TRANSCRIPT
Defense Writers Group
A Project of the Center for Media & Security New York and Washington, D.C.
Adm. Robert J. Natter
Commander in Chief, US Atlantic Fleet February 28, 2002
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. USERS ARE ADVISED TO CONSULT THEIR OWN TAPES OR NOTES OF THE SESSION IF ABSOLUTE
VERIFICATION OF WORDING IS NEEDED.
Q: I asked the Admiral downstairs if he would take a few minutes here at the top to give us a review of Fleet readiness, materiel and personnel, after the war.
A: A year ago, when I came here, we were about $150 million short, just on ship-depot
maintenance. Our flying-hour program was not funded adequately. I had mentioned that without a supplemental, we were going to be shutting down operations. Fortunately, we got that
supplemental, with the help of the Administration, the President and the CNO, especially. He emphasized when he came into office near-term readiness and really funded well this year's readiness. So I think, relatively speaking, the flying-hour program, the ship-depot maintenance, parts and ship-operations funding--O&M--is doing well this year. In fact, I don't think we could have been conducting the kinds of operations we are today, as successfully as we are today, without that funding that really started last year with supplemental and rolled into adequate funding this year, the '02 and '03 funding. I think that is a good news story.
Is it adequate? Hell, no. It is never adequate, especially when you are flowing forces like we've had to do here. We've deployed two carrier-battle groups and two ARGs about two months sooner than we had scheduled them to do. When you do that, you've got to put money into them. John F. Kennedy is a great example. I am happy to talk about Kennedy. For eight years we underfunded the maintenance of that ship. In our great wisdom, we figured that we could keep that ship and use it back here as a training carrier because the world was such a peaceful place, we wouldn't have to deploy here. And therefore, we wouldn't have to do a service-life extension on her like we did on Connie and Kitty Hawk. So we short-changed her about $300 million worth of maintenance over the years.
A: It was half of what we had funded the other carriers. And of course, right after we made that decision, we started deploying her. And we had not funded her maintenance adequately. So, we accelerated her deployment by two months. A lot of people lost sight of that fact when we were late getting her out. But that was late nine days from a two-month acceleration. We poured about $15 million into her in that last month to get her ready to go. We should have and it was the right thing to do. We are really looking forward to her getting back from this deployment and putting her into a good maintenance availability, where we've got to do some serious work on
habitability that is not adequate right now. But that service-life extension would have put in increased electric power for the increasing number of cooling systems and computer systems that we've got to put into that ship to keep it modern, keep it part of the fleet. And so those kinds of things can only be done in an extended availability. You can't do them in a month. Because you've got to go cut accesses and make big changes to your entire electrical system. Another generator we need to put in. And so on and so on and so on. If you've never been into an engineering plant, a boiler room on a carrier, you owe yourself that treat.
Modernization has not fared as well. But readiness is, I think, a very positive thing. And it rolls into people, too. People. We fully funded the people account and I am deploying ships better manned today than they have in the previous 10 years. PGMs, I think I mentioned to you last time I was here, I was really short on precision-guided munitions. The Navy had not done the kind of investment in those weapons that I thought we should have. I made it a matter of record in a number of Jammer inputs, a number of messages. And we damn near ran out in Afghanistan. Having said that, we borrowed from the Air Force who had done a little better job than we had, I think. Plus we weren't utilizing PGMs with the Air Force strikes because of the realities of geography and what have you there. So they got us through the operations, the heavy expenditure of those munitions early on and we are now ramping up significantly our PGM acquisitions, but we can't fall off that. These things have a longer shelf-life than fresh-vegetables. So, in my view, it is not an investment that would be short-lived or stupid. It is a long-term investment that we need to do. It is the way we are waging war and it is a very successful way to wage war.
Q: Are you funding 100 percent of your requirement in the 2003 budget?
A: Of precision-guided munitions? With the DERF supplemental, we are buying those like they are hot cakes. In the short term, the answer is yes. With the DERF supplemental. In the out years, I just reviewed our investment account for precision-guided munitions, the folks in Washington came down and briefed me on that, and we are funding those adequately. Or at least that is what I have seen that is going to be submitted in the budget. I hope it will remain intact.
