Remarks by Vice President Cheney on the 50th Anniversary of the Defense Advanced...

Remarks by Vice President Cheney on the 50th Anniversary of the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a
transcript of remarks by Vice President Cheney on the 50th Anniversary of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency:
8:11 P.M. EDT
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Thank you very much. And I want to
extend a special welcome to those of you who've come from out of town to help
us mark the 50th anniversary of DARPA.
I'm genuinely pleased to be here. And let me thank especially my friend
and colleague Gordon England for the introduction, and Dr. Tether for the
invitation to join all of you tonight. I'm in good company this evening --
with Secretary Don Winter, representatives of the military and industry, and
alumni of DARPA. Some of you I've known going back to the time I was
Secretary of Defense -- the good old days, when I had real power in this town.
(Laughter.)
It's possible that some of us go back even further, to my prior service on
the House Intelligence Committee, or even to the administration of Gerald
Ford, when I served as his chief of staff. In any case, I've always had great
respect for DARPA and its people, and I've been closely interested in your
mission.
As Tony remembers, back in 2001, not long after becoming Vice President, I
went out to headquarters for a briefing. After eight years out of public
life, I was eager to get back up to date on everything that was going on at
DARPA. Each time I've met with representatives from DARPA, I've gone away
even more deeply impressed by the work product of this agency. Anyone who
seeks the very definition of high intellectual standards, creative energy, and
hard, persistent effort will find it at DARPA. It's a huge credit to the
Defense Department and to the nation. Every one of you can be proud of your
association with DARPA -- and tonight I bring congratulations and good wishes
from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. (Applause.)
DARPA was, of course, founded in a moment of urgency. It was 1958, and
the United States was facing all the implications of the launch of Sputnik the
preceding October. The man in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower, didn't
scare easy. He had complete, justified confidence in this nation's ability to
reclaim the technological edge, and to hold it from then on. But he knew it
would take a focused effort within government, public education, and the
private sector. Eisenhower knew, as well, that it would require significant
investments -- and he trusted that future Presidents and future Congresses
would provide those resources. I'm proud to say that DARPA has had many
friends in our administration, from the President and myself to Gordon England
and two fine leaders of the Pentagon in Don Rumsfeld and Bob Gates.
From the earliest days, it's been the fundamental charge of this agency to
make sure that America is never again caught off guard. DARPA's job is to
prevent technological surprises -- and to make sure that the great inventions,
the breakthroughs, and the game-changing technologies are created by us, not
by somebody else. And for 50 incredible years, DARPA has kept that charge.
This agency brought forth the Saturn Five Rocket surveillance satellites,
the Internet, stealth technology, guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles,
night vision, and the body armor that's in use today. During my time as
Secretary of Defense, we saw a number of major projects come to fruition. We
had the first combat use of stealth technology with the F-117 during Operation
Just Cause in '89, and then made extensive use of that aircraft during Desert
Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1991. The Gulf War also gave us the first use of
the JSTARs command and control aircraft, which allowed us to monitor the
movement of enemy forces on the ground hundreds of miles away.
Obviously, these aren't the sort of technologies you decide you need, and
then go to the store to buy them. They took years and years to develop and to
bring online. And one of the biggest lessons I learned at the Pentagon is
just how much you owe that job to your predecessors and to earlier commanders
in chief. When the Gulf War was over with I picked up the telephone and I
called former President Ronald Reagan and thanked him for the absolutely
essential defense buildup of the 1980s. And I remember feeling tremendous
gratitude to former Secretaries of Defense, Democrat and Republican alike, who
made sure we had the force we needed in that conflict -- public servants like
Frank Carlucci, Cap Weinberger, Harold Brown, and Jim Schlesinger. And Don
Rumsfeld, too, of course, because he had been President Ford's Defense
Secretary in the mid-70s. As I've reminded Don, this makes him the only man
to serve as Secretary of Defense in two different centuries. (Laughter and
applause.)
One thing we didn't have a lot of in Desert Storm was the unmanned aerial
vehicle. But thanks to DARPA, that technology was advancing rapidly in the
early '90s. And we've been able to use it all the time in both Afghanistan
and Iraq -- for reconnaissance, for remote sensing, and to strike the enemy.
DARPA has also brought us the very small UAV's that are so useful to a fighter
in the urban warfare setting -- the little machines that Marines refer to as
the "guardian angels." You developed the networking technology that foot
soldiers are using every day -- to share information on a fast and secure
basis, so they can operate within an enemy's reaction time. And there are so
many other tools now in common use -- from advanced alert systems, to special
gloves that do an almost miraculous job helping troops stay cool in the desert
heat -- tools that simply wouldn't be around now if we didn't have DARPA.
Most Americans, perhaps, haven't heard of the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. But if they knew how much you've done to save and protect
our men and women in uniform, they would be grateful beyond words.
