By Emelie Rutherford
Ashton Carter, President Obama’s nominee for Pentagon acquisition czar, undoubtedly will be quizzed during his confirmation hearing about how his dearth of extensive defense- industry and acquisition experience would impact his job performance, senators said yesterday.
“It’s a perfectly legitimate question,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), which will weigh Carter’s confirmation. “It’s important that we have a hearing and we see what the answers are to the questions….And the other question is what other talents does he bring, how quickly would he fit into that job.”
Levin told reporters he “can’t foresee” opposing Carter’s confirmation, and SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he expects to support the Obama nominee. Yet Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) questioned if Carter is well-suited for the position, while several other panel members on both sides of the aisle admitted knowing little or nothing about Carter.
Obama announced Monday he intends to nominate Carter, a physicist and chair of the International & Global Affairs faculty at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, to be the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. The SASC, as of yesterday afternoon, had not officially received Carter’s nomination or scheduled a confirmation hearing. Levin pledged to “move quickly” on the confirmation process.
While Carter boasts a long resume in academia and government–including extensive work in arms-control planning and service as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy from 1993 to 1996–he has not dabbled substantially in defense contracting.
“I think that’s a negative; I don’t think that’s good,” Sessions told Defense Daily. “If you don’t have a lot of experience in these (defense-acquisition) issues I don’t know how you can sit down with defense contractors and budgeteers in Congress and be able to contribute to a discussion as much as if you had that experience.”
Sessions said he’s “not trying, at [this] point, to seek to block” Carter’s confirmation, saying he is “not aware that he has any views that are unacceptable.” The senator noted he has read and valued Carter’s defense-policy writings over the years.
“But he has a pretty substantial lack of experience, I think, in actually ensuring competitive, low-cost contracts, managing contracts, cost overruns, that kind of thing,” Sessions added.
SASC members Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) told Defense Daily they need to learn more about Carter. McCaskill, who is not shy about criticizing the Pentagon and voted earlier last month against confirming William Lynn to be deputy defense secretary, said she planned to meet with her staff about Carter.
McCain told reporters he looks forward to working with Carter.
The senator, who lost the presidency to Obama last November, said “elections have consequences, and therefore I intend to vote in support of the nominees of the president.”
Asked about concerns that Carter doesn’t have extensive acquisition or defense-industry experience, McCain said: “That’s too bad but that’s not a real disqualifying reason.”
SASC member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told Defense Daily he has “a lot of confidence” in Carter, with whom the senator has worked for years.
“I’ve worked with him on a number of issues, particularly nuclear proliferation,” Reed said. “You have someone who has a broad range of experience in defense issues, extremely bright, both a policy background and a technical (engineering) background, I think he’s going to do extremely well.”
Fellow SASC member Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) noted how Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist, was criticized by some lawmakers during his confirmation process for having perhaps too much defense-acquisition experience.
“I always look at it this way, the new broom sweeps clean and the old broom knows where the dirt is,” Nelson told Defense Daily. While he said he wanted to learn more about Carter, Nelson predicted his colleagues will discuss what experience is required for the job of under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics.