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37–890 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–75]

MINE RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED

(MRAP) VEHICLE PROGRAM

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SEAPOWER & EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

SUBCOMMITTEE

MEETING JOINTLY WITH

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JULY 19, 2007

(II)

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi, Chairman

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

RICK LARSEN, Washington

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania

AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

ADAM SMITH, Washington

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia

DAN BOREN, Oklahoma

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

KATHY CASTOR, Florida

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOE WILSON, South Carolina

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey

TOM COLE, Oklahoma

ROB BISHOP, Utah

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

WILL EBBS, Professional Staff Member

HEATH BOPE, Professional Staff Member

JENNESS SIMLER, Professional Staff Member

JASON HAGADORN, Staff Assistant

(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Thursday, July 19, 2007, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle

Program ................................................................................................................ 1

APPENDIX:

Thursday, July 19, 2007 .......................................................................................... 51

THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2007

MINE RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED (MRAP) VEHICLE PROGRAM

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Abercrombie, Hon. Neil, a Representative from Hawaii, Chairman, Air and

Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................................. 3

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G., a Representative from Maryland, Ranking Member,

Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee .......................................... 13

Saxton, Hon. Jim, a Representative from New Jersey, Ranking Member,

Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ................................................................... 6

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative from Mississippi, Chairman, Seapower

and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee ........................................................... 1

WITNESSES

Brogan, Brig. Gen. Michael, Commander, Marine Corps Systems Command,

U.S. Marine Corps ............................................................................................... 11

Castellaw, Lt. Gen. John, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources,

U.S. Marine Corps ............................................................................................... 10

Speakes, Lt. Gen. Stephen M., Deputy Chief of Staff, Army G–8, U.S. Army ... 12

Young, Hon. John J., Jr., Director, Defense Research and Engineering, Director, MRAP Task Force ......................................................................................... 8

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Bartlett, Hon. Roscoe G. .................................................................................. 55

Castellaw, Lt. Gen. John ................................................................................. 70

Young, Hon. John J., Jr. .................................................................................. 59

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Attachment 1—Multiple MRAP Vehicle Variants ......................................... 81

Attachment 2—MRAP Vehicle Program Joint Requirements ...................... 83

Attachment 3—MRAP Vehicle Requirement ................................................. 85

Attachment 4—MRAP Vehicle Program Funding Overview and Cost Estimate Update .................................................................................................. 86

Page

IV

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD—CONTINUED

Attachment 5—Mine Resistant and Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle

Program, Master Joint Production Schedule .............................................. 88

Attachment 6—Production, Integration, & Delivery Times .......................... 89

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 93

(1)

MINE RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED (MRAP)

VEHICLE PROGRAM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED

SERVICES, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

SUBCOMMITTEE, MEETING JOINTLY WITH AIR AND LAND

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday,

July 19, 2007.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in room

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gene Taylor (chairman

of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, CHAIRMAN, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. TAYLOR. The committee will come to order.

Today, the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee

joins the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee in open session to receive testimony concerning our number one priority: the safety of

American service men and women serving in combat in Iraq and

Afghanistan.

This hearing is focused on the procurement of the Mine Resistant

Ambush Protected Vehicle, MRAP. The MRAP family of vehicles offers significant protection for the troops from mines and improvised

explosive devices (IEDs) exploding under their vehicle. This is due

to increased ground clearance and, most importantly, to a V-shaped

undercarriage which helps channel the force of the blast away from

the vehicle.

Make no mistake; this is not just another hearing on a Department of Defense program experiencing difficulty in cost and schedule. This is a hearing concerning the life and death of our soldiers,

sailors and Marines serving in Iraq.

I have not been satisfied with the response of the Bush Administration to the force protection needs of our troops. In fact, I see this

as the fourth verse of a really stupid song.

The first verse was that not every trooper needed the best body

armor. The Guard and Reserve don’t need it because they are going

to be in the back lines. And only after people died needlessly did

every trooper get the small arms protective inserts (SAPI) plates.

The second verse was on up-armor, that not every vehicle needs

to be up-armored. And then the requirement was set artificially

low. And for those of you who don’t talk Department of Defense

(DOD), the requirement was a number that the Department of Defense came up with as to how many vehicles that left the bases

would be armored, and the DOD repeatedly told us that they had

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met requirement, only for the moms and dads to needlessly lose

their kids when we found out the requirement wasn’t 100 percent

of the vehicles; it was at different times 20 percent, 40 percent, 60

percent, and then only belatedly 100 percent.

The third was with jammers, the same thing. For this member’s

second trip to Iraq in December of 2003, shortly being going there,

the DOD very kindly showed me that I was going to be protected

with something called a jammer. It was an electronic device to jam

the signal of an improvised explosive device so that it would not

detonate when the vehicle I was in passed by. And I remember

asking, ‘‘Great. What about the troops?’’ ‘‘Oh, they are expensive.

They are very expensive. We don’t know if we can afford them for

everybody.’’

So, once again, the third verse of this song was the civilian leadership of the DOD set an artificially low number percentage of vehicles that would be protected with these, and then they classified

the number so that members of this committee could not even tell

the American people how artificially low that number was. And

only after people died needlessly was a requirement set at every

vehicle.

Even now, troops training to go to Iraq and Afghanistan don’t

even see a jammer until they get to Iraq or Afghanistan. And just

this week when I posed that question to an Under Secretary of Defense and the head of the Joint Improvised Explosive Devices Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) Task Force, I was told that, ‘‘Well,

that is not so. You see, the regular soldiers do see a jammer before

they get to the theater. It is just the Guardsmen and Reservists

who don’t.’’

I grew up in the Deep South, and I vividly remember double

standards. They were wrong then; they are wrong now. If the regular Army troops can train with a jammer before they get to Iraq,

then we sure as heck want to see to it that those Guardsmen and

Reservists who are training right now at Camp Shelby, Mississippi,

and other places around our country get it as well.

And, Mr. Young, I would hope that you would take that message

back to the Secretary of Defense, that that is totally unacceptable,

and that is a conversation that took place this week. And, by the

way, the vast majority of funerals that I have been to have been

from Guardsmen and Reservists.

So this is the fourth version of this really stupid song, and that

is, ‘‘Yes, there is a technology available to save young people’s lives,

but it is expensive.’’ You know, we keep hoping this war will wrap

up, so do we really want to buy this vehicle that is going to save

lives because, if the war ends, then we are going to be stuck with

them?

Well, that is contrary to what the President of the United States

is telling people. He is telling people that we are going to be in this

war as long as he is President, and there is a pretty good chance

that the person who replaces him will feel the same way. After all,

as a teenager, I remember a guy running for President who had a

secret plan to end the war in Vietnam—not to win it, to end it—

and if I recall correctly, his secret plan took over four years.

So there is a pretty good chance another Presidential candidate

will come along with another secret plan to end another war, and

3

it could well take four years. And if that is the case, the idea that

kids will be traveling around Iraq in vehicles that expose them to

death is totally unacceptable, and if it is just a matter of money,

then let’s fix it.

So, again, we have a very distinguished panel here. I have laid

out my thoughts. But I want to tell you that I am like every American who read that USA Today story this week. I am absolutely appalled at how long this program has taken, that troops in the field

requested these vehicles, according to published reports, starting in

2004, here we are in 2007, and that even today, after the secretary

of defense correctly came back and said, ‘‘I will reprogram some

funds to put about another thousand of those vehicles in Iraq,’’ that

we still only have now a target of about 7,700 vehicles when there

are over 17,000 vehicles to be replaced.

So my message to you, gentlemen, is you tell us how much you

need, and then tell us how quickly you are going to do it, and for

God’s sake, don’t come up with some artificial number-called requirement if that number is one less than every vehicle that is

going to leave the gate in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I now yield to the Ranking Member of the Air and Land Subcommittee, Congressman Abercrombie.

STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL ABERCROMBIE, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HAWAII, CHAIRMAN, AIR AND LAND FORCES

SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to associate myself with your opening remarks, but I

think, particularly in relation to your concluding commentary, I

want to take the opportunity to put some figures out there and I

hope this will be helpful to you. It is not going to sound like it is,

but it should give you some sense of direction with respect to what

both committees are having to come to grips with as we try to combine the Defense Authorization bill and the Appropriations bill,

and you will notice I say ‘‘we.’’ This is not being done by party or

by ideology.

The list of the Department of Defense programs experiencing

cost, schedule, and performance difficulties is lengthy. That is not

the issue. This program had a nearly 50 percent increase in cost

in 3 months. That is one of the things you are going to have to

come to grips with to try and assist us to be able to make good decisions. It really does very little good to have public pronouncements about the Congress trying to micromanage, let alone

macromanage, either warfighting or preparation for war if the Congress cannot even get basic information to make decisions to enable

us to provide for the armed forces.

I think that bears repeating. This program had a nearly 50 percent increase in cost, not in numbers. It is not the question of the

change in the numbers. We can accept that. In fact, we have been

dealing with it. Some of you gentlemen that are here before us now

have briefed us in classified closed briefings about numbers changing, and I think it is fair to say without revealing anything that

no member of these committees has ever indicated that that was

of particular difficulty in the sense of us trying to come to grips

4

with it as committees in terms of recommendations either for authorization or appropriation.

But in 90 days, the costs that we were trying to associate with

the change in numbers of vehicles that would be needed have increased 50 percent from $8 billion to $12 billion. This issue of

course, is about the protection of men and women in uniform, not

budget overruns, and as Chairman Taylor has indicated, we will do

whatever it takes to meet their needs. But we have to know what

it is we are dealing with, and we have to rely by definition on what

is presented to us as to what the foundation for our deliberations

is supposed to be.

From day one of this Congress, these committees have said to

you, ‘‘Tell us what it will take to deal with the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, known as MRAPs. We will provide you the

money you need.’’ That has just been reiterated by Chairman Taylor.

In February, the budget requested by the Pentagon was $4.1 billion short of what the Pentagon said it would take to fund the

MRAP Vehicle Program. I can tell you that Mr. Saxton and I tried

to, as our part of the proposition, then deal with that funding

shortfall by reallocating funds for which we were severely criticized. That comes with it, I understand, but we were criticized for

reallocating funds out of some programs in order to try and meet

the readiness requests that had been made to us since February

and which were not accounted for in the budget proposals that

were given to us.

I am taking some time with this because not everybody necessarily understands what the hearing is all about and why we are

having it today and why we feel the necessity of having it. We have

been trying to come to grips with this, and, again, I emphasize

‘‘we.’’ This has not been a partisan endeavor, and we made a good

faith attempt—at least the committee over which I chair and share

responsibilities with Mr. Saxton and the other members—in our

authorization proposals to come to grips particularly with the

MRAP budget difficulties in our reallocation recommendations. We

provided at that time an additional $4.1 billion.

There are many questions about MRAP—why the Pentagon did

not get started earlier, why we can’t produce what we need faster,

is there more commonality on vehicle configurations—all of which

we have to come to grips with, particularly if this is to be a joint

program.

Now I am mentioning this now because I am going to give you

some statistics which you have given to me which are contradictory

and make it much more difficult for us to come to grips with this.

Our first question is: What can we do to help you get this done

faster?

The committees stand ready to provide the necessary resources

to adequately fund the program. As I indicated, it was our committee that first provided the necessary $4.6 billion in authorization

required at the time of the House Armed Services Committee to

mark up and fully fund the known vehicle requirements of 7,774

vehicles for fiscal year 2008.

Having made it clear that we intend to support you in fielding

the MRAPs, we want to make it clear we expect to be kept inVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:42 Dec 12, 2008 Jkt 037890 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-75\200280.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
5

formed on the status of the program. Based on some of the information that we have been given, and which I will share with you

in a moment, I hope you are getting better information than I am

getting or that the committees are getting.

One day, we are told that the number of MRAP vehicles delivered in June was 78—this was delivered to me—I will enter this

into the record, Mr. Chairman, with your permission—the Mine Resistant and Ambush Protected Vehicle Program Master Joint Production Schedule as of the 16th of July, 2007: total planned, 97;

total actual, 78.

On the 17th of July, the next day, I get—again, this is not stuff

I am making up. I asked to be kept apprised of the production

schedule—Vehicles on Order Production Schedule as of 17th of

July, 2007. It says that the monthly delivery has been 165. On the

16th, it is 78. On the 17th, it is 165.

I am bringing this up not to say, ‘‘I gotcha’’ or ‘‘I caught you.’’

That is not what I am doing. I am trying to figure out what do I

tell the rest of the committee members we need to do? How do we

make this work? There is a huge difference between 165 and 78.

And on top of that, we get a projection that is as of June, the end

of June. Then we get the projection. We jump from 165 to 250, then

197, 254, going all the way up to February of 2008. We expected

to have 926 vehicles a month coming out.

How am I to recommend that we operate on this schedule if we

cannot even get a difference accounted for between 165 vehicles

and 78 vehicles?

Then on the cost, this is the MRAP Vehicle Program Funding

Overview, the official overview, as of July 9th for the 7,774 vehicles

that we have been dealing with up to this point. We are not even

dealing with the 17,000 or the 23,000 or anything like that now.

This is the schedule, the Vehicle Program Funding Overview. It

says that $3.9 billion has been funded to date, $8.2 billion cost to

complete.

I went back. So then I took a look to see, well, okay, what was

it up to this time? I went back to June. It said in June, $4.4 billion

have been funded to date, $7.7 billion needed to complete. We actually apparently lost half a billion dollars somewhere from the middle of June to the middle of July, and the cost went from $7.7 billion to $8.2 billion.

Now maybe it did. I don’t know. Maybe, you know, you have better figures, but how am I supposed to make a recommendation with

respect to the funding if from one month to the next I cannot even

get the figures of what you actually have to date? I mean, it is very

difficult, if we cannot even agree on how much money has come to

date, to then go to the Appropriations Committee, let alone to the

rest of the authorization committees that we have responsibility to

here, to figure out what kind of money to recommend.

This is particularly difficult if we are trying in good faith to meet

the readiness needs that you have right now for the warriors in the

field, in the actual deployment. Surely you can understand my difficulty. I am not trying to create difficulties. I am trying to state

the difficulties we have in coming to grips, if I cannot even get the

basic amount of money that has been funded so far and coordinate

that with the actual production that has taken place so far, let

6

alone trying to project the money that is going to be needed and

the vehicles that we might likely be able to expect.

I had—in good faith again—tried to put together a chart of our

own so that I could give it to the members of the committee, the

funding requests versus the fiscal year 2008 requirements, authorizations and appropriations, and I will not enter this into the

record because I gave up. I could not figure out how to put down

anything that would make sense to the memberships on four basic

things: what the requirements were, what the authorization was,

what the appropriations needed to be and what was requested.

Now that is pretty simple. I mean, it is basic stuff that we have

to deal with here in order for any of the members to make a reasonable decision. As a result of the material given to me to aid and

assist me in this presentation today, I could not put together a

chart to show those four basic things that I could give to the members that made any sense.

