WUSA "This Week in Defense News" - Transcript

Interview

WUSA "THIS WEEK IN DEFENSE NEWS"
HOST: VAGO MURADIAN
GUESTS: REP. ERIC MASSA (D-NY); BOB WORK, VICE PRESIDENT FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, CENTER FOR BUDGETARY AND STRATEGIC ASSESSMENTS

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MR. MURADIAN: Good morning and welcome to "This Week in Defense News," I'm Vago Muradian.

The U.S. Navy has always been fixated on how many ships it has, but are numbers more important than capability? We'll talk to one analyst who says the Navy has it wrong. But first, we went up to Capitol Hill to talk with Congressman Eric Massa, a freshman Democrat from New York. A retired naval officer who served combat tours in Beirut, Bosnia and Operation Desert Storm, Massa retired from the Navy in 2001 and was eventually hired as a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee. During that time, he began to question plans to invade Iraq and the treatment of veterans, two issues Massa says led him to switch his party affiliation and run for Congress as a Democrat.

He's only been in Congress for two months, but Massa is already regarded as one of the freshmen to watch, especially on defense. He's got seats on Armed Services, Homeland Security and Agriculture committees. I asked him what his top defense priorities are.

REP. MASSA: Well, with respect to the Armed Services Committee, I think we need to make a very, very hard and honest look at defense acquisition. It's not that we're spending too much money or too little money; it's not that we're spending it smart.

People think they're buying the right things because they're satisfying the specifications, but in many cases, the specifications are 20 years old, common sense things that could be dealt with.

I think we need, quite frankly, Goldwater-Nichols, a national approach acquisition reform and I look forward to being part of that.

MR. MURADIAN: And Goldwater-Nichols, you're referring to the 1986 landmark legislation where Congress forced the military services to have a more joint approach to war fighting.

REP. MASSA: That's correct.

MR. MURADIAN: The president has put together a sweeping plan he claims will save $40 billion. He's asked the government departments to go back and report back to him, by, I think, it's by September for sort of the more granular detail on that. You've got Senators Levin and McCain, the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee putting an acquisition reform package together.

Where do you think the House stands on supporting these packages? Where do you stand? And what are things that you'd like them to bear in mind as the legislation goes forward?

REP. MASSA: Well, from the subcommittee positions, both on maritime and air and land, I know this has a tremendous focus of both of our chairs, Gene Taylor and Neil Abercrombie, and I lend my voice to that, and the good news is that I've been able to bring 24 years of life's experiences, one of the handful of career military officers who now serves in the United States Congress.

So I look forward to telling the story pretty straight as I know it to be, and I think I'll be able to bring some gravitas to this discussion.

MR. MURADIAN: Do you -- what do you think the biggest problems are right off the cuff when it comes to the military acquisition system?

REP. MASSA: Well, first off, it's tremendously understaffed. We have decimated the acquisition professional ranks. Secondly, we've outsourced almost all the engineering. It is the contractors who are designing the ships and then they're telling us to buy them, which is one of the reasons why the Navy shipbuilding program is in such straits.

We see the same thing in all the other services. Our own in house engineering and evaluating capability has been decimated. We need to bring that back on the shoulders of uniformed personnel as the trusted agents.

MR. MURADIAN: But that is, obviously, a huge cost challenge and you're going to have to recruit. American universities -- there are those who say aren't producing engineers of sufficient quality and numbers to do that.

REP. MASSA: I don't buy that, at all, and if we talk about jobs in America, which seems to be the buzzword today, these are the kinds of engineering jobs we need.

So I'm not sure that I'm willing to say no because there's going to be challenges. All the easy problems have been answered. So these are all hard issues.

MR. MURADIAN: And also, it's a way -- there's also a service angle, I suppose also because then you're also doing national service by serving the government.

REP. MASSA: Yes.

MR. MURADIAN: Well, let me ask you then and follow up on that on your naval experience and the track that the Navy is on right now. Is the Navy on the right track, wrong track? And what track would you like to see it on?

REP. MASSA: Well, in many ways, it's on the right track, and you know, I was just at the U.S. Naval Academy visiting -- I've got to be honest with you, that place is harder than when I was there. I don't know if I could get through.

I have tremendous respect for the professionals at sea and at shore, but we seem to have lost our direction in some of our shipbuilding and aircraft acquisition programs. I don't mind swatting a fly; I just don't want to do, in fact, I'll even do the radar- powered spy swatter, but it doesn't need to be a gold, diamond- encrusted kinetic energy-driven radar fly swatter and this is what we're trying to do with some of our shipbuilding programs.

Good should not be the enemy of perfect. Tell me about a $573 million presidential helicopter? That can't work in today's environment.

MR. MURADIAN: And obviously, you've also made your views pretty clear on the DDG program, the new Zumwalt Class destroyer.

REP. MASSA: The DDX, DDG-1000 arsenal ship legacy, I stand with great questions and I did when I was a member of the professional staff eight years ago. These are nine new technologies that, in some cases, are still PowerPoint lines. You know, when we fielded the Ticonderoga Class warship, that was truly a national effort and that was to bring a weapons system to sea. We had the hull, we had the engineering plant, we had the gun and missile launchers.

We're inventing from ground zero technologies that have never been proven before at all, and to date, I'm not convinced they're going to be successful.

MR. MURADIAN: Let me take you to the budget. The president has said $573 billion, that's going to be the level playing field from here forward for the next ten years. Is that enough considering that the supplemental spending packages are going to get much, much more constrained and a lot of those items are going to get pushed into the base budget?

REP. MASSA: I'd like to see the supplemental spending packages go away. We need transparency.

MR. MURADIAN: Entirely.

REP. MASSA: Entirely. We need -- we know what we're going to need. We have been engaged in the global war against terrorism for six or seven years; there shouldn't be any surprises.

We know we need MRAP. We know we need tactical aircraft. We know we need UAVs.

These things should be put up front in the budget and discussed.

MR. MURADIAN: But at $537 billion, is that enough to satisfy those needs, as well as take care of all the personnel programs that the president says is our priority?

REP. MASSA: My initial take on the budget and I haven't read it line for line, but I have summed all the executive summaries is that we should be able to do with the top line that we're being given, but it's going to take some hard work to cut out things that aren't necessary.

I was recently at a hearing where I was told the number one threat to this country was low technology deliverable anthrax, and I asked, well, can that be delivered on a ballistic missile? And they said, well, no. Why are we looking at spending hundreds of billions of dollars continuing a Cold War-era legacy SDI program, strategic missile defense when, in fact, that doesn't address our primary threats? In fact, it doesn't address any threat we can come up with.

These are tough questions that have to be answered.

MR. MURADIAN: Do you think that there's a political will in order to do that?

REP. MASSA: I have a political will.

MR. MURADIAN: And with that, we'll be back in just a moment with Congressman Eric Massa, Democrat from New York.

(Commercial break.)

MR. MURADIAN: Welcome back. We're talking with Congressman Eric Massa, Democrat from New York. He's a freshman and he represents the district outside Rochester.

REP. MASSA: That's correct.

MR. MURADIAN: Sir, we were talking about, you know, the hard choices that are going to have to be made and you indicated a willingness to help lead in making some of those hard choices.

Bipartisanship, obviously, is a very, very big word right now, but if you looked at how the stimulus package went, you didn't particularly see a lot of bipartisanship, you know, you, yourself, went through what was a tough and acrimonious race as well.

How do you bring people together at this point? Because Democrats and Republicans are going to have to work together to build some sort of national security consensus.

REP. MASSA: Well, on the Armed Services Committee, we have a long history of bipartisanship. This is national security. This is not the kinds of issues that tend to fall into the political hot button world, but it's not going to be easy. I'm not painting a Pollyanna and there's going to have to be compromises and consensus and transparency in our conversations, but that's why it's great to have some veterans, some people of military experience like my good friend, Joe Sestak, and across the aisle, Duncan Hunter, Jr., who are in Congress now, sophomores and freshmen. I think we can achieve it.

