability in relation
    to the ER/MP mission. However, operations in Iraq pre-empted this plan
    and the Army will now use this system to support the CJTF-7 commander
    with an additional day and night full motion video capability. The Army
    has borrowed Air Force Lynx radars to supplement the day and night
    capability on I-GNAT with a near all-weather capability to provide a
    more robust intelligence capability to the commander. The employment of
    I-GNAT will be analyzed while deployed in order to develop doctrine and
    TTP for the ER/MP UAV.

    4. Ground Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
        The Army's tactical ground ISR modernization efforts are focused on
    meeting current and future warfighting requirements. The fiscal year
    2005 budget request adequately supports these efforts. Prophet is the
    Army's next generation tactical ground COMINT system being developed.
    Prophet replaces four less capable systems while significantly reducing
    footprint. The system provides a near real time electronic picture of
    the battlefield. The benefits to the commander include enhanced
    battlefield awareness, force protection and target development. Unlike
    previous systems, Prophet is able to perform collection and electronic
    attack on the move enabling it to operate in close support to highly
    mobile maneuver forces throughout the full spectrum of operations. The
    system also operates in two configurations, mounted and dismounted.
        The Prophet program uses a blocked acquisition strategy:

             Block I provides a basic communications intelligence
            and radio direction finding capability
             Block II provides an electronic attack capability
             Block III provides a capability to intercept and
            locate modern emitters

        Block I is in full-rate production and fielding will be complete to
    the active Force in fiscal year 2005. Fielding will not be complete to
    the Army National Guard unless additional funding is provided to
    support Army National Guard requirements. The Block II/III SDD contract
    was awarded in March 2003 to General Dynamics--Phoenix. The first unit
    equipped with Block II/III is expected in 4Q fiscal year 2005. The
    fiscal year 2005 budget request supports the completion of the Block I
    buy and the continuation of the Block II/III SDD development phase, and
    the initial procurement of Block II/III systems.
        Prophet is an OEF and OIF combat tested system. It deployed with
    the SOF in the early stages of OEF and crossed the line of departure
    with the 3rd Infantry Division at the beginning of OIF. Prophet's on-
    the-move collection capability proved its worth as it detected a
    waiting ambush for the lead elements of the 3rd Infantry Division. It
    also played a key role in the capture of the international airport as
    it located targets for the artillery units. Prophet continues to play
    an integral role in both theaters as it provides critical battlefield
    awareness at the brigade level. As the Army looks to the Future Force,
    Prophet plays a critical role. Based on warfighter requests, Prophet
    Block I deployed with additional capabilities to meet theater specific
    requirements. These capabilities include beyond line of sight
    communications and significantly enhanced collection and processing
    capabilities. This is the way of the future: keeping tactical SIGINT
    capabilities relevant across the full spectrum of operations by
    insertion of evolving technology. Prophet is key to the Army's
    transformation effort. The system is an integral part of the Stryker
    Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) providing critical battlespace awareness and
    force protection capabilities. It has performed extremely well with the
    first SBCT in OIF. The Future Combat System (FCS) materiel developer
    considers Block III as the COMINT sensor payload baseline to meet the
    FCS COMINT requirements. The specific unit of action (UA) applications
    include the COMINT sensor payloads for the FCS Reconnaissance and
    Surveillance Vehicle and the Armored Robotic Vehicles. One of the key
    products these systems will provide to the UA commander is emitter
    mapping. The requirements for the unit of employment (UE) are being
    worked at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Early indications are that Prophet
    will be the UE ground ISR system.
        Recent contingency operations have highlighted the need for
    electronic warfare (EW), a component of information operations (IO).
    While Army intelligence is not the sole practitioner of EW, it has a
    unique role in EW as it maintains the Army's electronic attack (EA) and
    electronic support (ES) capabilities. An EA capability is included in
    Prophet Block II/III. Additionally, the Extended Range/Multi-Purpose
    UAV will have an EA payload that will enable our warfighters to conduct
    effective non-lethal fires throughout the depth of the battlespace.
    Military Intelligence systems such a GRCS, ARL and ACS work hand-in-
    hand to provide the intelligence or electronic support to enable EA.

    5. Intelligence Fusion
        The ASAS is the current Army intelligence fusion program. ASAS and
    current ground processor capabilities will rapidly migrate into the
    DCGS-A architecture to provide: automated intelligence analysis;
    management of intelligence and electronic warfare resources; and
    production and dissemination of intelligence to warfighting commanders
    and staff. Variants of ASAS are fielded at all echelons in the Army,
    enabling the rapid dissemination of the all source fusion picture of
    the current threat to forward combat maneuver battalions. ASAS is the
    Army intelligence interface to the warfighter Army Battle Command
    System (ABCS) and to the Joint Global Command and Control System
    (GCCS), and provides the automated ground threat picture to the Joint
    Command Operational Picture (JCOP). The system is interoperable with
    national military intelligence integrated database (IDB) standards. The
    next generation ASAS Analysis and Control Element (ACE) will be fully
    integrated with the DCGS-A systems of systems, enabling true near-real-
    time multi-source intelligence correlation and target development.
        The ASAS reliance on commercial-based hardware and a true open
    architecture allows continued interoperability with current force
    intelligence systems, while ensuring a smooth evolution to the future.
    We have used congressional supplemental funding to rapidly develop and
    integrate new software for the analysis of non-traditional/
    nonstructured threats and adjust to lessons learned from OIF. This
    software is currently in use in Bosnia and has been delivered to all
    units engaged in OIF. The Army firmly believes our substantial TIARA
    investment in ASAS demonstrates our resolve in joint intelligence
    information exchange and support to the joint and ground warfighter.

    6. Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence
        CI and HUMINT are critical enablers to successful combat operations
    in environments such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Underscoring the
    importance of human intelligence, we have used congressional
    supplemental funding to accelerate procurement of the CI/HUMINT CHIMS
    and the integration of biometric analytic tools into the software
    baseline. Over 900 systems have been fielded to active component and
    Army Reserve soldiers who have been deployed to OIF. Fielding of these
    systems was a monumental task, which involved training 1,200 soldiers
    on the care and operation of the CHIMS. Our fiscal year 2004 funding
    continued spiral development and procurement of CHIMS devices and
    acceleration of CHIMS enhancements to our soldiers serving in OIF.
        CHIMS automation has proven to be invaluable in meeting the
    challenge of screening, interrogating, and reporting intelligence from
    the large numbers of prisoners from OIF. The experience we gained has
    validated a requirement for state-of-the-art equipment to support the
    exploitation of large volumes of documents and computer magnetic
    storage media. In the near term, the Army has provided the CHIMS with
    an initial DOCEX capability.

              INTELLIGENCE TRANSFORMATION: THE SOLDIER--OUR FOCUS

        The focus of intelligence transformation is the soldier. All of our
    initiatives seek to leverage all collected data, utilizing smart tools
    and trained analysts, to conduct fusion analysis to generate relevant
    intelligence for decisionmakers, both commanders and soldiers. Today,
    our soldiers in the fight have the greatest local knowledge but the
    poorest situational knowledge outside their immediate area of
    operations (only hundreds of meters). The opposite situation exists at
    the Joint, Theater and national levels, where the greatest operational
    and strategic knowledge resides, with little to no local knowledge
    available.
        In part, we are hindered by our own remarkable technological
    advantages and capabilities. Information age technology has allowed us
    to develop exceptional collection system capabilities. However,
    realizing the full power of our entire intelligence system depends not
    only on our ability to collect information efficiently, but also on our
    ability to effectively process, analyze, and most importantly, make
    intelligence actionable. While we made incredible improvements in our
    collection systems, we neglected to technically and procedurally change
    how we process and analyze all this information. Our collection systems
    gather vast amounts of information, but the majority of that
    information is dumped into single source databases available to only
    those single source analysts in that particular collection
    organization. This stovepipe process is a consequence of how our
    Intelligence Community has evolved--or, more accurately, has failed to
    evolve--and how we have implemented technological change while
    continuing to use existing processes. Focus Area Actionable
    intelligence--our road map for intelligence transformation--is working
    to bridge that gap through a variety of changes in TTP and materiel
    solutions.

                            ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE

        Actionable Intelligence is one of the necessary components of
    achieving shared situational understanding. It requires that we change
    the way our Army culturally views and integrates intelligence.
    Additionally, we must continually develop and integrate new technology
    solutions systematically to maintain first advantage in terms of
    capabilities, technologies, and knowledge sharing.
        Actionable Intelligence provides commanders and soldiers a high
    level of shared situational understanding, delivered with the speed,
    accuracy, and timeliness necessary to operate at their highest
    potential and conduct successful operations.
        Task Force Actionable Intelligence (the Army G2's transformation
    initiative team) has identified four critical components that we must
    address within the Army in order to transform intelligence in line with
    the overarching Army Transformation--while remaining integrated within
    DOD ``Remodeling'' Initiatives. I will also briefly discuss six
    critical initiatives which are nested within the four critical
    components that we are initiating in tandem within Army Transformation
    today.
        1. Critical Component: changing the culture and mindset of how the
    Army integrates intelligence--change the methods and means of how we
    collect, move, process, analyze and use intelligence. Change how we
    think of intelligence starting with the soldier, continuing through all
    echelons or our Army.
        To change our culture and mindset, we must first change our
    behaviors through better training and career experiences. First and
    foremost, we must institute the mindset that every soldier is a sensor.
    There are three main premises to soldier is a sensor: (1) Soldiers on
    the ground have always been the best information collectors, and they
    must recognize themselves as such. OEF and OIF have Actionable
    Intelligence provides commanders and soldiers a high level of shared
    situational understanding, delivered with the speed, accuracy, and
    timeliness necessary to operate at their highest potential and conduct
    successful operations. Actionable Intelligence provides commanders and
    soldiers a high level of shared situational understanding, delivered
    with the speed, accuracy, and timeliness necessary to operate at their
    highest potential and conduct successful operations. Recent operations
    have shown that there are no frontlines. All soldiers and facilities
    are at risk of attack. Soldiers must become highly conscious, trained
    observers and reporters, aware of the value of reporting their
    experiences, perceptions and judgments so the right person, at the
    right time, can make the right decision to accomplish the mission--we
    must give them the means to do so. (2) We must move operational units
    from a passive (waiting to receive intelligence with which to take
    action) to an active role in pursuing intelligence. Commanders must
    acknowledge that every operation is also an intelligence operation.
    Some of the most valuable intelligence comes from soldiers on point or
    on patrol. This ``Fight for Knowledge''--create your own luck--begins
    prior to operations and extends through the post-operation phases
    indefinitely as long as the Nation has a vested interest in the region.
    (3) Lastly, we need to see ourselves as the enemy sees us.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Red Teaming Capability
        Red Teaming has two significant components. First, we need a base
    cadre trained to think like terrorists, insurgents and paramilitaries.
    Soldiers who have been trained as Red Team cadre will represent the
    full spectrum of today's potential opponents (state and non-state
    actors), ensuring blue force planners truly reflect the asymmetric
    threat, the contemporary operating environment and the second and third
    order effects of blue and red force actions. Second, we need a baseline
    of geographic expertise to provide regional subject matter experts. Our
    initiative starts with organizing a core Red Team capability within
    INSCOM and in each of the Theatre MI Brigades. This will expand to
    include the establishment of a Red Team University for training within
    the Army Education system.
        2. Critical Component: Improved battlespace capabilities organic to
    soldiers and units--the capability of the soldier to sense and
    understand his environment--integrating the soldier into the network.
        Situational awareness on the complex battlefield of the 21st
    century demands greater access to information with increased fidelity
    at every level, starting with the soldier. Battlespace capabilities
    represent what is in the hands of our soldiers or organic to their
    unit. Reporting by individual soldiers will be digitized at the point
    of origin with FBCB2. Soldiers will be able to better share what they
    observe, realizing the every soldier is a sensor concept. Connecting
    the soldier to the network will revolutionize information flow in both
    directions. For units, this means increasing our ability to rapidly
    build and deploy modular intelligence packages that satisfy the unit's
    needs, to include providing regional expertise to tactical forces in an
    Army with a global and joint mission. We also need to connect the local
    sensors to the national networks and both the sensors and the soldiers
    to the analytic base, DCGS. We will ensure that service intelligence
    interdependencies are identified and leveraged.
        3. Critical Component: Overwatch support to engaged units--
    assisting the soldier by sensing and analytically overwatching his
    battlespace, providing awareness over the broader environment in which
    he is or may operate.
        The concept of overwatch encompasses those capabilities that enable
    the soldier or unit to reach out beyond their immediate area of
    operations via a collaborative network centric environment. Overwatch
    is part of a larger transformation where we are changing from a
    vertical, echeloned approach, to a collaborative enterprise approach.
    Overwatch provides the soldier on the ground with situational awareness
    of the environment that influences his mission. The soldier also senses
    his local environment and shares that high fidelity data with the rest
    of the force. The Intelligence Community then optimizes the
    capabilities and talents of intelligence professionals from the
    tactical through strategic level, active, Reserve, civilian, and
    contractors, across every discipline, to provide the shared situational
    understanding every soldier and leader requires to understand and
    control their battlespace.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Analytical Overwatch
        Our next initiative, analytic overwatch, is an improved way of
    operating that commits theater resources to tactical support, providing
    tailored products (vice megabytes of information) to decisionmakers at
    the tactical echelon. Analytic overwatch enables direct support
    intelligence capabilities, providing collaborative and tailored support
    down to the maneuver brigade and battalion echelons.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Project Foundry
        Complementing overwatch, Project Foundry is an initiative that will
    assign a portion of the Army's intelligence soldiers in the tactical
    force to duty locations with organizations where they will conduct live
    environment intelligence operations. These soldiers will be assigned to
    Maneuver UA and UE, but their duty location (including their families)
    will be at geographically dispersed locations away from their parent
    units.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Information Dominance Center
        The INSCOM IDC is a state-of-the-art operational intelligence
    organization. The IDC has pioneered processes and methodologies for
    timely situational awareness and analysis of complex networks of
    individuals and organizations that can be shared across the
    intelligence enterprise from national to tactical. The IDC has
    established extension nodes in each theater and continually provides
    direct support to our deployed units around the globe. A direct
    capability ``spin-off'' from the IDC is Project Morning Calm. This
    project is an example of our rapidly evolving intelligence system in
    support of a theater combatant commander--virtually a test bed for
    concepts that may have application in all theaters. Morning Calm
    creates an all-inclusive intelligence system capable of rapidly sharing
    and visualizing intelligence and all disparate data, from the numerous
    collection systems and agencies, tactical through national and
    combined. The first iteration of Morning Calm was recently installed
    and tested in Korea.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Pantheon Project
        Today, any new technology that has intelligence applications, such
    as demonstrated in Project Morning Calm, must be promptly incorporated
    into the intelligence system. To that end, we are implementing a rapid
    fielding capability through the creation of The Pantheon Project. The
    project will bring together a team of 10-12 elite, world-class
    individuals from business, academia, and government to address and
    solve the hardest technical problems, creating technological or
    procedural solutions for the enhancement of tactical through national
    intelligence echelons.
        4. Critical Component: A network centric environment that enables
    and glues these concepts together--the tools, comms, collaboration,
    access to data, integration and enhanced visualization capabilities
    that make the framework; connecting the soldier (battlespace) to higher
    echelons and analytic centers (overwatch).
        The intelligence enterprise is a function of information
    transparency made possible by a common network which integrates people
    with shared databases, advanced analytical tools, knowledge centers,
    and sensors/collectors that are accessible by all. An assured network
    centric environment is the key enabler and the glue that binds all
    these concepts. Actionable Intelligence is dependent on the network as
    the communications backbone to set the conditions for a collaborative
    environment.

    Focus Area Critical Initiative: Begin fielding of an interim
            Distributed Common Ground System--Army capability this year
        The objective DCGS-A will fuse and integrate data from all
    collectors and sources. DCGS-A is the centerpiece of the future
    intelligence framework and is the enabler for all operations at all
    echelons from the UA to national. DCGS-A is already a future force
    Program of Record (POR) originally designed to field a capability in
    fiscal year 2008. Starting now, we have already begun accelerating
    DCGS-A to the field in a spiral development approach. Interim DCGS-A
    fixed site capabilities are being fielded to the theater intelligence
    brigades and groups. We will expand this effort and provide the Army
    with increasing capabilities that correspond to improvements in
    automated fusion and information visualization technologies down to the
    maneuver battalion level.

                    ARMY INTELLIGENCE TRANSFORMATION SUMMARY

        Army Intelligence is changing in all aspects to adapt faster than
    our adversaries. We are increasing our tactical collection in all
    intelligence disciplines, with particular emphasis on HUMINT. We are
    working with Task Force Network to form a network which creates the
    framework connecting the soldier to the strategic level. We are
    changing how intelligence information is reported and disseminated
    throughout this operational and intelligence network. We are updating
    our processes to provide all echelons, down to the individual soldier,
    with access to shared situational awareness.
        Focus Area Actionable Intelligence is the vehicle for Army
    Intelligence transformation. Evolutions in sensing, fusion and analysis
    will solidify the foundation of the Army's ability to conduct
    knowledge-based operations. Our emphasis is on addressing current
    operational mission requirements, while maintaining first advantage in
    capabilities. Technology spiral insertions will continue to improve and
    optimize our intelligence capabilities. At its very core, however, the
    conduct of intelligence analysis remains a human endeavor. Technology
    creates possibilities; humans turn possibilities into realities.
        Creating Information Age processes will allow us to leverage the
    essence of the vast amounts of information available today. This will
    radically change the way we do business and dramatically improve the
    commander's and soldier's understanding of the battlespace. The
    soldier, whether intelligence analyst or operator, will interface
    directly, and in near real-time, with the information required for
    current operations. We will ingrain the concept that ``Every Soldier is
    a Sensor'' (a contributor to and a consumer of the global intelligence
    enterprise). Tactical commanders nearest to the fight will leverage
    modular, tailored packages to develop intelligence, while being
    supported by a network of analytic centers providing overwatch.

