The final conference report on
the defense appropriations bill
does not include any prescriptive
language mandating the Navy to
request that funding next year,
casting a shadow of uncertainty
over whether the money will ultimately yield more ships requested
in 2009, as intended.
“If all it says is here is some
advanced money, then the Navy
isn’t required to take any advanced
action,” said Robert Work, a Navy
analyst at the Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments. “The
Navy is pretty much free to do with
it as it will.”
In the absence of bill or report
language explicitly directing the
Navy to include the remainder of
the funding needed for the procurement of those ships in one or more
of its future budgets, the Navy
“might conclude that it can choose
whether to include or not include
such funding in future-year budgets,” added Ron O’Rourke, a Navy
analyst at the Congressional Research Service.
If the Navy chooses not to
include funding to buy the T-AKEs
and LPD- 17 next year, the decision
on the ships would ultimately be
punted to Congress.
Work projected that the Navy
may request funding to buy the
three T-AKEs next year, despite
plans to buy only one of the ships
a year over the next several years.
But the future of the LPD- 17,
whose price tag is a hefty $1.7 billion, is less clear because “there is
not a lot of appetite” for the ship
within the Navy, Work said.
Shipbuilding advocates see this
year’s budget as a promising beginning.
“It’s a great start. It’s a statement
of intent,” said Rep. Gene Taylor,
D-Miss., chairman of the House
Armed Services seapower and
expeditionary forces subcommittee. His district includes Northrop
Grumman’s Ingalls Shipyard. “I
INTERCEPTS
“People say we have lost the capability, we lost most of our
systems engineers … you have to depend on industry. That,
to me, is a death spiral.”
Donald C. Winter
Secretary of the Navy
On the challenge of trying to establish a better systems engineering process within the Navy to help programs move more smoothly along the acquisition track.
Defense Daily
“It’s very important that we do everything in our power to make
sure that people who are under contract to us are not only
abiding by our rules, but are conducting themselves in a way
that makes them an asset in this war in Iraq and not a liability.”
Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense
In pressing for a single authority to govern private security contractors in Iraq.
New York Times
“Because of a critical current warfighting gap, we put a lot of
emphasis on schedule. There’s been some hiccups. It taught us
there was more risk in this program than we thought there was.”
Rear Adm. Bernard J. McCullough
Director of warfare integration
On some of the lessons learned during the Littoral Combat Ship construction
process, after the Navy canceled work on General Dynamics’ second ship.
Washington Post
come from an area where $50 million is a heck of a lot of money.”
Gordon Adams, a former associate director of national security at
the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said not requesting the money would equate to hundreds of millions of defense dollars
squandered.
“Essentially, the department’s on
the hook to come back and finish
it,” he said. “If they don’t, they’re
abandoning an investment.”
The shipbuilding plus-ups in the
2008 budget also could serve as a
hedge against future budget crun-ches that could result when wartime supplemental spending bills,
which are considered “off-budget”
spending, dry up. That, coupled
with end-strength increases in the
Army and Marine Corps that will
cost billions, could ultimately strain
procurement accounts.
“This is ‘get stuff started before
the deluge,’” Adams said.
Marine Corps Considers
EFV Add-On Armor
At the urging of key lawmakers
concerned about the Expeditionary
Fighting Vehicle’s (EFV) survivability on land, Marine Corps officials
are considering designing an armor
insert that would bolster protection
for the amphibious vehicle against
roadside bombs.
The insert would give the EFV,
which will not be fielded for several years, almost as much protection
as the largest Mine Resistant
Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehi-
