Transcript: Senate Armed Services Committee
Does it bother you when, even after you had put a pause on the Boeing tanker deal, that Mr. Samber (ph) sends out an e-mails, says that, "The lease should be published today because all concerns concerning Ms. Duryan (ph) have been resolved"?
Does it bother you when there are many members of the Defense Policy and Science Board were lobbying DOD and Air Force officials to approve the lease of 100 Boeing 767s? Some of them are mentioned in the Boeing e-mails: Richard Perle, Bill Schneider, General Fogleman, Admiral Jeremiah and Admiral Clemins.
Doesn't all of this bother you, Mr. Secretary, that this incestuous relationship that went on between Boeing and the United States Air Force, and the secretary of the Air Force in particular, and Mr. Samber (ph), that none of these people have been called to account for this kind of behavior?
RUMSFELD: Senator McCain, I, personally, and we, the department, take seriously any and every allegation of wrongdoing.
MCCAIN: These are facts, Mr. Secretary. These are facts on paper of e-mails that were sent within the Department of Defense and by Boeing.
RUMSFELD: We -- as you are well aware, there's a Department of Defense inspector general's investigation of the entire aspect of this. And we are proceeding in an orderly and systematic way to try to come to the truth as to what took place.
I assure you that if there has been wrongdoing, as there appears to have been, we will take appropriate action.
I would say one other thing. When I left the Department of Defense in 1977, I made it a point not to be connected with anything related to the Defense Department that was for profit.
I did it so that I could always feel I could say whatever I wanted on a defense issue and not have someone do what you just did and suggest that simply because I was connected to a defense company therefore what I said might...
MCCAIN: I'm not suggesting...
RUMSFELD: Just a minute. Just a minute.
MCCAIN: I'm not suggesting, Mr. Secretary, I'm telling you that Mr. Clemins...
RUMSFELD: I understand.
MCCAIN: ... who was on your board, had ghost written by Boeing an article praising the tanker lease.
RUMSFELD: I understand what you said. And I say we are looking into those things.
But I do not think that simply reading off all of those names of people who happen to serve the government in a non-profit way on the Defense Science Board or the Defense Policy Board or some other advisory board of the Department of Defense that they are suddenly supposed to be in a cellophane package and not have any other thoughts or any other role in life.
We understand...
MCCAIN: I'm talking about their actions. I'm talking about their actions, not their position, Mr. Secretary.
RUMSFELD: Well, we are looking into it. If we find any wrongdoing, I can assure you we will take appropriate action as we have in the past.
MCCAIN: Well, the Senate Armed Services Committee has a responsibility of oversight of the activities of your department. And I don't see how we're going to be informed as to exactly what happened unless we see the communications and what went on in this decision- making process.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
WARNER: And you indicated, Mr. Secretary, to Senator McCain and the committee that you apologize for some of the tardiness in replying to his...
RUMSFELD: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.
WARNER: I listened to you in your response to Senator McCain and you acknowledged that your department was tardy in the response to some of the material which can be forthcoming. Because as the senator said, this committee has oversight responsibilities and we must continue to perform those and not just await IG reports and the like.
I thank you.
RUMSFELD: The IG reports are in a -- well, I won't get into the details, but the reason for the delay is because it is not totally a Department of Defense decision. It is...
WARNER: Understood.
RUMSFELD: ... a decision for the executive branch and we have to coordinate with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget.
WARNER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Senator Kennedy?
KENNEDY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary, General Pace. And thank you for representing the servicemen and speaking about their continued service to the country which all of us are grateful for.
Mr. Secretary, as the U.S. Iraqi weapons inspector, David Kay, made it clear in the recent days, that his exhaustive postwar inspection leave little doubt that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction at the time the war began. And his conclusion is a devastating refutation of the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq and I think seriously undermines our credibility in the world.
Until now, the administration has resisted the independent investigation of the issue, but now it's proposing investigation by committee hand-picked by the administration, with findings to be made only after 2004 election.
So I think the White House agenda is clear, is to blame the failure of the administration's case for war on the intelligence community, rather than the administration's manipulations and misrepresentations on the available intelligence.
So the debacle cannot all be blamed on the intelligence community. Key policy-makers made crystal clear the results they wanted from the intelligence community.
Mr. Kay said, "We were all wrong"; he's wrong. Many in the intelligence community were right.
