disagree with senator mccain. i disagree with him on the statements concerning the f-22. it concerns me that we keep hearing, well, this is something the military did not want and did not ask for. i go over there and that is not their attitude at all. they say our lift capacity is in dire straits and we're still using the beat up models we keep losing engines on. lost two engines on one not too long ago. the state of the art is still there in the c-17s. we will have to do some surgery on that and some other things when we get together. on the f-22, just yesterday we read about the t-50, a fifth generation the russians have. i am not as confident as everyone else that the f-35's will be on line when everyone says. online when we say. as senator mccain just said. that we have cost overruns, problems and just recently have surfaced. i'm concerned about this. and i guess, you know, if we're down 187 f-22s, and i think out of that, what, only 120 are actually combat ready and used for combat, and yet as i read this article in the t-50, they're starting to crank these things out, and india, i things out, and india, i understand, talking about 200 of them. who knows who else is going to be buying them. so i am concerned about it, and i guess it goes beyond just that. i look at our committee, the senate arms services committee. now, on these two vehicles i mentioned, the f-22 and c-17, i don't have a dog in that fight. no prock allinterest there's, but it's the capability we're going to need and i look and see and remember so well testimony that our defense for 100 years averages 5.7% of gdp, it's now down to 3.7 and as you projected by those figures that i'm getting, it will go down to 3% by 2019. this is what really concerns me, is we're just not going the job that we need to be doing to defend america. if you consider that the number one function of government which i happen to. i do agree with senator mccain and his concern over pulling the rug out from under eastern europe on the third site, and i've read something yesterday that russia doesn't want us to have any ground base capability. i don't know. the first thing i'd ask, mr. secretary, and i should know this but i don't. if we're talking about having the capability of the sm-3 and getting that working, where would it be used? i mean, is this egypt, or where would we have this capability? >> well, in the nirnl phase it would be based on ships, but we have money in the budget for a land-based standard missile, and so it would be deployed in europe, and perhaps elsewhere, depending on the agreements that we reached with other countries. >> you don't think you'll have the, a little bit of a problem in that we negotiated and we went over there and, with the czech republic for its radar and poland for the site of the ground base interceptor? and then changed our minds? is that going to create a little problem in getting -- or have you already initiated a discussion with any of the european countries to have that capability there? >> yes and reached agreements with pols already to move advanced patriots into poland. >> that's a different capability than getting up to what we were talking about before. >> as i say, i don't think we'll have a problem. >> well, okay. all right. well, army modernization, i've been concerned about that. when you look at the, our capability on enlos cannon. first a crusader. then that was axed by the republicans, by president bush. right when we were in negotiations i might add in the senate armed services committee putting together a program. so i'm concerned about that. now we do have the pen program, good on the pallet end. i got to tell you, the same technology that they had when i was in the united states army. i mean, getting out and so i am concerned about that. and i'm concerned that general casey and general corelli both stated many times we're burning up equipment as soon as they can be procured, yet the army procurement funding decreased in this budget by $31 billion from fy 08 to fy 10. is that a good idea? >> i think a good part of that was for the army's future combat vehicle, and as you know, we're restructuring that program, and i think that you'll see significant increase when the army moves into production of that vehicle. >> well, i hope that's the case, and i hope that we're here to be able to see that as a reality. my time expired, but one last thing. i've just, one last question, if i could, mr. chairman. on the 1206, 1207, 1208 and so forth, this 1206 is fine. i appreciate the fact we've enhanced that program and some of the other. the 1207, that's the civilian to civilian. that now is going to go back to the state department, and one of the original reasons that we wanted to have this in the d.o.d. was the timing. so that when a decision is made we'll be able to get it done. do you think that's a good move? or do you think we should try to reverse that on terms of the 1207 and the trainer equip program to bring it back the way it is today? >> well, first of all, senator, i want to thank you for your support and help on 120 of, 1207, 1208, but i think you know, when i testified here last year, the plan was to begin transferring the 1207 money to the state department. i think the plan you have in front of you essentially simply accelerates that process. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator inhofe. senator ben nelson. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and let me add my appreciation to you and your families for your distinguished service. i've long been an advocate for benchmarks or measures of progress, and i think we need to continue to do so objectively. so we can gauge our efforts in both afghanistan and pakistan. and i know this administration as well as our nato allies are committed to objective benchmarks for measurement, and we've done so with past strategies and all talked about this many time. most recently in december about both afghanistan and pakistan. during that hearing in december it was noted that measures are progress were being used and evaluated, and i thought at that time that those benchmarks would be forthcoming to our committee, but at least i have yet to see them, and it seems to me one of the most important times to inform the process is at the very onset of any change. and as this mission changes course, so obviously must the way in which we measure efforts, that will change as well. have comprehensive and final benchmarks or measures of progress been developed to reflect this new strategy? and if so, when will these be made to the committees? to the committee? secretary gates? >> i think they have, and