TYPE: COMMITTEE HEARING

LENGTH: 16226 words

COMMITTEE: HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

HEADLINE: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ) HOLDS HEARING ON FY2003 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION: AIR FORCE

SPEAKER:
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ), CHAIRMAN

LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C.

WITNESSES:

JAMES ROCHE, SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE, GENERAL JOHN JUMPER, CHIEF OF STAFF FOR THE AIR FORCE

BODY:

 
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE HOLDS A HEARING ON FY 2003
DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION: AIR FORCE
 
MARCH 6, 2002
 
SPEAKERS:
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB STUMP (R-AZ)
CHAIRMAN
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES V. HANSEN (R-UT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CURT WELDON (R-PA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOEL HEFLEY (R-CO)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM SAXTON (R-NJ)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. MCHUGH (R-NY)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TERRY EVERETT (R-AL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROSCOE G. BARTLETT (R-MD)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HOWARD P. "BUCK" MCKEON (R-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE J.C. WATTS JR. (R-OK)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM M. "MAC" THORNBERRY (R-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN N. HOSTETTLER (R-IN)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE VAN HILLEARY (R-TN)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE WALTER B. JONES JR. (R-NC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM RYUN (R-KS)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB RILEY (R-AL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM GIBBONS (R-NV)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBIN HAYES (R-NC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HEATHER WILSON (R-NM)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE KEN CALVERT (R-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROB SIMMONS (R-CT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ANDER CRENSHAW (R-FL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MARK STEVEN KIRK (R-IL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JO ANN DAVIS (R-VA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE EDWARD SCHROCK (R-VA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TODD AKIN (R-MO)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE J. RANDY FORBES (R-VA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOE MILLER (R-FL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JEFF WILSON (R-SC)
 
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE IKE SKELTON (D-MO)
RANKING MEMBER
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN M. SPRATT JR. (D-SC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON P. ORTIZ (D-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LANE EVANS (D-IL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE GENE TAYLOR (D-MS)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE NEIL ABERCROMBIE (D-HI)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MARTIN T. MEEHAN (D-MA)
U.S. DELEGATE ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD (D-GU)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH (D-IL)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SILVESTRE REYES (D-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE THOMAS H. ALLEN (D-ME)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE VIC SNYDER (D-AR)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM TURNER (D-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ADAM SMITH (D-WA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LORETTA SANCHEZ (D-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES H. MALONEY (D-CT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ (D-TX)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY (D-GA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ELLEN O. TAUSCHER (D-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT A. BRADY (D-PA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT E. ANDREWS (D-NJ)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BARON P. HILL (D-IN)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE MIKE THOMPSON (D-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN B. LARSON (D-CT)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SUSAN A. DAVIS (D-CA)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JIM R. LANGEVIN (D-RI)
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE RICK LARSEN (D-WA)



*


STUMP: The meeting will please come to order. Today the committee concludes its review of the fiscal year 2003 budget request for the military forces with the Air Force.

As our witness, I'm pleased to welcome Secretary of the Air Force, James Roche; Chief of Staff, General John Jumper to testify on the Air Force's budget request.

As we're all keenly aware, the Air Force played a significant role in the collapse of the Talliban regime in Afghanistan. Within only a few months the Air Force demonstrated to value of air power as a force multiplier for our ground forces to fundamentally change the combat equation.

Moreover, the Air Force keeps watch over the skies here in the United States to dissuade and, perhaps, preclude another September 11 from happening. Last week the Commander in Chief, General Tommy Franks, told the committee that all the delivery and most of re-supply personnel equipment in Afghanistan has been done by air. In addition to the enormity of this humanitarian relief operation, the Air Force efforts in Afghanistan have been remarkable.

However, all this comes at a cost. The committee is well-aware of the toll that sustained operations have on pilots, aircrews and their families and aircraft and equipment. One of the budget requests for the Air Force 2003 is $87 billion, an increase of about $7 billion over fiscal year 2002; the unfunded priority list is almost $4 billion.

Clearly, hard choices are still required, even in this new era of increased defense spending.

The Air Force program for the coming year has shortcomings, especially in the area of facilities modernization. But, leadership demands both tough decisions, and I commend the Secretary and the General for delivering a budget that ensures that the Air Force will remain ready and able to defend this nation anywhere at anytime.

Before we proceed, let me turn to Mr. Skelton for any remarks that he may use to make.

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And, I join you in welcoming Secretary Roche and General Jumper.

We look forward to your testimony, and we will have some questions for you a bit later.

Now, generally speaking, Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased with the fiscal year 2003 budget request for the Air Force. In particular, I'm impressed at the effort and the improvement that the Air Force is making in the areas of transformation, information operations, advance capabilities, such as use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Now, I applaud the fact that the Air Force is doing the important thing in making people a priority. The investments being made today in recruiting and retention and quality of life programs, I believe, will pay dividends for many years to come. And, I've said before, and I still believe it to be true, that personal programs and policies, though they don't the glamour, they're the guts of the system.

So, let me commend you on that. I also want to credit the Air Force for making education and professional military education a priority. Not only has the Air Force succeeded in making the completion of professional military education a condition, proceeding to promotion, but now the service is on the verge of sending enlisted personnel to graduate and technical schools to pursue Masters Degree in relevant fields. This is an outstanding proposal and achievement, and we will follow that very closely.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to send a couple of notes of caution. The ongoing war on terrorism has highlighted a conspicuous need for more strategic airlift and for more tanker aircraft. And, I'll look forward to any comments, gentlemen, you might have in that regard. I also am aware that the Air Force has sought authorization in funding for an increased end-strength, more young people in uniform, and all the long (inaudible) in seeing this statutory end-strength by up to 2 percent and flexibility really doesn't solve your problem. And, in a wartime environment, it's clear to me that all the services need additional end-strength.

And, Mr. Secretary, and General, I know you're performing a very difficult balancing act trying to get the right mix to balance the appropriate amount of resources, devoted to the force structure on one hand, modernization, infrastructure, readiness, personnel, and quality of life issues. And, those are all extremely difficult balances to manage, and I commend you for your success in striking that balance.

I also want to credit you for making wise trade-offs and for having helped to convince the administration that more was needed for defense.

I believe that the American people intuitively understand that our prosperity at home rests in part on the stability that our forces help maintain overseas. Our leadership in the world is reinforced by the ideals associated with our country, the wisdom of our leaders and their policies and the strength of our armed forces. As our forces are demonstrating on a daily basis in Afghanistan, we are the world's preeminent military force. And, I thank you both for helping to ensure that we maintain that.

So, Mr. Chairman, we look forward to the testimony of these two gentlemen. Thank you.

STUMP: Thank you, Mr. Skelton.

Gentlemen, let me again welcome you. Mr. Secretary, and General Jumper, your entire statements will be printed in the record. If you care to summarize, we'd appreciate it. Unfortunately, we're going to have a vote sometime in the next 20 minutes or so, so we'll have to recess at that time. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours. You may proceed in any way you see fit.

ROCHE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of this committee, it is an honor to appear before you today representing the Air Force team, along with my colleague, John Jumper.

John Jumper is an extraordinary officer. One of the most imaginative human beings I've ever met and it is my distinct honor to have the opportunity to spend these next number of years as his colleague helping to lead this Air Force team.

Together we have set ambitious goals and we intend to achieve them, Mr. Chairman. We are committed to succeed in our responsibilities together with our sister services to provide for this nation's security now and in the foreseeable future.

You have our full attention and we are ready to get down to the important business at hand. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, as you said, I'd just like to make some short introductory comments and ask that our combined opening statements, the Air Force 2002 Posture Statement, be included in the record, sir.

Mr. Chairman, America's Air Force has had numerous opportunities over the past several months to implement and validate significant changes in the concept of military operations and indeed in the conduct of air war.

The full support of Don Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense, we have encouraged and exploited the rapid advancement and deployment of innovative technologies. We have already begun to reorganize and find efficiencies throughout the Air Force. And, we have taken significant actions to implement the findings of the space commission in our new role as the Department of Defense executive agent for space.

We precede, however, Mr. Chairman, hungry rather than complacent, recognizing that much work and many more opportunities to improve await us.

ROCHE: Despite our dedication to demanding, critical and global operations, we have not faltered in our steps to continue the task of transforming our force to match the demands of this new century.

But, first and foremost, Mr. Chairman, you can be justifiably proud of the American airmen who serve our country at home and abroad. Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch over Iraq over the last decade, our folks have quietly amassed over 200,000 sorties.

In Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan has demanded over 19,500 sorties to date, some of which have broken records and mission range, hours flown, combat recognizance.

Tanker support to join operations, nearly 8,000 tanker sorties to date, 55 percent of which have been for Naval aircraft, our mobility demands and humanitarian tonnage delivered have all been unprecedented. For the first time in the history of warfare, the entire ground operation in landlocked Afghanistan, infiltration, exfiltrations, sustainment of supplies and support equipment have been accomplished by air.

Here at home in Operation Noble Eagle over the skies of America, more than 12,000 of our airmen, 265 aircraft and 350 crews in the National Guard, Air Force Reserve and active Air Force have flown over 17,000 fighter, tanker and airborne early warning sorties, as well as pre-positioned C-130's for emergency response.

Our NATO partner nations have deployed forces to our own country for the first time. Seven AWACS and NATO crews helped defend the skies of the United States as we speak. It is the first time since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823; the Continental European Force is helping to defend the Continental United States. And, it is the first time Article 5 of the NATO of charter was invoked in the first deployment under the innovation was to the United States.

