Mr. MURTHA. Yes. What does that mean?

Secretary ROCHE. The time it is taking for us to be able to bring something into the field as compared to the time it is taking a foreign country to invest in, develop, and purchase from American companies is the times are too different. And even if—as we have looked at it we have said, well, let's double the time, because they are using a basic airplane form already. It doesn't take that long to design an airplane or how to control it. The time is still something like half of ours. This is a process that starts in our own Air Force, our own bureaucracy, our own requirements that seem to get away from the simple proposition of there is a supplier, there is a customer, and there is a contract. The contract specifies how many, what they are supposed to do, specifications, and the funding line. We introduce all kinds of other bureaucratic things that we find hobble our own program.

We will blame us first. When we went out and got into the test program and got into the whole thing, we found that our own Air Force was not dealing with itself in any sort of an expeditious manner. There was no sense of urgency. There were just hundreds and hundreds of people who were quite content to-well, wait for this thing to happen. Wait for that to happen. Perfectly good people. But the sense of urgency of delivering on time wasn't there. But when you get to the same companies, exact same companies who are delivering for a foreign purchaser with a lot less red tape, things happen a lot faster. So we are starting in our own house to try and clean it up before we cast any stone at anybody else.

Mr. LEWIS. Let me interpose myself in this. One of the cudgels the Chairman has is that within DOD there is a great propensity for acquisition people, especially in the civilian ranks, to be very, very comfortable with the people they dealt with last year; and the people they dealt with last year are one of the companies that you used to work for or one of the other big guys around, and we keep pushing the thought that maybe some competition from the small guys might be good. But it is tough to crack those preconceived notions. Within this mix you guys are the bosses. You hire and fire. I would like to, as you give us some subtext to Mr. Murtha's question and my comment, if you tell me that five guys have been fired between now and then, it would be interesting relative to the X and Y procurement attitude that says, oh, business as usual. No urgency in contrast.

Secretary ROCHE. As you know, Mr. Chairman, we are not reluctant to remove general officers from jobs if we think they are not in tune with us. Where your point is especially true is our combat controller community and our force protection community is working in a number of small drones. They are working with only small companies and they are, in fact, piggybacking a lot of terrific work that is being done by the Army and by the Marine Corps. There is no reason for the Air Force to go to any of the big companies. These little ones are producing some dramatic things.

John and I were in the mountains in Nevada a month ago, late at night, with a styrofoam little thing that was about three feet long and about two feet wide, and we launched it, watched it, tracked it. It was all made of styrofoam with a stabilized little camera. It was terrific for our force protection people. Our combat con

trollers are working with other small things. There is dramatic innovation in some of these small companies, and we are trying to tailor part of our force to go after it. You can't all of sudden turn to them and say, produce an F/A-22. What you can do is try to get to the larger companies, and if you know something smart about one of the smaller ones, say, go deal with them. Don't buy them. Mr. LEWIS. Yeah. But the other guys can go that is, the foreign buyer can go get an F-16 that has dramatically adjusted capabilities in very short time frames because of a different attitude. Maybe hiring and firing, I don't know.

Secretary ROCHE. And stability. Stability, sign a contract, and you roll.

Mr. MURTHA. Stability meaning what?

Secretary ROCHE. When you sign a contract with a foreign purchaser, you have a set of specs and you have a contract and you have a constant stream of money. You can buy in the sensible way the parts you need to deliver and you have to be able to prove it works. You don't have disruptions in quantity, you don't have people coming back and saying let's study whether we need this or not next year. The foreign buyer signs a contract, except for very rare moments would the contract ever be disrupted, it will flow, and then you have an obligation. Now, if you make a mistake, you wind up bearing the cost. I made a mistake and it cost $65 million. But that is what you do. It is business.

General JUMPER. But you are allowed to-then all the subcontractors go out there and they buy-if the contract is for 100 airplanes, they buy 100 airplanes' worth of stuff at the best possible rate. They get the best price for it. When all the subcontractors are allowed to do that, it gets that cost down and gets that time down to a manageable proportion.

Mr. MURTHA. Well, what can we do to stabilize it? That is what I am asking.