                                   CHALLENGES

        Our Greatest Challenges are:
        (1) Changing the Culture and Mindset of the entire Army: We must
    institutionally change the culture and mindset of the Army on how we
    collect, report, disseminate and use intelligence. Our challenge is to
    ingrain the changing concepts throughout not only the MI Branch, but
    throughout the entire Army.
        Training: Our soldiers must be trained on the perishable skill of
    conducting combat surveillance and reporting the critical elements he
    observes within his environment. Soldiers must become highly conscious,
    trained observers and reporters, aware of the value of reporting their
    experiences, perceptions, and judgments so the right person, at the
    right time, can make the right decision to accomplish the mission. This
    mindset starts with our institutional training and builds with unit
    training and experience.
        Structure: Army leadership at all echelons must institutionalize a
    narrowing of the gap between intelligence and operations. Collecting
    intelligence must become a natural occurrence of any operation that we
    conduct, from logistics resupply to an actual combat patrol.
        Doctrine: Furthermore, we must move operational units from a
    passive (waiting to receive intelligence with which to take action) to
    an active role in pursuing intelligence. Commanders must acknowledge
    that every operation is also an intelligence operation. Some of the
    most valuable intelligence comes from soldiers on point or on patrol.
    This `Fight for Knowledge' begins prior to operations and extends
    through the post-operation phases indefinitely as long as the Nation
    has a vested interest in the region. Lastly, we need to see ourselves
    as the enemy sees us: through Red Teaming. Our challenge is to build
    these constructs into our structure.
        (2) Breaking down the existing policies and procedures for data
    access: Within the Army, as well as the Intelligence Community, we must
    revamp the current processes and procedures that hinder our ability to
    rapidly move data, information, and intelligence throughout all
    echelons. Some policies limit our ability to access essential data
    bases while some limit our ability to move classified information to
    the tactical echelons and soldier. Others limit the sharing of certain
    types of data or intelligence. Another challenge is our tactics,
    techniques and procedures that we continue to use that were instituted
    prior to the advent of computers and current technology enablers.
    Existing TTP dictate an echeloned, stovepiped approach to requesting
    and passing intelligence. This slows and seriously limits the sharing
    or integration of data and knowledge, thereby impeding intelligence
    integration within the Intelligence Community and slowing and negating
    rapid intelligence sharing with the tactical echelons and soldier--
    impacting the ability to rapidly execute operations.
        (3) Funding our Intelligence Transformation initiatives: Over the
    last several months, the Army has validated our Actionable Intelligence
    initiatives as enablers of modularity and larger Army transformation.
    This is a first and critical step toward achieving these goals. The
    next and equally critical step is committing the funds to implement
    these initiatives. To date, we have the funding required to begin
    pursuing our initiatives for DCGS-A. At the same time, we are
    reprioritizing within the Army budget to fund emerging requirements
    within the Information Dominance Center such as Red Teaming, Project
    Foundry, and The Pantheon Project. In the past, we have sustained
    minimal IDC operations with the assistance of Congress and the OSD. We
    are very appreciative of your support. We are convinced that the
    advancements we have made over the last couple of years are a
    tremendous return on that investment. However, the IDC's participation
    in recent and ongoing operations and the lessons learned from Project
    Morning Calm have expanded its mission focus and support concept. The
    IDC has become integral to the battle rhythm of engaged forces and
    should therefore be funded as a formal Army program vice dependence on
    supplementals and congressional aids. We are also working with the USDI
    and the agencies on support for those functions and capabilities that
    support the joint fight.

                             OUR FOCUS, THE SOLDIER

        Our focus is on the soldier of an Army that is fighting a war,
    resetting our forces, and transforming to the future. Our dynamic
    environment features new technologies, nontraditional missions and
    unconventional, elusive adversaries requiring radically different
    operating capabilities, tactics, techniques and procedures. Focus Area
    Actionable Intelligence is the vehicle for Army Intelligence
    transformation. Evolutions in sensing, communications, fusion and
    analysis will solidify the foundation of the Army's ability to conduct
    integrated and shared knowledge-based operations. Our emphasis is on
    addressing current operational mission requirements, while maintaining
    first advantage in capabilities--constantly focused on connecting the
    network--linking the soldier. At its very core, however, the conduct of
    intelligence analysis remains a human endeavor. Technology creates
    possibilities; humans turn possibilities into realities.

                                   CONCLUSION

        The Army is at an historic crossroad. Our dynamic environment
    features new technologies, non-traditional missions and unconventional
    adversaries requiring radically different operating capabilities,
    tactics, techniques, and procedures. In response to this, the Army is
    transforming from top to bottom, even while engaging in combat
    operations, fighting an adversary unwilling and unable to challenge us
    directly, yet able to adapt to take advantage of real or perceived
    weaknesses. The funding provided is critical and essential in enabling
    our soldiers to continue to take the fight to the enemy.
        In closing, our common goal is to provide the best possible
    capabilities for our soldiers. We all know that our soldiers--our young
    men and women, America's finest--deserve nothing less than the best we
    all can do and provide for them. On behalf of the entire Army
    Intelligence Community, we appreciate your interest and support as we
    fight the current war, adapt our current force to the fight, and
    continuously transform--always building towards a future force. Thank
    you for allowing me the opportunity to address you in this forum and we
    sincerely appreciate your resolute support to our greatest assets, our
    soldiers.

        Senator Allard. We'll hear now from Admiral Porterfield,
    Director of Naval Intelligence.

    STATEMENT OF REAR ADM. RICHARD B. PORTERFIELD, USN, DIRECTOR OF
              NAVAL INTELLIGENCE, HEADQUARTERS, U.S. NAVY

        Admiral Porterfield. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you for the opportunity to appear here today.
        I want to tell you that the Navy, like the Services of my
    other colleagues, is in the midst of two really fundamental
    changes. First, we're in the middle of transformation, and
    we're also fighting a war, and that's simultaneously. I think
    that what we, in the Navy, see there are great challenges to
    this and we also see great opportunities to effect long overdue
    changes.
        In the recent active combat, the Navy found that we were
    deficient in our HUMINT; and, in closed session, I want to go
    over what we're intending to do about that.
        We also found that we were deficient in our ability to
    support naval special warfare, which we believe could well be,
    in the future, one of the very first naval assets to be
    employed in any conflict, because the nature of the war that
    we're facing has greatly changed.
        The third thing that we've found is that we've gotten very
    good at what we'll call ``time-critical strike,'' the ability
    to hit fixed or mobile targets on the land mass, but it's now
    time for the Navy to focus on the maritime domain because of
    some of the challenges that we see in the future in that arena.
    Antisubmarine warfare is a key issue for us, and it's driving
    some of the things that we're looking for.
        I also want to point out that, to use a saying that the
    highway administration uses, ``speed kills.'' The Navy's focus
    is on getting our capability to the fight quickly, to
    accomplish the movement of intelligence to warfare commanders
    and our warfighters on the ground and at sea and in the air
    very quickly. That's one of our fundamental tenets, and it is
    something that we're working very hard on.
        I also want to say that there's a great deal of
    interdependencies among the service capabilities and the joint
    capabilities which are currently under discussion, and I think
    that's important for you to realize that they all have to work
    together in order to be optimized. We're talking about
    persistent surveillance often, but we also need to think about
    persistent analysis and the ability to move the data to the
    right place at the right time quickly.
        I want to also mention to Senator Nelson that Scott
    Speicher is a continuing high priority for the Department of
    the Navy. We continue to examine every shred of evidence and
    working with our DIA and Iraqi Survey Group colleagues, Major
    General Dayton, that continues to be a very high focus for
    Secretary England and Admiral Vern Clark.
        Senator Bill Nelson. I just met with General Dayton.
        Admiral Porterfield. Yes, sir.
        With that, sir, I want to yield the remainder of my time,
    and will be glad to take questions either here or in closed
    session.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Porterfield follows:]

          Prepared Statement by Rear Adm. Richard B. Porterfield, USN

                                I. INTRODUCTION

        Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
    inviting me to testify. I welcome the opportunity to once again appear
    before you to discuss the state of Naval Intelligence. I want to
    express my sincere gratitude for your support of the United States
    Navy. At no time has that support been more vital than it is today, as
    we continue to fight a global war on terrorism, projecting decisive
    joint power across the globe. Naval Intelligence is engaged worldwide,
    meeting the current intelligence demands of our joint forces while
    transforming to meet future joint ISR requirements. The Naval
    Intelligence program is consistent with Dr. Cambone's Defense
    Intelligence Goals and we continue to work closely with the USDI and
    the other Services to shape an effective and efficient Defense
    intelligence program. Reflecting the priorities set forth in my annual
    guidance as Director of Naval Intelligence, I will focus today's
    remarks on three topics:

             Naval Intelligence support to global operations;
             Lessons learned and transformational initiatives;
             Navy ISR Roadmap and program highlights.

              II. NAVAL INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO GLOBAL OPERATIONS

        I am proud to inform you of the outstanding work being performed by
    the Navy's intelligence team around the world. A trademark of the Navy
    is being forward deployed and fully engaged in providing for the
    Nation's security. Today, there are two Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs)
    and four Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESGs) deployed globally. Each
    deployed force possesses fully manned afloat intelligence centers and
    ships signals exploitation spaces, which provide imagery and targeting
    analysis, cryptanalysis, and ISR battle management support to U.S. and
    Coalition Naval Forces. In addition to our CSG and ESGs Nuclear-Powered
    Attack Submarines (SSN) are forward deployed, providing both strike and
    ISR capability and Navy EP-3 and P-3 AIP aircraft are providing multi-
    sensor intelligence collection in support of joint and coalition
    forces. Forty percent of our manpower is invested in joint
    intelligence, providing maritime intelligence expertise to each of our
    combatant commanders.
        Here at home, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is heavily
    engaged on a daily basis providing critical maritime intelligence to
    support the multi-agency homeland security effort, focusing its
    maritime shipping, cargo and proliferation expertise on denying
    terrorists the use of the seas. In the past year, ONI has partnered
    with the U.S. Coast Guard's Intelligence Coordination Center and
    established a 24-hour a day, 7 day a week, National Maritime Watch in
    direct support of Northern Command's (NORTHCOM) mission to ensure the
    maritime homeland defense of the U.S. Each day, we report on vessels of
    interest en route U.S. ports, identifying those that pose a potential
    national security threat. At the same time, ONI continues to be
    instrumental in taking the fight to the enemy by providing critical
    intelligence support to global Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO).

            III. LESSONS LEARNED AND TRANSFORMATIONAL INITIATITIVES

        Our experiences during recent combat operations have highlighted
    the need for enhanced Naval Intelligence expertise in several areas,
    particularly collection management, HUMINT, and support to Special
    Warfare. In addition to revitalizing Navy HUMINT, the Chief of Naval
    Operations (CNO), in his Guidance for 2004, directed us to focus on
    improving our global maritime awareness and merchant ship tracking
    capabilities, and delivering advanced ISR capabilities within FORCEnet.
    He also directed us to support these efforts through improvements to
    the development and integration of our total force of civilian, active,
    and Reserve intelligence personnel. In response, we have commenced a
    number of transformational initiatives, while modifying our fleet
    exercises to better stress and test our skills in joint operations.

    A. HUMINT Transformation
        There is a continuing need, consistent with the President's budget,
    to grow and sustain the Navy HUMINT capability. ONI has strengthened
    and will continue to expand its HUMINT capability with emphasis in
    Interrogation of Prisoners of War (IPW) and Civil Maritime Collection
    Operations.
        Demonstrating the total force concept, 69 naval reservists have
    been mobilized since September 11 to support these HUMINT efforts. ONI
    overt HUMINT collectors have accompanied the U.S. Coast Guard on more
    than 3,250 boardings of foreign vessels since September 11. We are
    transitioning this capability from a force consisting primarily of
    mobilized reservists to a more permanent full-time capability.

    B. Maritime Intelligence Transformation
        The ONI continues its Maritime Intelligence transformation--both in
    its support to the global war on terrorism and in its emerging role of
    providing direct support to theater naval forces. ONI continues its
    efforts to improve the detection, identification, and tracking of
    merchant shipping activity worldwide. To support national and theater
    maritime intelligence requirements, ONI has strengthened its strategic
    relationships with numerous regional partners. These maritime
    information exchanges provide valuable regional maritime information,
    much of which is not available from other sources. ONI's Automated
    Merchant Reporting System is a critical component of this effort.

    C. Fleet Intelligence Transformation
        ONI is also transforming its support to the fleet. As we learned
    during OIF, combat operations often placed a high demand for imagery
    exploitation capabilities in support of targeting and battle damage
    assessment (BDA). Recognizing the need to improve imagery analysis
    support to forward-deployed forces, the Navy and ONI established the
    Fleet Imagery Support Team (FIST). FIST will provide direct support to
    deploying battlegroups by increasing our imagery analysis capabilities
    afloat, our reachback capabilities for analysis of tactical imagery
    ashore, and the ability of forward-deployed forces to leverage ONI's
    analytical and technical expertise. FIST will improve the near real-
    time imagery support required to support Time Critical Strike missions.
    Specifically, FIST will improve the CSG and ESG's ability to task,
    process, exploit, and disseminate theater and tactical ISR sensor data
    such as that obtained from Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) UAVs
    and other developmental and existing systems.
        Another priority mission for ONI is analysis of the worldwide
    submarine threat. ONI has focused its efforts in two areas: assessing
    submarine capabilities, and projecting future force levels to support
    DOD and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) acquisition
    community requirements. ONI also devoted considerable analytic effort
    to develop projections of worldwide naval systems and weapons
    capabilities over the next 20 years. These detailed projections are
    used to support wargaming scenarios, which in turn, support the
    acquisition decisionmaking process.

    D. Total Force Transformation
        As I mention earlier in my testimony, recent combat operations have
    highlighted the need for enhanced Naval Intelligence expertise in
    collection management, HUMINT, and support to Special Warfare. In
    response, we have aligned our training and manpower management
    processes to better support the development, tracking, and application
    of these capabilities.
        A key milestone of this effort is the development of the
    Intelligence Officer Professional Qualification Program (PQP), which
    responds to OIF lessons learned and a recently completed intelligence
    officer job task analysis. We are expanding our Additional
    Qualification Designator (AQD) program to track the core skill areas
    mentioned above in addition to our existing Navy Targeting Officer and
    Joint Targeting Officer AQDs. Similarly, we are refocusing Active and
    Reserve Intelligence Specialists (IS) toward the core skill areas of
    imagery analysis, strike warfare, and operational intelligence, and
    coding all enlisted billets to accurately reflect current and future
    skill requirements. This is part of our broader effort to evolve the IS
    rating into an Advanced Technical Field.
        The Navy continues to face major challenges in accessing and
    retaining sailors with the right skills to meet emerging requirements--
    both ashore and afloat. Ensuring the Fleet is manned with the right
    people with the right skills is as important as equipping them with the
    latest technology and tools. Naval Intelligence is leading the way in
    the CNO's broader efforts to revolutionize training in the Navy and
    achieve full integration of our active and Reserve components.
        Last summer, we established the Center for Naval Intelligence in
    Virginia Beach, Virginia as one of several learning centers supporting
    the CNOs' Revolution in Training initiative. This center is responsible
    for all Navy intelligence training, education, and professional
    development, including oversight of the Navy and Marine Corps
    Intelligence Training Center (NMITC) in Virginia Beach and the Fleet
    Intelligence Training Center (FITCPAC) in San Diego. We are embracing
    new technologies and applying human performance development concepts
    from the science of learning. We are revising every aspect of our
    current training processes and incorporating computer-based training
    and realistic team trainers that form the centerpiece of training at
    the Center for Naval Intelligence as well as the Center for Cryptology
    at Corry Station in Pensacola.
        This year, with the support of the Naval Reserve Intelligence
    Program leadership, we developed a Naval Intelligence Community Roadmap
    to guide our officer and enlisted professional development and advance
    the full integration of our active and Reserve components. Based on
    requirements validated by Fleet Forces Command, this roadmap helps us
    define skill requirements to meet emergent missions, tailor skill
    training to specific job tasks, and make sure Reserve component
    capabilities augment or complement active component capabilities.
        The most important personnel action concerns our initial accession
    contracts for active-duty sailors. Beginning this fiscal year, we
    shifted to a 6-year obligation, Advanced Technical Field enlistment
    contract. These sailors will report aboard ship fully trained and
    qualified to support fleet combat operations from day one. For example,
    starting with the October 2003 class, sailors awarded the strike
    warfare qualification code arrived in the fleet certified to develop
    aimpoints for precision-guided munitions.

                     IV. ISR ROADMAP AND PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

    A. Navy ISR Transformation
        FORCEnet is the centerpiece of the Navy's transformation to a
    network centric environment. The vision of FORCEnet is a single,
    enterprise-wide, open architecture. It will reach across all programs
    to create a continuous information environment across the Navy and will
    serve as the key enabler for Sea Power 21 capabilities. Naval
    Intelligence intends to remain at the forefront of this initiative and
    ensure our intelligence programs are fully integrated.
        At the heart of Navy's plan to integrate a net-centric ISR
    capability into FORCEnet is the DCGS. The DCGS family of systems will
    not only support integration of tactical, theater and national ISR
    capabilities into Naval warfare operations, but it will also ensure
    that a distributed network of Navy ISR sensors can contribute directly
    to a Joint common operational picture via the Global Information Grid
    (GIG). The Navy recently created a single program office for the Joint
    Services Imagery Processing System (JSIPS) and the TES to facilitate
    incorporating these programs into our DCGS effort. Although primarily
    focused on supporting strike warfare and time critical targeting, the
    objective is for the Navy's DCGS to support all naval warfare domains.
    This initial consolidation is the first step toward developing a Navy
    DCGS capability that is compatible with the DCGS Integrated Backbone
    (DIB) and the Joint DCGS architecture.
        I am a co-lead in the FORCEnet project, primarily to ensure that
    the Navy's ISR capabilities and investments remain a core component of
    Navy Network Centric Operations (NCO). Furthermore, the Navy staff has
    recently established an ISR branch within the warfare requirements
    directorate, headed by a naval intelligence flag officer. This move is
    an acknowledgement that ISR has become a critical warfighting
    component.

    B. Airborne ISR Programs
        Last year at this time the Navy had not yet decided on the way
    ahead to replace the aging EP-3 ARIES II system. I am pleased to report
    this year that a Navy variant of the Army's ACS will meet the Navy's
    requirements for a manned multi-INT airborne ISR capability. Navy ACS
    will exceed current EP-3 capabilities, while promising improved
    airframe reliability and reduced operating costs. Navy ACS will be
    tailored to support the Navy's warfighting and ISR concept of
    operations (CONOP).
        Persistent surveillance over open-ocean and littoral areas remains
    critical to establishing and maintaining comprehensive battlespace
    awareness in a dynamic maritime environment. This is especially true
    when potential adversaries are equipped with long-range anti-ship
    cruise missiles. The high altitude endurance (HAE) BAMS UAV is designed
    to provide the necessary persistent ISR capability required by CSG,
    ESG, and the Joint Forces Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) to
    support Joint Operations. Navy will acquire two modified Global Hawk
    UAVs as part of a Maritime Demonstration to rapidly inject a persistent
    UAV into the Fleet. These systems will be used to develop the CONOPs
    and procedures required for introduction of BAMS UAV. BAMS UAV will
    complement other Navy maritime surveillance systems such as the P-3 and
    Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA).
        For tactical reconnaissance, the Shared Reconnaissance Pod (SHARP)
    represents a significant increase over the legacy TARPS system, adding
    a robust night capability, high bandwidth data-link, increased
    standoff, and an all-digital imagery system. SHARP is scheduled for
    formal operational evaluation (OPEVAL) in late fiscal year 2004, but
    experienced a very successful early operational capability (EOC)
    deployment aboard U.S.S. Nimitz during OIF.
        ACS, the BAMS UAV, and other Navy ISR systems, will be designed to
    ``plug in'' to Navy DCGS/FORCEnet, allowing rapid distribution of ISR
    data to Navy and Joint users, and key Navy and Joint analysis nodes for
    further processing. Naval forces will also be able to access ISR data,
    from joint assets such as Global Hawk and Army ACS, via the DCGS
    architecture.

    C. Surface and Subsurface ISR Systems
        The Maritime Cryptologic Strategy for the 21st Century (MCS-21) is
    our vision for integrating existing cryptologic capabilities with
    advanced technologies to create a single, scaleable, interoperable
    SIGINT system. Spiral E of SSEE, the first step toward achieving the
    MCS-21 vision, will provide improved front-end sensor capabilities by
    incorporating easily reconfigurable software receivers. Also included
    are radio direction finding and Information Warfare capabilities and an
    embedded scenario-based training package. The result is significantly
    enhanced threat detection and identification for warship commanders.
        As the threat environment evolves, submarines remain a potential
    high-interest threat. Accordingly, Navy continues to invest in ISR
    capabilities that will monitor emerging undersea threats and provide
    cueing to tactical ASW assets.
        For our submarines, the latest Submarine Electronic Support
    Measures (SSEM) equipment will provide an advanced capability for both
    open-ocean and littoral environments. The system includes a sensor
    suite, processing and analytical tools to provide self-protection,
    situational awareness and, when augmented by special additional gear,
    an undersea ISR capability.
        Taken together, these airborne, surface and subsurface systems
    provide the flexible, scaleable, comprehensive ISR capability required
    to meet current and emerging threats and support naval, joint, and
    coalition forces at the tip of the spear.

                                 V. CHALLENGES

        My greatest challenges fall into two basic categories:

              (1) Determining the optimum skill mix and distribution of
            personnel between the analytical capabilities needed afloat
            with those that can be accomplished via reach-back;
              (2) Identifying the emerging sensing and processing
            capabilities that affect this mix.

        Ultimately the success of our ISR vision, and its contribution to
    naval warfare, depends on the individual sailor and whether we've given
    him the skills and tools to do his job well. Innovations in digital
    classrooms and team trainers are clearly a positive step but the trend
    toward more technologically advanced ships manned by smaller crews
    complicates the task ahead. To achieve our goals we will have to do
    more things, and do them better, with fewer people or make huge strides
    in our remoting capabilities to facilitate improved ashore/afloat
    collaboration. Equally challenging is our ongoing effort to determine
    the best mix of ISR sensors Naval Forces will need to fulfill
    warfighting requirements, and then correlate this sensor mix with
    appropriate air, surface, and subsurface manned and unmanned platforms.
    Realistically, we will have to pursue our vision on both fronts.

                                 VI. CONCLUSION

        In conclusion, I want to thank this committee and Congress for the
    consistent support you have provided Naval Intelligence. I've talked
    today about our current support to global operations of all types, our
    response to lessons learned from recent combat operations, and our
    efforts to build the right naval ISR system of systems at the right
    cost, while developing our human capital to effectively utilize those
    capabilities in support of naval and joint forces going into harm's
    way. Our priorities are reflected in our fiscal year 2005 budget
    submission and form the foundation of our ISR roadmap and
    transformational strategy. I hope I have conveyed the breadth and depth
    of naval intelligence's contribution to ongoing operations. Our
    transformation efforts will shape a future Navy intelligence capability
    that is an even more powerful enabler to joint and naval forces,
    providing the Nation with unmatched maritime intelligence capabilities.

        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        Now we'll call on Major General Sams, U.S. Air Force
    Director of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
        Welcome.

       STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RONALD F. SAMS, USAF, DIRECTOR OF
     INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE, DEPARTMENT OF
                             THE AIR FORCE

        General Sams. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,
    it's my honor to talk to you about Air Force intelligence.
        It was almost a year ago that an Air Force Global Hawk,
    flying over a suspected Iraqi surface-to-air missile (SAM)
    site, sent missile data information and the pictures it took to
    a ground site at Beale Air Force Base, California. That ground
    site took that information and pumped it immediately to an
    imagery analyst in Nevada. Within 2 minutes after those images
    were received, the analysts discovered the Iraqi SAM site. The
    data was then sent, within 10 minutes, to the Combined Air
    Operations Center (CAOC); and 57 minutes after that Global Hawk
    saw that Iraqi SAM site, a B-2 was reprogrammed with a
    precision weapon and took out the site.
        On that same day, a Predator was flying, looking for
    missile transporters, and actually spotted some Iraqi tanks in
    a tree-line. Predator video was also sent back via our
    distributed systems to analysts back in the States, who sent
    the information to the CAOC, who then sent it to the airborne
    aircraft; and 17 minutes after the initial Predator video was
    transmitted, those tanks were destroyed.
        Now, these two examples illustrate what we talk about in
    terms of the results of Air Force ISR, which is a crosshair and
    a target. It also serves to illustrate where we're going in
    ISR, because time-critical targets require rapid movement of
    information and rapid targeting of weapons, and our first
    priority to the combatant commander will always be to prosecute
    those targets through global persistent surveillance, through a
    combination of ground and airborne and space-based sensors and
    systems.
        To better make our ISR capabilities available to combatant
    commanders, the Air Force has aligned ISR and command and
    control (C-2) wings under a single-numbered air force, 8th Air
    Force, which is responsible for their training and readiness.
    At the headquarters level, we've established a Deputy Chief of
    Staff for Warfighting Integration, who's responsible for Air
    Force C-2 and ISR interoperability at the technical and
    operational levels.
        The examples I referred to earlier also illustrate the
    success of networking our information. Through use of reachback
    to distributed analytic centers, we have access, in a matter of
    seconds, to analysts worldwide. During Operation Desert Storm,
    the DCGS at Langley Air Force Base was deployed forward, and so
    was the one at Beale. Today, if we deployed those two centers
    forward, it would cost us about 17 C-5s, and would cost us
    about a million--maybe up to $50 million to move all that
    equipment, and not to mention the people. Today, through
    reachback, the Air Force doesn't have to deploy all of those
    people forward. The technology allows us to leverage our
    expertise from a myriad of analysts around the world from our
    Active and Reserve Forces. We also substantially reduce the
    number of people that we have to move forward, or, as we like
    to say, ``When possible, we'll move digits and not people.''
        As demonstrated during OIF, our U-2 continues to be an
    extremely capable multi-intelligence platform. It is a true
    workhorse today. It is not the same U-2 that was flown by
    Francis Gary Powers during the Cold War. In fact, airframe-
    wise, it's one of our youngest, and we believe it'll remain
    viable until at least the year 2025.
        Now, a few years ago, it was my honor to be the commander
    of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base. My RC-135 fleet was
    extremely busy then; it is extremely busy now, and the Rivet
    Joints continue to be our heavy-lift SIGINT platform with an
    airframe that should last through at least 2023.
        We are continuing our spiral development of our Global Hawk
    to a multi-INT platform. Though the Global Hawk is still in
    development, it provided over 28,000 images during OIF, and
    over 3,000 of those helped prosecute time-critical targets.
        Predator continues to be a success. All the Predators that
    we purchase now will be capable of delivering weapons. We are
    also developing our Predator B into a true hunter-killer
    aircraft capable of automatic target queuing and prosecuting
    time-critical targets.
        Our investment in the DCGS, version 10.2, will provide the
    communications backbone that will help all Services plug into
    this, and use their own communication architectures so that we
    can spread data when and where it's needed.
        Our investment in SBR and Space-Based Infrared System is
    significant, but it's critical to global persistent
    surveillance. When these systems are operational, it will mean
    that the enemy really has no place to hide, day or night or in
    adverse weather. Our vision is to give the enemy no place to
    hide, to know what the enemy is doing all the time, to be
    inside the enemy's decision cycle so that we can engage
    anytime, in any place at our choosing.
        Thank you very much for my few minutes, and I look forward
    to discussing this with you later.
        [The prepared statement of General Sams follows:]

              Prepared Statement by Maj. Gen. Ronald F. Sams, USAF

                                OPENING REMARKS

        Mr Chairman, distinguished members of the committee. It is an honor
    to provide you my vision of Air Force ISR and also to discuss some
    important lessons learned from recent, and ongoing, military
    operations. As we work closely with the newly established USDI, we see
    a future in which Air Force ISR will greatly contribute to our Nation's
    ability to dominate the enemy's information space. Our first priority
    is to provide the combatant commanders with the means to prosecute
    global and persistent surveillance from a combination of airborne,
    ground, and space-based capabilities. To that end, the Air Force
    realigned its ISR and command and control (C2) wings under a single
    numbered Air Force commander, responsible for all ISR training and
    readiness. The realignment of Air Force ISR under 8th Air Force in 2002
    was a total force initiative--providing the combatant commander with a
    coherent, integrated force capable of meeting tomorrow's information
    intense environments. Our outlook for the future also calls for
    significant increases in operational integration across all domains--
    joint, allied, and coalition partners. In 2002 we also established a
    Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter Integration to ensure a coherent
    look at all Air Force ISR and C2 interoperability at the technical and
    operational levels. In addition to improved methods for
    interoperability and information sharing with our partners, we see
    great opportunities for achieving information dominance through
    increased networked centric intelligence operations and broadband
    reachback to our distributed analytical centers. Based on lessons
    learned from ongoing conflicts, our analytical centers are also
    adapting to provide the warfighters with ``predictive'' intelligence
    through multi-INT approaches to include extensive analysis of open
    source information. For example, assessment of terrorist and
    proliferator use of civil aviation, whether compiling basic
    intelligence or identifying potentially hijacked aircraft threats, will
    require an unprecedented degree of integration of open source and
    classified data streams. We have explored the means to fully integrate
    these data sources with promising results. Last, our vision for
    information dominance is founded on a balanced investment and
    modernization strategy that leverages off of industry's key
    technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicles, radar and signals
    intelligence processing, access to commercial imagery satellite
    communications, and distributed networking capabilities.
        On the eve of OIF, the Air Force was prepared to provide rapid,
    comprehensive, and precise targeting to support the joint warfighter.
    This capability was supported via a joint multi-intelligence framework
    (SIGINT, IMINT, and MASINT), which in turn provided an actionable
    battlespace picture to the warfighter. The plan achieved regional ISR
    persistence, with distributed operations, and incorporated reach-back
    to provide more flexibility and analytical capability. One of the
    extraordinary results achieved from this synergy was the ability of the
    Joint Forces Air Component Commander (JFACC) to engage multiple targets
    per sortie, vs. the WWII-era standard of hundreds of sorties per
    target.
        As I provide an operational overview of some of our major ISR
    programs, I will also highlight some of the lessons learned during
    recent and ongoing operations. Some of our most significant
    accomplishments involve the integration of multiple ISR assets to
    produce an effective ISR architecture. Recent operations have found us
    integrating information from our mainstay ISR fleet, including the U-2
    and the RC-135; and our UAV programs, Predator and Global Hawk with
    space based ISR systems. Much of this integration has been made
    possible by our continuing evolution of the DCGS. In addition to our
    traditional ISR capabilities, we are continuing our efforts to improve
    and integrate MASINT and Non-Traditional Intelligence, Surveillance,
    and Reconnaissance (NTISR) into our ISR collection and processing
    capabilities.
        Beyond the hardware, no discussion of ISR capabilities would be
    complete without addressing what the Chief of Staff of the Air Force
    refers to as ``the heart of our combat capability'' . . . our airmen.
    Air Force intelligence personnel continue to perform in a consistently
    outstanding manner in a number of ongoing joint and coalition
    operations. Before closing my overview of Air Force ISR, I will address
    some of our ongoing force management efforts, which assist in defining,
    renewing, developing, and sustaining our intelligence force structure.

                                ISR ARCHITECTURE

        The integration of theater and national ISR assets during OIF
    reflects the tremendous potential of truly integrated ISR to transform
    combat operations. The Air Force pursued several programs to integrate
    air and space ISR capabilities into the CAOC. A key integrating program
    for theater ISR is the Air Force DCGS. The operational effectiveness of
    network-centric operations was validated during Operations Enduring
    Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The DCGS weapon system provided the
    combatant commander a global, distributed architecture for theater ISR
    via a combination of reachback and forward deployed systems and
    personnel. This reachback effort included TPED for Predator, Global
    Hawk, and U-2 missions. We teamed with the national agencies, and other
    mission partners to provide unprecedented ISR coverage throughout OEF
    and OIF. The success of both of these operations was enabled by
    integrating ISR asset capabilities into the DCGS network, which allowed
    us to cross-cue information among platforms and sensors, and pass on
    fused actionable intelligence to commanders and strikers in real time
    to execute coordinated, synergistic combat operations.
        In fiscal year 2005 we begin fielding the Block 10.2 Multi-INT Core
    baseline of DCGS. The centerpiece of this baseline is the DCGS DIB. The
    DIB is the foundation of the DOD DCGS transformation to net-centric
    operations. The Services cooperatively developed DIB technical
    requirements to ensure joint interoperability and enable net-centric
    operations. The Services have committed to being interoperable with the
    DIB, and a DOD-level governance process has been established to ensure
    compliance. The improvements to our space and terrestrial
    infrastructure, modernization of our legacy baseline, and the
    integration of the DIB, will provide the combatant commander
    unprecedented access to decision quality information for operations
    anywhere on the globe.
        As warfighters, we focus engagement-based intelligence with the
    concept General Jumper calls ``cursor on the target.'' Cursor on the
    target does not imply that we will always use intelligence to destroy
    enemy equipment or attack their forces. In some cases, we put the
    cursor on the target to simply learn more by focusing collection with
    ISR sensors.
        At the heart of this approach is predictive analysis. Based on what
    we know of terrain, weather, enemy training, capabilities and habits,
    we focus our application of military intelligence on what is possible
    and likely. We cannot chase an infinite set of possibilities, but
    rather, must frame the problem for our decisionmakers. Leveraging this
    predictive analysis tied to a network centric ISR architecture through
    DCGS enables us to optimize limited ISR assets.
        While we've spoken to the architecture, these successes aren't
    possible without the specific programs and people making it happen.

                                U-2 DRAGON LADY

        The U-2 continues to be the most capable multi-intelligence
    platform in our inventory, as was demonstrated during OIF. We are in
    the final stages of a decade long upgrade program to the aircraft,
    sensors and data links and we are in the initial stages of fielding
    this new capability. We will be fielding additional capability over the
    course of the next couple of years as systems complete operational
    testing and evaluation.
        The U-2 continues to be at the forefront of Air Force
    reconnaissance, enhancing our strategic competencies for warning,
    providing data needed for time sensitive targeting and enhanced data
    links speeding information to multiple users. The U-2 is a lynchpin in
    Air Force efforts to network and integrate ISR into warfighter C2 and
    will remain a viable and necessary ISR asset.