These NATO crews have flown over 250 sorties, totally about 2,700 flight hours, since they arrived on the 14th of October. And, I've had the pleasure to go down and visit with them. They're doing this with great pride and our folks in Oklahoma have been wonderful hosts to them.

As John and I work to complete our transformations, support our airmen, reinvigorate the military industrial base to become an even more efficient team, our vision remains that total air and space force providing global recognizance and strike to include the movement of troops and their support across the full spectrum of operations.

But, we face challenges, Mr. Chairman. First, we need to provide persistent intelligent surveillance recognizance across a critical section of distancing country in all weather conditions, 24-hours a day, seven days a week for up to a year. But, in the course of the last few months, we've demonstrated that we think we know how to do this, and this is a goal we can achieve.

We need to develop the ability to provide near instantaneous ground attack from the air, precisely and with a wide variety of strike weapons, by working closely with troops on the ground equipped with special sensors and communication links, as well as with a portfolio of off-board sensors and platforms, including unattended or unmanned vehicles. All simultaneously coordinated.

Again, over the last number of months, we've demonstrated that this is a goal we can achieve. We need to define and pursue the optimum space architecture to fully integrate space assets into the global strike operations from the air, land and sea.

And, we need to develop our role in homeland defense and arrive at a steady state of roles and responsibilities among our active Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.

And, we need to complete and implement our long-term strategy for our air logistics centers. We need to modernize our tanker and intelligence surveillance recognizance capabilities that we'll need in the years ahead.

And, here, Mr. Chairman, I am particularly concerned, as is John, over the age of our 707-based tanker fleet and our intelligence surveillance recognizance fleet. We have roughly 545 KC-135s based on the 707, and only 55 operating KC-10s. Yet, 55 percent of our fueling in the area of responsibility have been to Naval aircraft. These planes are over 40 years old in average age. And, that's you've seen us try to find innovative ways to replace some of them as soon as we can, including an attempt to see if we can lease, properly and in accordance with the rules of the Congress, a number of aircraft to start to introduce a chance so that we have some dissimilar tankers. Because we fear that we could face a class problem in the 707, which would shut down the fleet.

Now, we also note that these planes are so old they may not have class problems left, but on the other hand, one could appear. And, we believe it's time to get on with it given the age of the planes and given that both of us have spend time in air logistics center, have seen the delaminating aluminum, have seen the catalytic corrosion in the bodies of the planes, and recognize that we are patching very old aircraft.

Meanwhile, we are also developing concepts and strategies to seamlessly integrate our manned and unmanned systems. And, again, we've demonstrated capabilities in this area, especially through our combined air-operating center that's been used in the current conflict.

And, lastly, we remain ever focused on retaining our people, especially those in mid-career who will benefit from the provisions in this budget for improved family housing, pay and facilities.

Mr. Chairman, America's Air Force is able to perform the extraordinary feats asked of us because we are blessed with full support of the American people, the Congress, and the President of the United States, all of whom have been graciously supportive of our efforts and missions.

We sincerely appreciate the confidence in our commitment and our capabilities, as well as the wisdom, vigilance and patriotic sense of duty that join us in our journey to provide our nation with superiority air and space throughout this century.

When you go the area of responsibility in Southwest Asia, Mr. Chairman, as both John Jumper and I have done, you too will be proud of the airmen you meet. A dedicated team of men and women that you and your colleagues in the Congress have raised and supported.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

STUMP: General Jumper, did you have a statement to make?

JUMPER: Sir, I thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to make a statement. Mine will be very brief. I think Secretary Roche covered the specifics of -- and the highlights of the current operation of the Air Force.

I'd just to take a moment to thank the distinguished members of the committee, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of all of the nation's airmen. As the Secretary said, we both had the opportunity to travel over to the AOR and to see firsthand our young airmen perform on behalf of the nation.

I have been wearing this uniform for 35 years. And every crisis that we endure, I continue to be surprised at the dedication and the commitment of these young Americans in uniform of all service.

And, in this generation where we are led to believe that our youngsters are brought up in a culture of Beavis and Butthead and the Simpson's, and they don't know how to be committed or loyal or patriotic, one only has to travel to the frontlines and see these great Americans who display all of these great characteristics and qualities and be proud to know that they are as dedicated, as principled, as patriotic as any generation of Americans that ever served.

And, let me thank you specifically, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, for what you have done to give these young airmen the resources they need to do their job. I've had more than one crusty, knuckle-dragging NCO come up to me and say, sir, I'm grateful for the pay raise, but, you know, I would have given it up just to get the parts that you're now giving me for these airplanes, so I can fix my airplanes.

We give them the resources to do their job. We show them the appreciation with a small pay raise from time-to-time and they will stay with us, Mr. Chairman, because they're all great Americans.

As Secretary Roche said, we're on a road towards transformation, and we are dedicated to the integration of air and space and ground and naval forces seamlessly so that we can reap the benefits of this information age on the battlefield. We saw a recent example of this with a young staff Sergeant named Lienheart (ph), a 24-year old Staff Sergeant, he's a special forces' guy, he's an Air Force member and he was on the ground in Afghanistan. And, we've read the stories about these people on the ground who ride the horses and this was the fellow. And, the picture is on the horse with the laptop computer on the saddle horn hooked up to a satellite to give him his precise position with a laser tripod and binoculars bouncing off the back of the horse as they get to their next position. And, they're calling in strikes from B-52s seven miles in the sky and putting bombs to within 800-meters of his own position.

Sir, using B-52s for close air support is something that we never thought of. We train these bomber pilots to take off from the Northern tier of the United States and go someway on a nuclear mission, but now transformational ideas coming out of the heads of these youngsters are putting these airplanes in the close air support, combined with guys like Gunning Staff Sergeant Lienheart (ph) to do the nation's duty.

So, Mr. Chairman, I thank you. I thank the members of the committee for all you've done to support our people in uniform and just let me say God bless America.

STUMP: Thank you, General.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you. I think we're truly blessed to have the civilian military team that's sitting in front of us today and we thank you for your hard work, your efforts and your wisdom. There are a good number of questions we need to ask and I will ask a couple.

I was down at Hilbert Air Force Base just a few days ago. And, what you were telling me last year that the Air Force is 1,500 pilots short didn't sink in until I saw the fact that all of the planes are not capable of being fielded because of lack of pilots and supporting maintenance and crews.

So, my obvious question is that you just can't throw money at the problem, what are you doing to fix this? It has to be fixed. I'm very concerned about the young folks in particular those who are Air Force Academy graduates bailing out on you and leaving. How are you going to keep these young folks in the service, and particularly the pilots? You've got to do it. How are you going to fix it?

ROCHE: I'll start, sir. And, then ask John to comment. With regard to the pilots we are now putting as many pilots through basic training as we can. We are short. And, we've had shortages in officer accessions for a number of years. You've hit on the key, though, Mr. Skelton, which is, we have to retain pilots.

And, we've instituted a program of recruiting, which is to send out teams and right now they're working on the battle managers and on the scientists and engineers because our pilots happen to be very busy. So, we use role models to go out and recruit people for the second half of their careers, to point out the burdens of command, but the fulfillment of command, the notion of developing policy, of leading large organizations and why that would be a very rewarding second part of their career even though they may fly less than they did in the first part of their career.

With your help, we are fixing up family housing. We are doing a number of other things to make life, quality of life, better for these folks. The air expeditionary force was a way to get some stability to deployments. And, while it's being stressed right now, because of the current conflict, we are conscious of our folks being away from their families for long periods of time.

We want to give them educational opportunities to make the point that we want to invest in them because they're very important for future leadership. So, we are working at that. We are doing in the enlisted ranks than we are in the pilot and air battle managers and navigator ranks, scientists and engineers we're also terribly short of.

And, we're looking at each one of these to see if there are things in our own procedures, or our own ways of dealing with them that cause them a problem that we can easily fix. And, we're taking this, not one at a time, but two or three at a time.

In the case of the scientists and engineers, we have found some of our own procedures have been part of the problem. And, when we find that, we fix it and we fix it immediately.

John?

JUMPER: Sir, Mr. Skelton, as you know, sir, the pay incentives that's been supported by this committee have gone a long way to helping us out. We have a 13 percent increase in the number of pilots are committed to take the bonus over last year. We've had 150 people since the 11 September come back into the Air Force to fly again that had recently gotten out of the Air Force.

But, your point is well taken. And, we've taken steps to try and control that thing which bothers our pilots the most. And, that is the tempo. We are asking a lot of these people, they're gone away from home a lot. I have never had an F-15 pilot come up to me and say, sir, I've decided I want to stop flying the F-15 and I'd rather fly a Boeing 727. That's never the case. The case is always sir; it's like too much candy at Halloween. I'm going all the time; I'm not participating in the upbringing of my own children. My spouse has a career and the opportunities are just too good on the outside. It's controlling the operational tempo of being able to get ourselves into a solid rotational base. Being able to provide the incentives that make it, at least, somewhat comparable with what they can get on the outside.

And, you know, Mr. Skelton, as well as I do, that although the hiring rates for the airlines have been cut in half since the 11th of the September, the projections have been cut in half, we still expect the airlines, the major airlines, to hire 1,500 new pilots this year. And, as the Secretary said, we train 1,100.

Now, the other services train some too, but the demand is for outstripping the resources. So, we have to make the incentives there. We have to control the opt tempo. We have to watch quality of life, all the things that I know are of concern to this committee, sir.