Q: I want to ask you to talk a little more about the wear and tear that you have encountered as a result of operations in Centra Asia--on the pilots, on the aircraft as well as the ships. And, at this stage, people are beginning to talk about the possibility of a second front and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about how well prepared the Fleet is to engage in another major operation without being reconstituting a (inaudible)?
the Pacific Fleet on two occasions. I make two trips out to San Diego and sit down with him to take a look at our entire carrier-battle groups and Amphibious Ready groups deployment flows to determine whether or not and for how long we can maintain the kind of presence we have out there. We are prepared to flow every ship, every aircraft, every pilot, every sailor we have, if necessary. The problem is sustaining that for a long period of time. And our people are willing to go. They are anxious to do the job. They know this is important business. There is no whining. There is no complaining. We've had to extend deployments past six months. Everyone is very supportive of that, as long as we are doing something that is good for the country. We can
sustain the kind of deployed presence we have now indefinitely. That is two carrier-battle groups and two amphibious ready groups. We know how to do that. What it means, though, is the deployments may go a little longer than six months. That was our peacetime objective. Our people will understand that. What drives those little-longer deployments is not the longer deployments really. It is getting them back, getting the maintenance done on the ships and aircraft and then having to enter a deployment training cycle so that we can train up some of the new folks who have been transferred aboard or new recruits and that sort of thing so that they flow out just as competent as the ones that came back. It is a little easier to train them up because the turn-around times are quicker. I equate it to our forward deployed Naval forces out in Japan, where we don't have long deployments back. So, you've got crews who are real competent, real experienced and you just fold in the new folks and keep on going. So, from that perspective, not bad. But, it is getting a little bit of time off and also getting those ships and aircraft repaired. When you are trying to drive something that complex for 40 years, you've got to help it. But we can do it. It comes with a cost. Some of those inter-deployment training periods, for example, one of them would be 4.6 months. Once it gets finished with its maintenance and then it would have 4.6 months to work up and train and be ready to go again.
Q: Without Vieques as far as the training?
A: I love Vieques. We talked about that last time. Look, Vieques us valuable to us. We have trained our people up without having the ability to do the live-fire training at Vieques for the last two and a half years, really. We want very much to continue to be able to use Vieques until the time when we can have adequate training established elsewhere, but in the form of technology and in the utilization of other existing bases to do that training. I am working very hard on that. I need a little time to get it done. I need a little money to get it done. And I think we've got a plan to do that, should we be told to leave Vieques. I mean, we all know who the boss is in this town for the military--it is the guy who wears a civilian suit, as it should be. And so they tell us what we have available to us and my job is to make sure I deploy the forces ready to go and I will.
Q: Have you actually recommended to resume live-fire training at Vieques immediately?
A: I have made no formal recommendation to the Secretary. I think that is what you are referring to. I don't work directly for the Secretary, I work for the CNO. I have read in the press that the CNO sent a letter to the Secretary with the commandant. I think that is adequate discussion between the CNO and the Secretary.... I have discussed Vieques on a number of occasions with the CNO. I am well aware that he sent a letter and I believe that is adequate interchange between me and my boss.
Q: You are not into germicide, but in your new position, August position as commander of Fleet forces, do you have--there is a little angst amongst the Marine Corps about whether the Navy is really to supporting them as Naval gunfire support. You canceled two programs that were
basically gunfire platforms and now the DD-X.... What is your role on the guns moving inland to help Marines?
A: My role in this business as Fleet forces commander is to establish the requirement from the Fleet perspective and fold that into the CNO directly so that he can get a direct fleet input along with his staff input as to what their priorities are within the given budget constraints. There is a legitimate and a valid requirement for supporting the Marines ashore with longer-range and, in my view, larger-caliber guns. Certainly, the guns that--there were a couple of options that we had on the boards. We still have one. And in fact one round was tested about a month ago on the East Coast here and it was a very successful shot, longer range. So, I am optimistic that we are going to be able to deliver that. We don't need 16-inch guns if we know the first round is going to hit in this window. Anyone who has done Naval gunfire before knows that our computers are a helluva lot better if we can get these things precision guided with a GPS in the nose of it, then it will be able to fly through the window, the first round. So you don't need a large volume of fire. You need high-caliber rounds. I think it is important. It is a valid requirement and we are continuing to push it.
Q: One of the problems they had with DD-21 was it put two guns on it and got to be the size of a World War I battleship. Can you reduce and steal keep the guns on it?
A: I don't know. I'd like to, but those are big guns. They are big rounds. That is a technical issue and not down my lane. I'd be willing to be satisfied with maybe one gun if they were as reliable and accurate as we hoped these to be. I am not sure that is a solution.
Q: How far over the horizon is directed energy weaponry for you? Is that dependent upon getting electric-drive boats so you have the power and how might the weaponry manifest itself? What might we see? Would it be expendables? Or would it be a ship?
A: I had a brief about this about nine months ago. I had the engineers and the technical folks come down and talk to me so I could determine how close this is. I'd say number one, it is very dependent on electrical power source. I think electric drive is....
Q: Will it be wrapped around DD-X then?
