By Emelie Rutherford
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) members said they plan to question nominees for four top Defense Department posts tomorrow about aircraft and shipbuilding efforts, but don’t see any major impediments to the Pentagon confirmations.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and committee members in both parties said yesterday at the Capitol they don’t see the lobbying background of William Lynn, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for deputy defense secretary, as a deal-breaker.
Levin, who met with Lynn yesterday, said he doesn’t “have any particular concerns” about Lynn’s lobbying for Raytheon [RTN], noting it is not unusual for such an official to have a lobbying history.
“You have to work on recusals, you have to work out an ethics agreement, which is a standard agreement,” Levin said.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a reform-minded SASC member who plans to meet today with Lynn, similarly said his lobbying background shouldn’t preclude him.
“People who are willing to give up money to come back into government service, that doesn’t automatically make me suspicious of them,” she said yesterday. “It’s just whether or not there’s going to be any incestuous nature to the former relationships in terms of their current position.”
Obama last week nominated: Lynn, the senior vice president of Government Operations and Strategy at Raytheon and a former Pentagon comptroller, for the number-two Pentagon post; Robert Hale, a former Air Force comptroller, to be Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer; Michele Flourney, the president of the Center for a New American Security, to be under secretary of defense for policy; and Jeh Charles Johnson, a New York lawyer, to be Pentagon general counsel.
The SASC plans to hold a confirmation hearing for all four defense nominees tomorrow morning. If the panel approves the nominations their only barrier to confirmation will be a vote of the full Senate.
Levin said he met with Lynn yesterday morning about issues including missile defense and acquisition reform, and emerged from their meeting “satisfied.” The SASC chairman said budget issues and specific acquisition queries will be dominant in tomorrow’s session.
There are questions about “whether (war-funding) supplementals are going to be included in the regular budget, and…all kinds of acquisition issues, everything from the acquisition reform side, with all of those issues involved, and why are we so far overbudget all the time in so many weapon systems, to the specific systems which I’m sure he’ll be asked about, like F-22s (jets),” Levin said.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), chairman of the SASC’s Airland subcommittee, said yesterday the issue of whether to continue the production line for the Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built F-22 stealth fighter will likely arise tomorrow. His subcommittee also plans to hold a hearing on the Air Force aircraft soon.
Lieberman said while he fought to keep the F-22 line open in the past, his “mind is open” now on the matter, as a decision nears on whether to buy more F-22s than the 183 on order.
“I want to see what (Defense) Secretary (Robert) Gates has to say, what the new administration has to say,” said Lieberman, who planned to meet today with Lynn.
SASC member and outspoken F-22 supporter Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said yesterday that he’s not sure any real F-22 revelations would be made in tomorrow’s hearing.
“I can’t imagine they’re going to come in to office being for or against a program like that,” Chambliss said. The senator added he thinks the Pentagon nominees “overall are very capable people.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the number-two Republican on the SASC, said he expects discussion tomorrow about the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, which is cited by some Obama surrogates as likely for a funding cut.
“I’m very fearful that some of (FCS) is going to be attacked, because that looks like something that’s out there and a lot of money, (but) it’s not, in terms of percentage of what we have in our ground expenditures,” Inhofe said yesterday.
SASC member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said yesterday “acquisition issues are key” for tomorrow’s hearing.
“I’m very concerned about maintaining a robust industrial base in shipbuilding, and in hearing the new administration’s plans for achieving the (chief of naval operation’s) goal of a 313-ship Navy, which I view as essential; So that will be a major issue for me,” she said.
Collins said she may have to submit her questions in writing because she must attend a hearing tomorrow of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, on which she is the ranking member. The homeland-security panel will weigh the confirmation of Obama’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano.
SASC member Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) also said yesterday he was trying to set up a meeting with Lynn about the nominee’s lobbying and other issues.
Senior committee members Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) last week lauded Lynn’s selection. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also said last week he was “pleased with the high caliber” of the four Pentagon nominees, and cited the “need to move as expeditiously as possible to confirm these nominees during this wartime transition.”