Congress Demands Answers from Pentagon on $125bn Waste Report

Local Editor

The House Oversight Committee wants to know why the Pentagon buried a proposal to save $125 billion, requesting a copy of the full report - and an explanation - from the war Department.

Thirty-one lawmakers on the committee sent a letter to War Secretary Ashton Carter on Thursday, asking why he ignored the proposal to save enough money to "cover the operational costs for 50 Army brigades, or 3,000 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the Air Force, or 10 aircraft-carrier strike groups for the Navy."

They were referring to the January 2015 study by the War Business Board, commissioned by Deputy Secretary Robert Work. The board found that $134 billion a year was spent on a bureaucracy employing over a million contractors, civilians and office personnel, and recommended reforms that would save $25 billion a year over five years.

By comparison, there are almost 1.3 million active service members in all three branches of the military, and another 800,000 reservists. The Pentagon's annual budget is just under $600 billion.

The Pentagon chose not to act on the report, fearful that it might result in reductions to its budget, former board chairman Robert Stein told the Washington Post, which reported on the study's existence on Monday. Lawmakers are now asking Carter why he replaced Stein at the head of the board, among other things.

Work told the Post that he was initially supportive of trimming the bureaucracy, but regarded the report's recommendations as "unrealistic."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team