A: I don't think it is that near term. We've got the technology for X today. I would say, DD-X prime, with the directed-energy weaponry. But I think it is something that is very achievable, based on what I have been briefed on.
Q: What kind of horizon?
within 10 years, but I don't know.
Q: What might it look like? Do you have to wait for the boat, or can you use it (inaudible) weaponry?
A: It depends on the size of the power source and the frequency of the directed energy. Some of it is dependent upon cloud cover, rain, depending on the frequency. And so--you are getting into a technical side that is not in my lane.
Q: But can you give us some sense of what options you are looking at?
A: No. I am the requirements guy. I'd say, give me the systems, give me the capability and then the technical folks and the people up here, acquisition folks say, this is what is achievable, and this is what we can deliver?
Q: Do you want a big thing that sits on a ship or do you want a thing you can drop from an airplane and it goes off and fries an under-ground structure?
A: I am a sailor. I like ships. I know that if I have something like that on a ship, I could sustain it for months. An airplane has got to land if you've got a person in it, at a minimum.
Q: Do you see it first manifesting itself as an air defense weapon against cruise missiles, for example? Or do you see it as an offensive weapon where you'd go out there with command and control and headquarters and all that?
A: The former is the way I've viewed it and the way it has been briefed to me.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your experience with the hull-form vessel joint venture? Do you see the Navy procuring ships of this sort. In the interim, what role would they fill with a modular design in mind?
A: We have been conducting an experiment, going on about six months now wherein we leased an Australian high-speed vessel, the same hull form the Australians utilized in their East Timor operations. When I was 7th Fleet commander, I was introduced to this hull form and capability because it was based out of Tasmania. We also have had a Norwegian smaller high-speed vessel, the SKOAL, that deployed over here. Both of these vessels participated in a COM2X, which was a carrier-battle group and amphibious ready group training exercise. And we brought some mine sweepers up from the Gulf Coast to participate in that exercise. And we utilized both these craft in a number of warfare scenarios. We equipped them and put systems on board so they can be a mine warfare support ship. We embarked SOF forces, inserted them high speed along the coast as part of this exercise. And we worked it as a command-and-control vehicle in a communication relay, surveillance vehicle. Different roles. In addition to that, I sent it down to Panama City, Florida, where we have our mine warfare engineering systems headquarters. I had them actually load development, mine warfare systems aboard this craft and exercise with them and I also had them report to me on the ones they couldn't load aboard, whether or not they think that with a
different design craft, they could do. So, I kind of laid it all out to say, how could this thing work as a mine warfare support vessel? My staff did a study on the whole mine warfare plan and where we think as a fleet we ought to go in this and we have submitted that to the CNO. I have had to decommission the Inchon this year for a couple of reasons. Number one, it was an old ship when we converted it to mine warfare capability. We didn't have sufficient funds to really upgrade the ship itself. The HMNE parts of that ship. It went in for a three-month availability last year, nine months later we finally got it out. And we were able to deploy it to the Western Pacific, fortunately, successfully. I had my fingers crossed the whole way. It got back,
unfortunately we had a fire on board and one of our people were killed in the fire. That created a lot more work that we would have had to do in order to keep this ship around for three more years. Not only the fire damage, but also more repair than we had budgeted for the ship in the first place. So I had recommended and the CNO and the Secretary agreed with me to go ahead and decommission it now and create an interim capability with a big deck amphib, but to maintain the requirement for and work toward a replacement for Inchon, a dedicated mine warfare support ship. I am convinced, based on our experiments thus far, that with a little different approach to dedicated mine warfare, that something like a high-speed vessel--I don't care whether it is the HSV that we are leasing or something like that--is the answer. I can make it work. Somebody's got to let me buy this, though. And because it is a commercial design, my view is that it doesn't have to be fully militarized. It is not going to go in and wage war at sea with other ships. It is going to support mine warfare operations. And it would not be left
defenseless if we sent it into a theater, where there was a threat to that specific ship. We think we can do this better, longer term, if we are allowed to take advantage of this kind of technology. I've also had my EOD people come to me and say, what about using this kind of a craft for a salvage vessel. We can get there faster, put divers on board. You have got to put a
decompression chamber on board. You could have some lift, especially if you lifted down the center of the hull as opposed to over the side. So they are getting back to me on that kind of an approach. I know it is fast. We can do SOF. You can certainly embark helicopters on board--SH-60s--to do ASW. It would be nice to be able to go 40 knots from one problem to another. Launch helicopters. I think that would be a big threat to the submarine. I think there are all kinds of applications for this kind of a high-speed relatively small craft.
Q: Elaborate a bit more on the Navy's plans to develop a family of UAVs, like Fire Scout or otherwise. What requirements are you looking for?
A: We have laid out the requirement for more and more of these. The Marine Corps and the Navy needs them, for our own operations, our own purposes. We are deploying those capabilities today around the world, operationally. We are actually deploying the development craft. So I think the reality for those is here today.
I would say also something that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but I what I want very much is unmanned surface vehicles. In fact, we are talking about the HSV and mine warfare. You know, we don't have to put a human being into a ship that is towing mine counter-measures equipment through a mine field. This is not rocket science. I've told our people to put a person in a craft and tow it as a test. I want to know if these things will do the job. My engineers have given me a thick report that said, yeah, all their calculations say it will work. I said alright go ahead, go
work it. I can always replace "Otto" with "auto" some day. So, we are going to do that one day in the near term.
But unmanned, undersea vehicles? You got those. We are working them. The surface ones. It is the way of the future.
Q: You mentioned last year here and in other forums, you very clearly said PGMs were your top need for money. You said this morning that, in fact, you have kind of gotten that need filled....
A: No, I didn't say that. I say that with the DERF supplemental money that I have and that I see coming, we'll have it ramped up this year and with what I've seen in the budget deliberations for the next couple of years, it will be where it needs to be. But until I see them coming off a
production line, I am not satisfied. That is my number one priority, today, still.
Q: Can you give us any sense of what is just below there--two, three and four?
A: Yeah, in fact, I reviewed this yesterday. I am glad you asked. The number two is ship-depot maintenance. We've got a huge backlog of repair depot maintenance for our ships. Kennedy is a good example. I've got two carriers who are in availabilities, coming into availabilities in the coming year that are not fully funded. I've got other surface ships that are not fully funded. Submarine that is not fully funded. That is number two. Number three is ship operations. Being able to provide the parts to keep our ships deploying because we are deploying them faster. We've got more over there. We are burning fuel, running through the repair parts faster and those sorts of things. The fourth one is aircraft engines. We are flying right now, as you might well expect, about 200 percent of what was programmed for our flying hours on our engines. As you might expect, there is a limited life on our engines and therefore, we've got more that we've got to re-work. I think there are a couple more. When you use them, you've got to keep them maintained.
Q: Could I follow up on the PGMs? You did say you've been funded at 100 percent of your requirement, correct?
A: Ah....
Q: For this year?
A: No. You cannot. I need this number of precision-guided munitions to deploy my five/six carriers for two MRCs. Now, I know you cannot go out and open enough production lines to get that filled in one year. We have a glide slope that will get us there, where we need to be with the opening of another production line with the full throttle on the first production line. It is at the minimum rate to keep the production line open before, which is unit cost goes way up. Unit cost is coming down now. I am very pleased with the money that we are putting in with the DURF in the PGMs this year, but it has got to continue.
to buy this many. That is what I am getting at. This year, you've been funded at 100 percent of that annual request.
A: With the DURF supplemental that we have and the one we anticipate.
Q: So you are saying, barring the unforeseen, everything is fine. But of course the unforeseen always arrives.
Q: The Air Force likes to talk about the ... number of sorties they've flown. Put that into perspective for us.
A: We need the Air Force and the Navy. Just try and envision waging this war without one or the other. It wouldn't work. But the reality for us is that we couldn't have gotten there without the Air Force tankers. That is number one. Number two, in order to provide precision guided
munitions to the person on the ground who says, I see somebody, here is where they are parked. I need ordinance on top. You can't fly somebody from 13 thousand miles away in order to deliver his requirement. It has got to be within a few minutes. The only way to do that was people overhead. We were able to maintain and we are to this day, aircraft overhead. You do that with five to nine hour sorties, 7-9 hundred miles. Seven sorties a day from our carriers. We have flown 9 thousand sorties thus far in OEF. I think that is of great value to our nation and our defense. You can't do that without carriers in that scenario.
Q: If I could ask a marginally related follow-up, what about ship building.
A: It is inadequate.
Q: Is the five-year figure significant, supposed to be made up by the end of the five-year period?
A: It is the Pentagon curve--everything gets better in the out-years. Let's face it. In ship building, we've been hearing that for 10 years. And it is time. The CNO has testified. The secretary of Defense has testified that we need more than a 300-ship Navy. I agree with them. We are building, as you say, five to six ships a year. And we know we need to build 11 ships a year to maintain a 315-ship Navy. To build a 375-ship Navy, or thereabouts, you need a higher building rate. If we continue to build at five ships a year, at some point, we are going to have to build 15 or 20 ships a year and I know that is unaffordable. So we need to get on with it and start building some ships. Not to mention the industrial base. There is no way these ship yards will--and our ship repair facilities for that matter--can keep people employed without work. And if they are not employed, they are going to go find something else to do and they are not going to come back into a market that might lay them off again. I mean, that is the realities. So, we have a great--we've built the best ships in the world. Let's face it. We really have. We have got to pay a price for it. When one citizen can afford personally to buy a carrier, Bill Gates, that is a steal. We ought to be buying more of them.
A: That is Enron's problem. I'm buying my Bill Gates.
Q: A couple of follow ups on some things you've said. You are breaking the six-month deployments. You have a new path that is somewhat higher?
A: Our objective is still six months. That is our objective. We will break that whenever we have to. As I've said publicly, I'll flow every ship out at Norfolk, out of San Diego, all our ports and we'll flow them forward for whatever we need to do to wage this war.
Q: What is the longest [tour] scheduled that you have now?
A: We don't exceed seven months with the current plan, with the current requirement. Those requirements change almost daily. But....
Q: That is your target path....
A: My target is six months. I will exceed that in a heart beat, if that is what it takes to deliver.
Q: You are exceeding it, right?
A: We have exceeded it on a couple of occasions. The Roosevelt is a good example. She'll exceed it by I think nine days.
Q: She'll set a record for most time out of port?
A: She's has spent over five months without hitting a port. Those are the kind of records I don't like. Because I got problems with recruiting. You know, mommas and daddies back home and kids don't like that much.
Q: Secondly, you talked about the under-funding of the JFK. Wasn't the CO relieved for not having a ship-shape ship?
A: The commanding officer was relieved and he is a good man. I know him personally. I know his wife personally.
Q: I would understand if he wasn't underfunded. Why is it his fault?
A: That was not his fault. A lot of the ships, as I mentioned, have been under-funded. His responsibility was and every commanding officer's responsibility is to maintain a safely operating ship and to let people know when it is not being operated safely and when it is not being maintained safely.
Q: So he had other problems beyond merely not having enough money....
The ship was not safe to operate after our inspection and it took us a month to get it safe to operate. I have said, I will not deploy that ship if it is unsafe. And I told the captain and the engineer on that ship, I went down and personally visited them at 10 o'clock at night so it would just be us walking through it and I said, you will not be stuck by a deployment schedule. When you are ready to go and we get you trained up, that is when you'll go. CNO supported me on that. There has been no resistance to that approach. And the TR, by the way, has supported that. Especially the TR wives because I have said publicly and it was reported in the press down in the Hampton Roads area--and I don't care who whines, we are going to keep this ship here until it is ready to go. Some of the TR spouses came and said, you are not talking about us, are you? We're not whining. I said, no, no. Ya'll have been great.
Q: Take me back to PGMs for a second. Can you put some specifics on it for us? How much you got in the DURF for it and how much you expect to get in the next supplemental? How it is you got into that situation? Did you deploy knowing you weren't going to have enough or was there something special about the way the war was fought that all of a sudden you needed more than you thought you did?
A: No. We knew we were under-funded and under-resourced for precision-guided munitions. I have reported that on a very regular basis. In fact, the last time I was here, a year ago, I said that was a big problem for us. It was just a matter that because of our limited resources, we chose not to fully fund as we did on almost all of our accounts, this particular one. But my view is that there is not much need for a Navy of ships and aircraft if you don't have the ordinance to deliver. As I say, I said that in messages and other things and a lot of people agree now.
Q: Numbers? How much money you are getting and how many that will buy?
A: This is a Navy issue, not just an Atlantic Fleet issue and I don't recall the exact numbers. I can tell you I personally called the CEO of Raytheon who is our prime on that production line and said, can you crank them up? I said I promise you, you will get the money.
Q: And he did?
A: He did.
Q: Could explain what the thinking is, in the Navy or in the military in general, what if there is a new front that opens up on the war and you haven't had a chance to catch up, what are you going to do? It is going to take you awhile....
