keel up, from the beginning, to operate with unmanned vehicles. So what is happening? Unmanned, underwater search-and-destroy vehicles, and unmanned aviation assets, and all optimized for this particular warfare area. That is where LCS is going now, one of the three principal warfare missions to accomplish in the near land

area.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Frelinghuysen.

I was going to kid my next friend who is-but this is not a day for kidding one of the more knowledgeable members of the Committee. He too is going to have us keep you here only a brief time, Mr. Dicks.

V-22 UPDATE

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we want to compliment both you and the Secretary for your leadership and the good work that is being done by the sailors and Marines out there at the point of the spear.

Chairman, I had a chance to be out there and see the forces in the field, and I was very impressed with their readiness and their willingness to do this job, and we all should be proud of them.

Just a couple quick questions. For the Commandant, give us an update on the V-22. This has been a troubled program, but a program that we have stayed with because we know of its importance to the Marine Corps. Can you give us where we are?

General HAGEE. Yes, sir, I can. As you know, this is not a timedriven program, this is an event-driven program, and we are doing very well on the testing. Right now we are about 80 to 85 complete on the high rate of descent testing. And everything that we have experienced in the air was predicted by the model. So, we feel very good about our models. And in fact, we have confirmed that tilt rotor aircraft can come out of this phenomena faster than a normal helicopter, because all you do is you push forward and you fly out of it.

We are about 80 percent complete with the low speed maneuverability testing, and that also is going very well. As I am sure you know, sir, we landed a couple of tilt rotor aircraft on board amphibs back in January. Proved no problem whatsoever. So from our part, sir, the testing is going very well, and we are very confident in the aircraft.

FUNDING REQUIREMENTS FOR SSGN PROGRAM

Mr. DICKS. Good. Admiral Clark, on the SSGN program, our Committee staff has been concerned about whether we have enough funding in the program. As I understand it, it is around $4 billion for the entire program. How do you feel about it? I know you just had this giant shadow exercise. How is this thing going?

Admiral CLARK. Well, the program is progressing smartly. There is additional funding in the fiscal year 2004 submit to move forward with two additional conversions. This is one of those conversions that ties back to the question on SOF and also deals with the very things that we are facing, as we speak, in operations in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf and the eastern Mediterra

nean. This submarine is going to this conversion and transformation is going to give us extraordinary capability with 150-plus TLAMS. But the real benefit here is the volume of this platform and the ability to exploit future underwater vehicles and forces. And I am convinced that the SOF part of this is-you know, 10 years from now, we are going to be looking back at this, talking about how glad we are that we made this move that allowed us to exploit the independence of the sea and to bring the kind of capability with Special Forces that enables us to deal with the kind of things that we are going to face in the global war on terrorism. This budget has the funding in it to progress down the line to the conversion to convert forward submarines.

NAVY PARTICIPATION IN MISSILE DEFENSE

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask one final thing. On the question about the Navy being involved in missile defense, I think this is a good idea, especially with this Korean situation unfolding. It would be incredibly good if we had a capability to deal with a Korean ballistic missile, you know, from a naval ship. Obviously, one in the vicinity could make a big difference, especially since we don't have the land-based missile defense missile in place yet, and there is some question about how good it is going to be once it is in place.

Can you give us an update on where we are on this and what your strategy is?

Admiral CLARK. Absolutely. And I thank you for asking the question. In my written testimony, I talk about this, Congressman Dicks, at some length. And I talk also in the new vision for the future, Sea Shield is our ability to project defense over the horizon. You know, over the course of history, you look back 30-plus years, when I came in the Navy, we primarily defended ourselves. And then over time we have stretched our combat reach. We are talking now about dramatic revolutionary kinds of changes in our ability to project defense, not just for our forces but for the coalition and for the other members of the joint structure. So I am convinced that this is one of the most important capabilities that we are looking at in this early part of the 21st century.

We have had an incredibly successful year in testing-not in wishing—in testing, with six successes out of six tests that the results are accelerating us down this ramp.

Now, the guidance that I have out to our Navy is we are going to field this capability by September of fiscal year 2004. Obviously, we are not going to do it without the support of the Congress. But here is what I did. This is under the purview and the development of the Missile Defense Agency. They were going to build a test ship. It was going to cost a billion-plus. I went forward and said, this is so important I will give you the Lake Erie right now. You can have it full time, make it your test ship. The successes of this we have, does this fit your plan? The Director of the Missile Defense Agency was elated with this approach; saves the Nation a billion bucks plus, a billion-and-a-half really, and moves us down toward the development of this capability.

So that is where we are going. They are going to develop the missiles to fulfill the interim capability at the end of fiscal year 2004.

Mr. DICKS. What missile are you going to use? Is it a standard missile?

Admiral CLARK. Yes. It is part of the standard family. And this budget also includes some of those. These are right now missiles that are being hand-built, because they are prototypes, and we will have to move to a production line capability. But we can put enough missiles out by the end of fiscal year 2004 to start this interim capability.

Mr. DICKS. Will it have a boost phase capability?

Admiral CLARK. Yes, it is my belief that it will.
Mr. DICKS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Dicks.

Mr. DICKS. In the spirit of cooperation.

Mr. LEWIS. Everybody is in this together this morning, and I am pleased with that.

Mr. Nethercutt.

PLAN FOR PENGUIN MISSILE

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, welcome. Thanks for being here and thanks for your great service.

I want to talk to you about the decommissioning of the Penguin missile. My understanding is there is a decision to decommission this missile, a stand-off missile, by April 1. The cost savings, I am informed, are about $500,000 in consideration of putting Hellfires on these helicopters for launch, and we spent, I am informed, about $200 million dollars on the Penguin.