                   RC-135 RIVET JOINT/COBRA BALL/COMBAT SENT

        The RC-135 fleet continues to be in high demand by the unified
    combatant commanders in support of the global war on terrorism, because
    of its state of the art airborne collection system, and adaptability.
        Baseline modifications allow us to adapt quickly to time-critical
    unified combatant commanders' requirements, and field capabilities as a
    direct result of lessons learned from OIF and OEF into future
    baselines.
        We currently project the RC-135 fleet to remain viable well into
    the 2020s and perform the role of heavy-lift SIGINT in the Air Force's
    scaleable, networked ISR architecture. This long-term viability is, in
    part, based on two major upgrades to the fleet that enhance the overall
    reliability, maintainability, and sustainability of the platforms. The
    re-engining effort to equip all RC-135s with CFM-56 engines has already
    paid huge dividends with zero maintenance write-ups for the new engines
    during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Another vital modification, well
    underway, is the modernization of our cockpit instrumentation and
    systems. This major upgrade will provide the infrastructure to meet new
    International Civilian Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements for
    global air traffic and navigation.
        The global war on terrorism has dramatically expanded our target.
    Mission ready enlisted aircrews remain a challenge with the expanding
    operational tempo required to meet the worldwide support requirements.
    We continue to address these issues in order to meet future combatant
    commander requirements. We have maximized linguist-recruiting
    accessions and filled our training pipeline. We are addressing
    retention through offering higher re-enlistment bonuses, continually
    working to alleviate operations and personnel tempo issues, and
    refining airborne linguist career field management to maintain our
    current pool of linguists.
        Even as we work to increase the availability of the RC-135 fleet
    and address our manning challenges, the fleet will remain a Low
    Density/High Demand (LD/HD) asset. Combatant commanders across the
    globe depend on the capability RC-135s bring to their theaters. To meet
    this challenging LD/HD situation, we will continue our high priority
    efforts to maximize the utility of all available assets, enhance
    aircrew training across the board and continue to improve management of
    our linguist career fields. Further, to counter rapidly emerging
    threats, we will continue updating RC-135 collection systems to ensure
    warfighters are armed with accurate, timely and actionable
    intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

                             MQ-1 AND MQ-9 PREDATOR

        We continue to develop the Predator system into fiscal year 2005.
    Most noteworthy is our development of the MQ-9 Predator B `Hunter-
    Killer' aircraft capable of automatically cueing and prosecuting
    critical emerging Time-Sensitive Targets (TSTs) with a self-contained
    hard-kill capability to include precision-guided munitions. This will
    provide a persistent, armed reconnaissance multi-mission UAV operating
    higher and faster than the MQ-1 and with a greatly increased payload
    capacity.

                                RQ-4 GLOBAL HAWK

        As it did for OEF, the Global Hawk deployed in support of Operation
    Iraqi Freedom and was able to provide critical support for the
    warfighter. The persistence, flexibility, and responsiveness of this
    system were once again proven successful, where it demonstrated the
    capability to image anywhere in the area of operations. Its ability to
    deviate from pre-planned flight tracks combined with its simultaneous
    carriage of EO, IR, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors offers
    the flexibility to respond to dynamic environmental conditions to
    achieve the best available collection.
        The Global Hawk is a tremendous addition to our ISR fleet
    capability. The persistence and long dwell capabilities preclude an
    enemy's sanctuary from reconnaissance or surveillance. It also affords
    theater commanders the ability to plan for and execute a standard, pre-
    planned collection mission while also having plenty of time available
    to execute ad-hoc retasking for emerging or time-critical targets. As
    we field the Global Hawk fleet over the remainder of this decade we
    will achieve significant improvement in our ISR capabilities.

                                   REACHBACK

        Reachback provided desired support without the costs and risks to
    personnel and equipment associated with the deployment. Prior to the
    war, Air Combat Command established the Expeditionary Intelligence
    Group (EIG), a CONUS-based organization. The EIG enabled the CFACC to
    call upon analytical and operational support from over 1,000
    personnel--not all in one location--coordinated by one organization.
    EIG assistance also reduced forward deployment requirements, and
    eliminated the commensurate requirements for base operating support,
    force protection and airlift.

    Commercial Imagery
        The Air Force has recognized the improvements in the quantity,
    quality, and timeliness of Commercial Imagery, and has established a
    robust Commercial Imagery capability to support the full spectrum of
    warfighter requirements. The 480 Intelligence Wing serves as the Combat
    Air Forces premier reach back intelligence production center for the
    global war on terrorism, and is the Air Force's primary producer of
    Commercial Imagery products.
        The first Air Force Controlled Image Base (AF-CIB) production in
    support of OEF was completed within 3 days of September 11. This made
    possible production-enabled mission planning for current operations.
    Non-Traditional Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance
        NTISR was developed to address the need for additional ISR
    collection by tasking aircraft to record weapons system video of
    selected targets. Aircraft with targeting pods traditionally used for
    targeting purposes, were tasked to locate, identify, and assess
    potential/emerging targets and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA).

                        FORCE DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT

        During OIF, deployment of Air Force intelligence professionals
    jumped to a level almost 10 times greater than the pre-September 11
    numbers. In our new ``steady state'' operations, the number of
    intelligence personnel deployed at any given time is still far in
    excess of that experienced before September 11. This dramatic increase
    in our expeditionary commitments has placed tremendous stress on our
    ISR workforce. This is especially true with LD/HD skills such as
    targeting, collection management, imagery intelligence, and
    cryptologic-linguists in selected language groups. However, we are
    making strides in addressing this issue: in fiscal year 2004, Air Force
    Intelligence received additional authorizations to support stressed
    career-fields, and for fiscal year 2005, AF Intelligence will receive
    more authorizations. Additionally, our Air Reserve component continues
    to make vital contributions to meeting Air Expeditionary Force
    requirements.
        We are diligently working to improve the skills of our enlisted,
    officer, civilian, and Air Reserve component intelligence professionals
    by developing career-long Force Development models based upon the Air
    Force Chief of Staff's direction. This effort involves taking a hard
    look at our initial skills, advanced skills, and follow-on unit mission
    readiness training for the total force. In our initial skills courses,
    we are reviewing combatant command requirements to ensure entry-level
    airmen have the skills necessary to meet both steady-state and wartime
    requirements. For advanced skills training, we have developed two new
    courses, the ISR Operations Course and the Intelligence Master Skills
    Course, which enhance the operational proficiency and leadership skills
    of mid-career intelligence professionals. At the unit level,
    Intelligence Formal Training Units provide airmen the right training at
    the right time on specific weapon systems and mission areas. In
    addition, we will continue to leverage educational opportunities such
    as the Joint Military Intelligence College and the NSA internship
    programs designed to enhance the technical and leadership skills of our
    total force.
        The Air Force's vision for improving intelligence analysis involves
    a three-pronged approach of professional development, analytic tool
    development and technology recapitalization. In the area of
    professional development, the Air Force Intelligence division sponsors
    the Quality of Analysis program, which is focused on providing analysts
    with deeper analytical area and functional expertise. The individually
    tailored training may involve travel to foreign countries for
    geographic area familiarization; attendance at academic seminars,
    scientific symposia and equipment exhibitions; and visits to Federal
    and private research centers and laboratories. At the National Air and
    Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), there is a professional development
    program for the entire workforce, incorporating education and training,
    mentoring, tradecraft, and a civilian career development program to
    ensure that analysts have the skills they need to serve our country to
    their highest potential. The second front on which the Air Force is
    working to improve our intelligence analysis capabilities is analytic
    tool development. We are working with the other Services to develop
    products and models in common languages and databases that the entire
    Intelligence Community can use. Examples include IDMATS, which
    characterized foreign Camouflage Concealment and Deception; Joint
    Dynamic Information Operations Decision Environment (DIODE), a links
    and nodes analysis program; and the Threat Modeling and Analysis
    Program (TMAP). The Air Force is also working to operationalize digital
    production, following standards set by the Intelligence Community Chief
    Information Officer. The Digital Production program at the NASIC, when
    complete will allow smart data mining and instant access and search
    capability on thousands of products. Finally, we are exploiting Open
    Source Intelligence (OSINT). The events of September 11 and the A.Q.
    Khan proliferation network have abolished all doubts that civil
    aviation is a vital logistical node for terrorists and proliferators.
    Air Force Intelligence has begun to focus on the full spectrum of this
    problem in order to provide combatant commanders the requisite
    intelligence to support military operations. This must include the
    capability to provide a worldwide, 24/7, real-time air picture.
    Assessment of terrorist and proliferator use of civil aviation, whether
    compiling basic intelligence or identifying potentially hijacked
    aircraft threats, will require an unprecedented degree of integration
    of open source and classified data streams. We have explored the means
    to do this and the results are promising indeed. I regard it as one of
    the most vital services Air Force Intelligence can provide to the
    Nation.
        We are continuously reviewing our manpower utilization and the
    operational requirements placed upon our intelligence force to ensure
    they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to meet our National
    Security objectives.
        The global war on terrorism continues to highlight the need for
    skilled linguist to meet ongoing operational requirements. To amplify
    this LD/HD capability within the Air Force we have increased the
    crypto-linguist training pipeline and number of personnel trained in
    less commonly taught languages critical to global war on terrorism
    operations. Earlier this year we teamed with the Air Force Manpower
    Agency to identify requirements using the Air Force's new Capabilities
    Based Manpower Determinants process. This process takes a holistic end-
    to-end look at weapon system and mission area operations to determine
    force structure needed to provide required warfighting capabilities.
    This process will ensure our combatant commanders have the full
    complement of intelligence resources to meet their needs in peace,
    crisis, and war.

                                   SHORTFALLS

        JFCOM noted, in their final OIF Lessons Learned document, that BDA
    did not keep up with the speed of operations. The Air Force initiated
    the Air Force Assessment Task Force (AFATF) to address a number of the
    issues listed in this document as it pertains to BDA. The AFATF has
    developed a flight plan towards Effects Based Assessment and is
    addressing service and joint issues using the DOTMLPF (Doctrine,
    Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities)
    construct, identifying a number of near-, mid- and long-term solutions.
        JFCOM identified ISR as ``A capability that demonstrated
    considerable effectiveness'' within their OIF Lessons Learned Report.
    However, they also highlight the need for better enemy force locations
    once hostilities began and to measure the effects in a manner that
    supports operational objectives.
        The Air Force's ability to determine enemy composition and
    disposition in support of targeting is being addressed partially via
    the Air Force's Predictive Battlespace Awareness (PBA) Implementation
    Plan. The plan, which has captured some of the work of the PBA
    Integrated Product Team (IPT), is looking at DOTMLPF solutions to
    improve--and expedite--the continuous generation of tailored
    Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) products. Some of
    these solutions will be material in nature and will improve our
    machine-to-machine interfaces, thereby expediting the IPB products used
    by our targeteers and others within the Air and Space Operations Center
    (AOC). In short, a true PBA capability, once fully implemented, will
    enable U.S. Air Force intelligence personnel to determine enemy
    composition and disposition in a more timely fashion, thereby
    supporting our ability to strike, maneuver and generate desired effects
    within the battlespace.

                             CONCLUDING STATEMENTS

        The Chief of Staff of the Air Force has stated ``the sum of all the
    parts of our ISR capability ends with a cursor over the target. . .,''
    and today's Air Force ISR programs are providing the warfighter with
    the tools to achieve this. The Air Force is committed to bringing the
    best ISR capabilities to the fight and providing the intelligence
    capabilities that address both the national security demands of today
    and of the future. The Air Force is proud of its contributions to the
    defense of the Nation, and is especially proud of our people who are
    working every day to support the global war on terrorism. We appreciate
    this opportunity to provide you an overview of our programs--our
    successes, our challenges, and our efforts to ensure that the Air Force
    ISR programs continue to provide the capabilities needed for our
    Nation's security.

        Senator Allard. Next I'd like to call on Mr. Decker,
    Director for Intelligence, United States Marine Corps.

      STATEMENT OF MICHAEL H. DECKER, DIRECTOR FOR INTELLIGENCE,
                HEADQUARTERS, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

        Mr. Decker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
    subcommittee. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about Marine
    Corps intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance today.
        Marine Corps ISR exists to support expeditionary maneuver
    warfare, and specifically it exists to support the commanders'
    planning, decisionmaking, and then execution of expeditionary
    maneuver warfare. We believe that the program that we've
    fielded in OIF, and what we continue to field in our fiscal
    year 2005 program, allows the commander to build a
    comprehensive ISR network that gives him the necessary degree
    of tactical self-sufficiency, while allowing him to reach back
    and network into theater and national sensors. We think that
    we're also an enabler of joint operations because we've put
    these capabilities forward, and that using the tenets of
    horizontal integration, we're building our capabilities to be
    networked into the larger ISR network of the DOD and national
    intelligence agencies.
        We build our systems specifically to support both maneuver
    and targeting. I appreciate the chairman's comments at the
    beginning that the goal here is to support both targeting and
    decisive military operations, because I believe sometimes we
    overemphasize sensor-to-shooter in targeting, and not spend
    enough time on the difficulties involved in supporting maneuver
    to get to the targets on the ground.
        We believe that although these systems are networked to
    support horizontal integration, they are networked as part of a
    larger joint environment, that our systems are tactical by
    nature and that they're funded in TIARA because they really are
    the commanders' systems, and the commander has ownership of his
    intelligence marines and his intelligence systems. The
    information that they may be presenting to the commander may be
    something they got through reachback or through networking in
    that joint and national arena, but what they're doing is, the
    commanders' intelligence marines are presenting to him
    information to support maneuver and targeting, and they're part
    of his warfighting team, and we think that's the best way to do
    this.
        We have some great examples from OIF. We provided, prior to
    D-Day, a lot of reachback support to the marine division. The
    Marine division's initial guidance was to attack due north
    through Al Kut, through a Republican Guard division, and then
    essentially hook left towards Baghdad. The Marine Corps
    Intelligence Activity, under DOD federated intelligence
    production, was asked to study the terrain in between Al Kut,
    where the Baghdad division was, and the terrain between there
    and the Army forces that were maneuvering further west up
    towards Baghdad, to determine if a division could maneuver in
    that area. We determined that that could be done, and that was
    instrumental in the division commander crafting his plan to
    move forward by swinging well to the west of that Baghdad
    infantry division. So that ability to reach back to the
    combination of the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity and the
    national agency's support allowed us to help them make that
    decision. Part two of that decision, though, was based on the
    ability to eliminate any threat from the Baghdad division to be
    able to reach out and touch the right flank of the Marine
    division as they bypassed Al Kut. That was truly a community
    effort in targeting to support the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.
    Those precision-target coordinates, hundreds per day, came from
    the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC). There was
    actually a click-on, on the home page down in Charlottesville,
    where the Marine wing, over in Al Jabar in Kuwait, would click
    on the NGIC home page in Charlottesville, and it said, ``Click
    here for today's 3rd Marine Air Wing targets.'' Same thing for
    NGA, in St. Louis; same thing for the Joint Intelligence Center
    at CENTCOM, which many of those targets actually came, as
    General Sams said, from the Air Force DCGS here in the CONUS.
    But by the time they were done, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
    had eliminated every tank, every vehicle, and every artillery
    piece that could have impacted the right flank of the division,
    and the division commander was fairly comfortable in his
    ability to maneuver past Al Kut and head towards Baghdad in a
    much more expeditious manner than he would have been able to
    had he been forced to fight through that Baghdad infantry
    division to get across the Tigris River. So we think that that
    whole ability to provide the commander that capability to use
    his own assets and to reach back to national worked for us
    there.
        We also, as Dr. Cambone mentioned, created persistence
    surveillance for the commander by attaching to the commander a
    large number of UAVs, tactical HUMINT teams, what we call CI/
    HUMINT exploitation teams. We attached to the commander SIGINT
    support teams, Trojan Spirit devices down to the regimental
    level that allowed our SIGINT marines to reach back to NSA for
    interactive SIGINT support, so that both the tactical SIGINT
    collectors and what national was getting would support--and I'd
    like, in closed session, to tell you more about how we bring
    that capability together to do some rapid targeting, and
    especially now, in OIF-2.
        But I think the bottom line for us is that we were able to
    put together in a rudimentary fashion where we're headed for
    horizontal integration, because I take the comment of the
    Members that persistent surveillance also brings an analytical
    challenge, it brings an information-overload challenge. I think
    we were able to pull that together to support the maneuver
    units both in OIF-1 and now again in OIF-2, and I think we'll
    be able to talk more in closed session, but I think we're on
    our way there, sir.
        I think the Intelligence Marines are doing a great job.
    We're extremely proud of them; they're extremely pumped up when
    you hear them--they talk to us on e-mail every day, and they're
    just out there building targets and supporting maneuver on a
    daily basis. I just couldn't be prouder of what they're doing
    on a daily basis. If anything, they're probably providing more
    targets on a daily basis than we can actually go after, just
    because they're doing such a great, thorough job for us.
        Thank you, sir.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Decker follows:]