SKELTON: Mr. Chairman, I have two other questions, but I would prefer to do that toward the end of hearing so that others may participate.

STUMP: Thank you, Mr. Skelton.

The gentleman from California, Mr. Hunter, is recognized.

HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thanks for being with us this morning, and thanks for your service to the country. I think there was a -- a major lesson has been learned over the last several conflicts that we've been involved in. And, certainly this latest one is no exception. And, that is that two of our best technologies, when married together, that is Stealth coupled with precisions munitions, result in a lot of leverage on the battlefield. And, you folks have been denied a little piece of this action because your tact air doesn't have the legs or didn't have the legs early on to get into the theatre. And, the Navy was the primary mover with tact air.

But, we learned the lesson, as we -- and, I don't know whether you guys attended the press conferences with then President Clinton at Whiteman Air Base after the B-2s had returned. And, from those Kosavo air operations we saw the first validation of that idea, that is Stealth married with precision munitions in the Gulf War 10 years ago.

And, you've seen that same idea validated in this last operation. And, granted, you can run those B-52s up and drop them pretty close when you're pretty of when you got some precision attached to that. In fact, I think, Kasan was one place where we came in a little tight to put a few crowd pleasers out there as they ringing Kasan and trying to drive the Marines into the South China Sea. And, that was very effective.

But, you've learned this lesson of Stealth accompanied by precision munitions. And, yet we still have -- we've got 21 B-2 bombers and I don't see a blueprint for going forward. And, when we've asked you about it, there's been vague statements about weapons from space at some point, which is necessarily vague because I think it's something that'll never happen.

Where we going? Are you going to come out with a bomber blueprint, Stealth blueprint that's going to give us some long range Stealth capability?

ROCHE: I'll start with that...

HUNTER: And, what do you think about this Chevy B-2 that the Northrop's come up with that is a cheaper B-2?

ROCHE: First of all, sir, yes, we have seen Stealth and precision work very well together. Stealth can be in the airplane; it can also be in the weapon. We have a bomber roadmap that says take the 21 B-2s that we have, fix them up to make sure they can always penetrate.

The days of having to drop a lot of weapons in order to have a high probability of success are over because now each weapon can have a high probability of success. Where are Stealth is coming is in something that can be stealthy and fast. And, the F-22 gives us that; the joint strike fighter will also give us stealth and speed, self- protection, as well as the ability to attack.

The F-22 increasingly will be used in two ways. One, to clear the skies, which it's originally designed for, and, two, to work with forces on the ground and going against very precise targets.

We're developing a small, lighter bomb that -- smaller diameter bomb that will be very precise so that we can carry more of them on many types of vehicles.

HUNTER: OK. If you flew F-22, Mr. Secretary, out of Whiteman Air Base...

ROCHE: Yes.

HUNTER: ... to a target, to a theatre as far away as Kosavo, how many air refuelings would you need for the F-22?

ROCHE: Well, you need a distance that has 600-mile legs. However, we have bases that are closer. And, right now...

HUNTER: Yes.

ROCHE: ... we have found when we flew the B-2 out of Whiteman; we needed a number of tanks. But, that was good for the time it was done.

HUNTER: We understand. But, one problem that you folks have now come up against, the tact air fellows in Air Force, as you've now had trouble getting into theatre in Afghanistan early on because you didn't have air bases close by.

ROCHE: Yes, sir, but we had...

HUNTER: And, the Navy got to the point where they were having to borrow J-dams (ph) from you because they were doing all the shooting.

ROCHE: The statistics will show that the bombers dropped, I think, a larger number of weapons than the Navy need.

HUNTER: Well, my point is, you're right. When you went to your bombers and you had to call on B-52s, then you got into the action. So, my question is, do you think 21 is enough in terms of the stealth aircraft?

ROCHE: We believe 21 of the current version of the B-2, or a B-2 that shape is enough. We are moving to standoff weapons for the B-1. The B-1 has performed magnificently in that it no longer has to go dashing in on the deck. It can stand off with the weapons that are now in production, the Jazims (ph), which will give it very stealthy attack capabilities from a standoff range. We believe moving to something that can both be fast and stealthy is ideal.

Now, for a bomber roadmap, yes, sir we do have thoughts of what we would do in the near-term, what we would do later on, and the point you made about space is a very distant thing.

But, at this point we believe taking weapons and weaponizing the bombers has the greatest return while we try to field F-22s and joint strike fighters.

JUMPER: Sir, I might add that we're taking steps, as you know, to put 80 bombs on each B-2 bomber, 80 precision bombs. If you put four or five B-2s in there with that many bombs on there, it takes care of, very quickly, of any target base that we have out there today.

We have flown very few B-2 sorties in Afghanistan. I would not hesitate, as we are doing right now, to take F-22s out of other bases in the region as we are doing with fighters today.

If the situation warranted the F-22 to go in and take out the highest threats to enable the B-2 to come in with the larger loads, this is the combination of stealth standoff and precision that has to be kept in balance, because, sir, as you know, this war is like this war, it's not the last one, and it's not going to be like the next one. We have to balance the need to be able to get into those toughest targets.

You also know, that in the air-to-air role, that from time to time we get our hands on the next generation of potential fighters we would go up against made by various countries throughout the world. In particular, the ones made by the Russians, when we get our hands on those and our pilots fly them, our guys flying their airplanes beat our guys flying our airplanes every time.

And, this the other thing the F-22 will do for us as it's taking care of that air to ground role.

HUNTER: No, I'm not against F-22...

JUMPER: So, it's a combination.

HUNTER: ... I just want to see the bomber rollout.

JUMPER: And, we...

HUNTER: I think you need them both.

JUMPER: ... would like to see the next generation of bomber take advantage of the next generation of technology. And, as the Secretary said, I'm not sure what that is, if it's manned, unmanned or orbital or sub-orbital. But, we ought to take advantage of that next generation.

And, my personal belief is that we've got the bomber force structure we need to get us to that point.

HUNTER: I just have one other comment, sir. I think it's one of the really good news points that we've demonstrated in the last number of months. The Navy big deck carriers were there and we did not have bases close by.

The distance their planes had to fly when they had weapons on board in the drag that you know so well, they would have had a difficult time were it not for land-based tankers. It's the fact that the portfolio the United States has can work so well together is the good news.

Here, we were able to very much support them in terms of tact air. As time has gone on, we've been able to move things into the region. So, each scenario we face favors different parts of the American portfolio. In this case, the combination of our tankers, their tact air in the early days, plus our long-range weapons really paid off.

STUMP: Gentlemen, at this time we have to stand in recess until the pound of the gavel for about a 10-minute break. When we return we'll resume with Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Weldon.

(RECESS)

STUMP: The meeting will please come to order. The gentlemen from Texas, Mr. Ortiz.

ORTIZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, Chief, happy to see you here. We want to thank you for the outstanding work that you're doing and our young men and women.

Now, I've got a question. You know, in light of current efforts by the Air Force personnel to support Operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle and the increased operational flight hours of aircraft well beyond those initially planned for, CAPs, the Combat Air Patrols, what do you see the impact of current operations on personnel there?

I know you've had a little bit about that, you know, but -- and, then I read part of your testimony where you say, Mr. Secretary, that in 1990 the Air Force purchased 257 aircraft. By 1996 that number had fallen to 30. What happened between those six year, 1990 to '96? Were there requests made, were there different priorities, why did we fall so low from 296 to 30 planes? Maybe you can elaborate a little bit on that.

ROCHE: I'd be glad to, sir. I appreciate the question. Let me touch on the personnel first. Our young people and older, middle aged people are doing spectacularly well. But, there are impacts, sir. One that's come home to both John and myself is that a number of our people who are in things like AWACS Systems have not had the chance to take leave, and they're allowed to accumulate 60 days leave on the books before they loss leave. But, if we don't even give them an opportunity to take leave, there is an unfairness there.

So, we've extended that to 80 days, accumulate 80 days. We're now in the position where, because of the tempo of operations, they can't even take leave now and we've having to look -- and we, under the authorities we have, extend that to 100 days. So, one of the things that's happening is in a number of our -- parts of our forces, our young people do not have the time or our middle aged people to take the leave to spend some time, to take a vacation to relax a little bit. They're under a pressure of tempo of operations, which, God love them, they're holding up to.

The second thing that's happening to us is that a lot of the training that we require our crews to have is being foregone. That happens in every war. What's different is we have so many of our forces being used in the United States who are not able to do training. Now, these are very bright people and they come up with workarounds and they'll do such things, as in the AWACS' world they refer to it as agile century where they'll take up a crew for a mission over the United States, but they'll also take a bunch of students.

And, if it's quiet they'll start training the students, but they keep the regular crew there in case something goes wrong and they can quickly just shift out the seats. Or they try to catch a CAP that's coming back from its routine mission and see if they can't get a patrol, or they use simulators exquisitely.

And, by the fact that we've been able to link a lot of the radars inside the United States NORAD, we have a situation were we have AWACS crew on the ground in a simulator in Oklahoma actually controlling Naval aircraft off of San Diego by using the other link.

So, in the personal area training has been really hampered, and also a chance to give our people the normal vacations and rest and time with family.

With respect to procurement, it's been referred to as a procurement holiday and I've always resented the term. What happened is in any large institution, if you don't have a continuous stream of investment, you'll pay the piper at some point. We've seen some of our allies who have lived through this who had to start to shrink their commitments, and you'll recall nothing east of Suize (ph) at one point among our British allies.

