Military Times editorial board interview with Navy Secretary Donald Winter - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Military Times editorial board interview with Navy Secretary Donald Winter

Jan. 12, 2009

Participants

Donald Winter, secretary of the Navy

Capt. Beci Brenton, spokeswoman for Donald Winter

Tobias Naegele, editor in chief, Military Times

Alex Neill, senior managing editor, Military Times

David Brown, managing editor, Navy Times

Jenn Rafael, news editor, Navy Times

Amy McCullough, deputy news editor, Navy Times

Andrew Scutro, Norfolk bureau chief, Navy Times

Andrew Tilghman, staff writer, Marine Corps Times

Philip Ewing, staff writer, Navy Times

Vago Muradian, editor, Defense News

Christopher P. Cavas, staff writer, Defense News

Andrew deGrandpré, news editor, Marine Corps Times

Dan Lamothe, staff writer, Marine Corps Times

Karen Walker, editor, Armed Forces Journal

Ben Iannotta, editor, C4ISR Journal

Steve Watkins, managing editor, Federal Times

Proceedings

MR. BROWN: First off, Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming to see us. Very much appreciate you taking the time to come down and visit. What we’d like to do is give you the chance, first, to start off with any opening remarks you might have and then we’ll launch into questions.

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I’ll keep my opening remarks pretty short. I appreciate the opportunity to come by this afternoon. It’s been awhile since I’ve been here. I was here the first year I came into office, and so I guess it’s appropriate that I come by at least a second time here and as I get to the end of my service.

In that regard, since I’ve been asked a number of occasions what my plans are, I will tell you that I was asked by the secretary to stay on for a short period of time, and I have, as of this morning, agreed to stay until relieved or 13 March, whichever comes first, and to do so in the objective of trying to minimize the disruptive nature, any disruptive nature, of the transition process and to try to facilitate it and support his objectives as well in terms of supporting the department. So I’m pleased to be able to do that.

But it does say that I am very close to the end of my tenure as secretary, and I must admit I’ve spent a bit of time kind of looking back over that period. I will say, first of all, I have absolutely no regrets whatsoever relative to having taken this opportunity to serve our Navy and our nation.

It’s been an absolutely incredible experience. I think back over the, a little over three years that I’ve been in office, and think about the things I’ve had a chance to do, places I’ve been, and perhaps most importantly, the people I’ve been able to meet and work with, and it’s been an absolutely remarkable journey.

And I think quite frankly I’ve learned a lot in the process. I’ve grown a lot in the process. Learned a lot about what the men and women in the Navy and the Marine Corps really not only do but represent, and I’m incredibly impressed by all that I’ve seen.

And hopefully I’ve been able to do some good in my time, and still try to educate people within the Navy and Marine Corps relative to some of the things that I’ve been able to bring from industry.

I’ll spend some time — is it Thursday evening, Beci, at SNA —

CAPT. BRENTON: Yes, sir.

SECRETARY WINTER: — talking a little bit about some acquisition related issues, quality related issues in particular, that I think are in need of attention and hopefully provide some suggestions as to the way forward and see what I can do in my remaining couple months here to further those interests as well.

MR. BROWN: What’s the significance of March 13? Is that just the two-month point?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, the secretary asked for six to eight weeks, and so I committed to satisfying what he thought was a time period that would be sufficient to deal with the transition and hopefully to be able to get somebody in to replace me, but at the same time I wanted a date certain, and a little difficult to make plans, both for me and for everyone else in the Navy and the Marine Corps with a great deal of uncertainty, and so this looked like a good date certain, recognizing, of course, that if an individual is selected and confirmed prior to that, that I would obviously step aside for that individual as soon as they can be sworn in.

MR. BROWN: Would you stay longer if you could?

SECRETARY WINTER: I might. Hadn’t really I have to admit thought about that, though, since the election. I have very mixed feelings about leaving at this point in time.

On the one hand, having a date certain for an end, I thought it was going to be 20 January. Now it’s 13 March. We’ll see what happens actually, but that was an interesting process.

You see in industry, at least where I come from, one never has a date certain for any assignment. It’s always you get this new job and you get to do it as long as you can or as long as appropriate as deemed by those who are in the business of making such assignments, and you move on when they tell you to.

This was a little different, and it did act, I think, well, in terms of focusing my time, my efforts, my energy, on a series of items that I thought were important. And it also gave me a lot of, if you will, comfort that says, OK, there are some hard times here, and I got to tell you, there are some really difficult times, and it’s not a fun, fun job, if you will, but you take those in measure, and you get comfort out of the fact that, hey, you just got to get through and do the right thing by the men and women in the Navy and the Marine Corps during this period of time, and it will be OK.

So I’ve a lot of mixed thoughts. I mean in many aspects, like I said, this has been the most incredible job I’ve ever had, the most satisfying period of time in my professional career, and in some aspects I wish I could continue on, but also I think that it perhaps would not have been as rewarding had it not been as time specific as it is.

MR. BROWN: I’m not sure I follow in terms of what made this point in time more rewarding than any other?

SECRETARY WINTER: Oh, I mean in terms of my career, my life, separating out some personal experiences, seeing my sons born, things of that nature, seeing my first granddaughter born. Those are unique experiences.

But putting that aside, in a professional sense, there’s nothing that comes close, and I’ve had, I’ve had some great experiences — don’t get me wrong — in industry. I’ve watched satellites be launched. I’ve watched them being used. I’ve participated in major competitive wins and things of that nature which were all viewed as great highlights of a career.

But there’s nothing like, I mean, I made seven trips to [U.S. Central Command]. The people I’ve met, the people I’ve interacted with, their families, our foreign partners, coalition partners, it’s been incredibly rewarding, and seeing what they do and understanding how they’re able to have an impact.

We have a, we’re a different organization, and I’ve worked in some organizations that I thought were very tight and had a great deal of loyalty and commitment on the part of the employees, but they were employees. They were not members, not in the same sense as people are service members, sailors and Marines, that have volunteered and committed to do whatever is needed, to put their lives on the line, and their families. They’re incredibly strong, resilient, and I’ve seen that.

I remember shortly after I was sworn in, I went to a wake, and it was for an individual that I actually had met over in Iraq just the week before he had been killed, and I was very nervous about it, just, you know, how is the family going to react; what’s their view of the situation?

I was just blown away. The support, the sense of strength, the strength of that family, and I saw it again this past weekend when I ran into a SEAL that I had met this time in Afghanistan, and he was at the commissioning down in Norfolk, and he came up to me, and just wanted to shake my hand, reintroduce himself and introduce his wife, and I started to tell his wife about what an incredible job her husband did, and how much I appreciated it, and hoped that she understood, and she just basically cut me off and said, look, we understand; we’re there to support them.