Secretary ROCHE. Well, the part that we would ask of you-and remember, all of this is our own problem, not your problem, siris that a program have some steadiness to it. If we could have two years in a row-and I will use my favorite of the F/A-22 treated as a stable program, suppliers know how to behave under those circumstances. They settle down. They willingly invest because they want to be the long-term supplier to get their own costs down. When they see numbers bouncing, when they see there is a new study or this is happening or that is happening, the natural reaction to go is, This is very uncertain, I don't like uncertainty, I don't want to risk money.

Mr. MURTHA. Have we done that?

Secretary ROCHE. Yes, sir. And so have we.

Mr. MURTHA. In what regard?

Secretary ROCHE. In terms of the program funding over many years and not having it settled early enough and then having some steadiness to the program. But as I say, the part of the Congress is at the end of the chain. In our own Air Force we have caused instability.

F/A-22 PROGRAM STABILITY

Mr. LEWIS. I am going to get to Mr. Visclosky, but you just forced me to ask this question that one of my very able people who worked on the F/A-22 brought to my attention. The Congress, OSD, nor the Air Force has cut F/A-22 in many years in terms of dollars available. All problems have come from cost growth and schedule delays. Tell me why that is the case if we are dealing internally with our own problems.

Secretary ROCHE. Well, there have been studies of the program which have suggested that the numbers volume, the long-term production would vary whether it would live, not live; how many planes there would be or not be-which have caused some uncertainty in the supplier base. And certainly when I was a supplier, I watched this occur. But I said most of the problems are within

our own.

Mr. LEWIS. Are you responding to my question? I am wondering since we didn't cut numbers, we didn't cut costs.

Secretary ROCHE. You didn't cut numbers.

Mr. LEWIS. Who did? Studies are fine, but you know, the money is money.

Secretary ROCHE. These things go through the budget process. My understanding is the program did not go as initially it was supposed to have flowed.

Mr. MURTHA. But you took it out of research-you took it out of production and you put it in research. In other words, you asked us to shift it, so it is not a matter of we cut it. We put the same amount of money in there.

Secretary ROCHE. That is correct. By the way, with a foreign buyer, there is no color of money. You move the money back and forth.

Mr. MURTHA. One of the mistakes you make, you request too many when you ask for it, because that makes the price go down. When I say "you," I am talking about the Air Force.

Secretary ROCHE. We agree with you.

Mr. MURTHA. We need to have a more realistic figure in what you request so we

Secretary ROCHE. Yes, sir, Mr. Murtha, we agree. Not only that, we have found that when we go back-went back and looked at what were the cost estimates, it was a 50/50 basis, which is crazy. Which meant that the probability of the program going south inside the Air Force was very high. Now we are trying to tell everybody move to an 80 percent. Put in the uncertainty so that we don't have the surprises we have had. Because if we surprise you, then you have to worry about how to deal with it.

But between you and us, the Office of the Secretary of Defense has to worry about it, OMB has to worry about it, et cetera.

General JUMPER. The software integration lab is a perfect example. That was a decision made to save a buck, and it was the wrong decision to make. There is also test equipment that had to do with the environmental control system on the airplane that was cut again by the Air Force to save a buck. These are mistakes that were made that start with our own and we have to correct.

Mr. LEWIS. I guess it goes back to our original discussion here that the stability that these other people seem to experience some way, even when we control it, we lose control.

General JUMPER. Absolutely.

Secretary ROCHE. What Don Rumsfeld refers to is appetite. And there, Mr. Murtha, you are absolutely right. Where the appetite is so high, and then someone says, well, that's going to cost something-well, no, we will do it this way; everything will fit right the first time.

Mr. LEWIS. We will cut corners here.

Secretary ROCHE. You don't have to buy all the spare parts because it will all go together. That is crazy. What we are trying to do is to not leave our success with what we have found and we have great sympathy with the comments that you are making.

Mr. LEWIS. Well, we desperately were working early on to have this not be a broken program. And I am still worried about it as we go forward and I await this with great interest. Mr. Visclosky, you are generous and patient.

MILITARY AND CIVILIAN PERSONNEL JOBS

Mr. VISCLOSKY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your work. I have a couple of questions on personnel, and if I could just give you three examples and then if you could respond. It is my understanding that Air Force personnel are replacing civilian truck and bus drivers who are performing nonsecurity-type of work at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. Secondly, it is my understanding that the Air Force is also planning on replacing civilian employees who are currently cleaning restrooms and kitchens and renovating military housing also with military personnel, in this case at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. Also, at Patrick Air Force Base, military personnel are being assigned to collect garbage and clean streets in replacement of civilian employees who are about to be let go.

