WASHINGTON (Aug. 9, 2010) -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is putting meat on the bones of his initiative to reform the way the Pentagon does business and to eliminate duplicative, unnecessary overhead costs.
During a Pentagon news conference today, Gates said the steps he is taking will help the U.S. military fight the wars it faces now, and help ready the force for the wars it may face in the future. With these moves, the secretary said, he wants to instill a culture of saving in the department.
Money saved with these efficiencies will go back into funding needed military capabilities. "To be clear, the task before us is not to reduce the department's top-line budget," Gates said. "Rather, it is to significantly reduce its excess overhead costs and apply the savings to force structure and modernization".
President Barack Obama has programmed in real growth of between 1 and 2 percent into future years' defense budgets, but that is not enough to maintain today's warfighting capabilities and modernize, which requires roughly 2 to 3 percent real growth. The savings in overhead are crucial to making up that difference, Gates said.
Earlier this year, the secretary tasked the services to find $100 billion in overhead savings over the next five years. "This exercise is well under way, as the services are evaluating their programs and activities to identify what remains a critical priority and what is no longer affordable," he said. "They are all planning to eliminate headquarters that are no longer needed and reduce the size of the staffs that remain".
Gates also authorized the services to consider consolidation or closure of excess bases and other facilities. It is a measure of Gates' determination to save money that he has proposed this, he noted, since Congress has made it almost impossible to close bases. "But hard is not impossible, and I hope Congress will work with us to reduce unnecessary costs in this part of the defense enterprise," he said.
The secretary also announced a number of immediate steps he will take. Gates said he will reduce the funding for support contractor personnel by 10 percent a year for the next three years.
Gates is freezing the number of office of the secretary of defense, defense agency and combatant command manpower positions at the fiscal 2010 levels for the next three years. He said this is just a first step to studying these leadership organizations. U.S. Army