A couple weeks ago I sent a letter asking—or sought information about the decommissioning decision and why. And given the fact that we are looking at a stand-off capability for helicopters with the Penguin-I think the range is about 25 miles—and a big payload versus the Hellfire, which is about 42 miles and a smaller payload, why is this happening? Has it been fully thought through? And finally, I would just ask if you would have a chance to come brief me on it, or the Subcommittee, and give us a sense of why, and hold off on this decision on April 1 until at least we are satisfied that this is the right thing.

Secretary JOHNSON. We are making some very difficult decisions. I will let the Admiral talk about some very specific ones. But we are going back and looking at all of our weapons systems and see which ones, particular legacy ones, that we can move forward without it. Once we take a weapons system out of the inventory, the cost recovery is phenomenal.

Admiral CLARK. I will have to get the exact details for you, Congressman, but I will tell you this. And I talked about this last year in some detail. In order for me to get the resources to move to the future, I was going to go after some programs, and so that we could invest our resources in a Navy that created the 21st century Navy. He mentioned some tough choices. We have this program, this submit recommends the termination of over 50 programs. It also recommends the decommissioning of a number of ships. And some people, you know, reasonable people will have a discussion about whether that is the right thing to do. We fundamentally made the decision that we were not going to pursue programs that delivered

us redundant capability and that we would reach for the best capability that we could get.

I can't tell you the time line on Penguin. I don't know the dollars, I don't have them here. I am sorry, I don't have all of those 50 programs here. But we will come up and brief you. We absolutely want to convince the Congress that we are thinking about the threat correctly and that we are making the right kind of judgments and decisions.

When we talk about the ships that I am addressing, one of them was the class leader that I commanded. So when we talk about decommissioning, this gets real personal for me. But I absolutely believe that it is the right thing to do. And so I would like to take the details of that question for the record, and we will absolutely have people come up and brief you on the specifics. Mr. NETHERCUTT. I would be grateful.

[CLERK'S NOTE.-The Department did not provide a response for the record, but did provide a briefing to Congressman Nethercutt.]

VIRGINIA CLASS SUBMARINE-COST ISSUES

Mr. NETHERCUTT. And just a question for the record, my last question would be, what is the status of the Virginia class submarine, where I understand it is facing some significant cost growth problems?

Mr. LEWIS. We have asked that.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Okay. Sir, I will look forward to your answer. Thank you.

JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER-PROGRAM ISSUES

Mr. LEWIS. Gentlemen, we have the addition of one more member, and the bells are about to go off. I promised you, we are going to let you free to do much more important work, to do here shortly. As Mr. Moran gets his collection together, let me just ask you, if you would, to discuss with us that which has been in the news a lot lately. The Joint Strike Fighter and the weight question which could impact that asset's capabilities, and in terms of flight patterns, you and I have talked about this a bit. Would you respond to that subject area?

Admiral CLARK. Well, you know, we are in development, and so development decisions and trade-offs will be made. I don't know the specifics of the I have seen articles in the paper. That information hasn't come up the chain to me yet. But let me say this about Joint Strike Fighter. Privately, I have talked to you about what I learned in Afghanistan: thousand-mile sorties, five times to the tanker. And my new favorite word is not just "credible" combat power, but "persistent" combat power. That airplane would have gone all the way in and come all the way out without ever going to the tanker.

The missions that I am going to be flying in this operation, I can go all the way in and come all the way out without ever going to the tanker. I want that kind of combat reach. This is a significant advance in warfighting capability. To me, that is what it is about. We are in a research and development program. You are going to have issues come up in that process. We have committed in the fiscal year 2004 budget to this program and the Navy line shows that we want this airplane.

Mr. LEWIS. And, frankly, that is exactly what I was looking for. Your commitment to Sea Power 21 and the LCS, extending the power of the Navy is a very important piece of that as well. And think it is important that you know that we want to see you continue on that horizon that leads to the kind of change that will allow us to continue to lead the world.

I must say another thing before I turn to Mr. Moran. I am very, very appreciative of straightforward answers that say, look, friends, we are in this together, we only got so much money, this program ain't going to work, and therefore we have made a decision. For right or wrong, we have made a decision we are not going to spend money in that direction.

That is a lot better than hedging around the edges, especially when Members' districts are involved. I know you. You have both the good sense and the guts to sit down with somebody eyeball to eyeball. If we had a lot more of that around here, we wouldn't be, piece by piece, extending programs that should have been terminated a long time ago.

The bells have rung, so we are getting on the edge of the time we spend here. Mr. Moran, we are attempting to

Admiral CLARK. May I have 10 more seconds?

Mr. LEWIS. Of course.

Admiral CLARK. I want combat reach. I want the availability that comes with it, plus 90 percent. That will make me so much more combat capable. That will affect the investment for the whole Nation. That is the way to do this and do it right.

General HAGEE. Sir, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LEWIS. Sure.

General HAGEE. I would like to associate myself with the Chief of Naval Operations' remarks, especially on the Joint Strike Fighter and the need that we have for the STOVL version of that aircraft.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, gentlemen, very much.

NAVY/MARINE CORPS INTRANET

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Admiral, the Secretary, and the General have addressed the front-burner issues in their statement and responses. Let me ask one issue that I don't think has been covered. Are we back on track with the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet? We had a lot of trouble last year with it. Are we all set there, and particularly in terms of the network security that we were concerned about and computer operations?

Secretary JOHNSON. Sir, we are on track on all the technical things. There are great cultural things that we continue to work. Every time we roll it out, we have the same problems. But the Navy and Marine Corps are totally committed and our people are, and the transformation in our thinking that this brings about is phenomenal.

Mr. MORAN. Well, that is terrific. I just hate to see people with two computers on their desk because they just don't want to give up on their you know, they are used to using their old computer, and it is almost like a security blanket. And I understand we still have an awful lot of that.