Senators grill defense officials on proposed spending cuts

Tom Cohen

Some U.S. senators expressed frustration Tuesday with what they called a lack of information from the Defense Department on plans to hold down military spending by closing the Joint Forces Command in Virginia and other steps.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the proposed spending reductions, top defense and military officials said the plan is intended to eliminate unnecessary overhead costs and shift those savings to America's fighting forces.

The proposal announced last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates aimed to hold the growth of the $530 billion Defense Department budget to 1 percent next year.

Ashton Carter, the defense under-secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the panel that tighter federal spending as the nation struggles to recover from the economic recession meant "learning to do more without more."

After years of consistent growth in the Pentagon budget, officials now realize they face the challenge of "delivering what is needed for the amount of money we're going to get," Carter said.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, questioned whether the proposed elimination of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk received proper analysis of the impact on both the military and the affected community.

The command, which has an annual budget of $240 million and 2,800 military and civilian employees, is one of the department's 10 "combatant commands." Unlike most of the others, it does not have a particular global region of responsibility, such as Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East.

Virginia officials including the Senate delegation, the governor and others were concerned that the proposed elimination was not properly studied, and efforts to get more information from the Defense Department had been "stonewalled," Webb said.

"The present lack of transparency and consultation, particularly with our delegation, stand in stark contrast with how these decisions are typically made," Webb said, later adding that the inability to get answers "has led many to conclude there is no comprehensive analysis" to support the proposed closing of the command.

Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn responded that the proposed elimination of the command was "a military decision" rather than a "business case analysis."

The command duplicates services and was not "a value-added function," Lynn noted.

"I know we disagree on that, but that is the rationale," Lynn told Webb, who shot back that the decision went well beyond military jurisdiction.

"There are no decisions of this magnitude that are military decisions, not in the United States," Webb said. "Those are civilian decisions."

Other senators on the Armed Services committee also expressed frustration with a lack of details and analysis in the Gates proposal.

"It appears that there was inadequate analysis and inadequate openness in the procedure that preceded the August announcement," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, the committee chairman, who added he was "disappointed" at the lack of firm details six weeks later.

In response, Lynn said more details would be coming later this year and in the first half of 2011, when the department would present its budget request for 2012.

Lynn said the goal was to streamline operations, reduce unnecessary staff, shed overlapping commands and take other cost-cutting steps intended to improve efficiency.

The intention is to shift the savings on overhead expenses to war-fighting needs as the nation winds down the Iraq war and remains engaged in the Afghanistan war, Lynn said.

The Joint Forces Command in Virginia is made up of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are trained and equipped to work together in response to the needs of other combatant commands. It grew out of the old Atlantic Command and became the Joint Forces Command in 1999.

Eliminating the Joint Forces Command was just one of a wide-ranging series of proposals presented by Gates. Others included:

-- Eliminating some of the 65 military boards and commissions to cut the budget for them by 25 percent in fiscal year 2011;

-- A review of all Defense Department intelligence to eliminate needless duplication;

-- Eliminating the Defense Department's Business Transformation Agency, which has day-to-day oversight of acquisition programs that would be handled by others in the department;

-- Reducing funding for service support contractors by 10 percent a year for each of the next three years;

-- Freezing the number of jobs in the Officer of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Agencies and Combatant Commands at current levels;

-- Seeking to stop "brass creep," a term former Sen. John Glenn used for situations when higher-ranking officers were doing jobs that lower ranking officers could handle. To address that problem, Gates is ordering a freeze on the number of generals, admirals and senior civilian officials at current levels.

In announcing the proposals last month, Gates was adamant that the Pentagon must change its way of thinking about money.

"The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of savings and restraint," Gates said. "Toward this end, I am directing that any new proposal or initiatives, large or small, be it policy, program or ceremony, come with a cost estimate. That price tag will help us determine whether what we are gaining or hope to gain is really worth the cost."