New LCS Executive Office To Be Created

The offices that manage the U.S. Navy's littoral combat ship (LCS) program are to be combined under one executive, according to a Navy official, bringing together the ship and mission module development efforts for one of the service's largest ship construction programs.
Since its inception in 2003, the LCS effort has been split in two - one office to develop the ship, or sea frame, and another office to oversee development of the complex mission modules that are unique to the LCS concept.

Now, with two ships in service, two more under construction and more under contract, increased focus is being placed on how the ships are used and supported in the fleet. Those aspects will also be included under a new program executive officer LCS (PEO LCS).
Sean Stackley, the Navy's top acquisition official, discussed the changes Wednesday morning during an all-hands call at the Pentagon, the Navy official, speaking on background, confirmed. Stackley reportedly stressed that the changes do not reflect any program performance issues, but rather are a result of increased momentum coming from recent LCS construction contract awards and integration of the ships into the fleet.
There are no plans to eliminate any jobs as a result of the reorganization, Stackley reportedly said.
The program offices are all established under the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). While a detailed announcement is expected soon, the reorganization would reportedly include the following offices: Remote Minehunting System (PMS 403); LCS Mission Modules (PMS 420); and Mine Warfare (PMS 495) - all now organized under the PEO for Littoral and Mine Warfare.
From the PEO Ships side, the offices of Unmanned Maritime Systems (PMS 406) and Littoral Combat Ship program (PMS 501) would be included.

Indian Defense Leaders To Visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar

NEW DELHI - A.K. Antony will make the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Saudi Arabia and Qatar when he leads a senior defense delegation to the two gulf countries May 7-9.
Antony will be accompanied by Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar, Lt. Gen. A.S. Lamba, the vice chief of the Army Staff, and other senior Defence Ministry and armed forces officials.

In the first leg of his visit to Riyadh, Antony will discuss with top Saudi leadership issues of bilateral and regional importance. The visit also aims to increase defense interactions between the armed forces of the two countries, especially in the areas of training and technical exchanges, says an Indian Defence Ministry release.
India and Saudi Arabia have regularly exchanged defense-related visits, and Indian and Saudi ships have visited each other's ports.
In the second leg of his visit, Antony will go to Doha.
"Expansion in bilateral exchanges and regional security issues will come up prominently during the discussions that Antony will hold the Qatari leadership," the release stated.
India and Qatar signed a bilateral agreement on defense cooperation during the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Doha in November 2008. The Indian and Qatari armed forces have exchanged visits and participated as observers in each other's exercises.
India and Qatar are working toward the joint manufacture of weapons and equipment, including ammunition and light weapons for the troops, and also electronic warfare systems, said Indian Defence Ministry sources.
In 2006, India attempted to buy 12 used Mirage aircraft from Qatar but agreement could not be reached because of price differences.

Romania Air Base to Host U.S. Missile Shield

DEVESELU, Romania - Bucharest said May 3 that U.S. missile interceptors would be deployed in southern Romania, a key link in Europe for a defense shield, prompting Moscow to ask for "safeguards" from Washington.

Romania's Deveselu air base is seen May 3. Washington and Bucharest said May 3 that U.S. missile interceptors will be deployed at a former Soviet-built airbase in southern Romania, the first such move in Europe for a future defense shield. (Daniel Mihailescu / AFP via Getty Images)

Romania and the United States have been negotiating for more than a year about the deployment of ballistic missile interceptors, which should be operational by 2015.

