What he didn’t do was cite a single specific cut he’ll make in any specific weapons system. Somehow he’s identified “$40 billion in savings” — a number that’s gone around a lot for the past month — without explaining where it comes from. That begs the question of whether the forthcoming fleshed-out defense budget will delineate those specifics in cuts to actual defense programs or whether the explanation will come in September, when the Office of Management and Budget and the Pentagon release their new guidelines for future government contracting. Are we talking about $40 billion in cuts to programs or in cuts to projected spending?

SAIC’s executive vice president for government affairs, Arnold Punaro, is rumored to be the next Army Secretary. It is my understanding that Punaro is a great American, but frankly, I do not see how his potential nomination overcomes this conflict of interests.

My understanding is the Obama administration still hasn’t found an Army secretary, but who knows — maybe that’s because they’re just taking time to vet Punaro. I won’t pretend to have any great insight into the process. (Punaro is also a retired Marine general, making him an unlikely pick for the job.) But if it’s true, how could the administration hire another top defense-industry lobbyist on top of Deputy Defense Secretary Bill Lynn and still expect to be taken seriously when it comes to reforming the defense budget?

Obama’s administration does not have time on its side should it want to install its own people and make substantial changes to Pentagon spending. If you look at the calendar, things are mighty tight. The 2010 budget has been largely finished for months. While the administration may be making important long-term choices about a few big programs with little immediate military impact such as Future Combat System for the 2010 budget, the fact is few substantial changes can be made to the military budget this late in the game.

That leaves the administration with the 2011 budget, already in the early stages of being built. This budget can be changed substantially, but it is the services who drive the budget, for better or for worse. And the services don’t look likely to get new secretaries for another three to six months. With actings and deputies reluctant to move on anything controversial, the leaves the services playing serious catch-up should Obama decide to substantially remake the 2011 budget.

I don’t know. For one thing, a Pentagon official told me recently that the services have been largely shut out of Gates’ fiscal 2010 budget review, precisely for this reason. Everyone knows where the services stand on procurement priorities already. That’s not to say they have no input, just that they have less input than is typical. Gates keeps on talking about hard procurement choices, and it’s hard to understand why he’d do that if he just intends to cave to the services. With the caveat that any reform of a huge institution takes time, let’s see the budget before, at least, declaring things hopeless.

On the other hand, it sends a huge business-as-usual message to have a former chief Raytheon lobbyist as deputy secretary. Even if Bill Lynn is the world’s greatest manager, for an administration so rhetorically bent on good-government cleanliness and transparency to put a defense lobbyist in such a senior position must have been a huge sigh of relief to defense contractors. Attention now turns to prospective Pentagon acquisitions chief Ashton Carter, who has significantly fewer ties to defense contractors than is typical for an acquisitions chief, but that pick appears, at least in part, like a way of mitigating the damage that Lynn caused to the Obama luster.

Barring something unforseen and dramatic, it looks like Defense Secretary Bob Gates has his deputy. If so, get ready for a tough budget battle over cutting certain defense programs — several of which Raytheon has contracts for; the DDG-1000 Naval Destroyer, I’m looking at you — that may require Lynn’s recusal.

I put in calls and emails to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the committee, who put a hold on Lynn’s nomination on Jan. 22 for ethics reasons, only to lift it the next day after the Obama White House exempted Lynn from its ethics requirements against lobbyists joining the agencies they lobby. As far as I’m aware there isn’t an additional hold on his nomination, but I’ll post as soon as I have more information on why the Senate didn’t move on Lynn’s nomination today.

Update, 7:03 p.m: Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate Majority Leader, says that Reid’s office anticipates bringing Lynn’s nomination to the Senate floor tomorrow. More to come.

Among them were six companies that accounted for more than a quarter of the Pentagon’s procurement budget during the 2008 fiscal year. These groups, which spent $125,000 hosting events honoring Gates, received a total of more than $91 billion in defense contracts, according to the Federal Procurement Data System.

Those companies are BAE Systems Inc., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and SAIC. And these events aren’t all bourbon-drenched cocktail parties, but also speaking engagements where the secretary makes some policy statement. Gates spokesman Geoff Morrell tells CQ, “This is not a smoozefest; this is an opportunity for him to deliver a message.”

The question, though, is what message?