When you take a procurement that goes about 10 years, procurement holiday, and you don't buy systems, everything we have gets older, yet it's not that they're not needed. Whether it was Kosavo, or Bosnia or the current conflict or still maintaining forces for Northern Watch or Southern Watch, plus the deterrent forces in Korea and Asia, and now responsibilities for the air space over the United States, those systems are needed and we're hurting.

What we have tried to do is to put forth a budget that takes the most immediate needs first. So, for instance, we know we're going to face a, what's called a bathtub in our fighters, they're just going to wear out or, unfortunately, a number of them will crash, and we're willing to take that risk if we can introduce some new systems. So that our folks are spending all of their time trying to hold old things together.

And, we're taking each slice and saying, OK, in the bombers let's do weapons now. In something else, let's get new airplanes. In lift, let's have C-17's. Working our way through to try and catch up because you cannot catch up all at once. It will take more than 10 years to overcome the 10-year procurement holiday.

John?

JUMPER: Sir, just let me add on the personnel side, and Congressman Spratt and I have talked about this before, the demands that we're making on our people. We're trying to figure out what the new steady state is. We get in these contingency operations, as we are in Afghanistan, and we get the surprise like we had on the 11th of September, it defines another level of steady state for us on which we calculate our rotational base and the tempo of our troops.

It's take awhile to figure what that's going to be, or even if we're going to be able to predict it properly. The good news is that we have enough flexibility in our system that we can respond to this, but in doing so we work our people very, very hard. And, we lean very heavily on our Guard and Reserve. And, we have to figure out a way to get ourselves back to a more normal situation to control the tempo of both our Guard, Reserve and our active duty people.

ORTIZ: Thank you, my time just ran out.

Thank you, chairman.

STUMP: The gentleman for Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon?

WELDON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you both for coming in today, and more importantly, thank you for your service to the country.

General, you folks are doing a fantastic job and we're very proud and our job is to continue to make sure they have the proper tools and resources to allow you to continue to motivate them and do what they're doing.

And, I want to also, Mr. Chairman, congratulate this committee, because one of the successes we're seeing in Afghanistan is the Predator. It's doing a great job, especially with those Hellfire missiles attacks. It was this committee, six years ago, without any request from the administration that added $10 million to equip the Predator with the Hellfire missiles. So, I want you all to know that as we take criticism for playing a legitimate role in the process of adding money in for priorities, here is a clear example where this committee was ahead of the curve.

And, we supported the 901 dollars, the $10 million, equipped the Predator, and, I think, General, you'd probably agree, that's been a great asset, has it not?

JUMPER: Absolutely, sir, absolutely.

WELDON: So, congratulations to you and congratulations to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for doing the job that we're suppose to do.

You know, General, I took a delegation of Mr. Secretary up to 25 installations in four days back in August. If you look at the terrible problem we have with real property maintenance the capability of our troops to be able to live comfortably and attend school and their children and to have a decent quality of life. And, also to look at the spare parts problem.

And, one of stops is at Mountain Home (ph) up in Idaho and I got to tell you, my good friend Solomon Ortiz was with me and Sylvester Reyes was there, remember that fellow, that Air Force guy who had just spent six days, 12 hours a day, non-stop giving up personal medical appointments, giving up time with his family, to cannibalize a B-1 to keep another B-1 up in the air.

And, you know, my point to you, and I know you know this, but -- and I know the B-1 is an older platform that requires us to go out and get parts remachined. But, I hope that your budget, in fact, this year is addressing that issue. Because you have the moral of the troops, and we saw it in the eyes of that young guy there who was so proud that he would do whatever it took, 12 hours a day, six days a week, it didn't matter to him, he was proud to have done it, to keep that plane in the air.

But, we can't go on like that. I mean -- and that's the reality of what happens when we cut back on, not just spare parts, but on modernizing the way we need it. So, I want you to respond to that about the need to deal with the spare parts issues, especially with programs like the B-1.

And, the question I want to ask you is your unfunded priority list is about $3.8 billion, I might add that's lower than the other services, as you know. But, you did not include the $4.2 billion that you also need to take up the cost for Guard and Reserves being used in the current combat scenario. So, your current -- your actual request is about $8 billion.

Now, my question to you is an obvious one, why did you not include the entirety of that $8 billion in your unfunded list, because it is all unfunded? And, what is assurances have you gotten from DOD, and, perhaps, from OMB, that that money that you would need for that $4.2 billion is going to be there, because, many of us on this committee see that $10 billion just dribbling away, and, in fact, if you don't get that $10 billion, then that 4.2 becomes a part of an $8 billion unfunded request as opposed to 3.8.

So, the question is why didn't you include it? And, what assurances have you gotten from both DOD and OMB that that money will be there when you need it?

ROCHE: Sir, let me start off on the point of the B-1. You're absolutely right, John was the head of ACC when Mike Ryan and I looked at the B-1 case and realized what we were doing to our enlisted folks in demanding they maintain those planes, and it was unfair. You'll recall that last year, when I last testified here, we had made a decision to due away with 33 of them and to plow every bit of that money back into making the 60 that remain really workable, really good, modernized with the appropriate standoff weapons.

I'm proud to tell you, sir, we are doing that. I'm also proud to tell you that those crews, once they understood what we wanted and then both of us have gone out to the field over in the area and met with the B-1 crews, they have found they can take up an economic altitude, set the wings just right, go great distances, and you know it carried 50 percent more than any other bomber, and use all three rotary launchers, the spare parts are there. We've talked to the engineering mechanic -- the engine mechanics.

One young lady made it very clear to me if I had any complaints about her engines I had to deal with her. And, she was absolutely adamant that those engines would work whenever called up.

Your help in spare parts made a huge difference. The fact that the Secretary backed us up and said yes, any money you save from the reduction in force, you may plow, untouched, into the reins of the force takes care of it.

With regard to our unfunded priority list, we've said that we have had our priorities met in this budget. It's one of the first times we really we can say that. The Secretary has supported us. The OMB and the president has supported us. What you see our budget, is our priorities. In the unfunded priority list, what we have just done is to give you things we've put out over time to say each of these will be addressed, but they will not be addressed this year. They'll be addressed over time.

And, we've asked that tradeoffs not be made from our point of view because the president's budget honestly reflects our priorities. The 4.2 is the cost of our operations for Guard, Reserve and for our operations in Noble Eagle and OER. And, that's part of the $10 billion, as you point out. And, it's a much more immediate thing. And, I think in my letter I made the point that golly, if that doesn't come through, then -- and we have to eat it, then Katy bar the door because we're going to have to go back and utterly zirconium what's in the budget.

The Secretary is making the point to OMB and I can't speak for OMB and OMB has not given me any assurances. But, so far, observing the comptroller and the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary working with OMB, it's been a very understanding discussion. And, we have had no cause to complain about the support we've been given.

In fact, we feel that, for the first time, we have a budget, if it can stay consistent, sir, if we can have what's asked for with maybe 3 percent growth, we can give you back your Air Force in top, top, top notch shape within about five to 10 years.

John?

JUMPER: Let me just add a point on the B-1. Congressman, you are exactly right. And, let me thank you, sir, for your hands on style where you go out and get to see these things first hand. It makes all the difference in the world. And, I think you've learned that these people aren't whining about their job. They just want the stuff they need to do their job.

And, it's even in addition to what you said on the B-1, the young Captains who fly it had figured a way to get in and splice into the wiring in the cockpit so they could hook up a laptop to a GPS receiver and get digital and precise information about their location and help their bombing computer as well.

The kids invented it themselves at a time where we just didn't have the resources to put this in as an investment. So, it goes on and on and on the heroes we have out there. And, we got to keep faith with them.

STUMP: The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Taylor?

TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Thank you, General Jumper.

Mr. Secretary, I would like to hear your thoughts pertaining to the replacement of the KC-135s and the options that are available to us. In particular, I have hear the arguments that maybe we should lease these. But, the problem is just like anyone who's got a mortgage; I hate paying a heck of a lot of money on the interest if I don't have to.

The second problem I have with that that I hope you could talk to and possibly some legislative remedies, is I hate the idea of leasing something for 10 years and the leaser gets it back. If we're going to go to something along those lines, I think a lease purchase agreement would make a heck of a lot more sense.

I realize that takes some legislation, but that's what we do. But, I would at least like to hear your thoughts on that giving that our procurement holiday put that that program in the same bind as the fighters and a lot of other things.

ROCHE: Thank you very much, sir. If I can give a bit of a background, I think the excitement that I came upon in the KC-135s comes from visiting the ALCs and seeing what our folks are doing to keep these going. And, also, we finally got enough data in on things like the joint stars where we take a 707 down to basic very bare airplane and rebuild it. And, the question that John and I asked the system was when we put these planes into the service like at brand new joint stars, does it behave like a brand new airplane when we start to see maintenance over time.

And, we're just now seeing the data that says no, it starts to really behave like a 17 to 20-year old airplane, which means even though we do so much, sometimes $125 million to refurbish one of these aircraft they are just -- you can't do everything.

So, once we recognized that, we said we have to start worrying about our plan to replace these and the normal program would have the first KCX coming out around 2008. When 9/11 occurred and we recognized that we were now going to be using these things far more than we ever had before, including fueling our Naval colleagues, we became very concerned about the class problem. And, it was not an outsider. It was really us sitting down and saying what could we do?