And so there are clear warnings from the intelligence community. But to sense within the intelligence community that many of the positions taken by the administration were not noted or glossed over.
As Senator Levin pointed out, your own Defense Intelligence Agency, in September of 2002, said, "There's no reliable information" -- no reliable information, Mr. Secretary -- "whether Iraq is producing, stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has or will establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
KENNEDY: The State Department Bureau of Intelligence concluded, "The activities we have detected do not add up to a compelling case that Iraq is pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated, comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment."
Department of Energy intelligence disagreed that the famous tubes were a nuclear weapons program. State Department Intelligence Bureau also concluded that the tubes were not intended for use in Iraq's nuclear weapons.
Greg Thielmann, a retired career State Department official, had served as director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said it all last July: "Some of the fault lies with the performance of the intelligence community. Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided." He said, "They surveyed the data, picked out what they liked. The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defense had this huge Defense Intelligence Agency and he went around it."
Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, recently retired Air Force intelligence officer, served in the Pentagon during the buildup to the war, said, "It wasn't intelligence, it was propaganda. They take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, usually by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together."
We've seen in the examples that were mentioned this morning, for example, just on the issues of stockpiling on chemical weapons, as mentioned by Senator Levin, 2002, DIA said no reliable information on whether producing and stockpile. You said in 2002, before this committee, "We do know that" -- "We do know that." I understand the intelligence community never says, "We know," but you said in September, "We do know that."
In October, the NIE said, "We have 100 metric tons -- 500 metric tons of chemical weapons. We found that out in the last year."
Secretary Powell says, in February, "That's a conservative estimate, the stockpile 100 to 500 tons. That's a conservative estimate."
KENNEDY: And then you say in March '03, "We know where they are. We know where they are."
That is an extraordinary leap, and that extraordinary leap was wrong. Don't you think that that independent commission ought to be really reflective of men and women that can look hard and fast at not just what the intelligence was, but how it was manipulated, and interrogate career individuals in the intelligence community that believe that to be the case?
RUMSFELD: Senator Kennedy, you might not have been here for my opening statement on the intelligence piece, but there was not a single thing in there that blamed the intelligence community or put any cast on it even slightly like you suggested.
Second, I never have gone around the intelligence community. The intelligence community doesn't always agree, and you have hundreds of people and they have footnotes and they have different opinions, and you develop a consensus.
KENNEDY: Don't we have entitled...
RUMSFELD: I have stuck with the consensus...
KENNEDY: Aren't we entitled to hear what the dissent was as well?
RUMSFELD: Absolutely.
KENNEDY: Did we ever? Was that provided to the Congress?
RUMSFELD: Absolutely. Within the...
KENNEDY: Will you provide that where these dissent positions were provided us prior to the time that we voted?
RUMSFELD: I'm not in the intelligence community. I don't deal with the intelligence committees in the Congress. I am saying that within the executive branch, when intelligence is circulated it includes footnotes, it includes differing opinions, as it always has for the last 30 years to my certain knowledge.
Next, you've twice or thrice mentioned manipulation. I haven't heard of it. I haven't seen any of it except in the comment you have made.
Third, I am told by Dr. Cambone, sitting behind me, that the document you read from and possibly the same document that Senator Levin read from also has a paragraph in it that says the following, and I quote: "Although we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses CW agent in chemical munitions, possibly including artillery rockets, artillery shells, aerial bombs, ballistic missile warheads. Baghdad also probably possesses bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and stabilized VX."
That's in the same document, I am told.
RUMSFELD: Last...
KENNEDY: Well, the -- you said, "probable and possible." "Probable and possible," rather than, "We know." It's a big difference.
RUMSFELD: I'm coming to "We know."
I could be wrong. I'm asked a lot of questions. I use a lot of words. And I'm sure from time to time I say something that, in retrospect, I wish I hadn't.
However, I remember -- I think I remember the moment I said we know something, and it was this: The forces had gone in out of Kuwait into Iraq, and they were moving up, and they had gotten in a day or two, possibly, and they were a long way from Baghdad. And as everyone on this committee will remember, the suspect sites for -- which is what they generally call them -- for WMD that the intelligence community produced, the suspect sites tended to be north, and they tended to be in the Baghdad and north area.