So my point is that we need to understand—and I do understand, believe me—the MRAP vehicle is no silver bullet. I am not

trying to make some kind of a bad analogy there. We understand

the difficulties associated with the vehicle in terms of protection for

troops. You know, there is no Harry Potter here. We are not deluding ourselves on that regard. We know what the limitations of the

vehicles are. But, again, we are operating on the basis of your good

faith in presenting to us that, given our technology and our capacity to manufacture and so on, this is the best presentation that we

can make with regard to trying to protect our troops.

It does appear, at least in this member’s judgment, as a result

of what has been presented to us, that this vehicle can increase the

survivability—or the variations on this vehicle. There are at least

three that I have been able to come up with that can increase survivability and operational effectiveness for our military personnel

in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Obviously, we owe it to them

to field this capability as fast as possible.

And, Mr. Chairman and members, I apologize to you for the

length of my presentation, but I hope you understand why I am

doing it, because I want to inform you as fully as I can as to what

we have been going through and what the staffs have been going

through.

Yes, we owe it to them to field the capability, but unless and

until we can get from you accurate information upon which to base

our decisions, we cannot adequately be prepared, let alone make

the kind of recommendations to the Armed Services Committee and

the appropriators as to what we should do in the immediate, let

alone the long run.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie.

The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the Air and

Land Subcommittee, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Saxton.

STATEMENT OF JIM SAXTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW

JERSEY, RANKING MEMBER, AIR AND LAND FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

7

I think it is very timely that we are having this hearing today.

So thank you both for calling the hearing.

To our witnesses, thank you for being here today. We appreciate

it very much. We look forward to hearing your testimony, and I am

sure I can say on behalf of every member of the committee we appreciate very much your service to our country.

Mr. Young, congratulations on your nomination. I know that it

is a great time for you to look forward to a new position, and I hope

you enjoy it as much in the future as you enjoy having received the

nomination.

As you know, the Secretary of Defense announced this week that

he has asked Congress to approve a shift of $1.3 billion to the

MRAP Program in order to accelerate production between now and

the end of the year, and, of course, we will support anything that

helps our soldiers and Marines on the front line.

It is my understanding that the long pull in the path to maximizing production is at the supplier base level not at a prime contractor level. I look forward to hearing the details on this issue.

And thank you again for being here.

And, Mr. Chairman, if I may ask unanimous consent at this time

that Mr. Bartlett’s statement be placed in the record.

Mr. TAYLOR. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bartlett can be found in the Appendix on page 55.]

Mr. TAYLOR. Well, gentlemen, again, we appreciate you being

here—all of you.

Secretary Young, you bring a great deal of expertise to the table,

and, again, we are expressing our frustration that we feel like people have died needlessly, and for you gentlemen in uniform, we

very much appreciate your lengthy service to our Nation, your commitment to our Nation. I personally don’t think the problem is

within the uniformed ranks.

I think, quite frankly, it is the civilian side of the DOD that isn’t

getting the message, that isn’t doing their job, but you are the ones

who are called to on a day-to-day basis to help make this happen,

and we hope we will hear from you how this is going to happen

and how it is going to happen quickly.

So the chair would now like to introduce: the Honorable John

Young, the Director of the Defense for Research and Engineering

as well as the Director of the MRAP Vehicle Task Force; Lieutenant General John Castellaw, United States Marine Corps, Deputy

Commandant for Programs and Resources; Brigadier General Michael Brogan, United States Marine Corps, Commanding General

of the Marine Corps Systems Command and Program Executive Officer for the Joint MRAP Program; Lieutenant General Stephen

Speakes, United States Army, Deputy Chief of Staff, Army programs and requirements.

Secretary Young, you are recognized.

Secretary Young, it is the tradition of this committee to allow the

witnesses to speak for five minutes. Given the importance of this,

I am going to ask unanimous consent that we waive that. We

would hope that you would keep in mind that at some point we will

have votes, but given the importance of what you have to say and

8

what all of these gentlemen have to say, I am going to ask unanimous consent that we waive the five-minute rule.

Without objection.

The secretary is recognized.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN J. YOUNG, JR., DIRECTOR, DEFENSE AND RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, DIRECTOR,

MRAP TASK FORCE

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, I recognize the importance of your

questions. I don’t think I will have a problem with the rule.

But to both chairmen, the distinguished members of the subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to

discuss the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, or MRAPs.

The committee hearing is well-timed. There are some new developments for us to talk with you about, and I assure you we are prepared to provide as much information. I believe we can clarify some

of the issues that were raised, and we want to do that.

We are here, as you know, bringing all the Department of Defense’s resources to bear on accelerating the delivery of MRAP vehicles and deploying them to our troops as quickly as possible.

The secretary of defense has made the MRAP Program his top

priority. On May 30th, Secretary Gates directed establishment of

an MRAP Task Force with one objective: get as many of these vehicles to our soldiers and Marines in the field as possible in the next

several months. The task force has met five times and briefed Secretary Gates three times.

The task force first looked at the availability of materials and

parts to ensure accelerated production was possible. With Secretary

Gates’ approval, the Defense Department has taken specific actions

to purchase MRAP tires and steel to avoid shortages or impacts on

other programs. The task force team members have also reviewed

an industrial capacity to produce steel, axles, engines and other

components of these vehicles.

With key supply issues evaluated, the task force discussed with

industry the potential to produce more MRAP vehicles sooner.

Roughly three weeks ago, I asked the senior leaders of each MRAP

industry team to evaluate their respective ability to build even

more vehicles during calendar year 2007 either using a design on

contract or partnering with another industry team.

The senior leaders of these industry teams are now confident

that they can build more MRAPs in 2007. In these discussions, I

told them I believed I had assurance from Secretary Gates we

would find any and all dollars necessary to purchase these vehicles.

To be clear, in virtually every case, the MRAP companies will

face challenges in increasing their rates of MRAP production,

which means qualifying suppliers, increasing supplier manufacturing capacity, hiring and training workers and adding manufacturing facilities. This is an extremely aggressive program, and the Defense Department is accepting risk here.

As the chairman noted, facts about the program change every

day, and an element of that is a good thing because people are

moving to move this program forward every day. We may encounter manufacturing, spare parts and maintenance issues as we accelerate, but Secretary Gates and the entire Defense Department

9

leadership team agreed we should accept these risks in order to

provide more capable vehicles to our troops as absolutely fast as

possible.

The task force and the MRAP Program Office reviewed the industry acceleration plans and recommended an acceleration of the

MRAP production to Secretary Gates this past Friday. Secretary

Gates directed the Department to act on this recommendation. Our

key point to you today is that we are submitting an urgent reprogramming action to the Congress to purchase additional

MRAPs.

Using all remaining available funds provided by the Congress

and a $1.2 billion reprogramming, the Defense Department will be

able to order an additional 2,650 MRAPs. Roughly 1,500 of these

MRAPs will be delivered from industry to DOD by 31 December.

The department will increase our total number of MRAPs on order

to 6,415 and will increase our expected calendar year 2007 deliveries from industry to us to 3,900. The reprogramming is urgent.

Thirty to 45 vehicles are estimated per day to slip into 2008 if we

delay.

The use of available funds and the reprogramming action will

give the MRAP Joint Program Office a total of $5.4 billion to put

on contract for MRAPs in 2007. This level of funding makes MRAP

the third largest 2007 DOD acquisition program behind Missile Defense and the Joint Strike Fighter.

Eighty-two MRAPs were delivered in June. Let me make an important point here. Significant numbers of MRAPs are now being

delivered for three reasons. The MRAP Joint Program Office leaned

forward and awarded limited production contracts in some cases to

vendors. Two, our industry partners assumed success and purchased materials and established limited production capability

using their own corporate funds. And, three, the Congress provided

robust funding for the MRAP Joint Program Office in the supplemental.

Before the task force was created, there was already aggressive

work on MRAP by a capable government team. Paul Mann and the

supporting team in the MRAP Joint Program Office have done Herculean work to get vendors under contract, to orchestrate testing

and to negotiate production contracts.

The MRAP Joint Program Office and industry are moving extremely quickly to buy vehicles as fast as we can check only the

key boxes: testing against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs;

road tests with soldiers and Marines; and establishment of production facilities and processes. We are not delaying manufacture of

these vehicles for documentation, extended testing and test reports.

This is not a business-as-usual process.

Key to this testing is the exceptional and dedicated work done

by Colonel Rooney and the team at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving

Ground. The Aberdeen team has worked almost constantly for the

last six months to test and evaluate MRAP candidate vehicles.

Finally, a number of government facilities are supporting the

program, including the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center

Team in Charleston which is installing the government furnished

equipment.

10

The combination of a strong Joint Program Office, a dedicated

test team, supporting government teams and industry partners

who took risks with their own funds has resulted in the delivery

of vehicles from this program and the potential to provide more capable safer vehicles to our deployed soldiers and Marines.

Additionally, the leadership of the Marine Corps and Army has

worked with tremendous collaboration. In one recent task force

meeting, the respective service leaders agreed to purchase common

equipment items for their MRAPs, reducing the complication of

having completely service-unique items installed on different

MRAPs.

I have seen tremendous coordination, collaboration and cooperation all in an effort to achieve the goal this team shares with Secretary Gates: urgent delivery of the maximum number of MRAPs

to put this capability in the hands of our forces. The reprogramming action allows the department to continue and expand the

work on improving the current MRAP vehicles and also to ensure

that we can provide the best possible equipment in the future to

our forces in harm’s way.

The current MRAP designs we are buying are not a panacea, and

the threat will adapt and adjust, and the Army and Marine Corps

team will work to anticipate these steps and develop responses.

The fact that increasing quantities of vehicles are being delivered

today is a result of the tremendous work by the Joint Program Office, industry and the support the Congress has provided. The reprogramming action is the next critical step for this program and

for the department’s urgent efforts to get MRAP vehicles into the

field.

Thank you, again, very much for your support in helping us to

get MRAP vehicles to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines

who need them, and I look forward to your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Young can be found in the Appendix on page 59.]

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much, Secretary Young.

The chair now recognizes Lieutenant General Castellaw.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. JOHN CASTELLAW, DEPUTY COMMANDANT FOR PROGRAMS AND RESOURCES, U.S. MARINE

CORPS

General CASTELLAW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Members, members of the committees, I

think we all share Congressman Taylor’s passion for ensuring that

our soldiers and Marines, sailors and airmen get the equipment

they need.

I attended an event last night that I thought was quite remarkable. We had the annual dinner for the Marine Corps Association,

and the guest speaker was the secretary of defense, Mr. Gates, and

during that meeting and during his presentation, he matched Congressman Taylor’s passion in terms of talking about the needs and

his obligation to those military members that are in combat.

I think the Marine Corps has been in the lead in terms of pushing to get this equipment out. I talked to Major General Walt Gaskin this morning. He has made all the preparations for these vehicles. He knows how he is going to use them, he knows how he is

11

going to incorporate them into the forces that are over there, and

he is expecting that we will provide them.

For our part, the Marine Corps has identified the funding that

we need to reprogram in this fiscal year, and we will continue to

refine and identify the additional funding that we will need to

reach the 3,700 vehicles that we see as being what the forces require.

I ask that my statement be put in the record, and I appreciate

the opportunity—not the pleasure, but the opportunity—to represent the Marine Corps and the men and women who make it up.

Thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of General Castellaw can be found in

the Appendix on page 70.]

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you very much, General.

The chair now recognizes Brigadier General Brogan.

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. MICHAEL BROGAN, COMMANDER,

MARINE CORPS SYSTEMS COMMAND, U.S. MARINE CORPS

General BROGAN. Chairman Taylor, Chairman Abercrombie, distinguished members of the subcommittees, I am honored to appear

before you today and discuss with you the Mine Resistant Ambush

Protected Vehicle Program.

As the chairman indicated, I am the joint program executive officer for the program, and this morning, I represent a dedicated

group of civilian, uniform and support contractor professionals who

are working very hard to deliver these vehicles to our warfighters.

Though many of them are from Marine Corps Systems Command, we have been supported by the Army’s Tank-Automotive

and Armaments Command, and by the Navy’s Naval Space Warfare Command in Charleston. We are in contact with folks at Special Operations Command. We have representation from the Air

Force. This truly is a joint effort.

We are also very fortunate to get unprecedented support from

the Defense Contract Management Agency to help us in the industrial capabilities assessment so that we can more fully grasp just

how well our industry partners will be able to perform, the Defense

Logistics Agency that is leaning forward to procure tires to ensure

that that does not become a bottleneck in production, and the

United States Transportation Command that currently is flying the

vast majority of these vehicles into theater to get them there as expeditiously as possible.

Even though it is repetitive, I would like to reiterate Secretary

Young’s salute to Colonel John Rooney, United States Army. His

folks at Aberdeen Test Center are responsible for moving this program forward. He worked three shifts, 24 hours a day, 6 days a

week and on the 7th day brought in a skeleton crew that would assist with the scheduling so that we could move up quickly the next

week. Their efforts helped us determine which of the vehicle designs from among the competing contractors met the standard and

that we could take forward into production.

In addition, we would not be where we are today—and though

I know it appears slow, 82 vehicles delivered last month—without

our industry partners. They are working hard to expand our proVerDate 22-MAR-2001 12:42 Dec 12, 2008 Jkt 037890 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-75\200280.000 HAS2 PsN: HAS2
12

duction capacity. They are hiring new employees. They want to deliver these vehicles as rapidly as we want to procure them.

There certainly still is much more to be done, and we are not

over all the pitfalls, but we are making progress. We continue to

work aggressively with the vendors to look for ways to speed what

they are doing as well as with the folks in Charleston to speed the

integration of the government-furnished equipment into the vehicles.

This has been an unusual acquisition program. We had a dualtrack acquisition strategy. If you recall, in November, we awarded

a sole-source contract to the one vendor who had a hot production

line so that we could keep him in production and continue to get

his product.

At the same time, we issued a request for proposals. From that

came nine competitively awarded contracts with an initial delivery

order of four test articles, and even before we finished the test,

gentlemen, ladies, we awarded some Low Rate Initial Production

contracts at risk based on our evaluations of the proposals, their

industrial capacity, in the belief that we could get them started

producing vehicles even before we tested them so that we could

jumpstart the process.

Subsequently, we have begun awarding additional delivery orders on those contracts. Part of that accounts for those differences

in the numbers that you have before you and what has occurred.

As recently as last week, we issued another delivery order for 1,170

vehicles.

Our goal right now is to field the MRAP as we know it today as

rapidly as possible. We recognize there are additional threats that

have to be dealt with, and we have a spiral effort working to incorporate those improved survivability features either into these vehicles or into a subsequent vehicle.

The Marine Corps and our teammates are committed to delivering them a maximum number of survivable vehicles that have testproven performance in the shortest time possible.

I believe, sir, I will end there. I look forward to assisting you

with additional information.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. Thank you, General Brogan.

The chair now recognizes Lieutenant General Speakes.

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. STEPHEN M. SPEAKES, DEPUTY

CHIEF OF STAFF, ARMY G–8, U.S. ARMY

General SPEAKES. Chairman Taylor, Chairman Abercrombie,

Ranking Member Bartlett, Ranking Member Saxton, ladies and

gentlemen of the committees, it is an honor to appear in front of

you today.

We are here to talk about a topic that is vital to all of us who

are concerned about the welfare of soldiers and Marines, airmen in

harm’s way, and, today, we will address a major program that is

our joint focus.

First, I would like to begin by providing the Army’s full endorsement and full support for the Joint MRAP Task Force so ably led

by Mr. Young and so capably directed by General Brogan. General

Brogan and his team over the past months have done Herculean

work to pull this program together to ensure that we are working

13

together with a common vision of providing protection as fast as we

can to the combat zone, and we are proud to be a part of the team

and working with them.

The Army’s number one protection priority continues to be the

soldier. We know that we face an enemy who every day is thwarting or attempting to seek to thwart our ability to provide that protection. What we must do then is provide a relentless series of improvements to soldiers who are in harm’s way.

Over the past 4 years, the Army has provided 94 different pro- grams with your support worth over $100 billion to provide additional protection and capability to soldiers in harm’s way. This has

an enormous tribute to an Army that recognizes the priority to provide the capability to soldiers now, not to think about it, not to

pontificate about it, but to deliver. With your help and support, we

will continue to do that.

Our focus today is MRAP, but we see it as just one more stage

in a continuing evolution of capabilities we must provide to soldiers

in harm’s way. We share your passion to ensure we do it, we share

your commitment and concern, and we appreciate very much the

chance to be here today.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, General.

We have been joined by the Ranking Member of the Seapower

Subcommittee, former Chairman Bartlett.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MARYLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SEAPOWER AND

EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. I understand that my prepared opening statement has been made a part of the record?

Thank you very much.

I apologize for being late. I had obligatory attendance on another

committee for a markup. I am pleased that that markup ended so

that I could be here for your testimony.

Secretary Young, good to see you here. Thank you very much for

your service to your country.

And, gentlemen, thank you for your service to your country.

I look forward to the rest of this hearing and the question and

answers.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized

for the first questions.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

What you have done in expediting the acquisition of the MRAPs

is near unprecedented in the military. Rarely do we move that rapidly. One of the consequences of this is that we are procuring these

vehicles from several different vendors, which means that we are

going to have a maintenance challenge in the field.

If this were procured in an ordinary way, we would have settled

on one design and you might have half a dozen different companies

building the one design. We now have several different designs.

Have we thought through how we are going to maintain these in

the field, and what are the long-term plans for MRAP when this

emergency is over?

Mr. YOUNG. I might start and then General Brogan or my colleagues can add to it.

14

The task force has looked at the top level set of those issues.

There is a team, an Army-Marine Corps joint team, Defense Logistics Agency team that has gone to theater and looked at whether

facilities are adequate to support these vehicles, the gun to put in

place, the plans for parts storage, all those issues. The vehicles as

contracted come with initial contractor logistics support, and then

we are going to look to train our teams and troops in theater to

be able to maintain the vehicles. So all these issues are being

worked very quickly.

You rightly said, as other members did, the program is moving

very fast. In some cases, we will tell you we have identified the

issues, we have teams on them, and we are working to solve them.

We will not have all those answers today because of the speed the

program is moving at, but people are looking very hard at those

specific plans of maintenance and support and facility capacity in

theater for the vehicles.

General BROGAN. Sir, as you correctly point out, we have created

a logistics challenge. We believed that was an acceptable risk in

order to have a number of producers producing vehicles simultaneously that have virtually similar survivability characteristics.

Had we waited until we completed all the testing and then downselected the one vendor and then asked him to provide his design

to other vendors, I believe, sir, that would have slowed up the process and isn’t certainly what we wanted to do.

So, to help reduce that risk, as Secretary Young indicated, we

have procured contractor logistics support from the original equipment manufacturers for the first year. We also have an option for

that for the second year.

At the same time, we have an integrated product team. It is led

by an Army civilian from the Tank-Automotive and Armaments

Command that is in Warren, Michigan, that is looking at how we

could migrate from contractor logistics support to either organic or

a third-party logistics provider, whichever proves to be the most effective.

What helps us in this, though, is that fundamentally these vehicles are trucks. Our mechanics, soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines

are capable of repairing diesel engines. They are familiar with the

types of transmissions that are in these vehicles, and so they will

be able to do the organic maintenance on them without a great

deal of difficulty.

We are also aided in the supply chain in that there is a great

deal of commonality at the component level on these vehicles.

There are only two axle manufacturers involved in the program. A

number of the vehicles have either Caterpillar or Cummins diesel

engines. They all have an Allison transmission. So there is a lot of

commonality at the subcomponent level which will help us.

Those vendors of transmissions, of engines have worldwide parts

distribution networks. So that will help us in sustaining the effort.

Additionally, at the Red River Army Depot, working with Defense Logistics Agency, we are doing that initial provisioning to ensure that we have the repair parts that are required in theater so

that we can maintain these vehicles once they arrive.

Mr. BARTLETT. For the long haul, we will have provided probably

the best ever field testing for these vehicles. Do we anticipate an

15

ultimate down-select where that design might be built by a number

of manufacturers so that we will have a single requirement for

parts?

General BROGAN. Sir, as the program continues to evolve—and,

as I mentioned, we have an effort ongoing to develop some capability for additional threats—that certainly is a possibility.

What I would offer to you, though, is that wheeled-tactical vehicles have a fairly limited lifespan even in normal routine service

here in the continental United States. Certainly in theater, with

the severe wear and tear that they see in daily operations, we are

not going to have much life left in those vehicles, in all likelihood,

when the conflict ends, and that would give us the perfect opportunity, as you have suggested, to pick that best of breed and carry

them forward, at least until we get to the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle Program that, in all likelihood, will be the future Light Tactical Wheeled Vehicle for the armed forces.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Abercrombie.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Thank you.

I want to make sure I understand the answer to Mr. Bartlett’s

question. Whether the numbers that we are dealing with at any

given point are 7 or 17 or 23 and whether or not there are changes

in numbers—which I recognize, as you go forward, there are bound

to be changes in cost and so on, although I think that still needs

to be addressed—how by increasing the numbers does the cost actually go up?

The usual formula is that if you get more, even if there are several varieties of MRAPs, as there are—I understand that. I have

gone all through what has been presented—the Category I, Category II, Category III, and a lot of variants there—and there were

experimental vehicles put forward, obviously, some of which met

what we needed, some of which did not, some of which are going

to be modified as we go along——

You can draw a parallel to the Stryker vehicles, for example,

which have been through, by my calculation, at least six different

variations so far that caused cost estimates to change and production schedules to change.

Taking all that into account, I believe the phrase was it is a program of record. It is a phrase of art essentially in trying to understand what to do.

I say all that by way of preliminaries because I am not quite sure

what the answer was in terms of the long-term intent with regard

to these vehicles. Do we intend to leave these vehicles in Iraq or

Afghanistan? In other words are they throwaway vehicles essentially, or are they intended to be put into the inventory, if you will,

to the degree and extent they can be?

General CASTELLAW. Let me take a shot at that first, sir.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Do you understand the thrust of the question,

why I am asking it?

General CASTELLAW. I think I do so, sir.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay.

16

General CASTELLAW. I guess my answer will indicate whether or

not——

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Fair enough.

General CASTELLAW. Sir, as we look at how the Marine Corps

has addressed ground mobility, we started out with vanilla

Humvees. As the threat increased, we put armor on them. We developed Marine armor kits. We went to fully up-armored Humvees.

Now we are introducing the MRAPs.

As we look to the future, we will be looking at how the MRAPs

will fit into our concept of operation. The vehicle is very heavy. It

is difficult to transport, particularly on ships when the Marines

come from the sea. We are doing an assessment now of what our

ground mobility requirements are going to be.

I indicated I talked with the commander in the field this morning. In his view, when we look to the future, he is going to want

something that has the armor protection that we are getting with

the MRAP, but also the mobility we have with other vehicles. So

this will probably be one in a series of vehicles that we have developed and we will develop to meet the requirements as they exist

at any particular time.

The 3,700 vehicles that we see as being what we need to employ

now are the ones that we need to match against the current fight.

So we will continue to assess and evaluate, we will continue to look

at other vehicles, and then eventually we will make a decision on

what will be the end result of these particular vehicles.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. So then, on the question of program of

record about looking forward, if there is a decision made to draw

down the numbers in a place like Iraq or Afghanistan or any other

place, that that might then affect the numbers that would be manufactured or the variants associated with it, right?

General CASTELLAW. Well, the Marine Corps, you know, is solid

with our numbers that we are seeing, and for how we are projecting right now——

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. For right now, for calendar year 2007?

General CASTELLAW. Yes, sir.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And, hopefully, for the fiscal year 2008, that

that isn’t going to change, regardless of whether there is a chance

in policy in the immediate future or near future, that these numbers can be fairly well relied on by these committees?

General CASTELLAW. Sir, I see 3,700 as the number.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Abercrombie.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.

Saxton.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you very much.

Mr. Young, the information that we have here shows that the

MRAP vehicle requirement has steadily progressed over the last

eight or ten months.

Initially, apparently, we thought that we would acquire somewhere around 1,200, and then as testing went forward and the vehicle matured, apparently, the need was established for 4,000 or

5,000, and then the last time you folks were here we were told that

17

we needed somewhere around 7,700, and now the vehicle requirement has risen as of this month to a little over 23,000.

Could you talk a little bit about that requirement? And then I

will ask another question about how we expect to meet that requirement.

Mr. YOUNG. I appreciate the chance, and let me maybe add some

dimensions that might address Chairman Abercrombie’s question

also.

Back, I think, in the May timeframe, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

validated a requirement for 7,774 vehicles. They recently produced

a new document that says they endorse buying as many vehicles

as we can as fast as we can and that we will continue to evaluate

the need and requirement for those vehicles.

Secretary Gates in the task force meeting has specifically asked

the Army and the Marine Corps to understand for certain their

near-term needs and consider their long-term needs and how

MRAPs might or might not fit in their longer-term force structure

picture, and the services are looking at that and determining that

answer.

The agreement in that task force leadership group with the Joint

Chiefs of Staff there was they say a need for no less than that,

roughly 8,000 vehicles, so we are going to march to buy those as

fast as we can, and even with the funds we have and the reprogramming, we will not cross that line. We expect to send a

budget amendment to the Congress to revise our budget and tell

you we want to buy up to 8,000 and do that here very shortly.

And then in the September timeframe, we expect to revise that

budget amendment or send another budget amendment to tell you

what we will do for 2008. That number will be informed by how

successful we are in manufacturing and whether we achieve the

rate now that we are shooting for, which is 1,300 vehicles a month

manufactured in December. That will tell us how many we can buy

in 2008.

We need some feedback from the field about their experience in

those vehicles as we deliver them, and then we need to understand

how the leadership makes adjustments in the missions in Iraq and

Afghanistan, and so I think in the September timeframe, we will

give you a better picture of what we need in the 2008 budget and

whether we are going to reach some requirement number or keep

buying as fast as possible over the course of 2008.

Hopefully, that gives you a better picture of it.

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you.

I am not sure what the genesis of this chart is, but it does show

the 7,774 number that you just spoke of, but then over here on the

left-hand side, there is a July 2007 invalidated requirement for

23,044 vehicles. Can you say where that came from and talk to

that number, or is that subject to revision?

Mr. YOUNG. I think it is definitely subject to review and revision.

The Army—and I will let my colleagues address that—specifically

went in theater and looked at one of the genesises of that number.

The theater initially suggested that. Elements of that number represent one-for-one replacement of up-armored Humvees with

MRAPs.

18

We don’t know yet if that is the right answer. Again, Secretary

Gates has asked to make sure we get our needs addressed immediately for theater, but also asked the Army and Marine Corps to

determine whether there is a long-term requirement here, and

those two numbers, hopefully, will match up.

And then the other thing I wanted to mention to Chairman Bartlett’s question, when we have more of this information, the Secretary is conscious that we have multiple vehicle types, and if we

are going to have MRAPs in our inventory in the long term, we

want to look very hard at how many variants we have and how we

maintain those variants.

Let me give the military officers a chance to talk about the requirements.

Mr. SAXTON. If I could just—I don’t know. Are we on the fiveminute rule?

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Saxton, we are trying to live by it, but, again,

given the importance of this——

Mr. SAXTON. I don’t want to run out of time. I want to——

Mr. TAYLOR. If you consider it to be an important question, I

want you to ask it, and I would think——

Mr. SAXTON. Okay. Well——

Mr. TAYLOR [continuing]. That I would ask unanimous consent

to——

Mr. SAXTON [continuing]. If the military officers expand on what

Mr. Young just said, I probably will not have time to ask the rest

of my questions.

General BROGAN. Sir, would you like me to tell you the growth

of the requirement, sir?

Mr. SAXTON. What I would like to do, with all due respect, is

turn to another chart that I have here and ask Mr. Young this

question. I have another page here which talks about the Master

Joint Production Schedule. As with any new system, production

starts slow. We would all agree on that, right?

And this shows, for example, that in May of 2007, the total

planned production was 62 vehicles. This chart shows that by February of 2008, we will have ramped up at a steady pace to 806 vehicles by February of 2008, which, I think, Mr. Young, you just

said you are going to try to take to 1,300 vehicles per month.

Mr. YOUNG. The number I gave you assumes we are successful

with the Congress on the reprogramming and accessible with this

acceleration effort to buy another 2,650 vehicles between now and

March, and so I think it would be on top of the number you have.

Mr. SAXTON. Here is my question. We are working with several

manufacturers. Are there problems with getting to the numbers

that we have projected here in terms of the production schedule

that I made reference to? Are we going to be able to meet that

schedule working with a variety of manufacturers?

Mr. YOUNG. I think that is probably the largest risk the program

faces. What I can tell you is I have talked personally to in general

the CEO or the next level of leadership of each of these companies

in asking them can you deliver, because I did not want to go to Secretary Gates or come to you and tell you we can buy more vehicles

that they cannot build. That will encumber money that we could

use to do other things for our troops. So they believe they can.

19

And this program, as was said earlier, is not like any other program in the department. You can look every few months at many

of the programs and get an update. This is a regular program. The

fact that 82 vehicles were delivered in June was an important set

of data every week for industry, and it was part of the data that

led them to say to me, ‘‘I can build more vehicles between now and

December.’’

We need to see how they do on July, but they already have the

picture of July and August because their ability to deliver 250 vehicles in July is dependent on their subtier vendors getting axles and

engines and steel in place for them to build. So they have what

they did and they have a picture of how materials are flowing in.

But you have highlighted exactly the risk issue, but I think consistent with Chairman Taylor’s comments, we are going to take

this risk because the Secretary’s orders to me are ‘‘Do not leave a

vehicle that could have been built on the table for lack of a contract

or money.’’

Mr. SAXTON. Thank you, Mr. Young.