A: Just yesterday, as a matter of fact, I sat down with our people from Washington and my own logistics officer and modeling expert and reviewed what we call the NNOR, which establishes the requirement for the numbers of precision-guided munitions and what types versus iron bombs and what types of those--2,000-pounders, 1,500 pounders. We just kind of went through the whole thing and we had gone in to these requirements in establishing this NNOR based on some assumptions. Specifically, and all the services do this, that we will go in and knock out the
IADs with precision-guided munitions. That provides survivability for our air crews, knocks those out, and then we'll roll with the dumb stuff. Once they get those knocked out, we can roll in under the weather. We can go in and drop bombs on caves and those sorts of things. That was a fine assumption for 10 years ago when that is how we were going to roll back--name the war plan. But, with these, we have some realization that A) some, like the GBUs are relatively inexpensive, number one. Number two, you can drop one bomb and get rid of one target as opposed to a whole stick of bombs and maybe get rid of one target. And so the cost, value, survivability and time for knocking down the opposition--all that equation has changed. So, I have reviewed it and said we need to increase our PGMS. And they've gone significantly higher as a ratio of iron bombs to PGMs, just over what we had a year ago, a year and a half ago. I said I am the requirements guy. I am the user. And I ought to be feeding this into the system, saying, here is what I think we need based on our utilization. We didn't want to make the mistake of saying, well, we'll fight in Afghanistan every war. That is the dumbest thing you can do because there was a whole span of possibilities out there. But I think they all these days include
precision-guided munitions and using them more than we had envisioned in the past. It is not a science; it is an art.
Q: Do you just keep your fingers crossed then and hope that you will have a chance to build up the inventory?
A: Oh, we always keep our fingers crossed. But the reality is that, you know, the Tomahawk is a very good example. The Tomahawk missile system is one that was relatively expensive. We've come out now with a tactical Tomahawk and we've made the decision to go ahead and shut down that original line, assuming that we had enough in inventory to carry us through until the tactical came online at half the price of the original and much more capable system. So, all this is a matter of degrees of risk that you are willing to assume with limited resources. We do that at our level and the secretary of Defense does it at his level. Right now, we are putting a helluva lot more money into it is the bottom line and I think it is the appropriate amount. I am just going to keep the pressure on them to make sure it is sustained for the coming years
Q: Let me ask you about some noise issues. You had struggles at several places, not the least of which is Vieques, but Oceana, and problems on the West Coast with encroachment. A lot of that seems to have gone away or at least become muted with the war. Folks want to support the military. Do you think that is a permanent thing? Do you think that folks have been chastened by the attack on America and will be more accepting even as things in Afghanistan die down of having military training in their back yards? Or, are you going to have to continue to fight those battles? And in particular, what kind of trade-offs are you going to be willing to make to get the outlying landing field in North Carolina? Are you going to be willing to move squadrons down to Cherry Point or some place else to give those folks an economic benefit?
A: To answer the first question, I think it is a temporary, muted response to the noise. I think, you know, as long as we are producing offspring and building houses, there is going to be that clash between people who want to live in the peace and quiet and those of us who want to train our people to deploy. And the costs and benefits of both those interests. So, we are going to live with it and we are going to try and modify our activities and our locations to reflect the new
reality. I was the 7th Fleet commander and lived very close to Atsugi, Japan. Anybody who's been out there and talked with the Japanese about noise, you know what I am talking about. That is just the way of the future. So, we've got to work with that. I want, as I've mentioned publicly, if we do go with an OLF and if the decision is to base these other squadrons at Oceana, if that is the decision, then we need to make sure that we go with another OLF that is something that can last a hundred years. And doesn't have the problem of encroachment and understands that as new aircraft come on line, what the friction might be with our neighbors. There are benefits to having us in town and there are costs. Balancing those benefits and costs, I think, is something we need to pay attention to. That is my objective. And I don't want to look to tomorrow. I want to look out a hundred years.
Q: You talked about the weapon side. What about sensors? The Navy recently made some decisions about the radar-screen. It looks like you will stick with today's technology, rather than pushing the envelope a little bit. Can you speak to that and to the kind of capabilities you want to see versus the kind of capabilities that you just deal with in the foreseeable future?
A: I have personally been out to the Naval Research Lab to take a look at this technology. In a previous job, when I was head of C4I on the Navy staff, it was one of my responsibilities. We are close. And that is definitely a technology we want to pursue and want to develop and want to field. The issue is how much risk are you willing to take with this installation, knowing full well you've got to get a carrier through the builder's yards and launched in order to deploy and replace one that is going to come off line. I think the decision was made here to put off that installation until we are more confident that it will be fielded. Because, once you start building that carrier and developing the system as a whole, it would be very difficult to say, oops, we didn't make it in this technology. We've got to go back. The going back is damn near impossible when you are talking about entire radar suites, the electrical systems to support that and the distribution of the information throughout the ship. That was a technology investment decision that was made in Washington. I guess I support it, based on what I know.
Q: Do you think that will significantly hamstring what you can do?
A: No. No, not at all. I think these carriers are still A) very relevant, the ones we have in business today. I think the next one will be just as relevant and be just as powerful. The fact is, 10 years ago, during Desert Storm, one air wing off the carriers was able to service 162 targets per day. Today, we are servicing 700. Ten years later, same size air wing. When we get the E&F and the Joint Strike Fighter on that carrier with that radar you are talking about, we'll do a thousand a day.
