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Sunday, March 6, 2011
General Officer Announcement
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced today that the President has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly for reappointment to the rank of lieutenant general and to serve as the senior military assistant to the secretary of defense. Kelly is currently serving as commander, Marine Forces Reserve; and commander, Marine Forces North, New Orleans, La.
Flood WarningFLOOD WARNINGNATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BUFFALO NY920 AM EST SUN MAR 6 2011...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BUFFALO HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WARNINGFOR THE FOLLOWING RIVERS IN NEW YORK... ALLEGHENY RIVER AT OLEANPRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...SAFETY MESSAGE...NEVER DRIVE YOUR CAR THROUGH FLOODED ROADWAYS. THEWATER MAY BE DEEPER THAN IT APPEARS. TURN AROUND...DON`T DROWN!STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO AND OTHER LOCAL MEDIA FOR FURTHERDETAILS AND UPDATES.&&NYC009-062020-/O.NEW.KBUF.FL.W.0002.110306T1536Z-110309T0600Z//OLNN6.1.ER.110306T1536Z.110307T0000Z.110309T0000Z.NO/920 AM EST SUN MAR 6 2011THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BUFFALO HAS ISSUED A* FLOOD WARNING FOR THE ALLEGHENY RIVER AT OLEAN* UNTIL LATE TUESDAY NIGHT.* AT 8 AM SUNDAY THE STAGE WAS 9.4 FEET AND RISING.* FLOOD STAGE IS 10.0 FEET.* MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST.* FORECAST...THE RIVER IS EXPECTED TO RISE ABOVE FLOOD STAGE LATE THIS MORNING AND CREST NEAR 11.4 FEET THIS EVENING.* IMPACT...AT 12.0 FEET...MINOR FLOOD...WATER OVERFLOWS ONTO EAST RIVERSIDE DRIVE 1 TO 3 MILES UPSTREAM FROM UNION STREET BRIDGE.$$
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers Seize Nearly $600,000 in Cocaine at Brownsville Port of Entry
(Tuesday, March 01, 2011)contacts for this news releaseBrownsville, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Brownsville and Matamoros International Bridge this weekend discovered cocaine valued at approximately $598,400 concealed within a Volkswagen Jetta.On Sunday, February 27, CBP officers at the Brownsville and Matamoros International Bridge intercepted a man driving a gray 2001 Volkswagen Jetta as he approached the primary inspection station. The driver, identified as a 27-year-old male Mexican citizen who resides in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, was escorted to secondary for further inspection after a primary CBP officer discovered undeclared packages hidden within the Jetta. Examination by CBP officers in secondary revealed nine concealed packages within the Volkswagen. CBP officers removed the packages from the vehicle which had a combined total weight of 8.47 kilograms (18.7 pounds) of alleged cocaine.The alleged cocaine from this seizure has an estimated street value of approximately $598,400. CBP officers turned the man over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) special agents for further investigation. CBP officers seized the narcotics and the vehicle.“Over a half million dollar’s worth of cocaine is off the streets of Brownsville thanks to CBP officers working towards the protection of our country on the frontline. I congratulate our officers for the seizure of this alleged cocaine and for the arrest of the driver,” said Michael Freeman, CBP port director, Brownsville.U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
Frankfurt Attack Draws White House, Pentagon Reactions
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, March 2, 2011 - President Barack Obama pledged that the United States will work with German authorities to get to the bottom of a shooting outside Frankfurt International Airport in Germany today that claimed the lives of two U.S. airmen and wounded two others."I'm saddened and I am outraged by this attack that took the lives of two Americans and wounded two others," he said. "I think the American people are united in expressing our gratitude for the service of those who were lost."The president added that he and First Lady Michelle Obama have the airmen's families and friends in their thoughts and prayers, and are praying for a speedy recovery for those who were injured."I want everybody to understand that we will spare no effort in learning how this outrageous act took place," the president said, "and in working with German authorities to ensure that all of the perpetrators are brought to justice."Obama called the incident "a stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making all around the world to keep us safe, and the dangers that they face all around the globe.""So I think it's fair to say that on behalf of the American people, we want to extend our deepest condolences to these families," he added.Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said the Defense Department will cooperate with German authorities in their investigation."The Defense Department is saddened by the deaths of two of our airmen and the wounding of two others today in Frankfurt, Germany," he said. "We mourn the loss of our brave service members who were so cruelly gunned down. We pray for their families and the speedy recovery of the wounded. And we will do all we can to help investigators bring to justice those responsible for this cowardly attack."
Winter Weather AdvisoryURGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGENATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CLEVELAND OH527 AM EST SUN MAR 6 2011.LOW PRESSURE...OVER THE AREA TODAY WILL MOVE NORTHEASTOVERNIGHT. COLDER AIR WILL SPILL INTO THE AREA BEHIND THE LOWCHANGING THE RAIN TO SNOW.PAZ001>003-061830-/O.CON.KCLE.WW.Y.0010.000000T0000Z-110306T2100Z/NORTHERN ERIE-SOUTHERN ERIE-CRAWFORD PA-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...ERIE...EDINBORO...MEADVILLE527 AM EST SUN MAR 6 2011...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM EST THISAFTERNOON...A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 4 PM EST THISAFTERNOON.THE FREEZING RAIN HAS CHANGED TO ALL SNOW. SNOW ACCUMULATION WILLAVERAGE 3 TO 5 INCHES WITH THE BEST CHANCE OF THE HIGHER SNOWAMOUNTS EAST OF INTERSTATE 79... ACROSS EASTERN ERIE AND CRAWFORDCOUNTIES.NORTH WINDS WILL AVERAGE 10 TO 20 MPH. TEMPERATURES WILL HOLDNEARLY STEADY TODAY... MOSTLY IN THE UPPER 20S.THE SNOW WILL TAPER TO FLURRIES THIS AFTERNOON.PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...UNTREATED ROADS AND WALKWAYS WILL BE ICY AND SLIPPERY TODAY. ICEFORMED ON MANY SURFACES OVERNIGHT AS THE TEMPERATURES DROPPEDBELOW FREEZING. FREEZING RAIN ALSO OCCURRED IN SOME AREAS. THESNOW THAT WAS FALLING THIS MORNING WAS COVERING A GLAZE OF ICE.STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO AND YOUR LOCAL MEDIA FOR FURTHERDETAILS OR UPDATES.
CBP Officers at the Santa Teresa, New Mexico Port of Entry Make Large Marijuana Bust
El Paso, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers working at the Santa Teresa port of entry made a marijuana seizure Monday where the drugs were found concealed in a false bed of a pick-up.“CBP officers and the use of high-tech tools greatly contributed to this significant seizure and the arrest of the driver,” said Grace Gomez, acting port director for CBP in Santa Teresa. While smugglers are only limited by their imagination, they are often thwarted by the hard work and diligence of the CBP workforce.”The seizure was made at 9:15 a.m. when a 37-year-old man of Ciudad, Juarez Mexico driving a 1991 Ford F-150 arrived from Mexico and told officers he had nothing to declare, that he was going to make some purchases in the US. CBP officers selected the vehicle for a gamma-ray exam and identified several anomalies in the appearance of the area of the bed. The truck was taken to a separate inspection area where an extensive inspection of the bed was conducted and discovered to have a non-factory compartment. CBP officers removed a total of 290 bundles. The contents of the bundles tested positive for marijuana with an approximate weight of 311.96 pounds.CBP officers arrested the driver and then turned him over to the Las Cruces, New Mexico Narcotic Task Force agents.CBP Field Operations is responsible for securing our borders at the ports of entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers’ primary mission is anti-terrorism; they screen all people, vehicles, and goods entering the United States, while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel into and out of the United States. Their mission also includes carrying out traditional border-related responsibilities, including narcotics interdiction, enforcing immigration law, protecting the nation’s food supply and agriculture industry from pests and diseases, and enforcing trade laws.U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
Arizona CBP Officers Responsible for Seizures Totaling More Than $1 Million in Cash in February
Tucson, Ariz. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers continue to effectively interdict undeclared cash heading into Mexico. In the month of February, CBP officers were involved in the seizure of approximately $1,021,000 in illicit cash. In an 11-day period, more than $639,950 of the illicit cash was seized along with the arrest of four people.“Our officers are fully engaged in efforts to deny criminal organizations the money they need to operate,” said Director of Field Operations David Higgerson. “We are working around the clock to stop these organizations from benefiting from their illegal activities.”On Feb 16, CBP officers at the Port of Douglas were screening vehicles and travelers leaving the country when they encountered a 41-year-old man from Agua Prieta, Mexico, driving a 2000 Ford Taurus. During inspection of his vehicle, officers discovered $220,100 in undeclared cash hidden inside the front bumper.On Feb 24, CBP officers at the Port of Douglas were screening vehicles and travelers leaving the country when they encountered a 50-year-old man from Cananea, Mexico, driving a Nissan Maxima. During inspection of his vehicle, officers discovered $99,900 in undeclared cash hidden inside a seat backrest and the rear wheel wells.The following day, CBP officers at the Dennis DeConcini crossing at the Port of Nogales were screening vehicles and travelers leaving the country when they encountered a 50-year-old man from Hermosillo, Mexico, driving a Ford F-250. During inspection of his vehicle, officers discovered $249,940 in undeclared cash hidden inside the spare tire.On Feb 27, CBP officers at the Dennis DeConcini crossing at the Port of Nogales were screening vehicles and travelers leaving the country when they encountered a 31-year-old woman from Phoenix driving a Nissan Sentra. During inspection of her vehicle, officers discovered $70,010 hidden inside the windshield shroud.All four people were arrested and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further investigation and possible prosecution.Also, as part of the Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT), CBP officers assisted the Douglas Arizona Police Department (DPD) with the location of an additional $230,000 in cash which was seized by the DPD.A criminal complaint is simply the method by which a person is charged with criminal activity and raises no inference of guilt. An individual is presumed innocent until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.The Office of Field Operations is responsible for securing our borders at the ports of entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers’ primary mission is anti-terrorism; they screen all people, vehicles, and goods entering the United States, while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel into and out of the United States. Their mission also includes carrying out traditional border-related responsibilities, including narcotics interdiction, enforcing immigration law, protecting the nation’s food supply and agriculture industry from pests and diseases, and enforcing trade laws.Since launching the Southwest Border Initiative in March 2009, the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Janet Napolitano, has engaged in an unprecedented effort to bring focus and intensity to Southwest border security, coupled with a reinvigorated, smart and effective approach to enforcing immigration laws in the interior of our country. The effort also place emphasis on the screening of southbound rail and vehicle traffic for the illegal weapons and cash that are helping to fuel the cartel violence in Mexico.U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
General Officer Announcement
The chief of staff, Army announced today the following assignment: Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, senior commander, Fort Bliss, Fort Bliss, Texas, to commanding general, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas.