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I just have one final thought, and that is that I hope that you

will just, as a matter of course, keep us informed about how we are

doing on this acquisition program.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman.

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Ortiz.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for all your testimony this

morning.

I was just wondering, Mr. Secretary, if you could clarify when I

see your first page of your statement at the bottom where you say

that, ‘‘New MRAP vehicles are being delivered today to Iraq because of the excellent dedicated work of this government and industry.’’ Can you clarify a little bit? Were we getting the same vehicles at the same time that the Iraqis were getting it?

Mr. YOUNG. No. I am specifically talking about MRAP vehicles.

That refers to the candidate vehicles that were awarded in January

and went through testing. They have been tested to a standard

that was set by the theater and approved by the Joint Staff, and

those are the vehicles that we are contracting for.

As General Brogan pointed out, we signed contracts because we

had experience with some of these vendors before their vehicles

completed the full set of testing and, indeed, to a question that was

asked earlier, in several of the vehicles that we are buying, several

of the vehicle types, we had already bought tens and twenties of

those vehicles and had them in theater.

So the comments refer to a couple of things: one, a tremendous

set of work by the Joint Program Office and Aberdeen in testing

the vehicles and then the fact that we can deliver vehicles today,

which General Brogan would tell you normally would have four-tosix-month timelines, but we are delivering numbers today because

industry in many cases before they had a contract went and started

buying parts and materials. So they assumed they would get a contract, and they could deliver vehicles and/or we gave them Low

Rate contracts.

20

Mr. ORTIZ. So, when we do send vehicles down there, I know that

some are being used by the Iraqi government, Iraqi troops. When

they get there, are we giving our troops priority for them to get the

vehicles?

Mr. YOUNG. I will let General Brogan——

General BROGAN. Sir, all the vehicles that I am procuring are

going to U.S. servicemen. There were some foreign military sales

cases that occurred outside of my program office that bought a vehicle called the Badger that were made by a U.S. company, were

not tested to the same standard as my vehicles, in fact, were not

even entered into my competition, and those vehicles are being

given to the Iraqi security forces so that they can assist U.S. forces

in accomplishing their mission. But every vehicle that I am buying

right now through my program office under the MRAP label is

going to the U.S.

Mr. ORTIZ. See, as chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, my

concern is being able to maintain all these vehicles. Are you at any

time thinking about integrating or bringing these vehicles to the

depots that do some of this work so they can get familiarized with

the vehicles so that the depot employees—and I know they deploy

many times with the troops to fix them, to be sure that—and it has

been a problem before—spare parts——

General BROGAN. Yes, sir. In fact, just recently, the Marine

Corps logistics base at Albany sent forward a team of depot-level

mechanics and welders to participate in the maintenance of those

vehicles. Albany is teamed with one of our manufacturers to assist

in building vehicles. Anniston is teamed with one of the manufacturers. The Red River Army Depot is involved in the provisioning

of the repair parts. So we are, in fact, attempting to incorporate the

United States depot base into what it is we are doing.

Mr. ORTIZ. And just one last question now: At one point, are you

going to be able to furnish all the parts that will be universal? I

know you have different companies who are building these MRAPs,

but it would be easier. And I don’t know whether this can be done

or not, I mean, because, if we have different vehicles, different

standards, different equipment and stuff, it is going to be harder

than if you had all the parts universal where you can equip them

right away because you have them in stock.

General BROGAN. Sir, you absolutely make a good point, and that

was the tradeoff we made, rapid production versus a pristine supply chain that would ease our ability to maintain the vehicles. We

believe in the interest of getting as many of these lifesaving vehicles into theater as rapidly as possible that that was an acceptable

trade.

Mr. ORTIZ. Do you have any of the MRAPs at any of the depots

here in the United States so that they can learn how to work on

it?

General BROGAN. Not currently, sir. The first priority is to get

the vehicles over into the hands of the warfighters. As the pipeline

fills up, as we get to these much higher production rates, then the

commanders in theater will tell us when they believe that some of

these vehicles can go to home station training so that we can train

the operators here rather than on-the-job training in theater and

21

to do the sorts of things that you suggest, develop the maintenance

base at the depots.

Mr. ORTIZ. Because one of the things we want to be sure is that

we have the right personnel to fix them so that our troops can have

adequate equipment.

General BROGAN. No question, sir. In fact, right now, I have visibility through our maintenance system into the vehicles that are

being used by the Navy and the Marine Corps, and the last snapshot I had when I briefed Secretary Winter on Monday, as I do

every Monday, was 93 percent operational readiness for the MRAP

vehicles in the hands of sailors and Marines. So these vehicles are

doing very well in theater.

Mr. ORTIZ. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Chairman Ortiz.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Dr.

Gingrey.

Dr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

And, gentlemen, thank you for being with us today and your testimony.

Mindful of the opening statements of Chairman Taylor and

Chairman Abercrombie and ranking members of how important

this issue is and the decision the Secretary of Defense, Secretary

Gates, has made in regard to reprogramming and this program

being of the highest priority, I do have some concerns in regard to

balancing that need versus a risk of moving into something too

quickly. I mean, it would be like an analogy of trying to spend $6

billion producing a vaccine against a constantly mutating threat of

bird flu.

And the report from the multinational force of Iraq estimated

that the use of the MRAP vehicle could reduce casualties, deaths

and injuries—casualties by 80 percent. Well, you know, that is a

huge number, and if that is true, then, certainly, it is understandable why we would rush to produce, even though, as Mr. Bartlett

mentioned, there is some risk in doing that, risking cost, risking

not getting it right.

There are other things to consider besides the V-shaped hull.

There is the weight of the door. There is the ability to get out of

the vehicle quickly. And I say that because, in my own district, we

lost one of our best and brightest young men because the up-armored Humvee—I don’t know whether it was an after-the-fact addon kit or manufactured at the facility before it got to the theater—

basically rolled down a hill because the road would not support it,

and worse than that, when they ended up in the canal, they could

not get the doors open, and the four soldiers drowned.

So I have concerns. I have concerns about, well, even buy America. I am very agreeable with my Ranking Member Mr. Hunter in

regard to that, but I was at a German embassy recently where

some of their vendors said that this design that we are going after

is not the best design, that they have something called the Dingo,

I believe they referred to it, and so is buy America and the very

amendment of these restrictions possibly hurting us in getting it

right?

22

Mr. YOUNG. At this time, I don’t believe that is the case. Secretary Etter worked with the legal team, and the determination is

that these vehicles are for conflict and they are going directly into

theater, and at that point in time, some of the restrictions with regard to specialty metal can be overcome because you are deploying

the vehicles directly into a combat situation. So we are not impeded

right now with those restrictions because they are going to combat

operations.

Dr. GINGREY. With all due respect, I don’t think you answered

my question. I mean, have we looked at these other designs that

maybe are not necessarily American?

Mr. YOUNG. Sir, I will let General Brogan talk to that. I was

talking about for the designs we are building.

General BROGAN. Yes, sir. I am familiar with that vehicle. I have

been to Krauss-Maffei Wegmann in Germany. In fact, I am going

later this month back to visit their facility.

We had a foreign open competition in November. All comers had

the opportunity to bring their wares to the table, and that vehicle

was not entered into the contest. As I mentioned also, we are looking at a second round. Colloquially now, it is referred to as MRAP

II, but we have increased the requirements for threat level on that

and, certainly, we would welcome them joining into that to prove

that that vehicle has the increased survivability that the vendor offered to you.

We know that the threat continues to adapt. One of the criteria

that we set as we selected our vendors was growth margin. You

know, axles and tires are rated for a certain weight. We wanted to

ensure that there was additional weight margin available in the

design so that if we had to put armor on to deal with some of these

other threats, that we would not overload the axles, overload the

tires, make the trucks unusable, the sort of problem you described

with the up-armored Humvees with additional FRAG Kits. So we

have tried to consider that. We probably haven’t been perfect, but

we have done the best we could, sir.

Mr. YOUNG. Maybe I could add to that. We are aware—the team

is aware and I am personally aware—of other components and vehicle designs that did not go through the first round of testing and

offer some, in their view, additional protection. So the task force

has asked the Joint Program Office team to open that competition

in the reprogramming before you include some funds to support

those efforts because we do have to continue. As I think the committee members have noted, they understand this vehicle is not a

panacea, and we are going to have to develop additional measures

because the threat will adapt and adjust.

Dr. GINGREY. Well, I know my time has expired, Mr. Chairman.

Just in closing, let me say it is important that we get it fast, but

it is very important that we get it right.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Georgia.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr.

Courtney.

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to salute

your efforts on this issue, which was the first hearing, I believe, of

this subcommittee back in January. You know, there are a lot of

23

numbers going around today about ordered, produced and delivered, and I just, again, want to be clear in my own mind.

Mr. Young, you said 82 was the figure for June. Is that 82 that

have actually been delivered to Iraq?

Mr. YOUNG. Well, we are generally quoting numbers that are delivered from industry to us, the government, and there is a

timeline to get the vehicles from the factory to SPAWAR in

Charleston, and then that timeline, which Secretary Gates is laserfocused on and has put the pressure on me and General Brogan

and the Joint Program Office team and the SPAWAR Charleston

team, to reduce the time to install radios, jammers and other government-furnished items, and then there is a timeline to transport

the vehicles to theater.

I would tell you at the current numbers that we are building the

vehicles, they are all going by air because of the urgency of getting

the vehicles there. So what numbers we quote you typically are

from industry to the government to be followed by some number of

days of work, government-furnished equipment installation in

Charleston, and then transportation to theater.

Mr. COURTNEY. So, in other words, the 82 that were produced in

June are not in Iraq right now?

Mr. YOUNG. They are not all in theater.

Mr. COURTNEY. Okay. And there are notes here from the committee staff that all together, there are about 170 MRAPs in Iraq? Is

that pretty much an accurate——

Mr. YOUNG. General Brogan might have the latest.

General BROGAN. As of the last time I looked at the numbers, sir,

it is 176 that have been delivered from the MRAP Program Office.

I need to be clear in the verbs. ‘‘Fielded’’ means it is in the hands

of the users in Iraq, and so that is our metric, how many have we

fielded to the warfighter. ‘‘Delivered’’ is when we take control of

them from industry and then begin the process that Secretary

Young outlined.

Mr. COURTNEY. So, given the fact we have about 158,000 troops

over there and 176 of these vehicles, I mean, how you distribute

them is kind of a Solomon-like decision given the statistics we

know. And I wonder if you could help us sort of understand how

they are distributed once they are there, given the fact that there

are not enough for the troops that we have.

General CASTELLAW. Right now, for the Marine Corps, we have

a little over 200 in theater, and what those are is a combination

of the new MRAPs plus some legacy MRAPs that we have had in

before. What General Gaskin uses them for, those right now, are

route clearance and to transport explosive ordnance to detachments. As the numbers come up, then they will start replacing vehicles that are in the operational units that are doing the daily patrolling and the normal counterinsurgency operations.

Mr. YOUNG. Could I add to that, sir?

Mr. COURTNEY. Sure. Absolutely.

General SPEAKES. Sir, let me go ahead——

Mr. COURTNEY. All right. Please.

General SPEAKES [continuing]. Let me just explain where we are

from the Army’s perspective, sir.

24

First, one of the times that we haven’t covered yet is General

Brogan’s team brings this product in from industry. The next part

of the plan that Secretary Young has put together is a joint distribution board, and that is critical because what it assures us is

that the Solomon-like decision that you referred to is correctly executed.

Here is what happens. The supportive commander, the combatant commander in theater tells the Joint Staff where his priorities

are for issuing the MRAP. Then that is important because what we

are doing at the service level, our support to General Brogan, is to

ensure that service-unique items, which are very few, are essentially configured so that when we get that piece of equipment to

Charleston, which is where the equipment is given the final government-furnished equipment assembly, it gets the few items of

service-unique equipment put on it so that we know where it is

going, we know what kind of capability it is going to need, we are

all working together then to make sure that equipment leaves

Charleston with the right kind of equipment to operate in a way

that is compatible with a particular service.

And so that is important because that joint distribution process

assures us all that these very limited assets are going where the

combatant commander wants them and, second, that we are linked

to make sure that that vehicle arrives in an operational configuration.

We have also provided for the capability to ensure that the vehicles are essentially interchangeable. In other words, they all have

the right accessory kits where, if the vehicle has to leave an Army

unit and go to a Marine unit, it can quickly be transferred from

Army to Marine or vice versa. That is another part of this joint

task force that has been very successful in bringing us into convergence on the basic model and the basic interoperability of the piece

of equipment.

The other part of the Army strategy has been something that we

have been embarked on since 2004, and that is what we call route

clearance teams. Early on, we recognized that the Army was

underresourced with a combat engineer capability as a part of

every brigade combat team that would enable us to do route clearance, and so what we did is created an organization that links combat engineers with explosive ordnance detachment personnel and

gives them the kinds of vehicles we now call MRAP.

So, at this point, the Army has a little bit less than 500 of these

vehicles that are in theater right now, distributed at the tactical

level, and they are operating every day doing route clearance. That

is a different mission than the general purpose force mission that

we see now for MRAP where we go ahead and execute a transition

where this vehicle now goes out to be a part of a routine combat

patrol capability in the hands of basic combat troops instead of specialized forces.

So those are the kinds of things the Army sees as the way we

are adapting the new capability called MRAP to the existing capability we have built for this war called Rapid Clearance.

Mr. COURTNEY. I am out of time. But any other comments you

have about your own recent trip to Iraq and whether or not you

25

think this is the right way to allocate it? Again, I don’t want to

take other time up, but——

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair would ask unanimous consent that the

gentleman be given two additional minutes.

General SPEAKES. Sir, I appreciate the chance to talk about it.

General Logos, the Army G–3, and I went at the direction of the

secretary of the Army and the chief of staff of the Army. The mission was to ensure we understood how we were going to support

this MRAP Program with a clear understanding of what the needs

of the commanders were forward. We were able to talk to all the

senior commanders that we saw forward in theater, starting with

General Petraeus, General Odierno, General Lynch, General

Mixon, for example. We also talked to some of their key staff to get

an idea of where we are.

Clear, number one, that the need of MRAP is preeminent. Where

we saw the commanders, what they talked about was the vitality

of seeing something that has the capabilities that MRAP has, and

they also explained to us that they don’t want to get in the business of micromanaging the distribution to that formation. What

they want us to do is get the capability to them as fast as they can

to respond to theater commanders in terms of where it is that it

is going to be most effective and give it to them in a configuration

that is immediately useable.

For example, we are no longer doing this expensive buildup of capability in Kuwait. The vehicles arrive, based upon the great work

General Brogan’s team is doing, already ready for combat. That is

a huge gain in terms of time and effectiveness of people.

The other thing that we saw, I think, is very important. Focused,

though, they were on MRAP, the other thing that we saw was some

very important capabilities that enable us to have much greater

utility of what we call left-of-the-bang technology, and what that

means is that increasingly we are able to use some very, very good

techniques that are enabling us to intercept the bomb maker before

they are able to put the bomb off.