Q: Do servicing mean attacking or destroying?
A: Destroying.
Q: Is that a function of more precise weapons....
aircraft, faster, digitally as opposed to ok, you see my flare, the bad guys are 300 yards to the north. Let's see, where's north? Really. I've done it. I did it in Vietnam. Have you seen my flare? Please see my flare.
Q: Discuss what you learned from the attack on the USS Cole? How are you applying that to operations now? What level of threat do you see for the ships operating there? Are you aware of any specific threats that have been on ships or installations?
A: The last time I was here was in the aftermath of the Cole attack and I told you that we were taking a number of steps, a lot of steps....
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....the PC is a good example, where we took those from special operations command, who was going to decommission them. We've taken them. We are supporting them and we are utilizing them in support of the Coast Guard and our own missions. The barriers that you see. You go to King's Bay. You go to other places. You'll see some technology that we are putting in place. We are monitoring more closely the shipping. We are working very closely with the pilots, with the boarding crews on these ships. We learned a number of lessons from Cole. There are still some significant threats out there. We learned a lot from the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as well. But there are still some significant threats out there. Are we impenetrable? No. Are we and the nation still at risk? Yes. But. I think we've taken some significant steps to
counter this threat and I for one would love the opportunity to take on a small craft coming in fast now.
Q: Are you aware of any specific threats?
A: I am aware of some intelligence reports, but I can't discuss them.
Q: Somebody is saying the Navy is looking to put a significant investment in information operations, getting the capabilities aboard ships. What are you looking for and what are you hoping the capabilities would give you?
A: Well, actually, this is not new. We have had what we have called an IT-21 and it is not a program. What we did was pull together a lot of technology, especially in the IT world, and deploy that on a ship. And in our aircraft. In fact, just a month ago, I met with probably 200 people out in San Diego and reviewed our entire investment in this technology and our
deployment schedules aboard the ships and our ability to operate with coalition partners who are in reality falling further and further behind. And, we made some adjustments on that investment and I think that what we are able to do now at sea in the digital world allows us to more quickly and more accurately put ordinance on the target and I think the facts speak for themselves. When, as an example, 80 percent of all our sorties into Afghanistan, the pilots who were in those sorties, 80 percent of them did not know what their target was when they launched off that aircraft carriers. They go on overhead, they went into their location, they were provided their targets and they destroyed their targets. I think that says a helluva lot with our ability to target, to
have people give them good accurate targeting information and then put that ordinance on that target. And we did it 24 hours a day. I took a look at the number of strikes into Afghanistan from our carriers as a comparison of the time of day--divided it into four-hour blocks. It is flat lined, day and night.
Q: A quick follow up to the question on PGMs. How long will it take you to get the level right before Afghanistan? How many months?
A: I think I don't know. Our production line--number one, we opened a second production line and secondly we've maxed out the first production line. I haven't used as a metric what we had before because that was inadequate. I am using as a metric what we need based on our ship-build requirements and the planned expenditure of ordinance for two MRCs. I am confident we will be able to meet that within the FYDP with the current plans. I don't know what is going to happen with the budget next year. I don't know what is going to happen with our economy next year. The current plan has us achieving where we need to go. There is heavier investment in PGM, appropriately so. And I wouldn't want to fill the requirement this year. Because then what do I do with that production line?
Q: Bomb Iraq?
A: You said that, not me.
Q: How close were we to actually running out?
A: It depends on the number of sorties and the number extended. We were dropping them a lot in the first month of the war and we were in danger of running out in the near term. I can't, you know.... Having said that, we have reduced significantly the number of ordinance dropped so we are building up stocks again. Whoever decided to assume this amount of risk for whatever war we were going to go into, was pretty good. Pretty lucky. But I don't want to be that lucky again. I want to build up the stocks. So we are getting there.
Q: You bought from the Air Force?
A: Yes sir. And we are repaying the Air Force now, gradually.
Q: One of the innovations in the Afghan War was the CAOC [Combined Air Operations Center] at Prince Sultan. Stories that I hear are the amount of data and the speed with which the data went from the CAOC to the aircraft was really remarkable. Can you talk a little bit about how the Navy made use of that particular facility and how it affected operations and planning? I think you mentioned one of them--that they take off without knowing exactly where they are going to be dropping a bomb. But, can you develop that a little bit?
