IP: The Pentagon's New Priorities: The Budget You Can't See

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

A LOOK AT . . . The Pentagon's New Priorities: The Budget
You Can't See


In a Shrinking Defense Pie, the Stealth Slice Is Growing Thicker Each Year


By Bill Sweetman 


Sunday, July 7 1996; Page C03
The Washington Post 


LATE IN May, on a bright afternoon in Dayton, Ohio, a group of engineers in
their fifties and sixties posed happily for cameras in front of a strange
blue airplane, with a bluff nose and tapering, flipper-like tail that had
earned it the nickname Whale. It could have been the public debut of any new
aircraft, with one exception: the plane had been completed 14 years earlier.
The Whale, a prototype radar plane officially known only as Tacit Blue, had
made its first flight in 1982 and its last flight in 1985 when somebody
eliminated its mission. The Air Force won't tell you where it spent
the next 11 years because the Whale is a creature of the military's "black
world," in which tens of thousands of people work on projects in an
environment of pervasive, rigorous secrecy.


The massive growth of a clandestine military was one of the most criticized
features of the Reagan-Bush defense build-up. Over 12 years, hundreds of
billions of dollars were spent in secret on airplanes and spacecraft, on
test facilities and bases and on covert operations. With the end of the Cold
War and a new administration, some people predicted that the Pentagon might
cut back and bring these projects into the light.


They were wrong. Under the Clinton administration, clandestine projects are
still expensive and still secret. That part of the black military budget
that can be glimpsed stands at more than $14 billion -- close to its 1980s
peak. But this is mostly for research and development as well as some
production. It does not include undiscoverable billions spent for
operations, support and construction projects. 


Pushing this trend is a Pentagon led by a substantial number of civilian and
military officials with extensive black budget experience. Starting with
Secretary of Defense William Perry, they believe that the clandestine
development of costly, high-tech weapons is the best way to provide the
United States with a battlefield advantage. Coming at a time when much other
military spending is declining, the effect is a shift in Pentagon priorities
that has not been debated.


For instance, under the Clinton administration's budget request for next
year, the Air Force -- which has historically handled the bulk of black
programs -- plans to spend two-thirds more on secret research and
development than it did under the last budget that George Bush sent to
Congress, a $2.1 billion increase. Clinton wants to spend another $5.9
billion of the Air Force budget on producing secret weapons, a small
reduction from the last Bush budget, but more than offset by the surge in
research.


In 1997, almost 40 cents of every dollar that the USAF will spend on
equipment will be spent on secret projects. The secret Air Force spends 25
percent more on weapons development than the entire United States Army.


The same trend is repeated, to a lesser degree, in the Navy. Despite
generally lower budgets, the Navy still spends a relatively steady $1.6
billion a year on secret research projects.


You won't find these numbers in a public document, but it is possible to
estimate the cost because some of the figures are only thinly concealed in
the unclassified version of the Pentagon budget. Three methods are used:


In the research and development budget, the line items listed for
"operational systems development" do not add up to the total for that
section. The difference -- $4.8 billion in the Air Force budget -- is
accounted for by classified programs.


Generic line items cover many programs. The best example is the "Selected
Activities" line in the Air Force procurement budget: At $4.67 billion, it
is the largest line item in the entire budget. It is much more than the Air
Force will spend on buying airplanes.


Some programs are listed but carry code names. The Air Force uses a random
Pentagonese name generator to produce "Advanced Program
Evaluation" or "Special Evaluation System" while the Navy hits the
garden-center catalog for "Link Laurel" and "Retract Maple."


Where all this money goes is a deepening mystery. In the 1980s and early
1990s, most secret spending went for two items: stealth aircraft and
satellites developed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). But the
biggest stealth projects -- such as the B-2 and F-117 -- have been
brought into the white world. At the same time, satellites last longer --
something which may explain the drop in secret production funds. It is
hardly surprising that many people do not believe the CIA and the Air Force
when they deny the existence of large programs like the rumored 4,000-mph
Aurora spyplane.


The key number is the surge in research and development -- which often
precedes much larger spending when it comes time to build the weapons.
Every morning in Las Vegas, between 700 and 1,000 people board anonymous 737
jetliners and fly to Area 51, the Nevada flight-test base which
has been the home of classified airplane projects since 1955. In 1992,
McDonnell Douglas set up the Phantom Works to pursue classified research
and development projects. Its success is one of the reasons why the
company's Pentagon business has stayed high despite the winding down of
orders for its fighters.


