Statement of
Chairman Curt Weldon
Hearing on Future Combat System and
Force Protection Initiatives
This afternoon the Tactical Air
and Land Forces Subcommittee meets to receive
testimony on the land component and related
programs in the Fiscal Year 2005 budget
request.
We have two
panels of witnesses: For the first panel the
General Accounting Office and the Department
of the Army will provide the Subcommittee with
their views on the Future Combat Systems
program. During the second panel,
representatives of the Departments of the Army
and the United States Marine Corps will
provide us with testimony on force protection,
unfunded requirements associated with
equipping our forces and sustainment of the
current force into the future.
I've maintained
through the years, first as Chairman of the
R&D Subcommittee, again as Chairman of the
Military Procurement Subcommittee, and now
today that the proposed defense budgets were
insufficient to adequately fund the programs
included in the budget requests. The GAO,
concluded in 2003 that the current Army heavy
force would be required to remain in the
inventory through at least 2020. In order to
extend our current capability to 2020, this
force would need to be maintained and
upgraded. The funding to support the current
force would require significant investment.
Our past experience indicates that the current
force is constantly short changed by ever
escalating cost growth in development
programs.
Maintaining
current equipment is the major challenge. It
is our responsibility to make sure that we do
not sacrifice today the capabilities and
equipment provided to our soldiers in order to
field a capability two decades from now.
The Future
Combat Systems is the Army's flagship of
transformation. As envisioned, FCS would allow
the Army to rapidly deploy and operate in all
types of military operations, ranging from
small-scale contingencies to major theater
wars. The technological and organizational
advances that FCS promises would keep the Army
well ahead of near-peer threats for decades.
The FCS program
has a number of progressive features. The
"system of systems" architecture within which
individual systems will be developed is a
dramatic improvement over the past practice of
designing separate systems and then making
these systems interoperable after the fact.
Another
progressive feature is the collaborative
environment in which the Army program
management, the contractor, and the
war-fighter community are developing the FCS
requirements.
Finally, FCS
accounts for lethality, survivability, and
sustainability as equally important key
performance characteristics at the inception
of the program.
Unfortunately,
the Future Combat Systems program also carries
very high risks. The Army has never managed
any program the size and complexity of FCS: 18
systems, 32 critical technology areas, 34
million lines of code, 129 trade studies, 157
essential programs being developed independent
of FCS, and all in 5 ½ years. FCS will cost at
least $22 billion through 2009 and $92 billion
through the fielding first 15 Units of Action.
The software task alone is five times larger
than that required for the Joint Strike
Fighter and ten times larger that the F/A-22,
which after two decades is finally meeting its
software requirements.
If FCS
experiences the technical difficulties that
every major development program seems to
experience, the cost overruns will consume the
Army's budget. If Comanche, Crusader, or F-22
are portents of the magnitude of the problems,
then FCS R&D could cost $30 to $40 billion.
Can DOD or the Army afford such an investment?
We do not want to be here in two years
rebaselining FCS.
Let us consider
the long-term and the overall DOD budget. CBO
projects an approximate 30 percent shortfall
in required funding to execute the long term
defense plan. Given the overall national
fiscal realities, the question is: "How do we
reduce the risk in developing FCS so that we
can afford to provide funding for FCS without
sacrificing the current force?" We need FCS to
be successful.
I do want to
commend the Army for facilitating transparent,
pro-active congressional oversight on cost,
schedule, and technical risk from the
inception of the program.
We look forward
to hearing from our panels about this program
of the future and about meeting the needs of
our soldiers and Marines today as they fight
the Global War on Terror.
###
House
Armed Services Committee
2120 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515