A: We, of course, had some representatives in the CAOC and we communicated digitally and through messages and pictures between the CAOC and our surveillance aircraft and our carriers. So the flow of data was almost real time so that once the pilot got up there, we could give him
the information he needed, either directly from the ground spotter or through the CAOC with GPS coordinates. The CAOC would get that information either from another aircraft overhead or somebody on the ground. So, the real benefit of the CAOC is as a center for taking all this data, fusing it where we need it and then getting it to whomever has got to deliver the ordinance. We play in that in that we can provide them direct feeds from our aircraft returning or passing information back to us. We are developing the Navy fires network. In fact, we are going to test it during the next Millennium Challenge exercise. I have tried very hard to get the other services to do their own version of that so we can make sure these things are interactive and mutually supportable because, that is the next step. That is where we can really get this stuff right to the cockpit, all digitally. CAOC has it. The carrier has it. And the long pole in the tent will be somebody making a decision, ok.
Q: Would you say that is the key innovation of the Afghan War?
A: Absolutely. Not the key. I'd say the key innovation really is being able to meld the person on the ground who has the best information and the most accurate information with the overhead and with the targeteers. That is really the best innovation, I think. The technology is an enabler for that innovation.
Q: What is your sense and the fleet's sense of what you and the fleet need from a littoral combat ship as part of the DD-X program? Do you and the Fleet have a clear idea of what you need and what that should look like at this point?
A: There are about three technologies. One, we talked about the gun. We need to provide the Marines support ashore, very accurate support ashore, when they need it, not 12 hours after they ask for it. The electric drive I think is another. That is not the objective; that is an enabler for other things. The other things being more powerful electronic suites, more powerful weapons and smaller engine rooms so that you can get more from the mass of that ship delivering kinetic energy than you have today driving the ship. Those technologies have got to come together and produce not only a more capable ship, but a ship that is easily reconfigurable to different missions.
Q: For some 200 years, we had two navies, Pacific and Atlantic. When they came together there was always conflict. One of your missions in life is to bring those together. How is the
progressing going? Are we getting down to one Navy or are we still going to have a Pacific and Atlantic?
A: You know us pretty well. The reality is, when we arrived at this kind of a construct for our Navy, we entered World War II and we had a Navy of about over a thousand ships and we didn't have very good communications. It was absolutely the right thing to do at that time. Today, we've got a 300-ship Navy driving who knows where? And we've got much, much better
communications, command and control and our fleets are meeting and having to operate together in places like the Indian Ocean and the North Arabian Gulf and off Taiwan and you name it. So, with this size Navy, we've got to have common doctrine, common tactics, common procedures. The reality is that this is my first tour in the Atlantic in 30-something years. My EA came from
command of the Kitty Hawk out of Japan. My ops officer came from command of the Connie out of California. My entire staff almost is Pacific guys and gals. So, I am very interested in making sure that the Pacific navy remains part of the US Navy. And I think, Tom Fargo and I have worked very hard to make sure that this is not an issue of us and them, but rather one Navy and, oh by the way, it is all here for only one purpose, and that is to answer the missions of the country. The idea that we ought to have different policies or different constructs for the Navy is old stuff.
Q: You have spoken about the need for more ships. We need them now. The CNO and the SecNav and the SecDef talk about needing more ships, but they've said, well, the average age of the fleet is 15-16 years. The real need right now is in aircraft. Is there daylight between the folks on the waterfront, like yourself and the folks here in Washington. And if so, is it getting broader? Is it closing? Are we going to see more outspokenness from other folks in uniform to try to make the case here in Washington that you need more ships now?
A: No, is the short answer. But let me tell you why I think no. Number one, the CNO and the President ultimately made the decision to increase our near-term readiness accounts. I was the loudest proponent for doing that because I am--you know my purpose in life is not the future, it is the Navy I've got to deploy, the Kennedy and all the rest of them. That is why my only
measure of success or failure, really. Having said that, so I fully support their tough decisions on where they are going to put their limited resources. All I am saying--and they have all said, they need a Navy larger than 315 ships. There is no light between us. I say we need that, too. This is not new, I've been consistent. If you've ever gone and heard me speak, I have been consistent. We need a larger Navy than we have today. My only point is that if we don't start building today, we are not going to be able to afford 15 or 20 ships a year. It is time to start building more ships. I understand their problem. They've got to balance the budget and ultimately the President and the Congress have got to balance our requirements against the nation's requirements. But, I am a Navy person and my job is to inform--part of my job is to inform the public on the requirement for the Navy. If we want to fight them over there, we had better have a strong Navy. Ten years from now, when I am hopefully doing something else for a lot more money than I am today, I am not going to have to worry about it. But my daughter, who is a helicopter pilot is. And our nation is. So I think I have a responsibility to inform 'em.
Q: Is there a discussion that you need to get out and make these points?
A: No, we haven't had a discussion on that. As I say, I've been consistent on what I've said. I just say it, and what the hell.