One, I assume because I am asking the question, that that information is correct. Secondly, I guess my question is why would we be having military personnel replacing civilians who are doing this, when we are calling up Reservists and The National Guard to help fight a war? Why are we having military personnel do these essentially civilian jobs?

Secretary ROCHE. Mr. Visclosky, it is a terrific question. It is precisely the opposite of the direction that we have given over and over and over. We will follow up on each of those. But you should please know, sir, that General Jumper and I have been adamant, that we are looking for ways to free up military uniform people so they do military things and not do things that could be better done by, say, active duty people like Guard and Reserve or uniform people that could be better done by civilians.

We are in favor of more contracting. We are in favor of a more stable work force, but not to have military people do nonmilitary things. There are some who think if you are in uniform, you are free. It is not true. It is just not true.

I have probably lost it now, but there was a period of about six months ago, we had the pricing out of what it really costs when you use an average airman, and it is something like $90-some

thousand dollars a year when you put all things together. Those airmen should be used for the things that they do well, not for things that could be done by others. And we have asked each of our major commands to look to free up, because we have an end strength problem, and I absolutely agree with Secretary Rumsfeld. Before we increase end strength, let's make sure we are using the people we have in things we want to continue to do, and using them well. We found 2,000 of our airmen not working in our Air Force. Now, some of that is very legitimate. They are on group staffs CINC staffs, or combatant commander staffs, or they are in cross-training in hospitals. But we also found 600 of them in the Defense Finance Office. And we said we want them back. There is no reason for 600 of them to be there.

So this is absolutely antithetical to all the direction we have given, and your question is absolutely right, and we will ask the same question.

Mr. VISCLOSKY. Yes. And I have another example, but if I could just submit those to you in writing and get a response becauseSecretary ROCHE. Absolutely.

Mr. VISCLOSKY [continuing]. Because my personal position is we don't have enough people in uniform to meet the commitments we have today, let alone any misallocation of those. And if you could respond I would appreciate that very much.

Secretary ROCHE. We shall.

[CLERK'S NOTE.-Questions submitted by Mr. Visclosky and the answers thereto follow:]

Question. Why in the time of war would the Air Force be placing uniformed personnel into non-security type of civilian jobs in the United States?

Answer. The assumption of responsibility for providing military vehicle operations support represents the culmination of an Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) plan approved in 1998. The plan centered on the relocation of deployable military positions to Air Force bases where they can best support the Air Force expeditionary mission. The change was a matter of military necessity when the plan was approved and remains so.

A key element of the AFMC plan called for the migration of deployable military personnel from Edwards AFB, CA, a base without combat flying units, to Robins AFB, which hosts several operational combat flying squadrons. This realignment allowed the function at Edwards AFB to become available for competition with industry. The Air Force objective is to realize synergies by collocating essential military expeditionary combat forces at bases with flying units. Bringing all the deployable people together facilitates teaming during training, equipping and preparing for deployment, as well as during subsequent deployments. To maintain their skills, these military personnel perform vehicle operations duties at Robins AFB when they are not performing their expeditionary role.

Question. Why in the time of war are we seeing Air Force personnel replacing civilian truck and bus drivers who perform non-security type work at the Robins Air Force Base (AFB) in Georgia?

Answer. The assumption of responsibility for providing military vehicle operations support represents the culmination of an Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) plan approved in 1998. The plan centered on the relocation of deployable military positions to Air Force bases where they can best support the Air Force expeditionary mission. The change was a matter of military necessity when the plan was approved and remains so.

A key element of the AFMC plan called for the migration of deployable military personnel from Edwards AFB, CA, a base without combat flying units, to Robins AFB, which hosts several operational combat flying squadrons. This realignment allowed the function at Edwards AFB to become available for competition with industry. The Air Force objective is to realize synergies by collocating essential military expeditionary combat forces at bases with flying units. Bringing all the deployable people together facilitates teaming during training, equipping and preparing for deployment, as well as during subsequent deployments. To maintain their skills, these