We observed that at the same time there are a lot of orders that were canceled with the Boeing Company, and that there were Whitetails there. We said, well, maybe there's a way, just as years ago some of our predecessors picked up DC-10s and made them KC-10s. Is there some way we could help us and also do some other good at the same time?

But, by the way, if airbus came along and had a good deal, though, at this point, we would just like to get the tanker problem dealt with because we have planes in the air. And we want to make sure they're fueled.

We looked at a lease as a way of doing something quickly; recognizing that the only way it works is if the cost of the lease was less than the cost we were avoiding. And, in fact, we recognized that if we had about 130 KC-135 Echo-Class, which are the oldest, in need of about $2.5 billion of normal maintenance, plus if we had to upgrade them as they are required to operate around the world, it was another $2 billion.

And, we said can we get a lease, such that as normal business people, it would be worth it for a while to be able to avoid these costs. We came to the Congress for it, because it's such a large thing, just for authority to try, recognizing that we had to come back through authorize, as well as appropriations for the actual monies and to find out what are the boundary conditions because there's the operational leases, there's a capital lease. In the case of a capital lease it scored right away, but that does us no good. Operational lease you have to return it and then it's a matter of in that tenth year is there a residual value that could be specified? What are the proper things we can do? What does it mean to return it? What does it mean to try and purchase it two days later? We're looking at all of that right now.

That's Plan B; Plan A is our own budget to try to move procurement earlier. And, we're going to work on it in the '04 budget. Because we recognize that some of these planes are going to be flying in their 50th year, and their 55th year, even if we start to replace them.

But, we'd like to do what had happened with the B-52s, which is the older ones got retired and were replaced by other bombers who just retired. In the case of the tankers, we have about 600 now, when all is said and done, even with modern engines and keeping weapons inside, less drag, we're still going to probably want around 500 tankers.

So, this is going to take a long period of time. We wanted to get the ball going. And, the only way the lease can work is if the cost avoided outweigh the cost of the lease and if we could find a way to resolve this tenth year problem.

TAYLOR: Mr. Secretary, I'm in agreement with you, looking at the options, I would certainly, as one member of the committee, but I think I speak for a lot of members of this committee, ask you to include made in America as one of those boundaries.

ROCHE: Yes, sir.

TAYLOR: I don't think we need to buy our ships overseas. And, I don't think we need to buy our planes overseas.

ROCHE: No, sir. And, if I may address that, coming from the airplane industry, all of these airplanes are world airplanes. And, when you look at 767, I've been in Mitsubishi, I've been in Kawasaki, I've been in Fuji. I've looked at their best practices. Most of what you see on the 767, less the wings, is made in Japan or Italy by Alina (ph) or Mitsubishi, Kawasaki or Fuji, and the same thing with airbuses, an awful lot of the airbuses made in the United States, these things are world airplanes. There is 3.1 million parts in a 767 that are made by 800 international firms, because it's a matter of who would invest in the planes. We will keep that in mind, and, certainly American content becomes a very important point when we buy for the military.

But, just as a background point, all of these planes are world airplanes.

STUMP: The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Everett?

EVERETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, General, if you hadn't already figured it out, this committee is tremendously proud of the work that our young men and women and, perhaps, in some cases, not so young men and women are doing in this world today.

Afghanistan and Enduring Freedom, I was also in South Korea in January and I just returned from Cuba, Gitmo (ph), yesterday, late yesterday. And, I've seen firsthand the dedication that many of the members have mentioned today of our people in the military. And, I'm just as proud as I can be about that.

I do have a question that in some respects involves commercial aircraft, but also I think it probably could involve military aircraft also. You may recall that when Secretary Ron Brown was killed in an aircraft crash that an Air Force directive, AFPD 6314, which required our military aircraft to improve and standardize the information provided by the flight data units to the black box.

And, I was wondering, number one, if that directive has been implemented? But, with that, I also understand that there is the technology available today whereas if an aircraft should go off course or if the pilot should trigger it, that that information and that black box would automatically be transmitted to wherever. And, it seems to me that that would be a great benefit, particularly on the commercial side. Rather than having us to sit and wondering if the black box was intact or if we're going to find it and that kind of thing.

And, I guess my question would be this, under directive AFPD 6314, if it would be possible to set up a demonstration of this particular black box that would transmit it. I understand, frankly, that there's some very simple software changes that would do that.

ROCHE: Sir, I will have to go back and be able to assure you that we do have the proper data recorders on all of our airplanes. I can't tell you that sitting here now. But, I'll get back to you on that.

And, most certainly, sir, we can take a look at this technology. We can work with the FAA and others who would be interested to see if we're missing something and be happy to do that, sir.

EVERETT: Well, if, indeed, this is a simple that we can do, it seems to me it would be foolish for us not to take a look at it. Perhaps on some military aircraft, but surely, and I do understand that the majority of the use of the privy of the FAA, but I thank you for your response.

ROCHE: Sir, let me add, I got a nice letter from a gentleman from Alabama who had retired from the Air Force he said he was wanted to come back and fly airplanes for us. And, at the bottom he said, now, I am 85 years old, but I am perfect health except for this pacemaker they just put in. So, anyway, we've got great Americans out there.

EVERETT: That's kind of the way those Alabamians are. Thank you, gentlemen.

STUMP: The gentleman from Arkansas, Dr. Snyder.

SNYDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We had a woman, 82, call our office, General, that volunteered to be a sky marshal shortly after September 11. I understand she was a good shot. I appreciate you all being here and the work that you do.

A couple of questions I want to ask, Mr. Secretary, in your written testimony on Page 52, you talk about the BRAC and you say the Air Force will comply with the Secretary of Defense's guidance for conducting the BRAC process. What does that mean, the guidance? What were you referring to there? I assume that was from the Secretary.

ROCHE: It's both of ours, sir, but I can answer it.

SNYDER: Has there been guidance put out already?

ROCHE: The legislation that has come out says there will be BRAC in the year 2005.

SNYDER: Right.

ROCHE: What will happen now is the Secretary will set the criteria for us to take a look at our forces and our bases and something that's being coordinated in the Office of Secretary of Defense.

SNYDER: There hasn't been any guidance put out to this point?

ROCHE: No.

SNYDER: No.

ROCHE: No.

SNYDER: OK. Thank you.

ROCHE: Although, we've been asked to start to think...

SNYDER: Right.

ROCHE: ... about it. And, he's doing it the way you would want him to, about what's our force structure and what does that need.

SNYDER: Yes.

And, General Jumper, I wanted to ask you a question. And, I know you're a fighter guy, but, as you know, C-130s are a lot like fighters. They can just land on dirt. And, I understand you had a very good visit at Little Rock Air Force Base.

JUMPER: Yes, sir, we did.

SNYDER: They're a great base and at the press report this morning about 400 of them are about to go overseas, as you know. Several years ago several of us signed a letter to suggest that we have a hearing on strategic lift and it was not as sexy a topic then as fighters and B-2s and all was. But, it's very clear now that how important it is.

I wouldn't mind if you just took the remainder of the time, if you would, and just amplify on what you see as the needs in strategic lift. We hear suggestions that the system is stressed. Where do you see the stress points are out, both in intratheatre and intertheatre?

JUMPER: Sir, one of the areas where we have cause to smile is in the area of airlift. As we see our great airlift force out there between the C-5, the C-17 and various models of the C-130, and you know, sir, there are many. And, by the way, sir, I started off in the C-7 Caribou. Yes, sir.

SNYDER: I've actually ridden in one of those.

JUMPER: Yes, sir, in my first tour in Vietnam was 1,100 hours supporting the Army in the C-7. But, this is a great success story. And, what we've learned in these long-range engagements is the complimentary nature of the C-5 and the C-17, as the C-5 takes very large loads that are then broken down into the C-17. In some cases the C-17 can take loads right into the dirt. In other cases, it has to be broken down to other types of airstrip where the C-130 is showing itself very proudly in Afghanistan today. It showed itself very proudly in the Kosavo conflict, as you know.

And, is a workhorse around the world. We are doing all we can to get the C-17 onboard as quickly as we can. As you know, we also have multi-year on the C-130J's, which is very important to us. And, I think that, of all the mission areas, we have some challenges on the C-5 as we modernize the C-5, but of all the mission areas, that one's one we can be the most proud of, I think, sir.

SNYDER: One final question, when we have incidence of mistakes made on air to ground ordinance, either a wrong target, it may not hurt anyone, sometimes does hurt someone, sometimes hurts their own troops, what lessons are you learning from those mistakes and what process do you have in place to learn from those mistakes and where does jointness play a role in that learning?

JUMPER: Sir, I will tell you that General Franks and I talk about this. We look at every single incident in an individual basis and try to determine exactly where the error was made. If it's human error, sometimes it's mechanical error, as simple as a fin became disconnected from the bomb, or in the case of a laser, the cloud got in the way of the laser spot while the bomb was in route to the target.

But, we track down each and every one of these and try to feed back. In doing this, we have found from time to time problems -- I remember in the Kosavo War we found a bad lot of laser trackers in a lot of 500-pound bombs that we had to go back and correct. But, it's through this process that we analyze exactly what went wrong, human error or mechanical error in each and every reported incidents of collateral damage.

SNYDER: Mr. Secretary?

ROCHE: And, as we develop this concept of airplane working for Sergeants, which we're demonstrated, one of the things of these young people having their GPS receivers is to make sure they cannot transmit their own position, and that's a software change we can make.

