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| For
Immediate Release: March 11, 2004 |
Contact: |
Harald Stavenas |
Statement of
Chairman Roscoe Bartlett
Subcommittee on Projection Forces
Hearing on Navy Research and Development,
Transformation, and Future Naval Capabilities
This morning the Projection Forces subcommittee will receive testimony from Department of the Navy witnesses on the President's fiscal year 2005 budget request for the Navy's projection forces.
The subcommittee just completed a classified briefing on the threat to our naval forces, operating throughout the world in support of the global war on terrorism and in defense of U.S. national interests, that establishes a context for our unclassified hearing today.
In this hearing, we will examine the Department of the Navy's research and development programs and support for naval transformation and future naval capabilities. We will hear from our witnesses on Navy and Marine Corps transformation and about those critical research and development programs that support today's Navy and Marine Corps and that will provide new capabilities for tomorrow's Sea Services. We will hear about the role of the Navy's science and technology program and how it provides advanced technologies for insertion in naval systems and for future capabilities for the Navy and the Marine Corps. We will discuss the Navy's program for development of a new family of surface combatants, including the DD(X) advanced multi-mission destroyer and the LCS, Littoral Combat Ship, and for development of other critical and transformational capabilities. And we will hear from our witnesses about the Navy's critical core competencies that are necessary for successful operations in the littoral regions of the world - anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, and ship self-defense.
Today, units of the United States Marine Corps are preparing to deploy and replace some Army units in Iraq. I hope that our witnesses will, at an unclassified level, be able to address some of the measures being taken to prepare our marines and supporting naval forces for operations in Iraq, the littoral of the Arabian Gulf and adjacent waters, and any place else in the world that our naval forces may be deployed.
Our purpose today is to ensure that, for fiscal year 2005 and beyond, the nation continues to provide the Navy and Marine Corps the resources they need to achieve the right balance of force structure and capabilities to meet today's challenges and the new challenges that surely lay ahead. We owe it to our sailors and marines who defend freedom around the world to ensure that they have the ships, planes, combat vehicles, weapons, equipment, training systems, and technologies that will ensure success on any battlefield on which they may fight - at sea, in the air, or on the land.
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Washington, D.C. 20515
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