Acquisition Programs/Total Information Awareness—Aldridge briefs media - DoD Briefing - Edward C. Aldridge, Jr

Program Manager, March-April, 2003

On Feb. 7, Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics) Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge Jr., held a Pentagon briefing followed by Q&A on Acquisition Programs and the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. Also participating was Michael Wynne, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics).

I have a few opening comments this afternoon, and then we'll open it up for any questions you may have. I will first address some actions we've taken to modify our operation of the Total Information Awareness [TIA] project being undertaken by DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency].

Total Information Awareness

As you know, TIA is a project to demonstrate information technologies that can be used as tools to prevent future terrorist acts anywhere in the world. There have been some concerns expressed regarding the protection of the privacy of individuals, and to address those concerns, we're establishing two oversight functions.

INTERNAL TIA OVERSIGHT BOARD

The first is an internal TIA oversight board, which I will chair. This board will establish policies and procedures for the use within the Department of Defense of those technologies and will establish the protocols for transferring those technologies to entities outside of the Department of Defense. Other than myself, the internal board will consist of the Under Secretaries of Policy and Personnel and Readiness; the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence; the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs; the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs; the General Counsel; and the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight. The first meeting of this board will be held at the end of this month.

EXTERNAL TIA FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

We're also establishing an external federal advisory committee that would advise the Secretary of Defense on the range of policy and legal issues that are raised by the development and potential applications of TIA technologies. The charter of this committee and [a list oil its members are included in a statement that I believe was released just earlier today [p. 10], which will give you the names and what the purpose of that external board will be.

Acquisition Programs

I would now like to turn to management and improvement issues and to some of the weapon systems decisions that we've made as part of the president's FY '04 budget request. Dov Zakheim briefly covered some of these at his budget briefing on Monday but I'll give you the opportunity to ask questions if you need more detail.

DOD 5000 SERIES

The DOD 5000 series, the documentation that establishes the DOD weapons acquisition system, is ready for the Deputy Secretary of Defense's signature. We expect that momentarily The DOD 5000.1 directive is now three pages, with a five-page attachment. DOD 5000.1 tells us what we want to accomplish with our acquisition system: flexibility responsiveness, innovation, discipline, and streamlined and effective management.

The DOD 5000.2 instruction is now 12 pages, with a 24-page attachment, telling us the management framework and the elements that must be incorporated in our acquisition plans, such as evolutionary development, milestone decision points, technology plans, and criteria for entering the various stages of the programs. Those are some of the things that they cover.

You can actually read this document and know what to do. The old documentation--the directive, instruction, and regulation--was a total of 250 pages, and I will assert was never read. Hopefully, this one will be.

SPIRAL DEVELOPMENT/PROGRAM STABILITY

In accordance with my goals, most of our major weapon systems now have an acquisition strategy that includes evolutionary spiral development, and to the best of our knowledge, are properly priced to meet the schedule and performance objectives. We have budgeted these programs, for the most part, based upon independent cost estimates that tend to be more accurate than those provided by the military departments. I believe these two elements--spiral development and properly pricing programs--are essential if we are to deliver the weapon systems to the warfighter on schedule and within the performance that we have promised.

FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEM

Regarding major acquisition activities we've added funding--about $1.3 billion--for the Army's Future Combat System. The Army has made a conscious decision to defer modernization of some of its legacy equipment in favor of investing in the future of the Army. A major decision is planned for May of 2003 to enter into system development and demonstration Milestone B. We're having monthly reviews with the Army as we lead up to this decision point.

COMANCHE

We've restructured the Comanche program. It's now reconfigured for reconnaissance and light attack, and we've reduced the numbers to about 650--that's roughly half--pending the outcome of the review of the Future Combat System of the Army The program was having some difficulty in achieving its performance objectives for the full attack capability, and we decided to limit its capabilities for now.