Spy chief scraps stealth satellite program

Reported cost: Nearly $9.5 billion
In 2004, an unidentified government agency asked the Justice Department to open a leaks investigation after The Washington Post reported that the program’s projected cost had almost doubled from $5 billion to nearly $9.5 billion.

Rick Oborn, a spokesman for the tightlipped National Reconnaissance Office, declined to comment on McConnell’s decision. His Northern Virginia-based agency is responsible for designing, building and operating a constellation of U.S. spy satellites.

Those spacecraft are built by American companies contracted by agencies including CIA and NRO and by the Air Force. A spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which is believed to be the lead contractor on this program, declined to comment on McConnell’s decision.
The pricey program has been a source of controversy in Congress.

In the House’s intelligence budget bill approved last month, lawmakers agreed to end a satellite program that they had supported before, according to New Mexico Rep. Heather Wilson, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee’s panel on technical intelligence. “We had to make some decisions without a lot of good alternatives,” she said in an interview.

The details are in the classified portion of the bill, and Wilson would not confirm that it was a next-generation Misty satellite. But Wilson, a former Air Force officer, said McConnell’s decision was part of ongoing discussions among his advisers, the House committee and the Defense Department. “There was a great deal of communication,” she said.

Wilson said the government does not have to walk away from the entire amount sunk into the program. Rather, she said, some of the technology can be harvested and used in other programs. She declined to offer any details.

Wilson praised McConnell’s early moves but said the key factors in his decision to end the program predated his arrival as intelligence chief in February. “I think it is the conclusion that most of the folks involved had come to — based on cost, schedule and performance. It was a conclusion that everyone was coming to at about the same time,” she said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, could not be reached for comment.

Looking for a strategy
The panel’s top Republican, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, said he is not looking for a decision on a single program from McConnell and his advisers. He wants to see leadership.

“I am looking for them to give us a strategy,” he said. “This program was there for a reason. What are you going to replace it with? How long is it going to take to develop it? What is the cost for this new program?”

Hoekstra would not identify the program McConnell said was being cut and said he remains doubtful it is truly gone. He said its congressional allies could find a way to bring it back to life through a bill. He also noted that the White House has not sent a revised version of its budget to Congress reflecting McConnell’s change.

Hoekstra also criticized how McConnell made his decision public. “I don’t think the way you go about announcing major policy decision is to make a flippant comment to a group that you are speaking to about diversity,” he said.

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