i frankly thought that they had already been provide to the committee and i'll check on it after the hearing. >> okay. thank you. could you talk a little bit about some of the areas of measurement that would be in these measures of progress? >> well, i think a couple that are pretty obvious are the afghans meeting their recruitment goals for the afghan national security forces. are they meeting their goals in terms of limiting fruition? how many are they meeting the number of units being fielded that are in the plan? are they benchmarks -- there are benchmarks associated with their training. so i think those are the kinds of things, at least with respect to the security forces that we're talking about. >> do we have anything that we might relate to our measures of progress with respect to our particular efforts? >> well, i think in some respects the president's made some, made his expectations pretty clear. he has some clear expectations and is benchmarking us on how fast we can get 30,000 troops into afghanistan. and watching that carefully. i think he has clearly set a marker in terms of beginning to transfer security authority to the afghans beginning in july '11. that's a clear benchmark that must be met. so i think we do have some. another for us is the number of civilians we're getting into afghanistan from the state department, aid and other agencies. >> are you working with the state department on, jointly in that effort? i know they've set measures of progress of their own. >> absolutely. this is as integrated and effort as i've ever seen the u.s. government undertake. >> thank you. i'd like to talk to you just a secretary about our contractor conversion efforts. you announced in the spring of '09 that the department would scale back the role of contractors and for my sense, too many years we were outforcing too much with perhaps too little emphasis on why and whether it was justify, but regardless of the makeup, outsourcing or insourcing has to make sense and the best utilization of resources both money and people. is there in place a strategic plan for the right mix of contractor government civilian and military personnel, and what are we doing to execute such a plan? >> well, first of all, our goal is to take the number of contractors in the department of defense as a percentage of the work force back to where it was prior to 9/11, which would mean taking it from 39% to 26%. the plan -- first of all, i think one of the effects of what we have seen in iraq in particular has been the revival of acquisition in a couple of the services where that is a career field had withered, and i think this is particularly true in the army, where a number of measures including the allocation of general officer positions and so on to revive that career field is an attractive career field. some other services have done better. i think that undersecretary carter has a clear idea of the right mix between contractors and civilians, but i think that the first place we need to look is that we probably shouldn't have contractors evaluating contractors. and so i think that's the first area as we make these conversions, which i might add are on track one year in. >> my time's expired. thank you, mr. chairman. >> just to implement that point, of senator nelson. i believe in this year's budget proposal you are requesting proposing maybe 10,000 contractor jobs be eliminated and changed over to employees of the defense department. i don't have the exact number. but is that not true? it's in the budget? >> our goal is 20,000. to increase the number of acquisition professionals from 127,000 to 147,000. 10,000 of those will be the conversion of contractor jobs to civil service jobs. another 10,000 will be new hires. >> and that's in this year's budget. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> i just want to implement -- just to clarify that point. >> 0,000 total is over 10 to 14, senator levin. >> over four years. >> right. >> how many in this year's budget? >> for the total is about 6,000 including acquisition and everything else. i'll have to get you the numbers specifically. >> and clarify the benchmark of senator nelson, very persistent on for the benefit of everybody in the nation, the only thing that we've received from the defense department is a draft set of benchmarks, and they were classified. so he is right. we have not received benchmarks, although we were promised them and we need both the benchmarks also in an unclassified way. >> the benchmarks i was talking about where inner agency benchmarks ay greed and those were the ones i thought had been delivered and i'll pursue that. after the hearing. >> thank you. senator sessions? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and for your good leadership, your excellent chairman. we do have a lot on the agenda today. talking about the defense budget. the quad drinial defense review, two wars, the missile defense report, don't ask, don't tell. terrorist trials and i guess i would just just briefly, mr. secretary, on the christmas day bomber, i thought your colleague mr. mukasey -- they tried moussaoui in federal court, but he pled guilty and the sentencing took a year. it was made into a circus. he pointed out that guantanamo was created for the purpose of these kinds of trials. when a person like the christmas day ballmer -- bomber leaves yemen with the directions of al qaeda and flies into the united states, i suggest he is an unlawful enemy combat, perfectly suited for detention and trial, if need be, in military custody. i think the defense department needs to know about these things. the intelligence that could be gathered from a prolonged interrogation by people knowledgeable in yemen could have added greatly to this. he has been advised that he has a right to a lawyer. he is no longer going to cooperate or talk. he is entitled to a speedy trial. there are a lot of problems with that. i hope you will be alert to that as it goes by. i think the military needs to handle the real responsibility. i would just briefly say that i have come to understand and feel more strongly about the concerns senator mccain has about setting an absolute day for beginning to leave in 2011. we will hardly have our troops in place by then. placed by then, and we see things like the, president karzai beginning to talk to the taliban. makes you wonder if he's looking beyond our departure today. i worry about that. mr. secretary, you talk about the supplemental. i've been baffled a bit by that. it seems to me that when you're in a war, a supplemental is an appropriate way to handle funding for that, and to try to force into