Once again, you've assembled quite a program here, quite dramatic, although I feel like I am the extra speaker since you heard all the wisdom from John Jumper yesterday. It was good for me to have a chance to see your exhibits and to have some time to speak with some of my former colleagues, partners and even competitors from industry. You should know that one of my jobs at Northrop Grumman was to direct our company's marketing/communications, so I know the difference between a good exhibit and schlock. General Jumper asked me not to put tags on the exhibits, so I didn't do it. [Laughter]

I am very honored to be here and to share with you some of my thoughts on where the Air Force is heading in the near future and perhaps beyond. And these are my own thoughts. Having just come from a very productive Corona South meeting at Patrick Air Force Base with General Jumper and our four-star MAJCOM and numbered Air Force commanders, as well as recently returning from a trip to the area responsibility, there is much to be shared with you on air and space power this morning. John Jumper did a terrific job yesterday of touching on most of the important issues.

John Jumper. John Jumper. Having John Jumper work for you isn't always easy. [Laughter]

One day my partner John came up to me and said, "hey boss, you know that idea we have about ending the 707s and getting on and replacing them with a brand new tanker?" I said, "yes, John, that is a great idea." He said, "well, you know, Norm Dicks loves it, too." I said, "oh good." He said, "but I told him you'd sign this letter to him, so would you go ahead and just sign?" I said, "sure, John."

As recently as three days ago the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, near the end of our very long and sometimes difficult testimony, asked if there were any unfunded priorities in the Air Force. I said, well, I sure wish I had the cash to buy tankers and not have to put up with all this grief. But John is brilliant. He is the most brilliant and enthusiastic military officer I have ever encountered on the subject of military doctrine. I think of him as the Elmer Gantry of conops. He is warm. He is humorous. Tough when necessary. Highly focused and very agile of mind. A great leader.

I was delighted to propose John to Secretary Rumsfeld as the appropriate successor to Mike Ryan, one of my great friends and great Air Force officers. Although John is not from Chicago, he has the right instincts.

Don and I are both from Chicago and so you noticed yesterday he referred to Al Capone. In Al's defense, it is alleged that Al was behind the Valentine's Day Massacre. What we know for sure is that he was a tax cheat. But Al once noted and John and I and Don Rumsfeld share this point - he noted that it is oft times easier to get something done with a kind word and a gun than just with a kind word. [Laughter]

John Jumper. Johnny Jumper. The nice thing about going on television with John Jumper is he has to pause for commercials. [Laughter]

Now yesterday you saw the clever devil strategist Johnny can be. He didn't talk on and on and on and on and on because he was oblivious to the clock. He was practicing for the season of testimony that we are about to go through, noting that if you filibuster, there is no time for questions. From his point of view, let's say the Secretary is going to be there tomorrow, let him answer the questions. Now look, for a kid from Brooklyn, a poor dumb sailor, I never envisioned that in my adult life, I would be engaged in serious conversations on serious matters with officers with names like Doc, Speedy, Buzz, Juana, Waldo, Fingers, Fig, the Prince, Soup, Tunes, Sonic, Bam Bam, and Squirt. Let alone the name for Col Utterbock. [Laughter]

So hear you have us, a chief of staff, the Elmer Gantry of conops. A secretary, the Jackie Mason of defense technology. Frick and Frack and, for our TV fans, I want to tell you that we are booked again on the 21st of February I think from 7:45 to 8:30 on C-Span, so don't bother sending cards and letters until you see us there next time. One of these days we are going to start charging and then buy JDAMs with the profits.

I think it will be safe because John will not have as much make-up on. If you call in, ask him to answer the question, will you, because even C-Span has to take station breaks.

But if you saw the two of us working closely together and were around us, I think you find that we like each other, we respect each other. We respect the roles we each play in leading this great Air Force team. We both pity the poor headquarters Air Force staff that has to contend with our vivid imaginations, our absence of patience and - some have suggested - our boundless egos, as well as some of my more colorful naval metaphors.