Our troops were a long way from even Baghdad, and I was asked, "Where's the weapons of mass destruction?" And I may have said -- I think I said, "We know where they are. They're up north. They're not down here." And I was referring to the suspect sites.
And you're quite right, shorthand "We know where they are" probably turned out not to be exactly what one would have preferred in retrospect.
But let me say one other thing: General Pace, would you please describe what the United States Armed Forces did every day by putting on chemical weapons? They believed, we believed, everyone believed they had chemical weapons. These people didn't get in these MMOPs (ph)?
PACE: Yes, sir.
What we did, sir, is, as you expect, prepared for the potential capabilities of the enemy. And even if you disregard all of the intelligence that was current at that time, if you simply looked at the fact that he had used chemicals against his own people, had used chemicals against Iran, it was prudent for military planners to believe that he might use chemicals against us when we attacked.
So as we went across the line of departure, as we crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, all of our troops were in mission protective chemical gear.
PACE: And they stayed in that, either just the suits themselves, sometimes the boots and the gloves and on occasion the mask as well, as the tactical intelligence changed. They put that gear on and stayed in that well passed the line in which we thought -- which was about 60 miles south of Baghdad -- well north of that line they stayed in chemical protective gear.
It was reinforced by discoveries in the battlefield, like 3,000 brand new sets of chemical protective suits and atropine injectors that were found on the Iraqi side when they uncovered them in a school.
Those kinds of discoveries led us to believe that if the Iraqis themselves had that kind of equipment, and we knew we did not have chemical weapons, that they were preparing to use it.
So that's the kind of environment inside of which we wore the chemical protective gear. And it was not only for the troops who were on the ground, but everyone in-theater -- the Navy guys at sea, the Air Force folks where they were -- all had the chemical equipment right there with them and practiced daily getting into it in case they were attacked.
KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I'd just say that in your September 19th, 2002, testimony to the committee, you said five times that "Iraq has," or "We know they have weapons of mass destruction."
Thank you, Chairman.
RUMSFELD: I'm not going to go back and quote the comments from the previous administration and President Clinton and Vice President Gore...
WARNER: Mr. Secretary...
RUMSFELD: ... Secretary Cohen and all of that the way you have.
I can just say that the stream of intelligence over a period of a long time in both administrations led the same people in similar jobs to the same conclusions.
WARNER: Mr. Secretary, that's an important point. And I will take it upon myself to insert in the record at the appropriate place such information.
You must recognize we're slightly handicapped that our offices are locked. We can't get to a lot of the information we had intended to bring with us this morning.
And I will see that our record, which will remain open for an indefinite period of time until our offices are once again opened and material available to members to put in the record and ask such further questions as may be appropriate.
LEVIN: Mr. Chairman?
WARNER: But you're quite correct on that, Mr. Secretary. And there is a continuity between the manner in which these facts were brought to the attention of the American public by the succession of the Clinton and the Bush administration.
And I think in time we will get the answer to it.
But I'd like to note one thing: In the mystery of where these weapons may be -- perhaps it'll be solved -- but we should thank God that they weren't there to be used against our troops, bottom line.
WARNER: Yes, Senator?
LEVIN: Mr. Chairman, I just want to make it clear that the record will kept open and not just for whatever submission you refer to, but for other submissions and for additional questions, given the short period of time that we have to question the secretary.
I wonder just how long would that record be kept open, a couple of days.
WARNER: You and I will come to something on it. We got to know when our offices are opened and that's an undetermined period of time.
We will now proceed to Senator Roberts.
ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Kennedy has indicated that we need somebody to take a hard look at the intelligence that's hard and fast.
Senator Kennedy, if I could have your attention?
KENNEDY: Excuse me.
ROBERTS: I am hard, I am fast. I'm from Dodge City and I am chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
We have, under Senate Resolution 400, marching orders to investigate or to make an inquiry in regards to the timeliness and the credibility of the prewar intelligence, in reference to WMD and any terrorist activity, the atrocities that were committed in Iraq, which are obvious, and also regional stability.
I want people to know that in this committee, with its hard and fast and tough chairman from Dodge City, that we have had a seven- month, 24/7, 10 staff member -- just tremendous overtime effort. We have a working draft, over 300 pages long, that will be presented to the members of the Intelligence Committee as of tomorrow.
We have interviewed over 200 analysts, including critics, including people mentioned by Senator Kennedy. I must say that after repeated interviews by our staff, to date we still have yet to find any coercion or intimation on the part of analyst to change their analytical product.
It is the most comprehensive inquiry in intelligence in at least a decade.
After this Thursday, we will meet again, after a week, I have members of the Intelligence Committee are able to digest and educate themselves to what's in this report. We hope to agree on a report. That may be a little tough, but we're going to get that job done.
We'll be making some recommendations, as opposed to simply pointing fingers of blame. We will redact the classified material. We will work with the agency to get that done. We will have deadlines. We will make a republic report and I hope we can do it in March.
If there are any egregious policy decisions that we find in this report, we will look into it.
ROBERTS: Assistant Secretary Feith will again appear before the Intelligence Committee, along with his subordinates.
CIA Director Tenet will also appear, and I can't emphasize enough how aggressive, how strongly I feel that we will let the chips simply fall where they may.
Over the course of the inquiry that we hope to complete soon in the Intelligence Committee, we have found a large and consistent body of analysis, as you have indicated, Mr. Secretary, over 10 years in regards to Saddam Hussein, in reference to his WMD capability.
This intelligence was used -- the famous word "used" -- by the executive, by President Clinton, by President Bush, and also by those of us in the Congress. It was used on the no-fly zones, on sanctions, on the targeted bombing attacks, and finally in regards to military action.
I'd just like to quote the president when he indicated that: "We simply cannot allow our adversaries to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein.
"The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.
"Let me be clear, a military operation cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction, but it can and will leave him significantly worse off than he is now in terms of the ability to threaten the world with these weapons or to attack his neighbors. And he will know that the international community continues to have the will to act when he threatens again."
That statement was made by President Clinton. And I'm not trying to point out President Clinton or President Bush. I think the key question is, did you find this intelligence to be true and consistent prior to the military action? And I think your answer is going to be yes. I think that's going to be stressed all the way through this hearing and your answer.
And so, I will leave that to you to answer that question.
RUMSFELD: The...
ROBERTS: After I've answered it for you.
RUMSFELD: I agree, it has become developed and adjusted as one goes along, but it has been -- the threads have been consistent.
ROBERTS: All right. Now, as everybody knows, there has been a global intelligence community failure, on the other hand, in regard to whether or not they had WMD stockpiles, and a challenge really to recommend systemic reform. And you have gone over some action steps that the military is taking.
If I can find my list, I think you said -- what? -- the DCI is having a review with the Kerr report, the DIA is conducting the review, all the services are conducting their review, the 9/11 commission. You're working with them. We have the House Intelligence Committee investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and now this outside Warren commission-type of investigation. There are at least six or seven panels now doing investigation on the systemic reform that must take place because of the mistake in regards to the stockpiles. I hope to hell there's somebody left down at the CIA to actually conduct the global war on terrorism with all of these activities.
But I guess my question to you is, we will have Tenet up again, we will have Secretary Feith up again, we will get our work done. I trust that you are committed to really trying to find out how we can do this better, because, as the senator has indicated -- and I'm talking about Senator Kennedy now -- many strong statements were made.
I believed that we'd find the weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Kay believed that. Dr. Duelfer even still believes that. And still there was a failure in regards to intelligence.
Would you have any comment?
RUMSFELD: Well, I think Dr. Kay is probably correct when he said that we're not completed. We're 85 percent down the road and there's more to be looked at. And we'll know ground truth before it's over. And the Iraqi Survey Group and Dr. Duelfer have a big task to finish it up.
I agree completely: The country, the president of the United States is determined to get to the bottom of this question. Your committee is determined. The Congress is determined. And I sure we will, as a country, get the answers as to what took place.
I personally believe that the independent commission that the president's proposed is a good thing to do. I agree with you that there are a great many people looking at this. But I think it's a big subject, it's an important subject, and as we go into the 21st century and look at the challenges and threats we face, we've got to have a high degree of confidence that we understand them and we understand what we know about them and what we don't know about them.
WARNER: Thank you, Senator Roberts.
ROBERTS: As we say as individual senators -- I know my time has expired, but I do want to quote Dr. Kay in regards, "The world is far safer with the disappearance and removal of Saddam Hussein. I think when we have the complete record, they're going to discover that after 1998, it became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection.
"And in a world where we know others are seeking the WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out to be not fully accurate estimating."