the baseline budget funding specifically for these two operations with a couple hundred thousand troops deployed is not a good policy. why do you feel like we should do this only with the baseline budget? >> well, i absolutely do not believe we should do it with the baseline budget. i think that the purpose of providing the overseas contingency operation funding budget is, i think that it is actually in response to considerable pressure from the congress for greater -- >> i know you have gotten pressure from the congress on that. >> greater predictability -- >> but not me. >> greater predictable about how much is going to be spent in these wars, and so that the, those budgets can be considered with the framework of the normal consideration of the budget. so i think that it's -- it's certainly not a part of the base budget, but it is provided in advance in a way that gives the congress the opportunity to restru in the same way or it reviews the rest of the budget. >> well, i'm not sure. it seems we should be able to review the supplemental as well, but i guess in a way you're creating a discreet funding program that we could review and maybe that's, that would be acceptable. with regard to our procurement of major weapons systems, know that the department of defense, admiral mullen harks focused on life cycle cost, and i guess you would agree that things such as fuel and maintenance are on part of fact to evaluate, if we're going to evaluate the cost of a weapon system over a period of years? >> yes, sir. >> i know we did that on the tanker aircraft and in fact on fuel and that sort of thing are counted as evaluating that aircraft. are you -- should that be applied to a procurement program like the combat ship that the cost of fuel, should that be accounted for? >> i've long been concerned about life cycle costs. i think senator sessions you know that, long before now, and the secretary pointed out, and i think very importantly in his opening statement, that the programs that he cut last year actually had some life cycle value focused on about $330 billion. as far as what's in an rfp and what it's going to be focused on, that's something i really can't comment on -- >> well, i don't know. we've got an rfn la toral combatship that i'm told does not have any factor for fuel cost. >> but you know more about it than i do. i haven't seen it. >> well, if that's so, would you be willing to look at it and ask questions if that's a wise decision? >> this -- again, as i said, i've been long time i've been concerned about life cycle costs. actually one of the, i think, weaknesses of the acquisition system is typically the line is not involved in that. the uniformed side is not involved in that. so i'm not involved from that point in view and would under actually no circumstances see an rfp or look at its evaluation criteria in what i'm doing right now. >> well i would think you would be, your ultimate responsibility as part of procurement of the department to see at least basic requirements are being met, and i think i hear you say that life cycle costs, which certainly would include fuel, should be a factor in evaluation of the bids or the proposals? wouldn't it? >> i've said life cycle costs are an important factor and have been for a long time. >> we'll have to follow-up on that. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you much. senator udall is next. >> thank you for being with us today. secretary gates, we have a proposal from the president when i fully support to freeze non-discretionary spending, excuse me, for non-defense programs in fiscal year 2011. i think we're going face tighter budgets in future years and may have the potential need to trim pentagon budgets as well. could you talk about how you're postures the d.o.d. to be able to react to that potential? >> well, first of all, i think that situation out there in the world doesn't change, and the world is becoming more complex, and i would say more dangerous rather than less so. and i think that as people think about where we are, there are many reasons for the deficit, and the defense department certainly spends a lot of money. but if you look at the, where the defense department is today, it's very much with historical norms in terms of both gep and a percentage of the budget in terms of what we're spending. that said, i would tell thaw if the department of defense received significant reductions in its budget, that we would have to sacrifice force structure. we cannot do it any other way, and so the result of that would be a reduction in military capability and a reduction in our flexibility. f. i might, let me thank you for your focus on acquisition reform. i want to associate myself with senator mccain's remarks and i hope this committee will continue to support you as you make some tough decisions so that we extract every penny of value from every dollar that we spend, and, again, i just want to acknowledge the important work you've done there. let me turn to afghanistan. senator sessions expressed some concern, but i would like to comment that you make peace with your enemy, not with your friends, and i've been interested, admiral mullen, in the reintegration at the low-level taliban proposals forthcoming. a recent conference i believe in the uk, some significant monies pledged. could you comment on those plans to the extent that your comfortable? >> the reintegration piece is clearly an important piece of this and every commander feels that way, and very specific the reintegration is really bringing those who are literally the fighters who are against us right now bringing them into the fold, and, in fact, general mcchrystal is very focused on that. we are in the execution of this strategy, which includes that, and so getting everybody on the same page for exactly what it means and how rapidly it happens or doesn't happen is where we are very much at the beginning, but we think it is an important part, and there is no -- there is no view at this point that it is a panacea, and we just -- because we just don't see that many at this point. the other term that is used that i think is very important to understand is the reconciliation piece, which is a term that is focused on, i would call, the senior leadership of the taliban, or the senior leadership of the enemy. much more complex and, again, president karzai made it clear that e wants to get on this path, but, again, it's at the beginning, we're at the beginning of that process. i think we have to be clear about the terms and what they mean and also look at a realistic pace in terms of both expectations and actually what's happening. in that