Gates: Cut contractor use, close JFCOM - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Gates: Cut contractor use, close JFCOM

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department plans to shed one of its 10 major military commands as Defense Secretary Robert Gates tries to pare billions from the Pentagon budget, Gates said Monday at a news conference.

Gates wants to eliminate the Joint Forces Command, long a presumed target for belt-tightening, and he also announced Monday that he wants to cut the Pentagon’s use of outside contractors by 10 percent next year. The Virginia-based command trains troops from different services to fight together.

Joint Forces Command, with nearly 4,900 employees and annual salaries of more than $200 million, is the largest single cut announced.

The command holds more than 1 million square feet of real estate in Suffolk, Va., and Norfolk, Va. Savings will be offset by the cost of shifting some jobs and roles elsewhere.

The Pentagon has already announced a target of cutting $100 billion over five years. And earlier this year Gates ordered a top-to-bottom paring of the military bureaucracy in search of at least $10 billion in annual savings needed to prevent an erosion of U.S. combat power.

At the time, Gates took aim at what he called wasteful business practices and too many generals and admirals, and noted that “overhead” costs chew up as much as 40 percent of the Pentagon’s budget.

Big cuts are essential considering the recession and the likelihood that Congress no longer will give the Pentagon the sizable budget increases it has enjoyed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Gates and other defense leaders have said.

“The gusher has been turned off and will stay off for a good period of time,” Gates said in May.

The current defense budget, not counting the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, is $535 billion; the administration is asking for $549 billion for 2011.

JFCOM is one of 10 full combatant commands. Most correspond to regions of the world, such as Pacific Command, but others are organized around a concept or mission rather than geography.

JFCOM lists its mission as training troops from all services to work together for specific missions. It tries to make sure equipment used by different services works together, and looks for gaps in capabilities within military services that could be filled by a specially trained joint force.

The command is headed by a four-star military officer, the highest grade currently in use. Marine Gen. James Mattis was its commander until last month, when he was named to replace Army Gen. David Petraeus as head of U.S. Central Command. His replacement will be Army Gen. Ray Odierno, now the war commander in Iraq.

Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia junior senator and the state’s former governor, said he saw “no rational basis” for dismantling the command because its mission was to impose “greater cooperation and savings among the military services.”

“One thing I learned in the business world is you sometimes have to spend money to save money,” Warner said. “It’s a no-brainer that JFCOM is one of the commands that could use more resources.”

Gates’ plan is similar to one suggested last month by the Defense Business Board, a panel of company executives who advise the Pentagon. The board said Gates should cut the number of civilian employees by at least 15 percent. The panel also identified Joint Forces Command as contributing to much of the contractor bloat because it had more contractors than government employees on its payroll.