Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

Winslow T. Wheeler • 2372. An evaluation from an independent entity (one with no material interest in theproject, which eliminates the Pentagon) to determine if the project is neededand, if needed, whether the proposed solution can be effective. In most cases,GAO can and should provide such evaluations.3. A requirement that any earmark that successfully emerges from the CBO andGAO evaluations must be submitted to a competitive bidding process, bothfor initial and for any follow-on work.This proposal will be vehemently opposed by the vast majority of today’s Congress.Members will insist on controlling the evaluation of any earmarks and wherethe contracts for them are awarded. After all, the whole idea is to send the money toa pre-designated client. To affect real reform, Congress needs – and currently lacks –an uncompromising and uncompromised reformer to make the existing system toopainful and politically costly to continue further.Rectify the books 37No weapon acquisition or policy decision can properly be made in the absence of accuratedata about the past and the present, and an objectively obtained view of the likelyfuture. Up to now, the system has been operating in the absence of such data. That mustbe changed. The first, indeed mandatory, place to start is DOD’s program and accountingbooks. I refer not just to the well-defined, but very important, regime of financialmanagement, but more broadly to accurate information and reliable analysis.The place to start achieving a rectification of various forms of data in DOD is withfinancial management. The reform must spread thereafter to the broader realm of theanalysis and evaluation of programs and policies.The new president and the secretary of defense should announce together – toobviate dissension – a “budget pause” at the level of spending Congress has set for theprevious fiscal year, 2008. That level would constitute a ceiling, not a floor, for ongoingspending. The purpose is to buy time, without making new financial commitments,to scrub the books. With war funding fully provided at the all-time high 2008 level,Pentagon decision-makers should avoid any new, non-war-related contract or otherspending obligations. For example, all weapons program milestone decisions wouldbe frozen, with existing programs sustained only at the level authorized by previouslysigned contacts. No programs would start or advance to a new milestone, with thepossible exception of truly extraordinary, not conjured, circumstances.The Defense Department’s audit agencies, with the help of GAO and privateaccounting firms as needed, would undertake a maximum effort to complete a comprehensiveaudit of all DOD components, programs and systems. Simultaneously,war-related managers would perform a comprehensive readiness audit of the military