And I mean it was just one of these things of, here I am worrying about how she feels about her husband taking on very dangerous job, and SEALs, you know, they’re out on the point, no question about it.

And it was like, hey, you don’t need to worry about us. We’re taking care of each other. These are remarkable people, and just to be associated with a group of people like this is, I find, just, just fantastic.

MR. BROWN: You mentioned a series of items that need your attention before you leave. What’s tops on that list?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I’m going to talk a little bit about the quality aspects Thursday evening, and one of the things I’m trying to do there is just to get people focused on some of the needs of quality in acquisition. We’ll wind up, I think, perhaps working through some budget issues between now and when the budget is submitted.

We have a budget basically, but obviously there are some items yet to be worked, and the secretary has indicated an interest in trying to work through those very quickly.

A few personnel-related aspects of I think we’re in reasonable shape. There’s nothing that’s kind of overhanging that I need to deal with right now. I want to work through some of the environmental aspects. Got records of decision for a number of the training areas, things of that nature. We’re trying to work through these things so that everything is either completed or is in a manner that it can be handed over to our successors in an appropriate manner.

MR. BROWN: On the personnel front, we reported that at the end of the fiscal year, end-strength was up intentionally for the [individual augmentee] [Global War on Terrorism] Support Assignment mission. Understanding that we’re still about 10,000 sailors above the end game in 2013, do you see those pauses continuing, and in fact is the drawdown effectively over if you need to continue this mission?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, we’re looking at the IA function a little bit differently than we had previously. I think everyone recognizes that when the IA concept came out initially, it was viewed as a very short-term effort. It now obviously is going to take a little bit longer, and in fact, some of those aspects, whether or not you want to call them IAs or however, represent a demand function on Navy resources that is consistent with what we’ve done in the past.

I’ll give you an example. We have Seabee units not only supporting Marine forces, which has been historical mainstay of the Seabees, but supporting Army and Air Force units as well. Nothing wrong with it. The Seabees are doing what Seabees do.

And to some extent what we’re seeing is a greater demand function than had been originally anticipated. So we’ve increased the size of the Seabee structure, added a battalion.

That’s just, if you will, reacting to the demand function in a permanent way, and where we see that, we have adjusted our manpower forecasts accordingly. This is a part of a long-term function for what is inherently a Department of the Navy capability.

There are some other aspects of IAs where you’re dealing with yeomen doing a wide variety of activities in support of administrative functions for the Army or what have you, which we really don’t view as an increased demand function for an inherently naval capability, and so we look at those as activities that need to be supported based on supplemental resources, supplemental budget, or by other services that bring the money over.

So we’ve been trying to work through all of those, and at the same time taking a look at how effectively we’re able to introduce new technology to be able to reduce ship manning, for example; how effectively we’re able to modernize and make more efficient some of the shore facilities, use civilian personnel or contractors where it’s appropriate, but only where it’s appropriate.

And we continue to update our estimates where we need to be in end-strength. We’re still going to come down just a little bit, you know. To a great extent the large reductions in head count and end strength are down, are over — excuse me — if you will.

And right now we’re looking very hard at force shaping and things of that nature to make sure that not only do we have the right numbers, but we have the right type, we have the right skill base, the right level of experience, and make sure that we have the shape of the force that we need for the future.

MR. BROWN: Is the end goal still the same, though, because we’ve been operating with this idea of 322 at 2013? Do you see that changing or should we expect to see that actually happen?

SECRETARY WINTER: I don’t think we’re going to see any major changes in it. At the same time, we’ll continue to look at that very carefully as time goes on here.

Sure.

MR. LAMOTHE: Good morning. Thank you for coming. Dan Lamothe, the Marine Corps Times. I wanted to sort of follow up on the manpower theme with the Marine Corps side of things.

We’re at or just short of 202 active-duty Marines. We’re also sort of at a transition period in terms of Iraq and Afghanistan. I was curious if you saw that 202K number potentially changing, going up, going down, as we move forward?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I think, first of all, the 202 number was a good sizing, a good goal to work to, and I think we found over the last year or so that it’s been relatively easy for the Marines to get to the 202 number.

We’re not fully there yet, but we’re a good part of the ways there, and we’re going to get there, quite frankly, earlier than people had anticipated, and, oh, by the way, I think it’s very important to note that we’ve been able to do so without any compromise at all in terms of quality of the people that we’re bringing into the Marine Corps.

Any metric that you use in terms of percentage — high school graduate, scores on the standardized tests, things of that nature — we’re bringing in the people we want. Take a look at the success rate at boot or future classes, things of that nature. It’s fine. If anything, it’s gone up a little bit over the last year or so.

And the only area where we really changed things in a significant way, accepting home-schooled individuals on a par with regular high school graduates. The numbers aren’t that great, first of all, and second of all, we see the same success rate in both categories. So we’re very comfortable with what we’re seeing in terms of Marines that are coming in.

I think it’s going to take awhile to see. We need to stabilize that 202. We’re still in the process of building some of the facilities to support them. We’ve got a very extensive barracks construction program that’s ongoing at this point in time. Acquiring the appropriate equipment. Everything is in step and in process.

I think, quite frankly, until such time as we see what comes out of the [quadrennial defense review], I don’t expect to see any changes in terms of the end-strength target for the Marines, but I see us completing this growth activity and completing it in terms of not only the head count but also all the other facilities and supporting capabilities.

MR. DEGRANDPRE: Secretary, can you give us an idea of what the Corps’ footprint is going to look like in Afghanistan and Iraq over the next few months?

SECRETARY WINTER: I really can’t. I think I recognize what I do and what the combatant commanders do in terms of the actual force laydown in theater. That’s something that CentCom will determine.

My job is to make sure that they’re properly trained and prepared and equipped when they go over. I think we’ve done a very good job in all of those areas. I spent a good bit of time over the last year to make sure that we have the training that’s appropriate, not only for Iraq but also for Afghanistan.

And that includes the type of training that requires us to go to up to places like and Bridgeport in addition to Twentynine Palms. Requires different cultural and language training, but I think we’ve been able to work that in and establish the basic training program that prepares our Marines to coordinate. In my visits to Afghanistan both in terms of the eastern area of the theater as well as the southern and western, I’m very comfortable that we’ve got appropriate training activities that’s supporting the needs of our Marines.

MR. DEGRANDPRE: General Conway has been pretty adamant about wanting to draw down in Iraq and move some of those troops in Afghanistan.

Do you support him on that?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I think it’s a matter of ensuring that we have the numbers to be able to maintain our deploy-to-dwell cycle which we have committed to both in terms of active duty and reserve forces, and I think what he’s talking to is just kind of a mechanism of achieving that, given what may be a demand function in Afghanistan.

It’s really a matter of satisfying all of those, if you will, input parameters that say I need so much here, I need so much there, and as well as at the same time maintaining our commitment to our Marines and their families that we’re going to abide by our deploy-to-dwell cycle commitments.

MR. SCUTRO: Sir. Back to Navy manpower.

SECRETARY WINTER: Sure.

MR. SCUTRO: When it comes to, where do you stand in respect to outsourcing Navy jobs? Are we at an acceptable level? Do you see other positions that are potentially ripe for outsourcing or potentially some jobs that have been outsourced that really belong back with Navy personnel?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, look, I’d hate to ever say that there were no jobs that we’re doing right now within the department that couldn’t be outsourced. There may very well be some. At the same time, my greater concern is that there are a number of areas that we have chosen to outsource through various mechanisms that we need to take a good hard look at.

I think I’ve been particularly outspoken relative to the positions associated with the acquisition programs, the need for Navy, and by that I mean really Navy and Marine Corps, to really take the lead in defining the fleet and the Corps of the future and its equipment needs, and to be able to define the process for continuing to modernize the fleet, and I don’t mean just the ships, but the ships, the aircraft, land component, all of that that goes with it in an appropriate manner.

It is a modernization of the fleet, and it occurs over a long period of time. It takes us many years to build a new class of ship, and we operate with multiple classes at any given point in time.

And how we do that to best effect, how we use those new capabilities to provide us with enhanced fighting capability for carrier strike groups, for expeditionary strike groups, for [Marine expeditionary units], I mean we’ve got to make sure that we work through all of that, and that has to be done by Navy, and then we go ahead and acquire a piece of that because we don’t fight a new ship by itself. You don’t even fight a new aircraft by itself.

You’re fighting that integrated capability, and how to best improve that is something that I think can only be done properly by the Navy. It’s hard to contract that out, and it’s gotten harder with the industrial base that has restructured itself over the last several years, and in particular, there used to be a time when there were a number of contractors out there that were SETA, Systems Engineering and Technical Advice, contractors that were able to provide advice, counsel and guidance in such matters without being inherently conflicted relative to the results that came out.

There still are a few, but for the most part everybody is part and parcel of the same business, and I think it’s more and more difficult these days to be able to get that type of unvarnished advice and counsel as to what’s in the best interest of the department outside of the Navy.

I think it’s also just part and parcel, if you will, of what’s needed to be an intelligent buyer. You need to really understand what you’re buying. You need to understand what’s important, what can be traded off, and if you don’t participate in the real development of the specifications that say what it is that you want to buy and why, and not just worry about the hardware, but worry about the hardware and the people and the ConOps, the concepts of operations, the way this is going to be employed, it’s only then that you can really develop the understanding that enables you to be a smart buyer of that.

And so I’ve been pushing very hard to expand the acquisition workforce, to expand it in terms of those areas where we need the competency from systems engineering to contract specialists to program monitors and to be able to build those competencies in the department.

And by the way, I do believe that this would, if we’re able to do this right, it will make life easier and more profitable for industry because the better off we’re able to do in terms of specifying what it is that we want to buy so that we can go ahead and identify what do we want, what’s important, what’s tradeable, all of those things, and do it once, not with a lot of changes, but get it out there, give people a real understanding of what it is that we need, that should hopefully minimize the churn, if you will.

And provide a playing field where people understand what really will make the difference, where companies should invest, how they should focus their activities, and give them some confidence that the programs that are initiated will be done or will be continued through their conclusion, and hopefully they can respond by giving good honest solid estimates on cost and schedule that they can live with.

MR. SCUTRO: You sound pretty dissatisfied with this sort of lack of clarity and lack of definition of the Navy saying really what it needs, and maybe in that vacuum, the industry has come back and told the Navy what it needs. Any specific examples?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I think this is something that has transpired throughout the entirety of the building. OK. We’ve gone from an era in which we specified things perhaps to too great an extent and told contractors not only what we wanted, but how we wanted them to do every little thing, and we went from that extreme all the way to the point of saying, well, we won’t tell you what we want; we’ll just tell you what our needs are.

We had SONs, Statements of Needs, and things of that nature. And then we got into the point where, you know, it’s a little bit of the bring me the rock type of syndrome of, well, we’ll see what they bring in. And, you know, one of the problems with that is that there are multiple decisions in any acquisition process.

What is it that you want to buy? How do you want to buy it? Who do you want to buy it from? And more often than not, we got caught into making only one decision which grouped all those sub-tiered issues in it. Go out for competitive process. Nowadays many of these programs, you’re lucky to get two, maybe three bidders, and it’s all in there — the technology, the suppliers, the development process, the price, the contractors.

And so you’ve got hundreds of decisions that are all important, but you really get only — we, the Navy — get only one decision: buy from this or buy from that.

It can’t be optimum. And it invariably is not optimum. Just the logistics support — I’m trying to remember offhand how many thousand different valve types we maintain in Pennsylvania for the various ships. We don’t specify. We don’t have a preferred supplier, a preferred parts list, and so every ship comes along, the contractor goes ahead, and, you know, tries to do the best they can, minimize the price, improve the schedule.

The next thing you know you got another supplier in there and another supplier and a different part and a different — and in the end, though, we’re supporting in the logistics chain all these different components, and, oh, by the way, that includes training, you know. How many different generators do you need? How many different pumps? And how many different types do you have to have your personnel trained on?

These are not optimum, and so going through this process and trying to provide more specificity I think will support the Navy’s interests, and it is a pendulum, if you will, and we went from one side, and there was a correction, and that was probably a good correction.

And the last thing in the world I would ever want to do, by the way, is to go ahead and have the Navy or the Marine Corps or any part of the DoD specify a computer and tell me, tell a contractor how to go ahead and architect and build the computer.

I’m perfectly comfortable with the commercial off-the-shelf computers that we’re able to get because, by the way, they have been developed and refined through a highly competitive process that’s at the heart of our economic system, but I also note that there is no equivalent highly competitive process that is part and parcel of the development of technology for a warship or a combat helicopter or an armed vehicle.