But we are both blessed with highly tolerant wives and families. And we absolutely are dedicated to serving the men and women of our Air Force. That is why we come to work in the morning. That is why Johnny and Ellen have sacrificed well over 30 years of their lives. And it is why Diane and I are once again a military family.

Johnny clearly walks in the footsteps of General Hap Arnold and I am proud to serve with him and our Air Force colleagues. [Applause]

Permit me, having gotten you awake, to touch on some serious subjects here. I just want to give you some views on where we are, a little bit of the state of the Air Force as I see it. And this is an Air Force that was born of a technology that is less than 100 years old. In fact, our technology - air power - is newer than vacuum cleaners, newer than radios, newer than automatic dishwashers, newer than air conditioning. It is a new technology, yet we seem to have come such a long way from World War II, through the Cold War, to the present era. So, how do we stand?

With regard to our people, we have some of the finest Americans America can produce as members of our Air Force team. They are exquisite. When you travel and see them in the field, their professionalism shines. Their pride and dedication shines. Their commitment to excellence and their sense of imagination of how to take the equipment we give them and do the best for the country with it. We have every right to be proud of every one of those young men and women. They are just super.

Which means we have the obligation to make sure that they are treated right, they are paid properly, they are given equipment that is the right equipment to make sure that they dominate the field, and if we do so, we will continue to have a total force - active, Air National Guard, Reserve force - that is so good, we can honestly say, "no one comes close."

With regard to our major systems, if you look at what we have to do, what our tax-payers expect of us, I'll try to give you a sense of health of each. In our long-range strike aircraft area, we have done particularly well. In the AOR, we have done about 850 sorties, almost of that has been done by 10 B-52s and eight B-1s. And the B-1s fly 1,200 miles - one tanking - stay on station for two and a half hours, and come back. And they were damn proud to make sure I was told that. B-52s are flying 2,500 miles as if they are going from Tampa to Seattle, but carrying along 20 JDAMs for the ride. And they do that often.

We are looking at this force of the future. We are going to modernize where it makes sense to do so. We are going to make sure that our B-2s can penetrate and we are going to make sure that our B-1s have this healthy life, that when they put the wings out and get into an economical altitude, economical cruising speed, that they'll have the stand-off weapons that will make them a superb weapon system for years and years to come. Our B-52s similarly, we will modernize as appropriate. So I feel very good about our long-range attack force. We will be able to attack any fixed-point target anywhere in the world, very, very quickly with great precision. We will worry about JDAMs and JASSMs and things like that.

With regard to our fighter bomber or fighter attack aircraft, I was absolutely thrilled to read that Secretary Rumsfeld pointed out on National Public Radio yesterday that the time is right for the F-22. It is here. I am fond of pointing out this program is 20 years old this year. It is time to go into production and we are going into production. For the first time, it is a fully funded program. The prime is trying its best. Those of you who are subcontractors, please know how critically important you are to the future of our fighter-bomber force. You must deliver. You must deliver on-time. We must get these planes produced on schedule and on cost. Please, for the sake of your country, please.

The Joint Strike Fighter has been announced, as you know. It is getting off the ground and we'll see it in a few years, hopefully. Our F-15s and F-16s are serving beautifully. The F-16s with lightning pods. The Air National Guard have become sort of the demi-heroes of the Afghan war with their spot trackers and have done some magnificent work. And their pride is absolutely justified. They have just done a terrific job. Link 16s that were put very quickly in some of our F-15s are helping it to be part of this fused-mosaic of information and command and control and have also done beautifully.

In our long-range attack, I feel good about the systems it will carry in our fighter-bomber attack if we can only have steady budgets and if we can perform. And at this stage, there is no one left to blame but us. And this room is the us, ladies and gentlemen. If we do well, these programs will do well.

In the area of mobility, I think we are seeing a good future. We have a multi-year [contract] for the C-17. It is being worked to death because it has been so exquisitely good. We will probably want more than the number we have talked about because we are seeing how useful this aircraft can be, both in wholesaling and in retailing, which is quite unique. And it has performed superbly in this conflict. We will probably ask for more.

We are looking for a C-130J multi-year, assuming everything about the aircraft is exactly the way we'd want it to be. And we are going to upgrade the other C-130s, we'll gear up our old teeth, keep the best, and we want to roll up the best of the C-5s. So, on mobility, I see a good path forward. In the area of space, John and I are both dedicated to supporting Pete Teets to shape this area up. We have to get our acquisition processes to work better. We have to do a better job of integrating these systems with our other assets. And we have to make sure we have a career path in our Air Force that accords the proper respect to the men and women who are the leaders in the space community. In this regard, I am so delighted that the president has sent the name of Lance Lord forward to the Congress to be a four-star general and the head of Air Force Space.

So, with Ed Eberhart, Lance Lord, Pete Teets, the support of Elmer Gantry and Jackie Mason, we are going to make this a hell of a good area.

In the area of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance we have developed some wonderful systems, but we are dependent on a very old plane, the 707. It is not that the airplane is coming apart, it is that it is just aging and at some point, this is going to become difficult and we could have a class problem. If you go on board and talk to the young people there, you have to ask them about the stability of electrical power, about the limits of cooling, etc. It is time to start to think of taking this expression, "high-demand, low-density," and as Don Rumsfeld says, what kind of organization would create the expression, but not fix the problem? We are going to fix the problem. It may take some controversy. We may get battered about the head and shoulders a bit, but we will fix the problem. And we are going to move to a portfolio of systems: unattended vehicles, integrating space better, new aircraft, with the right amount of cooling, hopefully surface cooling. And we will ensure on the stability of power. In the area of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, we know what to do, we just have to do it. It will take some time as we shift platforms.

In the area of C2, we have new comm systems that will be coming online, advanced EHF as well as laser communications. The CAOC as a weapon system has proven itself. It was a delight as an old air controller to be flying in a C-17 in Pakistan and just monitoring the net and hearing the CAOC come up like any other aircraft. It was just wonderful. It was a kick. Having spent a good day there and although I am the eldest of the secretary's office, I noted that at midnight, my staff was dragging behind me and I was like a kid in FAO Schwartz and they finally said, "Mr. Secretary, we have to go to bed." And they dragged me out. If I can get a time, I am going to slip back in because it is just exactly the way it ought to be and it is a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, to see Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, coalition air assets together. To see the mobility people right next to the others. To see an intelligence cell working hard. Unattended vehicles. All coming in together. All being worked together. Active, Air National Guard, Reserve, allies. It is exactly the way to think about things. It is a superb notion and we want to build on it. You know we are looking at the whole notion of an MC2 capability. We will have multi-mission aircraft as part of our concept of operations - kicking down the door and controlling the battle afterwards. In fact, John and I and Pete Teets will be going up to Lincoln Labs and among other things, we'll look at the test bed that we've set up, up there. By the way, the configuration control board is John Jumper and Jim Roche, so on a couple of systems [we know the direction we want to take], but on this one, we want to experiment with what should that back-end of a new MC2 capability look like? So, here we have the right idea. And we know where we are going.

My fear is that our tanker fleet could be the horse shoe nail that could cause the horse to tumble, the king to fall and the kingdom to come apart. We only have 60-plus KC-10s. And they were brought into the Air Force because there was a difficulty in the company. There were a number of the aircraft that were built that weren't being sold. It was a win-win for both the company and the country and certainly for our Air Force. But we have over 550 KC-135s. This planes are so old, that they probably aren't any class problems left, but we don't know. And that we don't know is the part that we have to avoid. Because, if you think of the current conflict in Afghanistan, it is the first time in history there has been a conflict -because it is land-locked - where everything that has moved in and everything that has moved out has done so by air, including the water our troops drink, the food they eat, the equipment they use and the wounded among them coming out. Everything by air. It is horrible to think that at some point, we would have to shut down the 707 fleet. It is time for us to move forward. It may be difficult. We may be batted about the head and shoulders, but we intend to go forward.

