Rummy Still Hanging Around D.O.D.

"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department," the Washington Times reports. "On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said."

The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a "nonpaid consultant," a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said.

Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides, who include close adviser Stephen Cambone, are sifting through the thousands of pages of documents generated during his tenure.

The Pentagon official said former secretaries are entitled to a transition office to sort papers, some of which can be taken with them for a library, for archives or to write a book.

The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Some question the size of the staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men.

Gates Speaks

Defense Tech pal Dan Dupont points us to an interesting lecture presumptive Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Here's a snippet:

"In addition to our military .. and intelligence and law enforcement campaign, we also need a positive component to our strategy: a diplomatic, economic, political, humanitarian component that addresses some of the issues in the region that provide fertile recruitment grounds for these terrorist groups," Gates said. "You'll never stop the leaders, but maybe you can make it harder for them to recruit their armies."

With sentiments like these, it's no wonder that Tom Delay, Frank Gaffney, and other neocon-types are wasting no time blasting the Gates nomination, accusing him of "negotiat[ing] with terrorists."

Meanwhile, our pals at 27B are nervous because of AP story, which characterizes Gates as saying that "cyberterrorism could be the most devastating weapon of mass destruction yet." Please, let that be a lazy reporter talking, and not our next SecDef.

Bye, Rummy

Well, here's your first tangible result from last night's election: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld just quit, according to Republican officials. Good riddance.

New Congress: Army Up? (Updated Again)

The Democrats weren't the only winners in last night's elections. The Army and the Marines are looking like they just came out on top, too.

There's a long-standing cliche that, when it comes to military spending, "the Republicans are mostly interested in weapons systems. The Democrats are interested in people," as Gen. Wes Clark told a New Hampshire public radio show, back when he was running for President.

You can buy the old saw, or not. But last night was a major power boost for two lifetime buddies of the people-heavy services. Ike Skelton, who's in line to become the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has been close with the Army's leadership for decades. Ditto possible House Majority Leader John Murtha. Both were big Don Rumsfeld haters.

Now, for months, the SecDef's office and the Army have been locked in a cage match over the service's budget. That might change, with Rummy being shoved out. But if it continues, who do you think Skelton and Murtha are going to back?

Phil Carter says to look out for five items as Skelton, Murtha, and Co. move into the big offices on Capitol Hill:

1) An increase in the military's end strength;

2) Some kind of restriction on multiple reserve callups or deployments;

3) Funding for reset of equipment to peacetime readiness levels;

4) Increased pay, benefits, and incentives tied to recruiting and retention; and

5) Policies geared towards making the military more well-rounded, i.e.
incentives to start Arabic and Chinese language programs.

Notice he didn't mention anything about technology programs. That's because, despite the love for the Army, big weapons systems -- like the $300 billion Future Combat Systems effort -- are going to get a whole lot more scrutiny.

Skelton is calling for "re-creating an Armed Services investigation and oversight subcommittee, which Republicans did away with in 1995," according to Aviation Week.

But Skelton could be the least of industry's problems. "I'll tell you the two words that freak then [contractors] out the most," one senior Congressional aide told me a few weeks back, "Chairman Waxman."

That's Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), in line to head the wide-ranging House Government Reform Committee. He's a master of the subpoena. And, Av Week notes, he "has complained about lax supervision under the Republicans and introduced contracting reform legislation in September that would require federal agencies to use at least 1% of their procurement budgets for contract oversight. The bill also requires Congressional hearings to investigate credible evidence of waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement."

If the Republicans hold on to the Senate, things could get even more heated. John McCain likely takes over the Armed Services Committee. He is one of the few people in Congress who truly, truly cares about the Pentagon's out-of-control spending on weapons development. And there is no contractor that pisses him off more than Boeing -- the guys in charge of Future Combat.

UPDATE 1:28 PM: The Navy, which is facing money questions of its own, potentially gets two new, high-profile champions. Retired Admiral Joe Sestak won a congressional seat last night in Pennsylvania. And if former Navy Secretary Jim Webb hangs on in Virginia -- and delivers the Senate to the Democrats, in the process -- he's instantly going to become one of the Dems' most influential voices on national security.

UPDATE 4:56 PM: "Investigations into defense contracting and a re-examination of spending priorities could mean a shift in spending from hardware to troops," former Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, tells Defense News.

The Army, in particular, is under strain from the war in Iraq, and Democrats may push for permanent increases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps. That means spending more on personnel and the everyday equipment they need to fight.

As a result, Democrats might try to trim spending on big-ticket weapons such as the F-22 stealth fighter, the Joint Strike Fighter and the Army’s Future Combat Systems in order to pay for more ground forces, Turner said.

Iraq Vet Candidates Fall Short

When the election season started, there was a lot of noise about so-called "Fighting Dems" -- dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, almost all running for Congress on the Democratic ticket, and almost all fed up with how those wars were being run. "The party leadership is calculating that candidates who wore the uniform [could] offer a credible counterpoint on national security to Republicans who have dominated the debate from the campaign trail to Capitol Hill," the Washington Post reported back in February. And with forceful, articulate candidates like double-amputee Tammy Duckworth attracting national attention, it seemed like the calculus was paying off.

But something strange happened last night, amid the Democratic sweep. Almost all of the Fighting Dems lost. Duckworth, running a Republican-leaning district, was defeated by a couple of percentage points. In Maryland, "Democrat Andrew Duck, a former Army intelligence officer in Iraq, lost to Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett," USA Today notes. "Former naval officer Eric Massa lost to Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-N.Y."

There were exceptions, of course: Admiral Joe Sestak beat shady Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania. Nearby, ex-JAG Patrick Murphy is basically tied up with his opponent. But for the most part, these veteran candidates came up short.

How come? Well, the majority of 'em were political neophytes. And knocking off an incumbent Congressman is a tough job, even for an experienced pol. Several of the Fighting Dems never made it out of the primaries, the L.A. Times observes. "Andrew Horne, a Marine Corps reservist in Kentucky's 3rd District, and David Ashe, a Marine lawyer, in Virginia's 2nd. One vet, former Marine Tim Dunn, quit the race for North Carolina's 8th District, citing financial pressures."

More significant, perhaps, was that many of the veterans were running in districts ordinarily toxic to Democrats.

"They made each race much closer than it ever should have been," Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, tells Defense Tech. "Tammy [Duckworth] should have been blown away. [Republican Peter] Roskam had so much more money and a district that always favors an R [Republican]. Her story, and her veteran status, are the only thing that kept her close."

UPDATE 12:06 PM: Several recent veterans did win their Congressional races last night, including former Naval Intelligence officer Chris Carney and Army National Guard artilleryman Tim Walz. But they didn't serve directly in Afghanistan or Iraq.