And those capabilities will be more appropriate to discuss in a

classified forum, but they are taking shape, they are having effect

today in combat, and they are saving lives, and so the other thing

commanders told us is, ‘‘Keep those things going, keep this expensive investment in research and technology going, and keep fielding

capability to us as fast as you can.’’

And then the other thing we saw which is what everybody sees,

I think, which is, frankly, the heroic nature of those who are in

combat, their selfless service, and that in itself was an encouragement to keep up this effort.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Connecticut.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.

McKeon.

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you all for your service.

I have a lot more questions than I have time. We have, I thought

I heard you say, 3,700 Humvees in theater?

General SPEAKES. Sir, I could talk to the number of Humvees the

Army has. At this point, the Army has about 18,000 Humvees in

theater at this point.

26

Mr. MCKEON. When you say in theater, that is in Iraq and Afghanistan?

General SPEAKES. Sir, the total requirement right now for

Humvees that I am speaking to is in Iraq, and that is based upon

where we are right now with the formations that are directly employed in combat and then the additional capabilities we are trying

to build in terms of a repair and replacement capability, which are

located in Kuwait.

Mr. MCKEON. So 18,000 in Iraq?

General SPEAKES. Yes, sir.

Mr. MCKEON. And I think Mr. Abercrombie asked were those

going to be worn out or are they going to be left there, and I don’t

know if I heard that answer.

General SPEAKES. Sir, we don’t believe so. What we have right

now is a need for the Army right now for about 140,000 Humvees

as a part of our existing formation. We are continuing to view the

Humvees that we have put in theater as a part of the Army. In

other words, they are not separate from anything we see as an end

state whenever or whatever time it is that formations leave Iraq.

We will need the Humvees that we have. We fully expect to take

them back with us, and part of what we have seen is a continuous

focus on keeping them repaired and investing in the very, very important elements of reset so that we are cycling equipment back

and trying to get it repaired and maintain it.

Now, as a part of up-armored Humvees, because they are so important, what we have invested in is forward repair capabilities

that are resident both in Iraq at Balad and also resident in Kuwait

so that we are able to keep these vehicles operational for an extended period. But we do not see them as give-aways. We see them

as a part of something that is essential to the Army.

Mr. MCKEON. So the MRAPs are not going to totally replace

Humvees?

General SPEAKES. Sir, we do not see that from the Army’s standpoint. First, we don’t know how many we are going to get, we don’t

know how many we are going to need, and we don’t know how well

commanders are going to respond to this as a general purpose vehicle. We will see that as has been very, very well-explained by Secretary Young and the team. We will get commanders’ feedback, we

will get an immediate understanding of how successful MRAP is,

how the enemy attempts to counter it, and how useful it is as a

general purpose vehicle.

We will obviously buy everything that is needed, and we will respond to commanders, and we will not stop until they tell us to

stop.

But then the next thing we will have to do is evaluate where

MRAP fits in the formation. The clear example, first of all, is that

we have substantial engineer formations in the Army right now

that do not have a modern combat vehicle. For example, they are

still using the M113. We would see a large capability to use

MRAPs, for example, for combat engineers. So there are a lot of

uses that we could see for MRAP.

The other thing we see is we are going to continue to put the

pressure on American industry and the research and development

command to bring the critical parameters we need. MRAP is not

27

an end state. We see critical improvements that we will need both

in terms of the performance, payload and protection that the Army

is going to need as a part of a joint team.

We are never going to go separate from the Marines in the sense

that we will be linked arm and arm as we look at our future Tactical Wheeled Vehicle strategies. We will work together on it, but

we see that there are capability improvements that we both need

as we look toward the next general of vehicles, and so for us,

MRAP is an interim solution for the needs of combat and not an

end state.

Mr. MCKEON. I have a suggestion on this little chart here that

shows total planned, total actual. I would suggest that from what

I have heard earlier that you also add a line in the number that

are at Charleston—is it Charleston where they go?—and then the

number that are in theater so we could kind of track how they are

moving through and how long it is taking them as we go through

this.

As I have sat here today, I am very frustrated. The Senate

stayed in all night a couple of nights ago discussing how soon are

we going to get out of Iraq, and it looks like you are going full boar

trying to get equipment over there, and we have members of this

body and the other body going full boar trying to get us out. I don’t

know how we are going to resolve this. It seems like we are going

to be running into each other coming and going.

If we have 18,000 Humvees over there and we are building these

MRAPs and sending them over there as fast as we can, we have

people trying to get the troops out of there as fast as we can, this

is very, very complicated, and I don’t know how this is going to all

be resolved, but it is looking like a real problem that is a lot more

complicated than a couple of speeches of how we can go there or

come here or what we are going to be doing, and I get very frustrated by it.

I have some other questions, but I know my time is up, and I

will try to get them submitted to——

Mr. TAYLOR. In fairness, the chair would ask unanimous consent

that the gentleman be given two additional minutes.

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you very much.

Let me ask just one specific question then. On this chart, we see

the Marine Corps is asking for 3,700 vehicles. This is the latest

chart where the Army is up to 17,770. The Marines are asking for

17 Category III Buffalos, and the Army is not asking for any. Why

is the big difference there?

General SPEAKES. Sir, the reason for that is that I mentioned

earlier the route clearance teams that are a part of what the Army

has been building since 2004. We look right now at MRAP as the

vehicle that is going to be the combat patrol vehicle. It is going to

be the primary carrier of the squads that are most at risk right

now in combat.

The other thing that MRAP provides, particularly the Category

II, is the critical capability that is very lacking in the battlefield

today, which is medical evacuation recovery and command and control capability to give commanders the mobile platform that affords

them much higher security.

28

So those then are the critical parameters that we think are most

essential right now, and at this point, the route clearance effort

that we have appears to be something that has borne fruit. The organizations are in place, and we are continuing to field them, and

we are fielding them in a separate program that is complementary

to this effort.

Mr. MCKEON. And so you don’t feel that you need the Buffalos

to do that?

General SPEAKES. At this point, sir, through the MRAP Program,

no, we do not, and the route clearance effort that we have is moving well. So the Army bought Buffalos separately outside of the

MRAP Program, which is why I am not buying them for them. So

they have Buffalos.

Mr. MCKEON. Okay. So maybe we need another chart to show

what we have also versus what we are buying and what we are

building right now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General BROGAN. If I could offer also, sir, I am tracking each

MRAP that we produce by serial number, can tell you exactly

where it is in the pipeline, or en route to theater, and we update

about once a week a pipeline chart that shows the flow from industry through Charleston through the motor transportation intercontinental, and then transportation intratheater from where they

arrive to their destination and the end state. As I said, our metric

for success is vehicles fielded to the warfighters.

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from California.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Admiral Sestak.

Mr. SESTAK. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

If these questions have been asked, I apologize. I had to step in

and out.

Mr. Secretary, can you name a couple of the programs presently

that are under the DX priority within the defense priority and acquisition system?

Mr. YOUNG. There are additional programs.

General, do you know?

General BROGAN. The jammers.

Mr. YOUNG. The jammers are under DX rating.

Mr. SESTAK. Just, I mean, any programs across DOD.

Mr. YOUNG. I am sorry?

Mr. SESTAK. The jamming?

Mr. YOUNG. The jamming systems are DX rated.

Mr. SESTAK. Anything else?

Mr. YOUNG. Can we get you for the record a list of anything else

that is DX rated?

Mr. SESTAK. Yes.

The reason I ask is the secretary placed this on the DX priority

list in June. The requirement for this was established a year ago.

Should we have placed it on the DX priority list a year ago if this

is so important, General, for the various reasons you have mentioned?

29

Mr. YOUNG. The DX rating comes into play when you have a conflict, though. It assigns priority when capacity is consumed, and

it——

Mr. SESTAK. But my understanding is challenges of high-speed

alternators, challenges on tires, challenges on armor, you are competing.

My follow-on question, Mr. Secretary, have we actually, if this is

such a priority, taken advantage of the special priorities assistance

that we can go to the Department of Commerce under the PASS

system and ask them to resolve for the good of our troops the competition for these material requirements? Has that step been taken,

if this is so important to us?

Mr. YOUNG. Well, a board has been formed.

Mr. SESTAK. I know the board. That is an internal——

Mr. YOUNG. Priority allocation——

Mr. SESTAK [continuing]. DOD board.

Mr. YOUNG. Right.

Mr. SESTAK. If this is such an important issue and you have already highlighted material competition as a problem, why wait?

Mr. YOUNG. Well, we are analyzing the material competition

issue, and to give you a specific example, as of June, the capacity

to build tires for MRAPs and—that is really the only vehicle that

requires this load class and load rating tire—was about 1,000 tires

per month. Obviously, you can see that if we get to 1,300 vehicles

per month in December, we need well over 6,000 or more tires per

month.

The department has gone and worked with industry. We don’t

need those tires today. The department has gone and worked with

industry. At least two vendors have agreed to increase their capacity and build volume for us.

And then we have worked with the Army Tank-Automotive Command and DLA, and we are going to buy tires as fast as they can

produce them to hopefully get ahead of the mountain that is building and pace the fact that they are going to add capacity.

We are doing a similar activity in steel.

So, to the degree of our analysis, we have not identified issues

yet where there—conflicts will emerge. The board has been formed

so that when conflicts emerge, there will have to be priority allocation choices, but we have actually invested money to——

Mr. SESTAK. But, Mr. Secretary, why then have you placed it on

the DX priority list?

Mr. YOUNG. Pardon me.

Mr. SESTAK. Why did you place it on the DX priority?

Mr. YOUNG. To assure that there were no impediments, and at

this point in time, there are no impediments, and what we want

to do is——

Mr. SESTAK. So you really did not have to put——

Mr. YOUNG [continuing]. Act to make sure impediments don’t

emerge because we would rather not have steel and other issues

result in a choice between, say, Strykers or ships or MRAPs. So we

are taking every step we can——

Mr. SESTAK. So DX priority was merely a precaution?

Mr. YOUNG. I would not say——

30

Mr. SESTAK. And if it is, why not take the next step to the SBA

with Commerce?

Mr. YOUNG. No, I think that is a reasonable step, and we will

go back and review the status of that, but, right now, we don’t——

Mr. SESTAK. The only reason I ask is it just seems, despite all

the good work, we have been shooting a little behind the rabbit on

requirements, on funding, and we have watched this in pursuing

the IED issue from the beginning. It is tough, but I don’t know if

we might want to shoot a little ahead on this. We do have some

unique tools here that will help the system work under the PASS

system.

My second question is when the secretary said we can go at

1,280 or so a month, did the Defense Contract Management Agency

(DCMA) agree with that? Were they asked? Again, I am kind of addressing the issue of the tyranny of optimism that, unfortunately,

my experience in the building shows me goodhearted people want

to do. Was DCMA asked if that was a good figure because they are

the ones that said 900?

Mr. YOUNG. For the vehicles that have been put under contract—

and General Brogan will expand on this—DCMA has taken a look

with the program office at the ability to produce those vehicles.

This discussion that occurred over the last three years was asking

industry to look at based on their experience to date, can you build

more, and to do so in light of the secretary’s insistence that we get

every vehicle that can be built in the hands of the——

Mr. SESTAK. So DCMA has not given an opinion?

Mr. YOUNG. So I don’t believe they have looked in detail at the

acceleration plan.

Mr. SESTAK. Yes, my experience has been——

Mr. YOUNG. Can I let General Brogan add to that if he wants?

Mr. SESTAK. Please.

General BROGAN. So they were asked, and their preliminary estimate, which was given to us a couple of months ago, was that we

could reach the rate of 977 vehicles per month in December, and

they admitted to some conservatism in that number which is probably a good thing because, as you have indicated, optimism is what

has me in trouble with the chairman for telling him I could do

4,000 vehicles by the end of this year, and I take responsibility for

that.

We are asking them now to go back in their industry capabilities

assessment and review that number, given the fact that we have

taken some steps to improve tire production, that the reprogramming request includes a sum of money to buy steel ahead so that

we don’t reach a hump that puts us above the capacity that is able

to be produced by industry, yet what is required for all of the defense programs.

So it needs to be revisited, and I will have to let Mr. Sydney

Pope from Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Industrial Policy go back and relook at that number.

Mr. SESTAK. So DCMA needs to look at it?

General BROGAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SESTAK. All right.

Mr. Chairman, I had two other questions. Should I hold off for

the second round or——

31

Mr. TAYLOR. If you don’t mind. We have been pretty generous on

your time. We still have Colonel Wilson and Mr. Davis.

So the chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Colonel Wilson.

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you, all of you, for being here today, and I am particularly pleased that you are here because in my home state of South

Carolina, we have been very vitally involved with the force protection located in South Carolina, General Dynamics, Armor Holdings.

I will be visiting BAE tomorrow in Akin. I have also toured and

visited SPAWARS. And everywhere I go, the professionals who

work at these facilities are very, very dedicated to working with

you and backing you up.

And I am also aware that there have been some real challenges,

and General Brogan in particular with force protection, there has

been a problem with production output difficulties, late deliveries.

In your opinion, has force protection overcome these choke points

in production?

General BROGAN. Not completely, sir. They missed by 12 vehicles

last month, but by the 10th day of this month, they had caught up

on those vehicles. When I looked at the work they have in progress

right now, some 342 vehicles, my assessment of that is that they

certainly have the opportunity to make their numbers this month,

but it is not a foregone conclusion. We are going to continue to

watch them.

As you know, they have formed a joint venture with General Dynamics Land Systems that they call Force Dynamics. That brings

to bear some of the considerable experience of General Dynamics

in material management and working with vendors, suppliers and

sub tier folks, and we hope that that will help ameliorate some of

the concerns that we have with Force Protection’s ability to deliver

so far.

Mr. WILSON. And I actually visited to have the opportunity to see

the manufacturer of the Cougar and the Buffalo. I know Congressman Davis will be shocked to find out that I actually drove them

safely, and, indeed, I can see the challenge they have of ramping

up. We want the best for our military, and so I am very grateful

that you all are keeping the pressure on.

Secretary Young, do you see any problems with the governmentfurnished equipment industrial base? Is this equipment properly

resourced, and is the integration facility at SPAWAR prepared to

handle this integration effort?

Mr. YOUNG. I will make a comment. I think General Brogan

might want to expand on that. But we have chartered a team—the

program office, I think, has led that effort—to look at the government-furnished equipment industrial base, the ability to supply,

the ability to pace the rate of delivery of vehicles because that is

critical. Positive signs on that.

The team has allocated budget for that. They have allocated that

budget in a lean way because I think, going back to Chairman Taylor’s comment, the program office—and General Brogan can address this in more detail—is managing their money to get the maximum number of vehicles on process and marching toward delivery.

32

Some of those vehicles, in fact, that we buy in 2007, we will need

2008 money for sustainment. We are not reserving that. So we are

allocating the funds for vehicles as the first priority, then government-furnished equipment and only the things we need in 2007 to

get the maximum number of vehicles delivered.