Lastly, we also own helicopters. And when I come upon a helicopter that served in Vietnam the same time I did, I get worried. Because I sure as heck couldn't, but this thing is still serving our country with a lot of young people on it. And it is going into harm's way. It is time for us to worry about the CV-22. It is time for us to start think and work hard about a follow-on for CSAR helicopters. And I was just tickled to see our Chief, John Jumper, take the lead in thinking about combat search and rescue and what it means and this capability. It is one of the things we have to do.

John also touched on a number of ideas and parts of doctrine that are emerging. He spoke very eloquently about the close air support role that is coming back to the Air Force, that we will have our F-22s proudly working for sergeants on the ground. Proudly working for sergeants on the ground. It is a return to the days of Hap Arnold's 9th Air Force, working with General Patton's 3rd Army to crash out of Normandy and race through Germany. It is a capability that complements the new lighter forces being developed in the Army and gives this country yet another dramatic punch by fighting in a joint matter.

I'd like you to think of what you've seen over Afghanistan, but consider for the moment, a country where there is an enormous amount of air defenses, a heavily defended country. And think of how difficult some of the things we've talked about might be. But now I ask you to think about flights of F-22s linked to these troops on the ground. Think of the F-22s launching special small diameter bombs and super cruise against very special fixed targets and against moving targets that are deep. This is part of our future. Further, consider our other goal - we intend, not we desire, but we intend to have the capability to surveil closely and precisely for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in good weather or bad weather, day or night, some part of the globe and to understand if something moves, what that something is, by building a mosaic of information about those things. And then we intend to have the capability to have almost instantaneous attack. This is part of our future.

John and I owe a special thanks to General Tommy Franks. He has been most tolerant of our willingness or our desire to experiment. He has allowed us to put things into the theater that aren't ready for prime time, to give us a chance to work out ideas, to work through concepts and to get a sense that we can get confidence in our future and we owe him a special thank you. I don't know many CINCs who would have been as tolerant as he has been to us. And I want to say a special thank you to him for doing that. He, after all, is the reason why we are able to have Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps pilots talk to those itty bitty little pilots in the Predator and work together so very, very well.

Now, in order to allow time for questions, I will not filibuster. I will close now. But allow me to share a perspective that General Shaud recently shared. As some of you know, the last time Secretary Rumsfeld served as SecDef was 1975 to 1977. There was a little known organization in the A-ring of the Pentagon called the Office of Net Assessment. A visionary strategist named Andy Marshall led this group. That group had in it some very interesting people. It had an Air Force astra-intern named Captain Lance Lord. It had a very young, somewhat bouncing, sometimes obnoxious now brigadier general, Rich Hassen. And it also had a recent ship captain, a commander James Roche. We were working, our little group, on a subject we called adaptation, adapting, what is called "transformation" today. We came up in the 1970s with three criteria to be successful at adapting. And Lance knows these well. One is a well-defined mission and vision. The second is technology to enable the integration across what we call stove pipes. And third, leaders and people willing and capable of embracing change.

In the mid-1970s, the Air Force was attempting to redefine its role following Vietnam, a legacy that in many ways continued into the Cold War. Today, I was to assure you, our Air Force vision is well defined - global vigilance, reach and power, or in my business terms, global reconnaissance and strike, which includes putting troops on the ground, supporting those troops.

In the 1970s, computer technology was just getting a start in a big way. Today we happen to watch little but very brave and capable computer chips, as Hal Hornburg noted yesterday, die for our country as they provide the brains for our UAVs. We don't have to write letters to the mothers of those chips.