And I thank the chairman for his leniency.
WARNER: Thank you very much.
Senator Reed?
REED: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I don't think I'm the only one who's alarmed at the significant costs associated with Afghanistan and Iraq that are not included in this budget, and that these off-book transactions are potentially dangerous and misleading. And the response...
RUMSFELD: Pardon me, I'm having trouble. What was misleading?
REED: Well, I think that there's a number of costs that we assume that...
RUMSFELD: A number of what?
REED: Costs.
RUMSFELD: Costs.
REED: ... costs associated with Iraq and Afghanistan, the ongoing commitment of over 100,000 troops, the recapitalization of equipment, the bonuses that I think we'll have to use to maintain troop strength. All these costs don't seem to be properly included within the budget going forward; that there seems to be a prospective reliance upon a supplemental sometime down the road.
RUMSFELD: Well, Senator...
REED: May I complete my...
RUMSFELD: Sure.
REED: And it seems that the operative logic here is that if it cannot be properly or accurately estimated, then it's assumed to be zero or it's excluded from the budget.
And, in fact, what I find alarming is that seemed to be the logic that applied to post-combat operations in Iraq last year. When many people on this committee asked for estimates about the cost of ongoing operations, the cost of occupation, and we were told essentially, "Well, we can't estimate them, so we won't include them in our specific budget request." And that led, I think, to a $79 billion -- a huge, huge supplemental last year.
REED: And I feel we could be on the same track. I just want your view, Mr. Secretary.
RUMSFELD: Well, Senator, I'm confused by your comment. Last year we came before the Congress and had a plugged number to propose -- or two years ago, I guess it was -- for Afghanistan. We were told by the Congress, "Don't do that; supplementals are for wartime operations. We will not consider any proposals for the wartime operation in Afghanistan or Iraq." The reason the budget is cast the way it is cast is because the Congress insisted that it be cast the way it is currently cast.
REED: Well, Mr. Secretary, I don't believe I insisted on that, did I?
RUMSFELD: You're a member of the Congress.
REED: Well, I know, but I'm not going to accept an argument saying that we forced you to disregard costs, not to include proper estimates, not to include in your proposal to the Congress what you think you need.
RUMSFELD: Senator, we were zeroed out. We proposed it and it was zeroed out and we were told, "Don't do it this way."
REED: Do you think that's the right approach, Mr. Secretary?
RUMSFELD: No. Obviously, we...
REED: And why don't you propose a budget that reflects accurately all the costs that you anticipate over the next year for Afghanistan and Iraq?
RUMSFELD: The decision was made, after the Congress rejected that approach, that the executive branch would try to use supplementals for the purpose of wartime operations, but not for various things that just weren't included in the budget.
REED: Mr. Secretary, as I recall the debate about the $10 billion was not the fact that we were telling you, "Don't put the money in." We wanted to know what you were going to spend it for. You wanted $10 billion unconditional, to be spent any way you want it. That, I think, is an usurpation of our responsibility to appropriate money for specific items.
You have, I believe, the obligation to come before us with a detailed estimate of the cost and what you propose to do in the way of covering those costs. And I can't understand how you can argue that we're forcing you to disregard costs.
RUMSFELD: I didn't suggest that at all. That was your statement and not mine, Senator.
What we are doing is we will come before the Congress with the proposal for what should be spent in a supplemental. There will be the details, there will be the justification, just as there would have been in the budget, but we're going to do it...
REED: Mr. Secretary, why can't you include those costs today in your budget so that we can make appropriate decisions about offsets, about priorities?
This is, to me, an extraordinarily ineffective and misleading budgeting. And it's not because Congress has ordered you. I would suspect that the law requires you to send up a budget up here that covers all your anticipated costs.
RUMSFELD: Well, Senator, if you go back over the years, I think you'll find that every war has been funded by supplementals. That's what been done throughout my adult lifetime. I don't know a single situation were there's been a war that's been funded by a budget...
REED: Mr. Secretary...
RUMSFELD: ... that's developed a year and a half before and then submitted to the Congress for a war that's ongoing.
REED: Mr. Secretary, I think we both understand that supplementals are used to cover unanticipated costs that arise after the budget document is presented and because of other contingencies that take place.