Lockheed Martin's renowned Skunk Works employs 4,000 people -- even though
the only aircraft it is known to have built since 1990 are two
small spy drones. The Air Force's research campus at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base, in Dayton, is bustling. Construction continues on a new
office complex -- a strange sight in the midst of a defense drawdown. And
these are no ordinary offices: with nine-inch-thick internal doors, two
basement levels with separate staircases, and high-security video-conference
facilities.


There is no doubt that part of what the black budget is paying for is
aircraft that are as yet undisclosed. Area 51 was significantly expanded
just after the Whale -- its most recent known resident -- ended its flying
career. Another enigma centers on the secure air base at Tonopah, Nev.,
where the F-117 Stealth fighter became operational in 1983. Just after the
Gulf War, the Stealth fighters were evicted and moved to Holloman Air Force
Base in New Mexico. Yet Tonopah is still active.


Support for these ventures comes from the top. When Les Aspin, Clinton's
first defense secretary, conducted a "bottom-up" spending review in
September 1993, he left secret programs unscathed. When Aspin unexpectedly
resigned after less than a year, Clinton turned to Aspin's deputy,
William Perry, a defense entrepreneur. Sometimes called "the godfather of
Stealth," Perry had been instrumental in the development of the first
stealth airplanes -- as a key member of President Carter's Pentagon team in
the late 1970s.


During Perry's tenure, the upper Pentagon ranks have filled with people who
have similarly long backgrounds in classified programs. Paul
Kaminski, the senior official in charge of Pentagon research, was Perry's
special assistant on the stealth programs. Air Force Secretary Sheila
Widnall is a former trustee of the Aerospace Corp. in Los Angeles, a
low-profile non-profit company which manages many of the Air Force's
classified space projects. The Air Force's senior official in charge of
research and development, Arthur Money, came to the Pentagon after 23
years at ESL, the electronic surveillance equipment company that Perry had
founded.


In the uniformed services, Gen. Joseph Ralston, the new vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a member of the small Pentagon team
which developed the F-117 concept in 1976-79. Arthur Money's uniformed
counterpart is Lt. Gen. George Muellner, former commander of the
Air Force's 6513th Test Squadron -- one of its classified flight-test units.
The first operational stealth fighter unit, the 4450th Tactical Group,
existed for only six years and was smaller than a normal Air Force wing --
yet seven of its former group and squadron commanders are now
generals.


The White House has been cooperative with the Pentagon's requests in
expanding its secret world. Take the case of Area 51, which the Air Force
refuses to admit exists even though photographs of the base have appeared in
dozens of magazines. When the Air Force decided to seize two
tracts of public land that overlooked the base, the Department of the
Interior was told to comply. When an attorney filed a lawsuit on behalf of
some Area 51 workers who claimed to have been injured by toxic materials,
President Clinton signed an "exemption," telling a United States
district court judge that the Air Force need not disclose any documents
relating to the base.


The direct cost of this secrecy is substantial. Between 10 and 15 percent of
the cost of a black program is absorbed by security measures: from the
establishment of separate financial and administrative systems for every
project to the cost of flying people to work every morning. When Tacit
Blue was unveiled, one of the program managers told me that Pentagon
undercover agents were assigned to contact the spouses of people on the
program, attempting to find out if anyone had violated the law by answering
the question "How was your day at work, dear?"


Accountability is the real issue. Congressional national security and
intelligence committees, in theory, oversee black programs. Judging by the fact
that the NRO has confessed to losing track of $4 billion in surplus funds,
this oversight seems less than effective. It does not cover the blackest of
all black projects -- the "waived" programs, which are secret even from the
committees.


The black world prospers and becomes ever more established while a compliant
administration overrides the judiciary at its request. The
Pentagon's leaders are immersed in its culture. It briefs a few members of
Congress who are cleared into some -- but not all of its programs, and
who lack the data and the time needed to map the secret labyrinth.


Most citizens accept the need for secrecy in times of crisis. And most would
accept the need for the country to pursue technical breakthroughs
sheltered from prying eyes. But the question is whether a secret military
should be such a thriving, unaccountable institution when the security of the
nation is less threatened than it has been for decades.


Bill Sweetman, who specializes in aerospace and defense issues, writes for
Popular Science and Jane's International Defense Review. His most
recent book is "Aurora -- The Pentagon's Secret Spyplane."