In the 1970s, there was a select group who sought change in adaptation. Today, the United States Air Force is led by, supported by, and filled with innovators who embrace change and aggressively pursue transformation and continuous process improvement. It seems only fitting that that little group from Andy's office, plus Don Rumsfeld, should be back together once again.
America's Air Force is able to perform the extraordinary feats asked of us because we have the full support of the American people, the Congress, the President of the United States and a wonderful organization like the Air Force Association. We sincerely appreciate the confidence you place in the commitment, capabilities of our airmen in uniform today. Thank you very much for your support, from all of us who will continue to work to see freedom preserved. Freedom preserved. Freedom preserved. Thank you. [Applause]


Q. Given the exemplary performance of the United States Air Force in recent conflicts, how do you overcome the Air Force falling victim of its own success in future budget battles?

Secretary Roche: There is the notion that we sometimes make things appear too easy. I think the difference is that the way we are dealing with budget issues is - I don't know if it is different from the past - so I don't wish to criticize any predecessor. John and I have decided that we will be totally transparent, completely transparent. We are not going to play games. We are going to argue our case. We are going to make our case. We are going to do our homework. And we are going to walk in and deal with things. Between us, it turns out that we really cover a lot of bases and, consequently, it is rare that someone knows the technology better than we do and certainly no one knows military doctrine better than John.

So we have been, I think, reasonably successful. Not by hyping it, John, but by making the case. By not having any of our generals out in front beating on their chest, but by being professionals, doing the job, doing the job and leaving behind the sense of confidence that the next job upon which we are called to take on, we will do it equally as professionally because we've got the type of leadership that takes that seriously.

Q. Would you say a few words about the allocation challenges involved in supporting legacy systems while at the same time making funding available for transformation?

Secretary Roche: I am in the happy position that last July things looked so grim, we didn't know how we were going to get from A to B. Now, we see, because of the conflict, because of a re-awakening of a number of people in our country to the needs of the Armed Forces and the benefits that we bring, that we have a chance to be able to go forward in the right manner. But let's not make any mistakes. We fight the current conflict with legacy systems.

John and I have to thank our predecessors, our four-star generals have to thank their predecessors. We didn't do it. They did it. It is our charge to do certain things more rapidly, like this notion of hooking the Air Force to a young person on the ground. And although that was not part of the original concept of the F-16, we adapted to that because we tend to design systems and tend to design forces that are portfolios, they can adapt easily. My favorite example is the fools who want to do away with large deck aircraft carriers. After all, they weren't needed in Kosovo, Bosnia, or the Desert Storm, said some, but they sure were useful this time. So you have to do both - new systems and legacy systems - a point that Secretary Rumsfeld has been making to the people who say transformation only means firing generals and killing systems. So legacy systems need to be well-maintained, but we can make marginal improvements in them that provide dramatic improvements. Paul Weaver is here, as one of the fathers of lightning, too. We have taken the F-16 and turned it into an exquisite companion to a sergeant on the ground.

Q. Would you please discuss the reorganization of the acquisition community in the Air Force - the assumption is there is one, I suppose - and what are the implications for industry?

Secretary Roche: That is a very good question. Dr. Mark Sambur, our terrific Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, would be the better person to do this. I hope I can reflect his wisdom as well as I can. It is his collective wisdom with people like Darleen Druyun and Steve Plumber and others. We seek to take our acquisition community and to make it more adaptive and agile. We seek to have it worry about concept of operations and worry about delivering that as compared to delivering on spec. We see, to have an acquisition community that works hand in glove with our war-fighters, that both understand the value of the other and that we adapt over time. We also wish to be transparent to American industry.

