Panels to review Pentagon budget
Acquisition reform negotiations also are on this week's agenda.
The congressional defense committees will continue their annual round of hearings with the military services and defense agencies to review the Pentagon's budget request.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured lawmakers in both chambers last week that Pentagon and military officials who had been required to sign a nondisclosure form barring them from disclosing information on internal budget deliberations are free to publicly discuss the Pentagon's request.
"I'm putting out a written notice ... encouraging everybody who comes up here to testify, to testify fully and candidly and, particularly for those in uniform, to be prepared to give their best professional" advice, Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, who defended their budget request before the Armed Services committees last week, will testify Wednesday before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
The House Armed Services Committee, which plans to mark up the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill in mid-June, will meet Tuesday with Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, will meet Tuesday with Army Secretary Pete Geren and Chief of Staff George Casey and Thursday with Air Force leaders.
Also this week, members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees will negotiate differences in their versions of acquisition reform legislation, which passed unanimously in both chambers earlier this month. Obama, who has made reforming the Pentagon's buying processes a priority, has said he wants a bill on his desk for signature before Memorial Day.