Lawmakers criticize DoD on JFCOM closure - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Lawmakers criticize DoD on JFCOM closure

The Pentagon conducted no analysis of how much it might save from closing U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) prior to deciding to shutter the Norfolk, Va.-based organization, according to defense officials and lawmakers.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and other lawmakers during a Sept. 29 hearing repeatedly slammed Pentagon officials for the process that was used to decide to close JFCOM. Skelton and members of the Virginia congressional delegation hit the DoD officials for having few answers on expected cost savings, which JFCOM functions should be kept and for providing lawmakers almost zero supporting analyses.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ decision to close the command, announced Aug. 9, “was not based on a business case,” Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told the panel. “It was based on a military rationale.”

The Pentagon is now conducting a “business case analysis” that will contain savings estimates, Lynn said.

That is part of work being done by a Pentagon task force that is examining options for retaining parts of JFCOM and moving them under other organizations, keeping it open, or “divesting it altogether,” Joint Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright told the committee.

After Lynn several times confirmed that no analysis was conducted to map possible savings before Gates decided to close the command, a confused Skelton interrupted Lynn and asked: “You don’t know how much?”

Panel member Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., asked sharply: “Shouldn’t you have looked a business case?”

The deputy secretary told the lawmakers he is confident closing JFCOM will generate savings. In another portion of the hearing, Lynn said he anticipates the department will save a “substantial portion” of the command’s $1 billion yearly budget. He added that DoD officials will begin to have specific numbers “before we submit the 2012 budget.”

Lawmakers also blasted the Pentagon officials for arriving at the JFCOM decision before deciding which of the command’s functions should be retained, as well as which directorates to keep and under which existing entities should they reside.

Lynn said Gates heard from top officials and advisers that because planning, training and combat missions in a multiservice manner had taken root across the U.S. military, a joint command — with a four-star leader and $1 billion annual budget —- is no longer necessary. But he made clear DoD is still deciding which directorates to keep, and where to move them.

“There should have been an answer in place before the announcement,” a skeptical Skelton told Lynn, adding: “C’mon!”

In a testy exchange near the end of the session, Forbes forcefully questioned Lynn about whether the Pentagon had been adequately forthcoming with data showing how Gates decided to shutter JFCOM.

Forbes asked the deputy secretary whether DoD has “provided the committee with all the written information and analysis that went into Gates’ decision?”

Lynn began to respond that the department has sent over “a body of material” that supports his boss’s decision.

That was not sufficient for Forbes, who asked for a yes or no answer.

Lynn began again, along the same lines as before. Forbes again shut him down.

During the exchange, Forbes said it appears DoD has provided lawmakers with the information Gates “thinks we should have.” He dismissed the data Congress has received so far, saying it appears to be “back-filled analysis,” meaning data compiled solely to support closing JFCOM.

And another member of the Virginia delegation, Rep. Robert Wittman, a Republican, highlighted what he painted as a disconnect. Lynn said Gates made the decision after about 30 meetings with a number of senior military officials and top civilian advisers — but DoD has not provided lawmakers a summary of a single meeting.

“It is amazing to me that you could have 30 meetings in the Pentagon and there are no notes or proceedings … that we can get our hands on,” Wittman said.

Pentagon brass say JFCOM is no longer needed because jointness is now embedded in most planning and operational activities the U.S. military performs.

Because of that, Pentagon officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee, they can no longer justify JFCOM’s annual operating budget, which Lynn said is nearly $1 billion. During the command’s first full year of operations, its budget was $300 million; its government-employed work force has grown by nearly 1,000 people and it has taken on nearly 3,000 contactors, Lynn said.

While lawmakers raised concerns about Pentagon secrecy, no Armed Services Committee members during the hearing indicated whether they would seek to block JFCOM’s closure via legislation.