We had a lot of breadboard stuff that was used, an idea that really only started in July. It was actually tested in October and November. We had a second generation put in place for the Sergeants. And, now we know what we really want in the long run. But, one of the features, and it's a software thing, is to make sure that if they transmit their own position it's because they consciously go through a number of steps and want it.

SNYDER: Gentlemen, I was 20-years old in Vietnam. My next-door neighbor was a Caribou pilot and he came by the Marine base one day and said he'll take me with me. So, we flew, dropped to the clouds to supply these Green Berea camps, and, I decided then that practicing medicine looked much more relaxing than flying Caribous. Thank you.

STUMP: The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Bartlett, is recognized.

BARTLETT: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, General, thank you very much for your service. I understand that the average age of our Air Force jets is now, what, about 22 years?

ROCHE: Yes, sir.

BARTLETT: That for tankers it's what, around 40 years?

ROCHE: Yes, sir.

BARTLETT: 41 years? OK. With this as context, I'd like to ask you we've given you a lot more money in the last year, but you're also spending a lot more money on the war. You have a whole lot more to do. At the end of the day, how big a supplemental will you need before you'll be worse off in terms of readiness then you were before the war?

And, how big a supplemental will you need so that we can start to address some of the serious problems like 22-year old jets and 41-year old tankers?

ROCHE: Sir, let me start. I don't know if I can give you an exact number, Mr. Bartlett. But, what we do know is if we can have some steadiness in our programs, we're finally building the F-22, it's finally in production. We have to get through all the tests for it and we will do that.

We're now looking at other things in terms of spiral developments that are trying to make it perfect to start with, start with 80 percent and then get to 90, then get to 100. A supplemental won't do it because a lot of these things take time, and the industrial base isn't there.

Where we need the supplementals are for the cost associated with actually carrying out this conflict so that's it not taken out of our opportunity to modernize.

We have taken the position very consciously in our family housing, MILCON, and sustainment monies to, to use John's expression, to fix the Air Force we have. First and foremost, family housing, second, fix the Air Force we have, fix the leaking hangers, fix the bad wiring in places, fix runways with potholes, and then only build new for new systems that are coming. Trying to stabilize what we have and then go forward over time and do new.

So, the supplemental, from our point of view, is really to help us with the ongoing operations. The rest of it, the industrial base couldn't absorb a whole heck of a lot of money, sir.

BARTLETT: I understand, but if we don't give you enough money to cover current operations then you're going to have to take that money out of modernization.

ROCHE: Yes, sir, and...

BARTLETT: And, my concern is that because of the cost of this effort...

ROCHE: Right.

BARTLETT: ... that that may more than soak up the increased funding we've given you. You know, there's a lot of munitions that you've expended and so forth, and my concern is that unless we give you a meaningful supplemental, that modernization is going to suffer even more.

ROCHE: The Secretary is very aware of this and OMB has been working with us and certainly the president recognizes that we have to fix, transform, modernize, while we're also conducting this phase of a war. We expect and we are planning for one variation of operation or another over the next four or five years.

BARTLETT: And, you'll let us know how much of a supplemental you need so that you won't be worse off at the end of the day?

ROCHE: Yes, sir, we sure will.

BARTLETT: Thank you. Thank you very much.

STUMP: The gentlelady from New Mexico, Ms. Wilson?

WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask you some questions about retention. I know that in the budget you've given us the selective reenlistment bonuses are not as much as they were last year, and yet, are not meeting the second term goals in the Air Force. And, we've got end-strength problems. And, I was wondering if you can give me some idea of how in this next fiscal year the Air Force intends to achieve its goals with respect to retention and enlistment?

ROCHE: Thank you for that question. It is true that we have not met all of our retention goals. And, that is the thing we have to work on the hardest. And, it's a -- there is some -- a flush of patriotism as a result of 11 September, and, as a result our six-year enlistment reenlistments have gone up about 15 percent just in the last year, and those are the ones who opt to reenlist, as you know, for six years instead of four years.

Our recruiting is on target. It's the retention that you mentioned that we've got to manage. And, the way we have to manage that, is we got to have enough people in our Air Force to do the job we're being asked to do so we can control the tempo of the people that we have.

We have reorganized the Air Force, as you know, into an AEF, an Air Expeditionary Force concept, which takes a rotational base. This is meant to be able to put predictability into the lives of our people so that they know a year in advance where they're going to go and how they're going to go.

We try to hold the time down that they're deployed to 90 days, as best we can. We're not able to do that in this current contingency. It's going to be up to 180 days for a lot of our airmen.

But, we recognize the problem. It's getting the people recruited and trained and being able to control the tempo that are the keys to a success for this force. And, those are all things we're working on. The incentives and the bonuses for reenlistment, I think we have 181 specialties now that get reenlistment bonuses. These things all help.

The 4.1 percent pay raise that the troops get and the fact that we target those to the most needy band are great retention tools.

JUMPER: We were facing a precision the companies face in pay compression where they were noticing a new recruit was getting a bonus and the folks who had been in for awhile had not. With your help, we've been able to chance that in the last pay raise. And, we're very conscious of that.

And, we are looking for notions of how do we make it a more a fulfilling career? I mean we are breaking some glass by saying the fact that someone has a Baccalaureate doesn't mean they have to be an officer. We have a heck of a lot of our airmen who are enlisted who have Baccalaureates who might -- we might very well want them to have a Master Degree so that they have more depth in the field than they have.

So, we're trying to be more open and more imaginative to ways to make it a more fulfilling career.

WILSON: I wanted to ask you about a policy you may not be directly involved in because I know it's a -- it was an issue -- it's a joint issue. But, that's a very controversial policy and that has been at least partially changed now, and that had to do with the ordering of women to wear the abia in Saudi Arabia, which has been changed to strongly recommend it, which, when I was under the age of 25 if a Four Star General told me something was strongly recommended, I knew what that meant and it didn't mean it was optional.

I wanted to ask you whether the Office of the Secretary or whether the air staff was involved in that decision. Because my understanding from my friends and voices around the Air Force is that the field commander actually recommended the elimination of that policy. And that it was added back in in the Pentagon. And, I'd like to know what happened?

ROCHE: Ma'me, I don't know if I can give you an exact step-by- step, but my recollection, having followed this for about eight months since I was confirmed, was that this was a sync issue. It was an area issue. It had to do with force protection. When it went on the joint SWA, Joint Southwest Asia Commander, I get the acronyms backward, Air Force persons, when I was in Saudi Arabia talking to John on the phone, we got together with the embassy and we said where did some of this come from? Well, there's two parts of the whole policy, we could find no antecedent for it. We didn't know where it came from. So, we eliminated it that day.

The only part that remained was the strongly encourage, and, there, Ma'me, I supported that. I supported, not for those officers and ladies who can understand what's going on, it had to do with our sense of writing a letter to a mother of a very young airmen who might think that meant that she could do something differently and if she got some acid thrown at her, I didn't want to have to write that letter.

But, still it's her choice. But, things like having to ride in the back of the car, we couldn't find anything for that. And, we did away with it. Or having to be in the company of men, we couldn't find anything on that. The driving is a law. So, we've made this to parallel officers in the Foreign Service at the State Department and the DCM in Riad (ph) is a lady.

And, went over every bit with her to make sure she thought this was still a sensible thing to do. And, I can assure you the Foreign Service ladies not wear abias, do not wish to wear abias. But, they recognize that we have a lot of young people and the strongly encourage to do genuinely that, strongly encourage, not an order.

WILSON: Does the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia strongly encourage his young foreign services who are women to wear the abia?

ROCHE: In fact, the Foreign Service officers, by definition, since they represent the United States in the State Department do not wear them and we do not require our officers to wear -- we don't require anyone to wear them.

There are occasions, yes, where the penance of people in the Embassy, cause I spoke -- went out of my way to find an old friend and spoke to his wife about the same issue where, in fact, there are occasions where she believes for the safety of the individual, there are occasions where she wears one as well. The rest of the time, it's in the backseat and keeps the children warm.

WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. You and I probably have a disagreement on this issue, and it really has much to do with the meaning of strongly encouraged than the issue of First Amendment rights and that what you are asking or strongly encouraging to wear is Muslim dress and it's very offensive.

ROCHE: I understand.

WILSON: As offensive as it would be for me to say you are strongly encouraged, if you were young enlisted troop and I were a senior officer, you were strongly encouraged to wear a Yarmulke. Or, if you were a non-Christian you were strongly encouraged to wear a cross around your neck.

ROCHE: I understand that.

WILSON: There's a line. And, while I think in some ways DOD has tried to address it, because of the nature of the culture of the military, strongly encouraged is an order. And, I think every young enlisted troop understands it is an order.

I yield the balance of my time.

STUMP: The gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs. Davis?

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And, thank you, Mr. Secretary, and General, for being here today, and I want to echo my colleague's on what a great job you both are doing and we really are blessed to have you.

My question goes, I guess, sort of inline with my colleague from Mexico, and it's with regards to the Air Force saying that you need, and I think I read, 30,000 more people, if I'm not mistaken in something, somewhere I saw that. And, my question has two parts, and it has to do with the stop-loss being removed. And, in long-term how would the current stop-loss affect Air Force when it comes to an end? And, two, how does the current stop-loss affect recruiting for those specialties in which the stop-loss is in affect?

ROCHE: I'll start, Ma'am. We have between our -- we treat the same, our mobilized, Guard and Reserve and stop-loss as airmen who are being asked to come on and serve beyond the time they normally would.

We've gone back and at first we looked to see where did we have a deep bench and where did we have a shallow bench. In the deep bench we've released both the mobilization and from stop-loss. We are looking now for various things like proposing ideas for Operation Noble Eagle to bring down the demand on our Guard, which will then help for rotation purposes to be able to put people overseas.

We are recognizing that we never planned to have to protect all our forces overseas and our aircraft and protect bases here in the United States. And, the demand in our immediate demands for personnel are security people, first and foremost, another group are our Red Horse Construction Group, who -- they're both endangered species. Every time either one of us see them, we hug them because there are not that many and we need more of them.

So, we have an immediate need to increase, and we've talked in terms of 7,000, but the Secretary correctly has said, are there offsets, are there things that you're doing that don't have to be done by the active force? So, this is not necessarily trying to be more efficient, well if you can, do something or do it with smaller people, that's great, but are things that possibility could be done by the Guard or done by the Reserve or contracted out. Where we could not have the end-strength increase more than it should, because if we increase the end-strength that also absorbs budget and it affects our ability to get more new equipment into the field.

So, we're trying to approach it in as a sensible way as we can. Every 60 days we look at the mobilization and we have, still, by the way of our 46,000 folks covered, about 9,000 are volunteers, God love them, still. But, we look at it together, mobilization, volunteers and stop-loss.

JUMPER: If I might add, the Secretary and I are also very sensitive to the plight of the employers out there whose very valuable people have put on the uniform and are serving. A lot of these people are the firemen and the policemen that are needed in the communities. And, we understand that thoroughly. And, believe me, as soon as we can find a way to give some slack to this problem, we are very anxious to do so.

DAVIS: And, I guess that's my concern, General and Mr. Secretary, is that, you know, I hear that I need the extra people and General, you know, we talked before the AEF that you're doing and, you know, it was a great plan and it was working great until September 11, and I'm concerned, I believe we all agree this war's probably going to go on for a long time, so it's only going to strength you more and more and people aren't maybe not wanted to stay.

And, what you just said about the employers with the Guard and the Reserve, a lot of the employers are taking up the slack right now with the variance in pay because you've got the people who made a lot more in their private jobs then they are making on the Guard and Reserve. And, these employers can't go on forever.

So, I guess I've got a real concern of the longer this war goes on, where are going and are we going to have the people that we need.

ROCHE: Yes, Ma'me. And, both of us are wondering, we've been in the area, have gone out of our way to meet with our Guard colleagues. And, I always ask them what they have in terms of benefits from their company. My former employer in our company we went out of our way to take care of our Guard folks who were called up. A lot of companies give them a period of time and then that's it.

DAVIS: Right.

ROCHE: So, we are very, very concerned. And, then every now and then we run into a Guardsman who is a proprietor and whose business is going down and we feel for them.

DAVIS: I understand.

JUMPER: We understand.

DAVIS: Well, if there's anything we can do here, legislatively, put on your thinking caps and let us know.

JUMPER: Yes, Ma'me, thank you.

ROCHE: Thank you, Ma'me.

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

STUMP: The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson? No questions. Mr. Abercrombie, from Hawaii. He leaves. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt?

SPRATT: I thought I was late and way down the list. I appreciate the opportunity.

General Jumper, I spoke with you earlier about one of my concerns. It's a small concern because it involves an individual airmen, but, as I was telling you all during the Persian Gulf War we had call-ups, as you know, in South Carolina, the 240th Communication Squadron and close to 169, not a single complaint and everybody made the mustard.

Now, I'm getting a few who are calling in and saying this two year obligation is something that I never anticipated when I joined the Air Force Reserve and I have to feel it's going to have some feedback effects on you retention after this is over and behind us.

JUMPER: Absolutely.

SPRATT: What are you doing to actively review this policy, if anything?

JUMPER: I know that it is one of worry, but I went down and spent some time with the recruiters in the recruiting school and the thought of well, how the heck does that someone recruit somebody in the Reserve today. You can be in the Reserve and you can do your job, next week they may call you up for two years.

SPRATT: Yes.

JUMPER: And, it's very, very difficult. We worry about the call-ups because it's something that should be done for surge purposes. And, everyone accepts that. It's when it lasts. So, you will find us -- neither one of us are wallflowers. Neither one of us are shy and we are making noises and saying look we need some help, we need people to help us understand the steady state. We can't make decisions about Operation Noble Eagle. We just perform a service as required by the president and the Secretary.

The Secretary's very, very concerned about this. When we have a discussion with him, he specifically says if I do this, how does that help your mobilization and your stop-loss problem? So, we're all worrying about it. And, we recognize that as we hit the six-month point, we're starting to cause difficulties for people.

SPRATT: The airman that I've been talking to is a Sergeant, a Staff Sergeant. He's in security. He doesn't have the support structure that you have on your base, you know, his wife is a nurse. She swing shifts, has to commute 30 miles a day. They have a small child. They just finished a house a month after he was called up. He served nine months. He's not trying to beg off by any means. But, two years...

ROCHE: Yes, sir.

SPRATT: ... raises big, big problems for him and his family.

ROCHE: It was only last week that General Jumper and I stood and talked to two young folks from Maine. One was a fireman from a small town; the other was a policeman from a small town. And, they don't get any special benefits. And the impact on their families and they're drawing down their savings. We're absolutely sensitive to it.

JUMPER: Sir, let me assure you, the last thing we want to do is to take advantage or take for granted the volunteer nature of these young people and their willingness to do this job. But, as the Secretary points out, you're exactly right, this has to be for surges. And, we need to be able to surge and get back down to some normal steady state and, unfortunately, what we're finding is, we need the surge just to do our basic jobs and we've got to find a way around this, sir.

But, I guarantee you, it's at the very top of both of our lists and we appreciate this problem.

SPRATT: Let me switch gears completely and go to the KC-135 and you decision last year to cut a deal, so to speak, and buy quite a few 767's. I recognize the need this committee feels to some extent that its flank was turned in the procurement of it. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the need and I recognize the need to do something expeditiously. But, I have some concern that what we did in order to get the job done may have been slightly more expensive procurement method than we did if we simply upfront budgeted the money for the 767's.

Would you explain what you did...

ROCHE: Yes, sir.

SPRATT: ... and whether or not it's going to cost us more money?

ROCHE: There's been a lot of misunderstanding of this. All we did was ask for the authority to try to negotiate a lease. If we're successful, we will be back to this committee, all four defense committees, to notify, to get your sense of it.

We recognize, I recognize this is -- I'm beating up on both sides though, that we have to have everything...

SPRATT: I'm not beating you up. I just want an explanation.

ROCHE: No, you're not. You're very nice, sir. I'm just saying that a lot of people have misunderstood this. We just have the authority to try. And, in fact, we've had the authority to try in the past and have not been able to successfully come to a lease. And, in fact, then have had to come back and ask for purchase. In the case of 757's, for instance, and also we were successful in the case of Gulf Stream Fives.

In this case, no monies have been expended. None have been obligated. It's a matter of we now know the boundary conditions under which we have to operate if we can pull off a lease which the cost of which are less than the cost we will avoid by trying to keep these 130 KC-135 Echo-class going. Then we can have a good business deal we can come back to.

And, as I mentioned to your colleague, we have to worry about that tenth year, what happens at that tenth year and who we can deal with that.

But, we may wind up saying that we can't do it and then come back and go through a normal purchase, which is Plan A, but the way.

SPRATT: What is the problem with simply having a one-year authorization for the full compliment of 767's that you plan to buy and then...

ROCHE: It's the opportunity costs on the rest of our program, sir. When you have 10 years of procurement holiday and you try to do everything at once, 100 planes in one year, that's a big load, even though they are just commercial aircraft being converted for tankers.

SPRATT: Well, I was thinking about something additional on a one-year, non-recurring basis and it would then be the outlay effect, of course, would outlay over a 10, 12, 13-year period of time.

ROCHE: It's a scoring rule. And, if someone did that under the total defense budget, if it didn't come out of some other part of the Air Force, it might come from the Navy. It might come from Army. We recognize our colleagues face the same 10-year procurement holiday. We're trying to be as imaginative as we can in the expenditures of dollars. So, our C-17 multi-year, for instance, is done in a slightly different way in order to save a billion dollars. But, over the course of seven years we can save a billion dollars, have a nice, steady output, allow subcontractors to plan for a buy of 60.

We're looking for every imaginative way, which is why we thought you wanted business people like me to come in.

SPRATT: Thank you both.

SKELTON: My I ask a question on this follow-on, Mr. Chairman?

STUMP: Mr. Skelton?

SKELTON: In your response to an earlier question from Mr. Spratt you said you have to have Reserves just to do your ordinary daily business, am I correct?

JUMPER: Yes, sir.

SKELTON: How many active duty end-strength do you need?

JUMPER: Well, sir, you...

SKELTON: Just give me a figure.

JUMPER: As you know, we ask for -- we were on the road to asking for 7,000 in '03. And, as the Secretary explained, we've -- the Secretary of Defense rightfully has asked us to make sure that we have looked for ways to offset this number within our existing force structure. It's a fair question. And, we are in the process of doing that. But, that was the first number. It was 7,000.

SKELTON: Thank you.

STUMP: I'd like to say to the witnesses and the members, we have five members left. We have about 20 minutes before, if you could keep this in mind when asking your questions and the answers. We may not have to come back after the next vote.

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Hays?

HAYS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I claim South Carolina too.