And so we ought to recognize that there are times where buying a commercial component is exactly the right thing to do, and we can go ahead and get away from [military specifications] and standards and all of that, and let the marketplace define a product in a competitive environment that works well for us, and we can go and pick and choose what we want, and there are other cases where, let’s face it, there is no competitive process. There is no shelf that you can go and find, no shelf and no store, that you can go find a warship sitting on.

Does that help?

MR. SCUTRO: Very much so.

MR. EWING: Sir, getting back to the personnel issue just briefly. We hear often anecdotally from the fleet that more and more ships are sailing today with fewer and fewer sailors, kind of as a part of the Navy’s attempt to take people off to get the cost down. And I wonder if you’re concerned about that trend reaching a level at which safety becomes an issue? Ships having too fewer sailors to deal with accidents or casualties?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I always worry about safety, and across a broad range of issues, everything from ship safety to motorcycle safety. Be happy to talk about that as well.

But at the same time, we need to recognize that there are opportunities to reduce manning levels through the appropriate use of technology. Just quick, frankly, I’ve been on LCS 1 Freedom several times now, and had a chance to ride her not only in trials but also she came out of the [Great] Lakes through the St. Lawrence.

And it really is remarkable to see what you can do on the bridge. I stood watch for a period there, and took the helm, and it’s amazing what you can do with that system, and you don’t need a lot of help, and you don’t need many people up there on the bridge, and you don’t need people in the engine room either.

There are systems that have, in fact, been perfected through the commercial competitive process, not for a warship, but for commercial vessels. Adapting those to our warships gives us a lot of potential, the ability to make a ship which is much more efficient to operate and has equal or greater capability.

Developing these technologies, learning how to employ them on our vessels, learning how to appropriately crew those vessels, is a critical part of what we’re doing right now.

We don’t want to give up on safety. We’re very mindful of that, both in terms of normal operations and damage control and all of those considerations.

But at the same time, we don’t necessarily need to have the same type of crew structure that we did years ago when we had coal-fired boilers, and what we’re doing right now is a major change, a significant change, in terms of the approach to crewing the ships, and I think it’s going to be an exciting one.

I think it’s going to give the sailors of the future a lot more satisfaction because what we’re doing in many cases is taking away a lot of the work that has not been the most satisfying and exciting part of being a sailor on a modern ship.

We’ve seen this in terms of the civilian mariners’ activities on the [Military Sealift Command] ships and now we’ve got to go ahead and bring it into the warfighting version.

MR. NAEGELE: That’s for the new ships, for new construction. What about manning for existing ships and maintaining that at the level that it was, that those ships were designed for, as opposed to what is often the case now, somewhat fewer?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, first of all, there are very few ships that have stayed the way they were originally designed, and we continue to modernize those ships as we bring in new capabilities. We’re doing that with the cruisers right now. We do that with the carriers every time they come in through [a refueling complex overhaul]. We do it with the submarines.

And we will continue to do that, and when we do that, we need to reflect those changes in modernization in the crew structure. And other than that, we will continue to look at our experience with those ships, the way in which we need to support them, the way in which they need to be maintained, and we want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing by way of the crew and the ships as well.

MR. NAEGELE: But you have seen some instances where the ships’ capabilities really did deteriorate over time. Maybe that wasn’t because of crew. Maybe it was other things. But it’s a concern.

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, look, we’ve had a few cases where I’ve been a bit disappointed. I won’t hide the fact that I was very disappointed with the situation that we were faced with on the Kennedy, and when I got those initial reports and went down to go and do a personal visit, an inspection, to see exactly what had happened, it became very evident that we got into a mode there where we deferred maintenance and you can go back and take a look at each decision, and I did go back through that entire record, and you can kind of understand why each decision was made.

And I don’t want to second-guess those who made those decisions, but the fact of the matter is that by deferring two major availabilities, we contributed significantly to the operational condition that the ship found itself in.

We need to avoid that. I think that’s a major part of what we need to do in the future, and I think what we are doing right now in terms of being very mindful of the need to provide maintenance on a regular cycle.

Now, that cycle may wind up being adjusted over time as we change the technology in these ships. And the interval, if you will, for some major availabilities is going to be different for a diesel and turbine-powered ship than it’s going to be for an older steamship.

We need to be mindful of that. We need to look at that as we go through and take a look at life-of-hull reactor configurations, things of that nature.

So it is a matter of learning. It is a matter of adjusting with the technology that’s being employed. And it’s also a matter of making sure that we don’t get behind in the maintenance cycle.

MR. CAVAS: Can you, since you brought that up, of course, about a year ago, there were two rather high-value assets, Aegis assets, a Pearl Harbor-based cruiser and a Norfolk-based destroyer, that had particularly sinful InSurvs virtually at the same time, and some people sort of blew that off saying, well, you know, some InSurvs are better than others, which is true.

But from everybody I heard from, you rarely see anything of that nature with any Aegis ship, and you had two virtually simultaneously in opposite fleets at the same time.

Are you satisfied that the Navy has done what it needs to do in the time since then to avoid that situation happening in the future? Are you happy? Has enough been done?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, first of all, I —

MR. CAVAS: And what has been done?

SECRETARY WINTER: I’m very happy with InSurv, and I know that InSurv can on occasion —

MR. CAVAS: The Board of Inspection and Survey itself.

SECRETARY WINTER: — come across — yeah, yeah. I think that they do a very good job of being a truly independent organization and saying it as it is.

There are occasions where people take umbrage at that, if you will. I’ve seen that both as part of in-service inspections as well as inspections on acceptance from, associated with delivery.

And, you know, I think it’s very important that they be given a full range to say what it is that they find on a ship. It is up to the rest of the Navy and the industrial base to deal with those comments, and not get all that upset about them.

I think that we continue to learn, we continue to adjust, we continue to work through, and I believe that those lessons learned have been factored into the maintenance cycles and the scheduling that’s been set up for similar ships of the class at this point in time.

MR. CAVAS: So you’re happy with the level of funding and the assets that go into supporting the ships right now?

SECRETARY WINTER: That’s — you know me. I’m never satisfied about anything, and I think that’s, you know, to some aspect, that’s one of the privileges of the job I’ve got is I don’t have to be a cheerleader, if you will. And I can be, try to continue to set high standards and expectations, and I will continue to push for better, both in terms of maintenance activities at sea as well as those that are conducted within the various yards that we use, both our own and others.

And I’m going to continue to push very hard on the quality issues that I see in the original production and delivery. And by the way, one of the things I want to emphasize is that when I talk about quality, I’m not just talking about the normal [quality assurance]-type deviation assessment and inspection. We need to design end quality. And we’ve lost a lot of that over the last several years.

MR. CAVAS: How so?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, you know, there was a time period where we knew what we knew and what we didn’t know, and we were concerned that we didn’t know a lot, and so we designed a lot of margin.

Lunchtime today we were talking about DC-3s still flying around in various places in the United States, and I maintain that one of the reasons why we have so many DC-3s with so many flight hours on them is that we knew back then we didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t have the tools and techniques right now.

And we designed in a lot of margin, and that margin provided value. It provided value in terms of environments that we couldn’t quite anticipate. It provided value in terms of extra life.

Nowadays, we have a tendency to believe that we know exactly how everything is going to work, and we develop these extremely intricate and very capable mathematical models of everything from ships to aircraft to land vehicles, and we put a lot of effort into them.

Now, the models themselves are in many cases very, very good, and very capable, but they’re really only as capable as the assumptions that we can put into them, and you always have to wonder have we gotten all the assumptions right? Do we know not only how the particular component or system was designed, but how was it built?

Are there any manufacturing errors in that process? It has to do with the way in which the piece of structure was machined or the way in which a joint was soldered.

Do we truly understand all of the environmental factors, the way in which that individual system is being used? If we don’t understand all these things, then there’s a certain degree of uncertainty, and yet we have a tendency right now to push so much for performance. There is this sense that we’re going to pick, you know, getting back to this competition, and everything gets decided all at once, that whoever comes up with the highest performance factor wins.

And whether that’s the greatest endurance, greatest speed, greatest load-carrying capability, however performance is defined, and we tend to put things like maintainability, reliability, and availability in a secondary consideration in many cases because it’s a lot harder, quite frankly, to measure and determine it.

I can measure performance typically operationally. I could take a look at the range of an aircraft or the range of a missile very easily. I could determine a power level, the emitted power of a radar, very, very readily. Much more difficult to define maintainability.

MR. CAVAS: Level of maybe arrogance or complacency in the process?

SECRETARY WINTER: I wouldn’t say it that. I would say it’s more a view that this is what the system has rewarded in the past. As long as we keep on rewarding performance absent any consideration of maintainability and reliability, I think we’ll get what we ask for. And yet I think it’s much more important in many aspects to have a system that works when you want it, when you need it.

One example I’ll use Thursday evening, [unmanned aerial vehicles]. Right now if you take a look at our needs in theater, we need UAVs. We need to have surveillance capability in theater, and in fact, it’s more important the number of UAVs that we can put up at any given point in time, number of orbits that we can maintain, than it is to worry about the resolution that the sensor package on a given UAV can achieve.

And yet we often have a tendency to focus on that performance factor, whether it’s resolution or endurance or whatever. We don’t worry about the availability considerations. And you can get availability through many mechanisms, but most of those mechanisms start with design.

So it really is a matter of at first principle taking a conservative approach at the design so that you can ensure that you have the margins that will provide you with the reliability, the maintainability and the availability that really is going to support operational utility.

MR. CAVAS: That seems to be the antithesis of what’s been going on in the past few years.

SECRETARY WINTER: I’m not sure I would be quite so harsh, but I would say that I think a rebalancing is needed here.

MR. MURADIAN: Speaking about intricacy and airplanes, where do we stand on Joint Strike Fighter? Our understanding is that the unit cost has gone up, and that there may be another two-year delay on the program, and is that what’s driving the Navy to put in all the money on a new F/A-18 multi-year in FY10?

SECRETARY WINTER: I must say we are still very optimistic about the JSF program. We’ve got the [short take-off, vertical-landing version] moving along, I think, very well. I’m very comfortable with the modifications that have been implemented for the engine.

And by the way, that is perhaps a good example of designing in a bit of margin because I don’t want to get into the technical details, but we’re basically buying some margin in the way in which that issue is being addressed, and I think it’s far better to do it that way than to get into a big argument as to whether or not you could deal with only one of two potential fixes.

But I think we’re still very optimistic about the overall JSF program, and expect to see that it’s going to be a mainstay of the department’s needs in terms of both the STOVL and the carrier variant. Now the carrier variant obviously is a little bit further behind.

But that was part of the plan in the prioritization. We have an alternative for the carrier-based aircraft in terms of the Super Hornets, and we have some pretty modern Super Hornets in the fleet as well as some Hornets that still are giving us very good service.

The Harriers are another matter, and there really is no other alternative that anyone has been able to identify to support the amphibious operation and the operations from our large-deck amphibs.

MR. MURADIAN: So no delay is what you’re saying right now? I mean there is this rumor that the unit costs have soared, and that there was going to be a two-year delay and —

SECRETARY WINTER: And the sky is falling and all of that. I’m not sure where all of that is coming from.

MR. MURADIAN: And the F/A-18 multi-year in FY10? There’s a third multi-year?

SECRETARY WINTER: Let’s see. I, I must admit I can’t recall anything of that nature, but — I mean we are going through the SLAP, the Service Life Assessment Program, on the F/A-18s, and I’ve been briefed several times on that.

I am impressed, I have to tell you, by the way in which we’re able to manage our fleet these days. Our understanding of exactly what each individual airframe has seen over its history, our ability to take all of that in and factor it in in terms of both maintenance cycles and future tasking I think is extremely impressive.

And I think that we’ll be able to do a good job of service-life management of the fleet here in the future.

MR. TILGHMAN: Sir, can you say whether you think at this point there’s going to be some plans to purchase additional Super Hornets or to deal with this much talked about fighter jet?

SECRETARY WINTER: I think that would be speculative on my part, and I’d prefer not to go there.

MR. EWING: Continuing with aviation, the Navy has asked and may ask again about an exemption for the carrier fleet to cover the gap between the ship leaving and the ship coming on in the next couple of years, which I think is going to lead a lot of people this year especially to talk about the size of the carrier fleet.

And we’re curious about whether you still think the Navy needs 11 carriers, and if not, what’s an acceptable number? And what you and other Navy leaders should do if Congress says that you should have more or less, how hard will you fight to keep the level at its current level or what will you do when that issue comes up?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, look, first of all, understand there is a difference between a long-term average and what you have at any given point in time. What’s really important is not the number of ships that I have on the Naval Register at any given point in time, but getting back to some of the quality discussions, it’s back to the question of availability.

How many ships are available at any given point in time? How many are ready to go to sea? How many could be deployed if and when needed? And how quickly could you go ahead and deploy those ships? We have a series of commitments that we’ve made. Those have been worked out with the combatant commanders.

On average, we believe that we can meet all of those commitments with 11 carriers, and that’s the reason that we have taken the size and the commitment that we’ve made, the agreement with the Congress.