"We have decided that the anti-missile shield will be deployed at the former airbase at Deveselu," Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a televised address.
Moscow, which fears the shield could be turned against Russia, swiftly demanded assurances from Washington.
"In this situation, U.S. legal guarantees on their intention not to deploy a missile defense system aimed at the strategic nuclear forces of Russia is becoming even more relevant," Russian Foreign ministry said quoted by news agencies.
The Romanian airbase, located in an agricultural region 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of the Bulgarian border, was built nearly 60 years ago with assistance from the Soviet Union.
In 1952, the first Soviet-made MiG-15 aircraft landed on the 700-hectare (1,700-acres) base.
Nearly a third of it will be used by American troops, whose number could go from 200 to a maximum of 500.
Closed down in 2002, the airbase will need investment worth 400 million dollars to become operational again, officials said.
An "American district" will be built in the 3,300-inhabitant village, the mayor Gheorghe Bece told Mediafax news agency.
"We are confident that Deveselu will be an excellent site and will prove to be the optimal location" for the interceptors, Lt. Gen. John Gardner, deputy commander of the U.S. Europe Command, told journalists.
The choice was made after a detailed analysis of security requirements, Basescu stressed.
"This place used to be a lot better when the military base was operational. Now all we have is agriculture," Nicolae Nutescu, a 53-year-old farmer, told AFP.
"I hope that the village will be bustling with activity again" when the U.S. troops arrive, he added.
Washington originally planned to install its anti-missile shield in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic, aimed at countering feared attacks from Iran. But that plan, which angered Russia after it saw itself as the target for the shield system, was scrapped by U.S. President Barack Obama in September 2009.
Washington has since reworked the scheme and signed a new treaty with Moscow on reducing strategic nuclear weapons.
Russia has said it reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if Washington presses ahead with missile defense systems in Eastern Europe in a way that Moscow opposes.
But Basescu stressed May 3 that the shield was "purely defensive and not directed against Russia."
"The U.S. missile shield has been discussed for a long time at both a political and a military level. So I don't think Russia still has doubts about its defensive nature," former foreign minister Cristian Diaconescu told AFP.
The deployment of the U.S. European-based Phased, Adaptive Approach for Missile Defense (EPAA) system started with the presence since March in the Mediterranean of a guided missile cruiser equipped with Aegis radar, the USS Monterey.
The second phase is to include the deployment of 24 SM3-type interceptors in Romania, followed in 2018 by a similar deployment in Poland.
"This is the highest level of security Romania can attain," Basescu said.
Analysts said the agreement marked a step further in the strategic partnership between the U.S. and Romania, a former communist country seen today as one of Washington's closest European allies.
Basescu's announcement coincided with the start of a visit by Ellen Tauscher, U.S. Undersecretary of State for arms control and international security affairs, who went to Deveselu on May 3.
Basescu also said U.S. troops and military equipment bound for Iraq and Afghanistan would be allowed to transit through its main port of Constanta on the Black Sea as well as the local airport.
"We have approved the use of the Mihail Kogalniceanu airport and of the harbor of Constanta for the transit of U.S. troops and equipment going to Iraq and Afghanistan and back to Europe," Basescu said in his televised address.
"Kogalniceanu and Constanta will thus become two strategic sites for the U.S. as well as for Romania."

U.K.'s Marshall to Supply Fuel Tanks for USAF KC-46A

LONDON - British company Marshall Aerospace has secured an order to supply body fuel tanks to boost the performance of the Boeing 767, selected by the U.S. Air Force to become its new KC-46A in-flight refueling tanker.
European industry may have missed out on the big prize when EADS failed to win the huge KC-46A contract, but U.K. companies aligned with the 767 bid have started to see their position on the Boeing team turn into firm contracts.

Marshall Aerospace announced it has been awarded a deal to design and supply body fuel tanks for the 767-derived tanker to increase flight range and refueling capability.
Each aircraft will carry four of the tanks. Initially, the Marshall deal covers a batch of tanks destined to be fitted to development aircraft, but the Cambridge-based company said in a statement that it expects production orders will follow from the USAF for more than 650 tanks over a 15-year period.
The value of the program is expected to exceed 100 million pounds ($165 million) over the duration of the program, and Marshall said it expects that number to rise on the back of export prospects for the tanker.
Boeing has previously awarded Marshall body fuel tank work on aircraft such as the P-8 Poseidon, the 777 and the 747.
Earlier this year, Boeing's 767 beat out a bid by its European rival, which offered a variant of the Airbus A330 airliner, to supply 179 KC-46A tankers to the USAF.
In February, British company Cobham announced it was to supply the hose and drogue refueling systems for the KC-46A. Most of that work will be conducted at a new facility in Davenport, Iowa.
Cobham was in a win-win situation; its market-leading refueling systems were also specified for the Airbus plane.
A Cobham spokesman in the U.K. said he expected the total amount of work generated for the company by the tanker order would be about $1 billion over the life of the program. That work would be dominated by supply and support of the refueling systems, he said.

Romania, U.S. Agree on Shield Site: Official

BUCHAREST - The United States and Romania announced plans Tuesday to install missile interceptors at a former air base in the south of the Balkans country for a future defense shield, the first such deployment in Europe.
The two governments have been negotiating for more than a year about the deployment of ballistic missile interceptors, which should be operational by 2015, and the announcement came in a televised address.

"We have decided that the anti-missile shield will be deployed at the former airbase at Deveselu, in Olt County," Romanian President Traian Basescu said.
The airbase, which will remain under Romanian command, will host an average of 200 U.S. troops and up to a maximum of 500.
The choice was made after a detailed analysis of some 120 parameters that should meet the highest security requirements, Basescu stressed.
Washington originally planned to install an anti-missile shield in Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic, aimed at countering feared attacks from Iran.
In September 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama scrapped that project, which had been pushed by his predecessor George W. Bush and enraged Russia.
Washington has since reworked the scheme and signed a new treaty with Moscow on reducing strategic nuclear weapons. Russia has said it reserves the right to withdraw from the treaty if Washington presses ahead with missile defense systems in Eastern Europe in a way that Moscow opposes.
But Basescu once again stressed that the shield was "purely defensive and not directed against Russia."
He added that the interceptors would be part of a missile shield that NATO plans to develop in the coming years.
"This is the highest level of security Romania can attain," Basescu said.
Romanian officials had previously said that the Balkan country was to host 24 SM3-type interceptors.
Basescu's announcement coincided with the start of a visit by Ellen Tauscher, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. Tauscher and Romanian officials were to visit the airbase later in the day.
The U.S. official said after meeting with Basescu that Washington was grateful for help from allies such as Romania in the fight against terrorism.
Basescu also announced that U.S. troops and military equipment bound for Iraq and Afghanistan would transit a Romanian airbase and a harbor on the Black Sea.
"We have approved the use of the Mihail Kogalniceanu airport and of the harbor of Constanta for the transit of U.S. troops and equipment going to Iraq and Afghanistan and back to Europe," Basescu said in his televised address. "Kogalniceanu and Constanta will thus become two strategic sites for the U.S. as well as for Romania."
Constanta is the main Romanian sea harbor.
Basescu said the Kogalniceanu airbase, used by U.S. troops during the war in Iraq, will also temporarily shelter four U.S. tankers and four Hercules C-17 aircraft.
A close ally of the U.S., Romania was among the first countries to join the international forces deployed in Iraq and currently has 1,770 troops in Afghanistan.

Levin: Bin Laden Death Underlines Need for Afghan Pullout

The death of Osama bin Laden reinforces the idea that there needs to be a robust withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan beginning in July, Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said May 2.
"I think there's going to be a lot of strong feeling on the part of most Democrats - I think many independents and even some Republicans - that the decision of the president to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan starting in July should be a robust reduction," Levin told reporters during a conference call.

The news that the al-Qaida leader had been killed would not necessarily make that withdrawal larger than already planned, he said.
"I believe it was going to be robust in any event," Levin said, acknowledging that there is disagreement within the Obama administration about how large the troop withdrawal should be.
Levin would not give a number for how many troops he thought should return home from Afghanistan, but he did say it should be "significant," not symbolic.
Removing bin Laden from the picture puts the Afghan government closer to assuming responsibility for its own security, he said.
"The potential of the Afghan Army and the police to take responsibility is greater now," Levin said.
While bin Laden provided little or no day-to-day operational guidance to al-Qaida, his survival gave the group a sense of mystique, the senator said. But bin Laden as the "guiding hand" is now gone, he said.
However, Levin also said he expects retaliatory attacks from al-Qaida.
"That should surprise no one," he said.
As for how the news out of Pakistan will play into the larger debate in the U.S. over the debt and defense spending, Levin said the country needed to find savings in the defense budget before bin Laden's death and it still needs to find them now.
"I think the urgency to find those savings will remain there," Levin said.

