It is all important. But the question is very important.
Let me answer as best I can.
It is very important, in my estimation, for the public to understand why the requirements we select are necessary. To continue--and here I'm going to give you the credit--if I went to a car dealership again and wanted to buy a mode of transportation, I would first have to decide if this mode of transportation was for myself; my wife; myself, my wife, and my ten kids; or whether I need to transport furniture and equipment. The requirements are very specific to the role and the need.
It may be that we need a fifth generation. If so, let's be able to articulate why we need a fifth generation, how that fits into the defence policy we have, and how that fits into the role we see our military performing in the future. If it gets by that hurdle and it turns out that's the only one, that's fine. But we can do that openly. Having someone sitting behind closed doors and saying this is what we need because they say so is frankly not acceptable when you're spending $16 billion of our money. That's the key point you want to make.
Secondly--and this is another point I didn't mention in my oral presentation, but it's in the notes--if after I chose my requirements and went to the dealers that had what I wanted to meet those requirements someone said to me, “Monsieur Williams, it's going to be $1,000 down now, but I'm not going to tell you what the monthly payment will be”, would I buy the car? Of course I wouldn't buy the car. To buy something, commit to something right now when you don't even know the costs, to me is the height of absurdity.
I think the Joint Strike Fighter is a great program and it may turn out to be the perfect aircraft. But we're sole-sourcing a product that right now is four years late in development, its cost has escalated dramatically, and it's under the Nunn-McCurdy compliance review test in the States, where the Senate is cutting back on the numbers it is producing year over year right now because they're missing all the deadlines. It seems to me that we're getting ahead of ourselves. Why are we committing to something now when there are so many risks with this program? I really don't understand it. It may turn out to be the perfect aircraft for us, but I don't think there's any evidence for that today.