Now, can you deal with fewer carriers for a short period of time? Certainly you can. It’s a matter of managing how many carriers are in various availabilities at any given period of time.

When you go into an RCOH, a refueling and complex overhaul arrangement, you’re committing to a long period of time in which a carrier is going to be out of — I shouldn’t say out of commission, but it’s not going to be available.

You’re opening up that carrier. You’re refueling the reactor and you cannot count on that carrier for that entire period of time.

There are other availabilities that are less than that in which you could deploy a carrier within a reasonable period of time even though it’s in a maintenance availability at the beginning when you get an alert.

So it’s a matter of going through and managing that process without getting into the situation that we talked about earlier with the Kennedy where we were deferring in a long sense, long-term sense, some major overhaul periods, and so we think that we can manage our way through a short period of time where we have less than 11 carriers.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re prepared to reduce the number of carriers from a long-term perspective, and as is with any of these fleet sizings, you’re going to wind up with some periods of time where you’re up and down, a little bit above, a little bit below. And that’s just the process.

And it’s a matter of getting down to very detailed eaches. I mean there’s a planning process out there and you can go and take a look at any given week. Over the next — I don’t remember how many years — and where every carrier is planned to be, and you really need to get down to that level of detail to understand why it is that we’re able to deal through this problem.

MR. NAEGELE: Well, is it a problem?

SECRETARY WINTER: It’s not really a problem.

MR. NAEGELE: Do you —

SECRETARY WINTER: Naw, it’s a good point. It is not a problem. It’s just a matter of working through the scheduling. It’s a problem because, you know, we want to make sure that the Congress and the combatant commanders are both comfortable with what we’re doing.

MR. NAEGELE: And if they are, could the Navy survive and function with fewer than 11 carriers?

SECRETARY WINTER: Not on a long-term basis. Again, we can work around the problem. Excuse me. Not a problem. But we can work around a reduced number for a short period of time because for a short period of time, I can adjust the number of carriers that are in an availability.

On a longer-term basis, you’ve got to deal with the averages, and our assessment is right now we need 11 carriers.

MR. NAEGELE: Could ships — you talked about quality issues and availability before. Could ships be designed to last longer between availability?

SECRETARY WINTER: Question, could we get away with a life of hull for a carrier? I mean life of hull core for a carrier. We’ve just done that, if you will, for our submarine fleet. And, in fact, it’s a major factor in terms of our future plans and fleet sizing for our attack submarines.

We’re not quite there for a carrier. A carrier represents such an incredible capital investment that every time we look at it, a major mid-life refueling winds up being the right answer.

Now, that doesn’t say that it may not be in the future possible to deal with it, but as of right now I don’t see that we’re going to be able to get that.

MR. NAEGELE: Go back to something else you said before when Chris was asking about the ships, and the comment that in the recent surface ship construction, complexity has been the rage and simplicity and margin has not been.

You indicated that maybe those priorities weren’t quite right. What should the plan, if you were sitting down with your successor right now, what should he or she be thinking about in terms of construction of a new surface combatant?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, first of all, I wasn’t addressing just shipbuilding in that discussion. I think it goes across the board, but I will say that for shipbuilding, one of the things that we need to look at very carefully is the balance between capability and numbers.

We have a tendency to presume that all ships have to have the same capability, and yet presence is increase — well, continuing problem, increasing problem. Presence is important any way you look at it, and again I’ve tried to talk to this on a few occasions.

When you take a look at what has transpired over the last several decades, we’ve gone from an era in which we were very focused on the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and very specific objectives in terms of being able to deter them and to prevail if needed, to a situation in which we’re dealing with a broad spectrum of threats that run the gamut of everything from piracy to actions of terrorists and rogue nations to continuing challenges of deterrence.

And several things about it. First of all, where it’s going to happen is not at all well defined. The nature of the challenge is not knowable until you’re almost there. And in particular our ability to respond with new products and capabilities is very limited given the very long time periods that it takes us to develop new systems, new capabilities.

So we have to recognize the alternative of developing what I sometimes refer to as a portfolio strategy. You don’t need to have a multi-billion-dollar ship to confront pirates. But you do need to be able to maintain a presence off the Horn of Africa, off the Gulf of Guinea, off many other locales around the world.

And, oh, by the way, you may have to adjust that presence as time and situations warrant. Now that doesn’t mean that you can give up on the high-end capabilities because there are other people out there who are continuing to invest in very advanced and sophisticated naval platforms.

So the whole question is, how do you maintain the balance? How do you build that balance between capability, performance, if you will, and numbers? And that’s something that we’ve got to be very, very careful of in the future.

If we keep on pushing everything to be the most capable platform, we will wind up with a cost per ship, even on an average basis, that limits our ability to achieve the fleet size that we’re looking for.

MR. CAVAS: Sounds like you’re pushing something like the Northrop Grumman patrol frigate which gives you everything you just said.

SECRETARY WINTER: I —

MR. CAVAS: Sounds like you just did a pretty good testimonial for that.

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, I’m not even sure I know enough about the specific —

MR. CAVAS: It’s a gray-hulled national security cutter.

SECRETARY WINTER: Well —

MR. CAVAS: It gives you a presence. It fights pirates. It’s low end. It’s an existing platform. Not pushing lots of margin.

SECRETARY WINTER: There are many issues with that particular offering. I’ve seen that one. At least I saw a version awhile ago. I wasn’t all that impressed by it.

MR. CAVAS: Really?

SECRETARY WINTER: Yeah.

MR. SCUTRO: Speaking of pirates, sir, you know, we’ve got sailors out in the 5th Fleet area right now, you know, face to face with that lower end of the spectrum that you mentioned. But now with the [combined task force], formation of CTF-151, what can sailors going into that region expect? Is the U.S. Navy going to be more aggressive with this problem or is it really someone else’s problem?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, it’s everyone’s problem, first of all. I think it’s very important that people understand the very large distances we’re talking about, the challenges of providing maritime security in the area.

If you just take a look at the coast of Somalia, for example, I believe the coastline is about 2,300 nautical miles. I mean this is a big spot on the globe that you’re talking about trying to provide maritime security.

And so notwithstanding all of our objectives to try get a fleet size that gives us good presence, we’re never by ourselves going to be able to provide security through that entire range. That said, if we all work together, many other nations of common interest in maritime security — by the way, even nations like the Chinese are interested for their own reason, not unlike ours, in maritime security.

If we’re all able to work together and also if we’re able to train and educate the merchant mariners on how to deal with some of these threats, you know, kind of the mariner’s equivalent of locking the door at night when you leave the house, I think we’ll be able to do quite a bit in terms of enhancing maritime security in the range.

