The Navy secretary said Wednesday that he has concerns about the nominee to be the next defense secretary serving so recently in uniform.
Ray Mabus stressed that he has “enormous respect” for retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, but said that civilian control of the military is a cornerstone of American democracy. He said he thought lawmakers, who expressed some issues at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, were “right to raise it.”
“I do have concerns over it,” Mabus said during a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
Congress is considering a waiver this week that would allow Mattis to serve as defense secretary despite only retiring in 2013. The law requires officers to be out of uniform for at least seven years before serving as the secretary of defense to maintain civilian control of the military.
Mabus talked about several other priorities and issues during the breakfast with reporters in one of his last media engagements before leaving office on Jan. 20 after serving for eight years as the Navy’s top civilian.
— Mabus has been at the forefront of cultural change in the Navy and Marine Corps, including overseeing the opening of all combat positions to women, raising the issue of gender-neutral job titles and requiring men and women to wear the same uniforms. While there’s been some speculation that some of those changes could be rolled back under a Trump Pentagon, Mabus stressed that his successor should do so at his or her own peril, because those changes make the force stronger. “If you want to go backwards, if you want to roll it back, do it, but you will make us weaker,” Mabus said.
— The secretary’s focus on gender issues in the service was sparked by his attendance at the first Army-Navy football game, he said. When the West Point cadets marched onto the field, they all looked identical, but the Naval Academy midshipmen men had different covers from the women. “That’s a way of segregating women,” Mabus said.
— Biofuels and green energy has also been a priority for Mabus. While he faced criticism for focusing on the issue, he said he’s now heard “deafening silence” from his critics now that Navy ships can use biofuel and traditional fuel interchangeably to both operate more cheaply and have more fuel options.
— Women have been able to successfully pass Ranger School, but have not yet passed the Marines’ Infantry Officer School. Yet Mabus said that doesn’t matter. “The important question is not if you make it through, it’s that you have the chance to try,” he said.
— The secretary said Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson’s promise to Trump that the price of the F-35 will decrease is “the easiest promise anyone has ever made,” since the price per plane is already going down and will continue to go down more as the program moves into production because of lessons learned during building and a more efficient production line. Asked why the department had never tried to shame a business partner into dropping the price of a platform before, Mabus said, “I’m not sure it works.”
— Mabus commented on his very public spat with Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the fiscal 2018 budget request, where the Navy secretary refused to cut $16 billion from the shipbuilding budget. He called making the cuts a “totally useless exercise,” since the fiscal 2018 budget being compiled by the Obama administration will never even be released. “This is at best symbolic and if you’re going to put in a symbolic budget,” why wouldn’t you put in what you actually need, Mabus argued.
