whole to focus on the people part of that equation nothing in my judgment is more important than taking care of those who take care of us so effectively and that that starts with a good budget and there's many things to recommend this budget in that regard but also leadership provided by good people such as yourselves and we thank you and please on our behalf thank those brave men and women in your charge who are such amazing patriots and defense of freedom and our our liberties i have now gone through this process several times as secretary gates admiral mullen's of civilian and military leadership as posture hearings are intended to do we're starting to get a somewhat much analysis actually went into the sweeping decisions that are carried and under this request and secretary gates and i had a discussion about that i've heard a lot about always does of analysis and we' been studying this and that for years and years but to this point by and large we're still without that depth of analysis that apparently exists and i understand the secretary's attempt to balance the force and i truly do applaud the effort and have a great deal of sympathy as to the difficulty and the difficult choices that are involved in this budget in the sector you know i just chat about that for two seconds and you know it's an undeniable reality but i still have a degree of skepticism as to how much of this rebalancing was principally driven by realistic military requirements and analytical rigor rather than budgetary pressures and i just don't know the answer but i think those are answers we need to try to clear up and i would say in that regard nowhere is my skepticism more strongly felt than it  is with what i understand so far about the proposed air force budget terminations of the f twenty two production determination the c seventeen production terminations in the next generation bomber program germination of the combat search and rescue he need to understand and have a discussion about the assumptions the threat assessments or changes in combatant commander requirements that that support those decisions and equally important we've not as yet been provided a future years  shortfall in the future of the air national guard is a response was that the issue will be addressed in the q t r that confuses me you make recommendations terminated f twenty two production and retire two hundred  fifty fighters in the inventory and yet you frame the question as a critical issue within the q t r and i can't think of a better phrase when i ask given that putting the proverbial cart before the horse in front of the cart  that's that's why we're here today to try to talk about these sayings and i'm grateful to have jenner and secretary here to provide their views on this budget in our hearing last week secretary gates stated that some of the service had expressed their concerns and i think the words had been loud and clear about the budget during the internal deliberations and he went on to say that he fully expected them to articulate those concerns  that its nearly six hundred sixty thousand airmen and therefore civilians make to america's national security it's been almost one year since general ford took responsibility for these roles and i can tell mullen have led a constructive dialogue about necessary changes in our national defense priorities and areas of emphasis these deliberations focused on taking care of our all volunteer force vigilance and power in the most effective and efficient manner possible our f y ten budget proposal research reflects our commitment to taking care of our people balancing the for reforming is fully committed to effective stewardship of resources the american people place in our trust a commitment founded on our core values of integrity for service before self and excellence and al s guided by these core values american airmen are on working courageously every day with precision and reliability i recently had a chance to take a trip to visit with some of our men who are serving around the world approximately thirty six thousand are deployed a total force representing the active reserve in the guard component they are providing game changing capabilities to the combatant commanders in conjunction with their joint and coalition partners american airmen are also serving in convoy coalition operations centers on for eventual reconstruction teams and personnel recovery in the air and on the ground delivering on call close air support for our ground forces and by providing our combat commanders with excellence in their own medical evacuation explosive ordinance disposal and persistent intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance last year arming conducted sixty one thousand sorties in operation iraqi freedom and thirty seven thousand sorties in operation enduring freedom a german noted about two hundred sixty five sorties a day and the air force also delivered two million passengers and seven hundred thousand tons of cargo in the central command area of responsibility last year in a responsibility not solely limited to or located to those in the immediate region every day airman are providing command and control of unmanned aerial vehicles from locations right here in the united states and delivering crucial effects for commanders on the ground and our nucular operations professional support the umbrella of deterrence for our nation and allies across the girl in two thousand dedicated space professionals are providing capabilities ranging from early warning and detection of threats to advance navigation communications and weather support for our forces around the  sectary dolly's guidance and leadership we have set a course to revive even greater capabilities for america as stewards of our nation's air force we are focused on eating priorities effectively see wise investment our top  line needs we're fighting requirements across the spectrum of challenges and tailors programs that finance our capabilities for today and in the years ahead and so our posture reflects our priorities as we  provide examples of a comprehensive effort expressed in our nucular roadmap including our back to basics approach for reemphasizing accountability compliance and p in the nuclear enterprise we are also feeling capabilities that allow us to innovate partnerships with our joint coalition teammates in today's fight by institutionalizing adaptive capabilities for regular warfare with deployment of the mc twelve aircraft funded in f y o nine and scheduled for deployment this summer another example is appointment of a force electronic warfare officers who are now bringing their expertise electromagnetic spectrum to bear in iraq and afghanistan and saving lives encounter i e d and other operations these are examples of how we are rebalancing ourselves to operate operate across the full spectrum of conflict with expanded intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capability and investment of four hundred eighty million and therefore i can for twenty four m to nine reaper unmanned aerial systems and investment of four hundred ten million to procure special operations aircraft like the m c one thirty at the same time we are committed to supporting our most precious asset as congressman mchugh indicated our people we are focused on providing programs at developing care for our airmen and their families with world class quality of service we recommend investment of two hundred forty five million for new increase in recruiting and retaining us health professionals one of our most solemn commitment to our wounded warriors and i'm pleased to report that we continue to increase focus in this area along with the rest of the department of defense so that we made the burden on our one the warriors and their families as well as honor their sacrifice part of ensuring support for our men means providing them with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively therefore we are  modernizing air and space inventories operations in training with the right certainly difficult choices for the war fighter in the field as well as our taxpayer at home in addition to the program secretary dolly mentioned we are committed to providing the nation a robust air of fueling capability expect to release a request for proposal in june or july with a mid f y ten contract award we also intending for a sufficiency by retiring aging aircraft that are becoming too costly to maintain and we will complete production of the f twenty two one hundred eighty seven aircraft and c seventeen two hundred  and we look forward to doing the same for the vital personnel recovery mission in the next hour our approach reflects efforts to produce the right strategic capabilities for today's commitments  values guiding us the air force will continue to deliver our best military advice and stewardship for the nation as we remain the world's finest air force delivering global vigilance free power for america thank you for your continued support of the united states air force in particular families who are dedicated to defending our great nation i look forward to your quest thank you meet we have made previously a decision that we should go ahead and terminate the c seventeen production you'll find nobody in the air force that is complaining about the that decision had been made previously so our decision was to stick with that approach if we had our druthers we would be moving the f thirty five to the left twenty two program and there are almost a billion dollars in modifications to the current twenty in this year's budget several billion more over the projected program going structure if there were many many more dollars available for us we might have made different choices but the truth of the matter is that we we had to seventeen for example where the way to a position where we could offer the country the best possible air forces for the resources that were allocated to us so i personally supported well i stumbled over the proverbial before the card it was because i read it rather than thought it and i want to cover a part of the world when we know horses we know cards i know the saying is the cart before the horse and speaking of imperfections let's talk about the budget  procurement down to thirty eight any mention several times in his testimony and this is a quote that we had enormous amount of untapped capability in our c one thirty i've been to iraq can make better use of the machines we have i wouldn't characterize it quite that way but the sectaries you is that this is really a part of a larger discussion of whether the united states air force can do both the general support missions that is sort of support which tends to emphasize efficiency as well as direct support mission which tends to emphasize effectiveness on behalf of dedicated support certain elements within the joint force and i think that and i agree with him that we as an air force can do a better job me some decisions here that have to be balanced against rest and when we talked about the strike fighter decision we have twenty two and so on and so forth legacy retirements the two hundred fifty or so planes really don't affect the projected shortfall that was previously set of some eight hundred planes or twenty twenty four these planes were always going to come out of  inventory but they are coming out sooner and that does raise a question of national or national military strategy calls for two thousand two hundred fifty aircraft this excel or retirement will take you and i don't have exact f but i believe it's more than a hundred points below the stated requirement to execute the national military strategy how do we rectify and justify that decision and it may be the proper one but speaking of analysis congressman mchugh this is a question about how to connect dots and how do we get ourselves into a configuration which is one that's primarily generation five not only to the navy and the marine corps but to our overseas partners as well that we needed to increase production rate now that for us should be not less than eighty aircraft a year ideally we would push production rates above that perhaps as high as one hundred in order to do that it was our judgment that we needed to get after this process and resources take some risk in order to position ourselves to get on that manageable ramp for f thirty five so that we again can manage  i'm not greatly assuaged by recent history you know seven we also boarded more reluctantly than others some oppose but the decision was made to reduce air force and strength and in large measure those savings were supposed to be reinvested and they didn't appear and if they did appear and they were harvested other programs we don't have a fight up right now what kind of assurances can you give them more importantly really  because i believe what your intent what kind of assurances have you received we're not going to repeat that same mistake take the savings out of these legacy accelerated retirements and use them somewhere else because of that happened the wheels are coming off the bus extremely important program for the department of defense and for international partners we need to make that a success we need to stay on cost and schedule it's going to be very difficult this is not this is  going into the test program at the same time we would like production there are things about the program we don't know yet until we get through the testing but it's an extremely important program and we program so we have made important vestments to reduce risk but we still are at that point in time where we are trying to do both and there is concurrency respect not different than sixteen i think to just to amplify what the secretary said is that capability to these airplanes all the time in fact one of the outcomes of the and at least it gives me some level of confidence perhaps congressman mchugh has somewhat less but gives me a level of confidence that this f thirty five we may have a heads up or two nomination for general nor the current incumbent at ninety air force an air force forces central reached the senate last friday and so subject to confirmation we will we will move ahead with with this proposal what we have in mind sir ensure that simply the way we have let levy responsibilities for the commander of air force period of time that the three star commander gen north and his successor will go forward full time will not have responsibilities and that will be performed by our ninety air force with with their army the army central i do not know for sure if they will follow suit with what we have proposed or not that that isn't clear to me at the thanks for that question the bottom line is the contract operation in afghanistan predates the program at least as it's currently configured and this is the fundamental question i referred to earlier the difference between general supporting director port there was a sense in afghanistan that that the air force could not in some cases physically could not access certain of the forward operating bases in the country the c one thirty simply was too much airplane either for the airstrip or the terrain or what ha staff the air force we appreciate your service when secretary gates was here last week he stated that now that the budget has been submitted that those who testify should feel free to point out where they disagree with the budget where the top three ways  there are basically four areas that that i would have adjusted one is to again we talked about the bridge strategy on the fire for us is to emphasize the investment in those platforms so that those that remain in fact are more capable than their current status second as i suggested is to increase the production rate of f thirty five as rapidly as the program can sustain those production the third would be to acknowledge that there is a requirement for the armed forces to provide a long range strike capability and that long range strike capability needs to be properly defined if it is the moment we fly one platform with one control station with one crew it is entirely possible to do that differently and we need to get on with allowing one crew to point that we need to make these opportunities available to our partners to an extent that is currently somewhat limited we'd be far better off if more indonesians and more contract probably not but i don't think that's what we're talking about here what we're talking about here is that if the offer is meet the minimum technical difficult that has helped our recruiting and retention no question but we still have some stressed career fields we do need to have the resources to focus on those fields medical continues to be a challenge where we thank you mr chairman mr secretary and general swartz i want to thank you for joining us here today mr secretary i wanted to start by saying that i'm deeply concerned about the aircraft that are proposed across the air force active duty and air guard last week during the hearing with secretary gates i question the rationale behind accelerating retirements when the air force had already predicted shortfalls in their acquired twenty two hundred aircraft fighter inventory beginning in f y seventeen and i remain unconvinced that this is the right way forward what makes absolutely no sense to me is that despite being ranked the number one fighter base in the country during the two thousand and five brac process kirtland air force base which is located in my district is now slated to lose its entire equally troubling is that the combat air force restructuring report that your office released on may fifteenth lists twenty three bases across the country all having future missions declared whereas one fighter wing has been selected to lose its entire flying force without a follow up mission even being determined that winning happens to be in my district at kirtland air force base now considering the accelerated retirements of fighter aircraft despite the predicted shortfall that kirtland was ranked number one in the two thousand and five brac process and that a future mission for the basis yet to be declared and that the quadrennial defense review is still being developed does it make sense to retire the entire one fifty s fighter w g just to go back to first principles we do understand that this is a difficult decision that affects many states and communities first i think it's important to recognize that this discussion in the air force actually preceded a general schwartz is my arrival so this had been under consideration for almost a year now and the air force months so this was viewed as a good strategic move for the united states air force the reductions proposed work carefully black balance between overseas locations that were carefully balanced between the active and reserve as well this was not an easy process but it was done in a balanced and thoughtful way missions maybe they're manned aircraft maybe not maybe they are associate missions with folks already occurred like the special operations wing that the u s or or or or on to determine what is the best given the needs that we have in your force and someone let me express my willingness to work with you on that and and one more quick question that's related to what were the basically what were the criteria that were used to select which is which wings would be retired and were upgraded refurbishment taken into account for example i know half of half of fleet and analysis and extensive analysis was performed a business case if you will on on the advantages of further extending life or accelerating retirement we have a high enough production rate in the program so there are still some uncertainty given you at the six things that we're sure of and there's still some uncertainty congressman i can't promise you that every unit that currently has a flying machine will continue to have a flying mission indefinitely into the future there are already are guard units that have transition unmanned vehicles in montana in california in texas for example so what i am saying is there will be future missions for those units that i have no doubt but they may or may not be flying missions in this is the reality of our force going for position which i think is so important because there's a huge amount of expertise in the acquisition process and it's not just compliance with rules and regulations it's also an issue of trying to encourage that innovation  statement of transitioning from contract employment to government employment a little concern that that that that actually will result in a reduction in your resources replacing people one for  one for one what is your replacement plan and how are you looking at good good question i do not anticipate that we'll be making conversions on a one day one basis i think will  but the other aspect of this if we went down that road we would have we would have to have if we had two facilities we have to have a minimum order quantity  we are fundamentally we are a force that's what the united states air force we provide forces space in cyber to the combatant commands to be employed and we will do that in the cyber realm as well we will provide well trained individuals in units to perform cyber functions and they will continue to unwind at least for the near term with the united states  to come back a man that has the responsibility for cyber operations for the department of defense now you've heard reported in the secretary of defense has indicated that he's thinking seriously about standing up labor correct for both the point and support of the state requirements associated with the national guard is still under discussion i wish it was more mature but what we are well aware commitment to prioritize the acquisition program sir the decision was an important one i think the secretary felt as did many around the table that that while capability will not give us all the things that it will give us but but adding on to the end of the program adding two satellites adding additional satellites  will provide additional capability until we can get more confident about the future of that like capability out in the future and our ability to afford that against technology development program going forward that will revisit some of the technologies and capabilities that we have been pursuing inside the program to make sure we keep the reapers because that's where everything is lacking right now we have we have we don't have the the hangers on the runways to support the high speed bandwidth available right now to actually use them so what does that include how do you break apart the four seventy five in the forty nine serving let me get you a detail break on what is included in that we do believe we've taken care of the ground support the infrastructure issues not sure how that breaks in in terms of are distributed common ground system the back in there that i referred to at the moment in central command is processing about one third  of the the imagery that's being produced in the country and it's and it's processing fully half of the full motion video that's the analysis side of it that's  when it comes to measure this has the air force had to turn down any ground commanders request for a c one thirty in the last two to three years to your knowledge  particularly important going forward airplanes but this is a broader trend for our air force so we do have challenges out there we do need to have our reserve components are active forces of course as well thinking about the broader changes in the air force that are underway underneath that folks understand that in general with a few exceptions we're i appreciate the fact i found the questions answered fascinating you probably think this process sucks but i've enjoyed it very much i appreciate what you said to congressman turner let me reiterate though and one question with that because outgoing acquisitions secretary  was leaving made a statement that he didn't believe that he did not favor depos doing major modification work i realize he was talking about the c one thirty one or robin as one of the air force has that as a major policy or is that simply a throwaway line as he left five someplace planes have you made a decision on whether to allow them to maintain squadron levels and i think this is what you're talking about at a lower level eighteen for example as opposed to cutting off a squadron has that decision been made as a flexibility  to be some flexibility for the wings to fly and the way they will be reduced donnelly i appreciate receiving a letter from the question last week last night we've got more information i'm talking specifically about maintaining a warm line for solid rocket motor proposals going on there i appreciate the fact that i think now with zero nine as well as ten budget money the main maintenance of that warm wind will be there we've got the information back problem i had was simply unfair for me to ask questions in the first place the only reason we did is because the gag order simply stopped all communication as soon as that went into effect there was no longer  ability of talking about what budgets would do what is complex what is what is compatible there or not and i'd simply like to ask secretary about your take on the gag order are there are there some areas in which we should l shorten the time that was generated on that gag order going forth in the future because i think every one of the questions i asked for which he had no answer could have been worked out a lower level had not the gag order simply