You know fully well, as we all do, that we will be committing over 100,000 troops to Iraq, other troops to Afghanistan. These troops have costs. The costs are numerous -- myriad costs. And yet you're telling us now that because we've told you you have to operate with a supplemental you're not putting those costs in the budget?
WARNER: Senator, your time is up.
I'd like to observe that the...
REED: Yes.
WARNER: ... Appropriations Committee has a lot to do with the supplementals and the policy governing those supplementals. And I believe if you'll consult with Senator Inouye and Senator Stevens, that this is their domain and they made that decision.
If I'm incorrect, Mr. Secretary...
REED: Mr. Chairman, I believe the secretary basically said that he has not included all the costs that he anticipates this year for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in this budget, and therefore we are not getting a full picture in the budget of the anticipated, the known, the most likely military operations of this government for the next year. I think that's important.
RUMSFELD: I think I phrased it quite close to that, but not exactly; that it is not possible to predict costs a year in advance in a war.
RUMSFELD: Wars are uncertain things.
It is possible to say -- you're correct, Senator -- that the funds for the ongoing conflict in the global war on terror and Afghanistan and Iraq are not in the budget. That was specified in the budget when it was presented. And that is the pattern that has developed during the three years I've been back in this post, as I understand it, as a result of an interaction between the executive and the legislative branches at a level far above me.
REED: Thank you.
WARNER: Senator Chambliss?
CHAMBLISS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary and General Pace, let me make sure that we remind you, as you do every opportunity you have and every opportunity we have, to convey to our men and women in uniform how much we appreciate the great job they're doing.
And as we go through this budget process, we want to make sure that we pass a budget that's reflective of the great work that they're doing and the great appreciation that all Americans have for that terrific work that all of our men and women are doing.
I want to talk about a couple of specific issues, Mr. Secretary, relative to the budget. And the two issues are, first of all, TACAIR and, secondly, air mobility.
I know this is probably General Myers' specialty but, again, you and I have talked about each of these in enough detail that I know you're prepared on this.
First of all with respect to TACAIR, we've been talking about this train wreck that may be forthcoming down the road relative to Joint Strike Fighter, FA-18, F-15 and the F-22.
I note with very much of an approval attitude that you have 24 F- 22s funded in this authorization proposal.
Last year, during the Senate deliberations on the budget, we had an issue relative to F-22. And we worked through it. And I'm assuming because of your proposal that you're satisfied that procurement of F-22 is on time, on schedule, and continues to be on budget.
CHAMBLISS: And secondly, with respect to the TACAIR issue, I note that we're having some problems with the Joint Strike Fighter. It's the same kind of problems we always have with every aircraft, I don't care what it is. We experienced it with the F-22 and our critics were quick to jump on us with respect to the F-22.
But I want to make sure that you're satisfied that this weight issue on the Joint Strike Fighter is not something that's going to delay that, and that both of these programs are on schedule, and that this train wreck that we've all feared may be forthcoming is going to be able to be avoided.
RUMSFELD: Well, I certainly hope you're right.
The F-22, as you know, has a cost cap on it. It had some troubles, as I recall, with software, and the costs have gone up.
The Joint Strike Fighter, as I recall, has a weight problem, and that that's being worked on. And as you properly indicate, that's not unusual in programs of this type. It's in its very early stages.
If one talks to the experts in the Air Force, they seem reasonably confident that they have noted the problems, addressed them, and they have people proceeding on them in an orderly way.
You want to add anything to that, Dov?
ZAKHEIM: Yes.
Senator, as you well know, this is not a problem that's unique to the United States. This is an issue that always arises when you go from computer-aided design to actual engineering. It affects every country that builds an airplane.
And the decision that was taken, which I think was very prudent, was instead of taking some systems out and then having to reintegrate them later on at a much higher cost to the taxpayer, to deal with the issue now and to have cost control and essentially to get our arms around the problem now.
And as you know, of course, the Joint Strike Fighter is an international program, and all our partners have agreed to this approach.
CHAMBLISS: So I'm taking the response from both of you that you're very comfortable with the schedule of both of those programs at this point?
(LAUGHTER)
RUMSFELD: I'm never comfortable. They're always complicated and they're always difficult and they always seem to take a little longer than you wish, and they always seem to cost a little more than you'd hope. But the folks that are working on them believe they have their arms around the problems and they're working on them hard.
CHAMBLISS: Well, Mr. Chairman, I note my time has expired.
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