Although I mentioned this point and then analyzed how the gap between the reality of DOD as an institution and its image in peoples’ minds locally, I did not say much about the specific nature of DOD’s incompetence, corruption or inefficiency. Let me fix that this week.
You may remember the case of the Pentagon’s $436 hammer from the 1980s. In order to understand the labyrinthine and sometimes insane nature of DOD’s waste, you have to know that in response to this scandal, where a $7 hammer was purchased for 62 times its initial cost, DOD attempted to argue that the cost was justified, since this astronomical mark-up was standard with all their contracts, especially the multi-million/billion-dollar ones. This scandal was not unique, it is sadly the norm in terms of Defense contracting and spending. For the most part, DOD as being something “too big to fail” is simply allowed to circumvent the rules, because it argues there is no conceivable way it can follow the rules. David Morris, the vice president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, recently wrote a great article that chronicles some of the more appalling statistics of the “staggering” incompetence and waste of DOD. I’ll quote below some of the relevant passages:
In 2009 the Government Accountability Office found “staggering” cost overruns of almost $300 billion in nearly 70 percent of the Pentagon’s 96 major weapons. What’s more, the programs were running, on average, 21 months behind schedule. And when they were completed, they provided less than they promised. The Defense Logistics Agency had no use for parts worth more than half of the $13.7 billion in equipment stacked up in DOD warehouses in 2006 to 2008.
And these are only the tips of the military’s misspending iceberg. We really don’t know how much the Pentagon wastes because, believe it or not, there hasn’t been a complete audit of the Pentagon in more than 15 years. In 1994, the Government Management Reform Act required the Inspector General of each federal agency to audit and publish the financial statements of their agency. The Department of Defense was the only agency that has been unable to comply. In fiscal 1998, the Department of Defense used $1.7 trillion of undocumentable adjustments to balance the books. In 2002, the situation was even worse. CBS News reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted, “We cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”
How did Congress respond to DOD’s delinquency? It gave it absolution and allowed it to opt out of its legal requirement. But as a sop to outraged public opinion, Congress required DOD to set a date when it would have its books sufficiently in order to be audited, which the Pentagon dutifully did, and missed every one of the target dates. The latest is 2017 and DOD has already announced it will be unable to meet that deadline.
Adding insult to injury, last September, the GAO found that the new computer systems intended to improve the Pentagon’s financial oversight are themselves nearly 100 percent or $7 billion over budget and as much as 12 years behind schedule!
Guam, which has more bases per capita than any place else in the world, needs to have a clear-eyed view of DOD. It serves no purpose to see the military as a perfect institution. Such blind faith has in the past gotten us into trouble.
I find it interesting how so many people criticize Guam’s incompetence and corruption as being local in origin; the abuses are supposed to be an effect of Chamorro culture, pare’ systems and so on. These things are O.O.G., stuff that people in the states wouldn’t stand for, or something which would magically decrease if Guam became a state. But given the fact that Guam has had such a strong relationship with the U.S. military for more than 110 years now, I wonder if our adeptness at waste, corruption and looking the other way is simply because we learned from the best?
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Mangilao, Guam
