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“Crystal Clear”
“Crystal Clear”:  Top defense leaders unveiled their new tanker acquisition strategy Thursday, telling reporters at the Pentagon they believe the requirements are more concise, far less subjective and without ambiguity. “This is a ‘best value’” competition, Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn said. Although price will be a big factor—and some of the competition will demand a fixed price offer from contractors—it’s “not a price shootout,” Lynn asserted. Other factors will include efficiency, lifecycle costs, and military construction costs, as well as simulated performance in Pentagon war plans. When a winner is chosen—probably not sooner than next June—it should be “crystal clear to everyone” why that contractor prevailed, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter said. The list of requirements has been whittled down from 808 to 373, mostly by using clearer language and eliminating duplication, Lynne reported. Continue —John A. Tirpak
9/25/2009
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Verbatim
Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010. |
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Verbatim
Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.
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