                    Prepared Statement by Michael H. Decker

        Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Strategic Forces
    Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee for requesting
    Marine Corps participation in this hearing on our intelligence programs
    and lessons learned from recent military operations. It is an honor to
    be here to discuss Marine Corps ISR programs funded by TIARA funding
    and the JMIP.
        During this past year, the Marine Corps, both active and reserve,
    engaged in operations around the globe. Our successes in executing
    Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare (EMW) depended on our Marine Air Ground
    Task Forces (MAGTFs) having a reach-back capability to leverage and
    populate theater, service and national intelligence repositories, while
    maintaining a tactically self-sufficient ISR network to support forward
    MAGTF fire and maneuver. We fund our ISR systems, generally referred to
    as the Marine Air Ground Intelligence System (MAGIS), in TIARA because
    although networked and joint enabling, they are integral to our
    tactical combat command elements and maneuver units.
        Marine Corps ISR exists to support EMW and, specifically, the
    commander's planning, decisionmaking, and execution. Our previous
    Marine ISR modernization efforts emphasized increased collection and
    analytical capability at the maneuver level of command and reach-back
    support from theater, service and national organizations. We have
    sought, and we continue to seek, to transform how we fight by providing
    unprecedented ISR capability and access to all of our combat echelons--
    from our small units such as companies all the way to the Marine
    Expeditionary Force (MEF), our largest MAGTF. These efforts led to a
    number of successes during OIF-I that I would like to share with you.
        Marine commanders task organized their organic intelligence support
    to adapt to the speed and distance of their specific operations. We
    augmented our Marine Divisions with support from Pioneer UAV squadrons,
    topographic/IMINT specialists and Trojan Spirit-Lite intelligence
    communications systems to provide responsive ISR support and secure
    mobile connectivity. Likewise, we augmented the next lower maneuver
    echelon, the Regimental Combat Teams (RCTs), with a wide array of ISR
    enhancements such as Dragon Eye UAVs, CI/HETs, and SIGINT Support Teams
    (SSTs) to improve their organic collection capability; Trojan Spirit
    IIs to provide secure mobile connectivity; and data link receivers for
    aerial sensors such as the Pioneer UAV, the Navy's P3 and the Litening
    POD on the AV8-B Harrier to provide them with a ``bird's eye'' view of
    the battlefield. These enhancements provided the capability to conduct
    immediate and responsive ISR operations such as employing the Dragon
    Eye UAV to safely scout the first crossing of the Tigris River; using
    SSTs to identify and neutralize enemy call for fire nets during the
    second crossing of the Tigris River; and capitalizing on CI/HET assets
    embedded with Light Armored Reconnaissance units to facilitate a
    prisoner of war rescue north of Baghdad.
        The Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA), the Marine Corps'
    Service intelligence center, provided Federated Production support
    before D-Day including lines of communication (LOCs) and inundation
    studies. This intelligence preparation of the battlespace (IPB) support
    was critical to 1st Marine Division receiving approval to bypass Al Kut
    and strike toward Baghdad on secondary routes. MCIA serves as the
    parent command for Intelligence Marines on joint duty and in combat
    support agencies. Consequently, MCIA connects Marines assigned to
    defense agencies, Regional Security Operations Centers (RSOCs), Joint
    Intelligence Centers (JICs), and Joint Reserve Intelligence Centers
    (JRICs) and enables them to work as a virtual team in support of
    warfighting and combat development intelligence requirements.
        The MEF's organic Intelligence Battalion coordinated reach-back
    targeting support by leveraging the NGIC, the NGA St. Louis, and the
    Joint Intelligence Center Central Command (JICCENT)/CFACC in order to
    populate automated target folders for strikes conducted in theater.
    These target folders enabled advancing Marine Forces to rapidly strike
    and destroy artillery units of an Iraqi Division between Al Kut and
    Baghdad, thereby denying the enemy the ability to use these assets to
    hinder our advance.
        As these stories illustrate, TIARA funded MAGTF ISR assets are
    embedded in command elements and maneuver units. We have technical
    specialists in all-source fusion, SIGINT, CI/HUMINT, reconnaissance and
    UAV operations that can be task organized to support any given
    commander's situation based upon his specific requirements. Enhanced
    intelligence support to the Marine maneuver unit in combat enables more
    efficient utilization of theater, service and national collection
    assets while simultaneously enabling commanders to focus their organic
    collection assets on their immediate areas of responsibility. We
    believe these organic capabilities should remain in TIARA so the
    commander will have an ownership stake in not only making them part of
    his team in combat, but in preserving and enhancing these capabilities
    during Service planning, programming, and budgeting.
        Our EMW concept continues to be used with great success today in
    Iraq and Afghanistan for force protection, security and stability
    operations, and counterterrorist operations. Our commanders are using
    actionable intelligence to conduct focused raids and attacks on a daily
    basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. When only partial information exists,
    commanders are conducting patrols and ``cordon and knock'' operations
    to generate intelligence. Actionable intelligence requires not only
    commanders who are empowered and willing to act, but also the
    presentation of target development information by Marines who are
    viewed as part of the team. Both focused raids and patrols are examples
    of commanders viewing their ISR Marines as trusted members of the
    command element's decisionmaking process. It is very rewarding to
    routinely read in commanders' Situation Reports things like ``forces
    throughout the AO positioned to conduct focused, intelligence driven
    operations against the enemy;'' ``execution time based on actionable
    intelligence;'' and ``continue to gather and refine targetable
    intelligence.''
        I would like to thank the subcommittee for your support of Marine
    Corps intelligence. I have tremendous pride in the contributions made
    and the hard work being done by our ISR marines. With your continued
    support, intelligence will remain the indispensable precursor to and
    enabler of MAGTF operations. The Marine Corps remains focused on
    organizing, training, and equipping our forces to best support Marine
    commanders, combatant commanders and national decisionmakers throughout
    the spectrum of conflict. Incorporating recent experiences, increasing
    our forces' integration with joint capabilities, exploiting the
    flexibility and rapid response capabilities of our units, and
    preserving the adaptability of our marines will collectively lead to
    more options for the combatant commanders. I look forward to addressing
    our successes in detail in closed session.

        Senator Allard. Let me now call on General Wurster,
    Director for Intelligence and Information Operations, the U.S.
    Air Force.

     STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. DONALD C. WURSTER, USAF, DIRECTOR FOR
         INTELLIGENCE AND INFORMATION OPERATIONS, U.S. SPECIAL
                           OPERATIONS COMMAND

        General Wurster. Thank you, sir. On behalf of General
    Brown, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
        As you're aware, high-quality intelligence is essential for
    us to be able to do the types of things that we do. Special
    Operations Command (SOCOM) depends on the architectures that
    the other Services bring to the fight. We work on unique SOF
    aspects of that sort of thing. But Global Hawks and the
    national satellite architecture and the NSA and the Director of
    the Central Intelligence (DCI) bring capabilities on which we
    absolutely depend to get the right information down to our
    shooters.
        One of the key lessons that we have learned, and it's
    something that we have long culturally believed in Southern
    Command, is that persistent observation of a target is
    essential. We virtually always have somebody watching a spot
    before we go there. In the longer term, as we look at
    proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the intercept
    of terrorists globally, we need to know, Where does that vessel
    go when it leaves this place? We need to know, What time did
    that vehicle move? We need to know, Tell me when that door
    opens so that I can act. That requires a range of sensing and
    information that runs the full spectrum from the national and
    strategic to a person on the street that's accomplishing a
    specific task for us.
        We're working with the partners, our partners in the
    Intelligence Community, to continue to evolve an excellent
    system to orient it more towards the current needs. But in
    today's world, we need to be able to locate and track a
    specific person. We need to find a person, and then dwell on
    that individual to gain information about who he interacts
    with, where he goes, what he does, until we arrive at the point
    where either we want to pick him off or take him out to achieve
    our objectives. Tagging, tracking, and locating is important
    not only for knowing where our own forces are, but where others
    are.
        SIGINT is essential to us, and I'll be happy to discuss
    some anecdotes of that more in the closed session, one of which
    includes the fact that the NSA saved my life, and I'll tell you
    that story.
        But we need to be able to detect, intercept, geo-locate,
    monitor any device that these bad guys are using, and our
    national experts are on the job at that. We're partnering with
    the NSA to do the piece of that that is logical for SOCOM to
    contribute to, and we are moving forward in that regard.
        The other one is CI/HUMINT. You've heard it on several
    occasions. In SOCOM, we believe that humans are more important
    than hardware, and there are some things that just require us
    to put a right person with the right skill in harm's way to
    gain a piece of information that's essential for us to do that.
    Anecdotally, our Defense HUMINT teams that, coupled with the
    Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) forces and other
    national forces that were forward, were an ad hoc arrangement,
    where we borrowed from DIA the right kind of people to do the
    right types of work, and a small group of people was able to
    pull information--cultural information, familial ties, and
    things like that. That group of people assembled the
    information that allowed our shooters to find the spider hole
    that had Saddam Hussein in it. It can't be overstated the
    importance of that.
        Horizontal integration, the USDI already mentioned, but SOF
    needs to be connected into that. We recognize that there's a
    need for a unique piece of information that we have that may
    have strategic importance to other organizations, need to get
    back into that architecture. We do that fairly well now with
    SIGINT, but as we look at increasing the number of UAVs we have
    and--our human architecture needs to, likewise, support that
    effort to arrive at a large--the large picture and perspective
    that many can use. Data sharing is essential. We need to be
    hooked into it.
        I'd like to thank the agencies that we work with routinely,
    the NSA, NRO, NGA, DIA, and CIA. General Brown has made the
    comment that the relationships with those organizations have
    never been better. They're embedded in our staff down at SOCOM,
    and we have tremendously positive relationships at the working
    level with them.
        In summary, I have some other things that I would like to
    share with you in closed session.
        Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
        [The prepared statement of General Wurster follows:]

             Prepared Statement by Brig. Gen. Donald Wurster, USAF

        Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of this subcommittee, it is
    my privilege to report to you on the state of the United States Special
    Operations Command (USSOCOM) intelligence organization and capability.
    Our men and women represent the finest quality of intelligence
    professionals and they continue to make progress in the global war on
    terrorism through their dedication, sense of urgency, and commitment.
        We continue to work to ensure that our combat forces are provided
    with the best intelligence available and have access to our most
    advanced intelligence systems, as well as connectivity to the national
    agencies, the Services, and other combatant commands. In addition we
    strive for superior quality in our intelligence force as we train,
    organize, and equip our people.
        The USSOCOM commander's guidance is clear. We are to maintain a
    steady focus on the global war on terrorism, ensure the readiness of
    our forces, and continue transformation efforts to match our
    capabilities with tomorrow's battlefield requirements. We are doing
    this by teaming with conventional forces, coalition partners, and other
    agencies, as well as by strengthening intra-departmental cooperation.

                            GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM

        High quality intelligence is a force multiplier which enables our
    SOF warriors to achieve strategic success despite their limited numbers
    in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accurate and timely intelligence
    is a critical resource as we pursue counterterrorist efforts in the
    Horn of Africa and the Pacific region as well. Intelligence preparation
    of the battlespace assured SOF successes early in OIF and is
    contributing to continued success in rebuilding the infrastructure of
    Afghanistan while hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda leadership.

    Iraq
        A fused intelligence picture provided through the use of all
    intelligence disciplines enabled SOF to establish early footholds and
    successful operations in Northern Iraq. The intelligence gleaned
    allowed SOF to play significant roles to prevent the Iraqi V Corps in
    the north from reinforcing Baghdad. It helped us maintain a clear
    picture of the threat poised by missiles in western Iraq, and assisted
    in the seizure of key airfields, the capture of Iraqi senior
    leadership, and the prevention of a potential ecological disaster
    through the intentional destruction of oil wells and infrastructure.
    Finally, it allowed SOF to secure potential chokepoints that could
    impede our main axis of attack and control sensitive areas for
    investigation and analysis. These are poignant examples of SOF leading
    the fight with the speed and security afforded by responsive, timely
    intelligence. The establishment of Task Force Viking to conduct
    Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-North operations in
    Northern Iraq assured early teaming with Kurdish military and political
    leaders. Accurate intelligence assessment of the threat in the Bashur
    region enabled SOF to help secure the airfield and allowed the 173rd
    Airborne Brigade to conduct their night drop into Bashur to deliver
    nearly 1,000 airborne troops in the largest airborne drop since WWII.
    This set the stage for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, and eventually the
    26th MEU, to link up and team with Kurdish Peshmerga enabling
    coordinated offensive air operations against 700 entrenched Ansar Al
    Islam fighters.
        The Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-West denied
    western Iraq as an area of operations from which Iraq could conduct
    offensive missile strikes against neighboring countries, averting a
    potentially wider regional conflict. Intelligence provided by SOF
    teams, fused with that of national agencies and regional Joint
    Intelligence Centers coupled with reach-back operations to
    exploitation/analysis centers of excellence, enabled U.S forces to
    rapidly secure and control this strategic ground in Iraq.
        In the south, high quality intelligence provided an accurate
    picture of the threat to aircrews as they inserted SOF teams deep into
    Iraq. These teams provided precise and timely reconnaissance of key
    locations and allowed conventional ground commanders a more accurate
    picture of the battlefield contributing to the rapid speed of advance
    in the ground campaign. National intelligence assets identified
    strategic oil infrastructure targets in the littoral areas and enabled
    Naval Special Warfare Task Group to secure these objectives and provide
    the initial conduit for seaborne humanitarian aid to Iraq. This
    successful operation which secured all targets within 40 minutes
    secured critical nodes and averted the threat of an intentional
    ecological disaster in the region.
        SOF, supported by multi-source intelligence collection, continue to
    aid the efforts to eliminate Fedayeen Baath party loyalists, former
    Iraqi military and political leaders, foreign fighters, and other
    terrorist cells who seek to attack U.S. forces as they attempt to
    thwart stability within Iraq.
    Afghanistan
        Our SOF supporting the combined operations in Afghanistan continue
    to rebuild the infrastructure, establish positive rapport with the
    local populace, and eliminate Taliban, al Qaeda, and other terrorist
    elements. Tip offs from various intelligence sources have led to
    successes that eliminate weapons caches and explosives, as well as the
    terrorists and their leaders.

                                LESSONS LEARNED

        To provide a better and more predictive picture of the battlefield
    against terrorists, our processes are being refined based on the
    lessons we have learned. With the assistance of the USDI, national
    agencies, geographic combatant commanders, and our components, we are
    adjusting our intelligence sight picture to improve the way we conduct
    intelligence activity. Some of the key lessons learned are described
    below.
        Persistent ISR. We need to provide our commanders with higher
    fidelity information to allow them to detect, locate, and track small
    groups or individuals. The USSOCOM global war on terrorism mission
    requires the ability to conduct ISR on a focused and uninterrupted
    basis in order to find, fix, and finish terrorist threats. We are
    working with partners in the Intelligence Community to adjust
    intelligence requirements and methods to the new paradigm.
        Our highest priority requirement is to attain the capability to
    find a specific person who presents a threat to our country, our
    values, and our way of life. We must be able to locate and track this
    High Value Target (HVT) in permissive and non-permissive environments,
    then dwell on the HVT from the point of discovery through decisive
    action to capture or kill the individual. We also seek the ability to
    integrate deployable tagging, tracking, and locating (TTL) technology
    to defeat the threat. Ultimately, we seek to expand the capabilities of
    remote, unmanned devices that could be added to this network. The ISR
    architecture must be flexible and adaptive to meet the challenges of
    the future.
        CI/HUMINT support to SOF. The global war on terrorism has produced
    an increase in demand for professional HUMINT and CI resources.
    Dedicated HUMINT and CI resources have proven to be one of the greatest
    contributors to the successes enjoyed by SOF to date. While all
    recognize the need for more and better HUMINT, SOF's relationship to
    these intelligence providers is central to success in the hunt for
    terrorists. USSOCOM is working closely with the Under Secretary of
    Defense for Intelligence and we support the HUMINT Reformation
    Initiative. We look forward to the outcome of this effort which holds
    positive indicators for the future.
        Training and Manning. You have heard USSOCOM repeat the consistent
    opinion that ``Humans are more important than Hardware.'' We must
    produce high quality technical systems while remembering that success
    or failure depends upon trained intelligence specialists. We place high
    priority on our efforts to recruit, train, and retain talented
    intelligence professionals. The capture of Saddam Hussein is directly
    attributable to the dedicated work of a small group of analysts who put
    together the pieces of a puzzle, coupled with the SOF warriors who were
    able to find him in his spider-hole. Recruitment, training, and
    retention are essential ingredients in our ability to perform similar
    feats in the future.
        Horizontal Integration. To achieve integrated persistent ISR that
    provides actionable intelligence results from the development of an
    overarching integrated intelligence architecture including a
    collaborative environment with tools, databases and collection systems
    that specifically support the global war on terrorism. The IC, under
    the guidance of the DCIA and the USDI, is focusing on this issue. As a
    result, the interagency and DOD interaction and cooperation continue to
    improve. USSOCOM has been fully engaged in these planning efforts.
    USSOCOM recognizes that the al Qaeda network is adaptive, flexible,
    agile, and capable of inflicting harm on U.S. interests at anytime. Our
    intelligence architecture must be equally adaptive and flexible, and
    provide timely, relevant, and precise information to defeat this
    threat. USSOCOM is actively participating in the IC efforts to improve
    Horizontal Integration. USSOCOM seeks integration in any network or
    execution architecture that enables key participants in the global war
    on terrorism to collaborate effectively. As the IC, law enforcement
    agencies, coalition partners, and other sources assemble information on
    terrorists, we must be able to improve the security of our forces and
    citizens.

                              INTERAGENCY SUPPORT

        I would like to take this opportunity to make a statement about the
    support USSOCOM has received from NSA, NRO, NGA, DIA, and Central
    Intelligence Agency. Liaisons from each of these agencies are embedded
    in the USSOCOM intelligence team. The close relationship established
    and maintained by these committed patriots is crucial to our successes
    to date. General Brown, Commander, USSOCOM stated that ``the current
    relationship is the best it has ever been'' and USSOCOM would not have
    enjoyed the success we have had without the support of these agencies.

        TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE AND RELATED ACTIVITIES AND JOINT MILITARY
                              INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM

        USSOCOM's TIARA and JMIP budget request ensures that USSOCOM will
    continue to provide the intelligence support required to conduct the
    global war on terrorism and fulfill title 10 responsibilities for
    ensuring component readiness. Our TIARA and JMIP investment strategy
    provides the means to leverage national and theater intelligence
    capability and acquire SOF peculiar systems required to meet the unique
    mission needs of the SOF warfighter. As we continue to fight the global
    war on terrorism, we must continue our modernization program in concert
    with other Department of Defense and interagency organizations. I will
    first address our TIARA programs followed by our JMIP needs.
        Joint Deployable Intelligence Support System--SOCOM Research,
    Analysis, and Threat Evaluation System (JDISS-SOCRATES)--JDISS-SOCRATES
    is an umbrella program that acquires and supports garrison sensitive
    compartmented information (SCI) automated intelligence system (AIS)
    requirements for Headquarters USSOCOM, its components, subcomponents,
    mission support units, supported geographic combatant commands, and
    Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) in conducting global war on
    terrorism, OIF, OEF and peacetime missions. Capabilities include access
    to national, theater, and SOF-specific databases; news service and
    message traffic; softcopy imagery processing, imagery product archiving
    and dissemination; analyst-to-analyst electronic mail and chat
    communications; Intelink and Intelink-S web servers; and secure voice
    and facsimile. In short, all those sources and possessors of
    intelligence which enable operators to engage the enemy decisively are
    delivered to SOF operators over JDISS-SOCRATES. The $30 million
    requested in fiscal year 2005 will provide the architecture and
    infrastructure required for the global war on terrorism and will assist
    in our current efforts to incorporate national mandates and maintain
    full interoperability with the DOD Intelligence Information Systems
    standard architecture and with each theater Intelligence Data Handling
    System.
        Tactical Local Area Network (TACLAN)--TACLAN provides a deployable
    command and control system capable of sharing operations, intelligence,
    and administrative information throughout USSOCOM, the Service
    components, supported geographic combatant commands, TSOCs, and
    deployed task forces in all security domains. The TACLAN is an
    extension of JDISS-SOCRATES that provides a nearly seamless transition
    of intelligence system connectivity from home station to combat
    operations. TACLAN consolidates tactical command, control, computers,
    communications and intelligence (C\4\I) requirements from previous
    USSOCOM programs and centralizes management of USSOCOM's tactical C\4\I
    requirements in order to integrate current and future tactical AIS
    initiatives into a single efficient information management system/
    architecture. Based on lessons learned from OEF and OIF, and other
    operations, tactical intelligence communications and dissemination
    capabilities are mission essential to special operations. The total
    TACLAN fiscal year 2005 budget request is $20 million. The fiscal year
    2005 TIARA portion of the TACLAN budget request, $2 million, provides
    critical deployable, tactical SCI connectivity and functionality to
    prosecute the global war on terrorism and future contingencies.
        Special Operations Joint Interagency Collaboration Center
    (SOJICC)--We have continued to improve our network-centric,
    collaborative capability, the SOJICC. The SOJICC uses advanced
    computing capabilities and nodal analysis to rapidly collate, process,
    display, and disseminate relevant information for timely decision
    support. The SOJICC information technology is scalable in design and
    corresponds to current industry standards in data mining, data
    retrieval, data warehousing, knowledge management, pattern recognition,
    speech recognition, machine learning/neural networking, audio and video
    capture, parallel/distributive computing, visualization and search
    optimization. SOJICC's data mining and other capabilities complement
    the efforts of DIA's Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating
    Terrorism. Over the last year, SOJICC has been instrumental in
    populating a standardized, collaborative terrorist database that is
    replicated to the combatant commands. This effort is essential for
    producing a common intelligence picture that allows combatant
    commanders to link and track terrorist personalities and events
    throughout the world. The total $9 million fiscal year 2005 budget
    request for SOJICC will fund and maintain the current analytical
    efforts in support of the global war on terrorism and allow the program
    to identify and test new software technologies to improve future
    support.
        USSOCOM is now the Program Manager (PM) for the
    Counterproliferation Analysis Planning System (CAPS). As one of the
    prime users of CAPS, it was logical for us to assume the PM duties and
    guide the fiscal year 2005 $16 million effort. This effort continues
    development of the CAPS database, intelligence support procedures,
    information technology systems planning, system integration and
    interface control, software development, and development of analytical
    tools and system interfaces. CAPS will continue to be an invaluable
    tool in the future as the United States struggles to curtail the
    proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
        Joint Threat Warning System (JTWS)--Uniquely provides credible
    threat warning and intelligence information to special operations
    forces. JTWS will provide this critical SIGINT capability tailored for
    all components. The following SOF legacy SIGINT systems were
    incorporated into the JTWS family of systems in fiscal year 2002:
    Improved SOF SIGINT Manpack System (ISSMS), Privateer, and Silent
    Shield. We are replacing these legacy systems with JTWS ground, air and
    maritime variants which will provide an increased capability against
    the sophisticated forms of communications that are present worldwide.
    The legacy SOF SIGINT systems have demonstrated the high value of
    tactical SIGINT during many recent missions involving SOF. The
    acquisition and fielding of JTWS is key to providing enhanced
    situational awareness, force protection and time sensitive intelligence
    for targeting to supported SOF elements. SOF SIGINT capability has
    routinely proven itself in ongoing combat operations throughout
    Afghanistan and Iraq. Intelligence gained through the use of SOF SIGINT
    capabilities is shared with other intelligence collectors and the
    national community.
        Direct Support Operations (DSO) on Air Force Special Operations
    Command aircraft, using Silent Shield equipment, have proved
    indispensable to the safety of SOF airborne attack and infiltration
    operations.
        The Privateer systems have provided key intelligence to SEALs
    during numerous Maritime Interdiction Operations. During OIF, Navy
    tactical cryptologic support operators were critical to supporting all
    phases of Navy SOF operations, including the critical opening hours of
    the war while supporting those forces tasked to secure Iraq's key
    infrastructure.
        The ISSMS continues to provide key force protection and situational
    awareness to SOF teams in every area of operation. It is crucial that
    we continue to modernize our SIGINT gear in order to keep pace with the
    ever changing increasingly sophisticated technologies we are
    encountering on today's battlefields.
        The JTWS program will significantly improve our ability to provide
    early warning, force protection, situational awareness, and tactical
    targeting in support of full spectrum operations in general and the
    global war on terrorism in particular. In short it assures our
    operators define the conditions of the battlefield, keeps aircrews,
    sailors and soldiers alive, and enables precise target engagement. The
    fiscal year 2005 budget requests $13 million to sustain current
    cryptologic systems, to procure Ground SIGINT Kits to replace the ISSMS
    and to complete JTWS air variant development.
        Multi-Mission Advanced Tactical Terminal (MATT)--MATT provides SOF
    with a near-real-time capability to receive and process national and
    theater intelligence broadcasts. It provides threat warning, force
    protection, enhanced situational awareness, and target acquisition
    information to SOF via receipt of Integrated Broadcast Service (IBS)
    data. IBS data supports mission planning and execution by aiding the
    warfighter with course of action analysis during infiltration and
    exfiltration from operating areas. The currently fielded MATT systems
    are rapidly approaching the end of their service life. USSOCOM is
    currently pursuing the Embedded Integrated Broadcast System Receiver
    (EIR) technology to replace MATT and Briefcase MATT systems. EIR
    utilizes Embedded National Tactical Receiver (ENTR) technology, which
    is significantly smaller and lighter and uses less power than the MATT.
    ENTR is a receive-only system that will provide globally deployed SOF
    with an enroute capability to receive near-real-time intelligence data
    on the changing threat and target environment. USSOCOM's ENTR contract
    will accommodate SOF's basis of issue plan requirements, as well as the
    DOD and Second Party members' requirements. USSOCOM has been working
    with the IBS Executive Agent, the United States Army's Joint Tactical
    Terminal Program office, and the Services. The fiscal year 2005 TIARA
    budget requests $1 million for MATT sustainment.
        Special Operations Tactical Video System (SOTVS)--SOTVS provides
    the capability to capture, store, and forward digital imagery in near-
    real-time and in day or night. SOTVS provides a diverse array of
    surveillance and reconnaissance mission capabilities and operates in
    environments utilizing the global command, control, communications, and
    computers communications infrastructure. This capability has proven
    invaluable in OEF and OIF and will continue to be critical to success
    in the global war on terrorism. The fiscal year 2005 SOTVS TIARA budget
    request of $2 million will sustain digital imaging equipment, remote
    controllers, and transmission devices.
        National Systems Support to SOF (NSSS)--NSSS is a rapid technology
    development program that is funded to leverage technologies and systems
    from the national agencies, Services, and national laboratories, with
    the goal of quickly improving the exploitation of existing and emerging
    space technologies to satisfy SOF requirements. NSSS improves the
    combat effectiveness of USSOCOM, its components, and the TSOCs through
    the innovative use of national and commercial space intelligence, data
    processing, and communications technologies and systems. This includes
    Imagery Intelligence, SIGINT and Measurements and Signature
    Intelligence, and associated tasking, processing, dissemination, and
    tactical display technologies. Requested funds of $1 million in fiscal
    year 2005 provide enhancements in SOF personnel tracking capabilities,
    miniaturized antenna and receiver technology, surrogate satellite/high
    altitude airship technology, and providing mission essential
    intelligence to forward deployed forces.

                   JOINT MILITARY INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM (JMIP)

        At USSOCOM, JMIP funding allows USSOCOM to maximize the total force
    construct by providing critical Reserve support each year. Reserve
    Intelligence support provides almost half of USSOCOM's total
    intelligence manpower requirements. These reservists are integrated
    into every intelligence mission area within the command. USSOCOM is
    requesting $3 million in fiscal year 2005 for military reserve support.
    We have exceptional expertise and skill sets throughout for Reserve
    Force and we must retain this support. This funding provides USSOCOM
    with personnel who possess the highly valuable skill sets that are in
    high demand throughout the SOF Intelligence Community.

                                    SUMMARY

        In conclusion, there is much work to be done to protect our Nation,
    accomplish our missions, and take the fight to the enemy. We are taking
    the right path to maximize ISR programs that enable precise engagement
    of SOF in the global war on terrorism and maintain our readiness. Our
    process assures improvement in effectiveness and efficiency of
    operations as we adjust through lessons learned and changes to the
    battlefield. Our requirements are documented in USSOCOM and component
    Mission Needs Statements and Capability Documents. These requirements
    serve as the basis for programming, doctrinal, procedural, and force
    structure changes to correct ISR-specific operational deficiencies.
    OIF, OEF, and the global war on terrorism will continue to challenge
    our intelligence system and we must look ahead to make sure we optimize
    our collection efforts, collaborative processes and architectures, and
    cross-sharing of information to make sure the right people, know the
    right things, at the right time.
        Thank you for the opportunity to represent the Quiet Professionals
    of USSOCOM to this committee and for your continued support to our
    forces and, more specifically, to our intelligence needs in your role
    of oversight and fiscal decisionmaking. We appreciate your efforts and
    assistance.

        Senator Allard. Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony.
        I just want the members to know what we're planning is,
    from here, we'll give each member 5 minutes for questions, and
    then that'll probably get us pretty close to 11:30, 25 minutes
    to 12:00, or so, and then move to the other room that's secured
    for secret discussions, and then I want to just start out, do
    the questioning. I'll yield my time first to the Chairman from
    the Armed Services Committee, Senator Warner, and then we'll
    call on Senator Nelson, and then we'll proceed from there.
        Senator Warner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        I say to you, and your distinguished colleague, you are a
    great team because of all the subjects we have, I think there's
    the greatest degree of bipartisanship on the importance of
    intelligence and how it's a force multiplier and literally
    saves lives. Lives are very much on our mind at this hour, when
    our forces are fighting, and we have reports now of significant
    casualties, both killed and wounded, and our hearts go out to
    their families and to the bereaved.
        Mr. Chairman, I had the privilege of being in Iraq just
    2\1/2\ weeks ago, and, General Alexander, I met with General
    Fast, a very impressive major general, who's your chief of
    intelligence. Matter of fact, I spent several hours with her
    during the course of that day.
        This leads me to the question. Right now, I'm working with
    the leadership to have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and
    perhaps the Secretary of Defense come over this afternoon to
    work with the Senate. One of the issues that we'll be
    discussing, Secretary Cambone, is the issue of the June 30
    deadline for turnover of the sovereignty. Speaking for myself,
    I have done a lot of research and thoughtful discussion on
    this. I feel very strongly we should hold the course and
    maintain the schedule of turning over sovereignty on the 30th,
    irrespective of the increased insurgency, because I feel that
    it affects the credibility of the coalition forces, and
    particularly the United States and Great Britain, in the eyes
    of the Iraqi people, recognizing these insurgents represent a
    small percentage of the Iraqi people, the majority of them
    desirous of obtaining freedom and sovereignty. It also would
    affect the credibility of our efforts in the eyes of the
    bordering countries. I've visited with the heads of state and
    government and military commanders of several of the bordering
    countries. Throughout that region, I think, it would send an
    unfortunate signal if we were to arbitrarily shift that date
    and leave an uncertainty.
        Does the intelligence show any meaningful indicators with
    respect to holding fast, versus changing the date?
        Dr. Cambone. No, sir, not that I have seen this morning or
    over the last few weeks. You've heard the President's position,
    you've heard the Secretary's position----
        Senator Warner. Both the Secretary of Defense and, indeed,
    the President have spoken out very firmly on this.
        General Alexander, from your perspective?
        General Alexander. No, sir, I haven't, either. I appreciate
    your comments on General Fast. Thanks.
        Senator Warner. Yes.
        General Alexander. Thanks.
        Senator Warner. Fine. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
    thank you, Members, for your indulgence. I yield back my time
    to questions you may have.
        Senator Allard. Thank you, and we appreciate your being
    here. I also had a chance to go over to Iraq a couple of weeks
    ago or so, and had an opportunity to see the Predator, and
    actually see it land--very impressive. Part of your discussion
    this morning and your testimony--as well as to see the Stryker
    new Light Armor Division actually being at work here on TV and
    seeing those--that new technology being put to work out there,
    and so it's always heartening to see that that's out there
    serving the men and women on the battlefield.
        Senator Nelson?
        Senator Bill Nelson. Mr. Secretary, Space-Based Radar,
    persistent surveillance, how do you define ``persistence''?
        Dr. Cambone. I appreciate that question, Senator, because I
    think there is some misperception about it. I do not define
    persistent as continuous in the sense of every minute of every
    day, day in and day out. Where I think we need to go is to an
    understanding of the amount of time that we need to have under
    observation, as General Wurster said, the targets of interest.
    That interval needs to be commensurate with the character of
    the activity that we are trying to observe.
        So a ship crossing the ocean moves at a given speed, and
    within a fairly simple mathematical calculation, you know where
    it could be over some given period of time, and you need to be
    able to be within a time interval, all right, that is
    consistent with your ability to reacquire that ship as it's
    moving.
        With respect to something that's moving on land, on the
    other hand, which is moving in a more confined space and may be
    moving more rapidly than a ship is, you would have to have
    what's called a ``revisit rate'' that is more frequent than it
    would be for a ship.
        What we're in the process of doing with the Space-Based
    Radar, working our way through, if you will, those algorithms.
    How frequently do we have to revisit a target? Over what area
    do we have to cover? Then--and here is the important part, and
    why I said what I did in my opening statement--to integrate the
    data that you would get from a Space-Based Radar with the
    aircraft that provide radar coverage, with the aircraft or
    satellites that might provide signals intelligence, and with
    those human sensors or those remotely-placed sensors that one
    may have, and integrate all that data to provide the level of
    persistence that's required.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Horizontal integration. I'd like each
    of the witnesses to say what you're doing to increase the
    number of analysts to support the increased volumes of data
    that the new collection system is going to provide. Since we'll
    probably never have enough imagery, analysts, or linguists to
    support the data volume, what steps are you going to be taking
    to reduce the workload and increase the efficiency?
        Then before the 5 minutes gets out, General Sams, Joint
    Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) is
    something that I've been involved in for over 15 years. It's
    located in my home town of Melbourne, Florida. Last year,
    Congress asked the Air Force for your views on proposed re-
    engining. When is the Air Force going to produce the required
    report? What's the Department's position? I'd like you to share
    that with the committee.
        General Sams. Sir, in terms of re-engining the JSTARS, I
    know there's been a lot of discussion in the Air Staff, and I
    know that the aircraft could use new engines. I would like to
    take that for action and get back to you with a coordinated
    response from the Air Force, sir.
        Senator Bill Nelson. Okay. If you will get in touch with
    me, personally.
        General Sams. I will do that, sir.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        The draft JSTARS re-engining report is in Air Force top-line
    coordination. The draft report covers the operational benefits and
    lower overall life cycle cost of re-engining JSTARS through purchase or
    lease, compared to maintenance of the current engines. While re-
    engining makes a good business case, the Department will likely balance
    the need for JSTARS re-engining with other Air Force priorities as it
    builds the fiscal year 2006 budget submissions. OSD AT&L will sign out
    the report to the Hill when it is approved.

        Senator Bill Nelson. Good.
        Gentlemen, horizontal integration, and what are you doing
    to increase the number of analysts and so forth so we can
    analyze the data?
        General Alexander. Sir, in Army transformation, we have a
    great increase in intelligence soldiers--our interrogators, our
    counter-intelligence, and our off-source analysts--and we're
    moving them down to brigade level under task force modularity,
    and it's a superb effort. It takes the connection in the
    system, the DCGS of the future, and gives that down to brigade
    level and below. I think this is important.
        We are coupling, to the DCGS, the tools that we are using
    in the IDC and in Project Morning Calm that they need to work
    through the mounds of data that we have available. This new
    technology is key in getting at the problem that you're talking
    about, sir, how do we rapidly sort through information,
    hundreds of thousands of reports, that have been, over the last
    several years, that might be applicable to an apprehension?
    We've found that it has been superb. We are getting that out
    now. I think that's going great, sir, and we have several
    places that we could show you that in operation.
        Senator Bill Nelson. How about the Navy?
        Admiral Porterfield. Yes, sir. We have several initiatives
    underway in this regard, and I consider horizontal integration,
    the way to describe it is ``data ownership.'' We have to get
    rid of that as a principle. It's shared. As General Wurster
    said his SOF assets could have a bit of information that makes
    a great deal of difference to the President, but we may not
    know that. So horizontal integration is that concept.
        We're doing two things that I think you'd like to hear
    about. First, we're taking some people that are doing, and have
    been doing in the past, largely administrative work, and we're
    turning them into imagery analysts. We have in the program this
    year requests for several transformational UAV platforms, which
    will take analysis to make some use of them. We are doing that.
    The second one is, we are actively integrating our Reserve
    intelligence forces into active participation in our overall
    effort, from training to the production to the way we recruit
    and assign these people. So those two things--one, turning the
    administrators into the analysts, and also making much greater
    use of our very fine Reserve component.
        Senator Bill Nelson. How about Special Operations?
        General Wurster. Sir, one of the things that was General
    Schoomaker's vision just came online in 2001 and 2002. It's
    called the Special Operations Joint Interagency Collaboration
    Center (SOJICC), and it's a collaboration center. What we have
    done is coordinated to gain access to a large number of
    classified databases that comes back through the intelligence
    architecture. We have a fairly small group of people down
    there, but they have built the equivalent of a Google search
    engine, if you will, that looks at--where Google looks at 5
    billion Web pages, this looks at 15 billion pages of
    information. So if you type in ``al Zarqawi'' and
    ``chemicals,'' it will draw for you a visual presentation. If
    you add, say, ``halalah activity'' for financial transactions,
    it will give you another map, and we can use those maps. What
    we're using is--we're finding ways to use the information to
    learn information about the information, and to know where to
    look to apply resources. So we've taken a technological jump in
    the methodology by which we're going to approach that, much the
    way you would search on eBay or something like that. But we
    were able--for instance, as they were rolling guys up in Iraq,
    we had the list of people we were trying to find, and so we ran
    all of their information in the SOJICC, and printed out a
    notebook that would fit in a soldier's thigh pocket, ``When you
    get this guy, here's who his family is, here's where he's from,
    here's who he's hooked up with. By the way, get us his phone
    numbers,'' and things like that.
        So that is probably the most significant piece of
    horizontal integration we have. But that, primarily, again, is
    as a consumer of other people's expertise. So, as we gain
    access to more information of that type and infuse into that
    structure, we anticipate that we will have continued success
    with that. Right now, whenever we have people go out around the
    world, they're bringing information back and plowing it into an
    infrastructure that enables us to mine it later.
        Mr. Decker. Sir, on the Marine Corps side, since Operation
    Desert Storm the Marine Corps has gotten about 10 percent or
    more smaller, but the number of intelligence analysts in the
    Marine Corps has actually grown by 10 percent over that same
    period. So we've made an investment in analysts to handle this
    information flow. The target folders that were used to brief
    the Fallujah operations to Joint Task Force-7 (JTF-7) and, in
    turn, to get the SECDEF's and the CENTCOM's approval on the
    mission were done by, first, intelligence battalion analysts
    that are right there on the ground with 1st Marine
    Expeditionary Force. So that system is working.
        Part of that, sir, also is a great Reserve capability. The
    commandant has approved a doubling, 100-percent increase in our
    Reserve intelligence analysts, starting in fiscal year 2005, so
    we'll be increasing that.
        But I think it's important, also, when you look at
    horizontal integration, to look at the data tagging and then
    the tools for searching and looking at the data, and the
    attempts to automate that. There's two attempts to tag data.
    One is Extensible Markup Language data tagging that occurs with
    finished products. Then the other is the role of the Air
    Force's DCGS 10.2 integration backbone and setting a standard
    for tagging the raw sensor data as it comes in, so that'll even
    speed that up further, and then to provide the analysts tools
    to search that raw data. So it's a synergy, sir, of analysts,
    reservists, tools, and database tagging.
        Dr. Cambone. Let me just close that off, Senator, to say
    that there are probably two parts of this that are important,
    in addition to the analysts. One is what Mike Decker just
    talked about, and that is the enabling technologies from the
    communications pipes to the machine-to-machine interfaces and
    so forth. That's enormously important.
        The other thing that's important is access, access, access,
    because the more that the people who use the data have access
    to the information as soon as it is in a consumable state,
    ironically enough, the fewer analysts you are going to need.
    What you want to do is get to an environment in which the user
    is able to find what he needs, and make use of it, and then
    leave, for the analysts, the harder work of putting together
    larger mosaics, trend analysis, and things of that sort. We
    have to learn how to get the access for the operating forces to
    the information that they need.
        Senator Allard. Thank you.
        I'll now take my 5 minutes. I want to address this to
    Secretary Cambone.
        Where are you--I don't expect a real detailed answer in
    this--in standing up your Department? Are you 80 percent there,
    75 percent, 100 percent? Where are you? I was struck by some of
    the challenges you have, 14 pages of committees and boards that
    are all involved. You have to worry about consolidating, and
    some directives go all the way back to 1970. So if you could
    just give us very quickly some idea about where you are as a
    percentage of getting the Department stood up.
        Dr. Cambone. Yes, sir. In terms of personnel--I was just
    briefed this morning--I have 117 people, billets, Department of
    Defense billets. There was some number of contractor support.
    My staff thinks they need a lot more people. I'm not so
    certain. But we probably need another handful of people, and
    we'll work that over the next few months.
        In terms of the directives--the 30 directives that sit out
    there--that is just a matter of dogged determination in going
    through them, so I feel pretty good about that. The 14 pages of
    boards and committees, I'm less satisfied with. We have not yet
    undertaken the effort to get all of that consolidated. So in
    terms of people, we're probably at the 85 percent mark. In
    terms of going through the paperwork, we're probably somewhere
    at the 50 to 60 percent mark.
        In terms of establishing the relationships that make the
    organization work, I think we're well on our way to making
    those connections.
        Senator Allard. While you're in the process of standing up
    your Department, some are even suggesting that we need to
    establish a cabinet-level Director of National Intelligence.
    I'd like to hear what your views might be about the
    establishment of a Director of National Intelligence.
        Dr. Cambone. Yes, sir. You won't be surprised that I share
    the views of the Secretary of Defense. [Laughter.]
        That is that what you have heard here today is as
    compelling a case for retaining the extant relationship between
    the DCI and the SECDEF. The information on which the operations
    of the forces depend are only in part generated by the DOD. The
    remainder of it is generated through those systems which are
    developed and operated in the context of a national foreign
    intelligence program. Absent the deep and abiding relationship
    between the DCI and the SECDEF, it is easy to see the ways in
    which seams would begin to grow up between organizations and in
    which the DOD would not benefit, and, in fact, the Intelligence
    Community, as a whole, be hurt by that split.
        So sustaining the existing relationship, we think, is
    essential. Are there areas that one can look to see improvement
    made? Certainly. We have reviewed some of those. Indeed, the
    additional funds that have been requested by the President for
    intelligence reflect an effort on the part of the DOD and the
    Intelligence Community to identify our shortfalls and
    shortcomings, to suggest our priority, in terms of fixing them,
    and then coming to some conclusion about where the resources
    should come from in order to be able to pay for those
    shortcomings.
        So I honestly do not see advantage to the creation of a
    different structure for the governance of the Intelligence
    Community than the one we have today.
        Senator Allard. The other question I want to bring up is
    open-source intelligence. We have a lot of reporters that are
    covering a lot of the issues related to Iraq and a lot of our
    foreign affairs, and they establish relationships, and then
    they report their findings on TV, or they report their findings
    in the newspaper, sometimes even on the Internet. Are we paying
    attention to those open sources? Seems to me like perhaps they
    could be helpful. I wondered if any of you want to respond to
    that.
        General Wurster. Sir, I'll respond to that. If you haven't
    read Maria Ressa's book, called ``Seeds of Terror,'' about
    Jemaah Islamiah in the Pacific, you should read it. She
    interviewed me when I was the Joint Task Force Commander in the
    Philippines, and she is incredibly articulate. As a matter of
    fact, I distributed that book to all the flag officers at
    USSOCOM. She knows what's going on in the Pacific; and when she
    talks, we listen.
        Senator Allard. Any other comments in that regard?
        General Alexander. Yes, sir. We use open source in our
    analytic centers. We use that information, and it does help us
    to link different things together. So it is used widely.
        Senator Allard. I see all of you shaking your head up and
    down. I'm assuming that you do use those sources.
        Just, finally, the UAVs are in use. I'm curious as to how
    many different--I'm not asking about the number of UAVs, but
    how many different UAVs are now in use in each Service, and
    what unexpected difficulties have you encountered, and what are
    you doing to address some of their problems? I address that to
    all of you.
        Mr. Decker. Sir, in the Marine Corps we have two different
    types of UAVs. We have the Dragon Eye, which we call our
    ``backpack UAV.'' It's a small UAV that folds up about this
    big, that's used at the battalion level. They used them at the
    regimental level in OIF as well. Then we have the Pioneer UAV,
    which is referred to as a ``tactical UAV,'' that has about a
    100-mile range. The problem we had with the Pioneer UAVs--there
    were two squadrons of them with the division--the problem was
    the 100-mile range. The MEF commander attached those two
    squadrons to the division because he knew the division would be
    running fast. As Dr. Cambone said, you want him to be able to
    tailor his persistent surveillance to where and when he needed
    it, so he had his own UAVs to do that with, but he was just
    maneuvering so fast and often covering more than 100 miles a
    day, and he would have to seize an airfield that those UAVs
    could operate from, or a piece of road. So our plan for the
    Pioneer replacement, that's in the 2005 to 2009 program, is to
    replace it with a vertical takeoff UAV with increased range and
    speed that will then allow us to go further than 100 miles with
    the air platform, and the ability to sprint back and forth
    between maneuver units that are in trouble that need
    persistence surveillance at any given time.
        In the case of the backpack UAVs, our solution is just to
    buy more of them, because there just weren't enough. We had
    great success, though, with the backpack UAVs in the case of
    the crossing of the Tigris River. The division commander told
    the regiment, ``Don't show yourself unless you're sure the
    bridge is still standing, because I don't think the enemy
    realizes we bypassed Al Kut and we're already up here.'' He
    said, ``Can you see the bridge? Or can you get somebody up to
    the bridge?'' The regimental commander said, ``Well, we can't
    get close enough to see the bridge with binoculars without the
    enemy knowing that we're here, but we can let the lead
    battalion throw their backpack UAV up over the hill and look,''
    and that's what we called that. We called that the battalion
    commander's with look-over-the-hill capability with the
    backpack UAV, the Dragon Eye. So we've had good success with
    them, sir, and we just want more of them and want them to be
    better.
        Senator Allard. Admiral.
        Admiral Porterfield. Sir, in the Navy we don't have any
    operational UAVs right now, but we have two programs that are
    in development; one, a tactical platform for use on our
    littoral combat ships, as well as a high-altitude UAV, we call
    Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) at the moment, for
    maritime surveillance. We intend to stay the course and develop
    the concept of ops as both of these platforms can be used to
    provide the maritime ISR that we require.
        Senator Allard. General Alexander.
        General Alexander. Sir, we have right now three UAVs. Let
    me go over those. We have what's called the short-range UAV,
    which we've just begun to purchase those. I think we have 15
    right now in Iraq and Afghanistan working, and those will
    increase, thanks to your support in the supplemental for
    purchasing more of those rapidly for our forces. Those give the
    battalion level, company level, the ability to see over the
    next hill. The tactical UAV, or Shadow, is the one that we're
    buying for the brigade level. Under Army transformation, both
    of those increase significantly and are needed for the
    battalion and the brigade commanders to see out to their level.
    At the division theater level, division corps theater level, we
    have the extended range multi-purpose UAV coming online.
        I would like to point out that we don't see the UAV mission
    as something that the Army does alone. We depend heavily on the
    Air Force for their support with Predator and Global Hawk,
    also. So integrating across that is key to the way that we'll
    operate in the future.
        Senator Allard. General?
        General Sams. Sir, we have three primary UAV systems. We
    have a small one, called Desert Hawk, which our security forces
    use. It's literally launched with a bungee-type rubberband, but
    it has a 200- to 500-foot altitude capability. It flies around
    the air bases. It allows the security forces to have eyes
    outside the gate. It's been very successful, actually. Over in
    OIF, we've found weapons caches, we've found some bad guys
    running around. It's been very good for force protection.
        Probably our best-known one is the Predator. We consider
    that as a true growth industry. I think the limitations that we
    have on Predator are primarily range. It has a whopping 65-knot
    air speed, and so in a 70-knot wind, it takes a long time to
    get anywhere. [Laughter.]
        So that's one of the reasons that we're looking to the
    Predator, the B version, which will be the turboprop version,
    and it'll fly 30,000 feet, and we'll be able to get to the
    target a lot faster with a heavier payload.
        Global Hawk, our high-altitude system, is very popular. We
    are working hard to make that operational. There is a pre-
    production model right now that's working pretty well at
    Edwards, and we have accepted two production models out there.
    Our challenge, though, is to get the pilot training, get the
    ground systems in place, get the maintenance, all the kinds of
    things that it takes to build an operational squadron to make
    it operational.
        Senator Allard. I now call on Senator Ben Nelson from
    Nebraska.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        With all the discussion about UAVs and looking over the
    hills, I suspect that Admiral Porterfield was thinking the Navy
    probably got this right first with the periscope. [Laughter.]
        But whether we look at horizontal or vertical integration
    of intelligence, I think that it all boils down to something
    that maybe Lieutenant General Ronald Keys, USAF's Deputy Chief
    of Staff of Air and Space Operations, when he was quoted in
    this month's issue of ISR Journal as saying, ``Many of the
    things we're doing today involve a system-of-systems approach,
    a network-enabled solution. It's the ability to take
    information from different sensors and fuse it to get that
    cursor over the target.''
        Secretary Cambone, does STRATCOM have the ability to
    address requirements such as integrating multiple ISR feeds
    into a common global display for use in global command center,
    an ISR feed? Then, second, would it be safe to say that
    STRATCOM's global operations center requires a level of C-2
    integration, which cuts across the national to the tactical
    level of operations at a level not equal to--found in any other
    command, fusing together operational and intelligence
    information?
        Dr. Cambone. I'll give you a qualified yes to the second
    question, and the only reason I qualify it is that I would
    argue that the extent, scope, depth of information that they
    will need at Omaha on a tactical situation, I think, is a
    matter of judgment for the commander about how much of that he
    may need. I can tell you that that kind of data is readily
    available. You can go into any of the ops centers, you can go
    in the Pentagon and see at a very finite level of detail those
    tactical feeds.
        With respect to the question of whether they are yet
    arranged, situated to do the task, again, I'll give you a
    qualified no. The reason I say that is that they are equipped
    for most of the connections that they will require. The
    question of whether they have the stations and the internal
    servers and support networks and so forth is not clear to me.
    Admiral Ellis has put forward a proposal over the course of the
    Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP), the next 5 years to build that
    capability out there and to meld both his intelligence and his
    targeting activities so that he will be able to do both in a
    unified way.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Will that be supported in the budget by
    the Defense authorization?
        Dr. Cambone. You bet. There is funding in 2005, on the
    order of--I want to say $80 million. He did not receive in 2004
    what he had requested, and I am aware of that, and I have asked
    my people to see if, as we go through the midyear reviews, we
    can find some additional funding for him to get started
    earlier. The issue is, when can he let the contracts with some
    confidence that there is going to be the funds there. He and I
    have talked about this, and I have asked them to go see if they
    can find some money for him.
        Senator Ben Nelson. General Sams, I understand the Air
    Force is standing up the Air Force Strategic Command (AFSTRAT)
    and that will be the force provider for STRATCOM. Maybe you
    could expand on how this command would be organized, and how
    it'll integrate with current STRATCOM operations and activity.
        General Sams. As I understand it, the AFSTRAT concept was
    still in discussion with Admiral Ellis and Air Combat Command.
    But in terms of the ISR forces, we do present them through 8th
    Air Force, so we have the command-and-control wings underneath
    Lieutenant General Carlson at 8th Air Force. Then those forces
    are then tasked through our normal Air Expeditionary Force
    (AEF) rotation cycles, and in terms of ISR forces, those are
    proportioned in accordance with the demands of the AEF and also
    the demands of what is the joint staff. Then as STRATCOM then
    takes over the ISR responsibility, there'll be proportioned in
    accordance with that.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Would that include the joint command of
    Space Command, as well as part of that action, or are they
    separate?
        General Sams. I believe it does, and let me get back to you
    with a more definitive answer.
        [The information referred to follows:]

        Day-to-day Air Force administrative tasking for Air Force space
    assets fall under Air Force Space (AFSPACE). For those apportioned to
    STRATCOM their day-to-day tasking will be done by STRATCOM through
    AFSPACE via STRATAF once it is stood up.
        The draft fiscal year 2004 Forces for Unified Commands will assign
    STRATAF (8AF) as an Air Force component to STRATCOM. STRATAF will
    consist of a headquarters staff and air operations center to provide
    planning support for Air Forces forces to either assigned to under
    operation control for STRATCOM.
        An AFSTRAT forward element is being established to Offutt AFB and
    it will have the ability to communication with 8th, 14th, 18th, and
    20th numbered Air Forces.

