As lawmakers debated defense budget cuts behind closed doors, an Army general made an impassioned plea on Capitol Hill yesterday to give his service time and money to continue sorting through multiple wheeled-vehicle efforts.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli argued before a House panel that the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) development efforts, along with the burgeoning effort to recapitalize existing Humvees, all are vital for the Army’s future.
“I just think that it’s absolutely essential that we be allowed to continue that critical work, or we will end up with a force that is not modernized,” he told the House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee. “And a force that’s not modernized is an unbalanced force, and in the end it will cost us lives.”
The Readiness panel held its hearing, with the No. 2 military leaders of each service, as Capitol Hill buzzed about competing budget-cutting proposals crafted by Democrats and Republicans on the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The 12-member panel has less than a month to present a plan to cut up to $1.5 trillion in long-term federal spending.
Though the two parties’ plans were not released, the Democrats’ reportedly proposed roughly $200 billion in defense reductions. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters yesterday he believes the Pentagon was trimmed enough in the first wave of spending cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011, which President Barack Obama signed in August.
Chiarelli and the other military leaders testified yesterday about readiness challenges they’re facing because of those initial reductions, which the Pentagon says subtract more than $450 billion from its 10-year spending plans, and potential future cuts.
“What really concerns me is in the modernization area,” Chiarelli said.
He argued the GCV is “absolutely critical for the United States Army.” The service awarded technology-development contracts in August to teams led by General Dynamics [GD] and BAE Systems-Northrop Grumman [NOC].
“We are not talking about going into full-rate production at this particular time on the Ground Combat Vehicle,” Chiarelli said. “All we’re trying to do is get from milestone A to milestone B to see what industry can give us at a point where we can make a decision two to two-and-a-half years from now whether to go to a new build, that industry brings us, while at the same time in that two-year period we’re going to look at some off-the-shelf solutions to an infantry-fighting vehicle.”
The Army wants funding to investigate those two alternatives over the next two years so it can make a “cost-informed decision on what we can afford,” he said.
“To cut that off now, to not provide us the ability to do that will only put us two years behind a modernization program that is actually critical to the Army,” he argued, maintaining the same thing would happen if funding is cut for the JLTV.
The Army and Marine Corps want to continue developing the vehicle as they look at recapitalizing some existing Humvees.
Three contractor teams have built prototypes for the JLTV’s current technology-development phase: the General Tactical Vehicles (GTV) team of General Dynamics and AM General; BAE Systems-Navistar Defense LLC, an affiliate of Navistar International Corp. [NAV]; and Lockheed Martin [LMT]-BAE.
The Army and Marine Corps recently modified the acquisition strategy for the JLTV, issuing a draft request for proposals this month for the next stage of the competition that seeks more affordable vehicles than previously planned. The Senate Appropriations Committee, though, calls for eliminating the JLTV effort in its fiscal year 2012 defense appropriations bill. The legislation, which the full Senate has not yet weighed, heeds spending caps in the Budget Control Act.
Chiarelli argued the Pentagon should be allowed to continue investigating its JLTV and Humvee recapitalization options.
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;}
“There will come a point, down the road… probably…shorter than two years, where we will be able to make a decision on what’s smarter. Do we recap Humvees or do we go with a new JLTV?” he said.
Meanwhile, Belva Martin, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office, questioned the affordability of the current GCV and JLTV plans Wednesday before the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee.