Air Force Secretary Mike Donley and two other top Pentagon officials from the Bush administration will stay on board with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the only Bush holdover in the Cabinet, the White House announced Thursday.
Donley, the Air Force secretary since 2005, will remain along with Lt. Gen. James Clapper, the undersecretary for intelligence, and Michael Vickers, assistant secretary for special operations/low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities.
President Obama announced nominees for two other Pentagon posts. Jim Miller, senior vice president at the Center for a New American Security and a former deputy assistant Defense secretary, was tapped to be principal deputy undersecretary for policy. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Wallace (Chip) Gregson Jr. was picked for assistant secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs.
The Navy plans to cancel its DDG-1000 destroyer program after the first two ships are built and instead buy older but more affordable surface combatants, lawmakers said Wednesday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Pentagon procurement chief John Young, a longtime supporter of the DDG-1000, signed off on the plan during a meeting with Navy leaders Tuesday, sources said.
Under the new acquisition strategy, the Navy would use the money once planned for the five remaining DDG-1000s to buy between eight and 11 DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyers, whose production line has been dormant for years.
Navy Secretary Donald Winter and Adm. Gary Roughead, the Navy chief of staff, have been briefing their plan on Capitol Hill, where it is expected to draw mixed reviews from key lawmakers and could figure in the re-election prospects of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Members of the Maine and Mississippi delegations, whose states are home to the shipyards that build the Navy's destroyers, have long been divided over the issue.
At the urging of House Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., the House-passed version of the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill rejected the Navy's $2.5 billion request to build the third DDG-1000 and instead included $400 million in advanced procurement for either the DDG-1000 or the DDG-51. Taylor, whose district includes Northrop Grumman's Pascagoula shipyard, has long said he would prefer the Navy buy the older destroyers.
Collins has fought for the continuation of the DDG-1000 program and immediately voiced her opposition to the Navy's decision. Bath Iron Works in Maine also builds DDG-1000s and split production of DDG-51s with Pascagoula.
"Compared with the DDG-51 program, which the Navy is considering continuing, the DDG-1000 program provides far more work and about three times the amount of money for BIW per ship," Collins said. "Bath's share of the DDG-1000 it now has under contract is $1.4 billion, while the shipyard's share of the most recent DDG-51 it now has under construction amounts to only about $500 million." Collins met Wednesday with Bath Iron Works President Dugan Shipway, who flew to Washington upon hearing of the Navy's new plan.
"I have pledged to work with him and everyone at BIW to fight for a plan to lessen the potentially devastating consequences of this decision on BIW," said Collins, who is in a tough re-election fight with Democratic Rep. Tom Allen. If the Navy buys nine DDG-51s over the next six years, she added, Bath Iron Works would have to work on "virtually all of them" to maintain its workload and prevent job losses, she added.
Roughead's support for the DDG-1000 program has long been considered lackluster. "On balance, the procurement cost of a single DDG-51 is significantly less than that of a DDG-1000 and the life-cycle costs of the two classes are similar," Roughead wrote in a May 7 letter to Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. But support for the program has remained high at the senior echelons of the Pentagon, particularly within Young's office. In a July 2 letter to Taylor, Young, a former Navy official, said that restarting production on the DDG-51s would "pose a risk to the shipbuilding budget and inject additional cost."
The FBI today arrested a Pentagon official and two Chinese-born residents on espionage charges for passing defense secrets to China, the Justice Department announced.
Gregg William Bergersen, 51, of Alexandria, was arrested at his home on espionage charges. Tai Shen Kuo, a Taiwan-born U.S. citizen, 58, and Yu Xin Kang, a Chinese national, 33, both of New Orleans, were arrested in New Orleans on charges of conspiracy to provide defense secrets to China.
Mr. Bergersen worked as a weapons system analyst for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, in Arlington, which is in charge of U.S. arms sales to foreign nations. He held a top-secret clearance.
One official said the case involved the transfer of command, control, communications and intelligence equipment originally sold to Taiwan that was diverted to China.
Court papers state that the three men conspired to transfer defense secrets during meetings with Chinese intelligence officials.
“Today's prosecution demonstrates that foreign spying remains a serious threat,” said Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security.
Mr. Wainstein said in a statement that the case has “all the elements of a classic espionage operation: a foreign government focused on accessing our military secrets; foreign operatives who effectively use stealth and guile to gain that access; and an American government official who is willing to betray both his oath of public office and the duty of loyalty we rightly demand from every American citizen.”
Such spy networks “pose a grave danger to our national security, and we should all thank the investigators and prosecutors on this case for effectively penetrating and dismantling this network before more sensitive information was compromised,” he said.
Meanwhile, a former Boeing engineer was arrested this morning after being indicted last week on charges of economic espionage and acting as an unregistered Chinese agent.
Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 72, of Orange, Calif., a Rockwell International engineer until the company was bought by Boeing in 1996, was arrested at his home in Orange, Calif.
Mr. Chung, was indicted Wednesday on eight counts of economic espionage, one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, one count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, one count of obstruction of justice, and three counts of making false statements to FBI investigators.
A naturalized U.S. citizen, Mr. Chung held a top-secret clearance.
“Certain foreign governments are committed to obtaining the American trade secrets that can advance the development of their military capabilities," said Mr. Wainstein in a statement.
"Today’s case demonstrates that the Justice Department is equally committed to foiling those efforts through the arrest and prosecution of those who conduct economic espionage at the expense of our economic and national security.”
The case involves the illegal transfer to China of Boeing Corp. trade secrets related to the space shuttle.
The investigation grew out of the Chi Mak and family Chinese spy case uncovered in 2006, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
That case involved the transfer to China of military technology related to U.S. Navy warships and submarines.
The case is expected to lead to a further curtailing of U.S.-China space cooperation, which was halted temporarily last year after China carried out an anti-satellite weapon test that left thousands of pieces of debris in low Earth orbit.
Air Force Secretary Mike Donley and two other top Pentagon officials from the Bush administration will stay on board with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the only Bush holdover in the Cabinet, the White House announced Thursday.