Painstaking Intel Led U.S. Forces to Bin Laden Compound

U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden toward the end of a 40-minute firefight on one of the top two floors of the main building inside the al-Qaida leader's Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound, senior defense officials confirmed May 2.

Pakistani soldiers and police officials keep vigil near the hideout of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after U.S. Special Forces killed bin Laden in a ground operation in Abbottabad on May 2. (AAMIR QURESHI / AFP via Getty Images)

An initial DNA analysis done on bin Laden's body resulted in a "virtually 100 percent DNA match of the body against several bin Laden family members," a senior intelligence official said. Bin Laden's body was also visually identified by a woman at the compound who is assessed to be one of his wives.

Bin Laden's body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier stationed in the north Arabian Sea where service members prepared his body under traditional Islamic procedures. He was buried at 2 a.m. May 2 at sea after U.S. diplomats could not find a nearby country willing to accept the body, a senior defense official said.
U.S. personnel onboard washed bin Laden's body, placed it under a white sheet and then inside a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which a native Arabic speaker then translated, before tipping the body into the sea.
"There was no available alternative in terms of a country that was willing to accept the body and we took pains to ensure we were compliant with Muslim tradition involved and sought to dispose of the body with proper procedures," a senior defense official said.
Senior defense and intelligence officials briefed reporters May 2 at the Pentagon on the intelligence work leading to the raid, how bin Laden died and the cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan's government.
Bin Laden died along with three other "military-aged" males and one female used as a human shield. Bin Laden lived with his family in the second and third floor of the larger of the two buildings at the million dollar compound, a senior intelligence official said. Bin Laden put up a fight but the officials who spoke to reporters wouldn't say if he was holding a weapon.
Satellite imagery released by the Pentagon showed the compound did not exist in 2004. Walls 12-to-18 feet high surrounded the compound's two main buildings. The compound is eight times the size of any other in Abbottabad, a town about 60 miles from Pakistan's capital Islamabad.
U.S. special operators did not take any detainees, leaving the other women and children judged to be non-combatants inside the compound, a senior intelligence official said.
U.S. special operators moved the women and children away from the one helicopter that broke down before using explosives to destroy it.
The U.S. did not contact Pakistan leaders before the special operations team had left bin Laden's compound with the body. A senior intelligence official said the U.S. had no "indication that the Pakistanis were aware that Osama bin Laden was at the compound."
When asked if military leaders were worried that Pakistani soldiers might respond to the compound and fire upon the U.S. special operations team, the senior defense official said the "focus was on operational security and ensuring this could be done with success and without interruption."
"This was a unilateral U.S. operation because of its importance to the mission and our concern about operational security. We did not notify any of our counterterrorism partners in advance. Once the raid was successfully completed and U.S. personnel were safe, we did immediately phone our Pakistani counterparts at multiple levels," a senior defense official said.
The defense official described "some areas" of Pakistan as a "steadfast partner in counterterrorism" but "in other areas that cooperation has not been what we'd like it to be."
"We continue to have very candid conversations with the Pakistanis about what more we should be doing together," the senior defense official said.
U.S. special operators collected "quite a bit" of intelligence at the compound before leaving, a senior intelligence official said. The CIA will stand up a task force to sift through the "volume of materials collected at the raid site," the senior intelligence official said.
Intelligence and defense agencies have spent years collecting intelligence to eventually build the case pinpointing Bin Laden's whereabouts to the Abbottabad compound. The senior intelligence official said no single detainee led U.S. forces to the compound, but it was accomplished through a host of interviews along with other intelligence trade craft.
A senior White House official said U.S. intelligence agencies had focused on the compound since August as a potential hideout.
"We did collect information over time that helped form a picture that once we came across this compound allowed us to move swiftly on the intelligence case," a senior intelligence official said.
The senior defense and intelligence officials did not give special operations details and would not confirm if U.S. Navy Seals was the special operations team tasked for the raid.
The officials would not say what helicopters were flown on the raid, or how many, however Abbottabad residents have reported seeing four helicopters execute the raid.