General BROGAN. So let me discuss the government-furnished

equipment piece first. We have cash-flowed from the account that

we normally would have used to buy the government-furnished

equipment in order to place vehicles on order. That is why this reprogramming action is so key to us. We need those coffers to be refilled so that we can ensure that as the vehicles are delivered that

the government-furnished equipment is there so that it can be integrated by the professionals down there at SPAWAR, the Naval

Space Warfare Command.

With respect to the integration facility, they have a great deal of

experience. They have worked all of the up-armored Humvee integration, and they have translated that experience into what we are

doing. They map each one of these individual variants to ensure

that they know the locations for the racks and things like that.

They have some very talented folks that are trained in Lean Six

Sigma. There are several black belts, as well as green belts, with

that sort of training that are involved in this process to help shorten that timeline of integration. Their expectation is that we will be

at a capacity of roughly 25 vehicles per day for integration down

there on a single shift, and then they have plans, if required, to

expand that to a second shift so that we could do 50 vehicles per

day. So I believe they are capable of doing that, but it has yet to

be proven, sir.

Mr. WILSON. Well, again, I appreciate your efforts in providing

the best equipment for our troops. I have the perspective of being

a veteran myself. Seven years ago this week, I was at the National

Training Center at Fort Irwin for desert warfare training, and I

tell you very positively that all the equipment I have is now in a

museum.

And, Mr. Chairman, it has been replaced by the latest and best

equipment, and I want to thank you for your efforts for providing

that for our troops.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr.

Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman

Just listening to the dialogue and going back to some comments

that were made by Congressman McKeon and Congressman

Sestak, I have some concerns looking at the way that we have

moved into this process coming from both a military background

and also a manufacturing and supply chain management background, as we have stepped in, admittedly on short notice, with increased costs to accelerate some of the production. I know we have

talked about ways to mitigate the shortfalls. You know, hopefully,

dealing with Canadian and French manufacturers isn’t going to be

the long-term answer to our own defense supply chain.

But one question that I have that this symptom points to and

having heard both sides of the issue off line within the military—

33

and I would be interested in both a Marine and an Army perspective on this—do you see the MRAP now by default, because of the

huge investment that is being made in it, becoming the default mobility platform for the Marine Corps and the Army going into the

outyears?

And I come into this question from Chairman McKeon’s comment

about, you know, the political movement is in one direction, logistic

and supply chain is moving in another direction, we are going to

have all these vehicles, and I am just curious what the long-term

plans are from a doctrinal standpoint.

General CASTELLAW. The vehicle, as we see it now, is addressing

a short-term requirement. We are going to get it into combat. We

are going to see how it operates. We think about 3,700 is the right

number right now.

At the same time, we will continue to assess what our ground

mobility requirement is, and when we talk about mobility, there is

also a vertical portion of it, the V–22, the 53K and others. So we

will assess where we are going to go.

This vehicle—some numbers of them—may be what we want to

retain, but as we look ahead, we have what we call the Joint Light

Tactical Vehicle, JLTV. How it comes into play is something that

we are still developing and we will look at.

So we don’t have an answer right now on how long term, I think,

the MRAP is going to be. We do know that right now it is what

we need and what is going to save lives and what we need in combat, and then we will continue to assess the long term.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. So you are saying that this investment

is an interim adaptation to an immediate threat versus part of a

long-term procurement program?

General CASTELLAW. Well, I think, sir, that as we have been in

war, we have found whatever war—pick one—whether it was Civil

War or World War II or now, we have already gone through several

iterations of vehicles, and as we continue, you know, we will improve these. We have spirals already planned for these vehicles,

and so, you know, we will know more.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. General Speakes.

General SPEAKES. Sir, I see an identical approach to what General Castellaw identified. We are united in a focus on saving lives

today for soldiers and Marines in combat. We also will have to

evaluate how combat proves this vehicle to actually perform in its

general purpose role. We are very positive and pretty optimistic on

it based upon the clearance missions that they have performed for

us the last year and a half.

The next issue is how fast can we move technology forward. We

are focused in linking with the Marines to ensure that the Joint

Light Tactical Vehicle becomes the future of modernization of our

Light Tactical Wheeled Vehicle fleet, and to do that, we have a paradigm that expresses the request we put to industry, which is improve performance, improve payload and continue to focus on protection, and we have to have all three of those in order to be able

to see a future vehicle that really attracts us all.

We fully understand and support the Marines’ thought about the

expeditionary nature of equipment. We, like them, share a need to

be able to project our capability, and we are going to have to look

34

at a vehicle that doesn’t have the same cumbersome weight capability limitations that we see in MRAP. That said, right now, our

focus is war, our focus is saving lives, and we will keep it there.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Yes. I appreciate your perspective, and,

you know, I want to commend both services on, the adaptability of

new systems. As the general mentioned, every war, we have seen

adaptation. From my own experience—I join with Congressman

Wilson—when I went through the Junior Officer Maintenance

Course about 200 years ago, all those vehicles are now in the museum as well, and it has been amazing to watch the adaptivity of

this force.

You know, for the record, contrary to a lot of the political rhetoric

that has been floating around that I hear from time to time, as we

create greenhouse gases over in the House chamber, this is clearly

the best protected, equipped force in the history of the world, and

I appreciate your efforts to move forward. You know, hopefully, the

lessons learned out of this will be able to be integrated into longterm plans to balance both the weight issue and the force protection issue.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.

The chair would like to take this opportunity before I recognize

Admiral Sestak to publicly thank Colonel Jim Littig, United States

Army (Retired), who, just as a citizen, came by my office a year ago

January and walked me through the importance of MRAPs, and for

the record, I think it is important for the average citizen to understand it the way that he walked me through it.

A disproportionately high number of casualties have occurred in

Humvees. That is because the Humvee has a flat bottom, and when

that wave of energy from a landmine or from an IED explodes, it

is like a wave hitting a boat. A flat-bottom boat hits that wave, it

is going to be thrown back quite a bit. A V-bottom boat hits that

wave. It is going to slice through it.

In addition to that, if you can increase the distance between that

explosion and the bottom of your vehicle, the force of that blast is

reduced exponentially. So if you are four feet off the ground, you

are going to have significantly less exposure to that blast than if

you are one foot off the ground or 16 inches off the ground.

I say all this to thank Colonel Littig who at one time worked in

the Army liaison office, but to also point out my disappointment

that it was a retired Army officer that made me aware of this and

that the Rhodesians 20 years ago had found the solution and that

the Russians or Soviets over 10 years ago had found a solution.

And as a member of this committee, I am the first to admit I am

not omniscient, that we rely on the suggestions of others, and I

would have hoped that it would have come from the active force

that there was something better out there, and I think the USA

Today article reinforced that.

So, having said that and having publicly said my frustration with

what happened with SAPI plates, what happened with jammers,

what happened with unarmored Humvees, I would like to ask Secretary Young, since in each of those instances, only reluctantly did

the civilian leadership of the DOD finally say, ‘‘Yes, we are going

to do it for each and every one’’—it has been said today that we

35

have approximately 19,000 Humvees in Iraq—does the Administration have a plan to replace each of those vehicles with some variation of an MRAP?

What is the timeline for that? Where are the dollars you require

from the United States Congress to make that happen? I am of the

opinion it is going to happen, and we should not kid ourselves that

it is not going to happen, that this war is somehow miraculously

going to go away, and I for one could look my constituents and

every American in the eye and say, ‘‘Yes, we spent a bunch of

money and, okay, it ended up we did not need them,’’ and that

would be the best news of all, that somehow we bought a bunch

of vehicles for a war that ended sooner than we thought.

So what is your plan? Are you going to ask for that money in a

supplement? Are you going to ask for that money in the form of

next year’s budget request? We have been through this before. So

what is the plan now?

Mr. YOUNG. Well, I think Secretary Gates and the leadership are

committed to revising the budget for what we believe is the minimum requirement, is some number like 8,000 vehicles and doing

that here very shortly, and then over the next few months, hopefully by September, determining the success in manufacturing the

vehicles because, as I think some members have said, there is some

anxiety about putting money against vehicles that you cannot

build.

But if we are having success, then we will take the optimistic

view, as we are talking with you today, that we want to buy and

build every vehicle that can be built and bought, and money will

not be an obstacle. So the secretary’s guidance to us is to try by

September to come to you and the Congress and tell you how successful we have been, how many can we possibly build in September, what does the theater want in terms of that number, and the

highest numbers today reflect exactly what you have said, one-forone replacement with Humvees.

I believe if we are successful in getting to December, we will be

successful in building a very large number of vehicles in 2008, and

so we will have to bring you a budget amendment for supplemental

funds to build those vehicles.

Mr. TAYLOR. Secretary Young, I hear some good news and some

bad news. The good news is that you are flying every vehicle over

there as soon as you get them. That shows me a sense of urgency.

On the flip side, keeping in mind how many airplanes we have and

the capacity of those airplanes, versus the ships that we have and

the capacity of those ships, that also tells me that they are rolling

off the assembly line in eyedroppers when we need to be addressing

this with buckets.

Now, the question is, of these designs that the brigadier general

is doing a good job of bringing on line, do we own the plan at the

end of the day? Do we own the specifications? Can we take those

specifications to Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, whoever? Do you have

the legal authority to say that this is a national emergency? Do you

have the legal authority to go to an active production plant and

say, ‘‘I want you to make these things right now.’’

Mr. YOUNG. Can I address two things you commented about and

then let General Brogan address it?

36

One, the initial plans while they are coming out, even at hundreds a month, are to take them by air, and then over time, we will

transition to more by air, but some by sea, and then over time, a

few more months, we will transition to more by sea and some by

air because there is—this one I will not be able to explain well in

a hearing—an optimization that the fastest way when you get to

significant volumes is to have more go by sea in a load, and so

TRANSCOM, General Schwartz, has talked to us, and they are

planning that staged transition to get the vehicles there as fast as

possible, but cost is not an issue with that.

Second, to the comment that General Brogan can add on, I had

the discussions with industry from the perspective of, yes, we can

potentially go buy the data rights, share them with other people

and stand up other people to build.

Mr. TAYLOR. Whoa, whoa. You said potentially. I want to know

for the record——

Mr. YOUNG. I am sure we can. We absolutely can.

Mr. TAYLOR. For the record, do we own those specs, or is it

unique to the——

Mr. YOUNG. I want to let General Brogan answer that, but if I

could, I went from the perspective of the best possible solution is

two industry partners, conceivably one person who has capacity

and/or did not win a contract partnering with someone and helping

us get vehicles faster so that there is not paper changing hands

and lawyers involved, with no disrespect intended. I wanted partners to help us build as fast as possible.

And then I will let General Brogan answer the question because

we do have the ability to buy those rights and force other solutions.

General BROGAN. Sir, we do not own the data rights, and I am

not certain at this point in time that that would be in our best interests. We continue to evolve the design.

By way of example, during the testing, one of the manufacturers

had a problem, and he made a fairly significant design to the manner in which he mounted his seats which provided significant

change in the amount of acceleration that was delivered to the

anthropomorphic dummy that simulated the occupant in the vehicle.

So, as this technical data package continues to evolve, I don’t

think we want to buy it at this point. Particularly, as has been

noted, there are additional threats that have to be addressed, and

so as we incorporate those survivability features into the platform,

we don’t want to own it now and then be stuck with someone that

is obsolete, if you will. So I don’t think today is the right time for

us to buy that tech data package.

Mr. TAYLOR. Colonel, again, this is, at this point, water under

the bridge.

General BROGAN. Sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. I can tell you that to the greatest extent humanly

possible, I think you would find that every member of this committee in the future wants to see that for every program that this Nation owns the specs, that this Nation has unlimited access to take

those specifications to any vendor we want at any time we want

and not be held hostage so that a lifesaving vehicle like this is

available in only one or two places.

37

General BROGAN. Absolutely, sir, and we have a data rights

clause——

Mr. TAYLOR. It is water under the bridge, but for the future——

General BROGAN. I am sorry, sir. I did not mean to interrupt you.

Mr. TAYLOR. I did not mean to interrupt you. I apologize.

General BROGAN. We have a data rights clause in the contract

so that we can procure the data rights if we choose to. We are not

being held hostage, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair recognizes once again the gentleman from

Pennsylvania.

Mr. SESTAK. I wanted to ask in the larger picture if future warfare somewhat has elements of what we see in Iraq or pieces of

what I think the Marine Corps calls the Three Block War, the rapidity by which things happen and by which we have to respond.

Are there lessons from this MRAP issue for the acquisition program?

It seems to me as though on the one hand we have this need for

rapidness, whether it is the pursuit of finding and destroying IEDs,

as we saw earlier, or getting a new protective vessel out there as

the adversary quickly adapts, and you caution us on that in your

testimony, there will be something else down the line in Iraq. On

your other side of your acquisition, you have the more traditional

approach, which has its own challenges, and I have forgotten what

the terms are, but the AAAV which I think starts with an E

now——

General CASTELLAW. EFV.

Mr. SESTAK [continuing]. Thank you—or DD(X) which is now a

DDG, I think, and the cost overruns and the length of time it

takes. In the middle, we have an LCS, again, its own challenges,

having to cancel a contract. We tried to bring rapidness to the acquisition program of the traditionals in this.

Are there any overarching lessons from any of you to be taken

from this experience in view of this, at least what I see as some

picture of trying to get quicker acquisition programs, traditional

ones quicker, but yet having a challenge to do it? And, boy, the adversary is going to turn on a dime tomorrow once the MRAPs out

there to come up with something else in real time.

General SPEAKES. Sir, I would certainly agree with your point. In

fact, we were talking about this very issue with the Secretary of

the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army. We are contrasting

the incredible speed of this program with what we see right now

is the Future Combat System (FCS) program that the Army is trying to put together.

Here is what I think is very, very important about the commendable elements of this program. First, everybody focused on a requirements document and got it done very quickly. It was focused

on initial threshold requirements and then some basic identification of objective requirements that would be future spirals, but we

did not get hung up chasing an ultimate solution that was impossible to achieve in the near term. So that was step one.

Step two was the supported commander was involved from the

start in terms of validating that document, ensuring we were putting only what was essential in the document.

38

We then went to the testing community and got their full-fledged

support. DOT down through everybody else went right to work on

this thing in the paradigm of no big test plan, no months of staffing

a concept of how you are going to test, but instead getting right to

work, this paradigm of 6-days-a-week-24-hours-a-day immediate

turn of lessons learned, and what General Brogan is overseeing of

the ability to take lessons learned right back to the manufacturer

and ensure that they are immediately making changes in terms of

location of critical components to ease fire or other damage issues

or crew access issues or recovery issues was just dramatic in terms

of what you could see as the improvement.

And then the other thing was we did not let a fiscal strategy

overwhelm us. The majesty of this program right now is it is a simple requirement, get as many as you can out the door and, frankly,

we are going to work the funding as we go.

And so those elements then of this program are what I would

suggest the Department of Defense services have to learn from,

and we have to adapt these very, very stereotypical programs of

how we do business and make them quicker and effective and suited to the warfighter.