To that end, to the end of developing the most efficient coalition partnerships, I think that setting up CTF-151 separate and distinct from the other coalition task forces provides us with a lot of value.

It enables, first of all, a focus on the specific mission of counter-piracy. And second of all, it enables other nations that choose to join CTF-151 to know exactly what’s expected of their ships — rules of engagements, operating ranges, mission, things of that nature, so that they know exactly and it minimizes some of the challenges, if you will, of coalition development.

I think that if we’re able to really bring together a coalition, if you will, of international partners, we will get a level of presence out there that will have a material impact on the piracy that’s been going on.

MR. LAMOTHE: To broaden the issue, piracy and the Marine Corps go way back. Could we see —

SECRETARY WINTER: I kind of remember that in —

MR. LAMOTHE: Could we see ship-to-shore missions? Could we see Marine involvement at all?

SECRETARY WINTER: I would not want to rule out anything, but I would also emphasize that if we ever were going to go and do any actions on land against pirates, it would have to be well prepared so that we knew what we were doing, where we were going in, where they were, and so that we had a clear understanding of what needed to take place, and we’ll just have to see how this all evolves.

MS. McCULLOUGH: Sir, going back to something else you mentioned earlier, the motorcycle safety.

SECRETARY WINTER: Yes.

MS. McCULLOUGH: The Navy and Marine Corps had a high number of motorcycle-related deaths this year. In addition to the mandated classes already, is there anything else that the Navy is looking at to reduce those accidents, and is the Navy looking at any type of punishment for people who don’t take those classes?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, let me tell you what we are doing.

MS. McCULLOUGH: OK.

SECRETARY WINTER: Which is that I’ve got a session later this week with the senior executives from four of the principal manufacturers of sport bikes that are sold to our sailors and Marines. We focused on sport bikes for a very specific reason: when we take a look at the accident history, over the last, I think it’s three years, the last set of data I looked at, we’re actually doing pretty well in terms of most classes of motor vehicle accidents.

But sport bike injuries and fatalities are just growing exponentially. And right now if you take a look at ’08, a Marine is just about equally likely to be killed on a sport bike and killed in theater in action.

I mean the numbers are very unfortunate, and by the way, it’s not just all motorcycles either. Pretty good track record on cruiser bikes. I won’t say it’s perfect, and I won’t say that I’m not going to continue to push for better safety programs across the board, but there clearly is a very significant issue with sport bikes.

And we’ve gone through the numbers, and there are a few very specific makes and models that are the principal issue, the principal culprit here that we have in many of these accidents and injuries.

And so we’ve invited the four manufacturers to come in. It’s not just myself, but I’ve gotten the support of the other service secretaries. So this will be a session with both Air Force and Army secretaries and their staffs participating.

And our objective here is to try to work with the manufacturers to try to develop programs that enhance safety. We have seen some significant improvement in certain areas. I shouldn’t say improvement in total, but we’ve seen some corrective trends.

We can see the effect of the training programs that have been put in place. We need to get more of that. We need to get expectations properly set.

You know we take a new pilot or somebody that wants to be a pilot, we don’t start their flight training in a jet aircraft. And yet we have so many cases these days with sailors and Marines who go and buy sport bikes, highly powered motorcycles that are really intended for racing purposes, as their first motorcycle.

And we’ve had cases with people who have crashed them causing disabling injuries and in some cases death just after a few hours on those motorcycles.

People need to understand what it is that they’re buying, and they need to understand that there are alternatives, and I believe it is appropriate to expect that the manufacturers will help in explaining that and in making clear their full suite of products that they have available, and more appropriately, if you will, target the market that is represented by our young sailors and Marines.

MR. TILGHMAN: Sir, I’d like to ask you a little bit about the other end of the spectrum in terms of the senior leadership. Over the past year or so, we’ve reported about a number of high-profile firings, the skipper of the George Washington, [Rear Adm. Charles] Goddard at [Naval Sea Systems Command], the CO of the West Virginia, just this week the skipper of the Tortuga. To what extent do you have any concerns about the command climate, the performance of that level leadership, and the screening for those positions?

SECRETARY WINTER: Look. We’ve had a long-standing history and tradition of maintaining high standards and holding people accountable. We will continue to do everything we can to screen people, to train people, to prepare people, to ensure that we do the absolute best. As we go through the board process, we’ll make sure the precepts help the board select the right people and select the right people for command.

That said, you can’t always get it right, and mistakes happen, and sometimes it’s not just a mistake of promoting or positioning the right individual. Sometimes situations change, and when it proves not to work, I think it is incumbent upon the service to take the corrective action.

And I think to a great extent, that type of high standard and expectation and accountability has been one of those factors that have distinguished, if you will, the Navy and the Marine Corps.

And it comes from the ancient history of our Navy, and the idea that when a ship goes across the horiz, you know, over the horizon, that ship and its crew is totally and completely dependent upon the captain of the ship, and you damn well better have the utmost confidence in that individual.

And that’s a level of responsibility that I think mandates strict accountability. Don’t want to abuse it. Don’t want to minimize it.

MR. TILGHMAN: Do you have any concerns about these examples of late in the current situation?

SECRETARY WINTER: I have concern about every circumstance in which we have a person in command who is not doing everything that should be done, but it’s a matter of going through, analyzing the eaches, the specific of each individual situation, and taking the corrective action in a most expeditious and timely manner.

MR. NAEGELE: What are the patterns? The number of skippers fired in the Navy is really a staggering amount. I mean is there something wrong with the selection process? Are the wrong people getting picked? Or are they, do they feel so much like they’re free to do whatever? They’re so free that they get in trouble because they were too aggressive?

I mean is there any pattern? I mean I don’t think that any one of the other services has a pattern like the Navy has had over the past five years, the number of fired skippers.

SECRETARY WINTER: I’d say again we have a history and a tradition of strict accountability, and I believe that has served our Navy well, and I see no reason to change that approach.

MR. CAVAS: So the other services are not as strict?

SECRETARY WINTER: I can’t comment on that.

MR. CAVAS: What about the Marine Corps? We don’t seem to have the same sort of rate of dismissals in the Marine Corps.

SECRETARY WINTER: I think you have in any land force a different structure, if you will, where you have multiple individuals engaged in command, in a command structure, at any given point in time.

And I think that that just fundamentally changes the responsibilities that are placed on those in command.

MR. CAVAS: It’s not just ships. It’s actually, it’s pretty — they’re aviation squadrons. They’re land, I mean shore establishments.

MR. BROWN: Submarines.

MR. CAVAS: Well, those are ships.

[Laughter.]

SECRETARY WINTER: Those are ships or boats as you —

MR. BROWN: Ask them.

[Laughter.]

MR. CAVAS: They float when they choose to do so.

SECRETARY WINTER: We’re going to continue to maintain our standards.

MR. NAEGELE: You’re not really answering the question, sir.

MR. NEILL: Has there been any review of —

CAPT. BRENTON: I just need to point out that we’re about 15 minutes beyond your schedule, sir.

SECRETARY WINTER: OK.

MR. NEILL: But accountability, the Navy is to be credited for accountability, but don’t you look at these numbers at some point and say, you know, the goal is to not have the carrier fire or the groundings or the failed InSurvs?

SECRETARY WINTER: Oh, most definitely.

MR. NEILL: So do you review?

SECRETARY WINTER: Yes, in detail every single incident.

MR. NEILL: The training? The training, though, and the screening?

SECRETARY WINTER: Look. The objective is always to get down to root cause, and the root cause is not just somebody didn’t do something, but it’s why didn’t somebody do something? Or why did somebody do the wrong thing?

Was it selection? Was it training? Was it fatigue? And you know in going through each and every one of those incidents is a major part and parcel of what we do, and we’re doing that. You know, I’m sorry. I can’t go through the statistics off the top of my head, but I’m going through a Marine Corps review of that just the other day. And so we do it in the Navy. We do it in the Marine Corps.

We will continue to do it that way. And look for root cause because only by going down to the root cause are we really in a position to identify the corrective action that will avoid having this happen a second time.

MR. MURADIAN: Sir, is it, just before we started, you mentioned about having two people at a party and you know you better know who everybody is at your party and stuff like that.

Is it the clash of the naval culture with more monitoring than we’ve ever seen? I mean is it that stuff used to happen a long time ago and didn’t used to get caught as much as it does now maybe is what’s happening in a kind of YouTube culture where everybody is sort of documenting and e-mailing and everything else?

SECRETARY WINTER: I don’t know. It may be part of it. We do have much better records than we ever did. When we have issues, being able to go back and look in those records and understand exactly what’s taking place is most helpful, and I think it supports our objective to try to learn from each and every incident and try to do everything that we can to make sure that incidents undesirable incidents do not reoccur.

MR. MURADIAN: May I just have —

MR. NAEGELE: Well, when you were talking about motorcycles, you seem to be very knowledgeable and detailed in which bikes are the problem. Sport bikes are too powerful, people don’t understand what they’re riding, what they’re buying. What’s the root cause that you see most prevalently among these firings?

SECRETARY WINTER: See, I think you’re trying to drive a comparison there that’s just not doable. I’ve looked at — I look at each and everyone of these. And I will say that I see a wide range of causes.

MR. NAEGELE: Alcohol being one of them.

SECRETARY WINTER: Alcohol is on occasion one of them.

MR. NAEGELE: Are there others and what are you doing to try to address those root causes that you talked about drilling down to?

SECRETARY WINTER: We work through each and every one, and whether it has to do with selection or training or issues in terms of equipment, we try to provide that. In some cases, it really gets down to the individual, and that’s a little bit more difficult to deal with than it is dealing with a specific piece of hardware or acquisition or what have you.

Nonetheless, we try to use those lessons learned, and they factor into everything from our precepts to our training activities.

MR. NAEGELE: A couple examples?

SECRETARY WINTER: Oh, I think to go back to the alcohol one, we totally revamped the alcohol program at the Naval Academy last year. I think we went through, changed the training program there, the educational program. We implemented standards that were enforced very rigorously.

MR. NAEGELE: But it might take 15 or 20 years for those guys to take this test.

SECRETARY WINTER: We — I have an old statement I’ve made I’ve used many, many times in my tenure. There’s a plant nursery not too far from here in northern Virginia that has a sign right by their arbor, their tree selection. And it says very simply that we’re often asked when the best time is to plant a tree. The answer to that is 20 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is today. Can we help you?

Now, they’re trying to make a point there, but I’m also trying to make a point. Yes, some of these things take many years to correct, and you do what you can to communicate to the fleet at large, to all the people in the Navy and the Marine Corps what expectations are, and at the same time you try to work the core issues, if you will, the root cause of the problem.

And sometimes, yes, it’s going to take many, many years to fully effect that corrective action, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. And at the same time that you take that long-term corrective action, you’ve got to figure out how to deal with the short-term as well. But don’t forget to take that long-term corrective action.

I really do think I need to leave at this point. I’ve got a few other things yet on my agenda this week and today.

MR. CAVAS: Before you run, you started off saying that you were going to stay until March 13. Is there anybody else —

SECRETARY WINTER: Or unless relieved earlier.

MR. CAVAS: Or until relieved. Has anybody else in your department right now agreed to stay or who else has agreed to stay?

SECRETARY WINTER: See, I’m not in a position to make announcements relative to the rest of my staff.

MR. CAVAS: I’ve heard Mr. Stackley is staying, for example.

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, if he’s told you that, I suppose that’s true.

MR. CAVAS: So you only want to speak for yourself at this point?

SECRETARY WINTER: I only want to speak for myself at this point.

MR. CAVAS: OK.

MR. MURADIAN: And, sir, one last thing. You mentioned something about a national patrol frigate not being up to muster for a variety of categories. What are some of the categories that give you pause because there are a number of surface warfare officers who think that would actually be a decent surface platform to replace the frigates?

SECRETARY WINTER: See, we’ve got I think a very good program with the littoral combat ship right now. I am convinced that that provides us with a very good and flexible capability, and in particular the modularity of LCS compared to this alternative — I can’t even remember what you call it — provides us with the ability to adapt both in the short-term and the long-term to be able to evolve.

Any time we look at the flexibility of that platform and compare the two, we see the tremendous advantage. We also believe that LCS if produced in quantity can be brought in for a good price point.

MR. CAVAS: Like what?

SECRETARY WINTER: I’m not going to get into the specific numbers, but considerably less than what we’re paying right now, and you know the situation. Go and take a look at any aircraft and you never ever take a look at the first flight articles that are used for test purposes and say, well, that’s what it’s going to cost for production.

MR. CAVAS: You have two LCS contracts supposedly ready to award. Are we going to see those in the next week or two?

SECRETARY WINTER: We’ll see.

MR. CAVAS: I heard January. Should we still be thinking January?

SECRETARY WINTER: Well, hope so.

MR. CAVAS: You hope so.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROWN: Thank you for your time, sir. Appreciate it.