The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is drafting a companion bill to the Federal Acquisition Reform Act that cleared the House last week, a committee source said Friday. Sources said work on the bill has been slowed because of changes at the top. With the resignation of Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) gave up the chairmanship of Governmental Affairs last week to succeed Packwood as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is now taking over as chairman of Governmental Affairs.
The C-17 airlifter would be Rutherford's preferred method of moving troops and supplies to the Bosnia-Herzegovina theater, although he points out TRANSCOM hasn't been asked to plan for troop movement to the area. "I would simply tell you that if I had to put an airlifter in there...I would opt for the C-17," he says. Installation of a defensive suite and fewer number of crew required to operate a C-17 makes its attractive, according to Rutherford.
The fiscal 1996 intelligence bill approved by the House last week reverses a multi-year trend of cuts that have put intelligence spending at just 65% of its 1989 level, in real dollars. But the intelligence community isn't breaking out the champagne bottles. When all is said and done, the House's FY '96 bill ups intelligence spending by just 1.7% over this year-less than inflation. One exception: the CIA, whose funding climbs 5%.
The 5% hike aside, Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch won't rule out the possibility of disbanding the CIA and transferring its missions to other government agencies. "I think that we're in a time where any question is possibly put on the table or sensibly put on the table," he says in response to a question at the National Press Club. "....I am not going to stand here at great length and tell you why I think the CIA is vital, but what I do want you to know is if it's not responsive to its policy customers...then something should be done."
The Defense Dept.'s need for a standoff jamming aircraft isn't going to go away, even with the increase of low observable platforms, says R. Noel Longuemare, DOD's principal deputy under secretary for acquisition and technology. "Stealthy platforms aren't invisible," he points out, adding that DOD is therefore likely to fund a future dedicated standoff platform.
Deutch says he has no plans to reduce investments in high technology, but that the funding may be redirected "to technologies more appropriate for the kind of post-Cold War challenges we face." And fiscal prudence will be paramount, he tells the Press Club audience. "We will not buy expensive new satellites unless there is a significant demand [from] our national security customers."
The Delta II launch of Canada's Radarsat satellite, slipped from Sept. 20 to no earlier than Oct. 4, has been slipped again to no earlier than Oct. 18. NASA, which is handling the launch from the Canadian Space Agency, says the second slip was made to give McDonnell Douglas time to implement modifications to the Delta II in wake of an Aug. 5. failure. McDonnell believes overheating of the rocket's explosive lines caused the mishap, and is planning to install additional protection to shield them during launch.
The House has rejected an amendment to its procurement reform bill that sought to restore a recoupment charge on foreign military sales. The recoupment was established in the 1960s and allows the Defense Dept. to tack a 3-5% surcharge on the gross price of a military contract. Its aim is to recoup some of the more than $30 billion the U.S. invests each year in research and development that benefits private defense contractors.
While the rest of the nation is getting a look at potential presidential candidate Colin Powell, Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.) says that when Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he favored a force of 50 B-2 bombers. A Dicks aide, questioned about the comment which was made on the floor of the House, said Dicks met Powell at the White House in the past year and asked him how many of the stealth bombers he recommended when he was chairman. Powell, according to the aide, told Dicks that "I recommended on the order of 50."
The Defense Dept. is operating Boeing C-135s that "need to be replaced pretty soon," says Gen. Robert Rutherford, commander of U.S. Transportation Command and Air Force Air Mobility Command. He says the planes are getting difficult to operate and maintain. One topic in on-going discussions on the subject is a lease-to-buy option.
NATO is examining whether to follow the U.S. Air Force's "Extend Sentry" effort to boost the mission-capable rate for Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. "We are looking into a similar program" called "Sustain Magic," says German Air Force Maj. Gen. Friedrich Ehmann, NATO's AWACS force commander. "We have not decided whether we'll come to a real program," he told The DAILY in an interview last week. NATO is evaluating whether to opt for a less extensive "Extend Sentry" effort.
The U.S. Air Force is gearing up for the fourth running of its "Ft. Franklin" intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance testbed, with hopes that it will become a permanent capability for either Air Force or joint forces testing, says an official of the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom AFB, Mass. "What would happen is we'd create a small corps team...and once or twice a year we'd stand it up to a full-blown facility," Capt. Shannon Sullivan, special projects officer for ESC's commander said in a telephone interview from Hanscom.
Rep. Bernard Sanders (Ind.-Vt.) appealed last week to President Clinton to support his House-approved amendment which would prohibit the use of funds in the fiscal 1996 defense appropriations bill from being used to pay for executive bonuses. Sanders said his amendment was aimed at preventing the Pentagon from using $31 million to pay part of the $92 million in executive bonuses for Lockheed Martin executives.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved $3.752 billion in fiscal 1996 foreign military financing, a level marginally below the House funding of $3.755 billion. The Clinton Administration had sought $4.027 billion. Of the total amount, the Senate committee Thursday funded $3.207 billion in grants, again slightly below the House's $3.211 billion. The request was for $3.262 billion. Of the Senate grants, some $1.8 billion was earmarked for Israel and $1.3 billion for Egypt.
With a successful reliability evaluation behind them, C-17 airlifter managers here are already looking beyond November's Pentagon decision on continuing the program to a whole range of derivatives, modifications and enhancements-including a stretch that could replace U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy transports.
Twenty-nine countries, including the U.S., are getting together to come up with an agreement for an export control regime, David Tarbell, director of the Defense Technology Security Administration, tells the Association of Old Crows during their annual symposium in Washington. Expectations are that "the regime will be put in place by the end of the year," Tarbell says. "It won't be like COCOM," which regulated the flow of technology to the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The new system will "rely on transparency for information sharing."
The Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee last week approved some $3.139 billion in fiscal 1996 security assistance, while linking assistance to Russia to that country's nuclear deal with Iran and placing restrictions on the nuclear reactor agreement with North Korea. The package was part of the $12.059 billion FY '96 foreign operations appropriations bill approved by the subcommittee. The Clinton Administration had requested $14.773 billion.
House Appropriations sources say they expect the fiscal 1996 House-Senate defense appropriations conference to begin tomorrow. They look for an agreement by next week, but some hurdles have to be cleared first. For instance, the budget allocation has to be settled since the House had a higher allocation, marking up to $244.1 billion, while the Senate passed a $242.7 bill. Also, the House bill was marked up in anticipation of a House leadership-imposed solution to the New Attack Submarine issue.
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says he feels spending cuts over the last five years "have resulted in an intelligence system of about the right size and capability for the missions it confronts." The FY '96 authorization bill passed by the House won't enable significant expansion of capabilities, Dicks says, but it will insure that modernization activities-such as the consolidation and upgrade of the U.S. spy satellite constellation-can continue.
An engine to replace the aging TF33-PW-100As on AWACS aircraft in the U.S. and NATO has been considered for some time, but NATO countries may have found a new impetus to make the transition. Ehmann says because of environmental emissions and noise, he isn't sure "whether we can operate the [current] system under these conditions, or whether we have to do something." He noted, though, that "it's not in the decision process right now," largely because "it's a very costly, money-consuming program."
The Defense Dept. is asking the congressional defense appropriations conferees to change actions of the appropriations committees on at least 21 procurement and RDT&E programs in its fiscal year 1996 budget. The conferees meet next week. Among programs included in a Sept. 12 appeal to the conferees, portions of which were obtained by The DAILY, are: -- Tier II Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) program.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who earlier this week threatened a presidential veto over tactical aircraft add-ons and restrictions on U.S. forces under U.N. command, yesterday wasn't willing to fire the same warning if the final version of the fiscal 1996 defense authorization includes funding for renewed production of the B-2 stealth bomber. Instead of warning of a veto, Perry hedged.
HUNGARY would buy Jas 39 Gripen fighters from Sweden under a new memorandum of understanding, according to reports from Stockholm. The reports quoted the Swedish news agency TT as saying the deal was potentially for 30 aircraft with an option for 30 more.
Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour recaptured the balky Wake Shield Facility yesterday, recovering four supposedly ultra-pure wafers of semiconductor material after using the free-flying 12-foot steel disk to measure how hard Shuttle maneuvering jets hit nearby structures in orbit.
DELTA II MISHAP that put a Korean communications satellite in the wrong orbit Aug. 5 was apparently caused by a failure in the launch vehicle's explosive lines, according to preliminary investigation results released yesterday by McDonnell Douglas. The explosive lines, devices that help jettison the solid rocket motors after their propellant is consumed, were damaged by exposure to excessive temperatures. As a result, one of the solid rocket motors failed to separate from the Delta II.