MR. MURADIAN: There has been a drive on the part of the administration led by Jim Jones, the National Security Adviser, to sort of bring together all of the arms of national security, to have better coordination between the arms of national security. But the departments generally are still fighting over budget and turf, whether, you know, you're talking about the State Department or the Pentagon or Homeland Security.

REP. MASSA: Sure.

MR. MURADIAN: What are some of the things that Congress can do to sort of help that unity? Or do you think that's a bad idea and sort of the White House will gain too large of a voice in controlling these departments?

REP. MASSA: No, the synergy is critical, I concur with that. One of the things that we learned throughout the Iraq war experience is the power of America is not measured solely by the number of bombs on a B-52. If we're going to deploy the Department of Defense, we have to deploy the Department of Agriculture to break poppy production. We have to deploy the Department of Education to create a cadre of teachers in Afghanistan and on and on and on, and that can only be accomplished if the interagency process is rejuvenated and worked.

It is my opinion that under the previous vice president, the interagency process not only was broken, it ceased to exist. We need to bring that back and make it forefront.

MR. MURADIAN: Let me -- go over to the personnel. Annually, personnel costs continue to rise.

REP. MASSA: Absolutely.

MR. MURADIAN: The president is supportive of a pay raise, maintaining the 92,000 additional troops that the Bush administration added and those who are saying that the weapons programs are going to be the bill paying target.

Are you concerned that, you know, we may have very well compensated and well taken care of people, but weapons system, you know, the budget won't just be enough in order to satisfy those needs?

REP. MASSA: No, I'm not. I tend to believe we've overreached in our weapons system procurement that we have gone for second and third generation expensive technologies and first generation F-18EFs would be absolutely wonderful. You know, we're flying around with completely un-aircraft ready, let me rephrase that, too low in numbers, half a deck aircraft carriers as far as what our fighting air wings and, yet, we're waiting for the F-35, which is going to be three times as expensive as an F-18.

So I'm not sure we're heading in the right direction with procurement.

MR. MURADIAN: Let me ask you about F-35. There are those who look at this as the future really of the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force air wings and that the F-18 really is sort of a dead end. Shouldn't the JSF program remain at the forefront of the aircraft development program?

REP. MASSA: I certainly support the research and development and a logical deployment, but not the cost of being able to have an adequate air wing to meet our emergencies now.

MR. MURADIAN: There's this notion that is being advanced by, you know, generally folks who have been in the infantry that, you know, the war is really about the ground and the Navy and the air really are, you know, not contributing and, in fact, should be the bill payers in order to cover this.

What are the strategic risks in doing that? And how do you perceive comments like that as a naval officer?

REP. MASSA: Very, very, tremendously at risk. Let the sea lines of communication be cut and watch what happens to our land forces. We have spent 50 years learning joint integrated warfare and we should never lose sight of those because somebody is protecting turf or fighting a partisan battle. We're not going to let that happen on the Armed Services Committee.

MR. MURADIAN: The administration is putting the Pentagon on a very, very flat diet going forward. There are still enormous costs. You would like to go to a future that doesn't have any supplementals at all. Do you think that there will be any stomach in the House to go against the White House sometimes? For example, do you think the House will continue to fund F-22s if the administration cuts it? Or conversely, say, look, we see a lot of pressing wartime needs for Afghanistan, whether for UAVs, sensors or other gear and we're going to go ahead and we're going to fund it as legislature?

REP. MASSA: That's a great question, and you know, I think one of the reasons we got in some of the very difficult national issues that we've gotten into is because there was blind obedience to the executive branch of our government. I hope and pray every day that the Obama administration is successful. But the United States Congress has a constitutionally enforced requirement to build and maintain a Navy and to support the armed forces and we should never surrender the independence of the legislature, ever.

MR. MURADIAN: Sir, thanks very much for joining us.

REP. MASSA: Thank you.

MR. MURADIAN:

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