Flag Officer Announcements
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced today the following assignments: Capt. Peter J. Fanta, who has been selected for the rank of rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as commander, Expeditionary Strike Group Five/commander, Task Force 51/518, Bahrain. Fanta is currently serving as deputy director, surface warfare for combat systems, N86F, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. Rear Adm. (lower half) Charles A. Rainey will be assigned as vice commander, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, San Diego, Calif. Rainey is currently assigned as commanding officer, NR Strategic Mission Analysis, Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
City advises homeowners to take flood-proofing action
With the heavy rain forecast for Toronto this weekend, the City urges homeowners to take immediate steps to help reduce their risk of basement flooding. Toronto’s sewer system is designed to handle most storms. However, as a result of increasingly frequent and severe storms, the sewer system can become overloaded, flooding streets and creating ponds in low-lying areas. Homeowners can take action, short- and long-term, using the checklist below to flood proof their home.Short-term • Inspect your home's flood-proofing devices, such as sump pumps, floor drains or backwater valves, to ensure they're working properly. • Inspect your walls, doors, windows, floors and foundations for any cracks or leaks.• Safely clear neighbourhood catchbasins of debris that blocks rainwater from flowing easily into them. • Clean out your eavestroughs and window wells and check for leaks.Long-term• Ensure that downspouts are disconnected and drain properly away from the basement and foundation walls (also check to make sure your downspout does not drain directly onto neighbouring properties, lanes or sidewalks). • Consider soft-surface landscaping that allows stormwater to soak into the ground away from your home.• Examine the grading of your property. The ideal is for your property to slope away from the house for at least two to three metres. • When in doubt, contact a professional such as a licensed plumber or drainage contractor.• Make sure your flood insurance is up to date.If you experience basement flooding, call 311, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information about basement flooding prevention: http://www.toronto.ca/water.Toronto is Canada's largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. Toronto's government is dedicated to delivering customer service excellence, creating a transparent and accountable government, reducing the size and cost of government and building a transportation city. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Forces Kill Haqqani Terrorist in Afghanistan
Compiled from International Security Assistance Force Joint Command News ReleasesWASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 - Afghan and coalition forces killed four armed insurgents, including a Haqqani terrorist network leader, in Afghanistan's Khost province yesterday, military officials reported. The terrorist leader is linked to several recent bombing attacks on local security forces. He was shot and killed in Khost's Nadir Shah Kot district after he brandished an assault rifle at the troops.Forces engaged and killed three other insurgents in self defense, too, after the insurgents acted in a threatening manner toward the troops. Forces also detained 10 suspected insurgents in the operation.In other news yesterday throughout Afghanistan:-- Security forces detained two suspected Taliban assassins, who allegedly were planning to kill Afghan officials in Kandahar province's Kandahar district.-- In Khost's Sabari district, troops detained a suspected insurgent, while searching for a Haqqani terrorist network leader connected to several attacks on local security forces in the area.-- Afghan and coalition forces killed numerous armed insurgents in a gun battle in Kunar province's Dangam district. Troops were conducting a routine foot patrol when insurgents opened fire. Troops returned fire and fought off the attack for several hours before requesting close-air support. Aviation assets arrived on the scene, killing the enemy fighters.-- Forces found several weapons and drug stockpiles in operations throughout Afghanistan. They seized 4,500 assault rifle rounds, 200 automatic machine guns, 12 various rockets and mortars, 11 pounds of metal shrapnel, nine assault rifles, three unexploded ordnance, three hand grenades and one automatic machine gun.Related Sites: NATO International Security Assistance Force
Awarded Government Contracts
CONTRACTSNAVY Lockheed Martin Sippican, Inc., Marion, Mass., is being awarded a $50,681,257 fixed-price incentive, firm-fixed price, cost-plus-fixed fee, cost-type contract for the production of MK48 Mod 7 Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS) functional item replacement (FIR) kits, engineering services hours, hardware repair support, test equipment, additional spares and production support material, and warranty options should all options be exercised. The MK48 Mod 7 kit production program will supply the Navy with FIR upgrade kits consisting of a guidance and control box, broadband analog sonar receiver, preamplifier, cable assemblies, and guidance and control materials. The CBASS program will provide the MK48 ADCAP Mod 6 torpedo with a wide band sonar system, and the advanced broadband signal processing algorithms which will allow for enhanced detection and prosecution of shallow water threat targets employing advanced countermeasures. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $235,243,085. Work will be performed in Marion, Mass. (99 percent), and Akron, Ohio (1 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2014. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with five offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-11-C-6404). SimVentions Inc.*, Fredericksburg, Va., is being awarded a $40,096,811 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for continued research and development of an open collaborative toolset used to provide a clear view for all acquisition stakeholders of each phase of the engineering process including requirements definition, design, test and evaluation, deployment; and in some cases, decommissioning. Work will be performed in Fredericksburg, Va., and is expected to be completed by March 2016. Contract funds in the amount of $60,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Va., is the contracting activity (N00178-11-D-3010). Navistar Defense, LLC, Warrenville, Ill., is being awarded a $32,511,500 firm-fixed-priced delivery order #0015 Mod 005 under previously awarded contract (M67854-07-D-5032) for the procurement of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) recovery vehicles (MRVs) contractor logistics support (CLS) for spare parts, basic initial issue tool kits and training support. The objective of the MRVs and CLS requirement is to support the war fighters and coalition forces that require assistance resulting from disabled vehicles during Operation Enduring Freedom. Work will be performed in Louisville, Ky. (96 percent), and Warrenville, Ill. (4 percent), and work is expected to be completed by the end of September 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity. Daniels and Daniel Grunley, JV, Goldsboro, N.C., is being awarded a $29,800,000 firm-fixed-price contract for construction of a consolidated telecommunications/information technology complex at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. The work to be performed provides for construction of a communications administrative facility; a communication services facility; a base telephone facility; and a telephone exchange building. The contract contains two unexercised options which, if exercised, would increase cumulative contract value to $33,050,000. Work will be performed in Jacksonville, N.C., and is expected to be completed by July 2014. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 11 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Va., is the contracting activity (N40085-11-C-4002). Arete Associates*, Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $26,400,000 firm-fixed-price letter contract for the engineering, manufacturing, production and delivery of three Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis (COBRA) AN/DVS-1 low rate initial production Block 1 systems as part of the Mine Warfare Mission Package onboard the littoral combat ship. As a result of this Small Business Innovative Research Phase III award, the COBRA system will have the software that satisfies the performance requirements, the mine counter measure, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and tactical littoral sensor modes installed. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by March 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division, Panama City Beach, Fla., is the contracting activity (N61331-11-C-0007). Alloy Surface Co., Aston, Pa., is being awarded a $19,645,313 delivery order #0002 under previously awarded contract (N00104-10-G-0726) for manufacture of MJU-64/B infrared decoy devices. Work will be performed in Aston, Pa., and is expected to be completed by December 2012. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Inventory Control Point, Mechanicsburg, Pa., is the contracting activity. Environmental Management, Inc., dba EMI Services*, Idaho Falls, Idaho, is being awarded an $18,795,390 modification under a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N40085-10-D-0213) for facilities maintenance and repair and heavy equipment repair at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station New River, and other outlying properties in the eastern North Carolina area. The total contract amount after exercise of this option will be $37,837,562. Work will be performed in Jacksonville, N.C., and is expected to be completed March 2012. Contract funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Mid-Atlantic, Norfolk, Va., is the contracting activity. Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., Ltd., Middlesex, England, is being awarded an $18,346,701 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed price contract (N00019-07-C-0011) to exercise an option for 65 Navy Aircrew Common Ejection Seats (NACESs) for the F/A-18 A+, C+, E, F, and EA-18G aircraft for the U.S. Navy and the governments of Australia and Kuwait. In addition, this option provides for associated hardware, equipment, technical data, and production support services. Work will be performed in Johnstown, Pa. (60 percent), and Middlesex, England (40 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract combines purchases for the U.S. Navy ($18,233,051; 99.4 percent) and the governments of Australia ($51,920; .27 percent) and Kuwait ($61,730; .33 percent) under the Foreign Military Sales Program. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity. BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair, Inc., Norfolk, Va., is being awarded a $15,055,700 cost-plus-award-fee contract for USS Jason Dunahm (DDG 109) post shakedown availability. This contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $31,030,362. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Va., and is expected to be completed by September 2011. Contract funds in the amount of $3,011,140 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with three offers received. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-11-C-2314). Lockheed Martin Corp., Maritime Systems and Sensors, Manassas, Va., is being awarded an $11,887,702 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract modification (N00024-10-C-6266) to exercise design and support for the manufacture of hardware for the Acoustic Rapid Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Insertion (A-RCI) System Improvement and Integration Program. The A-RCI System is a sonar system that integrates and improves towed array, hull array, sphere array, and other ship sensor processing. The contract modification exercises options for two Los Angeles-class submarine hardware sets and pre-cable kits. Work will be performed in Manassas, Va. (90 percent), and Clearwater, Fla. (10 percent), and is expected to be completed by June 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C., is the contracting activity. Honeywell International, Inc., Defense & Space Electronic Systems, Albuquerque, N.M., is being awarded an $8,289,979 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-10-C-0061) to exercise an option for the procurement of 131 Advanced Multi-purpose Displays (68 5x5 forward displays; 42 5x5 aft displays; and 21 8x10 displays) for Lot 35 F/A-18F and EA-18G aircraft. Work will be performed in Albuquerque, N.M., and is expected to be completed in December 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.AIR FORCE Alenia North America, Washington, D.C., is being awarded a not-to-exceed $20,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for repair and return of Afghanistan G222/C-27 program parts. Work will be performed in Madison, Miss., and Rome, Italy. WR-ALC/GRBKB, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., is the contracting activity (FA8553-11-C-0004). Raytheon Co., El Segundo, Calif., is being awarded a $14,554,690 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for modeling, building and testing of a single channel transceiver to demonstrate improvements in the Identification at Range Integrated Sensor Program. Work will be performed in El Segundo, Calif. AFRL/PKSE, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-11-C-1162).*Small business
Lynn Praises Work, Successes of IED-Defeat Agency
By Terri Moon Cronk American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 - Few Defense Department agencies have a more important mission than the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III told a Pentagon audience today. Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III hosts a change of directorship ceremony for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization in the Pentagon auditorium, March 4, 2011. Seated in the front row, at left, are the outgoing JIEDDO director, Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates; the newly appointed incoming director, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero; and Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh. DOD photo by R. D. Ward (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The JIEDDO, as it is known, leads the department's efforts to defeat the use of improvised explosive devices by insurgents in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.Speaking at the agency's change of directorship ceremony, Lynn joked about the agency's acronym."The rule of thumb in Washington, I think, is 'the longer the acronym, the tougher the mission,' and that certainly applies to JIEDDO," Lynn said.Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, who is slated to retire, is passing JIEDDO's leadership baton to incoming commander Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero.JIEDDO has a "particularly complicated assignment," Lynn said, noting that during Oates' leadership of JIEDDO his charge was to improve upon the organization's many successes.Adding to that, Lynn said, was "an influx of tens of thousands of additional troops" into Afghanistan, which meant that "more men and women" would encounter the very threat Oates was tasked to defeat.Today, IEDs remain "the most-lethal threat we face in Afghanistan," Lynn said."But under General Oates' leadership," he added, "the JIEDDO has worked hard to confront that challenge."Extraordinary resources, both monetary and human, were committed to address the dangers improvised explosives pose to troops, Lynn said. The investment in counter-IED technology and enhanced surveillance capabilities has proved integral in reducing attacks, he said.Barbero has served three tours in Iraq and for the past 18 months was the deputy commander in charge of advising and training Iraqi troops. As JIEDDO's commander, Barbero will employ skills that made him successful in Iraq, such as having "patience for [solving] a complicated problem, navigating the resources of a complex bureaucracy, and staying agile to keep our troops safe," Lynn said.The IED threat continues to evolve, the deputy secretary said. "Because of this, our military needs to continually innovate and improve our [anti-IED] strategy," he said, adding that JIEDDO is doing just that."That's why its mission is so vital," Lynn said, adding that JIEDDO is at the forefront of efforts to meet the changing nature of conflict."There's no greater mission than to protect our warriors as they go into harm's way," Barbero said. "And JIEDDO will continue to focus on and meet the needs of the warfighter."
Court Martial May Consider Death Penalty for Hasan
By Jim Garamone American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 - An Army official has recommended that Maj. Nidal M. Hasan be tried before a general court martial authorized to consider capital punishment, Fort Hood, Texas, officials said today.Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the Nov. 5, 2009 attack on troops readying to deploy to Afghanistan.The commander of the post's 21st Air Cavalry Brigade, Col. Morgan Lamb, has recommended the charges pending against Hasan be sent to a general court martial authorized to consider capital punishment. The colonel's recommendation is non-binding. The convening authority – in this case, 3rd Corps commander Army Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone – will make the final decision in the Hasan case.Officials at the post released the information after Hasan's defense counsel publicly released the recommendation.Army lawyers are reviewing the charges and the Article 32 investigation in order to provide legal advice on the case to Cone.Fort Hood officials said in a news release that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a general court-martial convening authority has several options upon receipt of charges from a subordinate commander, including but not limited to dismissing the charges, referring them to court martial or sending them to a different convening authority for possible action.
CBP officers in Buffalo seized approximately 21 pounds of the club-drug, "Ecstasy."
Buffalo, N.Y. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) today announced the seizure of approximately 21 pounds of methylene-dioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), better known as the club-drug “Ecstasy.” The seizure resulted in the arrest of a United States citizen. CBP officers in Buffalo seized approximately 21 pounds of the club-drug, "Ecstasy."On March 3, CBP officers encountered 25-year-old Leeann Corley, a United States citizen from Georgia as she applied for admission into the United States at the Peace Bridge Port of Entry. Ms. Corley made a negative declaration and advised CBP that she travelled to Canada via commercial bus to visit family. During routine primary questioning Ms. Corley had difficulty answering additional questions related to her itinerary. Due to this reason, Ms. Corley was referred for a secondary exam.During the secondary inspection it appeared that Ms. Corley was in a very late term pregnancy but could not answer basic questions about her health. During an authorized patdown CBP Officers discovered Ms. Corley was wearing a body suit with a modified stomach area. The body suit was removed and secreted within were zip lock bags containing pills that field tested positive for the properties of MDMA. The bags were found to contain approximately 34,000 pills with a total weight of approximately 21 pounds.Ms. Corley was arrested on federal charges of importation and possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance and turned over to agents from U.S. Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation and prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western New York.U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
Remarks by Secretary Gates at the United States Air Force Academy
SEC. GATES: Thank you, Josh, for that introduction. It’s a pleasure to be back in Colorado Springs, for my third and final visit to the Air Force Academy as Secretary of Defense. I had the honor of addressing cadets last spring, meaning you may have a distinct feeling of déjà vu right about now. I would take your willingness to return for this encore performance as a compliment, but I also know from experience that your presence is not exactly optional. So I’ll just thank you for trying to stay awake and promise to keep my remarks reasonably brief. Which brings to mind a story about George Bernard Shaw, who once told a speaker he had 15 minutes to speak. The speaker replied, “15 minutes? How can I tell them all I know in 15 minutes?” Shaw said, “I advise you to speak very slowly.” As Secretary of Defense, I have many opportunities to interact with our military’s top leaders. I have relatively fewer chances to interact with our military’s youngest leaders. So it’s great to see all the Firsties in this hall, who have only 82 days to go until commissioning. And I know the Four Degrees aren’t in the audience right now, but, over closed-circuit TV, I do want to congratulate them in advance on achieving recognition next week. Whether it’s visiting the service academies or meeting with junior enlisted at forward operating bases in Afghanistan, it is always an extraordinary pleasure to interact with our future military leaders. That’s because you will be having an impact on your service and our nation’s security long after I and all of today’s generals are long retired from government service. As future Air Force leaders, you will be the ones tackling the challenges of the 21st century head on. And those challenges will be significant. So today, I want to talk to you about what I believe the Air Force of the 21st century must look like -- the challenges to be embraced, the pitfalls to be avoided -- and what that will mean for you as leaders. We are far removed from the world as it was 44 years ago, when in January 1967, I was commissioned a second Lieutenant in the Air Force. In my first assignment, I spent a year targeting the Soviet Union with ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] at Whiteman Air Force Base, before heading to Washington to begin my career at CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] as an analyst on the Soviet desk. The decades-long Cold War had long receded by the time I became Secretary of Defense, but when I arrived at the Pentagon I found that all of the military services -- including the Air Force -- still to a great extent viewed the world through the prism of the 20th century. They were largely oriented towards winning big battles in big wars against nation-states comparably armed and equipped, even as our military was struggling to defeat insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than five years after 9/11, all the services were only then beginning to undertake the changes required to prevail in the more diverse and uncertain security environment of this century. One of my priorities as Secretary of Defense has been to accelerate that process of institutional change, in order to ensure that our military was both responding to the urgent needs of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simultaneously investing in and preparing for a range of future threats -- from global terrorism to ethnic conflicts; from rogue nations to rising powers with increasingly sophisticated capabilities. I freely acknowledge that this focus has, at various times, brushed up against the traditional preferences and bureaucratic sacred cows of all the services -- including the Air Force. Almost three years ago I challenged the Air Force, and indeed our entire military, to do more, much more, to get needed unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets into theater, a process I compared to “pulling teeth.” Over the course of my tenure, I’ve also questioned whether the Air Force has the right mix of platforms for the future. Some, inside the Pentagon and out, thought I had it in for the Air Force. But far from being a skeptic of air power, I believe that air supremacy -- in all its components -- will be indispensable to maintaining American military strength, deterrence, and global reach for decades to come. Here, to some degree, the Air Force is a victim of its own success. There hasn’t been a U.S. Air Force airplane lost in air combat in nearly 40 years, or an American soldier attacked by enemy aircraft since Korea. American ownership of the skies has been so effortless it is taken for granted. Air supremacy in this century, however, will almost certainly mean different things, and require different systems, personnel policies, and thinking than was the case for most of the Cold War. In order to make that transition, the Air Force has had to shed the nostalgia that can too often consume the institutional culture of any large, successful organization. This is a problem for all the services. Each has had a traditional orientation -- rooted originally in World War II and the Cold War, and then reinforced in the 1991 Persian Gulf campaign -- that has been, to varying degrees, neglected in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. Blue-water carrier ops in the case of the Navy, mechanized combined arms warfare for the Army, and amphibious assault for the Marine Corps. For the Air Force, its traditional orientation has been air-to-air combat and strategic bombing, and members of those communities have so dominated the service leadership and organizational culture that other critical missions and new capabilities have been subordinated and neglected. I recall in the early 1990s, when I was Director of CIA, I pushed to get UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] into development because they represented a less risky and far more versatile means of gathering data in the field, and other nations like Israel were using effectively. In 1992, however, the Air Force would not co-fund with CIA an aircraft without a pilot. Now, in case there was any doubt, I strongly believe the United States military will always need manned flight. But I also believe we must recognize the enormous strategic and cultural implications of the vast expansion in remotely piloted vehicles, both for reconnaissance and strike, in this past decade -- a development entirely unexpected just ten years ago. As Secretary Donley has pointed out, in 2000 the leadership of the Air Force projected an unmanned aerial system fleet of less than 80 by 2020 -- and today that projection has grown more than six-fold. The concerns about a diminished role for manned flight date back to before the founding of the independent U.S. Air Force in 1947, a time when new developments in rockets were seen as making airplanes obsolete. Consider what General Hap Arnold told the Air Force Science Advisory Group, in 1944. He said that, in the future: “I see a manless Air Force. I see no excuse for men in fighter planes to shoot down bombers…The next Air Force is going to be built around scientists.” Almost twenty years later, when President Kennedy gave the commencement address here at the Air Force Academy, he felt compelled to reassure the graduating class that he firmly disagreed with those that: “claim that the future of the Air Force is mortgaged to an obsolete weapons system, the manned aircraft, or that Air Force officers of the future will be nothing more than ‘silent silo sitters.’” Of course, none of those predictions came true. And those making similar projections today would be just as misguided. Even given the potential game-changing capabilities of UAVs, we do not want to engage in the kind of techno-optimism about remote-control warfare that has muddled strategic thinking in the past. The Air Force -- and all the services -- are seeking to find the right balance between preserving what is unique and valuable in their traditions, while making the adjustments needed to win the wars of today and prepare for likely future threats. The campaign underway in Afghanistan, though primarily a ground engagement, has become a major demonstration of the global reach, effectiveness, and necessity of U.S. air power. The pace of air operations in support of soldiers and Marines has surged over the past year, and that has played an important role in rolling back the Taliban from their strongholds. In 2010, the Air Force completed more than 33,000 close air support sorties in Afghanistan, an increase of more than 20 percent compared to the year before. Meanwhile, combined ISR sorties in Iraq and Afghanistan have almost doubled since 2008 and tripled since 2007. The Air Force now has 48 Predator and Reaper combat air patrols currently flying --compared to 18 CAPs in 2007 -- and is training more pilots for advanced UAVs than for any other single weapons system. Nonetheless, the demand from commanders for ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] continues to outpace supply, and we must press on to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to give our troops down range what they need to survive and succeed on the battlefield. Equally important to the projection of our power in combat theaters has been the work of mobility forces. Last year, in order to accomplish the major drawdown in Iraq and the simultaneous surge in Afghanistan, nearly 300,000 short tons of cargo were airlifted in both theaters. And the Air Force airdropped more than 60 million pounds of supplies for Operation Enduring Freedom, almost double the total from 2009. Our airmen, as you know, are also playing the critical role of life-savers -- completing 9,700 personnel recovery sorties in 2010 alone. All told, the expertise and courage of Air Force search and rescue teams are making the goal of the “golden hour” medevac a reality in Afghanistan. Without all of the efforts and exertions of tens of thousands airmen, many of them on the ground -- including engineers, security forces, medical personnel, explosive ordnance disposal experts -- the entire U.S. war effort would grind to a halt. The versatility on display by the Air Force in combat theaters these past few years befits the greatest traditions of the force. Yet I’m concerned that the view still lingers in some corners that once I depart as Secretary, and once U.S. forces drawdown in Iraq and in Afghanistan in accordance with the President’s and NATO’s strategy, things can get back to what some consider to be real Air Force normal. This must not happen. Stability and security missions, counterterrorism, train, assist and equip, persistent battlefield ISR, close air support, search and rescue, and the ever-critical transport missions are with us to stay -- even without a repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan. Air Force leaders now and in the future must have a comprehensive and integrated view of the service’s future needs and capabilities -- including the service’s important role in cyber and space -- a view that encompasses with equal emphasis all of its varied missions. That includes the requirement for more sophisticated, high end capabilities. I’ve said before that it would be irresponsible to assume that a future adversary -- given enough time, money, and technological acumen -- will not one day be able to directly threaten U.S. command of the skies. So even as I’ve touted the need to incorporate the lessons of the current conflicts, I have also committed the Department of Defense, and this country, to the most advanced and expensive tactical fighter program in history -- the $300 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The department is programmed to buy 2,400 of these aircraft, and the first Air Force training aircraft will arrive at Eglin Air Force Base in just over two months. Having a robust, large quantity of fifth generation tactical air fighters is something I view as a core requirement, and in this era of increasing budget constraints, my goal has been to ensure that core capabilities for all the services are protected. This has meant increasing development funding for the F-35, scaling back or cutting other programs that are not as essential, and intervening directly to get the program back on track, on budget, and on schedule. At the same time that F-35 received high priority, the Department made the decision not to buy more than the 187 F-22s planned for our arsenal. As I have said before, the F-22 is far and away the best air-to-air fighter ever produced, and it will ensure U.S. command of the skies for the next generation. But in assessing how many F-22s the Air Force needed, the Department had to make choices and set priorities among competing demands and risks. Three years before I took this job, the previous Secretary of Defense imposed a funding cap on the F-22 and approved a program of 183 aircraft. Subsequent analysis conducted by the Department concluded that 187 was the number needed for high-end air to air missions that only the F-22 could perform, the number ultimately chosen. Within a fixed Air Force and overall Department of Defense budget, buying more F-22s would have meant doing less of something else -- in this case, other air power capabilities where the military was underinvested relative to the threat. Given that the military will face a broadening spectrum of conflict, and that our nation finds itself in an era of fiscal duress, the military’s resources need to be invested in those capabilities that are of use across the widest possible range of scenarios. One of the ways that spectrum will broaden is with the emergence of high end, asymmetric threats. Indeed, looking at capabilities that China and others are developing -- long-range precision weapons, including anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, quieter submarines, advanced air defense missiles -- and what the Iranians and North Koreans are up to, they appear designed to neutralize the advantages the U.S. military has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War -- unfettered freedom of movement and the ability to project power to any region across the globe by surging aircraft, ships, troops and supplies. The Air Force will play a lead role in maintaining U.S. military supremacy in the face of this anti-access, area-denial strategy. In fact, as you may know, the Air Force and Navy have been working together on an Air Sea battle concept that has the potential to do for America’s military deterrent power at the beginning of the 21st century what Air Land Battle did near the end of the 20th. The leadership of the Air Force and the Navy, who are collaborating closely on this new doctrine, recognize the enormous potential in developing new joint war fighting capabilities -- think of naval forces in airfield defense, or stealth bombers augmented by Navy submarines -- and the clear benefits from this more efficient use of taxpayer dollars. These high end conflict scenarios are also driving the development of new air power capabilities. Although program cuts and cancellations tend to make the headlines, the Air Force is actually investing in significant new modernization programs. The budget the president submitted to the Congress last month included funds for a joint portfolio of long-range strike systems, including a new, optionally-manned, nuclear-capable, penetrating Air Force bomber, which remains a core element of this nation’s power projection capability. The budget also funds F-22 modernization that leverages radar and electronic protection technologies from the F-35 program to ensure the F-22’s continued dominance. Meanwhile, the multi-billion dollar effort to modernize the radars of the F-15s will keep this key fighter available and viable into the future. Finally, a new follow-on to the AMRAAM [Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile], the medium range air-to-air missile, will have greater range, lethality and protection against electronic jamming. A key aspect of the service’s portfolio of capabilities will remain its nuclear deterrent. Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Donley and General Schwartz, the Air Force has come a long way in restoring institutional excellence to this mission, where there is no room for error. America's nuclear deterrent -- including the missile and bomber legs maintained by the Air Force -- will remain a critical guarantor of our security, even as the nation works toward the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. All told, I’ve described a wide range of capabilities -- from low-end asymmetric to high end asymmetric and conventional -- that the Air Force will need in the 21st century. Over the last four years, I have pushed the Air Force, and indeed all of the services, to institutionalize capabilities needed for asymmetric threats and unconventional warfare. However, as my discussion of air supremacy today should confirm, this is not because these are the only kinds of missions I believe the military must be prepared for. But my message to the services is being distorted by some and misunderstood by others. At the Navy League last year, I suggested that the Navy should think anew about the role of aircraft carriers and the size of amphibious modernization programs. The speech was characterized by some as my doubting the value of carriers and amphibious assault capabilities altogether. At West Point last week I questioned the wisdom of sending large land armies into major conflicts in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and suggested the Army should think about the number and role of its heavy armored formations for the future. That has been interpreted as my questioning the need for the Army at all, or at least one its present size, the value of heavy armor generally, and the even the wisdom of our involvement in Afghanistan. I suspect that my remarks today will be construed as an attack on bombers and TACAIR [tactical air]. But my actions and my budgets over the last four years belie these mistaken interpretations. You have just heard me elaborate what we are doing to modernize the tactical air and bomber fleet. For the Navy, I have approved continuing the carrier program but also more attack submarines, a new ballistic missile submarine, and more guided missile destroyers. For the Army, we will invest billions modernizing armored vehicles, tactical communications, and other ground combat systems. And the Marine Corps’ existing amphibious assault capabilities will be upgraded and new systems funded for the ship-to-shore mission. During my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I have approved the largest increases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps in decades. In 2007, I stopped the drawdown in personnel for both the Air Force and Navy. And I supported and have presided over the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan. All that said, I have also been trying to get across to all of the military services that they will have many and varied missions in the 21st century. As a result, they must think harder about the entire range of these missions and how to achieve the right balance of capabilities in an era of tight budgets. As I said a few moments ago, military leaders must have a comprehensive and integrated view of their service’s future needs and capabilities, a view that encompasses with equal emphasis all of the services’ varied missions. And service leaders must think about how to use the assets they have with the greatest possible flexibility, and how much capability they need. This country requires all the capabilities we have in the services -- yes, I mean carriers, TACAIR, tanks, and amphibious assault -- but the way we use them in the 21st century will almost certainly not be the way they were used in the 20th century. Above all, the services must not return to the last century’s mindset after Iraq and Afghanistan, but prepare and plan for a very different world than we all left in 2001. Finally, all the services also need to think aggressively about how to truly take advantage of being part of the joint force -- whether for search and rescue, ISR, fire support, forced entry from the sea, long-range strike, or anything else. From the opening weeks of the Afghan campaign nearly a decade ago, to the complex operations required in both combat theaters, we have seen what is possible when America’s military services are employing and integrating every tool at their disposal. As I mentioned earlier, the Air Force and the Navy are off to a promising start in trying to leverage each other’s capabilities to overcome future anti-access and area-denial threats. But we must always guard against the old bureaucratic politics and parochial tendencies -- especially after the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns wind down and budgets become tight. It’s easier to be joint and talk joint when there’s money to go around and a war to be won. It’s much harder to do when tough choices have to be made within and between the military services -- between what is ideal from a particular service perspective, and what will get the job done taking into account broader priorities and considerations. This complex world, and the wide variety of capabilities and missions I’ve described, should give you a sense of the tremendous and varied challenges you will face throughout your career. But there are also tremendous opportunities ahead. And in order to take advantage of these opportunities -- whether afforded by new technology or new strategic realities -- as officers you will need to show great flexibility, agility, resourcefulness, and imagination. Because your Air Force will face different kinds of conflict than it has prepared for during the last six decades, it will need leaders who think creatively and decisively in the manner of Air Force legends like Billy Mitchell, Hap Arnold, Bernard Schriever, and John Boyd. You will need to challenge conventional wisdom and call things as you see them to subordinates and superiors alike. A related quality you will need as leaders is accountability. Great leaders embrace accountability in all that they do, and are willing to accept criticism from within or outside their organization. Holding leaders to a high standard of performance and ethics is a credit to the Air Force. But to meet that high standard going forward, you must have the discipline to cultivate integrity and moral courage from here at the Academy, and then from your earliest days as a commissioned officer. Those qualities do not suddenly emerge fully developed overnight or as a revelation after you have assumed important responsibilities. They have their roots in the small decisions you will make here and early in your career and must be strengthened all along the way. And you must always ensure that your moral courage serves the greater good: that it serves what is best for the nation and our highest values -- not a particular program or ego or service parochialism. I would close by noting that you all entered military service in a time of war, knowing you would be at war. For my part, know that I feel personally responsible for each and every one of you, as if you were my own sons and daughters, and will for as long as I am Secretary of Defense. My only prayer is that you serve with honor and return home safely. And I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service. And from one airman to another, I bid you farewell and ask God’s blessing on each of you. Q: Sir, Cadet First Class Tom Chandler. Sir, in order for the president’s national security strategy to succeed, should politicians subscribe to the view that America is exceptional among its peers in the international community? SEC. GATES: Well, I must tell you that I am very much an American exceptionalist. I believe that this country, unlike almost any other country in the world, is a force for good, and that we have accomplished that over the decades. We’ve certainly made our mistakes. There are times when we have not lived up to our own values. But one of the things that makes this country great, in my view, is that we are the most self-critical and quickly self-correcting country in the world. When we get off the path, we get back on faster than anybody. And I believe that as you look at the tens of millions, literally the hundreds of millions of people that have gained their freedom over the past -- just over the past 20 years, beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the number of people whose freedom has been protected or restored to them by military action by the United States, whether it’s World War I or World War II or subsequent conflicts, Iraq, Afghanistan -- I think you put all these things together, it is a unique historical record. And I believe that our willingness to be a force for good is unique in the world. We obviously look out for our interests. I am considered sort of the quintessential realist. But I think that if you scratch most of us, you will find that we are both idealists and romantics in terms of what this country stands for. So from my standpoint, the achievement of our objectives requires us to have a vision of ourselves as a unique country and carrying out unique roles in the world, whether it’s in our national security or other arenas as well. Q: Thank you, sir. Q: Sir, Cadet First Class Trent Belter from CS-40. Sir, you mentioned that the Air Force should be prepared in the future to use a broader set of capabilities. In some cases these capabilities may overlap with those of the other services. What does that overlap mean for the joint force of the future? SEC. GATES: Well, one of the things that’s quite clear from Iraq and Afghanistan is that we have come to a place where we operate very effectively jointly. But we do not procure jointly. We -- the services still want to do their own thing. And one of the things that we’re working on right now: each of the services has its own programs for UAVs. But there are some cases where a common capability would serve everybody. One thing that’s common to all of these UAVs, in many respects, are the kinds of ground stations that they have. The air -- the Army and the Marine Corps are working very closely together on a program called Shadow and -- where they are basically doing this jointly. But one of the -- one of the reasons that we’ve made some of the program changes that we have in the past couple of years has been -- because of service -- was investing in a capability for itself that actually was a capability to serve another service. And so why not work together in creating that capability? Search and rescue is an example. So I think that we have a lot of opportunities in front of us in terms of joint procurement. The Joint Strike Fighter is good example of this, where we’re taking essentially the same airframe, particularly for the Air Force and the -- and the Navy and working off of that. And I think that leverage is a good thing. Clearly there are some capabilities that will be service unique, and those will continue. I’m sure those will be well-protected, and we don’t have to worry about them being vulnerable. But I do think, particularly in the current budgetary environment, that we’re going to have to be more effective in looking for ways to do acquisition and procurement in more areas more jointly. STAFF: We have time for one final question. Q: Sir, what programs do you see being cut in the military due to our recent budget cuts? SEC. GATES: Well, right now I think that we’re in a pretty good place. I went to the Congress -- to the president and the Congress [inaudible] in 2009 with recommendations to cap or cancel 33 different programs. At this point, 32 of them have been implemented. The one that remains -- still completely -- still somewhat undecided is the fate of what I call the extra engine for the F-35. And I think we’ll know the outcome of that fairly shortly. The House budget bill does not contain any money for the extra engine. The Senate voted against it two years ago, so my hope is we can finally shed this potential extra $3 billion expenditure that we don’t need. The major program change for the 2012 budget is the cancellation of the Marines Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. We’ve invested -- the program originated in the Reagan administration. We’ve spent $3 billion. It’s many years overdue. And to complete the program would cost another $12 billion. And that’s to move 4,000 Marines from ship to shore. And the Marine Corps has decided it can’t afford it. It basically would eat the entire ground vehicle budget for the Marine Corps between now and 2025. So they are basically going to accelerate the Marine Personnel Carrier. They’re going to upgrade some of the amphibious assault vehicles they have now, and then they’re going to start a new program for a new amphibious assault vehicle that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the EFV [Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle]. I think that’s probably the biggest program change in the FY [fiscal year] '12 budget. As we look out over the next number of years, depending on what -- I think that’s -- I think we’re in pretty good place right now because of the measures that we’ve taken over the last couple of years. We’ve cut or curtailed programs that, if completed, would have cost the taxpayers about $330 billion. So I think we’ve done a good job of imposing some discipline internally. I think we will have to make some very difficult choices probably in the next -- toward the latter part of this decade. The president and the Congress and the services are going to face some real challenges. For example, how can -- a lot of the ships that were built -- surface ships that were built in the Reagan era will be aging out in the 2020s, and I worry about whether the Navy can afford to continue building both the number of surface ships that it needs and also fund building and deploying a brand-new ballistic missile submarine. But we’ve cut that down a lot. It’s now -- the original estimate was $7 billion a boat. We’ve got that down now to a little below $5 billion. It’s still a very expensive boat. But whether they can do the same -- do both of them at the same time, I think, is going to be a challenge. The Air Force is going to face a big challenge. Whether we can fund a new tanker, F-35s, a new bomber and all of these other capabilities simultaneously, I think, is going to be a tough question that people will have to confront. But my view is if I don’t get these programs started now, a future Congress and a president, and you as senior officers, in the future won’t have any options or won’t have any choices. So I think it’s important to get these things started. It’s a long answer to your question. My view is that from my perspective at this point, I don’t see other major programs on the block for the next year or two, but we’ll just have to see how serious the budget situation gets. Thank you all very much. (Applause) COL. LARSON: Sir, thank you so much for coming and speaking to us -- with us today. On behalf of the superintendent, the cadet wing and all of us here at the Air Force Academy, I have the two class presidents to present you with gifts: a coin from the class of 2012, and the book the “Spirit and Flight” from the class of 2011. CADET: Sir, thank you very much for your remarks today. We really appreciate it, so thanks. SEC. GATES: Thanks a lot. COL. LARSON: Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a round of applause in thanking Secretary Gates for his time, his message and his continued service and unwavering dedication to our great nation.
Air Force Joins Effort to Help Libyan EvacueesBy Air Force Master Sgt. Jim Fisher 17th Air Force Public AffairsDJAERBA, Tunisia, March 4, 2011 - The U.S. military's contribution to an international effort to end the suffering of Libya's evacuees began in Italy today when two C-130J Super Hercules aircraft picked up humanitarian aid and headed to Tunisia. U.S. Airmen from the 435th Air Mobility Squadron, from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, load blankets, tarps and water containers onto C-130 aircraft in Pisa, Italy, March 4, 2011. The aircraft flew the supplies to Tunisia as part of the U.S. government's efforts with the international community to meet the humanitarian needs of the Lybian people and others in the country who fled across the borders during political uprisings. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Brendan Stephens (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 37th Airlift Squadron, from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, stopped in Pisa, Italy, where they picked up cargo from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The team then flew the aid to Djaerba, Tunisia, near where tens of thousands of Libyans and foreign nationals have fled due to the recent political uprising in Libya.Air Force Lt. Col. Charles "Doc" Schlegel, commander of the 435th Air Mobility Squadron, is leading a contingency response team working with aircrews from the 37th ALS on the humanitarian missions. He said his team is excited to partner with 17th Air Force to support the State Department. "We know that there are a lot of folks that are currently displaced, that will hopefully soon be able to return to their home countries and, hopefully, we can expedite that and bring humanitarian assistance to people who need it," Schlegel said. "The 17th Air Force did a great job coordinating with the agencies here, making sure the stuff was ready and could be quickly delivered to people who are in need. This is being driven by the State Department and we are ready to support any requests they have."Alberto Chidini, coordinator of the Army's Camp Darby humanitarian Assistance program near Pisa was on the flightline for the pickup in Italy, making sure the humanitarian cargo was ready to load. It's important for people to be willing to help in situations like the one in Libya and its border regions, he said. "I've seen the reports. Everything is lacking," Chidini said. "The situation is very bad and our people are ready to react. It's important because this could happen to anyone and hopefully someone is ready to help. In this case, [it's] us. "It makes you feel good, it makes you feel proud," he added. While waiting for further requests, the team from Ramstein stayed focused on the task at hand, delivering 40,000 wool blankets, 40 units of plastic sheeting and 9,600 water containers to Djaerba. After finishing the first day's work, the teams regrouped to plan more assistance missions for the days ahead. U.S. Airmen from the 435th Air Mobility Squadron, from Ramstein Air Base, picked up blankets, tarps and water containers from the U.S. Agency for International Development to load onto C-130 aircraft in Pisa, Italy. The Air Force will fly the supplies to Tunisia as part of the U.S. government's work with the international community to meet the humanitarian needs of the Lybian people and others in the country who fled across the borders during political unrest. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Brendan Stephens Download screen-resolution Download high-resolution U.S. Airmen with the 435th Air Mobility Squadron, from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, unload blankets, tarps and water containers provided by U.S. AID at Djerba Zarzis Airport in Tunisia. The U.S. government is working with the international community to meet the humanitarian needs of the Lybian people and others in the country who fled across the borders in recent political unrest. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Brendan Stephens Download screen-resolution Download high-resolution
Remarks by Secretary Gates at the United States Air Force Academy SEC. GATES: Thank you, Josh, for that introduction. It’s a pleasure to be back in Colorado Springs, for my third and final visit to the Air Force Academy as Secretary of Defense. I had the honor of addressing cadets last spring, meaning you may have a distinct feeling of déjà vu right about now. I would take your willingness to return for this encore performance as a compliment, but I also know from experience that your presence is not exactly optional. So I’ll just thank you for trying to stay awake and promise to keep my remarks reasonably brief. Which brings to mind a story about George Bernard Shaw, who once told a speaker he had 15 minutes to speak. The speaker replied, “15 minutes? How can I tell them all I know in 15 minutes?” Shaw said, “I advise you to speak very slowly.” As Secretary of Defense, I have many opportunities to interact with our military’s top leaders. I have relatively fewer chances to interact with our military’s youngest leaders. So it’s great to see all the Firsties in this hall, who have only 82 days to go until commissioning. And I know the Four Degrees aren’t in the audience right now, but, over closed-circuit TV, I do want to congratulate them in advance on achieving recognition next week. Whether it’s visiting the service academies or meeting with junior enlisted at forward operating bases in Afghanistan, it is always an extraordinary pleasure to interact with our future military leaders. That’s because you will be having an impact on your service and our nation’s security long after I and all of today’s generals are long retired from government service. As future Air Force leaders, you will be the ones tackling the challenges of the 21st century head on. And those challenges will be significant. So today, I want to talk to you about what I believe the Air Force of the 21st century must look like -- the challenges to be embraced, the pitfalls to be avoided -- and what that will mean for you as leaders. We are far removed from the world as it was 44 years ago, when in January 1967, I was commissioned a second Lieutenant in the Air Force. In my first assignment, I spent a year targeting the Soviet Union with ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] at Whiteman Air Force Base, before heading to Washington to begin my career at CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] as an analyst on the Soviet desk. The decades-long Cold War had long receded by the time I became Secretary of Defense, but when I arrived at the Pentagon I found that all of the military services -- including the Air Force -- still to a great extent viewed the world through the prism of the 20th century. They were largely oriented towards winning big battles in big wars against nation-states comparably armed and equipped, even as our military was struggling to defeat insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than five years after 9/11, all the services were only then beginning to undertake the changes required to prevail in the more diverse and uncertain security environment of this century. One of my priorities as Secretary of Defense has been to accelerate that process of institutional change, in order to ensure that our military was both responding to the urgent needs of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simultaneously investing in and preparing for a range of future threats -- from global terrorism to ethnic conflicts; from rogue nations to rising powers with increasingly sophisticated capabilities. I freely acknowledge that this focus has, at various times, brushed up against the traditional preferences and bureaucratic sacred cows of all the services -- including the Air Force. Almost three years ago I challenged the Air Force, and indeed our entire military, to do more, much more, to get needed unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets into theater, a process I compared to “pulling teeth.” Over the course of my tenure, I’ve also questioned whether the Air Force has the right mix of platforms for the future. Some, inside the Pentagon and out, thought I had it in for the Air Force. But far from being a skeptic of air power, I believe that air supremacy -- in all its components -- will be indispensable to maintaining American military strength, deterrence, and global reach for decades to come. Here, to some degree, the Air Force is a victim of its own success. There hasn’t been a U.S. Air Force airplane lost in air combat in nearly 40 years, or an American soldier attacked by enemy aircraft since Korea. American ownership of the skies has been so effortless it is taken for granted. Air supremacy in this century, however, will almost certainly mean different things, and require different systems, personnel policies, and thinking than was the case for most of the Cold War. In order to make that transition, the Air Force has had to shed the nostalgia that can too often consume the institutional culture of any large, successful organization. This is a problem for all the services. Each has had a traditional orientation -- rooted originally in World War II and the Cold War, and then reinforced in the 1991 Persian Gulf campaign -- that has been, to varying degrees, neglected in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. Blue-water carrier ops in the case of the Navy, mechanized combined arms warfare for the Army, and amphibious assault for the Marine Corps. For the Air Force, its traditional orientation has been air-to-air combat and strategic bombing, and members of those communities have so dominated the service leadership and organizational culture that other critical missions and new capabilities have been subordinated and neglected. I recall in the early 1990s, when I was Director of CIA, I pushed to get UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles] into development because they represented a less risky and far more versatile means of gathering data in the field, and other nations like Israel were using effectively. In 1992, however, the Air Force would not co-fund with CIA an aircraft without a pilot. Now, in case there was any doubt, I strongly believe the United States military will always need manned flight. But I also believe we must recognize the enormous strategic and cultural implications of the vast expansion in remotely piloted vehicles, both for reconnaissance and strike, in this past decade -- a development entirely unexpected just ten years ago. As Secretary Donley has pointed out, in 2000 the leadership of the Air Force projected an unmanned aerial system fleet of less than 80 by 2020 -- and today that projection has grown more than six-fold. The concerns about a diminished role for manned flight date back to before the founding of the independent U.S. Air Force in 1947, a time when new developments in rockets were seen as making airplanes obsolete. Consider what General Hap Arnold told the Air Force Science Advisory Group, in 1944. He said that, in the future: “I see a manless Air Force. I see no excuse for men in fighter planes to shoot down bombers…The next Air Force is going to be built around scientists.” Almost twenty years later, when President Kennedy gave the commencement address here at the Air Force Academy, he felt compelled to reassure the graduating class that he firmly disagreed with those that: “claim that the future of the Air Force is mortgaged to an obsolete weapons system, the manned aircraft, or that Air Force officers of the future will be nothing more than ‘silent silo sitters.’” Of course, none of those predictions came true. And those making similar projections today would be just as misguided. Even given the potential game-changing capabilities of UAVs, we do not want to engage in the kind of techno-optimism about remote-control warfare that has muddled strategic thinking in the past. The Air Force -- and all the services -- are seeking to find the right balance between preserving what is unique and valuable in their traditions, while making the adjustments needed to win the wars of today and prepare for likely future threats. The campaign underway in Afghanistan, though primarily a ground engagement, has become a major demonstration of the global reach, effectiveness, and necessity of U.S. air power. The pace of air operations in support of soldiers and Marines has surged over the past year, and that has played an important role in rolling back the Taliban from their strongholds. In 2010, the Air Force completed more than 33,000 close air support sorties in Afghanistan, an increase of more than 20 percent compared to the year before. Meanwhile, combined ISR sorties in Iraq and Afghanistan have almost doubled since 2008 and tripled since 2007. The Air Force now has 48 Predator and Reaper combat air patrols currently flying --compared to 18 CAPs in 2007 -- and is training more pilots for advanced UAVs than for any other single weapons system. Nonetheless, the demand from commanders for ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] continues to outpace supply, and we must press on to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to give our troops down range what they need to survive and succeed on the battlefield. Equally important to the projection of our power in combat theaters has been the work of mobility forces. Last year, in order to accomplish the major drawdown in Iraq and the simultaneous surge in Afghanistan, nearly 300,000 short tons of cargo were airlifted in both theaters. And the Air Force airdropped more than 60 million pounds of supplies for Operation Enduring Freedom, almost double the total from 2009. Our airmen, as you know, are also playing the critical role of life-savers -- completing 9,700 personnel recovery sorties in 2010 alone. All told, the expertise and courage of Air Force search and rescue teams are making the goal of the “golden hour” medevac a reality in Afghanistan. Without all of the efforts and exertions of tens of thousands airmen, many of them on the ground -- including engineers, security forces, medical personnel, explosive ordnance disposal experts -- the entire U.S. war effort would grind to a halt. The versatility on display by the Air Force in combat theaters these past few years befits the greatest traditions of the force. Yet I’m concerned that the view still lingers in some corners that once I depart as Secretary, and once U.S. forces drawdown in Iraq and in Afghanistan in accordance with the President’s and NATO’s strategy, things can get back to what some consider to be real Air Force normal. This must not happen. Stability and security missions, counterterrorism, train, assist and equip, persistent battlefield ISR, close air support, search and rescue, and the ever-critical transport missions are with us to stay -- even without a repeat of Iraq and Afghanistan. Air Force leaders now and in the future must have a comprehensive and integrated view of the service’s future needs and capabilities -- including the service’s important role in cyber and space -- a view that encompasses with equal emphasis all of its varied missions. That includes the requirement for more sophisticated, high end capabilities. I’ve said before that it would be irresponsible to assume that a future adversary -- given enough time, money, and technological acumen -- will not one day be able to directly threaten U.S. command of the skies. So even as I’ve touted the need to incorporate the lessons of the current conflicts, I have also committed the Department of Defense, and this country, to the most advanced and expensive tactical fighter program in history -- the $300 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The department is programmed to buy 2,400 of these aircraft, and the first Air Force training aircraft will arrive at Eglin Air Force Base in just over two months. Having a robust, large quantity of fifth generation tactical air fighters is something I view as a core requirement, and in this era of increasing budget constraints, my goal has been to ensure that core capabilities for all the services are protected. This has meant increasing development funding for the F-35, scaling back or cutting other programs that are not as essential, and intervening directly to get the program back on track, on budget, and on schedule. At the same time that F-35 received high priority, the Department made the decision not to buy more than the 187 F-22s planned for our arsenal. As I have said before, the F-22 is far and away the best air-to-air fighter ever produced, and it will ensure U.S. command of the skies for the next generation. But in assessing how many F-22s the Air Force needed, the Department had to make choices and set priorities among competing demands and risks. Three years before I took this job, the previous Secretary of Defense imposed a funding cap on the F-22 and approved a program of 183 aircraft. Subsequent analysis conducted by the Department concluded that 187 was the number needed for high-end air to air missions that only the F-22 could perform, the number ultimately chosen. Within a fixed Air Force and overall Department of Defense budget, buying more F-22s would have meant doing less of something else -- in this case, other air power capabilities where the military was underinvested relative to the threat. Given that the military will face a broadening spectrum of conflict, and that our nation finds itself in an era of fiscal duress, the military’s resources need to be invested in those capabilities that are of use across the widest possible range of scenarios. One of the ways that spectrum will broaden is with the emergence of high end, asymmetric threats. Indeed, looking at capabilities that China and others are developing -- long-range precision weapons, including anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, quieter submarines, advanced air defense missiles -- and what the Iranians and North Koreans are up to, they appear designed to neutralize the advantages the U.S. military has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War -- unfettered freedom of movement and the ability to project power to any region across the globe by surging aircraft, ships, troops and supplies. The Air Force will play a lead role in maintaining U.S. military supremacy in the face of this anti-access, area-denial strategy. In fact, as you may know, the Air Force and Navy have been working together on an Air Sea battle concept that has the potential to do for America’s military deterrent power at the beginning of the 21st century what Air Land Battle did near the end of the 20th. The leadership of the Air Force and the Navy, who are collaborating closely on this new doctrine, recognize the enormous potential in developing new joint war fighting capabilities -- think of naval forces in airfield defense, or stealth bombers augmented by Navy submarines -- and the clear benefits from this more efficient use of taxpayer dollars. These high end conflict scenarios are also driving the development of new air power capabilities. Although program cuts and cancellations tend to make the headlines, the Air Force is actually investing in significant new modernization programs. The budget the president submitted to the Congress last month included funds for a joint portfolio of long-range strike systems, including a new, optionally-manned, nuclear-capable, penetrating Air Force bomber, which remains a core element of this nation’s power projection capability. The budget also funds F-22 modernization that leverages radar and electronic protection technologies from the F-35 program to ensure the F-22’s continued dominance. Meanwhile, the multi-billion dollar effort to modernize the radars of the F-15s will keep this key fighter available and viable into the future. Finally, a new follow-on to the AMRAAM [Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile], the medium range air-to-air missile, will have greater range, lethality and protection against electronic jamming. A key aspect of the service’s portfolio of capabilities will remain its nuclear deterrent. Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Donley and General Schwartz, the Air Force has come a long way in restoring institutional excellence to this mission, where there is no room for error. America's nuclear deterrent -- including the missile and bomber legs maintained by the Air Force -- will remain a critical guarantor of our security, even as the nation works toward the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. All told, I’ve described a wide range of capabilities -- from low-end asymmetric to high end asymmetric and conventional -- that the Air Force will need in the 21st century. Over the last four years, I have pushed the Air Force, and indeed all of the services, to institutionalize capabilities needed for asymmetric threats and unconventional warfare. However, as my discussion of air supremacy today should confirm, this is not because these are the only kinds of missions I believe the military must be prepared for. But my message to the services is being distorted by some and misunderstood by others. At the Navy League last year, I suggested that the Navy should think anew about the role of aircraft carriers and the size of amphibious modernization programs. The speech was characterized by some as my doubting the value of carriers and amphibious assault capabilities altogether. At West Point last week I questioned the wisdom of sending large land armies into major conflicts in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and suggested the Army should think about the number and role of its heavy armored formations for the future. That has been interpreted as my questioning the need for the Army at all, or at least one its present size, the value of heavy armor generally, and the even the wisdom of our involvement in Afghanistan. I suspect that my remarks today will be construed as an attack on bombers and TACAIR [tactical air]. But my actions and my budgets over the last four years belie these mistaken interpretations. You have just heard me elaborate what we are doing to modernize the tactical air and bomber fleet. For the Navy, I have approved continuing the carrier program but also more attack submarines, a new ballistic missile submarine, and more guided missile destroyers. For the Army, we will invest billions modernizing armored vehicles, tactical communications, and other ground combat systems. And the Marine Corps’ existing amphibious assault capabilities will be upgraded and new systems funded for the ship-to-shore mission. During my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I have approved the largest increases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps in decades. In 2007, I stopped the drawdown in personnel for both the Air Force and Navy. And I supported and have presided over the surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan. All that said, I have also been trying to get across to all of the military services that they will have many and varied missions in the 21st century. As a result, they must think harder about the entire range of these missions and how to achieve the right balance of capabilities in an era of tight budgets. As I said a few moments ago, military leaders must have a comprehensive and integrated view of their service’s future needs and capabilities, a view that encompasses with equal emphasis all of the services’ varied missions. And service leaders must think about how to use the assets they have with the greatest possible flexibility, and how much capability they need. This country requires all the capabilities we have in the services -- yes, I mean carriers, TACAIR, tanks, and amphibious assault -- but the way we use them in the 21st century will almost certainly not be the way