We're talking here about a federal agency that fulfills its mission, and
delivers results, to a degree that most other organizations would envy. And
if we look to the reasons why DARPA has been so consistently successful, we
can see some fundamental advantages.
By its charter, DARPA basically has no short-term obligations. It can
stay focused not on small increments, but on the big changes. This is
critical -- especially in wartime, when the armed forces have more than enough
to do, and don't really have the chance to invent, develop, and test
disruptive technologies. DARPA is out there every day working on the far
side, where the ideas are, and finding ways to bring it over to the near side,
where the operations are. And it's driving relentlessly toward the new core
of technologies that'll maintain our military superiority far into the future.
DARPA is not encumbered by parochial interests. It defends no status quo,
and it doesn't find itself wasting time on turf wars. As Tony Tether has
said, DARPA works best as a "swashbuckling place, constantly getting into --
getting management in trouble, constantly [testing] revolutionary, crazy
ideas, but always out there in front" where it belongs.
Though it's 50 years old, DARPA has never developed the apparatus or the
mindset of a bureaucracy. It's still a highly manageable enterprise, leading
huge projects but operating on a human scale. By one description, DARPA is a
"hundred geniuses connected by a travel agent." (Laughter.) And DARPA
leadership does a terrific job bringing out the best work in government,
academia, and the private sector.
The whole ethic of this agency is fresh thinking -- and it preserves that
ethic with a high rate of turnover. Everyone at DARPA knows this. In fact,
if you work there, your last day on the job is printed right on the front of
your I.D. badge. Come to think of it, so is mine. (Laughter and applause.)
This may not be the best way to plan out a career -- (laughter) -- but it's
all the more reason to admire the people who go into DARPA. The idea is not
to settle in, but to dive in, to take up the toughest intellectual challenges,
and to know the rewards of turning concepts into actions, and finding out that
a project will be a "go."
With all its inherent advantages, plus the incredible talent it brings in,
DARPA is rightly known for "setting great minds on fire with big ideas." And
it doesn't overstate matters to say that we need this creative force more than
ever before.
We're engaged right now in a struggle against enemies of a kind not easily
dealt with. We're not facing a clash of huge armies and navies. The outcome
of the fight won't be like chasing Hitler into his bunker, having a surrender
ceremony onboard ship, or wearing down a communist empire. The extremists in
this war have a backward ideology, but they have genuine global ambitions --
and there is nothing old-fashioned about the weapons they're trying to get
their hands on. Their goal is to intimidate the United States and our friends
into dropping our global responsibilities. They would move into that void,
impose a dictatorship of fear, and build new staging grounds for further
attacks on us. And the toughest part of this fight is the enemy's cult of
murder -- the utter rejection of any rules of warfare; the contempt for moral
standards; the rejoicing in the blood and tears of innocent people. Their
mode of operation is to target the unsuspecting, to lie in wait, and to shock
the world in moments of spectacular violence.
As we take the fight to the enemy, they don't engage us force on force.
At most, it'll be squad on squad. So we need to keep pressing for absolute
superiority in speed, agility, and access to information. In this era of new
dangers, I know DARPA has also been pounding hard on the issue of weapons of
mass destruction. It's not a pleasant business to think about. But we have
to do everything possible to take WMD's off the table as a threat to the
United States or its friends. DARPA has already moved us in the right
direction, and I'm confident you'll make even more historic progress in that
effort. And in the core technologies -- whether it's microsystems, high-
efficiency battery cells, or quantum science -- the work of DARPA will be the
key to American military dominance far into the future, against any challenge
that comes our way.
That future, I believe, will bring us many victories. And the day will
come when the cause of tolerance and freedom overcomes the hateful ideologies
that have turned their guns on us. A lot of our successes will be easy to
quantify. Others will be harder to measure, because they'll be the things
that don't happen: the attacks that don't come, the surprises that don't
strike us, the harm that doesn't befall an American soldier. But those
victories will be just as real. And many of them will occur because years
before, somebody sat down and did some hard, disciplined thinking about the
future, and came up with a good idea, and had the sturdy support and the
guidance of DARPA.
If you've been associated with this agency, you're the kind of person who
lives and breathes technology -- and you have a place in the story of the past
50 years. It's a story of boldness and excellence; of visionary, high-yield
projects; and of service above self. And all of these have been directed to
the highest purposes that a citizen can assume: The safety of our people. The
security of our nation. And the survival of freedom itself.
We're an honorable country, a decent country, a generous country. And the
world is a better place for the power and the influence of the United States
of America. (Applause.) To have a role in this nation's defense is a
privilege -- and that privilege has belonged to many in this room this
evening. For that, I want to offer my highest personal respect and gratitude
-- and my full confidence in DARPA for another outstanding 50 years.
Thank heaven for DARPA, and thank you very, very much. (Applause.)
END 8:24 P.M. EDT
SOURCE White House Press Office

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