It doesn't mean that we yield every classified item that we have. It does mean that we play it straight and we play it honestly and we do it ethically. It means when a company makes a commitment, we don't allow that company to make a commitment knowing that somehow it is not going to pay off for them. That is wrong and we can't continue to do that. Creativity does not belong to any one group of people. It doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to John. It belongs to all of us. Good ideas come from lots of places, including some of those great sergeants. And some terrific people from industry. And we would like to have a climate where we hold each other accountable for that which we should do. We will hold our industry colleagues accountable, even though the industry has collapsed far beyond what I would have wanted it to. We will be open and transparent.


Q.. What is the plan to introduce F-22s into the Guard and Reserve? Also, do you plan to push for improvements in incentive and retirement pay with regard to Guard and Reserve?

Secretary Roche: We will do what is right. If it is right to make a change, we would make a change. But we can't buy a system for the Guard exclusively. We have to keep things in balance, just as we have done on stop loss and mobilization. We have truly worried about the total force, as we've approached this issue, not just one component of the force. With regard to the former, at some point we absolutely will put F-22 into the Guard. Why not? It is a total force. It is a total force, a total force.

If you need that to be explained, go to the AOR. Get any group of kids together, as I did and say, "ok, how many of you are from the Guard and Reserve?" Then you'll understand. I think when I got to a B-1 with the crew we all made peace and kissed and hugged. So that is over. By the way, it is over very successfully. I will point out to you that I view the Georgia Guard's work on Joint STARS to be a model. If this can be pulled off, this will be one of the most dramatic steps ahead in the total force that we've seen in years.

Q. There has been talk about allowing senior NCOs to stay in the military past 30 years of service, providing longer lasting experience to the force. How do you feel about this?

Secretary Roche: I share Don Rumsfeld's point that we tend to take someone at the height of their career and tell them to go away. That just seems strange. We never do that at a company. On the other hand, you can't change that over night because there is expectation of rapid growth, depending on performance and merit. We will have to work at this. There is a study going on in OSD to look at extended careers. I have been signing waivers for certain folks who have left and retired from the active force to join the Guard so they can continue to provide the competence that they have for a long term. I found on this last trip that I am delighted to see the Guard members. They are the only ones anywhere near my age. And they are just as good as ever.

Q. What steps are you taking to recruit and retain more officers within engineering and other technical specialties to correct the huge shortfalls in this area?

Secretary Roche: John, I am glad you wrote that question. This is one of our really serious areas. I can characterize it in many ways. There is a certain program in space, where we may be facing a $2 billion problem. Possibly if we had had the number of scientists, engineers and did not believe in that B.S. nonsense of total systems procurement responsibility, something that when I was in industry I wrote about and said, "this is a stupid idea"… Had we not fallen victim to that dumb idea, and had we had our own scientists and engineers, maybe we would have only lost a billion.

Let me tell you, General Jumper and I can do a lot with a billion dollars. You give us a billion dollars in cash and we'll give you some really neat things. In our space community, where we have a high demand for these folks, we are only manning at the 56 percent level. Every place else is worse. These are unbelievably valuable young people. What we are doing about it - first and foremost - we are working to keep the good people we have. I have always believed, whether it is at the company or the service, that retention is your best recruiting tool. If you can retain people, they will recruit for you. So first and foremost is to recognize this.

John Jumper tells horror stories to me of young people having to leave because somehow the bureaucracy couldn't fit their desires for graduate education with the amount of time left for them at a base. I look at him and go, "you've got to be kidding me." We've got to fix things like that. We have to take these folks seriously as well as a number of other communities. They are not the only community. First and foremost, retain. Other than that, it is to get out to universities. To get out to industry. Because we also have needs for very high caliber civilian members of the Air Force. We often forget this Air Force is a total force that includes a civilian component that is our corporate memory and our expertise. I leave tonight, I can join you at the reception, but not the dinner because General Lyles and I will go and meet with the deans of a number of schools tomorrow morning to ask if their young people to please come and serve their country in our Air Force. If they want to fly, that is wonderful. If they want to be scientists and engineers, since they are all engineering deans, that is fine, too.

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