they were used in the 20th century. Above all, the services must not return to the last century’s mindset after Iraq and Afghanistan, but prepare and plan for a very different world than we all left in 2001. Finally, all the services also need to think aggressively about how to truly take advantage of being part of the joint force -- whether for search and rescue, ISR, fire support, forced entry from the sea, long-range strike, or anything else. From the opening weeks of the Afghan campaign nearly a decade ago, to the complex operations required in both combat theaters, we have seen what is possible when America’s military services are employing and integrating every tool at their disposal. As I mentioned earlier, the Air Force and the Navy are off to a promising start in trying to leverage each other’s capabilities to overcome future anti-access and area-denial threats. But we must always guard against the old bureaucratic politics and parochial tendencies -- especially after the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns wind down and budgets become tight. It’s easier to be joint and talk joint when there’s money to go around and a war to be won. It’s much harder to do when tough choices have to be made within and between the military services -- between what is ideal from a particular service perspective, and what will get the job done taking into account broader priorities and considerations. This complex world, and the wide variety of capabilities and missions I’ve described, should give you a sense of the tremendous and varied challenges you will face throughout your career. But there are also tremendous opportunities ahead. And in order to take advantage of these opportunities -- whether afforded by new technology or new strategic realities -- as officers you will need to show great flexibility, agility, resourcefulness, and imagination. Because your Air Force will face different kinds of conflict than it has prepared for during the last six decades, it will need leaders who think creatively and decisively in the manner of Air Force legends like Billy Mitchell, Hap Arnold, Bernard Schriever, and John Boyd. You will need to challenge conventional wisdom and call things as you see them to subordinates and superiors alike. A related quality you will need as leaders is accountability. Great leaders embrace accountability in all that they do, and are willing to accept criticism from within or outside their organization. Holding leaders to a high standard of performance and ethics is a credit to the Air Force. But to meet that high standard going forward, you must have the discipline to cultivate integrity and moral courage from here at the Academy, and then from your earliest days as a commissioned officer. Those qualities do not suddenly emerge fully developed overnight or as a revelation after you have assumed important responsibilities. They have their roots in the small decisions you will make here and early in your career and must be strengthened all along the way. And you must always ensure that your moral courage serves the greater good: that it serves what is best for the nation and our highest values -- not a particular program or ego or service parochialism. I would close by noting that you all entered military service in a time of war, knowing you would be at war. For my part, know that I feel personally responsible for each and every one of you, as if you were my own sons and daughters, and will for as long as I am Secretary of Defense. My only prayer is that you serve with honor and return home safely. And I personally thank you from the bottom of my heart for your service. And from one airman to another, I bid you farewell and ask God’s blessing on each of you. Q: Sir, Cadet First Class Tom Chandler. Sir, in order for the president’s national security strategy to succeed, should politicians subscribe to the view that America is exceptional among its peers in the international community? SEC. GATES: Well, I must tell you that I am very much an American exceptionalist. I believe that this country, unlike almost any other country in the world, is a force for good, and that we have accomplished that over the decades. We’ve certainly made our mistakes. There are times when we have not lived up to our own values. But one of the things that makes this country great, in my view, is that we are the most self-critical and quickly self-correcting country in the world. When we get off the path, we get back on faster than anybody. And I believe that as you look at the tens of millions, literally the hundreds of millions of people that have gained their freedom over the past -- just over the past 20 years, beginning with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the number of people whose freedom has been protected or restored to them by military action by the United States, whether it’s World War I or World War II or subsequent conflicts, Iraq, Afghanistan -- I think you put all these things together, it is a unique historical record. And I believe that our willingness to be a force for good is unique in the world. We obviously look out for our interests. I am considered sort of the quintessential realist. But I think that if you scratch most of us, you will find that we are both idealists and romantics in terms of what this country stands for. So from my standpoint, the achievement of our objectives requires us to have a vision of ourselves as a unique country and carrying out unique roles in the world, whether it’s in our national security or other arenas as well. Q: Thank you, sir. Q: Sir, Cadet First Class Trent Belter from CS-40. Sir, you mentioned that the Air Force should be prepared in the future to use a broader set of capabilities. In some cases these capabilities may overlap with those of the other services. What does that overlap mean for the joint force of the future? SEC. GATES: Well, one of the things that’s quite clear from Iraq and Afghanistan is that we have come to a place where we operate very effectively jointly. But we do not procure jointly. We -- the services still want to do their own thing. And one of the things that we’re working on right now: each of the services has its own programs for UAVs. But there are some cases where a common capability would serve everybody. One thing that’s common to all of these UAVs, in many respects, are the kinds of ground stations that they have. The air -- the Army and the Marine Corps are working very closely together on a program called Shadow and -- where they are basically doing this jointly. But one of the -- one of the reasons that we’ve made some of the program changes that we have in the past couple of years has been -- because of service -- was investing in a capability for itself that actually was a capability to serve another service. And so why not work together in creating that capability? Search and rescue is an example. So I think that we have a lot of opportunities in front of us in terms of joint procurement. The Joint Strike Fighter is good example of this, where we’re taking essentially the same airframe, particularly for the Air Force and the -- and the Navy and working off of that. And I think that leverage is a good thing. Clearly there are some capabilities that will be service unique, and those will continue. I’m sure those will be well-protected, and we don’t have to worry about them being vulnerable. But I do think, particularly in the current budgetary environment, that we’re going to have to be more effective in looking for ways to do acquisition and procurement in more areas more jointly. STAFF: We have time for one final question. Q: Sir, what programs do you see being cut in the military due to our recent budget cuts? SEC. GATES: Well, right now I think that we’re in a pretty good place. I went to the Congress -- to the president and the Congress [inaudible] in 2009 with recommendations to cap or cancel 33 different programs. At this point, 32 of them have been implemented. The one that remains -- still completely -- still somewhat undecided is the fate of what I call the extra engine for the F-35. And I think we’ll know the outcome of that fairly shortly. The House budget bill does not contain any money for the extra engine. The Senate voted against it two years ago, so my hope is we can finally shed this potential extra $3 billion expenditure that we don’t need. The major program change for the 2012 budget is the cancellation of the Marines Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. We’ve invested -- the program originated in the Reagan administration. We’ve spent $3 billion. It’s many years overdue. And to complete the program would cost another $12 billion. And that’s to move 4,000 Marines from ship to shore. And the Marine Corps has decided it can’t afford it. It basically would eat the entire ground vehicle budget for the Marine Corps between now and 2025. So they are basically going to accelerate the Marine Personnel Carrier. They’re going to upgrade some of the amphibious assault vehicles they have now, and then they’re going to start a new program for a new amphibious assault vehicle that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the EFV [Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle]. I think that’s probably the biggest program change in the FY [fiscal year] '12 budget. As we look out over the next number of years, depending on what -- I think that’s -- I think we’re in pretty good place right now because of the measures that we’ve taken over the last couple of years. We’ve cut or curtailed programs that, if completed, would have cost the taxpayers about $330 billion. So I think we’ve done a good job of imposing some discipline internally. I think we will have to make some very difficult choices probably in the next -- toward the latter part of this decade. The president and the Congress and the services are going to face some real challenges. For example, how can -- a lot of the ships that were built -- surface ships that were built in the Reagan era will be aging out in the 2020s, and I worry about whether the Navy can afford to continue building both the number of surface ships that it needs and also fund building and deploying a brand-new ballistic missile submarine. But we’ve cut that down a lot. It’s now -- the original estimate was $7 billion a boat. We’ve got that down now to a little below $5 billion. It’s still a very expensive boat. But whether they can do the same -- do both of them at the same time, I think, is going to be a challenge. The Air Force is going to face a big challenge. Whether we can fund a new tanker, F-35s, a new bomber and all of these other capabilities simultaneously, I think, is going to be a tough question that people will have to confront. But my view is if I don’t get these programs started now, a future Congress and a president, and you as senior officers, in the future won’t have any options or won’t have any choices. So I think it’s important to get these things started. It’s a long answer to your question. My view is that from my perspective at this point, I don’t see other major programs on the block for the next year or two, but we’ll just have to see how serious the budget situation gets. Thank you all very much. (Applause) COL. LARSON: Sir, thank you so much for coming and speaking to us -- with us today. On behalf of the superintendent, the cadet wing and all of us here at the Air Force Academy, I have the two class presidents to present you with gifts: a coin from the class of 2012, and the book the “Spirit and Flight” from the class of 2011. CADET: Sir, thank you very much for your remarks today. We really appreciate it, so thanks. SEC. GATES: Thanks a lot. COL. LARSON: Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a round of applause in thanking Secretary Gates for his time, his message and his continued service and unwavering dedication to our great nation.
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