That's right.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I just returned from Afghanistan, I want to first say, airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines are doing an absolutely incredible job. The Minnesota Air Guard and the tact air went in and what they did got us around the place we need to be. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, a comment on General Jumper, I've heard a lot of briefings, some better than others, while I've been watching, and his is the best I've ever heard. A great job, GSF (ph) and the F-22.

Talk to you about JROTC, the Air Force JROTC for a minute. I'd like for you to comment, number one, on the contribution you think this makes to our overall readiness, ability to recruit, not only airmen, but support personnel, obviously, had funding shortfalls, help me, for the record, help you address that shortfall issue?

ROCHE: I'll start and then John can help me. We think the Junior ROTC Program is a terrific program. It's a citizenship program. It is not an Air Force recruiting program. It is a chance to show some young people that you can have a disciplined life and it's a good thing. We liked it so much that we have 600-some, now we have authority to go up to 900 and some and we intend to do it. We just find it to be a very good thing.

And, so far, the expenses have been modest. And, we feel that we should be able to handle the expenses. We'd be glad to come back to the Secretary of Defense, and you, if we thought we needed more, sir.

JUMPER: Let me just add...

HAYS: A quick comment on that. I would take issue with you slightly, it is a recruiting. We've got Army ROTC Programs that are recruiting folks for the Air Force. It's a wonderful way to show folks how important the military is. And, again, we've got schools in my district who very much want to participate in the -- and, Pete knows about that, ROTC Program, but we just don't have enough funds to do it.

Excuse me. Go ahead, General Jumper.

JUMPER: Sir, if I could just add, one of the great benefits of a program like Junior ROTC, is to let young children know the possibilities for the rest of their lives. We've been out there in a very aggressive program to try and attract more African Americans into our pilot career fields in the Air Force. And, one of the things that we found out in researching this, is that many young African American officers who we come up to and talk why didn't you become a pilot, tell us, I never knew that I would have an opportunity to become a pilot. It never occurred to me.

So, in the Junior ROTC Programs, we're able to get into these schools and acquaint children of all types of these sort of opportunities that, in some cases, never occur to them as a possibility for the rest of their life, very beneficial.

HAYS: Thank you, sir. The next question is about the integration of air and ground forces, fantastic example of success, lasing targets. People on the ground doing things to compliment what you're doing in the air; talk about our future there.

ROCHE: You could have us both turned on for about an hour. We believe that General Arnold, when he supported General Patton, post- Normandy, was something that was exquisitely good. And, that it was time to return to that and technology allowed us to do it.

The fact that we could take a laser beam, we could get a grange of barring and we want now instruments also give elevations so since the GPS assumes a flat globe. And, then weapons, which have very precise XYZ coordinates to attack, that this allows us to be able to bring support to troops on the ground.

And, our expression is do we mind working for Sergeants? Heck no. As General Franks points out, there will be times when the sergeants will work for us and John faced a situation in Kosavo where we wished we did have some Sergeants on the ground spotting a mobile SA-6 system, and tell us where it was.

And, also, use this to catch mobiles. Where we're going is that the Army's objective force and we've been working with the Army on this, they are going to smaller, more highly maneuverable units. We are thinking in terms of, not that we need bombers to drop a whole lot of bombs in order to get the target, but because everyone is so precise, to go from mainframe kind of thinking to more distributed parallel processing kind of thinking, putting F-22s over a hostile area with small smart weapons they fly in two, they carry eight small diameter weapons, that's 16. And, in fact, hooking them very clearly to troops on the ground so that these young people have the chance to bring weapons down from high altitude, not just at 800-meters, but a lot closer than that.

HAYS: Thank you very much. And, in closing, I see my time is running out, I want to put in another promotional plug for the incredible job that the military, all branches, are doing in Afghanistan. Our success, regardless of what your specific issue over there is contingent upon our full and complete support of the military and their completion of the mission. Then we can do whatever you need to after you guys have done the job. Thanks for what you're doing.

STUMP: The gentlelady from California, Ms. Tauscher.

TAUSCHER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, General Jumper, it's great to see you. I, too, join my colleagues in congratulating you for the great men and women that you have. When I was in Afghanistan and a few other places in January, I was terribly impressed. I was very proud of the people from Travis Air Force Base, a new part of my district who are supporting everyone over there and just doing a terrific job.

The C-5, obviously, is so much an important part of our strategic lift and, I believe, our budget coming forward shows our investment in the avionics package and all the things we need to do. Can you just briefly give me a sense for where the C-5 sits and overall in transformation for you, General.

JUMPER: Well, I can start and the Secretary can add a lot because he's personally involved in this endeavor. The day before yesterday I was crawling all over a C-5A at the Air Logistics Center at Water Robins (ph) in Georgia. And seeing the toll that hard service has taken on some of these airframes. I saw a 14-inch crack in the main wing spar. And, the older of the C-5's are staring to show their age.

Still in all, we have a good percentage of the C-5 fleet that I think is going to be very beneficial to go in and upgrade. And, we have an aviation modernization program, followed by an re-engining program that will make the C-5, I think, fully capable of getting it to mission capable rates that are 75 percent or even greater, much better than they are today.

It's a critical part of our mobility force, because it does things that no other airplane, even the C-17 can do. We have to have a certain number or them and we have studies ongoing right now to figure out what is going to be an economical program to upgrade these airplanes. What's the right mix of C-5, C-17's, and C-130's to do this job.

Mr. Secretary?

ROCHE: Very briefly, Ma'me, we feel that we can do the C-5B's and we want to do two B's, see what it's like to upgrade and this is after the avionics. This is on the...

TAUSCHER: Right.

ROCHE: ... hydraulics and the structures. Then take an A and do a real diagnosis of an A, stop, come back and share with members our views. And, if our views are it is not worth investing in it, then to use the monies to buy C-17's instead, but to keep the block of 50 B's, because they are our real wholesale aircraft.

TAUSCHER: Is there any chance that you reblend the portfolio of C-5's and C-17's to include moving some C-17's to Travis?

ROCHE: We have a plan on C-17's that are associated with the next buy of 60 that we are hoping to be able to unveil in about 30 days. We have some environmental impact statements that are still due. We have some debate within our own family. We have an issue of a long-term bed down and roadmaps, since John and I would like to have a sense of where we would want things, the same thing with the C-130.

I can't answer that specifically Ma'am. But, I can tell you that Travis is certainly one of our key spots and a good friend of mine is now dispatched from Travis down the Dia Garcia (ph). She's doing a heck of a job down there.

TAUSCHER: Right. I do have questions about housing, especially since our end-strength numbers could go up dramatically and we have severe shortages at Travis. We've got a potential opportunity of using the Conquered Weapons Naval Station Housing, I seem to not to get a lot of support over at the Pentagon for that. But, I think we've got to fix this problem. We have specific issues in California of having very high housing values and not a lot of places to put people. And, people are commuting too far to come to work. And, it's a real issue for us. So, I'll come back to you at another time and talk about that.

ROCHE: Just a minute, or may I ask Assistant Secretary for Installation and Logistics, Nelson Gibbs, whose a tremendous guy and a resident of California, if he can come see you, would that be OK?

TAUSCHER: I would love that. That would be great. Thank you very much.

STUMP: One to go, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Skelton.

SKELTON: A quick question, what role do you see for the UAV's in the future of the Air Force?

ROCHE: Sir, this would unleash, normally, a half-day lecture. I will confine my remarks to just a few minutes.

SKELTON: 25 words or less.

ROCHE: Yes, sir. It's going to play a big part. It's going to be a big part, not only in intelligence, surveillance and recognizance, but in the hunter killer role, for which we will specifically develop the Predator B and in the intelligence, surveillance and recognizance role for the Global Hawk and other missions for the Global Hawk that will evolve that we are studying.

And, then the introduction of the unmanned conventional vehicle, which will be a stealthy vehicle that will carry out combat missions, we are aggressively pursuing...

SKELTON: I just saw a bunch of...

ROCHE: ... a role for that.

SKELTON: ... fighter pilots back there flinch.

ROCHE: They're not going to keep flinch if this thing keep them alive, sir, because we're going to have some manned airplanes going in there too for quite a while.

SKELTON: Thank you.

STUMP: Gentlemen, thank you very much. If you have any closing statements you'd like to make, we do have a couple of questions from members that left for both of you if you would kindly answer them for the record.

ROCHE: We'd be glad to do so. On behalf of all of our airmen, we'd just like to say thank you, Mr. Chairman, for you and your colleagues, for the support you've given to all of us, the encouragement you give John and me and we appreciate the tolerance that you have shown us as we come and pester you and give you briefings and have some good dialogue with you, sir.

Thank you very much.

STUMP: Thank you, sir.

JUMPER: And, from all the airmen, God bless every member of this committee, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

STUMP: Thank you, sir. If there are no more questions, this meeting's adjourned.

END

NOTES:
[????] - Indicates Speaker Unknown
   [--] - Indicates could not make out what was being said.[off mike] - Indicates could not make out what was being said.

PERSON:  BOB STUMP (94%); DUNCAN L HUNTER (72%); JAMES V HANSEN (57%); CURT WELDON (57%); CHRIS JOHN (56%); JOEL HEFLEY (56%); LEE TERRY (55%); ROSCOE G BARTLETT (55%); IKE SKELTON (55%); SAXBY CHAMBLISS (53%); JOHN N HOSTETTLER (53%); WALTER B JONES (52%); VAN HILLEARY (52%); ROBERT (ROBIN) HAYES (50%); HEATHER WILSON (50%); 

LOAD-DATE: March 10, 2002