Mr. SESTAK. If I could, I would be happy, Mr. Secretary, to have

you follow up, but if you could in your answer maybe address this.

In view of that last point you made of fiscal issues, the nice way

you said it, looking back at maybe the fiscal year, the recent emergency supplemental, you talked about, you know, do we put money

in this or do we put money in this.

Would any of you review the issues of having in—and this is,

again, a larger point that I always wanted to learn from—in that

emergency supplemental where the Congress added in $4 billion?

Would you in retrospect as king of the day have had that in

there—anti-submarine helicopters, Navy Steaming Days that are

traditionally funded in the normal budget, Joint Strike Fighter

(JSF) that will not be out there until 2012 or 2013?

So, when you are assessing in DOD the risk of a man or woman’s

life and how to try and allocate since we will not be there, was it

worth it? I mean, how should we think about it, that those things

happen to make it in, but not the $4 billion for MRAP in an emergency supplemental bill?

Mr. YOUNG. I would offer a comment that addresses, I think, all

the pieces of this. You know this business as well as anyone. You

can set the requirements bar to a reasonable level. That can enable

fast delivery, possibly higher quantities and lower costs. Or you can

set the requirements bar very high. It is probably going to lead to

slower deliveries, as you have said, lower quantities and very high

costs. Calibrating that part of the process to the adversary is critical. We don’t do that perfectly well. And then within that, having

resources to execute, that decision sometimes will be a judgment

decision.

One lesson to me for sure from the MRAP Program is Congress provided $800 million in the bridge supplemental, allowed us to reprogram $400 million to make $1.2 billion as a cash flow that

would eventually be paid back. We asked for $1.8 billion in the

global war on terror (GWOT) supplemental. Congress added another $1.2 billion. Vehicles weren’t successfully tested. We weren’t

39

under contract. We could not tell you for sure that we would have

3,000 or 4,000 vehicles under contract. We do.

If Congress had not taken that step to resource the program for

success, the requirements bar for the program was set at a reasonable point to get capability fast. That capability, as we have stated,

is not a panacea. There is more we need to do to that vehicle, but

the requirements bar was set at a reasonable point, and the Congress did an exceptional job of giving us money and believing we

would succeed. We could not tell you today we were going to be delivering vehicles without those ingredients.

Mr. SESTAK. That was well-said. It is just that we are at war,

and so my questions today had more on, you know, this ability to

even affect the Department of Commerce, putting priorities on

rated and unrated contracts priorities and the tough decisions you

need to make with limited resources, and yet we are at war.

And you are right, Congress added that money in over years, but

yet we chose other things, if we are at war, than this MRAP in that

emergency supplemental. And that is kind of, when I step on this

side—I know the tough decisions over there—tough to understand,

if I could just say that.

But I have said I think the testimony today was terrific, and I

don’t say that lightly.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman.

And just for your information, number one, I want to thank each

of you, gentlemen, for being here, for your service to our Nation.

It is my intention, should he so wish, to recognize Mr. Davis one

last time, Mr. Abercrombie one last time, and that will be the end

of the hearing.

So if you should, Mr. Davis, request——

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I would like to build on something that

Admiral Sestak brought up in, you know, his comments, and having seen some different programs come, some very fast based on urgency particularly in the Special Operations Command and some

very slow in other areas, you know, I hearken back to the days

when some folks I used to do some work with rolled out the first

prototype Cobra Attack helicopter in six months from the day they

took the Huey airframe into the boiler room in Fort Worth, Texas.

That leads me to one comment. I hear from many of my former

Army colleagues still on active duty right now—and I would address the general to this first—is that the common statement that

I hear throughout the AOR is the uniform military is at war and

the rest of the government and the Nation is not. Since we are

talking about being at war, would you comment on that?

General CASTELLAW. Sir, first of all, Congress certainly is at war.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Well, that is just the normal business

of the republic, you know, but——

General CASTELLAW. Yes, sir, but I wasn’t talking about your

fistfights. I was talking about the fact that you support what we

are trying to do. You know, within my purview, the people that I

work with certainly take what we do seriously. They know what

the objective is. Working with industry, the ones that I work with

40

understand the seriousness of the business that we are at, and so

we have what I feel is a good partnership.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I am not disputing the partnership

there, but if I could defer to General Speakes for a second to make

a comment on that. The Army is at war, but the rest of the government is not or the country.

General SPEAKES. Sir, I think you can’t point to what we have

been able to do, to change the whole complexion of how soldiers are

equipped and how soldiers are organized, and look back and realize

we have done that for the Army essentially in 4 years. I mentioned

in my opening statement 94 major new systems in the last 4 years

with your help, $100 billion spent to make this happen.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I appreciate that, General, and, again,

remember my prior comments. I have been extraordinarily complimentary of the military’s ability to adapt in what I consider a

bigger national problem. A very small percentage, literally less

than one percent, of our population is in uniform. Virtually none

of it is connected to the military personally. Their view of the military is informed by Hollywood, albeit regrettably, or what they see

on the evening news.

And this is where I, you know, direct the question to the secretary. We have had a lot of back-and-forth and programmatic information. We talk about spending regulations, how we are going

to accrue funds, things like that. At the moment, that is largely irrelevant because when I go back to the 4th District of Kentucky,

when I am going different places around the nation, when I took

my kids to Disney World in February and talked with hundreds of

people from around the country where the war became a subject of

discussion, that is something over there.

And at the end of the day, it is amazing to me with the MRAP

technology that it took this long to get the coalition together to

begin to move in that area. This has nothing to do with the military, but coming back under the civilian side. I happen to believe

that the Nation is not at war. The military is fighting one.

But my curiosity is what you have shared or what the Administration really needs to do to educate this Nation that we are at

war, that we require the sacrifice of our people and that we need

to prepare for a long and challenging struggle that is not simply

going to go away with a few pieces of legislation. Our force is

stretched.

I don’t hear people in the Administration or in the Defense Department, particularly in the prior regime, coming out and publicly

saying, you know, we can build these new systems. But, at the end

of the day, what are we doing to educate the American people who

are more than willing to sacrifice, you know, if we could take over

400,000 casualties in 3 years and people accept that and the rate

of loss right, albeit tragic in each one, is consistent with what our

annual losses in life of friends of mine and others have been each

year since the late 1970’s.

What is being done in DOD to educate the American people or

to push this Administration to talk—credibly, I might add—to the

Nation to get their unanimity in what needs to be done beyond

these arcane arguments of support the troops or don’t support the

troops?

41

Mr. YOUNG. I think it is just a message we have to take home.

You know, the answer I can give you with regard to the hearing

topic is I believe I can say from my experience here in running the

task force for a little more than a month, the MRAP Program Office, the team in Aberdeen and the industry partners are acting

like we are at war. I think there is more we can do in other elements of the——

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. No doubt about your sense of urgency.

I am not going to doubt that for one minute. Do you believe that

the Administration has adequately communicated to the American

people the national security urgency of real integrated support in

a credible fashion?

Mr. YOUNG. You know, across the spectrum, I can adjust, but

from briefing Secretary Gates Friday to have a reprogramming to

you on Tuesday and a hearing before you on Thursday, that is fast

and that is the Secretary of Defense personally leading the charge.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. I am not disputing that. I am asking

you a personal opinion right now. Has the Administration adequately communicated to the American people what we are really

facing for the long term and why? Again, I go back to my Disney

World example. Most of the folks who were going on the various

rides and taking their families and living their lives have no idea

why we are having these debates, and I applaud the urgency of

dealing with this, but I think the bigger issue from a civil military

standpoint, the military is carrying out their mission, but do the

American people understand?

And I think just as a civilian leader, I just appreciate your opinion. Do you feel that the Administration in general has done a good

job to explain to the American people why we are in what we are

in, since it is not going to be an either-or? I don’t think anybody

on this committee believes we are going to walk out, simply walk

away or stay the course in some oversimplified fashion because of

the vast stakes that the Nation faces right now.

I think your silence is actually a very powerful answer at the moment.

Mr. YOUNG. I don’t mean it to be.

I worked on the piece of the business. I am the director of defense research and engineering. I chair the MRAP Task Force. I

work those issues very hard, and I urge my team to be conscious

that we need technologies in the hands of the warfighter for the

war today.

There have been people on the Congress and in the private sector

that have been concerned that we have moved money out of research and into getting things in the hands of the warfighter, and

I have said, ‘‘You should not be uncomfortable with that. We may

shift some research and development funds to get things in the

field because this is a Nation at war,’’ and I believe up my leadership chain, people are trying to communicate that message.

Whether they use the right words and whether we have successfully gotten the public to understand that we are at war, and on

the back end of this war, we have asked a lot of our men and

women who serve in the equipment they use and there will be costs

to reset those equipment pieces. I am not sure we have gotten that

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message across as robustly as need to, and we are trying to do

that.

Mr. DAVIS OF KENTUCKY. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR. The chair thanks the gentleman from Kentucky.

And the chair would reiterate that he will recognize the gentleman from Hawaii, and this will be the end of the hearing.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Young, I think you are interested in a

clean getaway, right?

Mr. Young, your background is considerable. I am pleased you

are here actually because of the question that is going to evolve

from my discussion with you. Your background is good for where

I want to go with this, having been with the Appropriations Committee and defense-oriented, and I think you did some budget analysis as well as program work, right——

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE [continuing]. In your previous life? So your appointment here, in effect, I am going to say is like a civil servant

as opposed to a political appointee. That is what I am driving at.

I don’t consider you a political appointee in that sense, and in that

context is where I would like to have our discussion. In other

words——

Mr. YOUNG. I am prepared to staff the committee, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Pardon me.

Mr. YOUNG. I am prepared to staff the committee, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Yes, exactly, but, I mean, the staff that we

have is professional. They don’t have an ideology. I mean, they

have their political views and so on, but the point is that the information that we get and the perspective we get is based on professional judgment. I am pleased that I am speaking to you in your

present position, and I take it that you are there because it has

been decided and asked of you that you exercise the kind of judgment that you indicated before.

And the reason I seize on that is I was very interested in a

phrase that you used that this was a judgment decision in response

to a couple of the questions that were posed to you, and I want to

bring that up because I want to move into the Category I and Category II acquisition strategies.

Now, again, in the context of all the answers that have been

given, which I think have been thoughtful and careful and very

straightforward as to what the difficulty is—and I see General Brogan beginning to smile a little bit because you maybe see where I

am going—I understand what your difficulties are in trying to figure out where to go and what to recommend.

Yesterday, very unfortunately—and you don’t have to answer for

this, but I am citing it as background for some of the difficulties

we have. I don’t know where the hell this person comes from—

somebody representing the Department of Homeland Security apparently following up on the gut decisions that Secretary Chertoff

operates on decided to say on national television, speaking for the

Department of Homeland Security, that we are considering invading Pakistan.

Now how Homeland Security gets to do this or some political appointee in Homeland Security gets to put out to the public, as Mr.

43

Davis was saying, that we may just invade Pakistan because we

don’t have enough to do at the present juncture is beyond me, but

that gets out into the atmosphere. It gets out into the political

ether.

Now the reason I focus on that is not so much to throw brick

baths at somebody in the Administration who decided maybe invading Iran isn’t enough, we ought to go at Pakistan while we are

at it. General Brogan, very, I think, succinctly put it. His phrase

was there are additional steps which may need to be addressed,

rather than just focusing on Iraq or Afghanistan, and the reason

that—and you, General Speakes, whom, by the way, I want to say

parenthetically, have provided invaluable information and perspective to me in the course of events over the past several months

since I have been chairman. We have probably had more contact

with each other than with some of the other folks, and I want to

go on record as saying how appreciative I am of your candor and

your ability to summarize situations.

I will give you a good example of your ability. You said that with

regard to the MRAPs that your criteria for deciding where to go

with the Army’s acquisition is to be quicker, effective and suitable

to the warfighter, which I thought was very, very important, with

regard to pronouncements like ‘‘Let’s go invade Afghanistan.’’

The reason I bring that up is under the multiple MRAP vehicle

material that you folks have provided to us and the Category I, II

and III—and forgive me if I go over this a little bit because people

who are tuning in may not be familiar with the details as we might

be—the MRAP Category I is to support in an urban environment

and restricted confined spaces, and the MRAP II, the Category II,

are reconfigurable vehicles for multi-mission operations, like convoy leads, troop transport, explosive ordnance disposal, even ambulance work.

The Category III is really another category entirely that affects

more the Marines than the Navy, I think, your IED clearance operations and combat engineering, that kind of thing.

So the principal focus that our memorandum from our professional staff, Secretary Young, has to do with ‘‘maximizing the number of vendors for production as a bridge until MRAP vehicles complete the first phase of test and evaluation.’’ The principal focus of

the acquisition so far and the sole-source contract has been the

Cougar vehicle, a couple of hundred of those, and then the 80 Buffalo vehicles are the Category III, and the totals before the rampup, as Chairman Taylor has indicated, is a lower number than

where we are going to go.

But if that is the case, here is what bothers me—not bothers me,

but what I am moving toward and why I had all these preliminaries—is our memorandum from our staff says that the program

office is expected to solicit in terms of the request for proposals

going forward. So, by the end of the month, a focus on MRAP II

vehicles, which I presume is either the Cougar or a variant on the

Cougar, within that category, that ‘‘would move faster, better protect troops against EFP, the explosively formed projectiles, and in

some cases carry more armor, all requirements based on lessons

learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.’’

44

And under the history, the Cougar, as I say, has been the main

vehicle, but that is not the only one in those Categories I and II

because there are a lot of variants in there, and the focus is on IED

resistance or EFP resistance and, of course, are much—I am not

going to say complicated—heavier, they are larger, they are more

difficult than the Humvee.

And what I am concerned about is if there is a requirement to

go into areas other than the kind of confined circumstances you

might find in Baghdad, that you might find in other areas like Iran

or in Pakistan. Believe me, I don’t want to do this, but if you find

yourself in a situation like Pakistan, that is not the same deal, and

you are going to need much different troop transport circumstances

to be met.

And so I am very concerned about where we are going to find

ourselves because we are trying to react to circumstances which

cause public consternation and congressional consternation, that

you find yourselves going in a direction of acquisition that doesn’t

give you the kind of vehicles you really need for other circumstances.

Now the reason I have gone into this at such length is I want

you to know, at least as far as this member is concerned, we can

try to be flexible like you need to be flexible in terms of providing

the kind of funding for quite a variety of vehicles that need to be

forthcoming. I just don’t want quantity, in other words, in order to

say, ‘‘Well, we responded. The Congress was yelling and, you know,

there was a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth about vehicles,

so we picked one and then we are going to produce as many of

those as we can,’’ if you don’t think operationally that those are the

kind of vehicles that you may need for the kind of circumstances

you may be facing in the near future.

So what I want to know is, Secretary Young, do you think you

have the kind of flexibility in terms of acquisition strategy? And by

acquisition strategy, I mean the funding and the selection of the

vehicles. Do you think you have done enough testing and evaluation to know the kind of vehicles that are likely to be available?

