Posted on 09/10/2001 10:06:28 AM PDT by PhiKapMom
Rumsfeld moves to slash U.S. military bureaucracy
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday announced a major new drive to slash the U.S. military's bloated bureaucracy and save billions of wasted dollars for weapons and operations.
In a Pentagon speech, Rumsfeld made it clear that jobs are likely to be cut among the Defense Department's 660,000 civilian workers worldwide and that military headquarters' staffs will be reduced by 15 percent within a year.
"Today, we declare war on bureaucracy," he said in the latest of a long line of efforts by defense secretaries to make what has become the world's biggest business more efficient. Most have foundered on the rocks of a layered and entrenched system.
Rumsfeld provided no figures on potential job cuts, but insisted that savings as high as $18 billion a year could be wrung out of running the U.S. military and buying arms, a business with a budget of over $300 billion a year.
"We are, as they say, tangled in our own anchor chain ... It's time to ask tough questions about redundant staff," the secretary told workers at the Pentagon, where 23,000 civilian and military staff go to work every day.
"In order to to make decisions more quickly, we must slash duplication and encourage cooperation."
PART OF MAJOR DEFENSE REORGANIZATION
The secretary is currently conducting a major and controversial review of U.S. defense strategy and operations for President George W. Bush that could result in cost-saving cuts among the 1.4-million active-duty military.
He conceded on Monday that it would take years to reform a sometimes-antiquated system built over decades in tasks ranging from simple paperwork to public relations, health, legal affairs and buying arms.
That bureaucracy has come under mounting pressure from Congress, which is now considering a $329 billion military budget requested by Bush for the coming year.
"An institution built with trillions of dollars over decades of time does not turn on a dime. Some say it's like turning a battleship. I suspect it is going to be tougher," the secretary said.
"But here's the upside. In an institution of this size, a very little bit of change goes a very long way," he added.
"If we can save just 5 percent of one year's budget -- and I have never seen an organization that couldn't save 5 percent -- we would free up some $15 billion to $18 billion to be transferred from bureaucracy to the battlefield -- from tail to tooth."
TOO MANY PEOPLE DOING THE SAME THING?
Rumsfeld said not only was he cutting the headquarters' staff of every base and command at the Pentagon and around the world by 15 percent over the coming year under orders from Congress, but that senior officials were looking into duplication in a number of other military and civilian jobs.
He noted, for example that there were dozens of legal offices for "general counsels" scattered throughout the Defense Department.
"Every service has one. Every agency does too. So does the the Joint Chiefs (of Staff). We have so many general counsel offices that we actually have another general counsel's office whose only job is to coordinate all of those general counsels," Rumsfeld said.
"Currently the departments of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy operate separate and parallel staffs for their civilian and uniformed chiefs. These staffs largely work the same issues and perform the same functions."
He said the civilian secretaries of the three services were looking at changes to shrink those bureaucracies.
"The same could be said for a variety of other functions, from public affairs to legislative affairs," Rumsfeld said.
"Maybe we need many of them. But I have a strong suspicion that we need fewer than we have. And we're going to take a good, hard look and find out."
12:36 09-10-01
Would to God that would be so in ALL the Executive Branch agencies!
Perhaps, this is just a first of many such declarations!
Go, Rumsfeld, Go!
"Today, we declare war on bureaucracy."
I've worked with those DoD civilians while I was in the Army. They would rather die than have to get a job in the private sector.
Folks who make $60k and their own little fiefdoms set up and fabulous benefits in the DoD would scarcely be qualified to manage a McDonalds in the 'Real World'. Besides, Gov employees have one of the strongest unions in the US. The only DoD employee I have ever seen 'let go' so far was Linda Tripp and we know what that was about.
Defense Department's 660,000 civilian workers
Now consider the fact that the Army only has 485,000 soldiers....
and consider that only about 50,000 of them are of the front line combat types
Now we know why some of the leaks from the Pentagon were so negative against Sec Rumsfeld.
Yep, but the biggest reason for all the cilvilian REMFs is a case of Institutional Knowledge. The longest posting I had in the Army was 27 months. As the Army rotates everybody around every 24 months, they have to hire civilians to keep any continuity. Command positions change even more rapidly. So that everybody can get their 'blocks checked'.
There is going to have to be an extraordinary overhaul in how the services manage their officers' careers in order to get rid of any of the civilians. It can no longer be an 'up or out' system...
It's beyond hopeless...
Sending you an e-mail.
It'll never happen. He is putting the cart before the horse....
The US Military has been bleeding out for twenty plus years. Give them a damn break. I for one would be proud to pay tax dollars for a strong US Military.
It is money well spent, and money deserverd by the troops.
Want to argue about social programs ala FDR, i.e. social programs, lets argue. Until you have personally seen how these people in the military suffer, under the current situation, I would hope you would be on my side.
If you are not, to Hell with you. God will judge both of us. I hope we meet in the same place
I started my own law firm which I run now part time and started back up at Boeing last December.
It can be done!
You got it. You could get rid of a lot of superfluous civilians if they allowed Military Officers to stay in a position long enough to do it well.
There is no way an officer can get promoted if he/she stays in one job too long--up or out!
How then will they get officer's to perform these staff positions when they rotate them out every 18-24 months?
You say: "Get rid of these worthless positions." and I say that it takes an incredible number of people to enable the Military to manage and comply with the staggering amount of OSHA/EPA/FDA/FCC/State Department/DoD/DoE/GOA and Executive regulations that the military is under.
It truly is hopeless...
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