Gates’ new deputy, Bill Lynn, until recently was Raytheon’s top lobbyist. Morell is probably right that it’s unavoidable, realistically, for any defense secretary to avoid events like these. But that speaks to the point of how deeply ingrained these companies are within the Pentagon research, acquisition, and development apparatus. Right now several of these companies are pushing the argument-of-convenience that their efforts should be considered part of any economic stimulus plan, and they’ve got allies in the media actively making the case. (Somehow here the F-22, built to fight the Soviet Union, is an “amazing aircraft”; whereas a former Reagan assistant secretary of defense calls it “the most unnecessary weapon system being built by the Pentagon.”)

As everyone waits to see how Gates will balance defense priorities in the forthcoming Pentagon budget, it’s surely a relevant piece of information that defense contractors are trying to make sure his decisionmaking process is as, uh, comfortable as it can be.

From ABC:

Patterson first began lobbying for Goldman Sachs in 2005, after working as policy director for then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. According to publicly filed lobbying disclosure records, he worked on issues related to the banking committee, climate change and carbon trading and immigration reform, among others.

Patterson’s lobbying was first noted by the National Journal magazine.

Patterson is one of over a dozen recent lobbyists in line for important posts in the Obama administration, despite a presidential order severely restricting the role of lobbyists in his administration, the magazine reported.

Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, isn’t happy:

“Considering that Goldman was an early and large recipient of our TARP funding, being pulled out of that really does effect his ability to be an effective chief of staff for the treasury secretary.”

If this keeps up, plenty of others aren’t going to be too happy, either. Those new lobbying rules seems well on its way to becoming a distant memory. Where’s the justification for all this? Aren’t there qualified people out there who don’t happen to be former lobbyists?

I guess we’ll probably find out in late-Friday-afternoon press releases, like the one last week that announced an exemption for former Raytheon lobbyist Bill Lynn from the lobbying rule, thereby making his nomination as deputy defense secretary more likely.

As Spencer put it, “change we can believe in!”

Here’s what Gates said in his opening statement. First, “this spring,” he said, he’ll present the defense budget and will “at that time” be able to talk about Obama’s defense priorities — so expect few specifics today about weapons programs or overall defense postures. “New or changing policies will likely advise in the weeks and months ahead.”

Afghanistan: it’s “our greatest military challenge” right now. “A thriving drug trade fueling corruption, a ruthless insurgency” requires international coordination, which so far has been “difficult, to say the least.” There is “no purely military solution in Afghanistan, but it is also clear that we have not had enough troops to provide baseline security.” Gates doesn’t promise a troop increase, interestingly, but rather says a troop increase is being “considered,” as well as a “massive increase” in Afghan security forces. What should the objectives in Afghanistan be? “Above all, an Afghan people who do not provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda,” doesn’t support the Taliban and supports the government. It is “impossible to disaggregate Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Iraq: SOFA calls for Iraqi troops to be out of cities end of June, “all troops” out by 2011 “at the latest.” Gates calls it “a balanced… and important step… a watershed, a firm indication that American military involvement in Iraq is drawing down.” But “there may be hard days ahead for our troops.” Expect to “be involved in Iraq in some level for many years to come” pending the Iraqi government wants some kind of partnership.”

Procurement and Acquisition (Military Contracting): “I ended up punting a number of procurement decisions” in the Bush administration to focus on the wars and “now I’m the receiver.” He blasts “parochial interests” — interesting if he’ll view in the light of his would-be-deputy — but also blasts “vacancies” in key acquisition posts, “where a small set of weapons programs have a repeated set of problems… the list spans the services… While there is no silver bullet, I do believe we can make headway.”

The forthcoming budget “must make hard choices… we must have the courage” across the services. Hmm. “Economies of scale… greater quantities of systems” can perhaps lower costs. “Budget and procurement decisions have become overwhelmingly service-centric,” rather than taking into account overall defense needs and strategies. America at war favors short wars, or plans for future war “but not to wage a protracted war.”

Now Gates really gets going, taking a big overview. We need to “close the yawning gap” between how the Pentagon plans for future wars and wages current ones. “Driven more by the actual concerns of potential adversaries, and less by what is technologically feasible” — Donald Rumsfeld, you are officially dead and buried, career-wise. “The defense spigot that opened on 9/11… is closing.” We “will not be able to do everything, buy everything… now is the time to take action… I will focus on creating a unified defense strategy.” He asks Congress to help him — essentially challenging representatives and Senators to put aside parochial concerns about what defense programs provide jobs in their districts and states and focus on the overall national interest.