        Senator Ben Nelson. With the Orwellian big-brother approach
    that intelligence offers, I am concerned about how you move
    from overload of information to analysis to use. Obviously,
    inadequate information and inadequate intelligence is a problem
    that I'm sure that you're very carefully using the information
    you have to avoid overload problems so that the analytical side
    and the utilization of it can be as effective as possible.
    Would any of you like to comment on that? I assume, General
    Alexander, you'd be interested in this finding.
        General Alexander. Yes, sir. I'll tell you that you bring
    up a real key point about how we leverage information-age
    technology for our Intelligence Community. What I mean by
    that--when I grew up in intelligence, we used to take 100
    messages and spread them out on a table in hard copy, and then
    our analysts would go through----
        Senator Ben Nelson. You probably still do some of that, I
    take it?
        General Alexander. No, sir, they bring them in to me now,
    and they tell me, ``This is the one you should read.''
        Senator Ben Nelson. Oh, okay.
        General Alexander. You see, when they do that, the irony
    is, they're filtering it for you. In our systems yet today,
    when you're on the Internet, what you do when you do a Google
    search, for example, is, you do a search, you get a query with
    50,000 responses, and then you redefine your query to cut it
    down to a hundred.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Yes.
        General Alexander. But the intelligence that we need,
    especially in the global war on terrorism, was in that other
    49,900. So what we have to do is train the analysts to use that
    information in realtime.
        We sat down with one of our terrorism analysts who had,
    similar to what General Wurster talked about, the ability to
    take 200,000 messages and put them up into spheres and to make
    and bring the information amongst those spheres together to
    track for the Marine shootings in the Failaka Islands to a
    shooter in Saudi to support a national agency on who this guy
    was and what he had done, 210,000 messages that an analyst was
    using. Now, we can't do that consistently across the force, but
    that's what we have to do, is take those kind of tools and the
    ability to use that in realtime and get that amongst our
    analysts. I think that's what we're trying to do with the DCGS,
    IDC, and Project Morning Calm.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Is that technology better than
    Google's?
        General Alexander. Yes, sir, absolutely. [Laughter.]
        Senator Ben Nelson. Okay.
        Senator Allard. The Senator's time is expired.
        Senator Ben Nelson. Thank you.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Allard. Senator Dayton.
        Senator Dayton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Did our intelligence--Mr. Secretary, I'll direct this to
    you and then others that want to respond--in Iraq develop a
    foreknowledge of the latest eruptions of the insurgents?
        Dr. Cambone. I don't think, sir, that there was much
    confusion about the situation in Fallujah, and I don't think
    that there was a lack of understanding about the political
    situation in the south, in the Shia area.
        Senator Dayton. Can you give me just an applied lesson and
    an applied intelligence--and what is the nature or the specific
    kind of intelligence that you're able to obtain through your
    various devices--and we can go into closed session if you want
    to elaborate--but that provides forewarning to our forces there
    that something is developing, or the nature of what's
    developing, or the size of the force that's developing?
        Dr. Cambone. I'd be happy to do that, sir, but if we could,
    would you allow me to do that in a closed session?
        Senator Dayton. Absolutely.
        Dr. Cambone. Yes. I think the others can give you some
    information as well.
        Senator Dayton. Okay.
        Is the intelligence that you gather in your respective
    branches, is that shared with your counterparts in the other
    branches at the level of intelligence, or is that the level of
    operations? How is that transmitted to one another?
        General Alexander. Sir, we share intelligence back and
    forth, at least from my perspective, amongst the Services
    extremely well.
        Senator Dayton. Okay.
        General Alexander. We argue over who should do what at
    times. But I'll tell you, on the ground it works very well
    together, passing the information, as General Sams said, from
    the Predator and others. I think that's getting better and
    better all the time.
        Senator Dayton. That's shared at the level of the
    intelligence operations, or is that at the level of the on-the-
    ground----
        General Alexander. On the ground.
        Senator Dayton. On the ground, okay. When you talk about
    the 49,900 units of information that you have that you need to
    analyze, how do you distribute that information? Because
    somebody else might have another 49,900 something that connects
    up. How do you integrate that, or is it even desirable to
    integrate it? Any of you?
        General Alexander. Yes, sir. Let me jump in on this,
    because you're hitting on a key point where the databases that
    we have that would have all the information that goes back
    years, as an example, would be maintained at a national and a
    theater level; and then at a higher classification in the
    operational intelligence that I'm talking about of sharing on
    the ground--for example, tracking a target and destroying it.
    So if the question was, what do we know about Abu-X, and who is
    he related to, and how does that lead to a takedown that we
    would work with the SOF or with the Air Force, that information
    is information that is in those nationally-held databases, and
    goes all the way down, today, to division level, that we will
    move down to brigade level in the future, and that all of our
    Services have at a certain level that is specially
    compartmented.
        The secret collateral-level information goes all the way
    down to our battalion level and is something that we are now
    taking down to the soldier level, sensitive but unclassified,
    so that they have that information. So that if Predator sees
    something over the next hill, they can get that information
    through all that, all the way to that soldier over the next
    hill. More importantly, that soldier can ask a question and
    oftentimes the Air Force will re-tier that platform to help us
    understand what's going on. So when I say it's working back and
    forth, that's what I mean.
        But we have to continue to push that Distributed Common
    Ground Station, which we are in a joint effort. That's
    something that I think you'll see all the Services benefit from
    in the future.
        General Sams. Sir, Mr. Decker mentioned earlier about data
    tagging. I think that is one of the key things about making all
    of that information available, because what I might be
    interested in something different, as an Air Force person, than
    the Army did, but we want to be able to click on something and
    get it immediately. The other thing is, if that data is tagged,
    if the machine can talk, it prevents me from having to manually
    type certain bits of information--and then the way I type it, I
    know it's going to come out wrong--so that we reduce our
    opportunities for errors when we can do that, and those are the
    kinds of things that we're working really hard on.
        Senator Dayton. Thank you.
        Yes, sir?
        Mr. Decker. Sir, as General Sams and General Alexander
    said, all of the data, all of the intelligence information
    reports are being shared at the secret level, from the
    battalion tactical unit teams all the way up to the JTF and
    then into the national databases, and that's where the great
    synergy occurs. Dr. Cambone mentioned the importance of robust
    communications, and getting larger bandwidth in the future. But
    when you uncover an individual at a battalion-level tactical
    HUMINT team, and you flip open your CI/HUMINT laptop, and you
    start trying to check that person's name in the database, you
    can find out if anybody else has ever mentioned that name
    before. You can find out if any--if he has phone numbers on a
    piece of paper in his pocket, you can find out if those phone
    numbers have ever been used before, and who he possibly has
    been talking to, who he's associated with. That pattern-linked
    trend analysis is key to unwrapping all of this. It's very
    important that we share the raw information reports and the
    finished products both online, and have the bandwidth to share
    them across the force.
        Senator Dayton. Thank you.
        Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. The only question I would
    have outstanding, and maybe it's better to get it in writing
    from each of the branches, is if there's anything that they
    need seriously that is not included in the 2005 authorization
    budget.
        Senator Allard. You can submit questions and we'll ask the
    panel to respond back in 10 days.
        Senator Dayton. Thank you. All right, thank you, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Senator Allard. Senator Reed.
        Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Secretary Cambone, you've been a promoter of the Space-
    Based Radar system to develop global persistent surveillance.
    We are having a difficult time funding space systems, in
    general. Many of them are difficult in terms of cost overruns.
    The modest version of the Space-Based Radar being proposed has
    a substantial cost already, likely to grow. What are you doing
    to ensure that we will have not only a feasible alternative,
    but one that we can afford?
        Dr. Cambone. Yes, sir. Three things, none of which may seem
    to be critical, but, I think, in fact, is where we have to be
    focused if we're going to get to affordable systems, no matter
    whether they're in space or on the ground or at sea.
        First, the contract proposal that has gone out is seeking
    not a point solution by a single contractor, but is looking for
    a first cut at the range of alternatives, trying to calculate
    the needed capability over against a range of metrics and
    measures about its application and use. So we'll have a better
    sense of the applicability of the system, its mission
    effectiveness, than we might otherwise have, and be able to
    define and refine its performance. Because we have a habit of
    saying to ourselves, ``Space systems are expensive, so let's
    hang every Christmas-tree bulb we can think of onto that
    platform,'' and that drives the cost up substantially. So the
    first thing is to work closely with the contractor community to
    make sure we understand the range of capability over the range
    of applications.
        Second, we are working with that same contractor community
    to develop a new set of metrics to measure how the system
    should be analyzed--evaluated. Let me give you an example.
        Today, we essentially have a single-shot-camera approach to
    taking imagery. It takes a picture, and it takes a picture, and
    it takes a picture, and it takes a picture. So you can come up
    with some metrics. How many pictures can you take in a day,
    over what area, and so on and so forth?
        That's not how the Space-Based Radar is going to work. The
    Space-Based Radar will be about managing an output of energy,
    and that energy output will be relatively continuous. So the
    area to be covered is known. The question is, how much
    information are you going to be generating as that beam sweeps
    across the area of interest? How do you understand its value?
    We've never done this before, and so we need to apply a new set
    of metrics back against the performance and the applications
    that I mentioned earlier.
        Then, third, Mr. Teets has written into the specifications
    for the contract that he wants the senior management for the
    program to be of long-serving managers. We have a habit of
    seeing people, both on the government side and the contractor
    side, move through the management ranks of these major
    programs. He is looking for longevity in those programs.
    Hopefully he is going to see that the program manager has the
    kind of authority he needs to make certain that those standard
    elements of cost growth, primarily requirements creep, are
    within his control--that is, the program manager's control--and
    he's not forced to add things that he doesn't think are
    essential to the mission.
        Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
        Mr. Secretary, the directive establishing the Assistant
    Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight provides that
    that Secretary shall review all allegations that raise
    questions of the legality or the propriety of intelligence
    activities in the DOD. Also, he is supposed to report at least
    quarterly to the SECDEF on any DOD intelligence activities of
    questionable legality or propriety. Now, the question has been
    raised publicly about the Office of Special Plans. What is your
    relationship to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
    Intelligence Oversight? Has he issued any reports with respect
    to the Office of Special Plans?
        Dr. Cambone. The assistant is just what his title implies,
    which is that he is in a direct-report status relative to the
    SECDEF. So he, that person, that office, does not report
    through my office, nor do I have any authority over that
    office. We decided to do that. That was a positive decision,
    because, in fact, you do want to have an independent eye
    looking at that kind of question.
        Second, he would not normally be asked to do that, because
    as Mr. Feith has, I think, testified before Congress on a
    number of occasions, that office was not an intelligence
    function under the oversight of that office.
        Senator Reed. It was not an intelligence function, but I
    think, colloquially, at least, it was conducting intelligence
    activities. It was analyzing----
        Dr. Cambone. I don't think so, sir. What they did--I mean,
    every office within the Department receives, each day, some
    package of intelligence materials, whether it's in the Services
    or in the Office of the Secretary, down to the Joint Staff. In
    the case of the policy community, each of the subordinate
    offices receives that information. I think that you would agree
    that they would be remiss if they did not read, absorb, and do
    what they should with the intelligence that's provided to them,
    and that is to formulate the policy positions of the Department
    relative to the issues of the day. My understanding from Mr.
    Feith is, that was the role that that office played in the
    course of time that it was in being.
        Senator Reed. I find the answer less than satisfying,
    substantively and intellectually.
        Thank you.
        Senator Allard. We'll now move to closed session. We'll
    have the closed session in room 232. Do I have that correct? So
    if we can expeditiously move over there, we'll get proceeding
    further on our testimony.
        [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

                   Question Submitted by Senator Mark Dayton

                               FUNDING SHORTAGES

        1. Senator Dayton. Secretary Cambone, General Alexander, Admiral
    Porterfield, General Sams, Mr. Decker, and General Wurster, during the
    hearing we discussed lessons and potential areas for improvement during
    Operation Iraqi Freedom. Have any equipment or specific program funding
    shortages developed that need to be addressed in fiscal year 2005
    appropriations?
        Dr. Cambone. This office has been working with the authorizing and
    appropriations committees to identify all shortfalls in the fiscal year
    2005 appropriations bill and looks forward to continuing to work with
    the committee in the future.
        General Alexander. There are many lessons learned from OIF and the
    Army Intelligence community has organized a task force to document and
    implement them during fiscal year 2004. As we resolve these problems,
    we have been making adjustments within the Department of the Army to
    address many of the intelligence-related equipment, personnel,
    architectures, tactics, techniques, and procedures. However, there are
    still unresolved issues.
        We continue to rely heavily on contractor linguist support for
    intelligence, force protection, and general support operations in Iraq
    and in global war on terrorism. This requirement includes personnel for
    security screening and investigations.
        There is a critical need for an adequate intelligence architecture
    to support information processing, fusion, and dissemination for
    successful operations. In that regard, we endorse the acceleration of
    DCGS-A identified in Army's Shortfall List to Representative Ike
    Skelton. Additional capabilities required include the IDC and an IDC-
    Baghdad Extension to support units in OIF 3. The House Armed Services
    Committee (HASC) recognizes the value of FBCB2-CDA Hand Held reporting
    devices providing digital reporting capability for dismounted soldiers.
    The HASC authorized $6 million for this requirement and we solicit the
    committee's support to ensure that combat intelligence information is
    analyzed by intelligence centers. We are conducting operational testing
    at this time on the prototypes. The Army is also exploring other
    intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to enhance
    collection and situational awareness. CI/HUMINT have proven to be
    intelligence disciplines of choice. Both mobile training teams and
    institutional training are necessary to support increasing training
    needs. To assist in determining the value of terrorist and intelligence
    threats, additional contractor interrogators and polygraphers are
    needed. Procurement of additional communication flyaway packages and
    CHIMS/CHATS systems are required for deployed personnel. These packages
    enable reporting of critical CI/HUMINT information to support force
    protection and battlefield operations. The Army also needs to develop
    doctrine that clearly delineates the roles and responsibilities between
    Military Intelligence and Military Police in the handling of prisoners
    and detainees. This task will require additional civilian or contractor
    personnel.
        There is also an urgent need to track individuals of intelligence
    value through the use of Biometric FBI Compliant Fingerprint
    Architecture. A compliant architecture supporting the transmission of
    biometric data from tactical patrols/tactical HUMINT teams/Special
    Operations Teams to higher echelons in the DOD will facilitate
    information sharing with the FBI and support tactical and strategic
    operations as well as homeland defense. Such biometric data must also
    be integrated into an overarching architecture to ensure
    interoperability among multiple Army, DOD, and national reporting and
    analysis systems in battlefield, crisis, and peacetime environments.
        Additional detailed information will be provided upon request.
        Admiral Porterfield. On 1 March 2004, the CNO submitted to the
    Senate Armed Services Committee an Unfunded Program List (UPL) wherein
    number 22 addresses budget shortfalls for direct intelligence support
    for the global war on terrorism. Recent operations in support of the
    global war on terrorism have identified increased need for more robust
    communications to support real time dissemination of intelligence, more
    forward deployed contract linguists, forward surveillance equipment
    supporting ship tracking/MIO, sensor and payload tactical remoting
    initiatives, increased OCONUS HUMINT activities, databases
    enhancements, and continued professional intelligence training.
        Additionally, I would like to direct your attention to other ISR
    related requirements on the CNO's UPL. These include requirements for
    the ACS (#11), FIRESCOUT VTUAV (#12), Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
    Modules for VTUAV ISR capability (#13), SEA TRIAL-modular mission
    payloads for Sea Predator UUV (#15), procurement of additional SHARP
    pods (#39), and finally the procurement of a second UAV BAMS air
    vehicle to mitigate program development risk (#43). Fully funding these
    programs will allow us to better support Navy and Joint operational
    needs.
        General Sams. The fiscal year 2005 President's budget meets Air
    Force requirements. However, the Air Force is continuing to work
    through its lessons learned. For the first time in the history of the
    Air Force, Air Force leadership is standing up a permanent office for
    Air Force Lessons Learned (AF/XOL) whose partial mission is to collect
    issues, vet them for actionable items, track progress, and decisions
    related to any fixes and keep senior leadership informed.
        To date, this fledgling organization has taken the voluminous
    reports on Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom from Task
    Force Enduring Look; distilled them into broad, but workable areas and
    briefed each as part of the ongoing Capability Review and Risk
    Assessment (CRRA) Process. These inputs are used to influence/inform
    the capability shortfall assessment, which in turn will focus Air Force
    development efforts in future years.
        Additionally, XOL is working with AF/XP to matrix Lessons Learned
    across each program, thereby informing the Air Force Corporate Process
    in their budget deliberations and tradeoffs.
        Finally, the Air Force is working with Joint Forces Command on
    shaping the approaches to 42 Joint Lessons Learned from major combat
    operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which will be worked through the
    Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System.
        Mr. Decker. We have identified four intelligence programs that
    would benefit from increased funding. The programs listed below were
    submitted within the U.S. Marine Corps Fiscal Year 2005 Unfunded
    Programs List (UPL):
        1. Communication Emitter Sensing and Attacking System (CESAS).
    Additional funds procure, test, and evaluate equipment to provide
    protection against Remotely Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices
    (RCIEDs). The CESAS provides marines with the capability to detect,
    disrupt, and deny the enemy use of RCIEDs.
        2. Global Command and Control System--Integrated Imagery and
    Intelligence (GCCS-I3). Funds procure additional computer servers and
    associated licenses and software for GCCS-I3 to support the Distributed
    Common Ground/Surface System (DCGS) Integrated Backbone (DIB). The
    global war on terrorism has identified the need for collaborative
    effort to establish a multi-intelligence, interoperable, ISR
    infrastructure across DOD.
        3. Intelligence Analysis System Modification (IAS MOD). Additional
    funds would purchase a replacement UNIX server for the IAS Family of
    Systems required to support software migration to the Global Command
    and Control System (GCCS) 4.X software baseline. The current server
    configuration will not provide the performance and processing
    capabilities needed to support Marine Corps Operating Force
    intelligence staffs.
        4. Manpackable Secondary Imagery Dissemination System (MSIDS) for
    Small Unit Intelligence Toolkit (SUIT). Funding would provide one MSIDS
    suite for each of the 24 Scout Sniper Platoons at the Infantry
    Battalion level under the SUIT concept. MSIDS provides capability to
    capture, transmit, receive, and forward ground reconnaissance imagery
    products in near real time.
        General Wurster. Currently, the United States Special Operations
    Command (USSOCOM) is in the process of developing our submission to the
    Secretary of Defense for fiscal year 2005 supplemental requirements. In
    that submission, we are focusing on funding needs related to deployment
    costs, stress on equipment and procurement, all related in USSOCOM's
    execution of the global war on terrorism. In the global war on
    terrorism, it is essential that we bring the right sensors to the
    battlefield, get those sensors to the target, and communicate that
    information to Special Operations Forces. These types of capabilities
    are being forwarded to the Department for their consideration in their
    fiscal year 2005 supplemental request.

        [Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned and
    reconvened into closed session.]