Do you have enough flexibility in terms of funding and enough

flexibility in terms of the kind of vehicles that you think are going

to be capable of meeting any contingency that any of the three generals to your left can recommend about the circumstances they are

likely to be facing? Do you have it or not?

Or do we need to do something in addition to what the chairman

is suggesting in order to enable you to do that because we don’t

want to micromanage, we don’t want to macro-manage, we don’t

want to tell you what kind of vehicles to be making or not making

or what the circumstances should be, but we find ourselves doing

that by default if we don’t have this very clearly set forward and

put into legislation.

Mr. YOUNG. That is a great question, Mr. Chairman. I will try

to give you a direct answer, and I will say what I said in one of

the task force meetings.

I am willing in this reprogramming to put any number of R&D

in that reprogramming so we have the resources, going back to the

answer I gave Congressman Sestak. You cannot do things without

resources and dollars. We can come back and ask again, but here

45

is a shot to ask for what we need to go test components, energyabsorbing seats, all other materials we could put in these MRAPs

and allow people to propose other MRAP designs that did not come

through the first round, and we could look at them and test them

because these MRAPs, as we said, are not a panacea.

There was a requirement set. They will survive certain things.

They are not capable against everything the threat can throw

against us, and we know the threat may throw some of those additional things against us. We should be out developing and testing

against that. We have some dollars to do that now, and the program office team is doing that. We have some money in the reprogramming to do more.

And the candid answer to your question—I said it in the task

force, and I will say it again—is that may be the right amount of

money, but I would not want to be short and have an opportunity

to put additional protection on these vehicles or make changes to

these vehicles or even buy a different vehicle if one proved to be

significantly more capable.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And in that context, if you are dealing in

mountain passes and snow, you are dealing with an entirely different situation than being in 130-degree heat in close circumstances in a neighborhood that is 4,000 years old.

Mr. YOUNG. Right. And I think, to answer that question, there

is something you have rightly pointed out that is bigger than

MRAP. It has been mentioned a time or two today, the Joint Lightweight Tactical Vehicle. The department needs some resources in

that area because of the requirements. As you heard today, we

would like to have a light vehicle, a very agile vehicle, and you

would like that vehicle to withstand IEDs and EFPs.

That is a pretty small space. I am not even sure there is anything in that set that may be the null set, so the acquisition team,

industry and the requirements community have to talk about how

close we can get to having a very light vehicle, a very maneuverable vehicle, a fast vehicle that can survive an aggressive threat.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, I appreciate the time, and I will try to

end this as quickly as I can. But we don’t have you here every day

so we want to take advantage.

I understand that in terms of requirements. What I am concerned about—and by extension certainly Chairman Taylor is concerned about—is the actual logistics of production. Mr. Davis has

pointed out we are not fighting a war. Some people are fighting a

war. Some of the manufacturers are geared up. Some people are

having to do it. But the country is mostly watching TV and concerned about whether or not baseball players are on steroids.

So, you know, whether you have the flexibility to be able to do

this is an open question because I am not sure the manufacturing

lines can handle or the manufacturers can handle the range of

flexibility that is going to be required to give you the kind of vehicles that you need under these varying circumstances. That is what

my question is.

Do we need to provide legislatively anything more to you to enable the private-sector manufacturers to be able to conduct the

business that is necessary?

46

Mr. YOUNG. I think we should take that away and think about

it, and if there are comments to offer today, we have some of those

dimensions right now. The team has Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite

Quantity contracts at firm, fixed prices with the vendors, and we

have several vendors. These vendors know we can make a choice

along the way to stop buying from them and buy from someone

else. That is a big incentive. There are multiple vendors so we can

talk to each different one about, ‘‘Well, are there things you can do

to your vehicle to deal with some of the broader spectrum of issues

you are talking about, show them to me, and let me decide if I

want to buy them’’ is helpful——

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I agree with that, but I don’t want to have it

out there as a threat. What I am saying is we may have to recognize as a Congress that we are going to have to pay for some of

this, that we are going to have to go to manufacturing and say,

‘‘We are going to pay you to stay open.’’

Look, we subsidize farming. We put money out there. We make

an investment in farming to say, ‘‘We want to make sure we have

soy beans and wheat and corn’’ or whatever and ethanol and all the

rest, and we put money into it, and it is controversial. People raise

hell about it. ‘‘Why are you giving all the money to these guys to

make sure that they grow?’’ Well, we even pay people not to grow

food.

Now it seems to me if we are talking about the lives of the

warfighters, we may have to pay manufacturers to stay open, and

not because they are competing as they would ordinarily in the

market. There is no social utility here. You know, we are not dealing with a situation where we have to fulfill somebody’s ideological

preconcepts about what is ideologically acceptable in economic theory. We are talking about whether we support warfighters or not.

We keep people working building submarines because you cannot

put the workforce that can build the kind of submarines we have

today in a freezer somewhere and then pull them out and put them

in some kind of an economic microwave so that they can go build

more submarines.

If we are going to maintain a certain industrial base here—and

when I get out of these hearings and what I get out of these briefings that we have had—the Congress may have to provide, particularly when it comes to the vehicles that move troops, an industrial

base that is not subject to ordinary competition, ordinary ‘‘Well,

you know, you can build a better cell phone than somebody else so

you stay in business and the other guy goes out of business.’’

When I take a look at the varieties that are here that you think

are required for the various missions that the three generals have

outlined here today and elsewhere, I don’t think we have the industrial base capacity right now to be able to do this with the kind

of flexibility required with the varying missions that may or may

not face you, and it may be that we are going to have to provide

for that and provide funding for that and tell people, ‘‘Yes, we are

going to keep people in operation and pay for it, and it is not subject to ordinary competition.’’ Am I making——

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE [continuing]. Sense and am I making my point

clear?

47

Mr. YOUNG. And I would offer a comment. I think that is an excellent discussion. It is clearly a much bigger hearing. I am not

sure this is the most urgent area for that issue. What I have heard

from some of the companies and their leadership is ‘‘We are

leveraging a significant large base of production capability in the

commercial heavy truck business. I have been told by a couple of

CEOs there has been some downturn in that commercial truck

business, so the bad news for us is that we are facing devastating

losses and we need these vehicles.

The only small positive is that base has the ability to produce

and can turn to and build MRAPs now for us. So we have a chance

of not being in conflict with the commercial sector right now, and

that commercial business base will stay and will always. As General Brogan said, these are basically very large heavy trucks. There

are other pieces with the defense secretary where we do need to

look very hard at this Nation’s ability to sustain the organic capability to produce those defense systems because there is virtually

no commercial——

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Last thing on that. I agree with that, but just

because somebody has a big name, a big corporate name, doesn’t

mean that they have the infrastructure commensurate with the

name.

Mr. YOUNG. Yes.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. You could be dealing with General Dynamics

or BAE, but the actual manufacturing investment that they have,

the actual plant capacity, the actual number of people working may

be quite small. It may be a little part.

And some of the big truck manufacturers don’t want to get into

this because we don’t have, for example, capital budgeting. You

know, they make long-term investments. They are thinking, ‘‘Hell.

That is great. Yes, we make these MRAP vehicles for a year and

a half and then the contract disappears and we are left holding the

bag, so we don’t want to get into it in the first place.’’

So my fundamental point is—and I don’t think the uniformed

services really need to comment on this. I mean, this is a policy

question. This is a policy question—if we don’t want to put the uniform services into the position of having to run around looking to

see whether or not there is somebody that can produce the kind of

vehicles in the short-term that we need, that we don’t have because

we were going in another direction, for good reasons, then we have

to be prepared from an industrial base point of view to be able to

turn on a dime and go in another direction.

It is easy for me to say. It is very hard to do, as has been evidenced by the conversation we have had today. It is very hard to

do practically in terms of actually getting vehicles built and variations put into effect and changes made. So what we really need

back from you and what the chairman, I think, needs most of all

is a game plan for infrastructure flexibility, what the true costs of

that are going to be and then what the Congress needs to do to facilitate that.

My guess is a lot of it can be done administratively and in terms

of budgeting by us and we don’t need much in the way of legislation. That is my guess. I think most of the legislation, acquisition

authority and all that kind of stuff already exists. I think this is

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principally a policy question and a political decision that needs to

be made in terms of spending by the Congress.

Mr. YOUNG. Maybe I could privately offer you a couple more

points that I think will be aligned to what you are saying.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. All right. I appreciate the fact that you are

in the position that you are in, and I appreciate the responsible answers you have given as opposed to some of the public pronouncements that I mentioned earlier.

Could you carry a message to Secretary Gates and ask him to

ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to do things like making

sure he can tell when visitors’ visas are up before he gets us involved in World War III or IV?

That is an editorial comment.

Thank you.

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Again, I want to thank each of you gentlemen. You have been very generous with your time. I think you

have been very forthright with us.

Secretary Young, I did ask you some very direct questions on

how many vehicles, how much money, is your goal a one-for-one replacement. I understand that is not something you can tell me off

the top of your head, but I would like to know now what is a reasonable amount of time that I should expect before I hear from you

on that.

Mr. YOUNG. Well, my understanding from the leadership is that

we should hopefully by maybe even next week tell you what it will

take in the supplemental to buy roughly 8,000 vehicles and then

tell you that in September we are going to update that for how

many vehicles we want in fiscal year 2008 and how much money

that will take.

Mr. TAYLOR. Remember, I am talking a one-for-one replacement.

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. So is hearing from you by next Thursday a reasonable request? Tell me what is a reasonable request and then stick

to it.

Mr. YOUNG. I know, Mr. Chairman, you have highlighted a couple of times the civilian aspect of this, but there is a military aspect to this. Secretary Gates has charged the Joint Staff and the

Army Chief of Staff and the Marine Corps commandant to determine their near-term and long-term vehicle requirements, and if

that ends up being everybody says the requirement is one for one,

I believe the leadership is going to try to support that requirement

and buy those vehicles and come to you and ask you to support

that requirement.

Mr. TAYLOR. You have been generous enough to listen for three

hours. With three other programs, the Nation tried to do it on the

cheap only to discover they had to do a one-for-one. You will eventually come to this conclusion on this program. Let’s don’t have one

kid needlessly lose his limbs. Let’s don’t have one needless loss of

life. I am asking a direct question. When can I reasonably expect

an answer from you? Is a week enough time for you to get those

numbers? If not, tell me how much.

Mr. YOUNG. I want to try to understand what you are asking of

me.

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure.

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Mr. YOUNG. I have essentially now almost a blank check from

the Joint Staff, buy as many vehicles as you can as fast as you can,

and then if the Joint Staff wants to evaluate their need along the

way, if I told you a number, it would mean nothing relative to a

need for the theater and the Joint Staff to say, ‘‘This is what we

think we operationally need,’’ and I don’t know how to tell you on

what day they will give me that answer so I can parrot it back to

you.

Mr. TAYLOR. I am going to request that within ten working days,

which I think is very generous, that you supply that information,

and if you cannot, you are basically telling this committee that it

is not your goal to replace them on a one-for-one basis.

The second thing I did ask very pointedly is: Do you have the

legal authority under the Use of Force resolution that passed this

Congress to get us into these conflicts? Do you have the legal authority right now to go to an automotive or a truck plant and say,

‘‘Our Nation needs your assembly line to make this product.’’ Do

you have it under the existing Use of Force resolution? That is a

yes or a no. And, again, I would like to know within ten days. And

if you do have it, I would like to know that section of the law for

future reference.

Mr. YOUNG. I would like to give you that. I don’t know the answer to that question, sir.

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes, and I hope I am giving you an adequate

amount of time.

Mr. YOUNG. But we can get that answer certainly within ten

days or less.

Mr. TAYLOR. And I thank each of you gentlemen for devoting a

huge percentage of your lives to serving our country, for being here

today.

And with that, this meeting is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:47 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.]

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JULY 19, 2007

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER

Mr. SHUSTER. What is the Department of Defense doing to leverage investments

in depots/arsenals and use the military organic base, in partnership with industry,

for increased production and sustainment of the MRAP?

Mr. YOUNG, General BROGAN, General CASTELLAW, General SPEAKES. The MRAP

program is utilizing both Army Depots (Red River Army Depot (RRAD)) and Marine

Corps Depots (Albany and Barstow) as a source of trained mechanics who are currently deployed (Barstow) and will be deployed (RRAD) in support of MRAP

sustainment. The scope of these efforts is to develop field-level maintenance expertise to include Battle Damage Repair. Mechanics will be embedded with the unit

to provide augmentation and OJT for a period of 45–60 days. All MRAP contractors

are providing up front training for these mechanics and have agreed to work with

the depots to ensure system level knowledge. Both contractor-provided Field Service

Representatives and Government mechanics/technicians deployed in the field submit

routine reports of deficiencies which are analyzed and used to improve production

quality which works to improve throughput to the field.

Mr. SHUSTER. Will the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) evolving

capabilities assessment of industrial capabilities to support the MRAP include an

assessment of how military depots can support MRAP production and sustainment?

Mr. YOUNG, General BROGAN, General CASTELLAW, General SPEAKES. Answer:

The purpose of DCMA’s MRAP Vehicle Industrial Capability Assessment is to identify and validate private sector suppliers’ ability to support the MRAP Vehicle production schedule requirements and to identify potential shortfalls. DCMA was not

requested to assess military depot support to MRAP sustainment.

Mr. SHUSTER. How does the Department of Defense plan to sustain and maintain

the MRAP and what depots are currently involved in that planning process?

Mr. YOUNG, General BROGAN, General CASTELLAW, General SPEAKES. Due to the

urgency of the requirement and the Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) nature of the

vehicles, MRAP vehicles will initially be sustained and maintained via Contractor

Logistics Support (CLS). However, we will conduct a Depot Level Source of Repair

(DSOR) analysis and a core logistics capabilities assessment, which will also consider Performance Based Logistics and public—private partnerships in determining

the most effective and efficient sustainment support. Potential depot support facilities, such as the Army’s Red River Depot, Tobyhanna, and the Marine Corps logistics depots at Albany, Georgia, and Barstow, California, and others will be considered as part of this analysis.

In addition, the MRAP program is utilizing Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) centers to support organic supply chain management of MRAP spare and repair parts.

DLA is also fully integrated in the parts identification, cataloging and provisioning

efforts for MRAP spares. DLA is currently assessing requirements to store spares

in the AOR to support the MRAP program.

Mr. SHUSTER. What actions is the Department of Defense taking to encourage

contractors to work with military deports and take full advantage of the facilities,

equipment, and skilled workers there to support MRAP requirements?

Mr. YOUNG, General BROGAN, General CASTELLAW, General SPEAKES. We will

work with potential depot supporters to identify and evaluate public-private partnership alternatives during our upcoming Depot Level Source of Repair analysis.

Currently, FPI, an MRAP product vendor, is teamed with the Marine Corps Logistics Base at Albany, Georgia in the production and sustainment of USMC MRAP

vehicles.

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